Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth

by Wole Soyinka

  Who finally pulled the plug? That was Damien. He had remained by the father’s side—a departure from the Badagry scenario—most of the crucial day. Who took the final decision? Bisoye did not know, only that Damien and his uncle Kikanmi in Salzburg, and the other uncle at the Lagos end of the telephone line, had been involved in brief exchanges. Finally the doctors affirmed that even the feeble pulses had ceased. Turning off the system had become purely academic. By that time Bisoye had become too distraught to recollect the sequence of events. One detail of the son’s narration of her husband’s end, however, remained stuck in her ravaged mind. When she arrived at that point, her demeanour changed. It froze her tears, and a hard, near-incandescent glint of disgust came into her eyes, and it took a while for her to regain her voice.

  The Family—including its latest addition, Damien—appeared to be endowed with an unusual capacity for the freakish sentiment, almost as if its members held a secret contest to find out who could make statements of the most bizarre nature, uttered in a manner that was considered by them but no one else to have touched the very silt bed of ocean profundity. Such was the patriarch’s Do you wish to bring him back to serve him up for my dinner? which seemed to have set tingling a long-rusted sector of Teahole’s cerebral pulsations, since he made it a duty to repeat the mantra at every opportunity. Or perhaps it was simply the nature of personal loss, or prospective loss, that promoted the ascendancy of the grotesque in this family affliction of phrase-mongering wisdom. What was beyond question, however, was the compulsive attribution of uniqueness, the garb of revelatory import draped around an eerie utterance that contested the last such in the stakes for the oddest taste in the mouth.

  After the decision had been taken and duly transmitted to Damien, to whom that task had apparently been assigned by The Family, or which he had simply appropriated like his father’s briefcase, Damien sat by the bedside as his father’s life ebbed away. His intimations of mortality or continuity were bequeathed to the world in words that he thenceforth paraded before all manner of audiences, beginning with the widow, directly after the event:

  “I held his hand, and I felt his strength flow into me as he died. I could feel his strength pouring into me.”

  Incapable of absorbing this confident annunciation of a mystic inheritance, and in a phrasing that was probably acquired from some pulp fiction, the masochist in Menka would not rest until he heard it from Damien’s own lips. He seized the first chance that evening to encourage Damien to make him a part of his sublime experience, one which, in all his professional years, he had never yet encountered. Damien required no encouragement, employing nearly the same words as he had used in sharing his acquisition with the widow, and with all who crossed his path in Salzburg and for some time afterwards:

  “Yes, Uncle, I could feel his strength flowing into me, it was flowing all the way into my body, passing through his hand into me.”

  * * *

  —

  Menka was trapped within the dense circle of grief, quite close to the centre, but to all appearances he remained immune to its crippling emanations. He felt grateful for that, and his salvation was made possible by the fact that there were also touching or intersecting circles of demand and dependency that taxed his strength. Most of those who came to Salzburg knew Menka, knew of his closeness to the dead one, and so they behaved as if the doctor was the centre of each of these circles, that he held the key to the mystery that overwhelmed all those who now found themselves together, some for the first time, the scattered humanity that had revolved, often independently, around the deceased. One after the other they made a beeline to his room or trapped him at the bar or along the corridors. Uppermost in their concerns was, invariably, the means to find a key to the decision to bury Duyole in Austria, and next, what the reasons for it were. And, to begin with, was he a part of that decision?

  From Nigeria they came, from Lebanon, the United Kingdom, France, from the United States, from Italy and Cannes—it was summer, and both affluent and barely solvent Nigerians were already dispersed over the surface of the globe. There was a haste about the funeral, as if the proponents of its irreverent doctrine were ill at ease with their own decision and sought to limit the number of witnesses to a moment of betrayal. It was a warning the surgeon should have taken to heart. Still, it was a most impressive number that made the journey, all who could, despite the extremely inadequate notice, some arriving even after the funeral was over. Such was the comportment of many—sullen to simmering—that they left Menka wondering whether they had come for the funeral itself or simply to voice a protest, to register their discontent, or just to demand an explanation for an abnormality. It was one thing to be faced with a sudden emptied space in one’s life, quite another to be denied ritual accommodation with it, negotiate a peace with that sudden void in the physical surrounds of a shared space of vitality. Perhaps their journey served also as a therapy, since it took their minds away from the domination of what would otherwise count as a vicarious bereavement. An inconsolable hurt and resentment had usurped the province of loss.

  Why, why, why? But why? Why are they doing this? Surely, Doctor, you must know.

  I cannot believe that the family would take such a decision on their own. There is something behind it, some kind of pressure somewhere. Surely they must have consulted you.

  No, they did not.

  Such was the desperation for an answer, some minds turned to politics. Is it the government? Did Duyole or the family clash with the prime minister? Or the president? But Duyole stayed off all those politics. Have they forbidden the return of his body to Nigeria?

  No, it is not the government, Menka assured them. In fact, we know that the old man is a buddy of the prime minister. You have to ask The Family for explanations.

  Perhaps the closest of Duyole’s business associates was the shipping magnate Rimode Isame, from Yenagoa but based in London. It was the funeral arrangements that catapulted him into Menka’s room, like the others, once he had deposited his luggage in his own room.

  “What do you know of this, Kighare? Why have they chosen to bury our friend in this place?”

  Kighare expelled his twentieth sigh of the day. “You’ll have to ask his siblings.”

  “Is it too late? I mean, what can we do? Have you spoken to their father? Maybe we should phone him together. We can’t let this happen. How are we going to explain this at home? What will people think of us? Is Timi here? Is Kikanmi part of this?”

  “Solidly. As for the old man, he is the chief promoter. They say it’s a family affair, and The Family—capital letters—has spoken.”

  Isame let out a prolonged wail. “This is not a light matter, you realize—it’s far more serious than we think. This is Duyole Pitan-Payne of Millennium Towers! If he wanted to be buried outside Nigeria, he would have built his towers overseas! People will imagine all sorts of things. You’ll see. They’ll even insinuate…oh, I can just begin to picture it. Media rumours. Gossip. They will say he died some kind of embarrassing death, anything, you can’t put it past our people to invent all sorts of stories. What are we going to do to stop it?”

  “It’s too late,” Menka said. “All we can do now is start planning his exhumation.”

  “Eh? What did you say?”

  “They’re a stiff-necked lot with false values. They’ll come to their senses—maybe. Whether they do or not, it doesn’t matter. You think Duyole’s friends at home will let them rest? His real family? There is a family one is born with, I know that. But I am just learning, pushing sixty, that there is also a family you acquire, one you build around yourself. I’ve just met several members of that family. Obviously there are hundreds more. So you’re right. There’s going to be an almighty squall over this.”

  “But we still have to go through with this funeral?”

  “Unless you know how to convince the family patriarch that he won’t be fo
rce-fed on his son’s remains, I’m afraid so.”

  Isame was naturally baffled, and Menka proceeded to bring him into the full picture.

  A knock on the door. Menka answered it, and this time it was the children. The two girls clung to Menka, drenched his shirt with their tears and flung themselves on his bed. Then they saw Isame and tried to show some self-restraint.

  The shipping magnate rose. “Never mind me.” He smiled. “Kighare, let me go and settle in. We’ll speak some more.”

  Damien had followed them in, dragging his feet. Despite Menka’s anxiety for them, he found himself studying them individually, intently. He was touched to hear Damien express concern—and he sounded genuine enough—about how his Uncle Kighare was bearing up. Beneath his solicitousness, however, Menka thought he detected some element of sheepishness. The cause soon became clear.

  The effervescent Katia opened up without any preliminaries. “Uncle Kighare, why is our father being buried here?”

  The elder, Debbie, instantly added, “We don’t understand it at all. Why isn’t he going home? He wouldn’t want to be left here, we all know that. The whole world knows it.”

  Menka slowly lowered himself into a chair, aghast. He had obviously done them an injustice. “But I was made to understand that this was what you all wanted.”

  “No way!” The girls’ screams emerged in unison. “Badagry is where he belongs. That’s his city. As for business, only Grandpa has connections with Salzburg. Dad came here mainly for his annual medicals, and that was a carryover from his student days. Even that annoyed him—it embarrassed him.”

  “Mind you,” Katia adjusted, “he did look forward to the music festival.”

  “Yes, yes, and popped over to Munich for the Oktoberfest. It was his annual break. Beyond that, tell me what attachments he had to Salzburg!”

  “But your uncle Timi—he told me clearly, distinctly, that this was also your wish.”

  “Don’t mind him, Uncle. That’s all Damien’s fault. He’s weak. He went along with what Uncle Timi told him. All that was before we got here. We’ve since straightened him out and he’s with us. We don’t want our father left here.”

  Damien hemmed and hawed, looked even more sheepish. Preceded by what must have been a severe scolding by his sisters, he cut the image of a naughty schoolboy caught in a petty infraction.

  “Well, Uncle, I also assumed that he would be taken home, but when I phoned Uncle Timi, he said this was what had been decided by The Family. Uncle Kikanmi confirmed it.”

  “Damien is a pushover in their hands,” Debbie chided. “He let them twist him round their fingers. He phoned me while I was still in the U.S. and I told him that it didn’t make sense. And he certainly had no business speaking for us.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Damien protested, and never had Kighare heard him sound so meek. It was as if someone had knocked all the stuffing out of him. Menka had the feeling that because he was the man of the family, he had forgotten that he had an elder sister, and realized belatedly that he had overreached himself, taking decisions on behalf of others. Did this include the turning off of the life support? No, that was not his decision, but he continued to carry himself as if it was. Later Kighare learnt that he had indeed become a fervent convert to The Family position and had tried to bring his two sisters over to the idea. He gave up only after they had shrieked him into submission across the telephone wires.

  Menka took a deep breath. The room became even more crowded with the arrival of their mother, Duyole’s first wife. She knocked, was also admitted. Menka’s room was fast becoming the gathering point for the family—small letters—and other dissidents. Even as they embraced, the soft-spoken divorcée was pleading through her tears, “Kighare, why are they doing this? You are his friend. Don’t let them get away with it. Why should they abandon Duyole here? Is this what he deserves—to be left among total strangers?”

  Menka calmed her down. “I spoke earlier to Bisoye. All I can tell you is that you all seem to have been grossly misrepresented. Once Bisoye escaped Selina’s clutches, she could hardly wait to launch into the same lament and protestations.”

  “Selina is a mind-control bitch. I know her,” Katia said.

  Menka permitted himself a smile. “All right. Would I be correct in saying that you all seem agreed? You all want Duyole back home, am I right?”

  It drew a passionate babble of pent-up frustration, anger, and pain.

  Menka hushed them. He felt very calm and confident as he made his pledge to this other family, though it was more a vow of solace to himself: “I shall bring your father home.”

  No one asked him how he proposed to do this, and he had no idea of his own. While speaking to Bisoye, his mind had begun to explore several scenarios for what was already a silent commitment, no less. He had begun to envisage a lawsuit in the Nigerian courts, in the Austrian courts, a public campaign, involvement even of the church, a diplomatic offensive, an appeal to the nationalist sense, pride, media campaign, whatever else was the boast of those professionals of emotional trafficking. He saw possibilities of even creating incidents after the initial interment was over, incidents that they could then play up in the Nigerian media until calls for the repatriation of Duyole’s body to Badagry overwhelmed The Family conspiracy—if conspiracy it was. All he knew was that Duyole was coming home, and sooner than The Family envisaged. Never was he more certain of that homecoming.

  “Very well. Since I am a doctor, the very first thing that occurs to me is embalming. You have to ensure that he is properly embalmed.” He turned to Damien. “Damien, do you think you can make that your special preoccupation—you seem to be reasonably close to your uncles, so pile on the pressure. I shall look into it myself, but try to remember—and that goes for all of you—I am not blood family. I am not even your family doctor. I’ve already been reminded of that fact, and not all that subtly.”

  “I’ll do that, Uncle. I know he’s seeing the mortician tomorrow.”

  So here we go again, Menka thought. And déjà vu shall follow me all the days of my life…The same scenario as in Badagry, when they all divided up the labour for getting Duyole into Austria, now the reverse saga. He held up both hands. “Let me be blunt with you children. I am glad your uncle Timi is not part of it this time, which means I assume I won’t be looking over anyone’s shoulder. I’m going to assume that when you commit, you perform. It’s a family affair, so you just have to help and monitor one another. Don’t let your uncles and Auntie Selina rest. Pile on the pressure. Who knows, it may not be too late to put a stop to this—the actual interment. If the pressure is sufficient, even now they may find themselves forced to reconsider. The Otunba may yet change his mind.”

  * * *

  —

  The Otunba did not. There was a stage when a HOLD did appear on the horizon. Even the Brain of Badagry poised his negotiations for a casket. The clusters of guests became more animated yet relaxed. The compromise was simple: a memorial, the usual “celebration of life,” in Salzburg, then the funeral at home. Kikanmi ensured that the news spread quickly, and he walked around with a jauntiness that remained absent while he endured the brunt of popular opprobrium. Teahole arrived from Badagry, and it appeared that it was he who had brought the good news. When he moved among the crowd that same evening, he exuded the air of a beneficiary of a celestial amnesty, dispensing the atmosphere of concordance with the rest of the world. Even his sniffles emerged more like a statement of relief than of a cultivated affliction. The bar rebounded with the exuberance that underlay all notions of a celebration of life.

  By morning the patriarch had reverted to form and the luscious display of the Austrian breakfast buffet lay in ruins. The news came through as strange, very strange. Indeed, incomprehensible. All had considered the bedtime assurance the most rational resolution, a welcome, albeit belated, conversion to the humanity of a man’s or woman�
�s life partner, decided by either in full maturity and sanity. Over and above the wishes of the widow came the fiat—interment in Salzburg! The gathered guests made no effort to conceal their displeasure, and the three elders of The Family in Salzburg found themselves isolated. They were grumpy, defensive, and aggressive, conciliatory and defiant—it did not seem humanly possible, but it was indeed the pattern—all within the single gesture and pronouncement. It made no difference. The most humiliating rebuke came from the expatriate friends, whom they expected to applaud the decision of Europe as Duyole’s terminal home.

  The oyinbo proved the most implacably hostile. Seated in the bar the following afternoon, Menka pricked up his ears when he heard Kikanmi, increasingly chastened under the general onslaught, concede, “After all, anything can happen in the future, when everything has quietened down. We may then find it appropriate to exhume him and bring his body home.”

  The common, voiced response: “So why bury him here in the first place?”

  An Englishman, whose demeanour had remained undisguisedly disdainful in that mild English manner cultivated over centuries, spun on the padded barstool and joined in the conversation for the first time. “When what has quietened down, Brother Payne? I spoke to my colleagues in Lagos, and the point in fact is the total lack of noise. There is nothing brewing to quieten down. Nobody even seems to know that Duyole is no longer in Nigeria. No one even imagines that such a thing was possible. And anyway, why bury him here at all if you’re only going to exhume him later on?”

  Teahole snapped, “Well, it’s too late for a change of plans. All the arrangements have been completed.”

  “What is too late?” the Brit persisted. “What is too late about this? We could hold a service tomorrow as planned, yes, but what compels us to follow it up with a burial? I’ve checked. The undertakers don’t mind. In fact, they love it. They get paid twice. We’ll contribute. Why are his own people being deprived of paying their last respects to him? Of course it’s not too late—I don’t want to hear that. It’s anything but too late.”