Ikenga

by Nnedi Okorafor

  You won’t get away with this, Chief, he thought to himself as he threw open the door. None of you will! You will all be rotting in jail or dead by this time next year. He had no idea what he was saying or what he’d do, but he’d do something. Just before going inside, he turned around and looked across the compound toward the tent where his father’s body lay. Tears cooled his face. In the back of his mind, a snide voice said, Stop talking big words. You think you’re one of the superheroes in your comic books? Those are just simple idealistic stories and you’re just a child.

  A hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped. The tension eased as he turned to see that it was his uncle Innocent. Nnamdi quickly wiped his wet face and tried to blink away his tears. “I know how you feel,” Uncle Innocent said softly. “But take comfort; God will punish them.”

  * * *

  That night, Nnamdi’s mother was too upset to notice more than her own tears. But Nnamdi was alert. He’d noticed three things were missing. There had been one last can of tomato paste in the kitchen cupboard. Nnamdi remembered because his mother had mentioned that she wanted to go to the market for more as soon as everything settled down. It had been in the top right cupboard. It wasn’t there anymore.

  And in the bathroom the glass apple that sat on the toilet’s tank was gone. His father had hated that apple and was always complaining about it. Whenever he saw it, his father humphed with irritation and said in his deep, gruff voice, “What is the point of an apple made of glass?!” As a way to playfully annoy his father, Nnamdi’s mother had placed the glass apple on the tank of the toilet. Now it was gone.

  And then there was the red pillow that his mother loved to put behind her back when she sat in the chair in the bedroom. It wasn’t memorable in any way. It wasn’t exceptionally lumpy, nor was it pretty or ugly. It wasn’t given to her by anyone special. It wasn’t very old or very new. It was just a pillow. And it was gone.

  Who had taken these little things? Nnamdi was sure he knew. He was positive. The whole compound had been full of criminals. The thief was one of them. Maybe Mama Go-Slow or Never Die or Three Days’ Journey. But certainly, it was upon the orders of the Chief of Chiefs. Stealing insignificant things from the house of the police chief he’d just murdered was icing on the cake.

  Nevertheless, for now, Nnamdi knew he and his mother had to just make it to tomorrow. Without his father.

  A Year Later

  NNAMDI TOUCHED THE ant and it ran wildly behind one of the tiger lily’s orange petals. Normally, Nnamdi avoided these large black ants. They had a painful bite. But today, he’d have almost welcomed the pain. Anything to get his mind off the fact that today was exactly a year since his father’s murder. His still unsolved murder. He flicked the flower with his finger, knocking the ant and three of the wild lily’s five petals to the ground. His father would have been angry with him for doing that. But his father was not here. The reality of this washed over him, warm and sour, yet again. He shut his eyes.

  He went to the base of the mango tree and picked up his backpack. There were ants climbing all over it. This mango tree had always been occupied by them. His father used to say that if you tried to chop the tree down, the ants would probably attack you. Nnamdi smacked his backpack several times, then he closely inspected it to make sure the ants were all gone. He hoisted it onto his back. It was heavy with schoolbooks.

  He sighed. The sight of his father’s dying garden added to the weight in his heart. His father had planted this garden years before Nnamdi had been born.

  “I had a dream,” his father had told Nnamdi. “It was the night after I started as the chief of police. Oh, it was an awful dream. I saw Kaleria burning. The houses, the business buildings, the market, the cars on the roads. And as it was burning, it was being overrun by criminals like Never Die, Mama Go-Slow, and Three Days’ Journey!” He chuckled. “I was under so much stress. Chief of police is a heavy job and I wanted to do it right. I had a friend in university who used to garden to relieve stress. If it worked for him, I thought, it could work for me.”

  And Nnamdi figured it must have, because his father never had the nightmare again. At least, not that Nnamdi knew of. Over time the garden became his father’s place to relax. Nnamdi’s mother said that after he became chief of police, the garden grew like crazy. The more Kaleria’s well-being became his responsibility, the more he planted and cultivated and maintained. He even grew yams here. Nnamdi sometimes sat in the garden at the base of the palm tree that grew there and read comic books, but rarely did he garden with his father. It was an unspoken rule: These plants were his father’s projects. You could hang out in his space, but only if you didn’t mess with anything.

  Since his death, not surprisingly, the garden had fallen into neglect. His mother did what she could, but she focused mainly on those plants that could feed her and Nnamdi: the tomatoes, peppers, and onions. She let the rest of the garden get overrun by weeds. As for Nnamdi, he rarely came out here at all. Now only wild grass, aggressively creeping touch-and-die plants, and tiger lilies were thriving here. He ran his toe over a bunch of touch-and-die plants and watched their fernlike leaves hastily close, the stems withering.

  Nnamdi looked at his watch: school started in ten minutes. His mother would come looking out here soon. Still, he didn’t move. His feet felt frozen, like when he’d seen the Chief of Chiefs.

  “Nnamdi!” Chioma said, coming around the house. “Hurry up!”

  She pushed her long untidy braids out of her face. Everything about Chioma Nwazota was long, from her gangly legs and arms to her bushy hair she usually braided herself. Nnamdi had known Chioma since they were babies. Where Nnamdi had always been on the quiet and intense side, Chioma was outspoken, upbeat, and playful. And she’d always been that friend who told him to move faster.

  Chioma paused, staring at the garden. Nnamdi didn’t think she’d been here since the funeral. Chioma was adopted and though her adoptive mother loved her to pieces, her father had never wanted to adopt her and told her so whenever he got the chance. Nnamdi’s father, on the other hand, had always smiled when he saw Chioma and he happily gave her advice the many times she sought him out for it. Nnamdi’s father had been more of a father to Chioma than any man. And Chioma was the only person Nnamdi had ever seen garden alongside his father. Knowing her, she’d probably just walked in on him one day and picked up a hoe (something Nnamdi never had the nerve to do), but that didn’t change this fact.

  “Nnamdi!” she called again. “What are you doing? We’re going to be late.”

  “I’ll walk fast,” Nnamdi muttered.

  “Let’s start walking then.” She hoisted up her backpack and turned toward the house.

  * * *

  School was the usual routine and Nnamdi was glad when the day was over. He just wanted to sit, think, and brood. But first he wanted to eat a little something. He was so hungry. During lunch, he’d been so preoccupied with the fact of his father being gone a whole year that he’d stared off into space instead of eating. A whole year. He hadn’t spoken to his father in a whole year. He could say that now.

  “You want one?” Chioma asked, offering him a biscuit from the package she’d just opened. “They’re really delicious.”

  Nnamdi took one. It was surprisingly buttery and flaky. He smiled. Chioma smiled, too, handing him three more. “That’s better,” she said. “No one wants to look at a long face.”

  They walked in silence for a moment and then Nnamdi asked, “You know what today is, right?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. She handed him another biscuit.

  He took it. “You’re coming next week?” he asked.

  “To Chief’s memorial?” She always called his father “Chief.”

  Nnamdi nodded.

  “Of course,” she said, shoving a biscuit into her mouth. “Hey, remember that day in Chief’s garden when I caught that huge blue butterfly?” Chioma asked. �
��He was watering the tomatoes and you were leaning against the fence?”

  Nnamdi remembered that day well. It was three years ago. The garden attracted lots of butterflies and Chioma loved them. That late afternoon she’d caught and released a large blue butterfly and the sheer delight on her face as she watched it fly away made his father laugh. Great big belly laughs that soon got Nnamdi laughing, too, and Chioma rolling her eyes.

  “Chief looked so tall that day,” she said. “His shadow stretched and stretched like he was a giant. Like he was invincible.” She glanced at Nnamdi and then looked away. “I really miss him.” She handed him another biscuit and he ate it. A year since that terrible day. Almost a year since he’d made a useless, silly promise to himself while watching the Chief of Chiefs parade through his father’s burial like the president of Nigeria.

  “Well, how do you feel about . . . it?” she asked.

  They were walking past the market. An old brown Toyota drove by, sending up a cloud of red dust that lingered in the hot, humid air. Nnamdi fanned the dust away, frowning. “I . . .”

  “Whoo, Nnamdi,” Chioma said, scrunching up her face. “Did you gas?”

  Nnamdi hissed, annoyed. “No.” Then he smelled it, too. Like rotten eggs. “Nasty,” he said, flaring his nostrils.

  “Phew! What is that?” Chioma asked.

  “I don’t know.” But that wasn’t quite true. Could it be? Nnamdi wondered. He frantically looked around for clues. Bad Market was known for causing a bad smell after he’d “collected” from people in the market. It was the cue to check your pockets and realize your valuables were long gone.

  “Relax,” Chioma said, eating another biscuit. “When Bad Market strikes, the smell comes fast and is really, really obvious. You won’t just think farts; you’ll think a monster farting in a nest of rotten meat! I have an auntie who was shopping once when he struck. She lost her wallet and wedding ring. And she said she never felt anything! But what she said was worst about it was the stink!”

  Nnamdi only grunted. For the last week or so, he’d had a feeling that something bad was happening or had already happened somewhere. Today it was especially strong. Bad smells, faint or strong, always meant trouble. At least that’s what his father used to say.

  “Nnamdi,” Chioma said. “You’ve been so quiet, even to me. What’s on your mind, man?”

  He paused, frowning. Then he looked at her concerned face, bit his lip, and spoke. “Okay, Chioma, honestly, I’m . . . I’m . . . I don’t know. I just feel . . .” He looked hard at Chioma, wishing she’d just understand.

  However, she only looked at him, waiting.

  He sighed. “Remember when the Chief of Chiefs came to the burial?”

  “Of course,” she said, making a fist. “It was like he was rubbing it in your mother’s face.”

  “And mine,” Nnamdi added.

  “We should find him and step on him,” she said, dramatically stomping her foot on the ground. She grinned. “He’s half of both our heights. We could take him.”

  Nnamdi chuckled sadly. “See, that’s what I vowed to do that day. When he came, he made me so mad. I told myself I’d do something. But it’s almost a year later and . . .” He shook his head. They stopped at the intersection and waited for several cars and trucks to pass. Then they ran across.

  “So, is that why you’re ashamed?” she asked as they skirted around a burned-out car. Nnamdi wished someone would remove it. It was like a corpse. Actually, at one point, there had been a corpse inside it. Seven months ago, a drunk driver known all around Kaleria for nearly running people over had finally hit and killed a woman trying to cross the street. This was the last straw. Within a minute, an angry mob surrounded his car and set it on fire . . . with him inside. His father would never have allowed “jungle justice” to happen in Kaleria, let alone leave the burned-out vehicle on the side of the road. Times had certainly changed.

  “I didn’t say I was ashamed.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I know you. You don’t have to say it for me to know.”

  “What?” Nnamdi rolled his eyes and kissed his teeth. “I just think I should do something.”

  “About what? The Chief of Chiefs? The riffraff he works with? What could you do? Did you hear about Mama Go-Slow?”

  Nnamdi nodded. “Yeah, she struck again yesterday, right?”

  “At the height of evening traffic this time! The woman and her thugs are getting bold,” Chioma said. “My neighbor Father Raphael lost an entire batch of holy water and holy bread! He said some masked person appeared out of nowhere inside his car and then the person, water, and bread were gone!” She pressed her left eye with her index finger. “In the blink of an eye!”

  “Even holy things aren’t safe,” Nnamdi said.

  “I know, right? My mother says this town used to be rich and now it’s becoming rubbish. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Even your father couldn’t stop these people and all the corruption.”

  They stopped at Chioma’s apartment building. “Here, have the rest,” she said, giving him the package of biscuits. Then she ran in. Nnamdi bit into one of the buttery biscuits as he watched her open the gate and go inside. She was right: Kaleria used to be rich. But when the honey flows, the flies always smell it, Nnamdi thought. His mother had said this the night after his father’s murder, when she was in an especially dark mood.

  “There must be something I can do,” Nnamdi muttered as he headed home. “I’ll bet if Daddy could, he’d fight them all as a ghost.”

  Nnamdi’s home was surrounded by a concrete wall. It was topped with barbed wire and broken glass, and built into it was a red metal gate. Each time the gateman pushed the gate open, Nnamdi noticed its hinges were beginning to rust. It made his heart heavy because he knew that if his father were alive, they’d have had enough money to fix it.

  “Mr. Oke,” Nnamdi called. He hiked up his schoolbag and knocked on the gate. When there was no answer, he knocked again. He frowned. Mr. Oke, the gateman, was always at his post, ready to open or close the gate. He’d been their gateman for over twenty years. The old man was a dear friend of his father’s. Even now that his mother could only pay him half of what he was paid before, he stayed on, living in the guest quarters.

  “Mr. Oke, it’s me! Nnamdi!” Still no answer. “Where is he?” Then he heard it, ever so faintly. Sobbing. It was coming from beyond the gate. From inside the house? Nnamdi’s cheeks grew hot and a shiver leapt up his spine. He started banging like crazy on the gate. “Mr. Oke! Mr. Oke, are you there?! What is happening?! Mr. Oke!” A car slowly passed on the lumpy dirt road behind him. He didn’t turn around to see who it was. He didn’t care. “Mr. Oke!”

  Finally, he heard footsteps approach the gate, the clang of it being unlocked, and there stood Mr. Oke, a worried look on his wrinkly brown face. “Come,” he said, taking Nnamdi’s hand.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Your mother was robbed on her way from the market,” he said. “In broad daylight!”

  “What?”

  They moved quickly across the compound. Mr. Oke opened the front door, and the sound of his mother’s sobbing was loud and clear. She was sitting on the couch, her head in her hands. Nnamdi ran inside.

  “Mommy!” He threw his arms around her and hugged her. She leaned on him and sobbed into his shoulder.

  “Nnamdi, why did your father leave us, o?!” she wailed. “Why did he leave us to suffer, o?!”

  Nnamdi felt tears prick his eyes. He’d never seen his mother in such a state, even on the day she learned of his father’s death. No thief would have ever done this to her if his father were alive. Everyone knew who she was. But then again, his mother wouldn’t have been reduced to selling tapioca if his father were alive. Nnamdi looked at Mr. Oke with questioning eyes, unsure of what to do. Mr. Oke just shrugged.

  “Mommy, what happened?” Nnam
di asked. “Where is your tray of tapioca?”

  She looked at him, wiping the tears from her cheeks, and then straightened up, pursing her lips. Nnamdi gazed at his mother’s face. She’d become so dark now from all the time she spent in the sun, drying and then selling tapioca. A year after his father’s death, the little money they had had dried up and the police had turned a blind eye to their slain chief’s widow and son. Nnamdi had been unfamiliar with tapioca until his mother started selling it. He’d helped his mother arrange the shredded boiled stalks of cassava onto the tray every evening. “It’s poor man’s food,” his mother had said. “People chew it to keep hunger away.” They looked at each other and Nnamdi was sure she was thinking the same thing he was, that they were now in that group. Now something had happened to the food she sold to the poor.

  “Mommy, what happened?”

  “I dropped it,” his mother said. “It . . . it was that hoodlum, the one they keep shooting who always lives. The one they call Never Die. He followed me and waited until I was alone on the road and then demanded all my money! He said if I didn’t give it to him, he’d beat me right there on the road! I gave him all I had. Oh my God, what have I become, o?!” She started sobbing again.

  “Get her some water,” Mr. Oke said.

  Nnamdi nodded and rushed to the kitchen, glad to get away for a moment. As he opened a bottle of cold water and poured it into a glass, he took a deep, angry breath. “Some man of the house I am,” he grumbled. He closed his eyes. If I could only buy her a car, he thought. Then at least she wouldn’t have to walk in the hot sun the way she does and risk running into thieves. Even as he’d spoken to her, he’d noticed her feet. They looked tough as leather, despite the protection of her sandals, and her bunions looked a lot worse. Anger heated his chest. Anger at the police who had abandoned them. Anger at his own powerlessness. And most of all, anger at the Chief of Chiefs.