by Vamba Sherif
‘I was told that Tetese’s father was a road-builder,’ William called towards the kitchen, and he heard the plates clattering on the floor. ‘Do you know that story?’ he went on, knowing that he had caught the Lebanese off balance.
The man entered the living room. ‘Yes,’ he said and inclined his head towards William. ‘Some people in this town even believe that the road-builder and the president are one and the same person.’
William grabbed the Lebanese.
‘Do you know what you are saying?’
‘Yes, that’s what the townspeople are saying, because they are unable to explain Tetese, a man who was once nothing but who suddenly became so powerful. It all has to do with the ignorance of these forest people. For lack of an explanation, they invented one. Because you see, Chief, Tetese has to be explained, he has to be understood, his true nature exposed to us all. Otherwise we are left with nothing. Otherwise we feel cheated, made fools of.’
When William let go of him, the Lebanese downed the glass of ginger ale in one swallow and disappeared in the kitchen. ‘This border town has been in rebellion for ages,’ the man called out. ‘What if the Old Man, to mock his enemies, had chosen a failure to head them? No insult is more painful than investing a man who means little in a society and who’s seen as idle, stupid and ignorant, with powers beyond anyone’s dream.’
William was silent, for what the Lebanese had just said did not correspond with the reality in Wologizi, a place full of the president’s portraits, unless the portraits were meant to conceal their hatred of the Old Man. But what about the mansion, that imposing edifice built in his honour? If it was true that the townspeople were as recalcitrant as the Lebanese claimed, then the Old Man, who had dispatched him, would have certainly told him, or at least given him a hint.
Meanwhile the Lebanese, who watched his every move, interpreted his silence to mean that he had finally convinced him, that from now on the stranger would rely on him and turn to him for advice. Sudden joy welled up in him at this thought.
Because in the town hall that day, when he had seen how William had reacted to Makemeh, going as far as fighting on her behalf, he had decided to protect him from her. ‘Makemeh has a history, too, Chief,’ he said and paused for effect. ‘She’s having an affair with the carpenter. She’s in league with him. Tetese’s daughter conniving with a man who would gladly trade his craft for an opportunity to hurt anyone in Wologizi – just imagine, Chief.’
‘But that’s not why I’m here,’ William said. ‘And even if it was true, things are not always the way we see them.’
The Lebanese had returned from the kitchen and was standing at the other end of the dining table with a pot of spicy sauce in hand. He was struck with a premonition that William was about to alter the course of his life forever.
‘I’m here because I thought you’ve changed your mind regarding the role of the auditory phenomenon in this town. I thought you had invited me to tell me all about it, Baldhead.’
Slowly the Lebanese set the pot on the table, took a seat and unfolded his hands, palms upward, the four stumps as grotesque as ever.
‘You see these, Chief?’ he said, gazing at William. ‘Well, each stump represents a story Tetese told us that night. If I were to touch upon what you’ve just mentioned, my fate would be worse than the loss of four fingers.’ The Lebanese went on to add that on leaving his own country more than three decades before, he had searched for a place to set up business. Wologizi had fitted that profile. Being a foreigner, he had constantly swung, like a pendulum, between the fear of incurring the wrath of his host country and the knowledge it would never happen.
‘So, please don’t force me, Chief,’ he pleaded.
‘I won’t leave this room until I’m told.’
The Lebanese sweated, in spite of the cool wind from the valley, and his hands were unsteady: they would steal nervously under the table, would reappear and hold a glass, toying nervously with it.
Exasperated, William approached him.
The Lebanese recoiled and collapsed on the floor, his legs flying about like a severed lizard tail. ‘You look just like him, Chief,’ he cried. ‘You look just like Tetese when he chopped off my fingers in this very room.’
William thought, as he watched the Lebanese writhing on the floor, that it was a theatrical display intended to distract him.
‘Now, are you ready to talk, Baldhead?’
Taking sides in any dispute, the Lebanese realised at that point, was just another way of exposing one’s weakness to the mercy of the other to be exploited at will. Was William blind? Couldn’t he see that he was demanding the impossible of him, of everyone in that forest town? In the end, realising he had no choice, the bald Lebanese wiped the sweat off his face, and said slowly: ‘The noises you heard the other night were intended to force you out of Wologizi.’
‘But, I’m here to stay,’ William bellowed.
There was defiance in his voice, and he seemed unperturbed, his eyes sparkling. For a while, the Lebanese believed him, and even thought he was invincible. Yet, his association with William had only rewarded him with uncertainties regarding the solid wall of existence he had built in that town. Now all he could think of was how to salvage what was left of that wall.
Meanwhile William was musing on what he had just been told. If the sole purpose of the auditory phenomenon was to hamper his investigation, then he would stay up all night with his men to identify the forces governing it. No force could counter or defeat the deadly effect of the gun: it had built and broken empires. In the end it would protect him more than any other thing. On pausing in his thought process, he was immediately overwhelmed by thoughts of Makemeh. She was the lull in the storm of events with which he was being confronted. She was always on his mind, but the Lebanese’s comments disturbed him. Perhaps, he thought, the clue to the entire mystery lay in Makemeh’s relationship with the carpenter.
He could not wait to find out. So he left without dining and sat down on a bench outside the shop, under the beam of an unsheathed bulb, waiting for his men. He thought of the first time he had seen the carpenter with Makemeh, imagined what had been exchanged between them. He thought about the spectacle in the town hall that day and how it had forced him to resort to violence – all these events led him to conclude that Makemeh was the key to the mystery and the carpenter the door. He was jolted out of his reverie by a cat which alighted before him from the shop’s attic, nibbled its right paw, glared with its marble eyes in his direction, and then with a bound became one with the darkness, out of range of the light. And still Makemeh was feverishly on his mind. He had to do something to get rid of his doubts.
He listened to the tense silence of Wologizi until he heard his men and saw them enter the sphere of the light.
The men had gone to see Tetese’s father-in-law, had searched his house and had found a huge pantry full of rice and other foods. They had looted it. The father-in-law, they told William, had accumulated his vast wealth through a severe regime of saving. He had begun with fetching and selling firewood and had gone on to build dozens of homes which he rented out with an exorbitant increase in percentage every year. Once he became wealthy, he turned into a thief, an exploiter, a blood sucker, a man who had learned to handle money with a monkish sobriety that had earned him the nickname: ‘the Miser.’
As he listened to them, William envied them their simplicity. They were like dogs that needed only to be fed, even with leftovers, to be forever grateful. ‘It’s time we visited the carpenter,’ he said.
CHAPTER 17
Carpenter Seleh was very cooperative and spoke readily, unlike earlier that day. Since the incident at the town hall, carpenter Seleh had been confined in the police cell, and now as he spoke William could not but wonder about the authencity of the information imparted to him. Obviously when it came to Makemeh, all the carpenter did was provoke him, William realised this as he listened to him. But what Seleh did not know was that Makemeh had ceased to be hi
s soft spot. In fact he had distanced himself from her, uprooting every iota of feeling for her from the depth of his being, so that what remained was only his curiosity as to her role in the drama that her father had become.
‘Only after your Makemeh left my house that night did the urge to kill her take hold of me, Chief,’ carpenter Seleh told him. ‘I had darted out of the house with a cutlass in my hand, intent on carrying out what I had not done while she had been with me. Soon, I saw her hurrying along the main road, bathed in the silvery hue of the moon, her steps quicker, deprived of any grace. For the first time, I realised that Makemeh led a double life: that of a graceful young woman in the presence of men, but in private awkward and simple. Fully aware of the danger of being caught by Tetese’s soldiers then keeping a twelve-hour curfew, I raced towards her. And do you know what I thought as I ran, Chief? I thought that perhaps she was in league with her father, for she was one of the few who had not incurred his wrath. Finally, I caught up with her, and she turned and faced me.
The carpenter paused and asked William for water, but as there was none he took up the thread of his narrative.
‘In her eyes and across her lips lingered a haughty smirk, Chief,’ the carpenter said. ‘You never know what will follow such nasty expressions as hers until you see it – and then you are hurt and you suffer. She drew herself to her full height and thrust her bosom towards me, her breath rapid. She pushed against the cutlass I had brought to rest on her left shoulder, pushed it so hard that, at the encounter of blade with skin, she moaned. The blade dug in her flesh, and she bared her ivory white teeth, her eyes glinting with provocation. With her right hand she pressed the cutlass hard against her skin and felt with a finger the blood which glinted in the moonlight. She showed me the blood, Chief, and then, from deep down within her, issued forth a swooning sound like that of a mating lioness. I wavered, and she broke into laughter. At first it was just a soft chukle, and then she laughed loudly. ‘I always knew you were a queer, Seleh,’ she said and left me kneeling in the dust.
It took a while before I could haul myself up and chase after her, determined to put an end to my torments. Shattering the silence of the night by calling out her name, I pursued her to her grandfather’s house. I awoke the household with my hard pounding on the door, because at that moment I had ceased to care. Tetese’s soldiers, alerted to the noise, encircled me. One of them hit me so hard that I realised I had lost consciousness only when I woke up in the very cell in which you are standing listening to my account, Chief.’
William did his best to conceal his uneasiness, but the story had touched him to the core. That Makemeh was capable of seducing men, he knew from first-hand experience, but that she could have collaborated with her father was new to him. Until now, he had not found a shred of evidence to support this claim, and if indeed she had supported her father the townspeople would not have allowed her to continue living among them. Carpenter Seleh was a man of fantasies but was right in one aspect: Makemeh was a young woman with many faces. William went back on his first conclusion that she was the key to the mystery and Seleh the door. The reverse was true.
‘What happened after that, Seleh? I suppose you were released afterward?’ William asked.
‘Indeed, the next day I was out. Thanks to Makemeh who put in a good word for me. Her influence is far-reaching, Chief.’
‘But why?’
‘That was the question I kept asking myself, but I didn’t have to wait long for an answer, because that same night Makemeh came to see me, this time in her own clothes. She sauntered in my room and took them off, but by then I felt no desire whatsoever for her. Strange, isn’t it? I must own that once upon a time, I was in love with her. She was a great flirt, your Makemeh. She would raise my hopes only to dash them later. I had seen her grow, seen her chest sprout into firm buds. And her cheeks, puffy with pubescent vigour, gradually and inevitably take on permanent outlines that transformed her face into the arresting aspect that you’ve come to treasure so much, Chief.
She was the only woman who kept me awake at night, not because I wanted to possess her, but because I wanted to know her, know the source of her charms, her power over men. I wanted the impossible, her love. Sometimes I wonder whether someone had ever tasted her love or will ever do, for that young woman is precarious.’
When she stood before me naked that night, there was no craving left in me, only the stark reality of a woman reduced to simplicity by her very nakedness. She fascinated me, she still does, the same fascination that once led me to carve a sculpture in her image – the epitome of my work – which my houseboy had the nerve to steal. It was not lust for her, Chief. I simply, simply hungered for her body the way I hunger for my houseboy’s every night.
So when she stood before me, when she offered herself, I knew right then that her action had a price tagged to it.
‘Do you know what she asked of me, Chief?’
Once again, there was that mockery in his voice.
‘She asked me to kill her father.’
This turn of events shattered every possible explanation and turned everything on its head. William was thinking quickly.
‘Why would she ask such a thing?’ William asked. ‘First you thought she was working with her father, and now this.’
‘Because Tetese killed her mother.’
William had to own that the man had a way with him, often astounding him with his revelations. Until that moment, he would never have imagined, despite his doubts about her, that Makemeh would have treaded such a path, or taken such a decision.
‘Your Makemeh is capable of murder, Chief.’
‘It’s said that Tetese disappeared.’
‘Like thin smoke in the wind.’
‘Then your accounts are contradictory.’
Carpenter Seleh laughed.
‘That’s because I refused to carry out her request,’ he said. ‘I felt I was being manipulated by that woman of yours – just as she’s using you now to get to me. So be on your guard.’
Instead of fulfilling her request, the carpenter told William, he had rallied a handful of people to resist Tetese’s tyranny. The resistance had supplied the town with food, thus undermining the curfew which had laid siege on it for weeks. Wologizi would not quake under any pressure. But the supplies had depleted and the siege had compelled the townspeople to feed on cats, dogs, insects, rats and wild roots. Hunger had led to the failure of the rebellion.
‘Because of this, Chief, I became a traitor in the eyes of the townspeople. I was accused of being responsible for their sufferings. And Tetese, the man who began it all, was forgotten. Such is the nature of the people of Wologizi.’
The urge to confront Makemeh with all his doubts overwhelmed William now. He imagined her and the carpenter together: the carpenter drawing her to him, leading her to bed, stretching his muscular body along her slender one, both throbbing with the fever of anticipation, and then both bodies intertwining, the entire act long and passionate, and then followed ultimately by her request. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get rid of that disturbing image.
William heard himself asking, ‘What happened before her request?’
Carpenter Seleh was silent.
‘Answer me, Seleh!’
The carpenter withdrew into the darkest corner of the cell, and William regretted asking the question. He turned around and headed for the door of the cell, as though to escape. Then carpenter Boakai shouted: ‘The thing you expect of a couple – a good fuck.’
William stormed out of the police station.
CHAPTER 18
The man who had visited Wologizi and unleashed a series of events that culminated in his storming out of the police station was determined to squeeze a confession out of Makemeh. As he led his men to the mansion, he could not but imagine the picture the carpenter had sketched of her, of a depraved woman, and yet she claimed never to have been at his place. These contradictions, all the contradictions of recent days, enraged him s
o much that he failed to see the mud-bricks piled up along the roadside until he tripped over them and fell headlong, the sudden impact with a brick causing a cut in his lips. He bled like a slaughtered hog, and he thought he could hear Hawah Lombeh laughing, or was it Makemeh? He would have her locked up in the same cell with the carpenter. The militia, wary of his wrath and confused as to the cause of his rage, refrained from commenting and watched him grope among the scattered bricks for his torch. Failing to find it, he snatched Gamla’s from him and broke into a run.
Something was clearly amiss. The mansion, which had been left with candlelight burning in some of its rooms, was now swathed in absolute darkness. William and his men rushed in and shone their torches on a face with a pepper-and- salt beard, Tetese’s father-in-law. William inquired what he was doing in that house. Boley answered that he had come to report the behaviour of the militia. According to Boley, since William’s arrival, the men had turned lawless. They had plundered his pantry and had beaten him.
William ignored him. When the candles were lighted, he saw Makemeh seated on one of the carpenter’s chairs, her arms folded about her chest, her lips as firm as the lid of a palm wine gourd. She seemed so collected that she grated on his nerves.
‘You come and turn our lives upside down,’ the father- in-law went on unperturbed. ‘It takes men years to generate the kind of fear you’ve succeeded in sowing in every one of us in just a few days. Even my granddaughter constantly fears incurring your wrath.’
‘Shut up!’ William bellowed.
He rushed at the man who, instead of cringing, gazed up at him, his scarred cheeks puffed out in a challenge. Boley looked like a man who had nothing to lose, a man who had become fearless.
‘I want to have a word with your granddaughter.’
‘You are following the wrong trail, Mr Mawolo.’
The right trail did not lead to Makemeh, the father-in- law told him, but to the bald Lebanese who had usurped the town’s economy, stealing the very property on which his shop was built. Boley added that close questioning of the Lebanese would reveal some startling information, for after all it began with his bargain with Tetese. ‘From the very beginning that bald Lebanese made some seedy deals with Tetese and his army. He should be the target of your investigation.’