I am going back to all of that in a few days, to this new life I find hard to switch off from. But even within the confines of the barracks, there are signs of something wrong. The caretaker whose name nobody knows, his hair is grey with secrets. Every day he marches around the grounds dressed in full regalia making sure the buildings are as they should be. Yet he appears to be searching for something, bending to study the dirty bottoms of walls where there is nothing to see, sliding his hands under filthy, corroding pipes and boring his eyes into the front of the building. And when I greet him, “Mr Caretaker man, what are you looking for?” he responds in kind, “Just making sure everything is in order sir.”
There is the officer three rooms away from mine, who writes letters to himself every week before ripping them to shreds. People have been known to walk in on him attempting to stick those torn shreds of paper together with shaky hands. Besides, I am convinced worms are trying to take over the barracks. It began with seeing one some weeks ago crawling in a leisurely fashion on a windowpane, its pink body wriggling a slimy path. Since then I have seen more, crawling up the table leg in our eating area, slipping between the laces of an officer’s heavy black boot, curling and uncurling itself near a small puddle on the training base.
There is a small prayer room tucked away in the gut of the main barracks. It is sparsely decorated with thin, pristine white curtains and worn Bibles gathering dust on the wooden table. The few greying chairs croak when we sit down and the walls are a muted cream colour. Next to a high, square, stand, three fat white candles sit in silver holders. At the front of the chapel a robed, blue-eyed Jesus, arms outstretched, counts your guilty steps as you walk on. The officers, crass, loud, young men unaware of their ignorance, go in there, kiss the crosses dangling from their chains and feverishly voice their longings.
So far every officer I have met has a story to tell. This is to be expected; we are young, keen and hungry. There is something about putting young men in an enclosed, restricted environment that produces unexpected results. Not only the predictable strutting and competitiveness; it’s also how territorial some people have already become. Even over small, insignificant things like who misplaced so and so’s razor and who borrowed someone’s pen and forgot to return it. As if ownership of things keeps them sane.
It is nearly 3 am and I should really try to sleep. The ticking has stopped in my temples and the sounds of Lagos have dwindled to virtually nothing now.
Another thing; I have never set foot in England, but my fellow officers laugh, and tell me I have funny ways. And they call me the British gentleman despite my being a black African man.
Able Bodied Thirsts
Beyond the Benin palace gates, was a long, dusty, sweaty stretch of road that led to a vast clearing. One night, Adesua dreamt she was in the clearing trapped inside a twisted vine growing there. And at first, her voice was bold and loud. It shook the vine and its scraggly branches. But each day as the vine grew bigger her voice became smaller. She called out to passersby but they continued on their journeys towards the palace as though they could not hear her. The palm wine maker? Merely gave a shrug of his slack shoulders, relaxed from consuming too much of his own product. The court jester? Let go an audible cough midway through her cry as if to cover her voice with his. The tailor? Only paused to bite a chunk out of juicy, ripe pear, the aroma reaching her like a sweet, cruel taunt. She continued to cry, her voice like the murmur of a shrivelled thirsty leaf, inside the vine. But it only soaked up her tears. “Look what you have done!” she accused.
“No,” the vine replied “it is what you have done, have you forgotten? Each day you remember less and less.”
“Tell me why I am here,” she pleaded. The vine stayed silent, then said, “If you can remember why you are here you will be free.” So Adesua tried and tried… She prodded her thoughts till they formed a line, one behind the other, each peeping curiously over the shoulder of the thought in front. But the thoughts were all immediate, there must be another way to escape and her tongue felt irritatingly heavy. She was certain the vine was somehow tricking her. Then the vine said, “Since you have come, I no longer feel lonely.”
“Aha! I knew it,” she croaked, knocking her thoughts into a messy chaos just above the roots of the vine, and they clung to wherever the landed, jarred and frightened of being sucked under. “You caused this to happen. Don’t you know I am the bride of Oba Odion? I will have you pulled out and destroyed.” The vine laughed and rocked her sideways. She felt tiny and insignificant. Inside, the vine felt moist and warm. She stood and began attempting to tear bits off. “You can go when you accept what you have done; attacking me will not help you.”
When Adesua woke up she rushed around her chamber feeling her walls. There were cuts on her toes and she found herself craving the taste of sweet pears.
It is in the nature of beings to sometimes wield brutality with a gentle hand. A vicious blow can come from the most placid of characters, or a damaging whisper from the mouth of dear friend. Some motions once set loose outside of ourselves cannot be undone. It was with this thought in mind that Oba Odion made the decision to allow Sully to not only remain in the palace but appointed him his personal guard. The council fumed while the Oba appeared increasingly erratic, rebelling against their advice and making questionable decisions at which even a monkey would scratch its head.
A plan of action was required; the council members circled the palace grounds in fragmented groups, listening to everything that was said and endorsing it with silent approval. They scratched each other’s backs with ways to foil any more ridiculous decisions from the Oba. The plan was, they agreed, to present any decisions as though they were the Oba’s in the first instance. Wasn’t that what every good king sought from his council? They agreed to keep a watchful eye on Sully. It was no coincidence surely, they thought, that this stranger should find himself in the Benin palace. No, they could smell something was amiss, a subtle, sickly scent that wrinkled their noses and furrowed their brows. Meanwhile, the strange seeds the Oba discovered in his bedchamber continued to flourish in the place garden. They were above knee length now, and still shedding their leaves, their round, bulbous bluish heads still rotating watchfully over the palace. Their long green stems were a little bent, as though they leaned into each other to exchange conversations. But the plants were still bleeding; the soil beneath them tinged bluish green. They were moaning, low-pained groans that you could only hear if you bent your ear to the ground. But the Oba did not notice any of this. Nobody had.
Adesua waited till evening, when shadows fell across the sky. She wandered the palace grounds as she often did, just as the fireflies became restless, decorating the air with dots of green light that guided her to a sturdy, mango tree weighed down with fruit. In the palace garden, she sat at the base of the tree and listened to the sharp, shrill chirp of grasshoppers as they called to each other, jumping across the grass as though the waning heat still scorched their long hind legs. She followed their sound, crawling towards the bed of strange looking plants hemmed in by the sparse trees and high earth-coloured walls. On her knees, with her nose to the ground the waft of something rotten filtered through. As though the offending patch of earth had released a smelly belch and all it needed was the rain to come down to wash it away.
Omotole knew about the wish that had impregnated her, the desire for a son had danced its way into her womb. The Oba had done his share of work too but it was the sweet desire she’d kindled on their nights together that finally came to fruition. A son would firmly seal her position in the Oba’s life and the palace. Omotole had no real proof the child she was carrying was a boy, except that innate feeling in her bones, a deep tingling that began way down inside her stomach and spread right through her body. She could have consulted an oracle but there was no need. The stewing scowls she caught on some of the other wives faces before they vanished confirmed this. Only Adesua truly seemed unaffected either way and had congratulated her with an empty
hug and a distracted smile. That one was an odd young woman, Omotole thought, recalling the way she bounded about the palace grounds, hiking her wrapper up to her knees. At times muttering to herself, a slip of uncontained energy.
Oba Odion was happy on hearing the news of her expectancy but these days he was not himself. Omotole like everyone else discovered he was regularly in disagreements with his council and becoming slimmer around his waist as if something was eating it away. Some nights he spent in her company would see him tossing and turning, at the mercy of some invisible hand flipping him from side to side, breath infused with the scent of worry. She asked him what was troubling him and unusually, he did not tell her. Instead, he lamented on how useless the palace cooks had become, that the spoils were making people lazy. A tiny gap opened between them, the Oba was now keeping secrets and Omotole’s mouth formed a grim, suspicious line at the thought. But she did not push; a man would reveal his secrets in his own time. Instead she would knead the worry out of his shoulders and use his back to plan her next steps. And she did not tell the Oba that on discovering she was carrying a child, small oval shaped blue petals had began to appear inside the moist pocket under her tongue.
Trouble was coming. So when Sully heard the whimpering of snapped branches behind his quarters, he sat up in attention. If it had just been the scurry of a monkey or some other animal, he would have ignored it, allowing the thought to melt away like a drop of water into a river. These movements were tentative, deliberate in their attempt to attract as little attention as possible. He had always had an ear for picking up even the most secretive of sounds; he had even heard the tiny wings of baby’s heartbeats fluttering in their chests. He crept out of the back window silently, landing in an unkempt yard flanked on either side by thick shrubbery and scattered sticks. He crouched low on the ground, spotting a woman’s back arched down way ahead. Her head was bent, fingers rummaging through dirt, so intent on what she was doing that only his hand grabbing her shoulder broke the spell and she gasped.
“Are you stupid?” Sully asked, thinking he had happened upon one of the servant girls. “Running around at this time?”
She jerked her body back alarmed. “I lost my beaded bracelet!” Then, “How dare you open your mouth to speak to me like that?”
Sully took in the thick, full hair jutting out of her head in tight springs. The long ripe body with her breasts looking like globes of fruit pressed against her wrapper while her black eyes spat embers.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked slowly, as though speaking to a child.
“No.”
“I am Oba Odion’s wife.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Which one are you?”
“My friend, do not ask me questions as if your father owns this land! Who are you?”
“You will find out soon enough.” He looked at her knowingly and said, “You will never make a good queen.”
“Insult upon insult!” she fumed “I will shame you and report you to the Oba first thing, you will be thrown out.”
He nodded then, almost amused. “Before you tell him, I will escort you back.” He took her arm gently and knew then that she would never sit still. He knew without understanding how he did, that she was a curious woman and recognised an adventurous spirit when he saw one. The scratches on her neck, the restless eyes all spoke of this.
On the walk back they both ignored the thing between them that had come alive and breathing, through the long, winding curves of the servants area, past the compact, terracotta apartment blocks where some councilmen resided and the empty, gutted courtyards and settled deep within them. Later, Sully would remember details; the glimpse of her naked ankles, the sound of laughter carried in the air, beads of sweat on her long neck that sat like jewels waiting to be plucked. At the entrance to her quarters she still glowered. Even if she had bathed then, she would not have been able to wash away the imprint of his hand on her arm. She did not thank him and he had expected nothing less but her haughty back disappearing into her haven.
Out of her sight he ran, thought it funny how you travelled to a place to find one thing only to discover something else, because it had truly begun now. He ran till his knees ached and he felt his feet take off the ground, careening forward till he couldn’t separate the expanse between the sky and the solid earth. And he thought he could grab stars out of the firmament, shards of silver light glittering in his palms.
Pupa: Stage 2
As a child butterflies fascinated me. One of my earliest memories is of catching one, placing it in a tall, empty hot dog jar and watching its purple wings skim the glass. And scraping my knee in our garden from a fall aged twelve, only for a blue butterfly to land on the bleeding wound that momentarily became its respite. Since then, I’ve never forgotten how a butterfly could flutter down and change the shape of a moment or the line of a body.
As Mrs Harris and I trudged up the steep London Road in Forest Hill, I thought I heard the butterflies in the museum breathing, waiting. Rain had washed our earlier expressions away. A bitter wind argued with clothes that flapped back and umbrellas were led astray from firm grips.
“Did you bring it along?” Mrs Harris asked, referring to the brass head tucked out of sight in my rucksack. She stopped, stuck her tongue out to catch drops of water. Her grey raincoat was soaked, beneath the hood at the front exposed shocks of white hair were damp.
“Yes I did.” I tugged her forward. “What are you doing?”
“I used to do that sometimes as a kid. Rainwater makes me see possibilities!” She answered, picking up the pace. Her eyes were alert and there was a spring in her step. I began to think maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have asked her along. You never knew what she was going to say or do.
“I hope this is productive and creepy.” She said, wiping her brow.
I moved a fat, wet twist of hair from my cheek. “Why creepy?”
“Every now and then it’s good to experience uncomfortable things.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted the green man leave a set of traffic lights to rescue a broken beam of light landed outside a betting shop. A frail woman stood beside the cinema handing leaflets to people. I tried to recall the last time someone disguised as somebody ordinary handed me a leaflet.
Finally we entered the large grounds of the Horniman Museum. A concrete path snaked its way through the middle, separating spotless areas of grass that bore a wet sheen. Wooden benches were sparsely dotted around. The gardens had been sectioned off due to renovations. Threading our way through mothers pushing prams, lovers casually meandering and the odd group of school children bunking off, we eyed the distant, sprawling green longingly. The air was cool and crisp. A white Victorian cast iron conservatory perched resplendently, accustomed to the gasps of appreciation coating its windows. Magical, it looked, as if a breath over the blueprint had instantly brought it to life. At the main entrance a rush of heat hit us, sweeping our grateful bodies. A flash of white wall greeted us inside as other bodies dripped back and forth to the reception area, where a woman in her late twenties took enquiries. The wooden floors gleamed so brilliantly you could pet reflections in them. In my mind’s eye I saw a scrawny immigrant woman flitting about efficiently at the crack of dawn, only to be rendered invisible by the time the harsh glare of the morning light had arrived.
Mrs Harris unzipped her raincoat, slung it over her left arm and blew a breath out slowly. “Do you want to ask for your acquaintance now?”
“Naw,” I answered, rocking restlessly from one foot to the other and swallowing a feeling of anxiety, a stone in my throat. “Let’s take a look around first.”
I’d been carrying the brass head around a lot, torn between wanting the option of getting rid of it at a moment’s notice and a fear that doing so would mean some terrible thing would happen.
We headed downstairs and wandered through rooms with subdued lighting housing different exhibitions. One held odd, foreign instruments made out of things like a can, strings
and part of a saddle, as well as ancient harps, flutes, and guitars. Another was a photographic exhibition on birth and death. Images of new born babies held up to the camera’s eye and those of the sick who were fading, the tired lines on their faces plotting to sink into the taut skin of other bodies. In one I saw my own mother holding me up as a baby in one frame. Her Afro hair dented unevenly from leaning back against a pillow. I had barely any hair and my eyes were unfocused as though trying to adapt to seeing.
I edged forward hypnotised, tugged Mrs Harris along.
“Did you see that?” I asked, pointing at the black-framed picture on the wall.
“No. What am I supposed to have seen?” She answered, curiosity etched on her features.
Up close, the picture had changed. Another mother and daughter were now depicted holding each other with their faces pressed together laughing. They looked so happy, so assured of their time together. I felt foolish, cheated and sad all at once. A pain tore through my chest, a sneaky stroke from someone using a heated, metal spoke to poke from the inside.
“Nothing.” I muttered, silently admonishing myself. “I thought I saw my mother and I keep seeing things…”
Tears sprang. I blinked them away. I envisioned the exhibitions in their well-kept prisons breaking free one day, wandering the floors uninhibited, marching to a melancholy tune the instruments played that nobody knew the lyrics to. Mrs Harris ushered me away, threw an arm around my back offhandedly in a way that gave the impression she’d been doing it for years. “Don’t worry.” She said reassuringly. “I think this is part of the process, being confronted by memories when you least expect it.”
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