The Fishermen

by Chigozie Obioma

  “Be sure to open the gate for Eme when he returns,” she said. “He will come in the afternoon.”

  I nodded and hurriedly locked the gate after them, afraid someone outside might see me.

  My brother charged at me when I got back into the house, and pushed me against the storm door, sending my heart out of my body.

  “Why did you say that in Mama’s presence, eh? Are you stupid? Do you want her to fall sick again? Do you want to destroy us again?”

  I shouted “No!” to every question, shaking my head.

  “Listen,” he said, panting. “They must not find out. You hear?”

  I nodded, my eyes on the floor, wetting. Then it seemed that he pitied me. He softened and put his hand on my shoulder as he had always done.

  “Listen, Ben, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t worry, if they come here, we will not open for them. They will think the house is unoccupied and go away. We will be safe.”

  He closed every curtain in the house and locked the doors, and then went into Ikenna and Boja’s now empty room. I followed him and we sat on the new mattress Father had bought—the only thing in the room. Even though it was empty, signs of my brothers were everywhere, like indelible stains. I could see the shinier portion of the wall where the M.K.O. calendar had been yanked off, and the various graffiti and matchstick man portraits. Then I gazed at the ceiling that was full of cobwebs and spiders, indications that time had passed since they died.

  I was watching the outline of a gecko climbing up the thin transparent curtain on which the sun was shining while my brother sat as quiet as the dead when we heard loud banging at our gate. My brother dragged me frantically under the bed with him, and we rolled into the dark enclave as the banging continued, attended by cries of “Open the gate! Anyone in there, open the gate!” Obembe pulled the bed sheet so that it sagged downward, covering us up. I accidentally pushed an empty lidless tin close to my side; it was filled with a gossamer film of web through which the tin’s interior—which was black as tar—could be seen. It must have been one of the tins we had gathered for the storage of fish and tadpoles, one that had escaped Father’s eyes when he emptied the room.

  The banging at the gate stopped shortly after we got under the bed, but we remained, in the darkness, breathless, my head throbbing.

  “They are gone,” I said to my brother after a while.

  “Yes,” he replied. “But we must remain here till we are sure they won’t return. What if they are going to climb the fence and come in, or if they—” He discontinued, staring blankly as if he could hear something suspicious. Then, he said: “Let’s wait here.”

  We remained there, me holding back an unbearable urge to urinate. I did not want to give him any cause to be afraid or sad.

  The next knock on the gate came some hour or so after the first one. It was soft and was followed by the familiar voice of Father calling out our names, asking if we were at home. We emerged from under the bed and began wiping the dust off our clothes and bodies.

  “Hurry, hurry, open for him,” my brother said as he ran to the bathroom to wash his eyes.

  Father was beaming with smiles when I opened the gate. He wore a cap and his spectacles.

  “Were you both asleep?” he asked.

  “Yes, Daddy,” I said.

  “Oh, good gracious! My boys are now idle men. Well, all that is about to change,” he chattered as he entered.

  “Why are you locking it when we are in?”

  “There’s been a robbery today,” I said.

  “What, in broad daylight?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  He was in the sitting room, his briefcase on a chair beside him, talking with my brother, who stood behind the chairs, while Father removed his shoes. As I entered the house, I heard my brother say “How was your journey?”

  “Great, just great,” Father said, smiling, as I had not seen him do in a long time. “Ben said there was a robbery here today?”

  My brother shot a look at me before nodding his head.

  “Wow,” Father said. “Well, anyway, I have good news for both of you my sons, but first, any idea if your mother left food in the house?”

  “She fried yams this morning, and I think some are still left—”

  “She left some for you in your chinaware,” my brother said, completing what I’d begun to say.

  My voice shook as I spoke because a siren, wailing somewhere in the street, had engulfed me with fresh fear of the soldiers. Father noticed. He glanced from face to face searching for what he did not know. “Are you all right, both of you?”

  “We remembered Ike and Boja,” my brother said. He burst into tears.

  Father gazed emptily at the wall for a moment, then raising his head, said: “Listen, I want both of you to put all that behind you from now on. It is why I’m doing all this—borrowing, running here and there and doing everything—to get you into a new environment where you’d not see anything that can remind you of them. Look at your mother, look at what happened to her.” He pointed towards the blank wall as if Mother was there. “That woman has suffered a lot. Why? Because of the love she has for her children. The love, I mean, for you—all of you.” Father shook his head rapidly.

  “Now, I am telling both of you, henceforth, before you do anything, anything at all, think first of her, of what it might do to her—only and only then should you make your decision. I’m not even asking you to think of me; think of her. Do you hear me?”

  We both nodded.

  “Good, now, someone should get me the food; I will eat it, even if cold.”

  I went into the kitchen with the words he’d said in my head. I carried the plate of food—fried yam and fried eggs—to him, with a fork. The big smile had returned to his face, and as he ate, he told us about how he’d procured our travel passports from the immigration office in Lagos. He did not imagine, even remotely, that his ship had sunk, and his life’s worth of goods—his map of dreams (Ikenna=pilot, Boja=lawyer, Obembe=doctor, I=professor)—was gone.

  He brought out cakes wrapped in shiny wrappers and tossed two of them to each of us.

  “And you know what is more?” he said, still rummaging in his bag. “Bayo is now in Nigeria. I called Atinuke yesterday, and spoke with him. He will be here next week to take you to Lagos for your visas.”

  Next week.

  These words brought the possibility of Canada so close again that I was broken by it. The time Father had said—“next week”—seemed too far. I wished that we would make it there. I thought we could pack our things and go to Ibadan to stay away at Mr Bayo’s house, and when our visas were ready, we could go from there. No one would trace us to Ibadan. I yearned to suggest this to Father, but was afraid about how Obembe might take it. But later, after Father had eaten and fallen asleep, I said this idea to my brother.

  “That would mean giving ourselves away,” he replied without raising his head from the book he was reading.

  I struggled to give an answer, but couldn’t.

  He shook his head. “Listen, Ben, don’t try it; not at all. Don’t worry, I have a plan.”

  When Mother returned that evening and told Father of the searching, and of what she’d heard in the streets that the kids killed the madman with fishing hooks, Father wondered why we hadn’t mentioned it.

  “I thought the robbery was more important,” I said.

  “Did they come here?” he asked, his eyes stern under his eyeglasses.

  “No,” my brother replied. “I was mostly awake while Ben slept, and I did not hear anything except for when you came.”

  Father nodded.

  “Perhaps he’d tried to prophesy to the kids and they’d fought him, fearing it would come to reality,” he said. “It’s a shame that such spirit possessed that man.”

  “It might have been so,” Mother agreed.

  Our parents spent the rest of the night talking about Canada. Fa
ther recounted his errand to Mother with the same measure of joy, while my head ached badly, and by the time I retired to bed—earlier than anyone else—I was feeling so ill I feared I would die. The longing to move to Canada had become, by this time, so strong that I wanted badly to do it, even if without Obembe. This continued long into the night, after Father had dozed off in the lounge, his throat buzzing with loud snorts. Then the calm and assurance took flight and a chilling fear, as strong as a cold, flushed into me. I began to fear that something I could not yet see, but could smell—could tell was coming—would come before next week. I sprang from the bed and tapped my brother who was under a wrappa. I could tell he was not asleep.

  “Obe, we should tell them what we have done so Father can take us—run away—to Ibadan to meet Mr Bayo. So we can travel to Canada next week.”

  I’d rushed the words as if I’d memorized them. My brother emerged from under the wrappa and sat up.

  “Next week,” I muttered to him, my breath catching.

  But my brother did not respond. He looked at me in a way that made it seem as though he couldn’t see me. Then he returned under the wrappa and disappeared.

  It must have been in the dead of the night when, panting and covered in sweat, and my head still aching, I began hearing “Ben wake up, wake up,” as a hand shook me.

  “Obe,” I gasped.

  But he was not visible for the first few moments after I opened my eyes. Then, I saw him throwing out clothes from his closet and packing things into a bag, dashing about.

  “Come, stand up, we have to leave this night,” he said, gesturing.

  “What, leave home?”

  “Yes, right now,” he broke off from his packing, and hissed to me. “Listen, I have realized the possibilities—the soldiers can find us. I saw the old priest of that church while I was running away from the soldier, and he recognized me. I almost knocked him down.”

  My brother could see the horror that filled my eyes at this revelation. Why, I wondered, didn’t he tell me this before?

  “I have been afraid that he would tell them it was us. So, let us leave, now. They could still come this night, and they, too, might identify us. I’ve been awake and I’ve heard noises outside all night. If they don’t, they will surely come in the morning or anytime. We’ll go to prison if they find us.”

  “So, what should we do?”

  “We must leave, leave: that’s the only way. It is the only way we can protect ourselves and our parents—Mama.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Anywhere,” he said, starting to cry. “Listen, don’t you know they will find us by morning?”

  I wanted to say something, but no words came. He turned back and started unzipping a bag.

  “Won’t you move from there now?” he said when he looked up again and saw me still standing there.

  “No,” I said. “Where shall we go?”

  “They will search here in the morning, once the sky clears.” His voice broke. “And they will find us.” He paused and sat on the edge of the bed for less than a second and stood again. “They’ll find us.” He shook his head gravely.

  “But I’m afraid, Obe. We should not have killed him.”

  “Don’t say this. He killed our brothers; he deserved to die.”

  “Father will get us a lawyer, we shouldn’t leave, Obe,” I said emptily, sobs choking my words. “Don’t let us go.”

  “Listen, don’t be stupid. The soldiers will kill us! We wounded their man, they will shoot us, like Gideon Orkar, don’t you know?” He paused to drive his question home. “Imagine what will happen to Mama. This is a military regime, Abacha’s soldiers. Let’s go somewhere, maybe to our village for a while then write to them from there. They can then arrange to meet us, take us to Ibadan, and then Canada.”

  The last words temporarily submerged my fears.

  “Okay,” I declared.

  “Then pack, quick, quick.”

  He waited for me to put my things in the bag.

  “Quick, quick. I can hear Mother’s voice, she is praying; she might come in here to see us.”

  He craned his ear to the door for any sound whatsoever as I pooled all my clothes into my rucksack and packed our shoes into another. Then, before I knew what was happening, he jumped out of the shutters with his bag and the shoes and became a silhouette whose arms I could barely see.

  “Throw yours!” he whispered from below the window.

  I threw my rucksack and jumped after him, falling. My brother hoisted me up and we started off across the road that led to our church, passing houses that were dead in sleep. The night was dimly lit by the bulbs on the verandas of houses and a few street lamps. My brother would wait for me, run and wait, whispering “come” or “run” every time he paused. As we ran, my fear increased. Strange visions encumbered my movement as memories rose from their tombs; now and again I glanced backwards to the direction of our home, until I could no longer see it. Behind us, the moonlight percolated across the night sky and cast a grey hue around the way we’d come and over the town that lay asleep. Somewhere, the sound of singing voices, supported by drumming and bell-ringing, steadily reached us even louder than the distant noise.

  We’d covered a good distance, and although it was difficult to make out in the darkness, I reckon we were about to reach the district centre when Father’s words—“henceforth, before you do anything, think first of her, of what it might do to her, and then make your decision”—pierced me sharply, sending a stray rod into my track. I lost balance like derailing boxcars, my heart tooting, and found myself on the ground.

  “What happened?” he asked, turning back.

  “I want to go back,” I said.

  “What? Benjamin, are you mad?”

  “I want to go back.”

  When he moved towards me, afraid he’d try to drag me along, I cried: “No, no, don’t come, don’t come. Just let me go back.”

  He made forward again, but I started to my feet and staggered off. My knees had been bruised and I could tell they were bleeding.

  “Wait! Wait!” he cried.

  I stopped.

  “I won’t touch you,” he said, lifting his hands in surrender.

  He unclasped his rucksack, laid it on the ground and walked to me. He made to hug me, but once his hands were around my neck, he tried to pull me forward, but I put my leg between his like Boja was adept at doing and scissored his legs. We both fell sprawling together. While we struggled, he kept insisting we had to go together, while I pleaded with him to let me return to our parents—that I didn’t want them to miss us both. I extricated myself in the end, leaving with my shirt partly ripped.

  “Ben!” he cried when I ran a distance from him.

  I’d begun to sob freely, too. He gazed at me, his mouth open. He could now see that I was determined to go back, for my brother knew things.

  “If you won’t come with me, then tell them,” he said in a shaky voice. “Tell Daddy and Mama that I… ran away.”

  He could barely speak, his heart was now bursting with grief.

  “Tell them that we—you, me—did it for them.”

  In a flash, I was back to him—clasped to his body. He held me closer and put his hand behind my head, to the oblong side of my scalp. For a long time Obembe sobbed against my shoulder, then he disentangled from me, and moved backwards without turning away from me. He raced a distance away. There he stopped, and cried: “I will write to you!”

  Then, the darkness swallowed him. I lunged forward and cried: “No, don’t go Obe, don’t go, don’t leave me.” But there was nothing; no trace of him in the darkness. “Obe!” I called aloud, making a frantic dash forward. But he did not stop, did not seem to hear. I tripped, fell and struggled up. “Obe!” I called even louder, more desperately into the night as I entered the road. To my left, to my right, forward, backwards—no trace of him. No sound, no one about. He was gone.

  I sank to the ground and began to wail anew.

&nb
sp; THE MOTH

  I, Benjamin, was a moth:

  The fragile thing with wings, who basks in light, but who soon loses its wings and falls to the ground. When my brothers, Ikenna and Boja, died, I felt like a fabric awning that had always sheltered me was torn off from over my head, but when Obembe ran away, I fell from space, like a moth whose wings were plucked off its body while in flight, and became a being that could no longer fly but crawl.

  I had never lived without my brothers. I’d grown up watching them while I merely followed their lead, living a version of their early lives. I’d never done anything without them—especially without Obembe who, having absorbed much wisdom from the older two and distilled broader knowledge through books, had left me totally dependent. I had lived with them, relied on them so much that no concrete thought ever took shape in my mind without first floating through their heads. And even after Ikenna and Boja died, I’d lived on as if unaffected because Obembe had closed in on their absence, proffering answers to my questions. But he, too, was now gone, leaving me at the threshold of a door I shuddered to enter. Not that I feared to think or live for myself, I did not know how, had not prepared for it.

  When I returned, our room was dead, empty and dark. I lay on the floor weeping as my brother ran, his rucksack on his back, his small Ghana-must-go bag in his hand. As the darkness gradually lifted over Akure, he ran on, panting, sweating. He must have run—perhaps spurred by the story of Clemens Forell—as Far As His Feet Would Carry Him. He must have trod along the silent, dark street and reached its end. He may have stopped there a while to look up at the swathe of plain tracks, unable to decide, for a moment, which way to go. But like Forell, he must have been subdued by the fear of capture, and the fear must have powered his mind like a turbine, spinning out ideas. He must have stumbled many times as he ran or fell into potholes, or was tripped by tangled foliage. He must have got tired along the way and become thirsty, needing water. He must have been drenched in sweat, becoming dirty. He must have raced on, carrying the black banner of fear in his heart, perhaps the fear of what would become of me, his brother, with whom he had attempted to put out the fire that had engulfed our household. And that fire had, in return, threatened to consume us.