You Must Set Forth at Dawn

by Wole Soyinka

  For hours that morning, we speculated on the significance of this move. Was it the result of intense diplomatic pressure? We were in constant touch with our embassy in Brasilia and had a right to expect that we would be instantly briefed on any development at home, especially one that might have a bearing on our very welfare. The embassy had no messages for us—nothing.

  The day’s program had to be followed, however. We endured lunch with Carybe and some friends in a favorite Brazilian-Yoruba restaurant, discussed the manifestations of Yoruba culture in Brazil, the race issue, and the comparative merits of the firewaters caxaca and capinrinha, all the time deeply conscious of the double face we wore, wondering what to make of this new complication.

  “We must get out of here,” I said to Biyi—unnecessarily—as soon as we were alone.

  We left unceremoniously, leaving notes for our Brazilian hosts about some problems at home that required our immediate return. The gods must have felt some remorse for their unkind treatment of their faithful servitors, since it was virtually by a miracle that we obtained two seats on the very next flight out of Rio and heading for—no destination could be more earnestly desired—Dakar!

  OUR ARRIVAL I N Dakar brought unusual excitement to the staid laboratories of Senegal’s ethnological institute, IFAN, headed by Cheik Anta Diop, whose African Origin of Civilisation had committed the ultimate sin of faulting the theories of canonized Egyptologists, Jacques Champollion especially. Most of the staff were only too familiar with the ancient controversy over Ori Olokun. They cast their eyes on this head with the greenish patina, the telltale hole in the cheek, and the holes strung around the base of the skull, a feature of bronze sculptures cast through the cire perdue technique—and they instantly burst into ululations. They pronounced it, unquestionably, the original.

  The problem was the material. If it were clay, was our find the original clay mold from which the final head had been cast? But then who on earth had taken the trouble to coat the head in verdigris and replicate the very appearance of an antique bronze piece? Had yet another set of raiders stumbled on the original clay mold, then faked its surface appearance to hide its authenticity? This was a piece that was cast to perfection. Measurements were taken to compare them with those of Frobenius, that assiduous recorder of weights and measures. Cheik Anta Diop, a long-embattled scholar, was beside himself with excitement: “Just think of it, if somehow the original mold from which the bronze was cast had been miraculously preserved—what a find! What a find!”

  And what a dismal find it proved when, sitting down with a riot of thoughts while we awaited the return of the archival researchers, my eyes fixated on this troublesome object, I finally noticed a tiny, clearly embossed line at the base of the head, just where it joins the neck. The light from Diop’s window had made visible what the artificial light in our hotel room—and our downsized powers of observation in Bahia—had failed to reveal. I looked more carefully and— all was made plain. That impish agent of reversals, Esu, was clearly not done with us!

  This fragmentary line was not by itself but was joined to others. They formed the letter—M! And there, just before M, was yet another faded letter: B. The letters “BM” stamped into this piece, standing for no other institution than—the British Museum! Of course! What we had in our hands was nothing other than a British Museum copy, available for the princely sum of— fifteen, twenty pounds? Certainly twenty-five pounds at the most. The deflation could not have been more definitive than that of a hot-air balloon spiraling down to earth after an unfortunate encounter with a migrating stork!

  When Cheik Anta returned to his office, I showed him the stamp. He appeared to take it in his stride, looking only a little disappointed but not in the least crestfallen—which would be a generous description of the condition in which he met us. Then I asked the question: “Where is the original today, from which this was made?”

  The question must have struck him as fatuous, since the stamp indicated quite clearly where the copy had originated. But my mind had resumed the hunt. I persisted: “If we say that this is a copy of what Frobenius described in his travelogue, the one that he dug up, leaving a hole in its cheek, the same one that was displayed in both the Munich and London expositions before it allegedly disappeared, then from what bronze head was this copied by the museum? And when?” I rattled off details of the facts I had unearthed in the days preparatory to our departure. Its last acknowledged appearance had been at the London Exhibition of 1938 in honor of King George’s coronation. After that— the entire ethnographic world insists—it disappeared altogether. So from what bronze piece came this plaster replica? I produced my dossier, flashed the museum postcard. “Look at it. Even on this card, produced and sold to its visitors by the museum, it says, ‘Present whereabouts unknown.’ So what phantom head gave birth to this copy even while its existence is denied?”

  Cheik Anta took the piece, rolled it lovingly in his hands, walked to his chair, and sat in it, shaking his head dolefully. “But you know, our white colleagues in this ethnographic business have always been thieves—we know that. But they also put their scholarship at the service of thieves.”

  I DRAFTED A telegram for the embassy to send to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lagos. It read: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, BUT INCONCLUSIVE. STOPOVER IN DAKAR TO PURSUE INQUIRIES.” It was the kindest language—to our bruised selves—that I could conceive. I flashed our letter of mission authorization to the embassy and requested that it check us into a hotel and take care of the bills. This was more than conservation of our remaining finances; more than ever, it became important to ensure that the involvement of the government was established at every stage. Once our flight back into Lagos was arranged, the embassy sent another telegram to the Foreign Office providing details of our travel and requesting that we be met on arrival.

  We were not. We waited an hour at Ikeja airport, then concluded that our message had not been received or that arrangements had gone awry. On our way out of Nigeria, we had been taken to the airport by ministry officials, accorded full VIP protocol. Our embassy in Dakar had also been more than hospitable, had placed an official car at our disposal while we remained there, driven us to the airport, and assisted in clearing immigration formalities—in short, we had had no cause to think that we were no longer on an official mission. Still, the bare fact stared us in the face: no official was there to meet us, neither from Adefowope’s ministry nor from Dodan Barracks.

  It turned out that we had arrived on a day when nearly all of Lagos was at a standstill. Nobody who was anybody was to be found in Lagos—all were headed for Benin, homeland of those close cousins of the Yoruba from whom, according to legend, they were descended in the first place. The oba of that famous kingdom, Oba Akenzua Iku Akpolopkolo, had died, and his nearly interminable obsequies were approaching their climax. Successive military regimes had ostentatiously kowtowed to the traditional rulers—unless, of course, they stood in the way of military will, in which case, the oba, obi, or emir soon learned just who wielded the real power. Otherwise, the military paid due obeisance to the monarch, and the oba of Benin was certainly among the most venerated.

  Traffic around Benin City moved in two directions. The top brass and cream of Lagosian society and other cities trooped toward Benin to pay homage, while strangers and beggars trooped the other way—they could not escape from Benin and its environs fast enough! For the tradition was that a certain number of human sacrifices must be made when the oba died, and such victims were selected, so persisted rumors, from among strangers. True or false, many preferred not to find out. In addition, all indigenes of the kingdom, the Edo people, were required to shave their heads as a sign of respect and homage. Even my good friend the democratic litigant Gani Fawehinmi, “Senior Advocate of the Masses,” though non-Edo, shaved his head clean—a gesture that struck me as dyeing one’s attire a deeper indigo than the weeds of the bereaved. I felt irritated that Gani should lend his authority to a feudal imposition, yet harbor
ed a rapport with the traditional institution itself as an essential part of the cultural landscape.

  Thus I lamented a failed mystic linkage between the passing of a descendant of Oduduwa and this return of a pale symbol, a plaster cast of his deified sibling, Olokun, just in time to participate in the funeral rites of one of the branches of the great primogenitor. It occurred to me that maybe Yai and I should also shave our heads, not in homage to the passing of this monarch but in remorse for a mission from which we had returned empty-handed— even worse, returned with a mere shell of the historic weight of the scion of Oduduwa. I tried to console myself that we nonetheless held in secret custody an object that could substitute for the royal death mask, but was rewarded only with a decidedly hollow feeling in my stomach, as hollow as the clay head in our possession.

  I sensed that something had gone badly wrong. The absence of protocol— the Benin events notwithstanding—was ominous. Still, there was nothing else to do but await the return of the mourners. We headed for Ibadan. Aboyade, our abetting ex–vice chancellor, was also nowhere to be found, and we assumed that he was part of the official delegation to Benin. Yai proceeded to Ife while I stopped off at Femi’s, both to unwind and to relieve him of his predictable, ravenous hunger for the narrative of our voyage.

  IN IFE, NEWS OF THE safe return of the “Argonauts” had circulated, and jubilations had begun. The History Department, African Studies, Languages, Philosophy, Drama, the Dean’s Office, and so on were gearing up to celebrate in grand style. We had the sobering task of stopping them from slaughtering the fatted calf. Not only had the real objective proved elusive; there was now a serious risk that the leakage of our real objective into diplomatic circles would have one guaranteed result: the authentic Ori Olokun would now sink deeper and deeper into an impenetrable hiding place. To have propagated its nonexistence for so long, and now to have a bunch of skeptics taking melodramatic risks to puncture that myth of a mystic disappearance, would send a message to the illegal possessor: Hide it away, dig a hole like its original habitation in Ile-Ife, bring it out to gaze upon from time to time, and perhaps exhibit it to a few intimates!

  So much for the speculative fate of Ori Olokun. Of more immediate concern to us was our own fate, the two olori-kunkun who had undertaken this thankless mission. Who was responsible for the departure of our suspected colleague whom we had left in the guesthouse of the vice chancellor? The answer was dispiriting.

  In its anxiety to ensure that Pierre remained in the country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had involved the police. The consequences could not have been more disastrous. The police, on their own, had decided to “carry out investigations.” They had visited Ife Museum and found an Ori Olokun in its accustomed place, unscathed. They spoke to the curator: Had there been a break-in at the museum? No, the curator assured them. Nothing missing from the collection? Not even a bronze head? No, everything was in its place. And what would be his reaction if he were told that the Ori Olokun was missing? Well, if they would kindly follow him, he would show them the Ori Olokun on its accustomed podium in the glass case. The harassed man answered their questions in the strictest manner possible. He did not reveal that we had visited the museum at the planning stages and that he was part of the project, though not of the conspiracy. He knew his archaeological history and had indeed admitted to us that each time he passed by the pretender in its glass case, he felt like smashing the case and throwing out the piece. He had unprintable names for Mr. Frobenius.

  The police listened, took notes, returned to base, and filed their report. It was succinct and damning: no theft had been reported from Ife. Ori Olokun was in its place, large as life. There had been no disturbance of his peace nor of that of his companions on display at Ife Museum.

  Piecing the rest of the story together was easy enough. Pierre Verger was questioned. Did he know anything of a missing Ori Olokun? He denied it. Had he made enemies while at Ife, colleagues who might be interested in scheming for his downfall? A puzzled Pierre told them that he knew of none such among his colleagues. Was he on good relations with Wole Soyinka? Absolutely, said Pierre. And Olabiyi Yai? What did he know of him? Labiyi and he worked closely, said Pierre, and he had played host to Labiyi in Brazil. Their academic areas of interest threw them together quite often. Akin Isola? Wande Abimbola? Any contest for academic preferment between you and them? Pierre replied in the negative.

  Well, declared the SSS to Pierre, you are clearly the victim of some intrigue. And those first two are at the center of it. Right now, they are in Brazil—to do what exactly, we do not know, since it is now clear that they were never after any missing object. Maybe they went over there to further whatever sinister plot your friends at the university had cooked up against you. No matter, we apologize for all the inconvenience and hope you do not hold us responsible for it. University politics are clearly beyond us, and quite frankly, we would rather be kept out of them. There is a flight out to Brazil tonight—would you like to be on it? Pierre was more than willing; he was ready to fly out of Nigeria and never dirty his feet on her soil for the rest of his life! Perhaps only Labiyi and I, of the entire planet, were more eager than Pierre to depart from alien territory during those crucial twenty-four hours.

  Our planes did not cross paths over the Atlantic—not quite. Later, as we conducted a detailed postmortem on the sequence of events, followed up on the actions of the police and the departure of Pierre, we discovered that we had actually been in Rio de Janeiro—in the departure section of the airport—at the very moment that Pierre was passing through to Immigration and baggage claim. Fifteen minutes either way, and the two gladiatorial groups would have encountered each other, perhaps in the parking lot or at the frontage of the airport building!

  WE WERE ABOUT to discover that the devil sometimes takes a sabbatical! That other descendant of the line of Oduduwa, Obasanjo, the head of state, became suddenly inaccessible, evaporated as the authentic Ori Olokun was alleged to have done. I suggested that perhaps he had traveled to Benin incognito, strayed into the path of the ritualists hunting for sacrificial strangers, and was now keeping company with the late oba of Benin. I called the more-than-familiar telephone number, and a strange voice answered. I announced who I was and asked to speak to the head of state. I was rewarded with a barked response: “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Do I what-did-you-say?”

  “Have an appointment, I said. Do you have an appointment to phone the head of state?”

  I still was not sure I had heard right. I repeated my name, and the voice retorted, “Yes, I heard you say who you are. And I asked you if you had an appointment.”

  “You want me to make an appointment to call your oga? Now, how exactly does one do that?”

  “That is not my business to tell you. Do you think you can call the head of state just like that? Without an appointment?”

  Well, now, I thought, it is not only the Edo Kingdom that is being turned upside down. The nation itself, Nigeria, appeared to have tumbled into some time warp and was spinning out of control. Maybe some aliens had taken over Dodan Barracks. Could this possibly be the same Dodan Barracks that I called up anytime, the same head of state with whom I had brainstormed together with Oje, sometimes over dinner or a weekend lunch, a wine bottle tucked under my arm to guard against wine poisoning by his indifferent stewards? We had commenced this exercise—could only have begun it!—with his active approval and collaboration. Now here was some strange voice that breezily, even insolently, admitted that it recognized the identity of the caller but required that this same caller somehow make an appointment in order to speak to his boss. I put down the telephone, turned to Akin Isola next to me, and sighed.

  “We are in trouble. Deep trouble.” And I narrated what had been barked at me from the other end of the line.

  “What next?” Akin demanded.

  In that moment, my mind was made up. “I leave for London. We’ve wasted far too much time.”

  “Leave for L
ondon? What for?”

  “I’m heading for the British Museum. I want to find out which original this copy came from. Certain forces have entered into this, forces on which we hadn’t bargained. Pressures. Diplomatic, certainly. Just think—why was Pierre released without our being informed? I think we are about to be sold, bargained away. Before that happens, I need to have pushed this search as far as possible. From now on, we ignore that devil in Dodan Barracks. We ignore the ministry, and we ignore the police. We are on our own and—so be it.”

  AND SO IT WAS back on the trail, but in a different mode. There would be no more skulduggery. Between the members of the original team and the recruited art historian in the Fine Arts Department, Babatunde Lawal, we had already compiled masses of literature. I pored over this material yet again, returned to the library to scrutinize bibliographies, indexes, and footnotes even more closely, looking for clues that we might have overlooked or considered unimportant. Now it was desperation for more knowledge, for a closer approximation of the truth, that drove me.

  It was strange. Only a few days had passed since nothing mattered in the world but that moment when I would hold a physical object in my hands, restore it to its rightful home, and bask in the contentment of a historic closure. Now all I wanted was the truth, the truth of a location, the meaning behind nearly a half century of deception. I felt the pressure of time. Any moment now, I expected to be warned off in some manner that would be difficult to circumvent—probably summoned and read the riot act, such as that any further action on my part regarding Ori Olokun would “jeopardize the bilateral relations with this or that government and will not be tolerated.” The next casualty would be my passport, then would come all forms of harassment, such as being summoned for interrogation. Arrest or detention was out of the question, that much at least I was quite sure of. The Obasanjo regime badly craved the reputation of following the rule of law.