Africa39

by Wole Soyinka

  I open the little cupboard under the bathroom sink and find a small roll of money where I’d last left it, wrapped in a toilet paper roll. My last R2000. Some relief: I’m not totally done for. I return to the small front room. The silhouette of a short man in the doorway is unmistakeable. Salman. He flashes a grin at me.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you, Irfan bhai,’ he says.

  ‘How are you, Salman?’ I reply with caution.

  ‘So sad about Mahmood, bhai,’ he says.

  ‘It’s sad,’ I say. ‘Do you know why they killed him?’ I pick my words carefully. ‘What was his mistake?’

  Salman is silent. He doesn’t have a response.

  Salman laughs. He can’t stop himself now. I stop picking things off the floor and stand up to look at him.

  ‘So you really don’t know,’ he says.

  Another silhouette appears behind him. He barely glances back.

  ‘Irfan bhai, come. The Trader is waiting for us.’

  I don’t have a choice in the matter. He steps back as two men enter the room and usher me to a car parked outside. I’m made to sit between them on the back seat as we make our way through the darkened streets of Mayfair. Salman sits in front, muttering into his phone. We stop outside a rundown building on the edge of Fordsburg. I am dragged out and we make our way inside, taking a lift to the third floor.

  Two raps on the door of 308 and we step inside across the creaking floorboards to face Fidel. The Trader.

  ‘So you found him,’ Fidel says. ‘Where’s my money?’ he asks. He lifts himself off the chair he’s been sitting in and walks towards me. ‘Did you do the delivery, eh?’ he slaps me before I can answer. I’m knocked off my feet. His men lift me up.

  ‘So, you and Mahmood think you’re clever? You want to take the money and go?’

  I have no idea what he’s talking about. I knew Mahmood. He would have been happy with the cut from the deal. And Mahmood was no idiot.

  ‘Mahmood didn’t want the money,’ I say. I’m his only defence. I have to say something.

  Fidel laughs. A long menacing bellow emerges from his ugly face. The stench in this room makes me sick.

  ‘I want my money,’ Fidel says. ‘You take me to it, or I kill that old man. His time is almost up anyway, and we like doing favours for friends, eh Salman?’ he says. A big smirk stretches his mouth.

  ‘The car is in town. My uncle doesn’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve parked it away at the back of his place. Fidel, you can have your money, I did what I was told. But please don’t hurt Rafi. He’s a good man.’

  ‘Just give me my money,’ he says, shoving me back to the car. Salman drives.

  Within minutes we’re parked outside the fruit shop. The streets will remain deserted until the early crack of dawn when the mishmash of foreign Muslim traders wake for prayers. I turn the key in the garage door and we make our way inside. The quilt has been moved aside, and the glint of the Toyota’s surface is evident. Fidel takes the key from me and opens the boot.

  ‘Nothing!’ he gasps. ‘You lying bastard!’

  I reach his side to stare into the empty boot of the car. The Pink Oysters are gone.

  ‘It was all there,’ I whisper. The tip of a blade fills me with dread; I hold my breath. Salman has a knife to my back.

  ‘Liar!’ Fidel shouts, his fist jabs my face sending me to the floor.

  I hear a creak from the side door that leads to the shop. The last thing I need is Rafi coming in. They’ll kill him. I shouldn’t have brought them here. They’re going to kill us anyway.

  The door swings open. An unfamiliar man walks through the entrance, followed by someone who looks like a younger version of Mahmood. The resemblance is striking.

  ‘Fidel, my old friend,’ the older man says.

  ‘Bilal Hassan,’ Fidel replies, his voice barely audible.

  I had no idea that Mahmood had brothers. These look like they might be. But my brain is fried. I could be hallucinating.

  And then two more men enter the space. They move to check each of us for weapons. Even Salman is easily relieved of his. He makes no attempt to resist.

  And finally, Uncle Rafi enters the garage. He doesn’t look at me.

  ‘Fidel,’ he says. ‘You’ve finally delivered.’

  Fidel looks confused. ‘The Pink Oysters were for the Gora,’ he says. ‘If they don’t get their money, they’ll kill all of us.’

  ‘The money is in the right hands,’ Rafi says.

  What does Rafi have to do with this?

  ‘It will help our people. My people and your people,’ Bilal Hassan explains. ‘If the Gora get it, they will buy more guns and send them across to their soldiers.’

  ‘It was a deal. Mahmood messed it all up,’ Fidel begins.

  ‘Ah, you didn’t understand,’ Rafi says. ‘The diamonds were brought from Angola to help the migrant community. Survival is difficult in this country. But you didn’t understand. You were greedy, Fidel.’

  ‘But now, you and this Salman; you must pay for Mahmood Hassan’s death,’ Bilal says. The Gora will take care of you. That is your fate.’

  Hassan’s men are ushering Fidel and company out of the garage now, and back to their car. I can’t make out what the Trader is muttering all this time. I’m in a daze.

  Finally, Rafi turns to look at me. ‘You did well. And we lost a good man. But it is time for you to leave this country. Your work here is done. You will move on with Said Hassan, Mahmood’s youngest brother. We have work for you in the North.’

  He looks at Bilal, the oldest of the Hassan brothers. Bilal nods in agreement. The decision is final.

  The crackle of athaan can be heard in the distance signalling a new day.

  Echoes of Mirth

  Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

  I used to like my brother’s girlfriend, until she desecrated our house with laughter not long after Mammy died. Being just fifteen at the time, I thought it inconceivable that there would ever be any hilarity in the house until Princess came and startled grief with her laughter.

  It happened two weeks after Father had put up Mammy’s portrait in the dining area, right above her chair that no one had had the audacity to move. The picture had been taken years before, before her eyes had become listless like stale pap and she had withered like a maize stalk in harmattan and her hair had fallen out. Before they had cut off her breast.

  Mammy had always insisted that we have dinner together like every family ought to. She simply would not have this ritual violated. Not even Father’s caprices or Audu’s pungent smell of frustration would intimidate her into giving up dinner time. She would not allow arguments or squabbles at the table and even Father could only fume at most. We would forget about the epileptic power supply, the stifling corruption, the scorching sun, the shortage of rain or its excess, the bad day at school, at work, the ever climbing inflation rates, our combined frustration whose sheer force alone could have blown down the house, and for that sacred hour, dwell in the benign illusion that everything was fine.

  We maintained the ritual in her honour even though Audu had indicated he no longer wanted to be part of it. He had missed dinner one night and Father had insisted we wait for him. Asabe, tired of fiddling with her cutlery, fell asleep at the table and Ladidi was yawning like a hungry hippo every other minute. Father and I sat facing each other, trying to avoid each other’s eyes, until Audu came back at almost 10 p.m. He was shocked to see us still sitting at the table, eyeing the untouched food.

  ‘Now that you are here, we can eat,’ Father proclaimed.

  ‘I’m sorry you waited but I’m not hungry,’ Audu said. The muscles on his temple flexed lightly, rapidly, as he ground his teeth, something he always did when he was agitated.

  Father looked at Mammy’s portrait for a long time and sighed. ‘Your mother would not have been pleased with you,’ he said gravely and looked down at the spindly green beans on his plate.

  That settled the matter. Audu never missed dinner after th
at. He went to his unhappy work where he taught an unhappy subject to students who, I was almost certain, were equally unhappy. I had never been to his school and he had never invited me. I did not think I would like it because of the smell of frustration that hung about him like a vulture over a carcass. He would come back home and go to the room to read before dinner. After dinner, he would go out – to see his girlfriend, Princess, I suspected.

  Power-pole thin and tall, Princess was perhaps even taller than Audu but I could not really tell. Her dark skin, spangled with sweat beads, always glistened and her eager breasts jutted out almost obscenely. It must have been her likes that those first marauding white men saw and decided to call us blacks. Her astonishing red lipstick made her teeth look unnaturally white and her smile false. She was always kind to us but I did not want her coming often because that meant I had to keep out of the room I shared with my brother as long as she was around. He had been planning to move out before Mammy died and I had been looking forward to having the room all to myself. But whenever she visited, I would suddenly want to get my football boots or my exercise book or one such trifling thing or the other. Audu would frown each time I knocked on the door.

  That day when she came, I found the need to fetch my school bag for my assignment. Twice I went to the door and turned back. The third time, I raised my hand to knock when I heard her profane the house with her laughter over a joke Audu had made. I stood by the door listening. When I left, I went to the flame tree that Mammy and I used to sit under and sulked until Audu came and asked what I was doing there.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said and walked away from him, resenting him for even making a joke in the house Mammy had died in. The issue of Princess’s laughter never came up again.

  Audu did not say much to anyone but his grouchy presence was enough to quell any fermenting unrest in the house. Even little Asabe dreaded him. Sometimes, she would raise some juvenile racket because Ladidi would not let her play with Mammy’s trinkets. No amount of pacification would appease her, not even long after she had forgotten why she started crying in the first instance. But once Audu’s shadow darkened the threshold, she would slink away and sulk instead.

  Ladidi took full charge of the kitchen. She made decisions with aplomb since she no longer had to ask Mammy what we would have for dinner or breakfast; or what she should buy at the open market that was flooded with mud during the rains. She took care of Asabe and did not grumble about washing her sister’s clothes, or getting her ready for school on time. And she did not spend as much time at her friend Salia’s place.

  I got up every morning and went to the tap nearby to fetch water – that was on the rare occasions that the tap ran – otherwise, we had to make do with water from the well that seemed to have been flavoured with iron chippings. I fetched pails upon pails and hauled them to the storage drum. Sometimes, when she felt like it, Asabe lent a hand; that often impaired more than enhanced my efficiency.

  Father was often distracted. He would go to work and return early to sit on the veranda staring into the distance as if he expected Mammy to walk out of the setting sun and ask him why he was moping about, massaging his shoulder and telling him everything would be fine, as she always did.

  Sometimes I woke up at night and saw him through the cracked windowpane sitting in the dark under the flame tree, a drab blanket draped over his shoulders.

  There was a haunting emptiness that had occupied the house since Mammy died. It was like a huge shadow that spewed out of the doors and windows on to the premises, like stealthy, monstrous fingers reaching out to grab you before you could change your mind about coming back home, sometimes reaching as far as the foot of the flame tree. The curtains of gloom that draped the windows since Mammy fell ill seemed to have been dyed with deeper shades of disconsolation. My spirit sank each time I returned from school and came within view of that house. I felt it was bound to remain forever unhappy. We were the trapped remains of the drowned, floating in salty dreariness with no hope of redemption. And so, we would sit at the table and have dinner and no one would utter a word except maybe to thank Ladidi for her cooking, a rote offering previously made to Mammy at the end of each meal. The first time we did that Ladidi wept.

  But one night, Father broke the silence and said, ‘Audu, when will you be moving out?’

  Audu looked up, startled by the question. He stalled by taking a sip of water and took an eternity to set down his glass. Then he cleared his throat. ‘In about two weeks,’ he said.

  Father continued eating, dolloping tuwo dipped in the vegetable soup garnished with smoked fish. We thought that was the end of the conversation. Then, like Audu, Father had a sip from his glass and cleared his throat.

  ‘Your brother is thirty years old now,’ he began, addressing no one in particular. Like one of those eccentric poets, he could have been reading a poem to the grasses on the fields. ‘He is old enough to be on his own, start a family, have a decent job . . . but he doesn’t have that because this country is so warped.’ He banged his fist on the table, as if it had anything to do with the country being warped, as if it was part of the problem. He looked at our faces like one waiting to be challenged.

  ‘Audu ought to be on his own, God knows, because I was not living with my parents when I was his age. And so, if Audu decides to leave this house today, I will not blame him. However, Audu should think about this family also, because leaving so soon after your mother’s death would not seem to me like the right thing to do because your little ones would want you to be around and guide them . . . I would want you to be around and guide them so that they would not feel abandoned, first by their mother, God rest her soul, and then by you.’ He was looking into Audu’s eyes now.

  Ladidi coughed once. The sound filled the silence like a single gunshot in the night.

  ‘This family must not break apart,’ Father continued, this time eyeing me. ‘I will do everything in my power to keep this family intact and so Audu, if you want to leave, feel free and may God be with you but I would also want you to think about what I said.’

  Father dipped his fingers in the soup again and continued eating. We were all quiet, looking at Audu, who was looking down at the half-empty plate before him.

  ‘I understand, Father. I will stay a little longer,’ he said at last.

  Father nodded proudly. He reached out and squeezed Audu’s hand and continued eating enthusiastically like one assured of victory in the war to keep his family intact. I did not want to sully his enthusiasm but I knew he was wrong, that he would lose. I had dreamt about it.

  In the gloom-filled ambience there was a consolation of sorts. Salia, that glittering heroine of my fantasies, would come with a rainbow-coloured whirlwind in her wake. She would bring smiles and the fragrant smell of happiness. She became a regular visitor to the house, mostly in the evenings when she and Ladidi would retreat to the kitchen and gossip while my sister made dinner.

  I would stop by the kitchen entrance, listening to her and imagine that if light had a sound, it would be Salia’s voice. I watched her every gesture, each gaining some amorous dimension and floating in my lovelorn mind. Sometimes she would turn and see me, starry-eyed, looking at her. She would smile and say, ‘Hi.’ My throat would fill with bubbles and I would only manage to nod.

  ‘Want anything?’ Ladidi would ask.

  I would shake my head, my eyes on Salia’s slim neck, her bare shoulders, her graceful hips well positioned on the stool, her sensuous ankle around which was clasped a glittering silver anklet. I would swallow with difficulty and leave. Sometimes, I went to the bathroom thereafter.

  Then, one night, Salia decided to sleep over. Apparently, Ladidi had confessed to her that she was frightened of the dark, increasingly so since Mammy’s death. Salia came over with her night things and had dinner with us. She was shy because of Father. And even though not much was said, I think that was the best dinner I had had in a long time. I looked up from my plate periodically to see her. Then everyone el
se in the room seemed to disappear and I imagined we were alone. She would smile at me. I would smile back. We would have dinner as two lovers.

  ‘Salt, please,’ Audu’s voice crashed into my daydream. I must have frozen. They were all looking at me – Salia too. She smiled and continued eating. I smiled back, embarrassed.

  ‘Hey, salt,’ Audu demanded again. There was a hint of mockery in his voice. I passed him the salt and ate, not daring to look up, mindful so as not to repulse her with any of my loose table manners.

  She came to the house regularly after that, sometimes spending the night. I did not know exactly how her father approved her visits. He was neither the gentlest of men nor the kindest of fathers. A towering mobile police sergeant with a fondness for drinking, he had a face always begging for a shave and his crooked nose must have been broken in some drunken brawl. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips darkened by tobacco. He would come home, charging on his motorcycle, his rifle slung over his shoulder and drive straight at those who sat under the bushes of Queen of the Night on his facade. Because of the platform and the sweet smell of the bushes at night, lovers made the place a haven. Often, I had fancied myself and Salia under those bushes, whispering sweet, poetic words to each other. Her father would come and chase those unfortunate lovers from his bushes, hurling curses and stones after them. Sometimes however, he would go about his business, not in the least concerned about their amorous presence. Even on such days, it was difficult not to envisage him as the venal officer he was.

  Since his first wife fled from him, when Salia and her brother Bala, my friend, had been very young, he had had one other wife whom he had beaten to a pulp once. From the hospital, she had gone back to her parents’, effectively dissolving the marriage. He gave up on marriage and had had a string of girlfriends, some of whom had stayed months in the house and packed out just as unceremoniously as they had been brought in.