Prince of Monkeys

by Nnamdi Ehirim

  PRINCE OF MONKEYS

  Copyright © 2019 by Nnamdi Ehirim

  First hardcover edition: 2019

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ehirim, Nnamdi, author.

  Title: Prince of monkeys : a novel / Nnamdi Ehirim.

  Description: Berkeley : Counterpoint, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018044345 | ISBN 9781640091672

  Classification: LCC PR9387.9.E3222 P75 2019 | DDC 823.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018044345

  Jacket design by Linda Huang

  Book design by Wah-Ming Chang

  COUNTERPOINT

  2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.counterpointpress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  10987654321

  To the memory of Rachael Adepeju Adebayo,

  an original member of my mailing list and

  one of my very first readers

  Our fathers, though once belittled, were placed with responsibility to serve with heart and might, to defend our freedom and to chart our route back to paradise.

  Our fathers, though once noble, were corrupted by power. They took to power ad hoc, shed blood ad nauseam and plundered our coffers ad infinitum.

  Our fathers, though once our hope became our fear. Fear, necessary to fuel their power over the zoo, once their jail, now their kingdom.

  Our fathers, though once the jailed died as jailers. And we, once heirs of paradise, live as monkeys in a zoo.

  The only difference between our kind and the kind on the other side of the fence is resolve. Resolve necessary for a few to find a route, which often trod will become a footpath for all, to paradise.

  We, once victims of circumstance, should become protagonists of our own fate. So the labors of our heroes past shall not be in vain. And we, once princes of monkeys, shall die kings among men in paradise.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1992

  Part 1

  1985

  1986

  1992

  Part 2

  1992

  1993

  Part 3

  1997

  1998

  Epilogue

  Still 1998

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1992

  Nigeria, in its entirety, is a wonder of this world. Like all other wonders, it stands as a testament to the ambition of humanity: how one man can dare and indeed succeed at imposing a personal dream on an entire populace, leaving a polarized legacy of successes and failures for future generations to gawk at in awe. Everyone has seen or heard something about this wonder and so naturally assumes that in certain genres, or in general, they know about Nigeria. They seem to forget that wonders are so called because it is their nature to characteristically surpass anything our minds could previously imagine, regardless of whatever they might have seen or heard. But, excluding individuals with firsthand experience, most people have no clue or insight into the wonder of Nigeria, its beauty and grotesquery.

  Of all the troubled misadventures of my Nigerian existence, the affair I reflect upon with most enthusiasm is my going to a prison cell. Not my first venture, which was at the age of eight, when I followed the prison-support team of my friend’s church to evangelize to inmates back in 1983. That particular venture was quite uneventful. On the other hand, my second venture, about nine years later, was all sorts of incredible. I always find it difficult sharing the details because I believe the past, like stale water, should be left unstirred lest the petrifying odor of our mistakes rises to distort our perception of the present. Regardless, I will proceed, because I have an even greater conviction that the past, still and unmoving, reflects our selves in our clearest forms.

  The night was young and promising, and my friends and I had escaped the supervision of our parents to witness the gospel of our youth preached live at the Afrika Shrine. The message was simple: Indulge in a vice today, but be guided by virtues every day. At least that was the message I had deduced from the statement. After all, the morality of any gospel, though founded on an unwavering statement, is subject to every person’s own interpretation. This was the interpretation my friend Mendaus had passed on to me the very first day he brought me to the Shrine. The same very message I had confirmed to myself when I’d visited the Shrine time and time again to witness the King of Afrobeat, Oracle of the Shrine. And the same message we were trying to share with our friend, Pastor’s son, who was still a nonbeliever.

  As the four of us walked closer to the Shrine, I could hear the message blaring loudly over the fence of its premises, guiding me through the darkness into its gates. Then this young man, a total stranger, called out to us from his shame, which appeared to be arrant boldness under the cloak of the night, and asked if we had any spare change. He did not plead for mercy like the beggars at the bus station. He did not attempt to coerce us with God’s infallible promises to reward cheerful givers. He asked for it with sheer audacity, almost as a scorned woman exchanges her dignity for reckless spite and then demands retribution from God. And I gave to him, not out of pity or any desire to reap divine dividends but out of understanding. An understanding of how much a man must have suffered, his natural pride withered away by the attrition of desperation, before he is able to approach another of his kind and demand to be fed.

  I saw more men and women like this as I drew nearer to the Shrine. They seemed able to exist only in the darkness, like bats and cockroaches, filth in the eyes of the world, and I would be a liar to claim it was easy to see them differently. Closer to the Shrine, their population, though not necessarily diminished, was diluted by a crowd of brighter spirits. It was just about eight o’clock, but a multitude was already gathering on the street in front of the Shrine: beautiful women, some in turtlenecks and street-sweeping bubbas, while others were in almost nothing at all; competent men, some connoisseurs of accomplished trades, while others were diligent slaves of ambition behind the curtains of society’s approval; all, united by a common gospel.

  We struggled through the crowd, eventually fitting our way through the narrow gates of the Shrine under the probing eyes of the plainclothed security men. Despite the multitudes outside the gate, there was not as much activity inside. We got a table by the wall, not too far from the entrance, where we could observe—the continents of the world shaped in colorful murals on the wall, the portraits of civil rights activists, Rastafarian icons and negritude priests, all rebels of their time, none accepted by their popular society. At this point, it was not so difficult to see why all believers of the message were deemed misguided.

  My ears adjusted to the music blaring from the speakers as my gaze hovered around. By the pool table, a group of three laughed over cigarettes and maybe something else; they didn’t seem too focused on their game. A white man moved in the open, afflicted by a severe gyration as his fists pumped in the air and his legs wiggled like noodles being spun around a fork. I assumed he was dancing to the music. Then the little boy I had almost missed, without any legs, on a skateboard paddling himself to and fro with his thick arms. Occasionally, he would stop a
nd spin in circles to the music. They all appeared like they had no cares, lost to the fantasies of their own worlds, however crude, however refined.

  “The naked women or the music,” Pastor’s son asked, “which one of the two keeps you guys coming back?”

  “The naked women and the music are part of the same package, along with the drinks,” I replied. “You have to take everything together to enjoy it.”

  “Exactly!” It was evident from Mendaus’s tone that he was already in high spirits. “Like bread, butter, and tea. Or garri, milk, and sugar. One alone is trash. Two together is the bare minimum. But if you combine all three, you know you’re working miracles.”

  “You mean magic. Magic, not miracles,” Pastor’s son added.

  “What’s the difference?” Zeenat asked rather indifferently.

  “Miracles are divine, ordained by God,” he explained. “And magic—”

  “Magic is of the devil?” I interjected.

  “Well, if that’s your theory, then this is indeed the heart of darkness,” Mendaus said.

  “To hell with you,” I thought I heard. I sat up and adjusted my glasses as if that had anything to do with my hearing. Everyone at the table appeared quite taken aback as well. “I said to hell with you,” I heard more definitively, “and to hell with Joseph Conrad.”

  I turned toward this voice and saw a figure leaning by the wall in the darkness of the corner not too far from me. The figure was making an effort to stay concealed in the corner, and with good reason, as he looked reminiscent of some sort of highlife band leader. He stood bare-chested with his tight trousers hanging at the lower parts of his waist, which might have distracted a less critical eye from his rather short stature, and he had an obnoxiously large wooden pendant on his necklace. The stranger folded his arms across his chest, showing off what seemed like a trace of nicely fitted muscles gone terribly malnourished, as if replying to my quizzical look with a dare to say something out of hand.

  I wasn’t the kind to respond to physical challenges. “Excuse me, did you say something?” I replied instead.

  “I should be asking your friend,” he said. “He was borrowing ideas from Joseph Conrad.” I could not remember Mendaus saying that loudly enough for him to hear from where he stood.

  “Well, curse Joseph Conrad. He wasted his talent on a book of lies,” the stranger continued, paying particular attention to Mendaus, “portraying the black man as a wild beast waiting for the white man’s captivity, as if it were means to redemption from his very own savagery. Now you’re here, my brother, looking down on these people because you’re in a fancy shirt and expensive spectacles, just like Conrad.”

  He paused for a bit, as if expecting us to say something, but continued when our blank stares seemed like they would never end. “You know even though our brothers are suffering right at our feet, if we don’t bring down our legs from the footstool and pay attention to what’s going on around us, we can never really be aware of what they suffer. You know a wise man once said that we have to place ourselves in our brother’s situation and become in some measure the same person with him, and then form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike what he feels. I hope that’s not too many big words.” The stranger gave a coy smile.

  “It’s not,” Zeenat replied, still indifferent. “But it’s also beside the point.”

  “Adam . . . Smith?” Mendaus asked in awe. Then he moved closer to me and whispered into my ear, “This bloody riffraff just quoted a piece from the theory of moral sentiment.” I nodded like I had a clue what was being discussed.

  “Standing ovation!” acclaimed the stranger as he clapped his hands and made a mock bow. “I should have guessed from your fancy shirt, you’re the fuck-fruit of a capitalist somebody. Well, then, with all due respect, to hell with capitalism and to hell with Adam Smith. That line was probably the only intelligent thing the man ever said.”

  At this point Zeenat was beginning to get visibly upset by the man’s brazen rudeness and was about to get up to change her seat when he offered to pour out palm wine for all of us from a bottle that I had not realized he was holding. Then he paused and put the bottle down on a nearby table and picked up a bottle of whiskey, poured it into a clean glass, and handed it to me. He did the same for all of us.

  “You’re a smart young fellow,” the stranger said, facing Mendaus. “Let’s see if you recognize these words—‘Africans had never aspired to wealth and status just for the sake of dominating his brothers. He had never had laborers to do his work for him till the foreign capitalists rowed up to the shore in their fancy boats. They were wealthy. They were powerful. And the African naturally started wanting to be wealthy too, which led to exploitation. There is now a need for Africans to re-educate themselves and regain their former sense of community. And so in rejecting the capitalist attitude of mind which colonialism brought into Africa, we must reject also the capitalist methods which go with it.’”

  Mendaus brooded over the words for a while. Pastor’s son remained unvoiced in all of this—I did not know whether it was out of ignorance or disinterest—but I figured I should keep my lack of knowledge hidden beneath the cloak of silence.

  “If I could recognize those words, abi?” Zeenat asked, twirling her fingers in the air. “Frantz Fanon? Marcus Garvey?” She was making lucky guesses.

  “Never in my life!” exclaimed Mendaus all of a sudden. “Never in my life have I come across those words.”

  “Julius Nyerere, father of Tanzania,” said the stranger, finally relieving us of our ignorance. “You see! Even Africans can be intelligent.”

  I pulled out a pack of cigarettes from my trouser pockets and offered him one, but he declined my offer, which was weird because he had a lighter in his hand. I shrugged it off and asked him for a light. He handed it to me and told me to keep it.

  “I hate lighting other people’s cigarettes,” he said bluntly. “I mean, if you’re the one who wants to smoke, then light it yourself, my brother. Don’t bother me. You know, I’m a straightforward guy, even though most people assume I’m some type of bloody riffraff.”

  He paused, and suddenly the air got colder, or maybe it was just my mind. Then he continued as I bent to sip out of my glass of whiskey: “I’m not like those bureaucratic lunatics, like those bastards from up there in the government house, who travel on a few diplomatic assignments and come back trying to copy the whites, showing off that they’ve been abroad, offering each other lights. But when they see an ordinary man on the road, they’ll just throw matchsticks at him.” He sounded a bit angry, but when I looked up I saw him speaking with an unconcerned smile. “But enough of all this. Let us enjoy the underground spiritual game that is Afrobeat music, okay?”

  As he spoke, a troupe of tall, slim women ran up the stage on their toes, while a few of them diverted into different cagelike contraptions at various ends of the hall. They all had a noisy collection of wrist and ankle bracelets and would have been naked save for the light clothing and beaded mesh wrapped around their waists and bosoms. Then the musicians took the stage one by one, and eventually the music began, drawing in person after person from the multitude outside. The saxophones at each end of the stage blared passionately at the command of their masters. Two men positioned around the middle of the stage caressed bass guitars. The lone drummer and keyboardist were almost hidden away behind the talking drummers and backup singers who crowded the back of the stage. After instrumental jams and solos, a hoarse voice of pidgin incantations personified in a tall, strong man clad in a tie-dyed bubba took to the center of the stage. He was probably an opening performer, whetting us before the King took the stage. But it was indeed Afrobeat, the religion of the Shrine, and his message was live in action.

  “What do you do, my brother?” the stranger said, speaking in the direction of Pastor’s son, as I filled up my glass with more whiskey.

  “I’m a student. I just finished school
at—”

  “That’s who you are, my brother, my question was what do you do?”

  “Oh, okay, well,” Pastor’s son stammered for a bit, “it’s very complicated, and there’s really no way I can tell you what I do without saying what I am.”

  “No, my brother, I think that’s bullshit. Let me help you out. I, for example, am a retired man. But a few years ago, I was a musician, public speaker, newspaper columnist, and general loudmouth, to be honest. And even though they all sound a bit far apart, they made up a core part of what I did. I try to liberate the black man from the oppression, and that’s so difficult because most of them don’t want to remove the veil of ignorance from their eyes and accept that they are being exploited. And all of what people say I am, the musician, writer, public speaker, and so on, is just a medium for me to do what I do. That’s why it’s easy for me to do one thing today and do another tomorrow with as much passion and happiness—because I’m doing what destiny called me to. You feel me, my brother?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Pastor’s son replied, slightly defeated.

  “Nah, I don’t think that life is for everyone,” I said, “and truth be told, I’ve tried to get on that ‘save the world’ boat you’re on, but all I’m good at is punching calculators and reading graphs. Not every shoulder was built to carry the weight of the world.”

  “Don’t get it wrong, my brother,” the stranger replied. “I’m not trying to judge you. In fact, I’m not one to judge. I’ve had over a hundred criminal charges in the last ten years, and I’ve had over twenty divorces. And none of my court charges were divorce cases, so I’m not exactly above mistakes. Let me try and make this a bit clearer for you. Tell me what you know about this Shrine?”

  Mendaus took the baton. “I guess the same thing everybody knows about it—it’s a nightclub, recording studio, concert venue, residence . . .”