The Echo Chamber

by Luke Williams

  Dear Evie,

  I am very happy to be corresponding with you and I pray this letter finds you well. My mother is content that you asked about her health, and she is surprised to hear that you are not married at all. Do you know, Evie, I myself was surprised that you do not remember many of the things I wrote to you about in my last letter. I am especially surprised that you forgot Babatundi, he was your favourite. Your little b! I will tell you about him in another letter.

  For now since you asked I will tell you what happened when I joined the army. They were terrible things, so terrible I think they will give you bad dreams. I am talking about what I witnessed in October 1966, when I was twenty-four years old, not long before the war in Biafra began. Some of the people who took part are still alive and living as free men of Nigeria, so please do not repeat this letter to anyone. Promise me that, Evie! Myself, I have told only one other person. My wife, Sue. When my nightmares arrive it is Sue who wakes me up. Then we go to the kitchen and drink some whisky. But sometimes my nightmares arrive too often during the night, and she says to me, ‘Try to stay calm, and do not shout too loudly, because our son will know that you have trouble.’ ‘Yes, Sue,’ I tell her, ‘I will try to stay calm.’ I will try to stay calm in this letter as well, even though I must recall a troop of ravenous wild men.

  It began when the Ibos arrived at Kano airport. There were many of them, men with their wives and children, and their luggage too, all standing on the runway in a group. They wanted to escape from Kano, but they had no luck, because we in the 5th Battalion had been ordered to surround the plane. Twice that morning they had tried to board, and twice we had made them go back.

  Evie, what happened next I saw with my bare eyes. Suddenly a Land Rover drove on to the runway. It was carrying soldiers, and they were shooting their rifles in the air, shouting, ‘Ina nyammari.’ When the Ibos heard this, they began to run, and the soldiers jumped out and started shooting. Ka-Ka-Ka. The Ibos were running helter-skelter all over the runway and getting shot down before they could escape. When the other soldiers saw that their brothers from the Land Rover were shooting, they started shooting too, in the direction of the Ibos, flinging their rifles up and down.

  Myself, I just stood there on the spot. What grievance did I have against the Ibos? I was very surprised because even though I knew there would be trouble, no one had told me that killing was going to happen at Kano airport. A battalion leader called Mai Karfi, a Hausa, came to me and shouted. He said that since I was a Southerner and a Yoruba if I did not want to shoot I must go to the airport office and cut the telephone wire. I did this and returned to the runway. Now there were no more Ibos running. Some had bullets in their stomach, some were gasping, some were screaming, and blood was rushing everywhere, from their nose and legs and arms, everywhere. What I saw was a massacre, and if you see me trembling you will know what a massacre is.

  Mai Karfi ordered the soldiers to stand at ease. Mai Karfi means The Most Powerful Man. His Lieutenant was Mai Yanka. Mai Yanka means Great Killer of Human Beings. Mai Karfi was thirty-three and he had helped to torture General Ironsi in the July coup. He had been promoted after that. Mai Yanka was twenty-two. He was very ugly. He was thin and looked like a starving cat. His favourite film was Gone with the Wind and he had seen it seven times. Evie, do you know who this Mai Yanka was? He was Sagoe. You must remember Sagoe! Babatundi’s brother! But we did not call him Sagoe anymore. In fact he is a completely different person to the person you and I were afraid of when we were children in Lagos. And some of the things I saw Mai Yanka do, before the time in the airport that I am telling you about now, as well as what he did at the airport, as you will soon see, and also what he did to other humans later during the war, well, Evie, all this means that I cannot think of Mai Yanka as Sagoe, and I cannot think of Sagoe the child we both knew as Mai Yanka, and I will advise you to do the same.

  Mai Karfi reloaded his rifle and approached the plane. During the commotion some of the Ibos had run up the steps to enter the plane, a VC10, and they had kicked the steps down. There was screaming coming from inside, and I saw faces looking out from the windows of the plane as well. Me, I was very aware of the bodies lying all over the runway, some of which were moving and groaning. But Mai Karfi did not seem aware at all. He ordered us to attach the steps back to the plane. But we couldn’t lift them up straight. Mai Karfi told us to stand at ease. He cursed the Ibos and lit a cigarette, one for himself, and he gave one to Mai Yanka too.

  Mai Yanka had this clever way of starting his cigarettes, of putting them into his mouth. I had admired it plenty of times. What he did was this, first he lit the cigarette, but not in the usual way of sucking with his mouth. He held the cigarette in his hand and put the flame to the tip until it was alight, then he flipped the cigarette up into the air. It jumped up from his finger, tumbled around, then he jerked his head forward. He caught the cigarette between his teeth. It happened very quickly. After that Mai Yanka always looked proud and he smoked his cigarette in silence until it was completely smoked.

  But there was one time when he made a mistake. It happened in the yard at Kano barracks. All the soldiers saw it, and what we saw amazed us. What happened was that Mai Yanka lit his cigarette as usual in his hands. He flicked it up, but just then a breeze came, and that cigarette tumbled too far, so what Mai Yanka caught between his teeth was not the filter end but the fire end, which jammed quite far inside his mouth! He shuddered, and a small whimper came from his throat. Maybe the fire was burning his throat. Very slowly he took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it in front of his face. Next he did a strange thing. Evie, he put the cigarette back between his teeth again, the fire end, and closed his mouth around it!

  Only a small part of the filter end was poking out from his mouth. I could not believe my eyes. Mai Yanka looked at all the soldiers with a sly look, as if he were daring us to speak. He shuddered again and a small puff of cloud came out from his mouth. Not one person said a single word. Mai Yanka is a famous man. He has done things to human beings that no human being can ever do to a fellow human. Now plenty of smoke was coming from Mai Yanka’s mouth, and now smoke started to come out of his nose as well, and smoke was pouring from his whole face. Evie, he looked like a kettle boiling on a stove.

  Do you know what Mai Yanka did next? He started to smile. Now you know that this Mai Yanka is a famous man. As he smiled the smoke rose into the air above his head, and it was snatched by the breeze, and suddenly I saw it form into strange shapes before my eyes, snakes and arms and fists and smashed faces and women’s breasts and the Devil’s horns and broken teeth and penises and old men’s beards. I asked myself what would happen if that cigarette wasn’t finished soon. Would Mai Yanka catch fire? Would he melt? Would he ever be the same man after that fire inside his brain? Mai Yanka grinned back at us as if he was enjoying that cigarette more than any other cigarette he had ever smoked in his whole life. When it was finished his face was very dark. He spat the butt on to the drill yard, then pulled his boots and socks off one by one. He took his shirt off as well, and then he started to pace back and forth across the drill yard, very quickly, back and forth and to and fro, swinging his arms. Mai Yanka was cooling off.

  Now it is late at night. Evie, it has taken me longer than I thought to write this letter. I am tired and in one minute I will put my pen down and go to the kitchen and drink some whisky with Sue. Then perhaps I will come back and continue to write this letter. Or perhaps I will go to sleep and continue to write tomorrow evening when I get back from work.

  So, it is the next evening after I wrote those words about Mai Yanka and the mistake he made with his cigarette. Evie, I know I am taking a lot of your time with this letter. Please have patience! I will not waste any more time. I will get straight to the point of what I am trying to tell you, which is more terrible than the things I have thus far related.

  I was telling you about the Ibos and how some of them had managed to escape up on to the plane. Well, now M
ai Yanka looked up at the plane and shouted, ‘Ibos off!’ I don’t know how the Ibos could come down without steps. He shouted again, ‘If you do not come down, know that things will be very bad for you.’ More faces appeared at the windows of the plane. But the Ibos did not come down. Now it was Mai Karfi’s turn to shout. He said, ‘Perhaps you do not understand what my colleague is telling you. I will speak plainly. If you do not come down now, we will crucify you.’ The Ibos did not come down. Mai Karfi said, ‘OK. I will leave you to think about what I have just said.’

  Someone was sent to get some hot drink. We passed the bottles around between the soldiers. When we finished, Mai Karfi went up to the plane and shouted at the Ibos. He said that it was their last chance to come down. They did not come down. He said, ‘Bring me a rocket gun.’ Some soldiers went to the Land Rover and brought out the rocket gun. All the time it was being built Mai Karfi cursed the Ibos. He called them stupid goat and nyamiri and he told them that Ironsi was nyamiri, and that many Ibos had been killed and now it was the turn of the Hausas to rule. When the rocket gun was built Mai Karfi pointed it at the belly of the plane. I could see the faces of the Ibos in the windows. Their eyes were very wide. But they did not come down. Mai Karfi thought for several minutes. He talked to Mai Yanka. I think that he was afraid to rocket the plane. The reason is because it belongs to a European. After some time Mai Karfi shouted at the Ibos. He said, ‘OK. Listen to me. You cannot stay on that plane for ever. We are patient. We will wait. Perhaps we will find another set of steps. Perhaps we will open fire with our rifles. Perhaps you will die of thirst. Perhaps I will rocket the plane. But whatever happens you will all die. Listen to me. Listen to what I propose. If you come down from the plane now, not all of you will die. Do you understand? If you come down now only the men will die, not your women or children. That is all I have to say.’ Mai Karfi paused. Then he said, ‘My colleague and I will smoke a cigarette and when we have finished you will give me an answer.’

  I do not know what the atmosphere was like on that plane as Mai Karfi and Mai Yanka smoked their cigarettes. When they were completely smoked the door of the plane opened and an Ibo man was standing in the doorway. He looked very small. All the soldiers pointed their rifles at his heart, myself included. The Ibo man said, ‘We will come down.’ His voice was stony. ‘How will we come down?’ That was a question every soldier was asking himself. I was no exception. The sun was very bright. One of the soldiers suggested that we should make them jump and smash into the ground. Everyone laughed, even Mai Yanka. The Ibos in the plane were no longer looking out of the windows. They had become quiet. Mai Karfi thought for a bit then ordered us to form a line of twenty soldiers, ten on one side and ten on the other side, standing face to face. We had to hold hands with the soldier opposite to us, with our arms crossed over very tightly to form a hammock on to which the Ibos would jump.

  The Ibo man watched from the door of the plane. He didn’t jump but instead said, in the same stony voice as before, ‘What are you going to do with us?’ ‘Shoot you,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘When?’ ‘Now,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘Where?’ the Ibo man said. ‘Here,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘On the runway. Against the wall.’ ‘And you will not shoot the women and children?’ ‘No,’ Mai Karfi said, ‘that is what I have said.’ ‘What will you do with the women and children?’ the Ibo man said. ‘We will send them to the hospital at Enugu. Now, jump! I will count to three.’

  That is what the Ibos did, they jumped, the women, the children, and the men. There were nine of them, three men, four women and two children. The children were two girls who were gripping their mother’s breasts. Most of them were bleeding. It was a terrible sight. I had to look. But I could not say a thing. One of the women could not stand up because her foot was shot off, and her daughter just stood beside her and held on to her hand. A Land Rover came, and the women and children got in, and the Land Rover drove away to Enugu hospital.

  Now it was the three men who were left. Mai Karfi lined them up. No one spoke for quite a bit of time. Two of the men were bleeding, one from his arm and one from his head and leg as well. Mai Karfi said, ‘Has anyone anything to say?’ No one replied. He asked again. One of the Ibo men said that he had something to say, the one who was bleeding from his head and leg. Mai Karfi asked why he had kept quiet at first. The Ibo man said he had only just thought of something that he wanted to say. ‘Say,’ said Mai Karfi. ‘What have I done?’ the man said. ‘Do you want to know what you have done?’ Mai Karfi shouted. ‘Do you remember January 15th?’ The man replied that he remembered January 15th but even before January 15th he had been in the Police Force and that he was neither a politician nor a soldier. Mai Karfi shouted, ‘Nonsense. The point is that you are an Ibo man.’ Mai Yanka dragged that Ibo man to the wall. The Ibo man started to struggle and shout, but Mai Yanka is very strong. Mai Yanka is thin like a hungry cat, but he is very strong. The Ibo man struggled harder, and Mai Yanka hit him on the head with his gun. A hole appeared in the Ibo man’s head, and blood poured from it. He still struggled, but now he was twitching as well, and Mai Yanka kicked him on to the ground and dragged him against the the wall and shot him in the head.

  Mai Karfi spoke to the two Ibos who were still alive. He said, ‘Has anyone got anything to say?’ The second Ibo man, who was an old man with bullet wounds in his arms, said, ‘May God forgive the Hausas for they do not know what they are doing. May God bring unity to Nigeria.’ This made the soldiers laugh again. Mai Karfi laughed loudly too, and then Mai Yanka took the old man to the wall and made him kneel on the ground with his face against the wall, and he did that quietly, and then we heard him praying to God, and Mai Yanka shot him in the head. He fell down on top of his dead brother with his head in his dead brother’s lap, right where his blokkus were, and when the soldiers saw this they let out plenty of cheers and laughter, and more hot drink was passed around. Myself, I did not want to cheer, because although the Ibos were not my brothers, even so they were not my enemy. But I could not do a single thing. Evie, I could do nothing at all, because I was not Hausa and I had to prove to the Hausas that I wanted the Ibos out of the North. That was what I had to do if I did not want to die.

  When the drinking and laughing finished we turned to the last Ibo man, who was still alive. He was a young man with a handsome face. If Mai Yanka is ugly this man was handsome to the same degree that Mai Yanka is not. Mai Karfi said to him, ‘Have you anything to say?’ He looked at Mai Karfi in his eye but did not say anything. Mai Karfi stood looking at him in the eye and taking puffs of his cigarette. The Ibo man smiled to himself and then spat on the feet of Mai Karfi. Mai Karfi did not flinch. Very slowly he said, ‘I see we will have to shut up your foolish mouth.’ The Ibo man smiled again. Even though he was very handsome when he smiled his face became even more handsome than before. He smiled and then he spat on the feet of Mai Karfi. This time Mai Karfi flinched. He said, ‘Take that shege and hold him tight.’ Two solders took his arms and twisted them behind his back. Mai Karfi said, ‘Get me some hot drink.’ We drank from the bottles of hot drink, and the soldiers mocked the Ibo man. They told him things were very bad for him and that he was not going to live many more minutes, and that the minutes he had left in this life would be the most terrible time for him.

  When all the soldiers had drunk plenty of hot drink, Mai Karfi made us quiet and took a big swig from the bottle and with the bottle still in his hand he said to the Ibo man, ‘Let me tell you a story.’ All the soldiers looked at Mai Karfi with wide eyes. We knew what this meant. So now he was telling this Ibo man a story. Well, it was not going to be a happy afternoon for the Ibo man. The Ibo man did not seem interested at all. He just went on smiling and staring. Mai Karfi said, ‘Once there was a boy called Mai Yanka.’ I had heard the story one time before. ‘One day Mai Yanka saw a sheep’s head in a butcher’s window,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘He told his father about the sheep. His father said, “Go and buy me the sheep’s head!” Mai Yanka went to the butcher and bought the sheep’s
head,’ said Mai Karfi, ‘but on the way home he ate the meat and returned to his father with the skull in his hand. “What have you brought me?” his father said. “A sheep’s head,” Mai Yanka replied. “Where are the eyes?” his father said. “The sheep was blind,” Mai Yanka replied. “Where is the tongue?” his father said. “The sheep was dumb,” Mai Yanka replied. “Where are the ears?” his father said. “The sheep was deaf,” Mai Yanka replied.’

  When Mai Karfi finished telling the story no one spoke for a long time. The Ibo man did not change his expression or even seem to hear at all. I could hear the insects in the grass. It was late in the afternoon but the sun was still bright. After a few minutes Mai Karfi looked at the Ibo man. He said, ‘How do you like the story?’ The Ibo man did not say anything. Mai Karfi said, ‘I must tell you something about my colleague. Stand forward.’ Mai Yanka stood forward. ‘This is Mai Yanka. Do you know what Mai Yanka means?’ The Ibo man didn’t move or make a noise. Mai Yanka stood still and watched the Ibo man for a minute, then he took a knife out from his trousers. The Ibo man did not change his expression in any way that I could see. Mai Karfi said, ‘You know, nyamiri, humans are very like animals. There is really only a small difference between an animal and a human being, especially an Ibo brute like you. You refuse to speak. But we will make you scream.’

  Evie, what happened next happened very quickly. Mai Yanka stepped up to the Ibo man with his knife in his hand and stuck it into the left side of the Ibo man’s face and then into the right side, and his face burst open and blood poured from it, and when Mai Yanka stepped back he was holding the Ibo man’s eyes in his hand. What was strange was that the Ibo man did not make a sound. He was shaking and falling on the soldiers, but he did not make a noise. This made Mai Karfi angry. He said, ‘So, even now you do not speak.’ Mai Yanka threw the eyes on the runway and flipped a cigarette into his mouth and approached the Ibo man. He held his ear in his left hand and sliced it off his head. It came off just like that. Some of the soldiers were not laughing any more. When Mai Yanka sliced his right ear off I began to vomit. The next time I looked it was when two soldiers were holding his mouth open and Mai Yanka was putting his hand inside his mouth. Mai Yanka pulled out his tongue with his fingers. Evie, that tongue came out further than I knew a person’s tongue could come out of his mouth. I have never seen something so terrible as that tongue on that face with no ears and no eyes and blood pouring from it. It was just as Mai Yanka was pulling out his tongue that the Ibo man began to scream. I vomited again. When I looked the Ibo man was lying on the ground and the soldiers were beating him with their rifles. Now his face was completely gone. I did not beat him with my rifle. I just stood on that runway watching. Do you understand what I am saying? I just stood and watched them beat that Ibo man. I knew I was condemning myself for all eternity, but I just watched.