by Vamba Sherif
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I loved Tetese, that I was one of the few in Wologizi who actually helped him on several occasions, even when I knew he was a hopeless case.’
‘Tell me about his disappearance. What happened?’
‘We thought you would come with an answer. The last time Tetese disappeared he returned as a paramount chief. Who knows, perhaps the next time he returns it will be as a minister.’
‘Quit this pretence, old man!’
William approached the old man and loomed large over him, so that the old man cringed, saying, ‘The only episode I can share with you, Mr Mawolo, is Tetese’s visit to me in the aftermath of the storm. Or the night at the Lebanese’s shop.’
‘I’m not interested in that episode, old man.’
But Old Kapu had already begun, and William, exasperated with him, was about to leave when the old man said, ‘Tetese was shorter than me, Mr Mawolo.’
‘But I was told that Tetese was tall.’
‘Lies, Mr Mawolo. Look, whenever he stood beside me, I could see the top of his head which had traces of baldness. That’s how tall our storyteller was, Mr Mawolo. But you are disturbing the flow of the story, and you’ll end up confusing me. Where was I? Yes, Tetese came to see me after the storm, and I said, looking him square in the eyes: “Tell me what it is you want from me? A new house?” ’
‘You are being sarcastic, Old Kapu,’ Tetese had said.
‘What I’m saying is true. You’ve never done a day’s work your entire life. And just after the storm has done such an admirable job with your roof you come to me – it’s no coincidence.’
‘I need a loan for a new roof.’
Old Kapu had thrown a conspiratorial glance about him but had seen no one, except a he-goat tethered to a tree. Nevertheless he’d leaned towards Tetese and had whispered: ‘Son, don’t tell anyone what I’m about to say. For years now I’ve not been paid a cent for my work as chief of Wologizi. If you were to tell me how I survive with so many obligations, including feeding a household full of good- for- nothing women, I’ll build you a house of your choice, with roof and all.’
Only then did the old man become aware of the transformation in Tetese. From a man who had once embodied indolence itself, he had turned into one who now pulled himself together and said dryly, ‘You’ll pay for your refusal, old man.’
‘I laughed at him, Mr Mawolo, because I could not imagine him being anything else than what he already was, a complete failure.’
‘Why, of all people, did Tetese approach you?’
‘Because I’m soft-hearted, Mr Mawolo, a fool.’
‘That could not be the only reason.’
For the first time Old Kapu looked perplexed and then a helpless smile appeared on his face. ‘A man like you, Mr Mawolo,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘always outsmarts people like us who live in such a backward place like Wologizi. You have your charms as assets, and your ability to turn any woman’s head. Tell me who whispered this secret into your ears, a woman?’
William heard his men laughing in the back.
‘I bet it was a woman, perhaps one of my women. You see, Mr Mawolo, my curse, the burden I must carry to the end of my days, is my wrong choice of women.’
The allusion to Hawah Lombeh and the men’s laughter angered William so much that his eyes took on a menacing aspect.
‘You will tell me what happened to Tetese.’
‘There’s nothing you can do to me which has not been done tenfold to me in the past, Mr Mawolo. Here I am, ready.’
‘We’ll see, old man.’
William went out of the room and gave a speech to his militia, which he felt was necessary at that moment. He wanted them to go beyond their mere support for him and believe in him like he believed in the Old Man. ‘It’s important that you carry out my orders because they come directly from the Old Man himself,’ he said, and the men nodded, just as he’d anticipated. ‘If you back me, I’ll make sure that each one of you is incorporated in the regular army and paid monthly, and on time. I give you my word.’
The short speech roused the men, and in their eyes he could see the eagerness to please him. He gave an order to two of them to cart Old Kapu off to the town hall where he would join them later.
‘Corporal,’ he turned to Gamla. ‘I want you and the rest of the men to gather the townspeople in the town hall. I want to know what happened to Tetese before sunset. Now move, Corporal.’
The sight of the militia descending on the town to carry out his order suddenly awoke in William an acute awareness of his own capabilities. Never before, in all his life, had he felt such power over men, but what was much more profound than this awareness was the certainty that soon Wologizi would yield to him and reveal the truth. This power, coupled with this certainty, so overwhelmed him that he felt dizzy.
William felt alive as never before.
CHAPTER 11
Because he had to do something to master the passion that was ebbing and flowing in him at the mere anticipation of soon standing before the townspeople in the hall, William went up to the mansion to repair the radio. There he met Makemeh. On seeing her, he caught his breath, thinking: ‘So, she will be there to witness it all, to see me in action.’ She was sitting on a wooden bench under the acacia tree, in a yellow blazer and a long, black pleated skirt, her hands resting on the bench, her arms curled up against her sides. Splotches of sunlight that had escaped the foliage bathed her, giving her skin the black-and -white aspects of an initiate. Makemeh was relishing the cool shade, keenly aware of the power she exercised over the man who, instead of entering the radio station to repair it, hurried towards her. The serenity about her, her utter composure complemented in every way what he felt at that moment: a master of his own destiny.
Makemeh then presented him with a smile that leaped across the distance between them and landed on the tip of his lips, forcing them to part into a similar expression.
She had brought him some oranges. Out of gratitude or perhaps surrender to the dictate of the moment, he reached out but fell short of touching her arms. Those long slender arms, he noted, were strewn with fine hair. They said of hairy women, he thought as he sat beside her, that their passion was unbounded. Most of her fingernails were broken, her palms craggy, perhaps from hard work. She peeled an orange for him in a tiny thread that did not break until she was finished. She watched him suck the juice out of the orange.
Silence offered the two of them some precious moments to appraise the unspoken feeling that had gradually awoken in them, especially in William, and he regretted when she broke it.
‘Something seems to bother you, Mr Mawolo.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem afraid of me.’
Her words were like a stone from a catapult that hit him hard where it hurt most, and he heard himself saying: ‘I’m not afraid of women, I respect them, and in fact I was brought up by one.’
He told her that his aunt had brought him up single- handedly after the death of his parents in a car crash. On leaving the village where the local militia had thrown them out of their home, the two had ended up in the capital in a shanty house on the edge of a cliff, the most dingy place in the entire city. There she taught him to value education, even though she herself was an illiterate.
Strange, he thought now, that he was pouring out his heart to the daughter of a man at the centre of a mystery. From where had this sudden compulsion emerged? He turned to her. The harshness of life in a forest town had not broken her. In fact there was no trace on her face to indicate that she’d ever endured hardship. She carried the worries of her father’s disappearance deep in her heart.
He had had many women in the past, had relished the attention they lavished on him, and with every woman, except for a few, he felt he owed it to himself to love her properly, to shower her with attention, because a woman on her own had brought him up.
Makemeh was unlike any of them, unlike Hawah Lombeh, that agita
ted woman who always got on his nerves. Tetese’s daughter remained a mystery, fascinating but incomprehensible.
She listened to him now, her gaze intent on him. Such attentiveness brought out the deepest compassion in him, and he felt he could love her as he’d never loved any woman before.
‘What’s bothering you then?’
He told her about his fight with the carpenter, about the bandaged wound, brushing her worries aside by saying boldly, ‘I’ll see to it that he gets his due.’
She eyed him steadily, and in those eyes he noted the fervent wish for him to carry out his threat to the letter.
‘What if the town took his side?’ she asked.
‘Then we’ll teach the town a lesson!’
He said it to please her, but he realised that men in his position should not to utter such words. What he’d just done emphasised his inability to contain himself in her presence. It irritated him because it was so unlike him. But why was she bent on punishing the carpenter, he wondered. Henceforth, he decided, he would have to exclude her from the investigation, if he wanted to remain in charge.
Then he recounted the night’s incident, leaving out the episode with Hawa Lombeh. Makemeh was silent, but he saw how fear clouded her face, and so he so changed the subject.
‘I must radio the capital at once. By now they must be eager to know how much progress I’ve made,’ he said.
‘I want to see you do it.’ She drew closer to him, so that their hands nearly touched, and when they entered the radio station she took a seat on a bench beside a wooden pole which seemed the only force that held together what was otherwise a dilapidated building. The windows were broken. There were cracks in the walls, part of which had been darkened by smoke, as if the house had once been a kitchen. In a gloomier part of the room, covered in spider webs but still visible, was the Old Man’s portrait, his face partly veiled by smoke from his pipe, betraying no emotion whatsoever.
Despite all Wiliam’s efforts at repairing it, the radio kept hissing and crackling, or he would receive a constant buzz that grated on his nerves. The setbacks of the past days, combined with the rustle of Makemeh’s skirt, indicating her impatience, steered him towards an outburst. Then he saw it. Sands had been poured into the headset, the obvious work of saboteurs. The radio was beyond repair. He banged the headset on the floor with a force that shattered it to pieces. He left the station trembling with rage, until he felt Makemeh’s touch, a soft pleasant touch that felt almost like a caress.
She led him to the mansion, and once inside, he felt at ease. He watched her moving about the living room, admiring a cupboard with a collection of porcelains and caressing an armchair with the country’s flag carved on its back, one of the carpenter’s most accomplished works. Following her with his eyes, he imagined what it would feel like holding her in his arms, leading her upstairs and spreading her out on that king-size bed, and then, with a practised deftness, leaving her panting afterward. So palpable was this daydream that when he snapped out of it he was shocked to see Makemeh standing behind the carpenter’s work, her entire disposition seeming to defy that vision.
Later, as he led her out of the gates and down the hill towards the town hall, he wrestled with the implication of her gesture. Was she conveying a message or a warning to him? The two were facing the full glare of the sun, which captured the deep dark of his face and set Makemeh’s skin at glow. Her nose quivered with anticipation, her neck was beaded with sweat, her breath calm but with a nervous edge to it, which he interpreted as her impatience to see him in action.
The two militiamen who had accompanied Old Kapu to the town hall had stationed themselves at the bottom of the worn-out steps that led to the main entrance. William told them to wait outside until the rest of the townspeople were present. Then he led Makemeh to the platform. Somewhere on the ceiling and around the main entrance lizards frolicked about, breaking into noisy scuffles which ended with one alighting before the two. The lizard acknowledged them with a nod before climbing the perforated wall of the hall and disappearing out of sight.
He gazed down at her necklace, a set of crude beads that had been collected in the forests, and then he reached for it. And as he did so, his hand brushed the firm swell of her breasts. She shuddered, her gaze fixed on the necklace and not on him.
The intimacy was shattered by panic screams. The townspeople, led by the militia, poured into the hall. Soon it was chockfull. Then silence fell. Only the murmurs that occasionally swept through the hall suggested the presence of people. Otherwise a profound silence reigned, heightened by a miasma of sweat and the obnoxious smell of fear. On the grass field around the hall and along the ochre road that flanked it, the townspeople had gathered, waiting for William to speak.
Slowly his gaze swept the crowd and settled on Old Kapu, who was curled up on the floor with a bunch of militiamen breathing down his frail neck. The old man, confronted with that predicament, seemed as mesmerised as a squirrel before a famished cobra. The Lebanese wore the expression of a man who, unable to persuade his captors of his innocence, was dumbstruck, bewildered. Boley, Tetese’s father-in-law, was still in his working clothes. With him was his entire household.
‘Where is the carpenter?’ William asked.
Silence followed his question.
‘Where is carpenter Seleh?’
Suddenly a batch of militiamen, led by Corporal Gamla, tore away from the crowd and rushed up to him. One of them lost his step and fell, his rifle clattering on the concrete floor. When Corporal Gamla stood before William and saluted him, he broke into gibberish.
‘Speak up clearly, Corporal!’
‘Chief, he’s locked himself up in his house.’
‘I want him here in ten minutes.’
Shortly afterward, a tremor swept through the crowd as the carpenter was ushered in, handcuffed and naked except for a pair of boxer shorts. William envied him his good looks: a chiselled, well-wrought body like an elaborate handiwork of the gods, a height that emphasised his defiance, and a face full of transient but calculated emotions, a rebel to be admired or despised. William despised him now. But what intrigued him most was the carpenter’s gaze: it was fixed on Makemeh.
‘It’s all because of her, isn’t it, Chief?’
‘What do you mean?’
The carpenter chuckled, like a man conscious of an advantage over an ignorant opponent, and with his eyes still locked with Makemeh’s he said in a slow and matter-of-fact voice: ‘Just ask her and she will tell you, Chief.’
‘You are the one in handcuffs, Seleh. I decide what happens here.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hardly ever make a mistake – ask her.’
It was at this point that Makemeh’s composed face broke into smithereens of rage, but it was William who translated her expression into action. When she turned to him, her gaze as hard as granite, he jumped off the podium and faced the carpenter. Slowly, almost theatrically, he cupped the carpenter’s chin in his left hand and lifted it so that he was gazing right into his nostrils, where he could see a scattering of salt and pepper hair, and some dry snot. From that angle, the face looked ugly and deformed, and it was gurned with helpless fury. It spat and grimaced but was unable to free itself of the hand that held it.
Then William dealt it a neat blow that sent the carpenter crashing on the concrete floor. Quickly he was upon him. Tears of rage streamed down his feverish cheeks. Overwrought, his nose dripping, his whole composure shattered by that violent outburst, William went on battering the carpenter. The town hall was quiet. No one stirred.
‘Tell me, Seleh,’ he panted as he chased him in the space between the crowd and the podium. Every time he caught up with him he threw himself on him. ‘Tell me what happened.’
In the end carpenter Seleh slowly rose to his feet, as if a rib or two had been broken in his body, and he drew himself to his fullest height, ever defiant. He was ready. The town hall held its breath.
The
carpenter spoke in a slow, calculated and almost detached voice, a derisive smile accompanying his every word, as though he’d not suffered a beating. He recalled the time Tetese returned after months of absence. It was a troubling period to which everyone in and outside that large hall could attest. But what made it so remarkable and unforgettable was Makemeh’s visit to him.
‘She came to see me one afternoon, Chief.’
Makemeh did not twitch a muscle.
‘She came disguised as a man.’
CHAPTER 12
‘Tetese had returned with an army,’ carpenter Seleh told William in front of the crowd, ‘an extraordinary event that would be surpassed that same day by another: the reaction of the townspeople.’ Most of them, torn between the desire to take to the mountains and the longing for answers to questions that were as relevant as their safety, had braved it to the main road. How did a mere storyteller manage to raise such a force? And what were the soldiers doing in Wologizi? Standing under a drizzling sky, the crowd had searched the past for answers but had only stumbled upon a footnote about a man some of them had once wronged but not in such a way as to justify an invasion. So, as the long convoy of dark jeeps and dull-green army trucks snaked its way through Wologizi, one of them asked aloud the most important question on everyone’s mind: Who was Tetese? No one could answer that question because Tetese had already become a myth.
Meanwhile, one of the townspeople had already had an encounter with the soldiers. ‘It was me, Chief,’ Seleh said. The carpenter told William that he had driven that very morning to the mountains to fetch some timber, as was his wont. On his way home, one of the soldiers, a bulky man in a spotted black-green uniform, his gaze as dead as a seasoned torturer, had hauled him out of the car and had stood him upright. The soldier had mounted an automatic on the carpenter’s shoulder and had fired into the silent air until the magazine was empty. Cheered on by his comrades, he had reloaded the machine gun, had switched to the other shoulder and had pulled the trigger, howling with enthusiasm. The gunshots had turned the carpenter deaf in one ear.