by Gavin Chait
There are many men gathered around the fire. They sit on the packed earth in a semicircle upwind of the flames, focused half between it and the Griot. The breeze is consistent from the south-west, and they have left a small space for the smoke to drift out and into the bracket of palm oil trees surrounding them.
Peter holds out his mug to the man carrying the kettle. He fills it with steaming tea so overly extracted that the tannins have become astringent. Tea which strips the outer layer of a teaspoon even as it recoats it with a dark-bronze patina.
Peter offers the mug to the Griot, who accepts with a grin.
Every year, after harvest, the remaining villages of the southern delta gather their surplus grain, and traders paddle along the network of rivers towards Calabar. There they trade for the printed goods they cannot produce at home. Samuel’s people have always planted and harvested early to beat the other villages to the city and so take advantage of higher prices. They are not a wealthy people, being too small and distant, but they prefer the safety of their isolation to the dangers of the more populated parts of the region.
Their boats are drawn up on the banks just outside the reach of the firelight. The barges, burdened with maize, soya and sorghum, are anchored midstream. It is slow work dragging them to the city.
Insect traps glow on tree trunks, reducing the irritation of mosquitoes. Cooking pots hang, cleaned, over the informal kitchen. Hunger is at bay till morning, and the men pass the evening around the fire as travellers have done for thousands of years.
Unusually, no men guard the riverbanks or the barges from animals or looters. The Griot is here.
This is Peter’s first trip with the men to trade, and he is excited at the newness of the experience, soaking up the laughter and fellowship. He looks up at his father as the man clamps his hand over the youth’s shoulder.
‘I am pleased you are here, Griot.’ He smiles, nostalgia in his voice. ‘I remember when I was this boy’s age. My father taking me on my first journey to Calabar, and you, telling me stories. I cannot say I always understand you, but I always enjoy the way you make me feel.’
He is momentarily silent, feeling the ache in his joints, the stiffness of his fingers. ‘This will be my last journey to the city, and my sons will continue after me.’
‘You are not so old, Samuel.’
‘It has been fifty years, Griot. Fifty years. You may not age, but, for myself, that is my lifetime. Imagine. I have five sons and three daughters. They have granted me eight grandsons and eleven granddaughters. Each year we follow the harvest, you meet us along the way, we reach the city, we trade, we return. Each year continues as before. And now I hand over this cycle to my sons.’ He nods. ‘But you, Griot, you still tell stories of change and there is still nothing new in the world,’ laughing.
Peter remains silent, a clutch of anxiety. Those setting out in the world for the first time have no wish to learn that there is nothing left to be discovered. It is given to youth to wonder at what can be different and age to marvel at how much remains the same.
The Griot, his teeth a white disembodied smile in the darkness, considers carefully.
‘I journey far, Samuel. Would you wish to hear stories of the north, of the struggle there and of the devastation left behind?’
Samuel grimaces.
‘No, and I would not tell you. My ways are not to carry burdens from one place only to deposit them in another. There is much suffering, but there is hope also.
‘It was not always that you feared the unknown. There was a time you used to travel with your sisters to Calabar,’ says the Griot. ‘None of your daughters have ever visited the city.’
‘And they never will. The only changes I have seen have not been good ones,’ says Samuel.
The Griot smiles gently. ‘I do not mean you discomfort. You understand, though, my experience is different? The water carving through rock has little to show even for half a century, yet few would say that rivers remain forever unchanged.’
Samuel shivers, wondering again at the nature of the Griot.
A man adds wood to the fire, poking at logs to hone the flames. A stump cracks, splattering a cascade of sparks into the air.
The evening of songs and tales is ending. Tomorrow will be another long day of rowing, and many of the men are preparing to sleep. Others have broken into twos and threes and are continuing to talk.
‘A group of refugees I met two days ago told me of a strange object falling from the sky?’
One of the men towards the back of the gathering grunts, ‘I saw that too.’
Samuel sighs. ‘A few days ago. Space debris falling towards those unfortunates living along the Akwayafe.’
‘Hah, the free villages are wealthy. They can defend themselves,’ says another.
Samuel shakes his head, smiling at his son. ‘I would never wish the attention of the militia on anyone. But, yes, we saw it. What is your interest? You have decided to become a scrap-metal dealer?’ he teases.
‘It is something different, Samuel. Perhaps it will yield a new story?’
Samuel shakes his head, ‘If the space debris is valuable enough, the militia will fight over it, and many of the people of the Akwayafe will be killed. There are more than enough of those stories without you seeking new ones. And, if it is not valuable, there will be no story.’
The Griot smiles again, setting his emptying mug on the ground, and stabs a finger carefully into the soil at his feet. He blows and a cone of soil empties. He reaches to the bottom, finding there a small brown grain. He holds it to the light, resting it on his cupped palm.
‘What do I have in my hand, my son?’ asks the Griot, speaking to Peter.
‘It is a seed, my father,’ he says.
‘Yes, it is. And what sort of seed is it?’
‘I do not know, my father. We would have to wait for it to grow.’
‘Even when it begins to grow, we could not know how strong, how high or how much of its own seed it would produce. We cannot know who will benefit from its shade or its fruit. We could not know if it will be trampled even before it survives its first season. We would have to wait and watch. Every seed gives us something new,’ the Griot’s eyes shining in the firelight.
‘Even though every seed looks just like any other? Like a story, my father,’ and the boy feels the excitement of his discovery.
The Griot smiles and presses the seed into the boy’s hands. He cradles it, stares at it, wraps it carefully and stores it in the pouch at his waist.
The Griot sits back, his strange yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. He reaches behind himself and, pulling his kora towards him, begins to pluck at the strings.
His music rises up into the clarity of the night sky, lifting with the smoke, sprays of sparks and tears of flame.
3
Men with guns turn up in the village two weeks later. Tardy, thinks Joshua, as he walks out from the west gate to meet them.
He makes a show of handing his hunting rifle to Daniel, who waits at the village entrance. Joshua is a big man, tall, straight back, imposing. He is dressed formally in a white shirt and an ukara, a light tie-dyed sheet featuring interlocking blue and white triangles and nsibidi symbols coloured in black, knotted around his waist.
The outfit is old-fashioned and impractical, but nsibidi still carries connotations of superstition and fear. Something else to keep the militia from staying too long.
He plants his feet firmly in the path.
There are fifteen men in the squad, each dressed in loose-fitting, dirty, green-camouflage overalls. Five of them are no more than boys and look clumsy and awkward in the heavy fabric. They each carry cellulosic AK-47 hybrids, the grips split and broken almost to nothing from the low-quality printing. Only one has shoes: ill-fitting and cracked boots that must be unpleasant to walk in. Only he carries his rifle in his hands. The rest wear them slung over their backs, across the small satchels that must carry their provisions, tied with rope and old straps.
/> The radio operator’s rucksack, with its aerial sticking up at a jaunty angle, looks like it might once have been military issue; the other bags appear to be from local markets.
Village scouts have been tracking these men for most of the day from when they first entered the southern hunting range claimed by Ewuru. They are lightly armed and the battery in the radio is dead, so the soldiers are out of contact this far from Calabar.
A patrol who do not expect to be resisted.
‘Welcome to Ewuru, my brothers,’ Joshua says when he judges them sufficiently close. Behind him he can sense scouts closing across the entrance to the village. There is an artillery emplacement set back from the wall, protected by rock and trees, covering the path. Others will be observing from the jungle further back and behind the soldiers.
‘I’m Rinier Pazzo, captain of these men,’ says the man in boots. He is short, wiry, and his eyes around black irises are yellow and bloodshot. If he notices the hostility of the villagers he regards it as ordinary.
Soldiers do not visit to protect. If one is lucky, they will only be passing through.
‘Captain Pazzo, is there something we may assist you with?’
Pazzo appears to see the village for the first time. He motions to his radio operator. The others take this as a signal to break rank, and they straggle over to the canal above the cassava field, just off the path. They scoop water on to their faces and drink.
Joshua is grateful that the water the soldiers have chosen to potentially infect with typhoid is not part of the village drinking supply.
The radio operator pulls out a map, faded, muddy, torn at the folds, and opens it out. Remarkably, the organic ink still works. Pazzo points at a line marked in red going up the Akwayafe River and drags the view until Ewuru is in the centre. ‘We’ve been following this trail for the last few days. We’re looking for something which fell out of the sky near here, perhaps two weeks ago.’
‘Yes, we saw it. We thought it might be debris falling from orbit. It took us a few days to find.’ Joshua pauses and shrugs his shoulders. ‘We are not sure if what we found is it, but beyond that point is further than we are comfortable travelling.’
Pazzo smirks. ‘You villagers are too nervous. Too scared.’ He laughs, revealing the remnants of a few surviving blackened and yellow teeth. The boys by the water canal immediately laugh too, the sound jarring and forced like the hacking of feral dogs. Joshua simply bows his head.
‘You’re right. It may not be it, but show it to us anyway,’ says Pazzo. ‘Now.’
‘Certainly.’ Joshua turns away from the soldiers for the first time. His eyes find Esther, Isaiah holding her hand. He smiles at them, loving them. ‘Daniel,’ he calls, ‘bring me my rifle and a few men to help us clear a path.’
Pazzo nods at the others, who hastily assemble. ‘How long will it take us to get there?’
‘Perhaps two and a half hours. It is in a gully at the edge of our normal hunting range.’
Daniel approaches slowly, keeping the rifle clearly visible and in front of him. No need to antagonize the soldiers.
‘We will stay the night in your village. Have food ready for us when we return,’ says Pazzo. There is a hint of menace in the statement.
Joshua could refuse, but this demand has been expected and prepared for. Out of contact and heavily outnumbered, the squad is no threat to the village. If they were to go missing, especially after following a clear path up the river, a more heavily armed band could be sent to find them, and they would not be as easy to distract. Best to show them something interesting, but not too interesting, feed them and see them on their way.
‘Of course,’ says Joshua. ‘Shall we go?’
Pazzo glares at him and then at the men blocking the entrance to Ewuru. He snorts, blowing a jet of mucus on to the path, conveying how much he despises these villages, these people. In any other place, soldiers would take what they wish, but the free villages’ capacity for self-defence makes such behaviour unwise.
He gestures for Joshua to take the lead. Five men accompany the soldiers: sufficient to be difficult, not so many as to make the men with guns feel threatened. Daniel brings up the rear as they walk around the outer village wall, past the maize field and into the jungle.
This is all show. Scouts are concealed in the trees along the route. The soldiers will not be permitted to cause any opportunistic trouble.
The soldiers are not that fit, and the men of Ewuru deliberately slow, pretending to struggle to keep pace. Joshua leads them by a longer, slightly circuitous route, adding to any difficulty Pazzo may have in finding the exact place again. He notes that they have no automated navigation and only rudimentary map-reading skills. He shakes his head. Their ruse is almost wasted on these men.
‘What is it?’ asks Pazzo.
‘I am sorry we are not as strong as you,’ says Joshua carefully.
Pazzo smirks.
‘We are getting close now,’ says Daniel, hacking at a thin branch that has fallen across the route they have selected. Pazzo motions at his radio operator, who is holding their map. They look up at the sun through the branches and then at a cheap plastic watch that Pazzo pulls out of a grubby pocket. Dead-reckoning is not accurate beneath the trees, but they can see they have travelled roughly north-east, the route that witnesses told them to follow.
‘That is clever, knowing our direction like that,’ says Joshua, hoping that he is not going too far, but Pazzo expects flattery. He treats him to another black-toothed smirk.
‘Just over this next hill.’
On the night of the fall, two weeks ago, and immediately after securing the crash site, Daniel began searching the jungle for a sizeable rock they could use. It needed to be a single piece, irregularly shaped and sufficiently hard to at least appear as if it could have fallen from space.
Late that same night, in the sweltering blackness beneath the tree canopy, they found something suitable. The boulder was completely overgrown and partly buried in the ground. A group of scouts worked till morning, destabilizing and cutting trees, clearing and scraping earth to make it look as if a meteorite had fallen. As first light was creeping through the tree canopy, they carefully removed all traces of their presence. The jungle was left to reclaim the space, and each day of new growth would date the damage.
‘Interesting.’ Pazzo squats at the beginning of the path carved in smashed trees. The soldiers fan out down the trench.
One of the young militia pulls up a plant and holds it to his face, then plucks and chews on one of the leaves. ‘Captain, these plants are only growing a week or two. This is a fresh clearing.’ He grins, his few teeth splayed out and manually sharpened. It is a mystery as to how he eats without injuring himself.
‘Where’s the debris?’
Daniel unglues himself from the spectacle of those teeth and says, ‘It is about fifty metres along, below where the earth has been pushed up into that lip,’ leading the way.
They walk towards the rock. It is pitted, the fissures filled with green, slimy water and the surface caked in mud. It is not overly large, a big boulder, maybe four metres wide where it sticks out of the ground.
Pazzo kicks it, then knocks it with his rifle. ‘Have you tried moving it?’
Joshua is seeing it for the first time, impressed at the work Daniel and his team performed on such short notice.
‘It weighs several tons. We are not moving it,’ he says.
‘What’s it made of? Don’t you think it could be valuable?’
‘Not that we are able to see.’ Joshua nods towards Daniel, who hands him a curved machet. ‘I will show you,’ and strikes down with the back of its long blade.
There is a ringing chime and a flat groove is left in the rock. A chip flies on to the ground. It is a muted grey-brown. Pazzo scowls at it, picking it up. ‘Can’t you tell if there are minerals in the rock?’
‘No, we do not have such technology, and we would be unable to process it even if we did. You and your
men are welcome to take it if you wish.’
Pazzo appears to consider this, but he knows it is too heavy for his small band. Besides, his men would probably refuse even if it were possible. Best to leave it to the jungle. He puts the chip in his pocket so he has some evidence of what he has seen.
Unfolding his map again he studies it intensely, as if it will somehow show him where he is. There are maps with built-in positioning; this is not one of them.
‘Where are we?’ he asks eventually.
Joshua looks at the map, estimates and marks a spot. It is much further east than their real location, adding to any future navigation difficulties. Pazzo saves it.
‘We had reports of something that might have fallen somewhere near here. Our Awbong thought it might be valuable and we could sell it to the printers. It looks like we weren’t lucky this time.’
He looks around the clearing again and sighs. ‘Let’s go back to the village. My men will be tired and hungry.’
The soldiers are bored and subdued on the walk back and pay little attention to the route. They have spent two weeks searching, and the meteorite is an anticlimax. They will have nothing to show when they get back to Calabar, and Pazzo will have an angry Awbong to placate.
4
‘Anwụnta! Get out of our village!’ hurling a stone that catches the small boy a glancing blow on his arm.
He stands still, his head bowed, trying not to cry, too scared to run.
Other children are gathering, their taunts like the pecking of angry crows.
‘Umu, no, this is not right,’ says a voice. An old woman, scrawny and walking-stick bent, steps serenely between the boy and the others. She is scarcely taller than they.
‘We do not want you here,’ says the largest of the surrounding children. He is panting, sweating. They have chased their quarry, surrounding him, jeering him. Now he shakes with adrenalin and rage.