‘I am twenty-three years old. I have a degree, I have a job, and I pay my way. Why on earth do I need a runaway father?’
‘So what do you want to know about Ubesia? Are you hoping to track down your mother’s relatives, is that it?’
I grimaced at the small mirror and relaid two tracks of lipstick in two economical strokes. ‘I’m alone and happy,’ I said, clicking the mirror shut and put away my concessions to femininity. I leaned forward, counting off my fingers. ‘I don’t want siblings, I don’t want relatives. I don’t want parents. Why is this so difficult for people to accept? Is this a psychiatric condition, Dr. Maleek, being satisfied with your aloneness?’
‘Not by itself, no.’ He was studying me narrowly. ‘So what is it about Ubesia that brings you to me?’
I hesitated. ‘I don’t have my mum’s beauty, but I have her last name. If she made enemies, if there’s a feud or something . . . well, I’d like to go into things with my eyes open. Kreektown is dangerous enough as it is . . .’
He was staring at me with pursed lips.
I shrugged. ‘Besides, it’s also my hometown, isn’t it? I’d just like to know if there’s any sane reason why I should stay away from it. I’ve lived in Abuja all my life, and that might be long enough already.’
He took a cocktail stick. His fingers were trembling, but his voice was cold. ‘Amana, I’m Sontik like you. Ubesia is my hometown, too. There’s a very traumatic reason, but the trauma only concerns Evarina Udama and those who loved her. That leaves you in the clear, I suppose?’
I glared. ‘So you know, but you’re not telling me, is that what it is?
The cocktail stick broke in two. The crack seemed to startle the psychiatrist, but he deliberately broke the remaining halves as well. He arranged the pieces into a tiny, self-assured square. ‘I want to tell you . . . some of it, Amana,’ he said gently, ‘but do you want to know? It requires some affection for your mother and it contains some information about your father. So, do you want to know?’
I struggled to get out the words. He was a mind doctor all right. In a few sentences he had served me a plate of humble pie, which I would rather die than eat.
I pushed my chair away and grabbed my bags. I blundered out. I was sweating by the time I found a taxi, but I had missed the second and last flight to Ubesia for the day. Soon I was heading for the Ojota motor park, where I caught a bus bound for Ubesia.
* * *
2:15 p.m.
It was a beautiful day to be going to one’s hometown for the first time. I slept most of the way, but by the time we passed Benin City and the fast bus started down the road to Ubesia, I was awake and alert. As evening fell, a party of school children in the bus started singing songs that lopped some years off my life. I began to enjoy the detour through Lagos.
It was 7:00 p.m. when I arrived at the Ubesia motor park. After Abuja and Lagos, the city seemed positively provincial, and I felt the strangest pride to hear Sontik, a language I previously had only ever heard in living rooms, spoken in the public spaces. I was tempted to spend the night in an Ubesia hotel, but in the end, a lifetime of my mother’s antipathy had its way and I loaded up my bags into another taxi, this one bound for Kreektown. The driver was septuagenarian, his taxi not much younger. He drove with such care and compassion for his undercarriage that the twenty-kilometre drive over the potholed roads took us an hour.
We smelled the smoke as we approached Kreektown, and as we drew nearer, we saw the thick pillar of smoke climbing into the clear, moonlit sky. The driver, fearing for his car, was reluctant to go farther, but passersby assured us that the latest rioting by roughboys had been quelled, and we drove on. When we arrived, what was left of the looted DRCD station was in flames.
* * *
9:00 p.m.
I was so spooked that I was prepared to return to Abuja that night, if there was a car to take me; but all my taxi driver could promise was a drive back to Ubesia, where he lived—and that, after his dinner. He took me to a bustling hotel at the outskirts of Kreektown, where he drank a beer with his jollof to steady his nerves. The saloon was crowded and pulsing with gossip about the fire. I sat aloof from the rowdiness with folded arms, waiting for him to finish. When he was done, he walked unsteadily to the loo, bumping into people who were doing their best to avoid him. When he returned and started on a second beer for the road, I lost my own nerve. I went to the severe woman at the counter to ask for a room for the night.
She looked me up and down, from the supercilious corners of her eyes. ‘So you will manage my room now, not so? Proud Congo!’
I returned her look stolidly. We were not in the same class, and all the diplomacy in the world could not change that. Eventually, she relented and pushed her book across. I filled out my name on the grid and put down her deposit. She counted the money carefully, holding the bills suspiciously against the light. Finally, she folded the money into her brassiere and reached for a key in a cane basket. That was when she first glanced at the register. ‘Udama?’ she broke the name into speculative syllables, ‘Amana Udama? Ematu Sontik?’
‘Sia,’ I agreed, not sure where that was going.
She wagged a finger threateningly. ‘I’ve been looking at you.’ She rose slowly to her full height. Her voice trembled. She was several inches taller than I was, and her voice was aggressive and masculine. ‘Ematuni Evarina Udama?’
I took a step backwards. I remembered my mother’s warning, but I was too proud to say anything but ‘Sia.’
She attacked me—but she was also whooping with an explosive kind of joy, taking me in a bear hug that swept my feet off the ground. No one had ever done that before to Amana Udama. She was loud and blue-collar dirty and I was upset and quite embarrassed, but by the time my feet touched the ground again . . . I was also grinning helplessly. And that was the beginning of the end of my old life. She was my mother’s ‘African sister,’ although I’ve never quite figured out the precise relationship. She was not much put out to learn that Evarina was dead—as far as the family was concerned, Evarina had died when she jumped off a Lagos bridge two decades earlier. Yet Ma’Calico had recognised Evarina’s walk in me, which mystified me in all sorts of ways. And she threw out the occupant of the best room in the house and installed me there.
I suppose I was unprepared for the presumption of a Ma’Calico, for her gargantuan generosity. She introduced me as her daughter. There were no complicated stories. The only quarrel we ever had was once when she overheard me describing her as ‘my mother’s cousin’ . . . It took me a week to call her ‘Mama,’ and by then, the transformation of Amana Udama was complete.
* * *
15th November, 2004
The DRCD never rebuilt their Kreektown office and were happy for me to run the project out of the Kreektown Guest House, as we called Ma’Calico’s hotel in the monthly invoices we sent to Abuja. I found a Sontik lad, Domu, who knew enough to show me around the degraded community even though he didn’t speak a word of Menai. When our work for the day was done, he pulled out a pack of cards to supplement his sessional wages with my salary.
I was a fast learner. Within a fortnight he lost interest in card games.
Come Christmas, I got the letter I’d been dreading recalling me to Abuja. The numbers of the Menai had grown statistically insignificant for DRCD sampling. On our classifications register, the Menai were now extinct and the project was shut down.
That’s life, I guess.
Dr. Ologbon eventually made good on his promise to clear my name with an audit, but I never did figure out which of my tattling ‘friends’ had sent me to prison. Between returning to my 2002 post (Ologbon did have a mean streak) and going full-time into the hotel business, it wasn’t that hard a decision.
SLEEPCATASTROPHES
Kreektown | December, 2001
Rumieta Kroma
Dudu Mpaya
Mukaila Dede
Ajo Munije
Owma Maraje
Cletus Anieme
Births
Nil
Extant Menai population: 290 (NPC estimates)
CHARLES PITANI
Abuja | 10th April, 2005
A few days after Rudolf left for Limbe, he was back in my living room with a fat case. A leather sofa that had never complained in its life was creaking under him.
‘I thought you were supposed to be in Cameroon.’
‘Badu is now in London,’ he said, looking around hungrily. ‘Boy, it’s a fucking hot day . . . any lager?’
‘London?’ I looked at him suspiciously. This club sandwich graveyard apparently thinks he has found a free travel agency. He should just ask for Paris–New York–Wellington at the same time. ‘So you want a return ticket to London, eh?’
He must have noticed my tone, for he forgot about the beer, for the time being. He pulled out his laptop and set a video to play.
I stared. I swallowed. My crotch burned. And the boy looks so innocent! Unless he was possessed by demons, how could a boy like that do all this to me? All on his own? ‘Which airport is this?’
‘Douala.’
‘What flight?’
‘He went to London.’
‘And they let him through? With all those Interpol posters everywhere? What kind of police force do they have in that stupid country?’ But I am not really angry. This is the closest yet. This fat pig is not totally useless. ‘You’re going to London immediately!’
‘It’s bloody hot here,’ he said, wiping his face.
It was near freezing in the air-conditioned room, but I knew what he meant. ‘Tina! Bring beer!’ I shouted. ‘London is difficult, isn’t it?’
‘London is no problem; I have my Romanians on him already.’
‘Romanians?’
‘They’re not as arrogant as the Russians. I have sent them this video, and they’ve already picked up his landing card at Heathrow immigration. Do you need a corpse for lying-in-state?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Romanians specialise in bombs, but they can use bullets if you need a corpse for lying-in—’
‘Bombs,’ I said. ‘I like the sound of bombs. Tina! Are you deaf?’
HUMPHREY CHOW
London | 11th April, 2005
‘I agreed to psychoanalysis,’ I said, flipping through Dr. Asian Borha’s profile, ‘but I don’t believe in hypnosis.’
‘He’s one of the finest therapists on our books,’ said Gupta, ‘and he doesn’t come cheap. But we need to get inside that head of yours.’ He paused delicately. ‘How’s your marriage counselling going?’
None of your business, I told him, mentally.
‘I’m in your corner on that point, okay?’
I ignored him. We had traded a two-week detention for a consultation with a police psychiatrist, but friendship was not part of the bargain. Grace had filed for divorce soon after our arrest. Phil had also threatened to scupper my twelve-story deal, but it seemed that the more notorious my first story grew, the more interest there was in the second. My contract was safe for the time being. Unfortunately, with all the tension from the police investigation, I was a day from the deadline and still didn’t have a story. I was meeting with Lynn in less than an hour, and I didn’t have good news for her.
I waited. Gupta himself seemed to cast about for something to say. We were sitting in a cubicle of an incident room in his local station, waiting for Dr. Asian Borha to make an appearance. Then the door opened . . . but the man who stood there shared no resemblance with the Dr. Borha in the profile. This man was elderly and lanky, and his joints cracked and snapped as he walked across to shake Gupta’s hand. ‘Let me introduce you to Sergeant Andrews, retired now.’ said Gupta, ‘He investigated Dalminda’s aborted London bombing in 1991.’
We shook hands solemnly. Andrews sat on the edge of the desk. His voice was quiet and deferential. ‘We never met, but my name may ring a bell . . . ?’
I shook my head.
‘We didn’t interview you in 1991. We thought you were too young. A big mistake, as it turns out.’
‘Exactly what are we talking about here?’
‘In 1991 Miss Chow’s boyfriend, Tobin Rani, phoned the police to report a terrorist plot. A certain Dalminda Roco was trying to recruit him into a scheme to blow up the offices of Trevi Biotics. They’d met at a demonstration outside Trevi’s office. Roco had more violent plans. We knew he became close to Tobin, he was a frequent visitor to your house. That was where he made his pitch to Tobin. That’s where he must have started grooming you.’ He opened a large file, slipped out a picture, and placed it before me. ‘Does this look familiar?—Of course, he’ll look fourteen years or so older today.’
I was staring at my Scottish Dalminda Roco, and not a day older. My head ached. My mouth dried up. I shook my head.
‘Are you sure? This Dalminda, like yours, went to law school but didn’t finish. Like yours, this Dalminda lost his father in his mid-twenties. Like yours, this Dalminda wanted to blow up people . . .’
‘Never seen this Dalminda.’
They exchanged glances. Andrews plucked at his lower lip briefly. ‘It is not in your interest to be obstructive, Humphrey Chow. The gap between a witness and an accused person can be a very small one; and it comes down to how cooperative you are.’
There was a knock on the door. This time, Dr. Borha entered. He looked the part of a successful London doctor who charged six hundred pounds an hour, and I shook his hand as coldly as I could, but his self-effacing grin neutralised my antipathy. He nodded at the profile in my hand. ‘I see you’ve done the background checks on me. I hope I passed muster!’ He took the chair on my side of the desk. ‘We have an hour, Mr. Chow, and we can start as soon as we’re alone.’
‘Don’t mind us,’ said Gupta, sinking into the chair on the other side of the desk.
‘I’m afraid I do.’ Dr. Borha smiled politely. ‘You get to read a medical report, but not to look over my shoulder.’
I felt considerably warmer towards the doctor as Gupta glowered.
‘Well, let me just run this by you both, so you know where we’re at.’ Gupta took a Post-it Note from his folder and walked around his desk to prop himself up alongside Andrews. ‘Fact: Dalminda had the opportunity of unsupervised meetings with an eleven-year-old Humphrey Chow. How long this grooming continued, we don’t know. Fact: Humphrey dropped below our radar at age fourteen, when he went to the Ivory Coast with his foster parents at the time. Fact: he was there till . . .’
‘I’ve never been to the Ivory Coast.’
Gupta slammed a palm on the desk and swore. He caught himself and pointed at Dr. Borha. ‘One hour!’ He gathered up his papers and stormed out of the room. Andrews followed more sedately, sad eyes lingering on me.
Dr. Borha cleared his throat and crossed his legs. ‘It is a matter of public record, Humphrey,’ he said gently. ‘It’s in the brief they sent me. You left Britain at age fourteen and turned up at age twenty-two at the British High Commission in Abidjan. They fear your amnesia may be a tad too convenient. They . . .’
‘Are you Gupta’s lawyer, or my doctor?’
He seemed to consider that for the first time. Then he chuckled. ‘To be perfectly honest, Humphrey, I’m here because I’m intrigued by the reference from your surgery, which was backed up by your latest lab tests.’
‘What was there to intrigue you in my medical records?’
‘Nothing worrisome on its own, but together with the history from the police, well . . . I’d like to test a hypothesis, but I’m still waiting on your genome report. The Met is sparing no expense on you, Humphrey, and I’ve reached that point in my career when I can afford to indulge myself in matters that pique my interest.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘If it’s all right with you, we can start with a session of hypnosis to seek any subconscious associations you may have with the real Dalminda Roco.’
‘I signed up for psychoanalysis,’ I told him. ‘I don’t respond to hypnosis. My first psych
iatrist—’
‘Then forget it,’ he said easily. ‘I’ll just give you some hypnotic suggestions to relax you . . .’
‘Whatever you want to do. But I don’t have an hour. I have a lunch appointment in thirty minutes.’
‘Oh, you can leave anytime you want.’ He reached into a case on the ground and brought out a digital recorder with a fat microphone. He set it on the table beside us, apologizing: ‘Less distracting than taking notes.’ He stripped the cellophane off a new pack of microcassettes, labelled one with an ‘A’, and slotted it into the machine. He clicked on the recorder before pulling his chair closer to me. He clasped his hands, cracking a few knuckles in the process. He crossed his legs, notching up his voice into a hammy, mellifluous cadence; my mental sneer became a snort. ‘It’s good to relax, isn’t it, to feel the worries of the world slip away from your shoulders, to feel the muscles loosen in your neck . . .’ He went on and on.
I watched him, warily, wondering if I was going to lose thirty minutes of my life in a shamanic séance officiated by an expensive doctor; then something weird began to happen. He began to relax visibly. His voice slowed, and he sank deeper into his chair. Presently his arms were hanging limply. He was still talking, but there were now distinct pauses between his broken sentences. I realised I was about to have a hypnotized psychoanalyst on my hands.
I glanced at my watch, wondering if I should just leave. My own hands were clammy with imminent embarrassment. It was definitely not relaxing.
His sonorous voice droned on, like a tape, although he seemed nearer to snoring than hypnosis. ‘It is good to relax . . . you are feeling lighter and lighter with every breath . . . the resistance you have is melting away . . . melting away . . .’
I decided he was more likely performing. I was bothering myself over nothing. I sat back, folded my arms, and shut his twaddle out of my mind.
Just then my telephone rang. It was a wrenching sound in the isolation of Gupta’s incident-turned-hypnosis room, and I sat up. Dr. Borha seemed as flustered as I was, staring, disoriented, at my waist where the offending instrument was clipped. ‘’Scuse me,’ I said.
The Extinction of Menai Page 23