The Gurugu Pledge

by Juan Tomas Avila Laurel

  But that wasn’t the end of the affair. That a woman had come back from the river weeping and had furthermore been forced to seek an extra confession for her daughter on the very day of her first communion, was no small thing. Several members of the parish sat up and took notice of what was happening, and they decided something had to be done. What that something would be was left to the parish priest, and he decided to cordially invite the church choir to deal with the matter. The church choir? Well, the girls and boys and young men and women who rehearsed twice a week and provided vocal accompaniment to the celebration of holy mass. They sang along to the music and, as orchestrated by the priest, took the volume up a notch or two whenever the congregation threatened to doze off or began to yawn excessively. Okay, girls and boys, I’d like you to look into a delicate matter whereby a man has been terrorising some of our male parishioners with his outrageous behaviour. Yes, the priest said male, when in fact the terrorised parishioners were female. Did he speak of males instead of females to avoid a scandal?

  ‘Do you want us to use our sweet voices to sing the evil out of him, Father Priest?’

  ‘I appreciate your sense of humour, but unless the situation deteriorates, hopefully a well-recited prayer will be enough to settle the poor man’s corrupt heart.’

  ‘If we find him, we’ll bring him here for Your Reverence to pray for him.’

  ‘If that’s what the heavenly council wants, it will happen of its own accord.’

  Was it not remarkable that the church choir was sent out on such a mission? Young boys and girls, and others who were no longer so young for they’d reached the age of desire, were in the full flush of desire in fact, instructed to go into the forest and have a few words with Omar the outlaw, whom they’d probably find as naked as Adam in the Garden of Eden. Was it not possible, indeed likely, that within that choir there would have been friends or relatives of the girl whose honour had been desecrated on the day of her first communion? Would they have cowered before the man or smelled revenge? And what would have happened if, when the eager young choristers tracked down the unrepentant Omar Salanga, they launched into Latin song? For good God, that man, that usurper of the river, that miscreant who lived on society’s margins, deserved to feel the full brunt of a hymn sung in Latin, maybe one that went something like this:

  Tellus dormit

  et liberi in diem faciunt

  numquam extinguunt

  ne expergisci possint.

  Omnia dividit

  tragoedia coram

  amandum quae.

  Et nocte perpetua

  ehem vel vera visione

  par oram videbo te

  mane tempu expergiscendi.

  As he floated up and down with a cigarette hanging from his lips, Omar and anyone else in earshot of the river would have been overawed by the Latin echoing from the choir’s lips. The words would have pounded his eardrums and he’d have looked at his naked self and felt great shame, for the Latin sung at him would have been so exalted and so solemn that he would have suddenly become acutely aware of his spiritual inadequacies. He would have heard the song loud and clear and he would have understood that Tellus dormit et liberi referred to his libertine ways, and that numquam extinguunt was a thorough condemnation of his reprehensible lifestyle, a lifestyle headed for disaster, hence the choir’s intervention and the tragoedia coram. And he most definitively would have recognised mane tempu expergiscendi as a terrible reprimand, perhaps even damnation, for a period of time at least.

  But African traditions are still strong, in fact all the more so since matters of God started to be pronounced in local tongues, and so it’s likely Omar Salanga was admonished in a language more familiar to him than Latin. But we don’t know. That expedition struck out into the forest and made for the stretch of river commandeered by the man, but it’s not known what they sang when they got there. In other words, although it was public knowledge that the choir was sent to attend to the matter, what they did, or even if they did anything, when they got to the riverbank, has never been properly explained. Did they say anything to Omar that might be classed as a reprimand? Did they even see Omar? It’s never been suggested that they didn’t, and the subsequent conduct of some of those who took part in the expedition led many people to believe that they must have seen him, but whether they made contact with him is a different matter. The choir never spoke of it and so whether the punitive Christian initiative bore fruit or not remained a mystery. Was the outlaw made to see reason or did he impose his own reprehensible reason on the choir? Nobody knew, and so the story gained a life of its own and quickly turned to legend. What did the members of that girl’s parish choir say to Omar Salanga? What did Omar say to the eager young parishioners? Did they see him naked with a roll-up dangling from the edge of his mouth? Did they witness his extravagance in the river, bandying his large manhood about in the altogether? Did they notice the fact that he was naked except for those military gumboots and that he got them wet when he could have easily taken them off to enter the water?

  What impression Omar made on the choristers who saw him, if indeed they saw him, never leaked out. Did the girls in the choir see him and that’s why nobody wanted to say anything? Could that even have been the reason why some of them joined the expedition in the first place? The facts of the matter, facts that would have enabled future generations to talk of the affair from an informed perspective, were never revealed and so speculation filled the void. Rumour spread and the story became folklore.

  The story was embellished with hundreds of details over many years, and with every new detail, Omar’s fame grew. It was said that the brave intervention of the choir had driven Omar out of the county, but very few people actually believed this and nobody got very far looking for proof. So conjecture grew, and every time the subject was raised new elements emerged about who Omar was and what might have happened to him.

  In times preceding the ones this story is concerned with, there had been great turmoil and upheaval in the country where the Christian girl lived. The man who had been its President Supreme, in other words its head of state, cried tears all day and all night because in his third consecutive campaign to be appointed leader, his opponents and friends had acted craftily and even bought votes, resulting in his painful loss of power. So his side and the other side armed themselves to the teeth and set about causing untold misery and disaster. When divine intervention, or the fact that both sides had run out of money and ammunition, brought the conflict to a standstill, the two factions made friends again and departed the provinces, leaving hundreds of dead bodies in their wake. Once the better placed of the two camps took a firm grip on power, the two sides’ wild militias were disbanded. Behind them, a trail of orgies was consigned to painful history. Orgies of blood and orgies of violation, the military uniform the agent between damaged girls and feral boys, children wrenched from sylvan innocence.

  From such circumstances did Omar Salanga emerge. It was claimed that he was one of the young guns used by the aspirants to power and that he’d been part of an infantry that rampaged through villages, slaughtering anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path. Some said he’d been born with madness, others that he’d lost his mind having been ordered to spread terror in the bush. Either way, he couldn’t live with the terrible things he’d done and so he tried to block out the past with banga smoke and cool his aching heart with fresh river water. But why did he not take his boots off? Did he expose his manliness to the elements in order to cool that down too? It was said that he did, and that’s why after floating up and down he submerged himself fully in the river before getting out. Many things were said, until the consensus was that the church choir’s expedition had been a fiasco from start to finish. First and foremost, the parish priest had assumed that a man with a name like Omar was a recalcitrant Muslim who could be cut down with Christian song, when they might have fared better trying to bring him back into the fold. That’s right, he may have been called Omar, but behind th
e ominous name lay a wayward Christian spirit, providence having set him out on the path of the prodigal son. In other words, instead of confronting him, they’d have been better off sprinkling holy water over the man and sanctifying his manhood for the glory of African Christianity.

  But no matter, whether because of the choir’s intervention or lack thereof, Omar decided to leave the village beside the river and put his past behind him. Desperate to rid himself of the memories that plagued him, he crossed border after border, resolving to renounce nation and flag, if ever he had them, and emigrate to Europe.

  But his legend preceded him and so, wherever a significant number of Africans were gathered waiting to reach for the promised land, whether having crossed a desert or not, there would be an Omar Salanga among them, bearing all the man’s virtues and vices on his back. Was it really him or an impostor who’d learned of Omar’s death and decided to fill his boots and propagate the myth? All we can say for sure is that Omar Salanga had been in many places, and now he was on Gurugu. Furthermore, he was not alone, rather he’d joined forces with a certain Aliko Dangote. The two of them were responsible for the unrest on the mountain. So who was Aliko Dangote?

  ‌

  ‌IV

  ‘Hi Peter. We have an acoté pending and the tournament’s been suspended, so maybe now would be a good time to discuss what you said: “until we show them any different, what’s written in books will be what’s read out on the radio, day and night”. Wouldn’t you say that’s a very sweeping statement to make?’

  ‘Would you say it was sweeping, brother?’

  ‘I’d say your statement draws a line between us and them. We’re ignorant, they’re clever, is that the way you see it?’

  ‘That depends. Who do you mean by “they”?’ asked Peter.

  ‘The whites, no? You seemed to have very clear ideas, so clear you knew what would be read out on the radio each day.’

  ‘Yes, I remember, and yes, I was referring to the whites. Before we carry on, can I ask you where you are from, brother?’

  ‘You can ask, friend, but you probably half know the answer.’

  ‘And what about the other half?’

  ‘You probably know that half too, because this close to the finishing line, we’re none of us from anywhere. You know that, right?’

  ‘Yes, I know that, brother, but I also know that no matter where we end up, our heart will forever contain a small piece of our homeland. I would say you are from the Zambezi basin, am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know what makes you say that, maybe you’re confusing me with someone else who spoke of that place. But OK, let’s say I am. Whatever difference that makes.’

  ‘You said I draw a line between us and them. But there will never be whites here, brother, not on this mountain,’ said Peter.

  ‘And do you think that’s due to them being more intelligent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then do you think it’s because they killed more?’

  ‘Saying they killed more only confuses the issue, brother. I do not think killing people has much to do with intelligence.’

  ‘Then what’s your basis for saying we must try harder, I don’t remember your exact words, but try harder to change what whites say about us on the radio?’

  ‘Can it really be said that whites have killed more?’ Peter asked. ‘Does the reality of what we are trying to understand here really come down to such a dramatic equation?’

  ‘There are fundamental truths we don’t know, and if we knew them, we wouldn’t be where we are today. But the fact of the matter is that whites have killed and killed a lot.’

  ‘As have blacks,’ said Peter. ‘But if we are to talk about killing, and please do not take offence, brother, I would say whites know why they kill, but blacks often do not.’

  ‘I’m not sure I accept that,’ said the man who’d agreed to be from the Zambezi region. ‘Try and convince me.’

  ‘I cannot convince you, brother, I can merely present you with the facts that here we are, some five hundred men and women, waiting to break into what we might call a house, and we do not know if we will be welcome in that house. And the house belongs to the whites.’

  ‘Nothing convincing causes offence, so you haven’t offended me, friend. But you have missed a key point.’

  ‘And what point might that be?’ asked Peter, playing the student.

  ‘Africans, or rather blacks, maybe don’t wish to benefit from death.’

  ‘Well, they should do. I am sorry to be crude, but that is the truth of it, for it shows superior wisdom.’

  ‘What you call wisdom might just as easily be called opportunism. I say this because a black man acknowledging white superiority is no small thing.’

  ‘And it is no small thing that hundreds of black men are gathered here, brother, as are thousands of others elsewhere, trying to break into the white man’s house.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it in those terms,’ said the man from Zambezi.

  ‘Well, how would you put it then? Enlighten me.’

  ‘It should really be you enlightening me, but fine, I’ll take up the mantle. I mentioned opportunism, and in doing so I think I hit the nail on the head, but I’ll also say this: the black man is pleased with himself.’

  ‘Pleased with himself? You mean the way that I, Peter, am pleased to be black?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said the Zambezi man. ‘Being happy with your lot means watching things happen without understanding how they impact on your life. That’s how we blacks are. We have our jungle, our elephants, our lions, our sitatungas, our snakes, we have thousands of species of vegetable and two enormous rivers, or three, according to my schoolbooks, but we’re fresh out of cows, horses and grass, and nobody mentions this, that’s what rankles with me. We go on like this, until we experience poverty and then we abandon our villages, we find ourselves here, and if the gods smile kindly upon us, we get over to the other side. Then much later we realise life wasn’t so bad with the jungle, the elephants and the rhinos, but this we only learn there, once we’re very far away and it’s practically impossible to go back.’

  ‘It is a devastating portrait, brother, and I would struggle to come up with a more graphic way of describing the situation.’

  ‘One other thing. Have you heard of African pride?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Peter, eagerly.

  ‘Well, there’s no such thing.’

  ‘What?’ said Peter with some surprise. ‘Are you saying we Africans have nothing to be proud of?’

  ‘No, we have plenty to be proud of,’ said the man from the Zambezi. ‘But can you imagine a native of the Sahara desert standing in Red Square, Moscow, and talking about African pride?’

  ‘Is this a trick question, brother, or just a particularly strange example?’

  ‘Strange example? Okay then, can you imagine a native of the Zambezi basin talking about African pride in Red Square?’

  ‘Are you saying neither man has anything to be proud of? I know you are trying to highlight a paradox, I am just not sure which one.’

  ‘You’re catching on,’ said the man from Zambezi with some satisfaction. ‘What gets called African pride is nothing but a paradox, because we Africans often no longer have poisonous snakes or giraffes or sitatungas, we have no jungle or access to a river … and when I say river, I really mean running water, that there’s no running water in people’s houses or neighbourhoods. So whenever an African opens his mouth and speaks of African pride and progress, he’s left with a bitter taste at the back of his throat, because there’s no pride in having lost everything.’

  ‘I am going to need some time to reflect on what you have just said, brother. I mean, to say there is no such thing as African pride, well, that is a bold and sweeping statement too, would you not say?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said the man from Zambezi. ‘But you tell me what a black man talking to a Russian in Red Square has to be proud of, when he knows there are no great animals left to admire
in his homeland?’

  ‘But what has the Russian got to be proud of?’

  ‘Red Square.’

  ‘After all you have said, brother, I am not sure that it comforts me to know you are black and camped out here with a certain plan in mind. It is unlikely anything could persuade our companions to turn back now, but you and your arguments just might.’

  ‘But turn back why?’

  ‘So that they learn to appreciate poisonous snakes, wild boar, rhinoceros and virgin jungle.’

  ‘But maybe I’m the one who needs persuading.’

  ‘Persuading of what, brother?’ asked Peter, intrigued.

  ‘That instead of African pride, which is nothing, we learn to be proud of our African character.’

  ‘What is African character?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man from the Zambezi. ‘But while we’ve been talking, I’ve realised that we Africans, black Africans, do have something to be proud of.’

  ‘Well, please share this revelation with me, brother, for I am very much in need of it.’

  ‘Africans tend to be proud of being African, and it doesn’t matter where they are, Red Square or somewhere even better. They talk of African pride, even though snakes, sitatunga, lions and rhinos no longer exist, because they’re still present inside them. Africans are born and see the world in all its glorious splendour, they revel in it and drink it in, but they take it for granted, they walk around with their eyes closed, and when they open them again, it’s all gone, but they don’t notice, because that first impression became ingrained in them, so ingrained they can summon it up whenever they like and speak of it with pride in faraway places like Red Square.’

  ‘Goddamn it, brother! That is exactly what happens, of course it is!’ exclaimed Peter. ‘When they closed their eyes to take in the wonder of it all, perhaps while chewing on a piece of cobra, the whites came along and snatched everything away.’