Doing Dangerously Well

by Carole Enahoro

  Barbara rang the bell.

  A man in a pink sweater answered the door. He stared at Barbara, perplexed. He looked her up and down.

  “I’m Fantasia Smythe.” She held out a bangled hand.

  “Sure. C’mon in, my dear.” He extracted himself from his musings and led her to a front parlour. “Please sit down. Tell me, how can I help you?” His blue-grey hair fell over his eyes, whose brows had been plucked.

  “I’m a missionary.” She tilted her head. “We’re doing important work with our flock in Nigeria.” Only once she had uttered these words did it occur to her that she had forgotten to take off her Taoist yin-yang pendant. “We need some dynamite. We’re building a church. Just have to get rid of the old one first.” And her Black Power earrings, each sculpted into the form of a raised fist. “Can I see your catalogue?”

  “Uh, sure.” His lip balm glinted in the sunlight.

  As she heard his steps click down the stairs, she crossed her ankles, her tight-laced shoes squeaking as she stretched her toes. She glanced around at the objects within the room: the antique chandelier, the mahogany bookcases that entirely covered one wall, two giant Chinese vases and eight etchings placed with precision in two rows of four across tasteful crimson walls. The contents of the room could probably finance a revolution in most African countries.

  He reappeared with an assortment of papers and a catalogue, which he laid in front of her. “So, here’s dynamite listings. We have detonators here; deflags here; RDX—that’s here, but, I don’t know, you’re not going through steel, are you? Fuses; delays; blasters; cord. Was there anything else?”

  “God will guide me.” She tapped his hand, then flipped through the catalogue, creating a small breeze. Understanding nothing, she finally gave up in confusion.

  “May God guide you,” she said, handing the catalogue back to him. “Send the products to Fantasia Enterprises.” Barbara selected a green pen, a symbolic link to the Nigerian flag and, by extension, its people. She jotted down Femi’s address, her head wiggling with self-importance as she wrote.

  After completing her covert activities, Barbara hopped back into the rusting Volvo and returned to the parental home in a carefree mood. Astro stood outside the gates, waiting for her, plastic bag in hand. He looked small at such a distance. She waved to him and opened the passenger door.

  He got in and slammed it shut.

  “Enjoy yourself?” she asked, swerving into the path of an oncoming car to avoid a pothole. She ran through the plans in her head. Although she had just bought enough dynamite for at least six months, she would need to get financing so Femi could buy explosives in Nigeria at local exchange rates and hide the expenditure from Drop of Life. She could place it under “awareness-raising” or some other such budget item.

  Barbara shook herself free of her ruminations, having noticed that the car was unusually quiet. She looked at Astro to find him staring at her. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  He hugged his plastic bag to his chest. “Nothing. Keep your eyes on the road.”

  A car honked.

  “What do you mean ‘nothing’?” She honked back at the car. “I can tell something’s wrong.”

  “Oh, really? Like what?”

  “I dunno.”

  “You don’t know?” he screeched, clutching his plastic bag. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “Am I supposed to?”

  “Okay. Let me get this right. I’m sitting in a car with a wannabe secret agent—”

  “A what?”

  “—who deliberately left her boyfriend in an open field by himself because she thinks her work is too important for the likes of him—”

  “A what? An open field? It was a driveway!”

  “—and lied to him about introducing him to her parents—” The bobble on his hat was jiggling again.

  “I didn’t lie!”

  “-who, by the way, weren’t even in!” His pink earflaps quivered with anger.

  “They weren’t?” She considered, perplexed by this turn of events. “But they’re always in!”

  “Said ‘boyfriend,’” he quote-marked the air with trembling fingers, “is now probably on some international FBI’s Most Wanted list; said ‘boyfriend,’” more air quotes, “has probably got his face plastered over a whole bunch of offices—”

  “There’s no way—”

  Astro turned to stare out his window. “I’m just a microchip in your poker game—”

  “A what?”

  “-who was innocently misled into believing he had a bona fide relationship.” His bottom lip quivered, “Call me naive.” He gulped down a sob; in his averted eyes, genuine distress.

  “I had something else in mind.”

  “Look at this!” He turned towards Barbara, pointing at his pitiable face. “You know what you’re looking at?”

  She huffed, having suffered a lifetime of witnessing such behaviour. “I dunno. Overacting?”

  “You’re looking at a pawn, a patsy, a dupe.” His fingers were still pointing at his face. “The victim of a devious mind.” His voice trembled. “Contact the FBI to tell them we’re through, please.” He bit his bottom lip and looked steadfastly out of the window. “That’ll save me a lot of hassle. Particularly with the fish tank.”

  On the morning after her return to Ottawa, Barbara charged towards work, darting past May’s blanket of tulips and the canal’s bright boats. She dashed into the office, ran up to her turret two stairs at a time and picked up the phone, breathless. She dialled one of her father’s former colleagues.

  “Hello. Can I speak to Mr. Mortimer, please?”

  “Herbert Mortimer speaking.”

  “Hello. It’s Ernest Glass’s daughter.”

  “Oh! How are you doing? Still at TransAqua?”

  Since he had assumed it was Mary, Barbara adopted a more businesslike approach. “That’s a positive. I’m …” she tried to remember her sister’s title, “… Manager of Dams, of Water Dams.” Sounded right. “We have a problem here. One of our people has just left. Couldn’t stand the pressure.” She slung an arm behind her chair. “So I fired him.”

  “Oh. Sorry to hear it!” Herbert replied.

  “Well, as we say in the business, if you can’t stand the water, get out of the bathroom.” She guffawed, then trailed off. “It’s an in-joke.”

  “I remember those,” he commiserated.

  “Anyway, I was wondering-could I send you a copy of some blueprints? We need an im-pact ass-ess-ment.” She drew the last words out, as if he would not understand them. “You can invoice TransAqua once you’re done. So sorry to disturb you. It’s just that the UN’s Dam Commission is flexing its muscles again.”

  “They ought to be disbanded.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  Within a fortnight, Barbara had a rough estimate of the damage the new dam would cause. The statistics were alarming. Hundreds of thousands of people would be displaced, with no plans for compensation. The dam would submerge cities, towns, factories, crops and historical relics. She sent the analysis to Aminah, copied to her team.

  After that, life at work died down to a stultifying boredom. Femi was in the thick of the action, while she pretended to file papers.

  At home, she sat on her porch with her vegetarian egusi and yam, admiring the arching blue, missing her former daily companion. She yearned for a more innocent time, when she felt as if she could conquer the world, when life was something to be enjoyed, not battled, when she was able to revel in its simplicity rather than get bound up in its complexity. And the common thread running through all these times-Astro. Barbara realized she did not even know his real name, nor did it matter. He seemed to come from the heavens; to him, reality was only something to be dazzled by. He was the force who had supported her, never doubting her ability nor questioning her judgement.

  Perhaps he had forgiven her.

  She turned to her Wiccan charms and embarked on a small ceremony to bring her
luck. Then she picked up the phone.

  “Hello, Astro. It’s Barbara.”

  “Hey, bud.” His voice wobbled a bit. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Just phoning to see how you are.”

  Silence.

  “I’m fine. So I guess you can check that off your list. Astro’s fine. Tick.”

  He hung up.

  TWENTY

  Power Line

  With the blueprints secreted in a generous, multicoloured handbag, Aminah visited the offices of the Popular Star, whose editor, Richard Nzekwu, was one of the few Nigerian journalists with ideological rather than regional leanings.

  The appointment was for nine. Aminah turned up a respectable hour and fifteen minutes late. She was finally admitted to the editor’s office around noon.

  “Thank you for seeing me, sir,” Aminah bobbed a curtsey.

  “Please sit down, madam.” Nzekwu was a small man, no more than five feet tall-no match for Aminah’s bulk-and his legs swung under his chair as he sat.

  “Thank you, sir. Oh, look at this wall! So many prizes! Ah-ah-does Nigeria have this many prizes for journalism?”

  He smiled as her bellow carried through the moist air to far-flung cubicles. “Of course not.” He hiccupped out a laugh. “I make them up myself!”

  “Ah-ah, sir! Why are you so modest?” Aminah stood up, her large frame casting a shadow over the editor. “Look at the size of this trophy! What car could fit this trophy?”

  Nzekwu’s legs swung merrily under him. Arrayed behind him in order of height stood bottles of water from all over the world-Italy, France, Canada–all the great suppliers, from mountain springs to deep aquifers, keeping guard over the office’s health. Outside, dotted within the vast groupings of cubicles, precious water was dispensed by large refrigerated containers. It was obvious to Aminah that, despite the prohibitive cost, the editor knew his paper could run only if his journalists had access to fresh water. Water-borne illness had bankrupted many other concerns whose proprietors had had less foresight. She looked down at him with admiration.

  After the obligatory hour of chit-chat, they finally approached the subject.

  “I have a story that I know your paper would be interested in.”

  “Oh, really?” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. Not a comfortable position. He crossed his ankles instead.

  Aminah had been a journalist long enough to know that a sense of drama was at the core of every good editor. So she began as she would a film. “Is that chair comfortable, sir?”

  “Yes. Fairly so.” He nestled into its vinyl covering.

  “Is it strong?”

  “Yes, pretty strong.” He bounced up and down on it a couple of times.

  “Can it support your full weight?”

  “Yes. That’s what it’s doing now.” He choked out another chuckle and laced his hands in his lap. “Why?”

  “Because you will need it.” She lowered her voice and shifted forward. “You may be in shock after what I am about to tell you.”

  Nzekwu scooted forward in his chair. “What are you about to tell me?”

  “Something that is so incredible, even I cannot believe it.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “It’s about Kolo.”

  “Oh,” he tutted dismissively. “That idiot! Nothing you tell me about him could shock me.”

  “I, too, at first thought he was just a fool. But after I heard this information, I said, ‘No, Aminah, this is not an idiot. This is a madman!’” She sat back to watch Nzekwu’s reaction.

  He sat as still as a lizard, eyes bulging, body rigid. “And?”

  “He’s planning to …” She paused as if thinking better of it, then leaned forward in a confidential manner. “He’s planning to build the biggest dam in the world at Kainji.”

  “Walahi!” He clapped his hands slowly, bowing his head. “The people will suffer-oh. The people will suffer!”

  “There’s more.”

  “Yes?” He became the lizard once more.

  “To pay for it …” Aminah picked her nails, heightening the tension, “… he is selling the water rights to the Niger River, licences for the direct purchase of Nigerian water, and ownership of the Nigerian power supply.”

  Nzekwu’s mouth opened. Flies entered. There was nothing that could be said.

  Finally, he shook himself back to reality. “No. It’s not true.” He stood up and almost fell, reaching out to steady himself on the side of his desk like the greatest stage actor. “No, no, no, you’re crazy.”

  “Here is a copy of the preliminary plans.” She slapped them on his desk.

  He threw them on the floor. “No, no, no, you’re lying.” He raised his hands to the skies. “It’s not true-oh!” He turned to Aminah, looking forlorn, lost. “Why are you lying to me? Wicked woman. Why are … ?” He rushed to the door and opened it. “Tunde! Monday!” he called. The two assistants rushed to his side. “Hold me back-oh! I’m going to strangle Kolo today! With my own hands, God forgive me.” He lunged out the door and the two had no trouble holding him in place by the gentlest of grips at his elbows.

  “Ah-ah, sir!” they yelled. “Calm down! Calm down! He will kill you-oh!” Their faces betrayed little concern that their editor would follow through on his threats.

  “Tunde! Go and bring a bat!”

  “Sir! But—”

  “Bring a bat and hit me. Yes,” he cried, “hit me! Strike me down!” He sank to the floor. He shook his head, weary. Then he perked up. “Does anyone else have this gist?” he asked Aminah.

  “No, but—”

  “It’s our story. We’ll pay you for this story.”

  “That’s fine. But once you have published, I have to go to the other outlets.”

  “Just give me twenty-four hours.”

  As is the custom for affluent Nigerians, Kolo built a grand house in his home village far from its centre in order to name the road leading to it after himself. In the same locale, he also erected monuments celebrating its most famous son, and diverted funds from the national coffers to build a new school, a small airport, and sanitation facilities-all of which bore his name–but more was expected of him. Piles of papers lay in his in-tray. He flicked through them, disconsolate.

  On a national level, vast feats of engineering, giant edifices, large-scale construction had been temporarily shelved after ministers insisted that additional financial aid be directed to flooded areas for medical assistance, food, basic shelter, kickbacks and other ephemera. Therefore, he had focused on renaming key sites: the Chief Ogbe Kolo International Airport in Lagos, the Ogbe Kolo Highway in Abuja, the Alhaji Ogbe Kolo Waste Disposal Unit in Kaduna.

  Despite these small successes, he had not achieved any major goal. Most importantly, his ultimate dream of building the biggest dam in the world had been slow to come to fruition. It had grown increasingly obvious to him that the Kolo River, rather than the Niger River, should flow from Nigeria’s north to its south, impeded only by the Chief Ogbe Kolo Dam at Kainji.

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Yes?” Kolo answered.

  “Papers,” the new minister of information replied.

  Kolo’s heart thumped. This was the worst meeting of his day.

  “Bring,” he ordered.

  A flash of lightning whitened out the entire room as the minister arrived. Almost a minute later, a crack of thunder rocked Kolo’s chair. He jumped up with a screech. It sounded like gunfire.

  “Close the curtains!” he ordered, his voice many octaves higher than the majestic bass of his presidential speeches.

  The minister of information strolled to the curtains, amusement etched on his aging face. “So, you are scared of a little lightning, sir?” he chuckled.

  “Certainly not! I simply insist on a consistency of illumination, that is all.” Kolo resolved to replace this recently appointed advisor in the shortest possible time with a much weaker, slightly dim-witted confidant.

  “How are
you today, sir?” The minister bore down on Kolo in paternal enquiry.

  “Very well indeed. And yourself?”

  “In good health, glory be to Allah, of whose favours nobody is deprived.”

  “Allah is most great,” Kolo said distractedly as he flicked through the newspapers. He tossed aside all those owned by his staunch supporter Ikene. He checked the Popular Star’s headlines. “Kolo’s Killer Idea!” Under a graphic design that perfectly depicted plans for the new Kainji Dam, a caption read: “No barrier to a torrent of greed.”

  Blue fingers of panic tightened around Kolo’s heart. He read on.

  His plans to rebuild Kainji, as well as the deal to sell water rights to TransAqua, were laid out in explicit, florid, though not necessarily accurate, detail. Activists-or, as the paper reported, “Nigeria’s true patriots”—were vowing to stop the plans “through any means necessary.”

  He felt a stabbing pain in his arm. “Heart attack!” he called out. “Heart attack!”

  As the minister chuckled again and wandered out to call some aides, Kolo checked his chest and could not feel his heart pumping. “My heart has stopped!”

  An aide ran to check his pulse. “Your pulse is fine, sir.”

  Kolo slapped him. “How can it be fine if I’m having a heart attack, you idiot?”

  “Heart attack don finish, sir.”

  “Get me some aspirin! And call the doctor!” After waving away his ashen aides, Kolo scrambled to lock the door behind them. He stumbled back to his desk, his blood racing around his body so fast that his heart pounded like a talking drum and the squeezed strings of his temples ached in a frenzied summons. He no longer knew who to trust or where his enemies hid-whether they passed him in the halls, sat with him at meetings or swept his floors.

  He understood more than ever how his brother had felt as the water engulfed him, choking and alone. The sound of water behind the walls, rushing too quickly through pipes too narrow, assailed him.