You Must Set Forth at Dawn

by Wole Soyinka

  Nor were the gods under whose watchful eyes they took place. It was my very private world. Within it, I experienced no sense of betrayal; guilt did not obtrude, did not exist. Marriage, now a mere formality, remained equally protected in its own continually expansive world of responsibilities, emotional impositions, and domestic bargaining, but this arena of deities and ancestors remained impervious to its moralities. Heavy wood sculptures, bronzes, caryatids and votive vessels, ceremonial drums and metallic gongs—they provided relief for the mind when inspiration flagged and my fingers fluttered aimlessly over the typewriter. Most times, however, they proved an additional impetus for those stretches when the fingers tapped a productive rhythm on the keys. While I was locked away in prison, family and visitors found it most touching to see Kayoos turning up from time to time to dust my collection, take out the cobwebs, and spruce up the appearance of his big brother’s prized sanctum.

  Then one day, my wife visited a colleague of hers. A friend from the United States had been staying with that lady, and now he was getting ready to leave. Strewn all over the floor, in various stages of wrapping and packing, were souvenirs he was taking with him. Quite innocently, she sensed a familiarity in some of the artifacts and observed that her friend’s visitor appeared to have similar tastes to mine. Then she picked up another piece. Interesting, that also looked familiar... and then another, even more familiar. Suddenly, she felt dead certain. The coincidence was too much. There could not be such consistency; the pieces were not merely familiar, they looked identical, and there were far too many of them. One piece in particular belonged in the living room, so she had grown accustomed to it. She excused herself and returned home. Yes, it was gone; so were a number of other pieces within the house and a lot more from the garage-museum.

  The collector had no misgivings whatsoever. He had bought them, and legitimately. He knew to whom they belonged but had been made to believe that Kayoos had been given the authority to dispose of them. This was easy enough to believe, as Kayoos was well known in expatriate circles as a dealer in traditional items, though not necessarily antiquities. And what was more logical than to assume that the family of an imprisoned man, incommunicado, might need to dispose of some personal items to take care of their immediate financial needs?

  What items that could be retrieved from the hapless visitor were taken back, but of course he was not the only buyer from Kayoos’s limitless source. A number of coveted objects had disappeared forever.

  While I sojourned in prison, oblivious to my bereavement, a series of family meetings and consultations with friends began. Bola Ige, lawyer and combative politician, undertook the task of extricating Kayoos from the criminal consequences of his enterprise, since the effort to recover other items had necessarily involved the police. Femi Johnson was at hand to give advice and exert his influence in other vital directions. As the day approached for my release, the meetings were resumed with one agenda: how to break the news to me and what to do about this near-unhealable breach. The first decision was predictable, being based on what even those outside the immediate family had instinctively grasped, or had been told, about my attachment to these works of art: Kayoos was ordered to keep his distance from me. He could come and join in the welcome on the very first day, but that was all. And so he seized the earliest chance to break out from the crowd and give me that most expressive hug, disappeared into the crowd, and swiftly left town.

  The moment I could escape the throng of visitors, my first visit was to this private den. I had been absent twenty-eight months, but I had a total recall of my collection: how they had been stored, how one related to another across the room or jostled for shelf space with a third. I knew in which direction I turned at my desk to rest tired or questing eyes on an Ogun here, an Esu there; I knew which corner Osanyin reposed in with his skeletal birds, cowrie beads, and train of leather thongs, where the divination tray was propped against the bamboo support, and where, I would joke, a field of force was generated between a phallus-burdened monkey and a caryatid with a split vulva. And there were the bronze miniatures whose patina I caressed as I strolled between the bamboo shelves that I had constructed myself, the uprights festooned with ancestral masks or elaborately carved hunter’s fly whisks. Now all I saw were gaps, clamorous absences.

  I asked questions, obtained vague answers from my wife. . . . Oh, some of the items had been sent for restoration and then kept for their own safety . . . anyway, Professor This or That would speak to me about them later. Something was wrong, I knew, but I chose to be patient. There were, in any case, more pressing concerns that had been created by my absence.

  They came like a mournful delegation to break the news of a family bereavement—an uncle, a cousin-in-law, a mother-in-law, an elderly family dependent; and of course, lurking in the background, ready to interject some balm or whisk me away to some place of recovery was—OBJ. They judged that the moment was right, having allowed me a few days to settle back into domesticity, be reabsorbed into a living community, but also to recover from the overpowering waves of well-wishers. Now there was this family matter to be settled, a breach to be healed. I listened to voices of entreaty, numbed . . . You have to remember, whatever it takes, he is still your brother. The important thing is that we are able to give thanks to God for your safe return. Add this to the list of the trials that you underwent; even though you did not know it at the time, this loss is part of those trials nonetheless. Only God knows what he has in store as compensation, but certainly he means to make restitution a hundredfold. You have your family, your children; your standing in the world is a thing of envy in the minds of thousands you’ve never heard of. . . . Family is family, no matter what . . . and on and on and on.... The case was still with the police. They were waiting for me to return before they could close the files. As the owner of the stolen or missing goods, only I could give them instructions to do so. If I could find my way to doing this as soon as possible, then we could all get over the nightmare and put it behind us.

  They had done their duty. I thanked them. I replied that I had listened carefully to what they had to say and assured them that I had taken the disaster stoically. I had no interest whatever in exacting the appropriate penalty from the scoundrel. As far as I was concerned, there was no case, there was to be no criminal pursuit, and the case should simply be allowed to lapse. None of them should, however, expect that I would go to the police station or write a letter asking that the case be discontinued. Just let it lapse. If they wanted me to get over this blow as quickly as possible, it would be the only way—that it be dropped like a stone into a pond. Finis!

  They remained worried. It seemed to them a kind of closure but one that lacked an impermeable casing. Yes, they were in full agreement. It would be asking too much of me to take the active step of approaching the police. But suppose they brought the officer in charge of the case to me and I gave him instructions? I considered this, then thought up an even better idea for my peace of mind—I wanted so desperately to be alone. Look, I proposed, why don’t you write the letter? Make it short and to the point: I, Wole Soyinka, complainant in the matter of the stolen antiquities, hereby declare that I do not wish to pursue any criminal charges and hereby authorize you to close the case. Something along those lines. Just write it and I’ll sign it. I don’t even wish to read it. Write it now, right now. I want the matter closed.

  They all turned to my friend Femi Johnson. He had been part of the conspiracy from the beginning, though he had said nothing so far, since this was basically a family matter. Quickly, he wrote the short one-paragraph letter. I signed it. Then there was some hemming and hawing. I looked around at the faces; obviously they were not done.... Well, there is still the family matter. Family matter? What family? Well, your brother . . . when can he come to see you? He has to know that you’ve forgiven him.

  I was puzzled. What were they talking about? Had they really failed to fasten on the one conclusion that occupied my mind? Yes, of course, there wa
s the sense of betrayal, but it went further. The collection had been my life, so I felt as if I had been murdered. It was quite simple: anyone who was capable of doing this could only have done it out of one conviction—that I would not emerge from prison alive. I looked at their faces, surprised that this obvious awareness had eluded them—he had wished me dead, he had assumed me dead, he was stealing from a dead man! Could they not see this as clearly as I did? I heard one of them say, We’ve told him to stay away for now. No, no, you tell him to stay away for good. For good! It’s no longer a family matter, because I no longer consider him family. So tell him to keep away. I don’t wish to see him ever. I don’t wish to know him. In fact, I do not know him.

  That evening, after they had left, I went into the garage and packed my books and papers. I did not bestow so much as a glance of regret at my silent companions, feeling only an expanse of deep violation, of betrayal and deep distrust—not focused on any being, since I had truly wiped out my assailant’s existence from my mind. All I had left was a void, the loss of a vital organ. But it also triggered off a process of self-chastisement: See? That’s what comes of becoming attached to material things. Now see how devastated you are. Were these really anything but props? Crutches! Deprived of your crutches, you are crushed! Yes, crushed! So much for those phases of self-dissolution in which you indulged in prison confinement, when even your physical self vanished and you found peace in the abode of nothingness. So much for your claims of companionship with the hermit priest Malarepa: “I need nothing. I seek nothing. I desire nothing.” Does it require the barrenness of a prison cell to induce such wisdom in the mind, and is such wisdom so soon dissipated on emerging from confinement?

  Still, no one could deny that it was my right to remain attached to my books and papers, or at least to need them for my living, so I piled them into the car and drove to my office behind the theater. I tumbled them into a corner and, in that deadened state of mind, chloroformed by loss and repudiation, proceeded to set up a new work space. The gods remained in their own abode, abandoned, but this was a condition to which they had been accustomed for the past two years anyway, and even since eternity. They were free to seek their own remedies; all I asked for was my peace of mind. My reinstallation in this neutral space completed, I drove furiously to Femi’s house, late as it was. He was expecting me. We drank late into the night.

  IT TOOK YEARS before I would again acknowledge the right of this rump collection to a place in my existence or move to replenish it. The healing came gradually; Kayoos underwent a virtual transfiguration, becoming almost one with the playful, even sometimes watchful presences in his own inner sanctuary. At the time, however, the void in my private space only augmented the hollowness that beset me whenever I was thrust into the public arena, from which I had become even more viscerally alienated. It left me craving distance, a tactile and sensory severance. I slipped out fusslessly and, into my first—and only—spell of voluntary exile.

  PART III

  Interlude to a Friendship

  Interlude to a Friendship

  LOOKING BACK, IT STRIKES ME WITH SOME ASTONISHMENT THAT, UNTIL his death in 1987, one constant, a large presence in the “extracurricular” undertakings of my adult existence, was Olufemi Babington Johnson. Just who was this being?

  I have often wondered what he would have made of Sani Abacha. What role would he have played in our struggle? I know that he would not have hesitated one moment to place resources at my disposal, most especially for Radio Kudirat, the opposition radio that drove Sani Abacha to distraction. Femi once paid me an unusual compliment, an invaluable gift, if only he had known it! He confided it to his second wife, Folake, who passed it to mine, her namesake. This man said of me, “You can leave your heart with Wole and travel to Hong Kong. When you come back, it would still be beating.” I must confess that I have never ceased to ponder and be moved by this tribute. The views of women with whom I have had disastrous relationships will probably differ, but—best to stay away from that literal track!

  This, of course, was a tribute that was infinitely appropriate for him, and I wondered if he ever thought about himself that way or made it a guiding principle of his existence. I only know that his words hovered around my head like a talisman long after his death, as if in silent exhortation. To a degree, we do aspire to live up to the view of others, no matter how stoutly we deny it. During the fight against Sani Abacha’s tyranny, I could hardly deny myself the echo of Femi’s words urging me on in that obsessive mission: to keep the heart of a nation, of a people, beating, even after a demented dictator had ripped it out and squeezed its lifeblood down his throat.

  Femi’s generosity was not limited to tributes to a friend. As one frustrated year succeeded the last, I would imagine scenes of clandestine meetings—in London, Kampala, Paris, Lisbon, Dakar, Vineroz, and other venues—where his first question would most certainly have been: How can I contribute? Then would follow a self-deprecating catechism of his lack of physical courage. The cloak-and-dagger arrangements that would have preceded such a meeting— for his own protection—would have set his eyes dancing with relish. We would meet for lunch or dinner. Straight from the first course, I would spring the surprise, letting him realize for the first time that I knew and had been moved by his tribute. Femi, you want the heart of that nation of ours to continue beating, not so? Well, help me fund a clandestine opposition radio. A double take, the inimitable laughter boom, a threat to “hammer that woman’s head”—his wife’s, for betraying his confidence—and his next question would be: What do you need, and how soon?

  Difficult now to imagine that once we did not speak to each other for nearly seven months and I pronounced our friendship at an end. It was absurd, a falling-out that made little sense, but it did happen. I declared it all dead: the years of intense bonding, of arguments, risks, of political and other—far more delectable—exploits, both the casual encounters and others that demanded elaborate organizational skills and complex logistics, covering up for each other as needed. Or the theater and other performance ventures, the hunting expeditions, and of course the hours at his generous table, or at my skimpier one, which gave up, very early, all attempts to rival his sybaritic largeness. A compulsive performer, with artistic sensibilities and a sonorous baritone singing voice, Femi could have shaped his life in a different direction, in a different environment, but he chose to become an insurance broker and entrepreneur, and became an immensely successful one. Perhaps what drew me to him was partly recognition of that road not taken, the repressed artist within the nattily suited businessman, a keen political animal that yet fled politics, one who did not hesitate to take the hearts of others into his hands for safekeeping—or resuscitation.

  THE KENYAN WRITER Ngugi wa Thingo never met Femi Johnson, but his wife did. So did Ngugi’s comrade in arms Micere Mugo, one of the dissidents of Kenya’s intelligentsia, resolutely opposed to the corrupt and repressive government of Daniel arap Moi. At the height of arap Moi’s paranoid and draconian rule in the 1970s, I became desperate to make contact with Ngugi, about whose condition in prison we were receiving only disquieting news. I had not yet developed any of the multiple identities that I was later obliged to adopt and owned only one passport. A personal appearance in Nairobi would have been short-lived—a press conference, perhaps, and I would have been back on the next plane under police escort—assuming that I was even allowed into Kenya in the first place. In any case, Ngugi’s associates—Micere Mugo and others—had advised against a personal visit by me.

  As if by a miracle, the African Association of Insurance Brokers decided to hold its annual conference in Nairobi. I had letters and money to deliver to Ngugi’s wife—I was then secretary-general of the Union of Writers of the African Peoples, an organization that I initiated in Ghana in 1972 and that was formally inaugurated in Dakar the following year under Léopold Sédar Senghor’s patronage. I had squeezed a little money together from our members’ contributions, and this was to go to Ngug
i’s aid. Even more important than the immediate monetary relief was the need to establish contact, to get a message to Ngugi that we were not simply sitting on our hands, indifferent to his predicament. Never—I am certain—has a meeting of insurance brokers been so conveniently timed in the cause of the arts—but it would happen for Femi and me! My friend readily agreed to carry out the mission.

  “If they catch you,” I joked, “you’re on your own. Only if I learn that you are actually about to be executed will I come for you personally.”

  “Don’t worry. Before anyone lays a hand on me, I’ll spill the beans.”

  “Good. That’s exactly what I want you to promise. No heroics. Begin with Micere—either she’ll be at the university or someone will know where she is. Micere will take you to Ngugi’s wife—it may require a long journey by road.”

  “I’ll find her.”

  “That’s most important. We want to know what she wants us to do, how she wants us to react to what is going on. Who else needs help. Be sure to have a long conversation with her. I want news about Ngugi—when she saw him last, how he is, how he’s being treated, et cetera, et cetera.”