Lament for the Fallen

by Gavin Chait

  One of his guards brings him a jug of palm wine. He waits until the guard has sipped it first before he will touch it.

  Uberti roars again with laughter. Argenti does not disturb him, selecting a table where he can see the dancing. He motions for one of his men to bring him food.

  The dancers, all men, are wearing long black robes. Out of the backs protrude split bamboo shafts, long peacock’s feathers tied to the ends forming a splayed fan-tail. They wear feathers in their hair and black markings on their faces. As they stamp rhythmically from side to side, they make flying motions with their arms.

  Argenti looks for fault, but the long-tail dance is perfect. He drums his fingers on the table in applause.

  His guard returns bearing small bowls of different soups; again he waits while these are tasted. He grabs a chunk of fufu and moulds it fastidiously into a scoop with his right hand, dipping it into a bowl of afang. The rich aroma rises up from the bowl as he swallows the mouthful.

  ‘I see you are enjoying the dancing,’ says Obizzo d’Este, his own guards sizing up those of Argenti.

  Argenti indicates assent but continues eating.

  ‘May I join you?’ asks d’Este.

  Argenti nods again. The other man smiles and waits as one of his guards pulls out a chair and then assists him into it.

  D’Este is the oldest of the local warlords. His hair is grey, neatly trimmed, his fingers long and elegant, the nails manicured. He is wearing a richly printed black and yellow dashiki, the shirt and trousers in the same style. He glances at Uberti. ‘Our host is enjoying himself.’

  Argenti rinses his hands in a bowl of warm water held by one of his men. He dries his hands carefully on a towel, checking his nails are clean.

  ‘He should be. He must have made quite a bit from that bauxite, even after paying for your helicopter,’ he says.

  D’Este chuckles. ‘Perhaps I should have charged him more. They are impossible to replace these days.’

  ‘They are piles of junk. Two of them are grounded with no one to repair them, and the last two will crash soon. It is a miracle that he even got that rock back here.’

  ‘His Juju is powerful,’ says d’Este, smiling.

  ‘I won’t hire them,’ says Argenti. ‘Anyway, he might not be laughing so much when he hears the news from the market.’

  D’Este swivels carefully in his seat. ‘What news is that, my dear Filippo?’

  ‘You hadn’t heard? I thought your spies were everywhere?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ The older man laces his fingers together and holds them towards his chest, his elbows on the table.

  Argenti shrugs. ‘Some peasants appear to have found some scrap aluminium. They brought it to Henshaw Market and sold it to the digesters there. Uberti wanted his comey and sent a few of his men after them.’

  ‘Perfectly reasonable,’ says d’Este. ‘It’s his market.’

  ‘Yes. The peasants had different ideas. Killed them all. Took Dido’s head clean off.’

  D’Este whistles softly through his teeth. ‘Dido was the one with the scar?’ Argenti inclines his head. ‘A good man.’ He looks again at Uberti. ‘You think he doesn’t know yet?’

  ‘I do not believe so.’

  D’Este chuckles. ‘This should be very entertaining. And embarrassing for Uberti.

  ‘Do you know where they are now?’ he asks.

  Argenti dabs at the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief. ‘I believe they are with the fabricators, but I am not sure.’

  ‘A good place to hide,’ says d’Este, ‘but they will not protect them for ever.’

  A nervous-looking figure weaves his way through the guests towards Uberti and whispers to him.

  ‘I believe he may be getting the news now,’ says Argenti.

  ‘You made sure he would receive it here, didn’t you?’ asks d’Este, and chuckles as Argenti makes no move to answer.

  Uberti howls and leaps to his feet. ‘Where is Ciacco?!’ he roars. ‘Ciacco! You maggot!’ Flinging bowls and food and slapping at the guards around him.

  Rinier Pazzo drags a beaten, dishevelled figure around the far end of the house.

  ‘We found him hiding down by the taxi ranks, my Awbong,’ he says, throwing Ciacco to the ground.

  The man cowers, bringing his broken fingers up to his face, trying to avoid the wrath to come. ‘I was going to tell you, my Awbong,’ he whimpers.

  Uberti kicks him, walking after him and kicking him again, across the lawn. The dancers have stopped. The music is silent. The guests are watchful, like scavengers.

  Argenti and d’Este are sharing an amused glance.

  ‘How were you going to tell me?’ asks Uberti. ‘Send me a letter from Lagos? You coward.’ And kicks him again.

  ‘We will find these shits, and we will kill them. Your blood will be our medicine.’

  ‘Please, my Awbong,’ begs Ciacco.

  ‘I am not your Awbong. You are dead to me,’ kicking him, ribs splintering. ‘Bring me my machet. I will take his head myself.’

  ‘I beg Egbo,’ pleads Ciacco.

  ‘What?’ shouts Uberti.

  Argenti clears his throat. Uberti whirls on him, his eyes wide, his lips drawn back, his teeth clenched.

  ‘He may call Egbo if he wishes,’ says Argenti, unblinking behind his dark glasses. ‘There are more than sufficient of the Awbong present for a palaver. I suggest trial by ordeal.’

  D’Este nods his amused assent.

  Uberti snorts, mucus slotting from his nose, spittle around his lips. ‘Very well,’ his jaw clenched. ‘Bring the esere.’

  There is silence as a guard races into the house, except for the rasping breathing of Ciacco and his exhausted whimpers.

  The Calabar bean is deep chocolate-brown. It looks like something you would willingly eat. It contains physostigmine, a fast-acting alkaloid similar to nerve gas. A single bean ground into a paste, mixed with a glass of water and swallowed – it is believed that only the guilty will die. The exact concentration of the alkaloid is random, so there is a chance – however slim – of surviving. Better than the certainty of a beheading.

  The guard returns. He holds a glass of an innocuous-looking cloudy liquid, but he holds it very carefully.

  ‘Give it to him,’ says Uberti.

  Ciacco’s hands are bound, his fingers broken. He is helped to a sitting position and the glass forced into his hands.

  ‘I did not betray you, my Awbong,’ he says. He drinks the lot in a single gulping swallow.

  Uberti’s guests hold their breaths. Argenti and d’Este are leaning slightly forwards in their chairs.

  Ciacco sits calmly.

  He begins to drool. Foam and mucous and a river of dribble pours from his nose and mouth, drenching his shirt. His back spasms, arching, his legs and arms jerk wildly, inhibited only by the ropes holding them in place. His bowels and bladder release and the stench of ordure drifts through the party.

  Then he stops. He is dead.

  ‘Liar!’ shouts Uberti.

  ‘Liar!’ roar back his men.

  ‘We go to war!’ he howls, as his men shout and wave their rifles in the air.

  The guests begin to flee. Argenti and d’Este are still seated peacefully at their table, their guards around them.

  ‘Thank you for the entertainment,’ says d’Este. He chuckles quietly. ‘Would you like to take a wager as to whether those peasants escape?’

  33

  ‘I do not do this out of charity. I do not rescue people from those carrion. I do this because you are a customer and our business is not yet concluded. If you die, then I am not paid. And your friend’s signature is very complicated.’

  Daniel looks smug – you see?

  Joshua, Samara and Daniel are seated on a deep, plush sofa in Ghanim’s study. The room is large and claustrophobic but for the long glass wall looking into an elegantly tended courtyard.

  Deep, intricately woven carpets smother the floor. The sofas and furniture are c
hunky. Bronze plaques fight for space with wooden masks and clay ornaments. Cast metal leopards and standing figures carrying swords line the walls. An enormous carved wooden door serves as a coffee table.

  Outside, the gardens are spacious and beautifully laid out with ponds complete with decorative fish, beds filled with flowering plants and an improbable gazebo. Children play on swings in a small playground.

  ‘And your other friend can kill a man with a single blow to the throat.’ Ghanim stares carefully at Samara. ‘You are not from here?’

  ‘No,’ says Samara.

  ‘Where are your people?’

  ‘They are in the orbital city of Achenia. You are helping me to return to them.’

  Ghanim nods, as if such events are an ordinary course of doing business. ‘You will be safe here in our compound. Faysal will see to your needs. When the battery is charged, we will conclude our business and we will see you back to your boats. It is best that you remain here until then. After that, you will be on your own.’

  Faysal, standing quietly behind his brother, looks up at a knock on the door. He holds it open as a young woman enters bearing a tray. Her hair is a single obsidian bolt down to her mid back, and she is wearing a delicate green and blue sari with a fine pink scarf over her shoulders. She places the tray carefully on the low coffee table, bending her knees chastely. The rich aroma of coffee and samosas fills the room. Daniel’s stomach murmurs.

  She smiles shyly at Faysal. His features soften, as a proud father to his favourite daughter. She slips out quietly.

  ‘You are building an independent city,’ says Ghanim. A statement, not a question.

  Joshua does not blink.

  ‘We have collated all Ewuru’s purchases. There has been nothing of importance in twenty years since you bought a set of turbines. Few of you visit Calabar, and your trade is negligible. If not for your guest, you would not be here now.’

  Ghanim puts his hands flat on the table and then stands, coming round to their side. He picks up a printed sculpture from a carved cabinet. He holds it delicately.

  Sinking into the sofa opposite Joshua, he gently places it on the coffee table between them.

  ‘She was our sister, Farida. Look, please.’

  Ghanim rubs at one eye and turns away.

  Joshua glances at the others. He picks up the sculpture by the base. It is a ceramic print, and he is surprised by the weight. The girl is beautiful, captured in a moment of delight.

  ‘She is no longer with us,’ says Faysal, quietly. ‘That was taken at her last birthday. She was Asha’s age.’

  Recognition. Joshua looks briefly at the door. Daniel takes the sculpture and his mouth opens. ‘She looks exactly like—’

  ‘My daughter,’ says Faysal. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Asha has never been outside this compound,’ says Ghanim. ‘Not once in seventeen years. We cannot take the risk with any of our women or children.

  ‘So, my dear Joshua Ossai, if you have made a city worthy of the name, but without the stench of fear, then we are very interested.’

  Joshua sighs, looking across to Daniel, who shrugs.

  ‘We are building a city.’

  Samara’s tale

  Lost-wax and the Sea

  We built our home on the rocky shore during the short waking hours of the lowest of neap tides.

  Earlier, before the sun rose, we stood on the cliffs looking down at the coast, at the distant white line of the sea like an outline on a child’s drawing.

  ‘We will make our stand there,’ she said. ‘The sea will bend to my will.’

  I fixed a block and tackle to the highest point on the cliff and chained it to an anchor where we had laid our foundations. We loaded rocks on to a pallet at the top and winched it down over the beach until it came to rest on the shore.

  Back and forth. Unloading on the beach. Loading on the cliffs.

  The sun rose: orange and purple against the bruise of the sea. Our materials piled up on the rocks, along with furniture and goods.

  I followed my wife down the staircase we had cut in the slopes and walked between the palisade walls we had set as a tunnel from house to shore.

  I set my mind to construction, and our materials did their labour. We moved in by early afternoon.

  It was a basic fisherman’s cottage with stone walls and large glassed windows. The two sides pointing straight at the sea, their windows wide and the breeze tousling the lace curtains, daring the waters to wash us all away.

  We had time to spare, and I felt uncomfortable with nothing to do, pacing along the back wall of our living room.

  A young girl came barefoot up the beach, her shoulder-length hair blonde and rustling. Playing a game of hopscotch across the stones. Soft cotton dress and a gap for front teeth. Her eyes like shimmering pools, and the ocean clear and blue.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, stepping into the house unbidden.

  ‘We are here to tame the sea,’ said my wife.

  The little girl laughed. My wife frowned at her and continued filling a vase with white lilies cut from the meadow above the shore. Their stems were very green and the tablecloth very yellow. Fresh water in a bucket on the table.

  Outside, the sky was an iridescent blue, a few smeared wispy clouds high above. Gulls shrieked over the pools, and the distant sea rolled and washed on to the rocky shore.

  The little girl wandered through our living room, looking at the small number of furnishings we had set about inside. She was delighted by my felt hat, which I had left on the settee, putting it on where it fell down and over her eyes. Eventually, she settled down on the edge of the living room floor, between the sliding doors, swinging her legs out and above the stones of the beach.

  As she watched, the sea began to rise.

  My wife tensed, her back to the girl, intent on her flowers. I, hovering between them, felt at a loss as to what my role should be. I settled for continuing pacing back and forth against the far wall. I could smell the distance of the ocean, a nostalgic tang of all the places it had been.

  A gull landed next to the girl. Black eyes and blunt yellow beak stark against its smooth white feathers. Its great webbed feet clutched at the door frame. Close to her, its head almost at the same level as hers.

  She laughed again and stroked its head.

  ‘Hello, fishy, have you come to watch, too?’ she cooed.

  The bird looked at her, tilted its head to look up at my wife, then gave a single cry before it crouched and flung itself back into the air.

  The girl smiled as she watched it go, following it as it rose up and drifted out over the waves. Others joined it, flying in swooping drifts parallel to the coast.

  ‘It’s getting closer,’ said the girl. ‘You shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said my wife. She was setting the table now. Placemats, glasses and steel cutlery being placed just so.

  The girl began to sing. Her voice sweet and melodic. A sound like the changing of the tide, of change and renewal, of the relentless wild places.

  Slowly, inevitably, the sea advanced. Ripples in the depths turning to white and churning waves as it struck the rocky shallows. Washing up and over the pools, submerging and revealing, before hiding them completely.

  The girl stands and turns towards my wife. She is a teenager, her soft cotton dress flowing down to her ankles. Her eyes are storm-tossed green.

  The wind has risen, and our curtains are being flung back and forth against the wall. Our windows rattle.

  ‘Please don’t stay,’ says the young woman. ‘Please, the sea has no quarrel with you.’

  My wife says nothing. Her face sunken in, her eyes blackened and her skin pulled back into her skull. Her concentration is focused on a point somewhere deep inside.

  The woman walks over to me, her pace anxious and tense. She pulls at my arm, forcing me to look at her. Her eyes are grey, foamed with flecks of white.

  Water is starting to wash against the
door frames, held back from entering by my wife’s will.

  ‘Please,’ begs the woman. ‘Make her listen. She mustn’t do this.’

  I look at my wife and shake my head. The cast is made. The investment is poured. The water is rising. All that is left is for the sea to take the form. Whether it wants to or not is not up to it.

  Water is piling up around the outside of the cottage. It swirls, grey and cold and heavy against the windows and walls. A thundering maelstrom churns calf-deep through the living room. Our furniture remains unmoved, untouched. The water flows from the kitchen and out through the living room doors.

  The woman is now middle-aged. Her hair is damp against her head and neck, and her eyes are dark.

  Still my wife ignores her, remaining standing, leaning forward, her hands flat on the table.

  The woman, her hands twisting in against her belly, shakes her head and moans. Pain and distress as her face changes.

  My wife is unmoved, focused only on holding the forms in place.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ shouts the old woman. Her face wrinkled and soft, her eyes fading to blindness.

  My wife turns at last, staring into those eyes so full of fear and confusion.

  ‘Please,’ begs the old woman, her body failing. ‘Please don’t cage me so. All I ask is my freedom.’

  34

  ‘I do not understand,’ says Joshua.

  ‘I think I do,’ says Ghanim. He cradles his coffee mug in his hands. ‘Your father was a griot?’ he asks of Samara.

  ‘No, not as they are. Many of them studied with him, and they model their stories after his.’

  Ghanim nods, setting his mug upon the table. ‘Joshua, your great-grandfather must have realized this before setting out for Ewuru.’

  ‘What is the lesson?’ asks Daniel.

  Ghanim stands and walks over to his desk. He picks up a small bronze cast of an ox, holding it, feeling the coolness of the metal.

  ‘You should not force a people. Not through strength of will or threat of arms. The form must be freely taken, or not at all.’