by Vamba Sherif
Carpenter Seleh told William that whenever this period was recalled, Corporal Gamla would often claim that he was the first to see him wobbling down the muddy hill like a drunkard. The policeman’s first reaction had been to burst out laughing because a drunken carpenter Seleh was a rarity, but something in his bearing had checked him. Rushing to his help, the corporal had suddenly stopped midway, had turned about and had taken to his heels. It was not cowardice that had forced him to make a run for it, he would later insist to anyone willing to listen to him, ‘but the terrifying sight of soldiers pouring down like vultures upon Wologizi.’
On that day a deep darkness had descended upon Wologizi, caused not by an eclipse or a deluge of rain but by advancing jeeps and trucks crammed with soldiers. Hundreds of townspeople who had gathered along the road to receive Tetese, had followed the corporal eastward, far away from the advancing troops, for at such precarious moments any semblance of authority, even that of a mere corporal, is revered. But from that direction too sirens had blared.
The soldiers had by then cordoned off Wologizi. They’d taken positions at its every exit: at the town centre, the mansion and the town hall, at the front and rear of every home, along the main road, and around the cinema and the Lebanese’s shop. The men had moved about in dark sunglasses, flourishing glinting weaponry, their proud steps demeaning anyone who crossed their paths. They’d whispered to their walkie-talkies as though imparting terrible secrets to invincible figures at the other end of the line. Then, suddenly, with a swiftness as effective and as efficient as the fear they had sowed in the hearts of the townspeople, the men had rounded up every individual in Wologizi and had gathered them up in and around the town hall. Only Tetese’s wife was allowed to stay at home, guarded by a soldier.
Then Tetese had revealed himself. The crowd had seen him alight from a dark, armoured jeep, and he had mounted a flight of steps with assured steps into the town hall and onto the platform.
Tetese was never known as stylish. Never before had he exuded such confidence. Moreover, the once thin and emaciated Tetese had looked as plump as a village toad in less than a year of absence, his cheeks a hefty round of flesh. He had smoked a pipe, a replica of the Old Man’s. In his right hand Tetese had held a staff – a collection of feathers, bristles and amulets – which many would later credit with supernatural powers. Most conspicuous of all was his outfit: the short gown and trousers, dipped in the yellowish dye of kolanut, were bullet-proof – no knife, cutlass, dagger, spear, or witchcraft of whatever type could harm him. Tetese had returned an invincible man.
The crowd had watched him descend the podium, one step at a time, and edge his way through them, his nose sniffing the air like a predator in search of a prey. On reaching Old Kapu, he had stopped. Tetese had seemed aware of the old man but had not gazed at him, or addressed him, and then he had made a sudden about-turn. Soon he was on the podium again, settled leisurely in an armchair. Then he had folded out the dreaded staff neatly on his lap.
‘Bring him to me,’ Tetese had ordered.
The soldiers had bound Old Kapu’s hands behind his back, his ribcage visible under a thin layer of skin, taut as a drum exposed for hours to noonday sun. ‘I would like to see what becomes of that chest when hit by a dagger,’ one of the soldiers had joked.
‘We meet again, Old Kapu,’ Tetese had said.
This was followed by a long silence, during which Tetese had spat a mouthful of phlegm at the old man but had missed. Ordered to erase the gob, Old Kapu had stepped on it.
‘I have a favour to ask of you,’ Tetese had said, pausing once again, a new method of speech he had certainly rehearsed and mastered wherever he’d been. ‘I’ve been away for a while to think things through, to ponder on my life amidst you people. Tell me why you are here, old man, and I swear on the lost grave of my beloved mother that I’ll let you go.’
Old Kapu had been about to speak when Tetese had jumped off the podium and had alighted before the crowd. ‘That goes for all of you here. I’ll let the town be if one of you can tell me in all honesty why you’ve all been summoned to this hall.’
The crowd had remained silent.
‘You refuse to tell me.’
The crowd suffered his gaze, which was particularly piercing and intense, pulverising their strength to encounter it. Even while he felt the gaze, Old Kapu had found it hard to believe that the look of a man he had known all his life could take on such hardness. This had led him to the conclusion that refusing Tetese a roof could not have been the sole reason he’d been singled out. So the old man had swallowed hard and had whispered: ‘It has to do with your mother.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
Old Kapu had then revealed what Tetese already knew. That once he had been married to Tetese’s mother, a marriage that abruptly ended when a stranger had snatched the woman away from him. As suddenly as the stranger had appeared he had disappeared again. No one knew anything about him, except that he was a man whose orders were obeyed, a talent he had employed to seduce Old Kapu’s wife. ‘He had then left her with a child who would later be called Tetese,’ carpenter Seleh said.
William gestured to the carpenter to stop.
‘I’ve heard enough of this, Seleh,’ he said.
On turning to Makemeh, William could see nothing in her face to indicate that she had been touched by the story. But Old Kapu was clearly affected: he sat on the floor of the town hall, not stirring, as if life itself had left him.
‘So all along you’ve been withholding this important fact from me, Old Kapu,’ William said. ‘This makes you the prime suspect. You had a motive to hate the child who could have become yours. You will tell me what happened to Tetese.’
Old Kapu looked stricken, as though struggling with words he was unable to properly articulate. His head raced with confused thoughts; the hall swam before him.
‘What have you got to say, old man?’ William asked.
Old Kapu was silent.
William told the militia to take the old man to the mansion where he would have a face-to-face talk with him.
Then he turned to the carpenter.
‘What did Tetese do thereafter?’ he asked.
‘On leaving the town hall that day,’ carpenter Seleh continued, ‘Tetese, who was carried in a hammock, went to his one-room mud house where his wife awaited him. In the presence of the townspeople who bore him in a hammock and their songs accompanied him – songs in which he was celebrated as the Chief of Chiefs, Warrior of Warriors, The Invincible, The Merciful, The right and just ruler of the forest region, The chief adored by all and without a single opponent – Tetese entered his modest hut. The soldiers stood at the door, guarding it. After more than an hour Tetese emerged with tears in his eyes and the news that his beloved wife had died in his arms.’
‘Indeed, killed, Chief,’ the carpenter said, his eyes fixed on Makemeh, as if he were solely addressing her, his lips parted with a lecherous smile, the gap in his teeth as bold as ever.
‘There is a difference between dead and killed.’
‘Yes, there is, Chief,’ the carpenter said. ‘Tetese told us that on seeing him, his wife had choked to death in a paroxysm of joy. The town was forced to mourn her death for a whole month. The grief-stricken threw themselves on rain-soaked roads, smearing mud on their faces. They cried till their eyes were swollen and their voices clogged.
‘Then Tetese went on a vengeful spree. He carved those lines on his father-in-law’s face and wounded and maimed hundreds. He was simply unstoppable. One time, he forced worshippers to bow in the dust for twenty-four hours only because he wanted to see how quickly God answered a prayer.’
Hard on the heels of her mother’s death, the carpenter told William, Makemeh had come to see him. It was around dusk, and he was leaning his arms on the railings of his veranda, looking at life unfolding before him in Wologizi, life under Tetese’s tyrannic reign. In the far distance, he had seen the figure of a man in a suit, and only when the figur
e approached him did he realise it was Makemeh. Perhaps, he had thought, the disguise was meant to evade her father’s soldiers who were keeping curfew.
‘Makemeh entered my house, Chief, and I followed her. What I saw took my breath away: your precious Makemeh was standing in my bedroom stark naked.’
CHAPTER 13
Makemeh sprang from the podium and flung herself at carpenter Seleh. She scratched his face with her fingernails and sank her teeth with feral brutality in his chest. All the while, even as he bled, his blood spattering on the dusty concrete floor, the carpenter wore a triumphant smile on his face, as though all along he had been herding the crowd towards that particular climax.
William ordered the militia to take him away and lock him up in the police cell.
As he was being led out of the hall, carpenter Seleh yelled out something which made the crowd shudder: ‘I should have done what I had decided to do with you the day you came to see me, Makemeh. I should have killed you.’
It was too much for Makemeh. In a fit of hysteria, she tore at her plaited hair, thrashed about on the floor, beating it with her hands. She gave full vent to her rage with an unbearably piercing shriek and then suddenly fell down in a faint.
‘Somebody should help her,’ a woman cried.
In response to this, a bevy of women shoved a stupefied militia aside and crowded about Makemeh. They denied William access to her when he descended the podium to attend to her. She had become their sole concern now, the women told him, and whatever bond he might have forged with her was shivered until she stepped out of their midst.
The heat had eased up, so had the sunlight. And except for the main entrance to the hall and the square-shaped perforations in the walls which still allowed in some sunlight, dusk had cast shadows on almost everything. William climbed up on to the podium and waited for Makemeh to come to. When she did, he instructed the women to take her to the mansion, and he dismissed the crowd.
The Lebanese joined him on the podium and squeezed his arm amicably, his face flushed. ‘What about dinner at my place?’
Despite the fact that he mistrusted him, William agreed because the Lebanese was an outsider like himself. Moreover, the man feared him more than anyone else in Wologizi. When the Lebanese left and the hall was empty except for the militia, the corporal approached William as though he was about to whisper a secret to him: ‘Everyone agrees that the carpenter should be locked up, he’s hated so much.’
‘I know you don’t hate him, Gamla.’
‘That’s because he’s the only man in Wologizi who’s not afraid of speaking his mind, Chief. One can accuse the carpenter of anything but the truth that he speaks. It hurts like a boil, Chief.’
‘What he said in the hall could not have been the truth.’
‘Makemeh is… ’
Corporal Gamla caught William’s gaze and kept silent.
‘Tell me, Corporal, speak up.’
‘She’s a very complex young woman.’
‘In what ways?’
‘Just consider her reaction in the hall. Why react like that if the carpenter was not telling the truth?’
‘She was being disgraced before the whole town!’
‘Yes, but such a reaction, Chief!’
Corporal Gamla stopped short of telling William that this Makemeh was a dangerous woman, one he himself feared because a daughter of Tetese was capable of anything.
On his part, William wondered how the corporal behaved when not with him. Was he then in league with the carpenter? Could he and his militia turn against him? How loyal was he actually?
The militiamen were singing a song about an illiterate soldier who murdered his way to power. Though he loathed them with all his heart, William knew that he needed them if ever he was to achieve his goal in Wologizi.
‘Call them up here,’ he told the corporal.
The militia filed in two columns behind Corporal Gamla and marched towards the podium to another song about a man who set fire to his own house and waited in the darkness, hacking away with his cutlass at those who came to put out the fire, all because the town had wronged him by being silent when a man eloped with his wife.
‘We are going hunting tonight,’ William told them.
He caught in their eyes a hunger for action, and so he promised them the one thing they desired most: ‘Once again, I give you my word that if you do what I say, which means doing what the Old Man says, then I’ll make each one of you a commander of your own militia.’
The men followed him out of the hall and into a dusk lit dimly with bulbs that were suspended from trees and thin poles along the road. Before them, against a horizon splashed with fiery colours, the mountains were still visible, and below them Wologizi was in an anticipatory mood.
They were all ascending the hill up to the mansion when William caught a faint but unmistakable sound, which reminded him of those that had terrified him the other night. He stood still and listened, and indeed it was true. The sound came with the wind – a drawn-out, plaintive and utterly despairing cry which rose just above the noise of Wologizi. It was answered with a deep chorus of voices that swelled in an incessant chant. Once again, those strange, unfathomable sounds threw him into panic.
‘Did you hear that?’ he asked his men.
They listened, but except for the wind which at that moment was rustling through the grasses, they heard nothing, and told him so. In fact, the wind soon ceased. Convinced however that his hearing had not betrayed him, William decided to track down the source of the sounds. He raced down the hill with his men, their rifles cocked to the ready.
Even when they were in Wologizi proper, the noise did not cease; on the contrary, they intensified, challenging him, testing his resolve. He hurried on, almost breaking into a run, his heart pounding hard in his chest. Soon, he located their source – it was Old Kapu’s place. The noise gathered pitch as he led his men to the front of the house. Then they ceased with an abruptness that hit him like a slap in the face. For a while he was confused as to what to do, and then he climbed the steps and crossed the long corridor. The compound was empty except for one person.
Seated on a low carved stool, shelling peanuts was Hawah Lombeh. She turned to him, as though she had been wrenched out of a trance, surprised but pleased to see him.
‘Where is everybody?’ William asked.
‘I should be the one asking you that question because you were the one who ordered the entire town to gather at the town hall. I must say I was surprised by your action. Was that necessary?’
‘Why were you not present?’
She did not answer him. Hawah Lombeh seemed mainly concerned about him, worried because he looked so exhausted.
‘Wologizi seems to wear you out,’ she said.
‘They definitely came from here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The sounds, those damned sounds.’
He left her to search the compound for traces that could indicate that the noise had indeed originated from that place but found nothing. Silence reigned everywhere. He returned to Hawah Lombeh and sat on a stool facing her, his mind befuddled. How could he explain this phenomenon? Was he imagining it? But that could not be because he felt saner than ever, and he was conscious of this. He was not insane.
Insanity, he believed, was the loss of the ability to reason as he was doing now. He knew that the mystery of the auditory phenomenon was connected with Tetese’s disappearance.
Hawah fetched him a calabash of water.
‘You need to rest for a while,’ she said.
The water was cold. After drinking it in a single swallow he regarded Hawah. The skin between her brows was furrowed, the same expression his aunt would wear when worried about him. She sounded like his old aunt now when she said: ‘The heat here sometimes drives people out of their minds. I suggest you rest during the day and go on with your work only at the end of the day.’
He thought of what had happened between them.
‘Tell me if it was true what you told me last night.’
Hawah Lombeh nodded.
‘But it’s daylight,’ she added quickly. ‘What we say at night should never be repeated in the day. Save it for tonight.’
‘No, Hawah, it cannot wait.’
‘You are in such a hurry. Here in Wologizi events unfold of their own accord, we never hurry them. It’s almost night.’
‘Were you telling me the truth?’
‘The sun has yet to set. Whatever I tell you now would mean nothing, would carry no weight, because I would say it only to please you. The darkness emboldens me, brings out the best in me.’
‘Something terrible is happening in Wologizi,’ he said, and was surprised by the terror in his own voice. ‘It has to do with Tetese’s disappearance, I’m sure of that now. You see, I hear sounds. Last night I heard them and today also. They originated from here.’
‘They must have been my songs.’
This explanation sounded so absurd to him that all he could do was stand up and move towards the corridor. Hawah Lombeh pursued him and threw herself between him and the door. She held him by the arms to prevent him from leaving, and he could see the panic in her eyes, as if of all things she could not bear it to see him upset.
‘What did I say to make you so angry?’ she begged.
‘The sounds could not have been yours because I heard them from a distance as far as the town hall.’
With that he shoved past her to the door.
‘Don’t let your anger master you,’ she said.
The militia were daydreaming about a career in the army when they saw the man who would make those dreams come true. The men jumped to attention and saluted him, their voices in unison, disturbing the twilight silence. They were heading towardss the mansion.
‘Go ahead, I will join you later,’ William told them.
It was almost dark as he hurried towards Old Kapu’s house and hid behind one of the trees before it.
The waiting was brief. Soon he saw Hawah Lombeh come out of the house, with one end of her waistcloth in her mouth, chewing on it, deep in thoughts. She gazed left and right before branching off in the direction that led out of Wologizi to the capital. William followed her and hid behind a tree, from where he saw her join the old men under the breadfruit tree. The men had been in the town hall but William had not paid much attention to them. On seeing her, the old men created a space for her in their midst, and they began to crack jokes about her. They said that she could hardly wait to abandon her frail husband and elope with the stranger.