by Frank Achebe
That one would be for the worse when it came.
Chapter Twenty-One: A Revenge Against the Witness
The next day came and saw off Daniel. He had the chance for some last words the night before his departure. They were in the girl’s room.
‘You have to forgive her.’ If he stressed the ‘forgive’, it was not in admonishment. It was rather to stress the fact that her mother was to be forgiven as a sinner and that as the one to forgive, she was the saint.
Daniel had mixed feelings that night as they both sat it out in silence. It puzzled him like it should, that she had not forgiven her mother when she had forgiven him.
‘I want to get away from her. I want to get away from here.’ It was as if he’d been waiting for her to come at it: ‘Take me with you. Anywhere.’
It did not matter that she was exposing her vulnerability. It did not matter that following the boy was like jumping from frying pan to fire. All that mattered was getting away from her mother whom she had demonized in the depths of her heart.
Daniel knew that something close to that would come up. He had foreseen it and had made preparations. ‘She can’t let you come with me.’
‘She does not own me! Not anymore!’
‘Well, I can help you get away.’ They had made arrangements about how to meet up to their satisfaction and promise of a new life as promised by the boy.
He would wait for her somewhere in Mōia . She could not follow him the next day. It would be perceived as his own decision. She had to make it her own.
# # #
Money did not say it but there was no telling that he had only one condition for accepting his brother again. The condition was that things would be as before. He would have to live as if he owed him his life. There was also no telling him of the fact that it would never again be as it once was. His brother had seen the light of the day. Whatever he’d seen of himself in the new mirror meant that the past was forever past and every other thing with it.
Brim on his own path wanted to win his brother back unconditionally. But the new life held so much promise for him.
His guilt told him that his brother had truly been a blessing and that he was truly ungrateful in the way he’d acted. He did owe him his life even if in the least ways for if not for anything, his brother meant that he was spared the anguish of making his own decisions and bearing the burden of his life.
# # #
Madam Békhtèn hardly slept that night. She had the words to ponder. It would not have meant much if they had come from elsewhere. Considering where they came from, she could not ignore or downplay them. More than that, they put a lot of other things she could not possibly ignore into perspective. If she had any doubts or fears about giving up her vanities, those doubts and fears did not survive that night.
She would do it for her. She would use it to prove to her that she loved her. Things could be better after all. She could earn her forgiveness after all from the good works that she promised herself that night.
For her reflections, she had gone to bed late and by the time she was being woken, it was mid-morning. There was bad news, she was told. She had followed the alarm to the door of her daughter’s room. From under the door, was a strain of dried blood.
‘We have been trying to open the door.’ They told her.
‘And why haven’t you knocked it down?’
They did and there lay her daughter, in a pool of dried blood. She had cut her two wrists the night before. They did not find any note for the girl was in a hurry to move on.
If I have stressed the complexities of the girl’s character, it was in light of this tragedy. Without it, I would have no explanation for what was the defining event of Madam Békhtèn’s adult life.
If Madam Békhtèn had known that she had plans of escaping with the boy, she would have let her have it. She would have let her have anything other than what she eventually had. But Ūö had chosen to escape from her through another route.
# # #
I was not there in person but permit me to rummage through Ūö’s mind that night. If there was anything to see, I will tell my reader that, it was the best way to give revenge to her mother that she sought. She wanted to cause her mother pain. Not that it was hers to repay, she wanted to repay her for her sins. And more than anything else, she wanted to deprive her mother of herself knowing fully well that she had placed all hope for the future in her.
It was from that crack that she had carried in her soul that the demon had slipped in. She could have waited and would have ran away the next day and even that night. Even though she would never have been better off for it, she certainly would not have been any worse. But she wouldn’t. She had never once thought of suicide before. But that night, in the darkness of her soul, as she stroked her pride, and the hatred and contempt she carried with her of her mother, she saw that such would be the ultimate pain for her mother.
As to whether she achieved her aim, she did for Madam Békhtèn had a stroke two days later. She could not bear it.
She did find her redemption, but at so great a prize.
She did not think it was worth it.
# # #
Madam Békhtèn had no other person to hold responsible for her daughter’s death but herself. ‘It was all because of me. I’ve killed my own daughter.’ She saw it as such. If her daughter had not forgiven her after all, she could not deny that she owed it to her to seek her forgiveness. But she hadn’t. And the boy? Since he had something to do with it, it had to be her fault. Was she not the one who had brought the ravenous wolf to her home after all?
It was not about the news. It was not about the boy as well. If it were, she could have let him have it. It was the guilt feeling of being the remote cause of someone else’s tragedy.
It was not to say that if Ūö had lived a while longer that she would have seen everything in different shades. It was also not to say that she did not have the nerve to handle the truth. It was a genuine acceptance of the fact that she had not done enough to protect her daughter from her own fate.
# # #
The news reached the other two sisters that their other sister, the one they loved had taken her life. They were left with broken hearts. There was no consolation in it for them. For Borûn, none of the patronizing comparisons mattered again. She was the angel that guaranteed their redemption. She had truly been a part of their lives in different way. She was their symbol of hope and the only consolation they had for their lives. But in remembrance of her, none of that resonated again with her death. She had betrayed them. She had denied them their redemption.
—Good things do not last.
—They broke her heart.
—It could have been that boy. He may have betrayed her.
The news that followed the suicide was that she had fallen in love with the boy and her mother had deprived her of her love by sending the boy away.
That was the way they saw it. But I had seen too many failed young loves that I would not see it as such. She had lived in a world where more flexible ideas about love were being thrown at the world by those who knew better. She was, however, not the victim of those ideas, which could better be described as cynical mockeries of actual love. If she were, I stand to be corrected. But how could she have been when she never was exposed to them in an upsetting measure?
Was her mother’s sins hers to forgive?
At the same time, I must insist that this is my own judgement of the tragedy. I have no other. I could not have ignored it as I could not have taken it for granted. It had to mean something deeper.
For the wordiness of my treatment of her story, I ask to be forgiven except that I could not have done otherwise.
As to Daniel, we shall let him pass on with our forgiveness for he was much of a victim that he was the cause.
Borûn on her part, could have taken her life, only if she could. But she couldn’t—not in the same way as her sister. To the same degree that her mother was shaken was the same degree t
hat she was, and perhaps even more. It was the reminder that she was alone in the world.
She knew too well that she could not hope too much or for too much.
# # #
In the midst of all the grief, Rev Iňaō was blasting off from his pulpit that it was all as he had prophesied: God was judging sinners. And more judgment awaited sinners who do not repent from their sins and turn to God. He was too certain of that.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Murder Was the Case
As the chill-goose-bump-worthy news was spreading the town, the uneasiness was spreading in everyone’s mind. Some things was not what they should be and certainly not what they once were.
Nurse B sealed her letter to the nursing board and placed it in her bag for tomorrow. A lot of queer things meant that it was time to leave town after all. Anybody that did not see it was a joker. Something had hung over her sister lately and that night, they had a conversation.
‘What was his name?’
‘Who?’ Nurse B thought it was Zach. ‘You mean the one that comes around?’
‘No, the one you two spoke about the first night he came. I overheard you.’
Nurse B’s face flushed in the dark. ‘Oh, forget it. It’s nothing.’
‘Tell me, what did it feel like?’
‘Ethuniä, forget it. Those are not the kind of things one asks for in life. They come to you.’
‘Do you like him? I mean the other one.’
‘Don’t be silly. He’s married.’
There was a moment of silence. Nurse B once had a curios thought, when she learnt that Zach’s wife was in mortal danger. What that thought was, I shall leave to the curiosity of my readers. She had brushed it aside quickly. It was a stupid thought, a very selfish one. One that took for granted many other things.
‘Do you think I can walk again just like he said?’
‘I would give anything to see you walk. That is if I were God. But it’s not for you or me to decide. You will walk again, even if not with your two legs.’
# # #
Nothing felt same for Borûn. Her world was now gloomy in an unmistakable way. She was not sure she could sleep that night. Her sister’s face had haunted her in life and there was no way it wouldn’t in death. She had changed her sleeping plans. Not in the small room she’d managed to put together for herself and certainly not in her mother’s place.
She had continued in whatever direction.
Atta Boy and his boys had enjoyed themselves the other night. Black was now impotent for anything. Therefore, there was no telling him that he could not have it again.
They had followed Borûn. There was nothing to stop them and nothing did stop them after all.
Borûn was too weak. She had passed out on them. They had new positions to try out on her and new techniques to put on her body.
When they were done with her body, they carried her and laid her by the corner of the street. More to the shame they wanted to bring on their enemy and more to their pleasure. They hoped to come back again, if they could.
It did not matter; it could have been her own death. She would not have withstood it even if she could. If she had died, her mother would not have cried a drop of tears for then nothing would have changed after all.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Can U Get Away
Black woke to the next morning with the news of what had happened to Borûn reaching him. If he had any doubts, they all disappeared with the news. And if he had forgiven Atta Boy once, he had no plans of doing it for the second time. He no longer needed a reason to do as his mother had told him.
He felt new energy flow through him, now that he had something to fight for. Even if there were no reason to it, he had his pride to protect.
The boys gathered in the gym that morning, and he announced to them in his usual low-toned voice: ‘Tell Atta Boy and his boys that they have till midday to leave this town. It’s no longer going to contain both of us. A second past twelve, I will start with Atta Boy’s two sisters then to his mother. I will slice them into small pieces and send them back to him to put them back together. Each for every one of them.’
They all knew that even if he could not do exactly as he’d promised, he could do worse. Atta Boy had given him the reason to do so.
# # #
Zach’s first stop in his campaign to have people evacuate the town was at the priest’s. The people of Nānti were predominantly catholic. As such, the priest had a measure of control over the fate of the most devout of them.
Reverend Francis was Jesuit-trained. He’d studied in Europe. He was a man of the most polished breeding. All of that were evident in the time they’d spent together. Both had earned each other’s respect on account of Pûjó.
Zach told his own story and waited on the priest.
‘I have heard stories myself. I heard that during the War that the town was invisible to government soldiers.’
‘How?’
‘They said that the town appeared to be a wide stretch of water to soldiers that they could not attack it. Well, it meant that the river goddess protected them at the time. And up till this date, they believe that the river has been protecting the lands from being taken over by the government.’
‘I’ve heard about the bridges they tried to construct over the river.’
‘Exactly. It’s one of those. The river seems to have been a symbol of protection and posterity. Their own ‘symbol of survival’. Why would all of that change in an instant?’
‘Well, you never can tell. It’s a new world after all and there are no places for old gods. And sometimes what you once held onto refuses to let you go. You’ve heard that expression before?’ Zach remembered Hééb’s mother’s riddle. It was the only answer to the question. I should ask my readers to take note of that.
‘Do you believe in all that, Mr Zachariah?’
‘In what?’
‘In the pagan gods and in the stories that are usually surround them?’
‘Anything is possible. Who wouldn’t see that?’
‘I’d rather see them as the way a people make sense and spirit of their worlds.’
‘That does not make them any less real or powerful. Or does it?’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t think that these gods—or the ‘sense and spirit’—affect the lives of the people?’
‘Of course they do in a psychological way.’
‘Not otherwise?’
‘Well, these gods define their collective behaviour by defining the way they see themselves.’
‘You wouldn’t see in them something higher than ‘them’? Something that is greater than what they could control?’
‘Well as a theologian of the Catholic Church, I would see them as demons, evil spirits. More or less.’ The priest did not want to continue in that direction of the discussion so he switched it. ‘So what are we looking at here?’
‘Well, it’s a river goddess going on a revenge mission for all the years of neglect. Or for whatever reasons. It undoubtedly will be a flood or something of that nature. She wouldn’t be trying to make a return. She will be going for the kill, as much as she can take.’
‘How sure are you of this?’
‘I can’t be too sure.’
‘Well, I can only warn them. But to sound an alarm, that is beyond what I can afford to do.’ Zach had left knowing that he would not warn his people for anything. The answer was more or less to pacify him. The priest did not at all believe in his ‘hypothesis’.
Reverend Francis’ assessment of Zach left him ‘disappointed’ in a way. He could not understand how a man like that would submit to such a mindless idea. If he had any respect for him, that meeting reduced it by a good measure.
Zach on his own part felt again that there was something the man was protecting. Even though he did not expect the man to jump into bed with him, as he’d in Pûjó’s case, he expected the man to see beyond what he was trained to see as ‘a theologian of the catholic church’.
> It was his plan to go to the three religious leaders in town and ask their co-operation. But after that, he could only imagine Rev. Iňaō’s response. That would be too much time to waste. He’d rather followed the nurse’s advice.
# # #
Hééb’s heart got darker until every light faded away. He had passed drunk for the past few days. He had one thing on his mind: how to avenge his loss on Zach. He had no reason to do so and needed no reason to do so. Zach had not harmed him in any way. But that was where his bitterness led him. He was going to kill Zach. That was all he cared for now.
In his mind, floated gross and bloody images of him stabbing Zach with a blunt knife in many places, then digging out the blade, then slicing him into many pieces. If he could afford to, that would be the only way he would kill the man.
# # #
Zach returned to the hospital and reported himself to the nurse.
‘It’s never going to happen.’
‘Yes, it definitely won’t happen the way you want it to happen. I’ve already told you how to go about it.’
‘You told me what. You did not tell me how. Mind clarifying yourself on that?’
‘I don’t know. For God’s sake, we went to see the mayor with you in a nurse’s garb. That, if I were to suggest is the how.’
‘You mean I get into a nurse’s garb again?’
Nurse B grunted.
‘Excuse me for that. I was joking. I understand what you mean.’
‘You have never backed down from any challenge before. It is beginning to appear as if you are scared of that boy.’
‘I’m not scared of him. Even if I did, a lot more than that is at stake here.’
‘Good. If I were you, I would go to the boy and convince him to lead his people away to safety. They came to this town looking for him and if he leaves the town, they will follow him wherever he goes. That is the only way you are going to get the people off this town.’
# # #
It was the only thing that Zach was now left with and so he took it. From the hospital, he had gone to the river hopeful that the boy would meet up as he used to. But the sun rose and fell and Ekeó did not show up.