Prince of Monkeys

by Nnamdi Ehirim

  “They’re not aware because it’s still in the planning stage, whispers in the corridors of power,” Major General added. “And the fact that this group Mendaus has ties with is ignorant of these plans is one of the clear reasons he cannot get anywhere with them.”

  “Why can’t one of you spearhead our campaign?” I asked, placing extra caution as I pronounced the penultimate word. “Mendaus is popular, but it would take some effort to get him into office.”

  “What would I do with the office? What would any of us do with the office?” the third man asked, chuckling. “Ah, if monkey wear suit and tie shoe for leg, how monkey go climb tree to pluck banana?”

  The rest of the table laughed this time around. The major general stood up and circled the table. Coming to a stop behind me, he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Politics is an art, and in art, the main players who determine what is what are the artists and the patrons of art. Now, the artist gets all the fame, so naturally, everybody wants to be an artist, the head boy of the new school of thought, the one who is celebrated. But the truth is there can’t be any grand artist if there isn’t any grand patron. Behind every champion is a godfather. And we are the godfathers, the grand patrons of this art of Nigerian politics.”

  “Beeni!” Alhaji shouted with terrible excitement, and he stoned the rest of whatever was in his cup down his throat.

  “Come, Ihechi,” Major General said. “It’s late already, and you should not be staying up with these men lest you pick up their dirty habits. Let me see that you get home.”

  We walked in silence away from the garden, and when we were some way off from the tables and tent, he said, “We’ve chosen you, Ihechi.”

  I looked at him for a second, confused, to say the least.

  “Well, not all of us. It was Messalina’s idea when you couldn’t get us Mendaus. Alhaji had some objections; he thought if you could not get Mendaus, how could you be trusted to get the office. I think he just wanted us to choose one of his chewing gum boys instead. But it’s more or less settled now—when the transitory process begins, and the time comes to run for office, you’re going to be spearheading our campaign.”

  “I don’t understand. I never . . .” My head felt dizzy. I placed my hand on his shoulder to steady myself, and then it turned into a full embrace.

  “I’ve placed your prick in Venus,” he whispered into my ear. “Don’t start lusting after the nymph peeping through the window.”

  I laughed, and he laughed as well, and I wiped away the tear that had escaped down my left cheek.

  “Where did you park?” he asked.

  “I didn’t bring my car.”

  “Go into the house and ask for the key to the new Beemer.”

  More tears escaped down both my cheeks. “I’ll have it back first thing in the morning, I promise.”

  “Bother less.” He was already walking back toward the tents and table. “It’s yours.”

  What happens when a dream is gifted though it was never really desired? I never could have known beforehand; nobody prepares for such incidents. Then again, the realization of dreams that were never desired always seems inevitable. Fate always has the end of such stories scripted from the beginning, leaving nothing to the choices and chances of the helpless dreamer. The joy of it—the prestige and power that came with the opportunity—was also the burden, the danger that faced anyone who had ever squared up against the military regime under any guise. Still, the major general had maintained that I was not “squaring up,” because every move being made had been sanctioned by the military regime.

  Tessy came over the next day, having already received the news from Madame Messalina. She brought along a cake and a bottle of wine.

  “I’m not sure I’m in the mood to celebrate,” I told her right at the door, even though I could not keep from smiling.

  “Me, neither,” she replied. “But it was the polite thing to do.”

  “You don’t think I should go ahead with it, abi?”

  “How could you even think that? Have your mother’s idols been chasing you in your dreams or what? I’m not in the mood to celebrate because I have cramps. Take all these things from my hands, and take all that nonsense thought from your mind, too.”

  “Everyone is so sure I’m right for this except me,” I said. We were now in the living room. She had collapsed on the couch and stretched out her foot for me to rub and relax her. I did not enjoy it, but I was used to it.

  “You’re looking at it from the wrong angle,” Tessy said. “This is not just about you. You know how many generations of Igbo men and women have been waiting for an Igbo head of state? They would get their goats and chickens to cast votes for you if they have to.”

  “And what would the generations of Igbo men and women do when the military regime has me tied to a mop stick and shot down by firing squad? Would they get their goats and chickens to mourn me, too?”

  “Never. Our forefathers would have died in vain if that happened. The souls of all Igbo children massacred during the civil war would not stand by and let that happen.”

  “And let me guess, my mother’s ancestors would cajole the whole Yoruba land to vote for me as well, plus their goats and chickens and cows. Thank God the Yorubas have cows, those are more votes.”

  “Now you’re thinking straight! And the Hausas would throw you their votes once word is out that you lost your virginity to one of their long-lost daughters.”

  I remembered Zeenat. She had been the excuse for all this freedom-fighting mess Mendaus and I had gotten into, and now, at the brink of achievement, she was nowhere to be found, her memory the butt of a joke, her name a second thought. Had we been lost from the very beginning, or had the recent taste of power distorted our sense of direction?

  Mendaus once said, “Words, sounds, and actions are too loud to conceal the secret of this world, so hush-toned messages are best conveyed in colors, and black and white shows the well-known facts.” The truth about anything, anywhere, and anyone was black or white, tending either away or toward bringing balance to the world. Just as the truth of da Vinci’s maddening genius and Delacroix’s passionate romanticism was undeniable in their pencil strokes, how blatantly we could see the truth of Idi Amin’s brutal megalomania and Nelson Mandela’s unconquerable soul when blessed with power. When the truth of my soul was examined in its black and white at the end of my story, all I wanted was for everyone who spared a second to look upon me to be pleased with what they saw.

  I thought I heard Tessy apologize for her comment on Zeenat, but I could not be sure, my mind was so far gone. It returned back to my body when there was a resounding knock on the door. I crept to the peephole, as I had formed a habit of doing, and spied on my visitor. It was the girl I had met at the bookstore nearly two months ago. We were engaged in an undefined thing that appeared more serious in her mind than in mine. She had been to my place a few times but never unplanned. And there was Tessy on the couch, feeling at home, while I stood by the door in singlet and knickers, contemplating a suspicious scenario. I could easily say Tessy was my cousin, but, albeit the truth, it was also the most clichéd excuse ever used by a caught philanderer. I damned the worst and opened the door. Her gaze was wide and glassed out as if just shined with tears; I could almost see the anxiety on my face reflected in her eyes.

  “I heard the news,” she said slowly.

  “That’s impossible, it only just happened!” My anxiety turned to confusion. “How did you find out already?”

  “It’s in almost all the newspapers,” she replied, and she shed a tear as she handed me the magazine in her hand.

  I tried to imagine why the major general would have leaked the news to the media so soon, but my eye caught the headline at the bottom of the cover page and my heart chilled. “Impossible!” I screamed.

  MENDAUS, THE MURDERED?

  Mendaus Mohammed shot down in Lagos streets

  by unknown gunmen

  I had no belief in any divine deity; I pla
ced no trust in any acclaimed omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. But I had beliefs about them. I knew of the hand of God clearly intervening in my father’s life to deliver him from the civil war. I knew of the tenets of Ifá being instrumental to the sustenance of my mother’s fragile health. I did not doubt their existence and powers, but I also did not doubt the exaggeration. Still I found myself mouthing words of prayer intertwined with recitations of the Odu on my flight from Enugu to Lagos.

  As always, I went to Mendaus’s old house in Omole for information on him; Mr. Thomas, the old and loyal house help, knew little. I was given directions to a hospital I had never heard of in Egbeda, a part of Lagos I could not remember ever having been to, and so I did not bother trying to find it on my own. I hailed a taxi and mouthed more prayers and recitations as my heart inclined to leap out of my reclining body in the backseat. I shut my eyes to attain peace, and slowly, my heart rested and my mind wandered.

  It returned when the unpaved road began to bounce the taxi, the sleeping dust rose as the impatient tires disturbed it, choking me and wetting my eyes. The concrete bungalows were shabbily clumped together just as mud houses were; the doors to the houses were separated from the road only by the gutters, and the gutters were filled to the brim with still, brackish water.

  A bit farther down the road, the still water began to move as a woman stood over the gutter, her skirts lifted to her thighs, pissing as she conversed with another woman across the road. Some men gathered around draft boards on narrow benches, while others just pivoted on chairs and sky-gazed. The children were happy, boys kicking about unripe tangerines and girls clapping and singing tenten. Farther down and a right turn later, the taxi stopped at a large church to ask for directions. He spoke to the gateman for a moment and returned to tell me that the hospital I was looking for was within the church premises but behind the main building.

  An ambulance came hurtling down the bumpy road and made a screeching turn into the church compound. The gateman jigged after the vehicle, and I followed their trail. The hospital was almost as big as the church itself and had a large red cross above the entrance. A bleeding man was hauled out of the ambulance at the front of the hospital by the driver and a panting security man while a nurse jogged behind them. I followed the trickle trail of blood in their wake into the reception, stopping to take a seat while they rushed into an inner room. A doctor and a few other nurses rushed into the same inner room about a minute or so later. The ambulance driver and gateman exited soon after, and then the receptionist returned as everything seemed to get back to normal pace.

  A pastor in purple with a white collar arrived at the hospital with a few other people just as the receptionist finished mopping the trail of blood off the floor. Two elderly women waiting, who had returned their focus to the news bulletin on the television fixed to a corner of the ceiling, became visibly apprehensive. The receptionist, after speaking to the pastor and his entourage, went into the inner room and returned with the doctor, who also spoke to the pastor before withdrawing once again to the operating theater. Very soon, the pastor’s entourage formed a circle in the middle of the waiting room and an ad hoc prayer session was held; God’s Holy Spirit was invoked, the chains of the devil were broken in faith, and a feeling that all would be well was generally restored.

  I walked up to the receptionist and asked to see Mendaus Mohammed. Her head jerked, her eyes darted all over the room, and after overcoming a stutter, she denied having any patient by that name without even consulting her records. I insisted she check her records, and she walked briskly from behind her desk and went to whisper into the ear of the pastor, who was visibly irritated to have his prayers disturbed.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, walking up to me, looking just as nervous as the receptionist.

  “Ihechi,” I replied. “Ihechi Igbokwe.” I had underestimated how huge his frame was when he was at the other end of the room. Now that he was just a meter away, I had to look up to him to meet his gaze. His nose was fluffy and his cheeks were round; there was something altogether familiar about his face.

  “Pastor’s son?”

  He smiled at my words and engulfed me in an embrace. “It’s Pastor now, Pastor Enoch. How did you find this place? The only one who knows he’s here is Mr. Thomas.” He realized the answer to his question as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “Come with me.”

  We navigated the inner room and through the corridors beyond and came to an unnumbered door behind which Mendaus lay with bandages on his head and over his right arm and shoulder.

  “Chineke! Are you fucking okay?” I exclaimed with my palms over my mouth. Pastor Enoch shot me a hard glance, and Mendaus sprang up from his bed, shaking the IV stand that was attached to his bandaged arm.

  “Nope, I’m definitely not fucking okay. I think okay is cheating on me. Okay is fucking someone else, and it could be anyone in this world. But one thing I know for certain is that I am definitely not fucking okay.”

  “You’re getting better already,” Pastor said with a laugh to Mendaus, and then he turned to me and continued, “When he first came in, all he did was moan and pass out. There were two bullet holes the size of almonds, one in his arm and the other through his shoulder. He lost so much blood, it’s a miracle he made it.”

  “The head wound?” I inquired.

  “Oh, that’s where he gashed his head on the concrete when the bullets took him down. He fell from the top of a car. It was at Tejuosho market. I warned him when he told me about the crazy idea.” The magazine article had said he was shot by unknown gunmen when he was speaking to an open crowd, but during the tenure of the military regime, we had come to understand, though never spoke of, the synonymy between unknown gunmen and military murder squads. The only mystery was that military murder squads never missed.

  “This is the path you turned down my offer for? You’re not going to be useful to anyone dead,” I said.

  “I’m not going to be useful to anyone as a puppet, either,” Mendaus said to me.

  “So, what’s your scheme? You’d talk the military out of power, persuade them to see common sense, and feed the people with at least the back bread of the loaf instead of just the usual crumbs.”

  “As pitiful as you’re trying to make my case sound, I did earn a few bullets for my efforts,” Mendaus replied. “What have your efforts gotten you? Why don’t you do all the things your bosses need me to do?”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do.” There was a brief silence. I continued, “A transitory process from military to democratic rule is going to be initiated, political groups will be asked to register as parties, and there will be an election.”

  “Nonsense,” Mendaus sneered. “It wouldn’t be the first time they would be promising an election.”

  Pastor’s son was more patient and more interested. “The Lord indeed answers prayers. Where did you get this news from?”

  I hesitated a bit. “The people I work for. They know a few people who say the news is legitimate. They’re already putting together the caucus of a party.”

  “You really can’t be buying all of this pretentious nonsense.” Mendaus was much louder now. “Okay, even if it is legitimate and elections are going to be scheduled, how come some people are given prior knowledge and allowed to make prior plans? It’s just recycling the same old corrupt system and maybe even the same old corrupt people. How am I the only one who smells a rat?” He looked around desperately, begging to see a glimmer of acquiescence in any of our eyes.

  Pastor’s son dropped his gaze to the floor. He was distracted by something. “There’s a spirit in this place?” he said.

  “Nobody has time for your trances and prophecies,” I said, irritated. Mendaus’s irritation was more visible, but he at least kept quiet about it.

  “I don’t mean the Holy Spirit,” Pastor’s son continued. He went to Mendaus’s bedside and started searching through all the containers on the side table, sniffing their lids. He stopped
when he picked up a plastic bowl, dipped his finger into a clear liquid, and placed the finger on his lip. “I don’t know how you keep getting your hard drinks in here, but if you try it again, I’m going to dump you at the general hospital. Don’t you know your body is the temple of God?”

  He stormed out of the room with the plastic bowl in hand, and I laughed away his empty threat. Taking Mendaus to a general hospital would be the same as chauffeuring him to the doorstep of his assassins.

  But Mendaus was unrelenting in his debate. “Stop moving with this same old crowd,” he said to me. “These people would never risk changing a system they benefit so much from; the change is in the hands of us who have nothing at stake. Politicians are violent in their words and reformist in their attitudes, but revolutionaries are reformist in their words and violent in their attitudes. We—you and I—are revolutionaries. They are politicians. How will the people we are meant to lead separate the wheat from the chaff if we all bundle ourselves in the same sack? Come with me and let’s fill our mouths with the sharp truth till it slits our throats and kills us.”

  “You really can’t be this naive,” I replied. “All those books you get theories from don’t have the answers to our problems.” My palms returned to my face and I took the nearest seat. “The people don’t want love and unity, but if you fill their stomachs, they will lift you in their arms and wage war on anyone who speaks against you. You know the philosophies of every country in the world but your own. You don’t pay attention to past experiences.”

  “But the past in its entirety is flawed! All these things—tribalism, religion—they are distractions. What we need is vision, vision to wage this propaganda war. We can teach a generation that all Nigerians are equal regardless of tribe or religion or social status.”

  “Mendaus is a Hausa name,” I said. “You can’t just stroll through Igbo towns and villages and inspire change. Your name alone renders your opinion irrelevant.”