Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth

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Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth Page 22

by Wole Soyinka


  He was no longer an attention-seeker. A sizeable flank of curiosity had taken over, tinged with some element of fear. There was a common resolve not to miss another word. The self-detached group around the table leant forward, eyes boring into Menka’s face from every direction.

  “They came to you. But why? Because you hit the headlines? This Award of Pre-eminence? Was it recent?”

  “He’s a surgeon.” A thoughtful mind had obviously been working at it, quite conscientiously. “That would make sense. Steady source of supply. Those parts they cut out of patients. It’s obvious.”

  Menka sighed, looked round the clubroom, feeling increasingly clear-headed. He began to massage the back of his left hand with his slightly cupped right palm, beginning from the fingernails, past knuckles, and up the forearm, up to the elbow and back, stopping to nurse his fingertips one by one, as if engaged in the preparatory motions for drawing off an elbow-length glove.

  “Yes”—his voice taking on a thoughtful tone—“because I was a surgeon. Was. That career is over. I’ve decided to quit. When things reach that stage…”

  That seemed to shake them all, disbelief on every face. Kufeji broke the silence. “What do you mean, quit?”

  “Quit the job,” Menka replied quietly. “Quit the position. Even the profession. I need a change.” He allowed himself a smile. “After all, you said it yourself. Too much competition. I never could stand competition.”

  Costello appeared the most shocked. “Why? For heaven’s sake, why? On account of this business? Is the fault yours? What has it got to do with you?”

  “It’s time to quit, that’s all. Leave Jos. Leave Plateau State altogether. To start with, I need a change of environment. It’s been building up for quite a while.”

  “Where will you go?” Kufeji protested, his erstwhile levity turned into genuine concern. “You think anywhere else is different? You’re allowing something like this to upset you?”

  “No, no, no. You wouldn’t understand. It’s a long story. But I do need a change. It’s time to go. I haven’t decided where, but I think it’s time for a kind of semiretirement. Maybe go back to my village. Think things over.”

  Costello walked over and confronted him. “Stop me if I seem to probe, but was there something else about this business? Something you don’t mind sharing with us?”

  Menka hesitated. “No-o-o. Unless you wish to take into account my injured professional pride. Those callers wasted no time in laying their cards on the table. They even left me with a price catalogue, assured me that the pricing was all negotiable. You see, they were confident about me—that was what rankled, still does, if you want to know the truth. I don’t believe they would have gone to any other doctor, at least not in the confident manner they adopted—as if I were already part of them! Mind you, I could hardly blame them. I learnt a lot.”

  “Like what? What else?” Kufeji demanded.

  “Like the cost of clipped toenails, especially if the patient ended up dead. Or pre-operation shaved-off hair. Or pubic hair, especially the female. Or menstrual pads—you’d be astonished at cleaners, even nurses, who scavenge those things from disposal bins, offer them to the highest bidder! My callers assumed I knew all of this, even assumed I took a cut. Their conviction was so total, so unquestioning, I decided to change my tone and pretend I was only playing hard to get, trying to place myself in a strong bargaining position. Do you understand? My staff, my own staff, had been selling body discards all these years, right under my nose. They sold even the washed-down blood from the emergency room—and this in the season of HIV! Just think of that for a moment! I found I had been compromised for years without even knowing it. It was that sudden, shocking realization that decided me. I decided to play along. At the supermarket I acted interested. Asked questions, like a prospective partner. But by then I knew I’d had it.”

  Costello shook his head, frustrated. “So they came to you? Who else would they approach? How many surgeons do we have in these parts? Mostly the surviving Pakistanis from the first wave of foreign recruitment.”

  “And were those dedicated killers or what!” The voice belonged to Baba Baftau. He had been chaperone to scions of rulers, the emirs especially, during their tutelage at British public schools—Eton and Harrow topping the list—even before the runup to independence. And he had supervised the selection of trainees for post-British bureaucracy in the north. All eyes turned towards him.

  “Well, don’t look at me as if you didn’t know it. It’s public knowledge, we never hid it. With independence on the horizon, we were so anxious to get rid of the southerners, we recruited specialists from everywhere, including even from our former masters, the British.” He snorted. “Those British! They went out through the front door, then returned through the back. Who brought them back? Our own leaders. And they were given special contracts. Nearly bankrupted the regional treasury. We’re still paying emoluments to some of them, even now!”

  “Now, now, no politics, Baba,” Costello teased.

  “That’s not politics. It’s history.” He turned to face Kufeji. “You southerners were dangerous people, so we were warned. It was safer to recruit from the British—and other Commonwealth countries, like India and Pakistan. It wasn’t just the medical services. We preferred to import every kind of expertise—railway engineers, teachers, surveyors—all the way from India and Pakistan, the latter most especially. Expatriates were safer than people from down south. Dangerous people. Too clever by half. And don’t forget the economics of it. You could get rid of expatriates as their contracts expired. But imagine if we had allowed ourselves to get stuck with people like Menka.”

  “What do you mean? Am I no longer from the north?”

  The Old Man roared with laughter. “The worst kind. Better a straightforward southerner than your type. We call your kind expatriate northerners. All right, just take what you’ve been digging up, for instance. Why you? I’m a full-blooded son of the soil, born and lived here all my life, and I never heard of this meat mall till now. I knew all about the Pakistani, but this one? Never heard of it!”

  Chudi brought him back, looking his sternest. “Why bring in the Pakistani, Baba? Why do you call them killers? It wasn’t they who killed us during the pogrom.”

  Muktar, who had returned to the fold, was on his feet. “No, no. None of that, gentlemen, certainly none of that!”

  “Thank you, Sec. And I wasn’t referring to all of them. I’m talking about the quacks! Quack doctors. They performed surgeries. One of them, he was just a ward attendant. He never went beyond cleaning the floor and carrying stretcher cases. But he arrived as a certified doctor. Remember, I headed the civil service. I was in the midst of it all, and hmm, what didn’t we uncover! It took too long, much too long before we noticed how people were dying under the knife. It was like we were hit by Ebola.”

  Dr. Menka nodded. “I was taken to the grounds where the hospital buried most of the victims of that quack. It’s painful to think of, but over here the powers did largely what they wanted. A malpractice charge often meant nothing, as long as it did not exactly conflict with the laws of Sharia. That was the reality.”

  “There was the Commission of Enquiry, Doctor. Go and read the report. I was secretary to the commission. In fact, if you’re interested, come to think of it, I’ll bring my own copy here. I’ll leave it in the reading room.”

  Chudi chipped in. “I’ll remind you, Baba. I want to see that report.”

  “So do I, but the real question is, was anything acted upon? Was the fake doctor prosecuted?”

  “No, he was merely deported. And you won’t need to remind me, Mr. Librarian. Time I transferred some of those files for safety into this fortress.” He raised his voice, pointed a finger in Menka’s direction. “As for you, touranchi! Yes, you. You are not going anywhere. Let me tell you something, something you don’t know for a change. Or do you know
how you got nominated in the first place? This national award of yours, you know how it came about?”

  Menka shrugged his shoulders in the negative. “No idea. It came out of the blue. I had no idea anyone took notice of what we try to do over here. Except of course when Boko Haram pays us one of their deadly visits.”

  “Quite right—and that is exactly where you came in. Your work on the victims. The state took notice. Time and weeds may have covered up the cemetery where those poor victims were buried, but the records are still there. So is your own record, what you’ve been doing. We owe you. You wiped out that memory of a time when we legitimized butchery. The powers that be in Abuja finally listened to us. So you owe me a drink. Come to think of it, you owe us all a drink, disrupting our celebration mood like that. Couldn’t you have picked a different time for your gruesome revelations?”

  Whatever remained of the tension evaporated. Baba Baftau was one of the most dedicated patrons of the bar, not that it stopped him breaking off when it was time for any of his five-times-a-day regulation prayers. Baba Baftau would break off in midconversation or midswig—it made no difference—repair to his dedicated corner, spread out his prayer mat, and perform his orisons. Then he rolled up the mat, replaced it in the cupboard, and resumed whatever he had interrupted. And he never missed his annual pilgrimage—neither the lesser nor the greater hajj.

  Menka looked at Baba, shook his head sadly. Baftau was one of the two or three members he would truly miss.

  “Repeat, you are staying put!” the veteran bellowed. “This state won’t let you. You are also forgetting our neighbouring states, who come to borrow you when they have those complicated cases. If you’re thinking of escaping to Dubai, forget it. I have deep contacts there and I’ll see to it that you never get a visa!”

  A huge cheer rose from the table, causing the excluded body of the lounge to wonder what new event was being launched. It was as if a dark shroud had been lifted and a new spirit abruptly injected into the evening. They began emptying their beer mugs and glasses, moving out to crowd the bar for refills. Only one person did not move. The mood had turned jovial, camaraderie was in uproarious emission, but it did not seem to have found a stopover where Menka sat, shaking his head dubiously.

  A changed Muktar stood up, slapped him on the back. “Cheer up. You heard the Old Man.”

  For a moment Menka was startled. Recovering, he forced himself to smile. “I wish it were all that simple. Anyway, tomorrow?”

  The secretary nodded. “Let’s meet here. Six a.m.”

  Menka warned, “Just you, the treasurer—he was the first to volunteer—and Costello.”

  * * *

  —

  The evening wore on, slipped stealthily into night. The company gradually reduced, mostly in a haze of euphoria. Accustomed harmony was restored and the seeming derangement of their celebrated member nearly totally forgiven, if not forgotten. The guest of honour who earlier could hardly wait to retire to his solo dinner found himself still stuck to his stool at the lounge bar, strangely reluctant to leave his accustomed corner, unable to prise himself clean of a niggling dialogue with the past.

  Arguments soon petered out. There was one final surge, its provocation owned by none other than Baba Baftau. First the veteran insisted that he must accompany the agreed team of three to the meat emporium. He felt a personal sense of guilt that such a business should exist on his own doorstep, and for no fewer than five years—even if Menka’s deduction was merely approximate—yet he knew nothing of it. He had to be part of fumigating the stench or it would be to his everlasting discredit. The argument raged fiercely. Baftau swore he would use his “inside powers” to track their movements, follow, and arrive at the secluded destination with a convoy which would include a busload of almajiri. In the end, Costello “bowed to the combined privilege of age and unfair citizen priority rights” and yielded his place to the veteran. It delayed departure yet again, since Baba then had to reciprocate by buying drinks for all the interventionists. The more difficult task was to wean him off yet another source of personal failure. How could he, the oldest club member and a deep-rooted “son of the soil,” with reaches to the highest branches of the power tree, fail to hold down this restive scion of a small, obscure village called Gumchi? Unknown to the others, he had even included the cause in his last prayer session.

  “What will I tell the council?” he wailed. “They all worked so hard to bring this honour to the club. They insisted I must be here to celebrate on their behalf—as if I needed persuading! Now some lazy good-for-nothing hospital down that way will harvest the glory!”

  “Baba, I don’t even know where I’m next headed,” Menka tried to reassure him.

  “Don’t tell me! With your new fame, they’ll all be after you like flies around rotten kilishi. Dubai, America, England, Germany, and all those touranchi countries.”

  Inconsolable, he reminded the teasing crowd that he had lived through quacks for so many years, he recognized the genuine item when he saw one and could not bear the thought of losing such a catch to others, least of all when he had worked to turn him into a national property. It was like a personal robbery, and he did not know quite what to make of it, and no one should attempt to tell him that this was the will of Allah or he would crown him with a full bottle of Guinness stout and send him prematurely to the bosom of Allah. He implored, cajoled, promised new employment conditions strictly created for Menka—he would see the governor the following day and have a letter signed and sealed, with a new contract and unique salary structure.

  Finally Menka argued, “Look at it this way, Baba, just follow it along its logical progression. To learn that a limb, an organ, something you’ve cut off as a medical procedure, becomes a sought-after commodity for others, with negotiable market value! And not for stitching onto the body of some beneficiary—maybe the victim of a motor or factory accident, the usual organ donor practice now commonplace everywhere. You see, we never know where we all encounter our wake-up call. That procuring visit, then my follow-up visit to the meat mall—I needed to, of course. I didn’t require any persuasion to visit the depot and see for myself—and all those questions finally homed in on target. Pursue it to its logical conclusion, consider all the ramifications. Just place yourself within a society—this very region—where they actually cut off a man’s wrist, arm, or leg for some offences. Isn’t it one step away from imposing and strictly enforcing such sentences? No option of fines or imprisonment—just amputate! And the Medical Association can do nothing about it. Disfigured for life. How do you stop the deliberate imposition of such extreme penalty whenever demand exceeds supply? That is my question, Baba. In what direction can one predict the laws of supply and demand?”

  Baftau’s voice rose, high-pitched in scandalized dismissal. “Haba, Doctor. Are you not beginning to exaggerate? Islam does not permit such abomination.”

  “No, not Islam. But human. We are no longer living in the world you once knew, Baba. Just check the daily media. Check the court cases. We are ringed by new abominations every day, acts you never could have contemplated in your youth—all have become commonplace…”

  Finally occupation was down to just the dedicated night huggers, from whom even the last seep of reputed stamina had been drained. The unexpected revelation itself, terminus of a distempered moment, appeared to have pronounced its last word. They drank, turned to other subjects, set down their mugs and wineglasses, downed their final shot of whisky and soda, gin and tonic, stubbed out cigarettes or lit their accompanying final drag for the road. One after the other they began to drift away, some casting glances of uncertainty, puzzlement, even ambiguous protest at the initiator of it all. Baba Baftau dragged himself away, muttering morose imprecations. Gradually the clubhouse fell silent.

  The night waiter locked up, shut the windows, leaving the last stragglers to close up shop whenever they pleased. The evening, Menka felt,
had finally healed itself—well, left him a residuum of contentment for a decision taken. He was already looking forward to the interim stay with his Badagry family. He looked up suddenly to find himself virtually the last occupant—in a sense, that is. There were still two or three scattered around, but they were out of reckoning. They had no further interest in what happened around them, being slumped in armchairs or over the drinking tables. Despite himself, Menka continued to linger. A creeping regret—he would miss the place, the company, he would miss even the fireplace lit in the Harmattan cold with fake glowing coals, miss even its mantelpiece, over which hung the framed injunction Manners Maketh Man. Come to think of it, he would miss everything.

  The surgeon lingered until the lounge was virtually emptied of the last member—it had to do, he tried to persuade himself, with a wish to avoid running a gauntlet of ambiguous good-byes, or any drunk sentimental talk of desertion. Eventually the silence translated into near-emptiness. He finished his drink, again picked up the present from the club, still in its wrapping. Suddenly he had an urge to see what was under the wrapping. So he gingerly tore off some of the paper. It brought a smile to his face. He should have guessed—a miniature replica of Hilltop Mansion. He signed the honour tab for his account and rose to leave.

  Dr. Menka was close to the door when he heard the soft sound of clapping from the adjoining alcove, which he thought had also been abandoned. It threw him off stride, startled. For at least thirty minutes after the last slurring voice, spasmodic movement, or cranky snore, he had lulled himself into believing that he was alone with only his thoughts for company, and the hypnotic silence. Also, those thoughts, being largely reminiscent of the good old days of innocence and promise, had left him in a fully tranquil frame of mind, so he was jolted. The owner of the applauding hands was framed against a window, a mere blur in place of features, since he stood with his back to the window, through which an outside lamp cast a powerful beam, leaving his face just a shrouded oval. The beard created a penumbra that lent the face further mystery, and it was not the kind of mystery that made Menka comfortable. In a corner, virtually invisible, another figure slumped in an armchair, apparently one of the fully incapacitated members. Menka’s emerging paranoia rose to a level where he felt that the figure was not merely awake but was somehow connected with the window silhouette. The thought of a bodyguard flitted across his mind. The clapping hands from the window slowed to a stop, and a voice replaced them.

 

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