Gods and Soldiers

by Rob Spillman

  About an hour after he woke up on the morning of the test Mr. Rafique was still lying on the couch, his half-erect penis cupped in his left hand. His eyes were dry and itchy from lack of sleep; his mind fatigued by the phalluses he had seen in his nightmares; his body tired from a week of sleeping on the couch. He heard the muezzin’s incantations, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,” God is Great! God is Great!, calling the faithful to worship, the first of their five daily worships to the Creator. He gently rubbed his penis as he listened: “Assalát hairi minal-naum! Assalát hairi minal-naum!” Worship is better than sleep! Worship is better than sleep!

  The mellifluous, melancholy, yet commanding voice of the crier soothed Mr. Rafique’s heart momentarily, ridding him of the thoughts of the impending test. But this didn’t last too long, his mind gradually drifting back to his manhood fixation. He sat upright and began to pray: “Let my enemies be disappointed and ashamed of their enmity today, yá Allah!” He lifted his arms in the air, with a face full of self-pity. “And to those who doubt my manliness, yá Allah,” he continued, “prove to them that all power comes from You. Equip me with the strength to perform this test, to which I am maliciously being subjected!”

  He closed the prayer by reciting Áyatul-Kursiyyu, a verse deemed by most clerics as the second most powerful in the Koran, one that is supposed to work wonders in solving all kinds of problems. Finally, Mr. Rafique raised his arms in the air, spat on his open palms, and rubbed them gently on his face. He murmured, “Ámin,” lay back on the couch, and resumed caressing his penis. Before long, Mr. Rafique was once again lost in his activity. But the muezzin’s voice, distant and echoing, again reminded Mr. Rafique that it was almost time for worship.

  Ash-hadu al-láiláha illallá!, I bear witness there is no God besides Allah!

  As if spurred on by the muezzin’s cries, Mr. Rafique’s penis suddenly began to harden. A minute later, it was as erect and solid as an unripe green plantain—crooked and curved toward his right thigh. Never before in his thirty-eight years had his penis been this hard; it was bewildering. He moved his butt sideways and spread his legs apart, so as to make room for his bulging crotch. Filled with an inner joy, a sudden desire almost drove him to walk into the bedroom and thrust his way into his wife. But a second thought advised him against it. He decided to wait until the test, “before the eyes of that old lafiree and the entire street. Then I will prove to my wife and all my enemies that I am a full-grown man.”

  Then it dawned on Mr. Rafique that the morning worship was about to begin. In one movement he sprang from the couch and got into his prayer-robe, which concealed the bulge in his loose slacks. He slipped his feet into rubber slippers and sprinted out of the room and into the breezy, dew-scented dawn. Outside, a handful of lazy-boned roosters—that had just awaked—crowed. Mr. Rafique ran all the way to the mosque, reciting dhikr under his breath.

  Zulaikha was already at the chief’s palace when Mr. Rafique arrived at four. She was accompanied by two middle-aged women from her clan, and they sat in the large, high-ceilinged lounge of the palace and waited for Zulai, who was being briefed by the alkali at the time of Mr. Rafique’s arrival. Mr. Rafique ignored the women. “Hypocrites,” he whispered, stealing a mean glance at the women. “That’s what they are, all of them! They act as if they like you, when all they are after is your downfall!” He found an unoccupied bench in the corner and sat to wait for his turn to be briefed by the chief’s judge.

  The meeting with the alkali lasted no more than five minutes, and as Mr. Rafique walked through the foyer to the test room, he saw at least three dozen faces staring at him through the lounge’s many windows. He felt as if the entire city of Kumasi was watching him, eagerly awaiting his downfall. Ever so determined to redeem himself “in the eyes of my enemies,” and to “put them all to shame, by Allah,” Mr. Rafique ignored the stares and walked confidently into the long, wide corridor that led into the palace’s courtyard. He began to think that the presence of the lafiree would actually be to his advantage, because Zulaikha—who would not want to be perceived as a whore by the old woman—would lie still as she received him, in the exact manner expected of a married woman. The test suddenly appeared exciting to Mr. Rafique, who felt blood surging through his half-erect penis as he walked closer to the test room.

  After leaving the alkali’s office, the old lady and Zulaikha had walked directly to the test room, located at the northern end of the palace compounds. The palace building was composed of three large rectangular houses, each with its own compound and courtyard and rooms numbering up to twenty-four. The test room had only one window that faced the almost-vacant courtyard. The interior of the room was brightly lit by a three-foot fluorescent tube. A double-sized kapok bed was tucked in the left corner of the room and a small table sat beside the bed. The invigilator’s chair was placed facing the bed, and in a way that the lafiree would be able to have a clear glimpse of what went on.

  Mr. Rafique paused on reaching the door. “Assalaamu-Alaikum!” he said and waited for a response. The door was opened by the old woman, who peeked outside. Despite the freckles all over her wrinkled face, the lafiree looked healthy for her age. She was sixty-eight. Her gracious smile, which exposed two gaps in her front teeth, seemed fake to Mr. Rafique, who simply saw her as another of his enemies. Responding to her warm, inviting smile, he grinned maliciously.

  “Come inside,” the lafiree said, though she was quite aware of Mr. Rafique’s animosity. “Call me when you are ready to begin. I will be waiting outside.” She smiled as she walked past him.

  Mr. Rafique went into the test room.

  Meanwhile, a large crowd had gathered outside the chief’s palace, to be part of this historical event—for such cases were brought only once in a blue moon to the chief. The older folks on the street claimed that of the few cases that had been brought before to the chief’s court, Mr. Rafique’s was the only one in which the couple had actually decided to go all the way and perform the test. In earlier cases, many husbands were said to have given their wives a divorce instead of having sex with them in front of a stranger. They stood in small groups, trading rumors about the impending test. A number of women—peanut, yam, and ginger-beer vendors—congregated near the palace gates, and a garrulous woman who claimed to be the best friend of Zulaikha’s mother captured their full attention with her story. “The girl’s mother did confide in me that the spiritualist they visited told them that the man’s thing had long been cooked and eaten by witches, at one of their weekly feasts,” the woman told her rapt audience. “And would you believe it if I told you that it was no one but his mother who took the thing to the feast? Which goes to show that she herself is a witch.” The woman lowered her voice. “No wonder she has been lying in a grass bed for nine years! But you didn’t hear this from me, O! Okay?” But the rumormonger then went on to describe to the vendors (in full, graphic details) how Mr. Rafique’s penis was cut, prepared, and eaten by the witches. The garrulous woman’s listeners gasped at every sentence and wondered how she came about the information. But none of them questioned her, afraid they may upset her.

  Gathered near the vendors was a group of young men from about the age of sixteen to twenty-three. They, too, speculated about the test. One of them swore that he saw Mr. Rafique as he walked into the palace, and that “his prick looked as if it would tear itself right through his trousers. I tell you, man, that was how hard he was!” the young man said. Then he challenged his listeners to a bet of a hundred cedis each if they doubted his word that Mr. Rafique would pass the test. None of his listeners showed interest in betting, though they all rooted for Mr. Rafique, just as most of the women and girls on the street rooted for Zulaikha.

  Zulai’s eyes met her husband’s as he entered the room. She had not seen him since that morning, when he left for work. She lowered her head and shifted uneasily toward the end of the bed. Mr. Rafique just stood there, not saying a word. Zulai lifted her face, and their eyes met again. He shrugged his sh
oulders and moved his eyebrows up and down, gesturing—or rather signaling—for them to begin what they had come to do. Zulaikha felt like a whore, a very cheap one for that matter, given that the entire city of Kumasi knew what was about to happen between her and her husband, and the fact that there were people outside the palace waiting for the results made her feel even cheaper. Hatred surged through her, not for Mr. Rafique, but for the streetfolks.

  Then things took a rather unexpected, mysterious turn. Zulai bowed her head and suddenly felt a tenderness toward her husband and even blamed herself for all of their marital misfortune. “Our marriage has brought nothing but ruin to him; the disgrace that awaits him once the test is over. I wish I knew what to do to make him do well,” she said to herself. “Maybe I should tell the old woman that I was lying about his manhood.” But she also knew it was too late for her to alter what everyone on the street already knew—the horses are already lined up before the open field, and the derby cannot be canceled.

  For Mr. Rafique’s part, looking at his estranged wife suddenly turned him soft, not between his legs, as one might have expected, but in his chest—in his heart. Why the hurt and the vendetta? Why not forgive everyone, so that you can move on with your life? Mr. Rafique couldn’t believe the thoughts he was having, and was perplexed as well as relieved by these questions.

  Zulai, whose head was still bowed, wondered what was going on. She lifted her head to steal a glance at her husband, whose eyes were directed at Zulai. The two were suddenly face to face, eye to eye. And Mr. Rafique saw in his wife’s face all the qualities that had drawn him to her some eight months ago: her confidence, charm, and warm personality. As he looked at her large, seductive eyes, he felt an intense passion for her—it was a joyous, yet aching sensation, as he still couldn’t rid his mind of the pain of the past months. Mr. Rafique saw himself at an emotional crossroad, not knowing whether to “perform the test or to renounce everything—the test, sex in general, Zulai, the people of Zongo Street, and anything that had been in the way of my happiness.” Mr. Rafique, resolved to renounce it all, prepared himself to break the news to his wife and the old woman; he was renouncing the test, and thereby granting Zulai the divorce she had sought.

  “By separating myself from the spell sex and love cast on people, I can continue to love her, spiritually, wholly, for the rest of our lives,” thought Mr. Rafique. He was just about to speak to Zulai when he heard the lafiree’s voice. “Are you two ready?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Rafique answered calmly.

  Zulaikha, utterly confused as to what would happen next, looked away from the door. The lafiree—who had expected to see a lot more than what she saw—seemed disappointed.

  “I have changed my mind,” said Mr. Rafique, avoiding Zulaikha’s eyes.

  “What are you talking about?” the old woman cried, grabbing his forearm.

  “I don’t really know, to tell you the truth, but I won’t do it even if you leave the room.” He paused, glanced at his wife, and continued. “And I hereby grant her the divorce, one, two, three times!”

  “Wait, Rafíku,” the old woman said. “Why do you want to do this to yourself? You know what the Zongo people will say, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do! But, for all I care, they can say whatever they want to say! My heart tells me I am doing a good thing. That’s what matters to me, not what the Zongolese think.” The lafiree shuddered at Mr. Rafique’s pronouncement. And Zulaikha, who one might have expected to rejoice, sat with eyes half-closed and brows tightly knit, as if she had just received tragic news. Mr. Rafique took a step toward Zulaikha. He lowered his head, and with his left palm on his chest extended his right arm to her, in a gesture of love and respect. “Ma-assalám,” he said politely and turned and began to walk out of the room. The women stared at each other and then at his back, still unable to make head or tail of what had taken place.

  No sooner had Mr. Rafique walked through the palace gates than rumors started floating around that he had failed the manhood test. By the next day, there were half a dozen new stories, each one a slight variation, salted and spiced as it went from one mouth to the other. Some rumors claimed that Mr. Rafique had actually passed the test, but had soon afterwards pronounced the divorce, as a means of revenge on his wife. One swore that Mr. Rafique’s “pen had run out of ink” in the middle of the test. Another maintained that he had failed miserably, that he “wasn’t even able to get his thing up,” to begin with; and that he had never been a man, and that Najim was someone else’s son after all, a child forced on him by “his harlot-mother” because the real culprit had denied responsibility for the pregnancy.

  The lafiree, who had apparently noticed the bulge in Mr. Rafique’s trousers when he entered the test room, defended him. She swore by her many years and the strength of her dead husband that “the young man Rafíku is a real man! I saw his trouser-front with my two eyes, and believe me I can tell a real man when I see one!”

  So much for the old woman’s attempt to tell the truth of what she saw. The street’s rascals nicknamed her “Madam-real-manhood.” And to the chagrin of the poor lady, that nickname followed her to her grave.

  Life went on as usual on Zongo Street after the dust of this drama settled. Zulaikha’s life didn’t change much after this event. A rumor soon circulated that she was the one who indeed killed Mr. Rafique’s penis, as he was virile and had a child before he met her. But Zulai wasn’t bothered by these assertions, and continued to live her life in the foolhardy manner she had always lived. She threw away the head scarf worn by married Muslim women and divorcées, exposing her permed hair to the world, and refused to be classified as a bazawara, a term that had taken on a derogatory meaning to describe a divorced woman—often seen either as someone with emotional baggage or as damaged goods that men should try to avoid at any cost. She didn’t marry again until six years later when she was twenty-five, and it was to a rich man in the capital city, Accra, over two hundred miles away.

  Mr. Rafique’s life went on too, though in a rather different manner. After he left the palace he had headed straight to Apala Goma, the beer parlour down on Bompata Road. He felt as relieved as a donkey that has returned from a long journey and finally has the load it carried taken off its back. Mr. Rafique felt even more relieved and freer than the donkey, because “the animal never has the choice of carrying or not carrying a load in the first place . . . if it does, it will not carry the load at all. Who likes to suffer? But an ass is an ass, always at the mercy of its master, whereas I am my own master!” As Mr. Rafique contemplated in this manner, he stepped into the doorway of the drinking parlour. “Henceforth, I am going to live my life the way I see fit,” he thought while he waited for a double shot of straight gin, the first of many subsequent drinks that night. By the time Mr. Rafique left the bar, around a quarter past midnight, he was as drunk as a pagan celebrating the death of his grandfather. Fortunately for him, the rascals who had the habit of thrashing drunks at night had vacated the street. It surprised Mr. Rafique that as drunk as he was, his thoughts were still clear. He vividly recalled the incidents of the whole day, and grinned to himself.

  On reaching the house, Mr. Rafique found the main gate locked from the inside. To avoid trouble between him and Mamman Salisu—Mr. Rafique’s self-righteous half brother who denounced his drinking with religious vehemence—Mr. Rafique proceeded further down the compound, to the small concretized prayer lot where the boys and young men in the neighbourhood slept on very hot nights. There was a common saying of the streetfolks: “Men who want to command respect should not sleep in the company of kids.” Mr. Rafique laughed and walked to the back of the lot, where straw mats were kept in an old oil drum. He selected a mat and spread it in an empty space between two young men who were both his nephews. After removing his shoes, he curled up on his right side. He closed his eyes and placed his hands between his legs. Mr. Rafique had never before experienced the inner peacefulness he felt at that moment. “They will not get me again! They
can drown themselves if they don’t like the way I live!” he said to himself at that moment when sleep and consciousness cross paths in their tireless effort to bring Light and Darkness to humanity, to unite Joy with Suffering, to bring Inner Peace to the pulsing heart of Man.

  CHRIS ABANI

  • Nigeria •

  from BECOMING ABIGAIL

  AND THIS.

  Even this. This memory like all the others was a lie. Like the sound of someone ascending wooden stairs, which she couldn’t know because she had never heard it. Still it was as real as this one. A coffin sinking reluctantly into the open mouth of a grave, earth in clods collected around it in a pile like froth from the mouth of a mad dog. And women. Gathered in a cluster of black, like angry crows. Weeping. The sound was something she had heard only in her dreams and in these moments of memory—a keening, loud and sharp, but not brittle like the screeching of glass or the imagined sound of women crying. This was something entirely different. A deep lowing, a presence, dark and palpable, like a shadow emanating from the women, becoming a thing that circled the grave and the mourners in a predatory manner before rising up to the brightness of the sky and the sun, to be replaced by another momentarily.

  Always in this memory she stood next to her father, a tall whip of blackness like an undecided but upright cobra. And he held her hand in his, another lie. He was silent, but tears ran down his face. It wasn’t the tears that bothered her. It was the way his body shuddered every few moments. Not a sob, it was more like his body was struggling to remember how to breathe, fighting the knowledge that most of him was riding in that coffin sinking into the soft dark loam.