Boja found a spot from which one of the televisions could be glimpsed and sneaked in between two men, leaving Obembe and me, but we, too, finally found a spot from where we could only see intermittently if we bent leftwards through a small space between two men whose shoes reeked like rotten pork. Obembe and I were submerged for the next fifteen minutes or so in a sickening claustrophobic sea of bodies that gave off the most profound smell of humanity. One man smelt of candle wax, another smelt of old clothes, another of animal flesh and blood, another of dried paint, another of petrol, and one, of sheet metal. When I got tired of covering my nose with my hand, I whispered into Obembe’s ear that I wanted to go back home.
“Why?” he asked, as if surprised, although he too was scared of the big-headed man behind him, and probably wanted to leave as well. The man had eyes that stared inwards at each other, the kind of eyes commonly known as quarter-after-four eyes. Obembe was also afraid because this scary-looking man had barked that he should “stand properly,” and rudely shoved Obembe’s head with his dirty hands. The man was a bat: ugly and terrible.
“We shouldn’t go; Ikenna and Boja are here,” he whispered back, stealing gazes at the man from the corner of his eyes.
“Where?” I whispered back.
He let a good time pass, slowly tilting his head backwards until he was able to whisper: “He’s seated in front, I saw—” But his voice was ferried away by the sudden uproar that broke out. Frantic cries of “Amuneke!” and “Goal!” rent the air, throwing the hall into a tumult of jubilation. The bat-like man’s companion elbowed Obembe in the head while flailing his arms in the air, shouting. Obembe let out a yelp that was absorbed by the riotous wail so that it appeared as if he was rejoicing with the men. He fell against me, cringing with pain. The man who’d hit him did not even notice, but went on shouting.
“Let’s go home, this place is bad,” I said to Obembe after I’d said a dozen “Sorry, Obe.” But feeling this might not convince him, I said what Mother often said when we insisted on going out to see a football match: “We mustn’t see this match. After all, should they win, the players aren’t going to share the money with us.”
This worked. He nodded in acceptance, stifling tears. I managed to edge forward and tapped Boja on the shoulder where he stood, sandwiched between two older boys.
“What?” he asked hurriedly.
“We’re going.”
“Why?”
I did not reply.
“Why?” he asked again, eager to return his eyes to the screen.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Okay, see you then,” he said, and swiftly turned back to the television.
Obembe asked for the torchlight but Boja did not hear the request.
“We don’t need the torchlight,” I said, as I struggled for space between two tall men. “We can walk slowly. God can guide us home safely.”
We went out, his hand on the place the man had elbowed, perhaps feeling it to see if it had swollen. This night was dark—so dark we could barely see except for the light of cars and motorcycles intermittently passing on the road. But they were very few because everyone seemed to be somewhere, watching the Olympic match.
“That man’s a wild animal, he couldn’t even say sorry,” I said, fighting the increasing urge to cry. It was as though I could feel Obembe’s pain just as he did; the urge to cry overwhelmed me.
“Shhhh,” Obembe said just then.
He pulled me into a corner close to a wooden kiosk. At first I did not see anything, and then I, too, saw what he’d seen. For there, standing by the palm tree outside our gate was Abulu the madman. The sight had come with such suddenness that it seemed unreal to me at first. I had not seen him since the day we encountered him at Omi-Ala, but in the days and weeks that passed, in absentia—or perhaps from a distance—he’d gradually filled my life, our lives, with his afflictive presence. I’d heard his story, been warned against him, had prayed against him. Yet I’d not seen him, and without knowing it, I’d been waiting to—even wanting to see him. And there he was, standing in front of our gate, staring intently into our compound, but seemingly not trying to enter it. Obembe and I stood there watching him as he gesticulated, waving his hand in the air as if in a conversation with someone he alone could see. Then, suddenly turning, he began walking towards us, whispering something as he went along. As he passed us, we heard—between muffled breaths—the whispering of something that I reckoned Obembe had heard distinctly, too; for he grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the madman’s path. Panting, I watched him walk away into the outstretched darkness. A shadow of him created by the headlamps of our neighbour’s truck loomed briefly over the street and then vanished as the truck drew closer.
“Did you hear what he was saying?” Obembe asked me once we lost sight of him.
I shook my head.
“Didn’t you?” he breathed.
Just as I was about to answer, a man carrying a child on his shoulders waddled past. The child was mumbling a nursery rhyme:
Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little children want to play…
They were barely out of earshot when Obembe asked again.
I shook my head—to gesture that I hadn’t, but it was a lie. Although not distinctly, I’d heard the word Abulu had repeated as he passed. It had sounded the same way it did the day the end of our peace was initiated: “Ikena.”
A dubious joy swept through Nigeria, spreading from evening into morning the way locusts pour down at night, and vanish by sunrise, leaving their wings scattered through the town. Obembe, Boja and I rejoiced deep into the night, listening as Boja gave us a minute-by-minute commentary of the game, movie-like, so that Jay-Jay Okocha dribbled the opponents the way Superman delivered the kidnapped, and Emmanuel Amuneke had jet-balled his goal-scoring kick like a Power Ranger. Mother had to intervene around midnight, insisting that we retire to bed. When at last I slept, I had a million dreams and was asleep into the morning when Obembe tapped me forcefully, screaming “Wake up! Wake up, Ben—they are fighting!”
“Who, what?” I asked in confusion.
“They are fighting,” he clattered. “Ikenna and Boja. It’s a serious fight. Come.” He moved in the ray of light like a disoriented moth and then, turning to see me still in the bed, cried: “Listen, listen—it is fierce. Come!”
Long before Obembe woke me, Boja had woken up, cursing. The rickety lorry of our cross-wall neighbours, the Agbatis had torn through the thin layer that separated the dream world from the unconscious world with the sporadic buzz of vroom! vroommm! vroommmmm! Although the truck woke him, he’d wanted to wake early so he could go practise drum-beating with other boys of our church. He had a bath, ate his portion of the bread and butter Mother, who’d gone to her shop with David and Nkem, had left for us, but had to wait to change into a new shirt and trousers, because—although he had stopped sleeping in the room he shared with Ikenna—his possessions were still in his closet. Mother, the falconer, had repeatedly pleaded that he move in with Obembe and me, saying: “Ha pu lu ekwensu ulo ya—Leave the devil to his den.” But Boja did not yield. He contended that the room was his as well as Ikenna’s, and that he would not leave. And since Ikenna and he were not speaking, Boja had to often wait for Ikenna to wake and unlock the door without having to ask Ikenna to open it. Ikenna, however, had stayed out for most of that night to partake in the wild street celebrations that had swept through Nigeria, and remained in the room well into noon. Obembe would add, too, much later to me alone that Ikenna had returned home drunk. He’d said he’d perceived a strong smell of alcohol on Ikenna when Obembe let him in through our shutters because Mother locked the main door and gate at midnight.
Boja waited restlessly with roiling anger. Then, close to eleven, his patience had all been used up, and he went to the door and knocked, first softly, then desperately. Obembe said Boja, in frustration, pressed his ear to the door as though it was a stranger’s house and tur
ned to him as if struck by lightning, and said: “I can’t hear any sign of life. Are you sure Ikenna is still alive?”
Boja had asked this question, Obembe said, with genuine concern as if he was scared something evil had happened to Ikenna. Boja had then listened afresh for signs of life, before beginning to knock again, this time louder, calling on Ikenna to open the door.
When no response came, Boja began ramming his body against the door desperately. When he stopped, he stepped back, his eyes filled with relief and fresh fear.
“He is inside,” he mumbled to Obembe as he moved away from the door. “I heard movements just now—he is alive.”
“Who is the madman that was disturbing my peace?” Ikenna barked from the room.
Boja didn’t speak at first. Then he shouted, “Ikenna, you are the madman not me. You’d better open the door right now; the room is mine, too.”
A few hastened footfalls, and in a flash, Ikenna was out. He’d come out with such speed that Boja had not even seen the blow coming, he’d simply found himself on the ground.
“I heard all you said about me,” Ikenna said as Boja attempted to rise back to his feet. “I heard it all—how you said I was dead and not alive. You, Boja, with all I’ve done for you, wish me dead, right? And, upon that, you even call me a madman. Me? I will show you today—”
He was still speaking when Boja, in a move as quick as lightning, scissored his legs, and sent him crashing against the door and into the room. Boja sprang up as Ikenna, grimacing in pain, swore and cursed.
“I am ready for you, too,” Boja said from the threshold of the main door. “If this is what you want, come out to the open space in the backyard so we don’t destroy anything in the house, so that Mama will not find out what happened.”
Once he said that, he dashed out to the backyard, where the well and the garden were located, and Ikenna followed him.
The first thing I saw when I got to the backyard with Obembe was Boja trying to duck a blow from Ikenna’s clenched fist, but failing so that the blow landed on his chest and sent him staggering backwards. As Boja tried to steady his feet, Ikenna pushed him down with his leg. He followed him to the ground as they tore at each other like gladiators of fisticuffs. I was gripped with indescribable horror. Obembe and I were transfixed in the doorway, unable to move, pleading with them to stop.
But they paid no heed, and we were soon distracted by the fierceness of the blows and stunned by the feral quickness of their legs as they swirled together. Obembe screamed when a blow hit one of them and gasped when either of them yelped in pain. I could not stand the scene either. I’d sometimes close my eyes when one of them made a violent move and open them when the move had been completed, my heart thumping. Obembe resumed pleading again when Boja started bleeding from a cut above his right eye. But Ikenna chewed him out.
“Shut up,” he snarled, spitting into the dirt. “If you don’t shut up, now, both of you will join him. Idiots. Didn’t you see when he talked to me the way he did? I’m not to be blamed. He started this and—”
Boja cut him off with a ferocious punch to his back, grappling for Ikenna’s waist; they crashed onto the earth, raising a fume of dust. They fought on with fierceness uncommon when boys of that age engage their siblings in a fight. Ikenna punched with a zeal that was far greater than he’d punched the chicken-selling boy at the Isolo market who called Mother an ashewo—a whore, when she refused to buy his chicken one Yuletide season. We’d cheered him and even Mother, who detested every form of violence, had said—after the boy got back on his feet, picked up his portable raffia-plaited poultry cage and took flight—that the boy had deserved the beating. Yet, Ikenna’s blows this time were far harder—far weightier—far stronger than ever before. Boja too kicked and lunged with more daring than he did when he fought the boys who’d threatened to stop us from fishing at Omi-Ala one Saturday. This fight was different. It was as though their hands were controlled by a force that possessed every bit of their beings, even down to the smallest plasma of their blood, and it was perhaps this force—and not their conscious beings—that caused them to deploy such heavy-handed tactics against each other. As I watched them fight, I was seized by the presentiment that things would not remain the same after this. I feared that every blow was imbued with an impregnable power of destruction that cannot be stayed, contained or reverted. As these feelings seized me, my mind—like a whirlwind gathering dirt into its concentric fold—went into a mad spin of frenzied thoughts, the most dominant of which was the strange and unfamiliar thought that overpowered all else: the thought of death.
Ikenna broke Boja’s nose. Blood gushed out in spurts and dripped down from his jaw to the dirt. In visible pain, Boja sank to the ground, weeping and dabbing his bloodied nose with the rags his shirt had become. Obembe and I, at the sight of Boja’s bloodied nose, began to cry. I knew that the fight was long from being over. Boja would avenge this terrible blow, for he was never one to chicken out. When I saw him beginning to creep towards the garden, attempting to rise, an idea came to me. I turned to Obembe and told him we should get a grown-up to separate them.
“Yes,” he agreed, tears trickling down his cheeks.
We dashed off at once into the next house, but there was a padlock on the gate. We’d forgotten that the family had travelled out of town two days before and would not return until later that evening. As we made off from here, we saw Pastor Collins—the pastor of our church—driving past in his van. We waved at him frantically, but he did not see us. He drove on, bobbing his head to some music on the car’s stereo. We hopped an open sewer in which was the mangled body of a dead snake, one that appeared to be growing into a python, smashed dead with stones and pelts.
The man we found at last was Mr Bode, the motor mechanic, who lived three blocks from our house in a chain of unpainted and unvarnished bungalows. It was a half-completed building with pieces of wood and small heaps of sand lying about. Mr Bode had a military appearance: a towering height, heavy biceps, and a face that was as stern as the cavernous bark of an iroko tree. He’d just returned from his workshop to relieve himself at the latrine he shared with the other occupiers of the five rooms of the bungalow when we found him. His trousers were still unbuckled, his boxers pulled up to his waist as he washed his hands at the long-necked tap that sprouted out from the ground near the wall, humming a tune.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Obembe greeted.
“My boys,” he replied and raised his head to look at us. “How are you?”
“We are fine, sir,” we chorused.
“What is it, boys?” he asked, wiping his hand against his trousers, which was black with grime and car oil.
“Yes, sir,” Obembe replied. “Our brothers are fighting and we—we—”
“They are bleeding, eje ti o po—much blood,” I said, seeing that Obembe could not continue. “Please come and help us.”
The man’s face contracted as he gazed on at our tearful faces as if attacked by a sudden stroke. “What kind of thing is this?” he said, waving his wet hands to dry them. “Why are they fighting?”
“We don’t know, sir,” was Obembe’s curt riposte. “Please come help.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Mr Bode said.
He darted back towards the house as if going for something, but stopped short and gesturing forward, said: “Let’s go.” Once on the way, my brother and I began to run but stopped so Mr Bode could catch up.
“We have to be quick, sir,” I begged.
At this, Mr Bode began running, too, barefooted. Close to home, two women blocked the edge of the sidewalk. They were dressed in cheap grime-tainted gowns, and each bore a sack laden with corn on her head. Obembe brushed past one of them and two small cobs fell from a hole in the sack. The woman swore as we raced away.
The first thing we saw when we got to our compound was the pregnant goat with a bloated belly and sagging udders, owned by our neighbours. It crouched near the gate, bleating with its tongue unfurled from its mouth
like adhesive tape unrolled from its spool. All around its dark, heavy and reeking body were small black pods of its faeces, some squashed into brown pus-like paste and others coagulated in twos, threes and multiples. The only sound I could hear from the compound was the huee, huee sound of the goat’s heavy breathing. We ran to the backyard, but all we saw were pieces of rags from what had been their clothes, bloodstains streaked into the dirt, and a palimpsest of rich dirt defaced with their footprints. It was impossible to have imagined they could have ended the fight without mediation. Where had they gone? Who’d intervened?
“Where did you say they were fighting?” Mr Bode asked, bemused.
“Here, on this spot,” Obembe replied, pointing to the dirt, tears welling in his eyes.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” Obembe said, “here, right here is where we left them. Here.” Mr Bode looked at me and I said, “Here, they were fighting here. See the blood.” I pointed to the spot where blood had mixed with earth and formed into a lump, and another spot where there was a wet, rounded, dark patch the shape of a half-closed eye.
Mr Bode gazed on in confusion and said: “Then where might they be?” He began looking about him again and as he did, I wiped my eyes and blew my nose into the dirt. A low-flying bird, a pigeon, perched on the fence by my right hand, fluttering its wings rapidly. As though threatened, the bird leapt off, and glided over the well to the fence. I looked up to see if Igbafe’s grandfather was still where I’d seen him seated during the fight. But he, too, was no longer there. A plastic cup was on the chair where he’d sat only a while ago.
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