by Wole Soyinka
And he turned his back on the rest of the lounge, only to spin round again. “And let me tell you this, in case anyone attempts to tell you different. Duyole is still very much admired in the university community. They remember him, and they’ve followed his career, yet they assumed you were here to take him home, and they deplore your decision to bury him here.” And he spun round again, tossed down what looked like a snifter of aquavit, and left.
“You will seek the advice of the undertaker, won’t you?” It struck Menka as the perfect opportunity to interject his main concern. “Since you admit the possibility does exist of taking him back home at some time in the future, you will make sure he is properly embalmed, right?”
Seven to eight listeners in that bar turned eagerly towards the Brain of Badagry for his response. “Oh yes,” he promised. “I’ll make sure of that. As I said, all this can change overnight. There is no need for us to keep flogging the issue.”
* * *
—
A bus was waiting to take the mourners from the hotel to the morgue. They all knew when the bus had entered the final stretch into the place of liturgical farewells. As it drew close to the chapel, the driveway grew increasingly floral, the demarcation borders impeccably manicured. Even the air took on a regulated ascendancy of scents, as if the very wheels of the minibus triggered hidden valves that released measured puffs of floral scents into the air. Everything was indeed precise, ordered, predictable.
There had been a delay at the hotel. Yet another friend had flown in that very morning, and they waited while he had extricated himself from registration formalities. While the bus waited, the one element that seemed natural in that unnatural situation took control—an awareness of the closeness of that moment of truth where terminal good-byes are said. No more recriminations, no more resentment. Only an encroaching consolidation of grief. The burden of a permanent absence had begun to weigh on each one individually. No more subterfuge. No more disbelief. The silence could be quantified.
Quietly Menka said to Damien, “Did you carry out your assignment?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
The straggler arrived, flustered and apologetic. The bus took off, and they all submitted themselves to a renewed seizure of looming absence. Then Menka heard the sound of someone sucking in a long breath and exhaling it in spontaneous eulogies.
“Just look at the beautiful Austrian flowers, just look at them. At home they would have been left to the mercy of goats, who would make a meal of them.” It was Selina, her voice oozing with contempt. “Our people simply have no sense of beauty.”
The silence resumed, but of a changed texture, which the woman perhaps misread. It only encouraged the restlessness of her tongue. Menka threw a quick glance at the young widow, Bisoye, saw her eyes widen in shock and disbelief.
“At home,” the bereaved sister raced on, “it’s a waste of time to leave wreaths in the graveyard—the same goats go in there and chew them up.” Then a sad, disgusted shake of the head as she spat her disgust through pursed lips. “Our people have no use for things made for beauty. For them it’s a waste of time. Anything they cannot eat they don’t value.”
The ensuing silence was no longer the onset of grief. Embarrassment pervaded the bus interior with its assortment of nationalities—Lebanese, Austrians, British, Germans, an American, and others. Covertly Menka cast glances around in search of reactions. He encountered only bewilderment and averted faces. Then he thought, is this not the sister of that same realtor who used his influence to have a governor tear up playgrounds, uproot an ancient graveyard, destroy a green space shaded by cashew and almond trees, in order to congest the city of Lagos with a squat, ugly office and business complex? The same who ploughed through the already diminishing green belts of Lagos—the token park of Onikan and the famous Marina lagoon promenade bequeathed by the colonial masters, among others? All in order to satisfy the developers’ lust for suffocating high-rise buildings? And now, in “cultured” Salzburg, a concerted sibling gush in praise of the preservation of green spaces?
Selina waxed more ecstatic, and more correspondingly disparaging of her own. Her normally brittle voice had become a piece of grit scratching on the windows of the bus that turned all others into a captive, resentful audience. The mourning sister embarked on a mission of enlightenment, the bus her schoolroom for retarded pupils. She treated all to a running commentary on the European love of their countryside, their gardens, and the unmatchable sensibilities of professionals to the demands of grief and funerals. “What do our people really understand about funerals?” she demanded of the passing Salzburg hedgerows. “Oh yes, getting drunk and bursting at the belly with free food, and the hire of as many bands as possible to sing praises of the departed and make miliki all night long—you can trust us there, oh yeah, we know how to milk the funeral. We have never learnt how to honour our dead, except with noise, excess, and ostentatious consumption. Just look at this, look at the scenic surroundings. Christ! What a contrast!”
* * *
—
Music was already being piped through the chapel as they disembarked from the bus, nearly uniformly grateful that the torrent of eulogies to Austrian horticulture was, at least for the moment, stemmed. The morgue was separated from the chapel by a fair-sized verandah through which friends and relations filed to pay their last respects.
That day, cremation earned Menka’s approval. There is nothing that can be done to a once-expressive face from which vitality has fled. Only a death mask remains to mimic what one has known. Such forms were supposed to be his meat and drink—he shuddered; “meat and drink” was no longer a neutral, innocent expression—but this was usurpation of a vitality that had become inseparable from his total self-awareness. There was nothing, no resemblance whatsoever between the inert form and a companion with whom one has wined and dined, laughed and quarreled. The occupant of that lined casket, dressed to imitate life, had been accorded the technicality of details—the pocket handkerchief in a double-breasted jacket, a carnation—but it remained a deception. Still, this was his friend, and now his double, since he already saw himself in his place. He had substituted himself and now lay still, eternally unconscious of faces, if any, staring into his, admitting to themselves the same feeling of having been cheated of reality, since this was nothing but a plasticized mimicry of the face they had once known.
They followed the path of music into the chapel, a Handel, streamed seamlessly in muffled acoustics. It seemed to provide the just measure of solemnity and sedateness, a soothing neutrality that made it all things to all listeners. Already a few eyes had begun to glisten with teardrops, the sniffs came louder and more frequently, and the surgeon wondered how long it would be before he himself succumbed, his eyes joining the faucets springing up all over the pews. He held out, perhaps thanks to the aggravation of that morning’s bus ride. Also, an interlude of tributes, beginning with those present, who rose, spoke their hearts, returned to their seats. They were not all maudlin; some were even cheerful reminiscences, spiced with home wit and rough affection. Viva voce was followed by the transmitted, barely arrived by fax, and read by none other than Teahole. Among them, one came from the prime minister, Sir Goddie. That was more than sufficient to stem any furtive trespass from the tear duct. Indeed, Menka was stopped—he exaggerated—from desecrating the solemn rites with a derisive guffaw only by the terminating passage. The message praised the “painful but courageous decision, a shining display of patriotism,” to inter the people’s hero exactly where he had fallen. That drew gasps and exchanges of puzzled looks around the chapel. What was Sir Goddie’s interest in this openly resented event?
The eulogy that finally took his breath away, however, following immediately after Sir Goddie’s, thoroughly savaging Menka’s already frayed mask of self-composure, came from the founder of the one and only world prophesite, Papa Davina! Davina? What on earth did Davina know of Duy
ole Pitan-Payne, that he should join in sending him off with a tribute and moralizing cant? To rub salt and pepper in the injury, Mr. Teribogo proceeded to echo Sir Goddie’s sentiment, this time lauding the “pious and humble submission” of the family in their decision to bury their son in faraway Austria, where God, in his infinite wisdom, had chosen to call him home. The doctor felt himself personally affronted, this time truly close to leaping out of his pew to snatch the sheet of paper from Teahole and rip it to bits. Then, just as suddenly, it all subsided. He prescribed for himself instant calm. Oblivion. The dead are a free-for-all for the world to feast on; so be it. Aren’t we well and truly about to inter our own in their alien place, accompanied by ceremonials of their own spiritual world? Of our own choice? Of our own free will? His anger took its silent war to the officiating priest—Yes, you, sir, to begin with—just who the hell are you, Mr. Clergyman! What are we to you? Or to any one of these alien faces? What relationship or understanding do you bear towards the earth by which we live and die, to the pendulous goats that would eat up hedgerows and flowers and wreaths left in our graveyards? Most aggravating of all, just what do you know of Duyole Pitan-Payne, founder of the Gong o’ Four? What do you know of his whims, his foibles, his generosity, the betrayals he has endured even from those closest to him? What can you feel of this very latest betrayal? Just who are you to pronounce words and order hymns to accompany this son of Badagry across his point of no return?
The service felt mercifully brief. A change in music accompanied the mourners as they filed past the now-closed coffin and into the lane where the hearse waited to bear Duyole to the burial ground. Their bus preceded the hearse; it rolled inexorably towards his final resting place. Kighare Menka already knew how far he would accompany him or, more accurately, up to what moment he would not accompany his friend, but he had no idea where exactly he would take his leave. Every moment grew longer. Sprung from different corners of the world, a common loss had herded so many together, and the tussle had actually succeeded in creating a sense of community, one that could even boast outcasts, ironically the formal hub of that community, shamefaced, barely tolerated, and dreadfully conscious of their ambiguous presence. Menka felt he owed solidarity to that community, continued to delay the moment of expressive revolt. He was resolved to turn back but found it difficult to take the step that would diminish that stricken family. The exit from the chapel would have been ideal, but he sensed that this would have been too soon, too abrupt. When he walked past the coffin, he should simply have continued walking, walked out of the chapel, out of the entire complex of death and away from the desecration of Duyole’s existence. He had missed that moment, and now he felt trapped.
It was the cemetery itself that came to the rescue. This was an enclosed, not an open, burial ground. An elbow-high stone wall surrounded this terminal destination, leaving an opening for the hearse and its accompanying procession. He now understood why the bus preceded—to enable the mourners to descend and walk to the graveside ahead of the hearse. No one could gainsay the immaculate condition of the interior of this enclave—a glimpse through the open gates revealed a resting place for those whose antecedents could perhaps be traced backwards to pre-Hapsburg settlements, the relics of centuries of wars, uprootings, resettlements, and clan consolidations. The lawns, the marble headstones embossed with names of family dynasties, the carefully regulated pathways between graves, all testimonies to cultivated fastidiousness. This, then, was the chosen resting place for Aduyole Pitan-Payne of Badagry, once the point of no return for slaves that were herded across the Atlantic.
And so, at that entry where the bus stopped and the mourners began to disembark, so did Menka, only he stood to one side and waited while the procession filed past, then the hearse, its burden covered in flower wreaths, and bade his friend a silent Au revoir. It had now moved beyond a mere pledge or conviction, it had hardened into a duty. Menka accepted that he had declared war on this charade, and for the first time since he had arrived in Salzburg, he experienced utter tranquility. He walked back to the bus as if all was now resolved and there was nothing left to aggravate the soul.
The graveside party returned half an hour later, tear-streaked and eyes reddened. At the definitive moment when the ultimate abomination was committed and the casket was lowered into the grave, there had arisen a sudden outburst of wailing, the like of which had never been heard in that discreet graveyard, a detonation so startling that the officiating priest stopped dead in his liturgy, frightened, not knowing whether it was a protestation at something he had said or done, some cultural offence he had given at what he had always known as moments of silent grieving. Isame, the shipping magnate, was the first to break, and it was like the starting signal for a contagion that spread instantly. A deluge, a cacophony of shrieks followed. The ancient Teutonic stones reverberated with the howls of primordial anguish from the heartland of a distant continent and the priest stopped, puzzled, unable to continue. He could only watch helplessly, disconcerted at this spectacle for which his training had not prepared him. Culture shock—yes, that was it, in full manifestation.
Finally, however, the uproar subsided. The priest hurried through the rest of the service, dreading, no doubt, another unseemly outburst, but no, the cascade had been stanched, leaving only the occasional sniff. The mourners left Duyole among his newly acquired family and clan and retreated to rejoin the living.
The weeping bout appeared to have brought catharsis; certainly it acted to dispel the cloud of silence that would have accompanied them on the journey back to the hotel. Now it was all banter and friendly blame allocation. They argued over whose singular shriek had terrified the poor priest and nearly made him drop his prayerbook. On the actual initiator of the epidemic there was no argument—all agreed that this was Isame, and now they proceeded to identify the next tear duct to catch and spread the affliction. Rimade interrupted that line of debate and delivered a nod of mockery in Menka’s direction. He, Isame, was at least more courageous than some, such as the supposed rock-hardened Gumchi product, a medical doctor to boot. No, worse, a surgeon, used to cutting people up without batting an eyelid. Yet it all collapsed at that moment of final leavetaking; Menka could not even bear to pass through the gates to the graveyard. The Gumchi outsider was, however, in no charitable mood; he refused to concede a misreading towards this loosening of tensions. Unsmiling, and in a flat register, he responded that he came from a culture that could not bear to witness abominations, such as interring one’s own flesh and blood in foreign soil, except on compulsion.
Runjaiye, the junior partner, nodded agreement. He had taken a seat near Menka and now spoke in his halting Yoruba. “I could not help myself. I howled with all the rest—in fact, I caught it early. But it happened to me only when I suddenly thought, Is this real? Are we really abandoning Duyole on this spot? That was when I felt something rupture inside me. I could no longer control anything.”
Menka turned and faced Kikanmi squarely. “I hope you can get the Austrian army to set a twenty-four-hour watch on that graveyard. Because—let me tell you straight—I am coming back to take Duyole home.”
* * *
—
It would appear that it was not merely stentorian grieving that proved contagious among that motley assemblage of the bereft. Perhaps there was a virus of anthropophagy in the air, imported all the way from Badagry. Also, tossed between fathers who conceived of having their sons for dinner—even via the denial route—and sons who played mystic vampire and piped the life force from their fathers into their own bloodstream, Kighare Menka, temporarily relieved from a network of human consumption, found himself craving a vicarious share before leaving Salzburg. Or perhaps simply as a cauterizing strategy, to take the other kind of man-eaters out of his psyche? No matter, his affliction took the mild form of sharing a meal with the departed in absentia, perhaps with an empty chair set for that absentee in time-honoured ritual. It could have stemmed fro
m a feeling of incompletion of the earlier farewell rites, since he had stopped short of the graveyard and resolutely rejected any further participation in the interment. Above all was a desperate need to escape from it all on his last night in Salzburg, having resolved to flee the following morning early. He wished to be nowhere accessible to The Family’s representatives, not even if they had begun to rethink and commence plans for Duyole’s exhumation. They would all dine, he knew, at the hotel. He would arrange that one meal—his first of the day, which brought it even closer to communion—by himself; that is, alone, but not quite. There was nowhere that Duyole had stopped for a meal, even a sandwich, in all of Salzburg that he had not left a permanent record of exceptional gusto. All Menka had to do was find one such place. He would order exactly what Duyole had had for his last meal in that restaurant. If they did not remember it precisely, he would simply ask for any meal that they recalled serving him anytime before. That would be more than sufficient. He and Duyole had never been together in Salzburg—Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, Milan, Cannes, London, etc., but never Salzburg. The need came over him suddenly to partake vicariously in one of the missed spaces of his rich existence. The more he thought of it, the more it approached a spiritual, cleansing need.
Just as suddenly—how on earth could he have forgotten!—Menka recalled that Duyole often spoke of a restaurant just on the outskirts, not far from the Lindtz chocolate factory, one of the many discoveries where he had left his mark. He knew also just who to ask—from the moment of his arrival, one of Duyole’s college acquisitions had called and offered any assistance Menka might need to tide him over what he sensed would be a painful stay. He had heard much about the surgeon, member of the Gong of Four, from Duyole, referred to as his glorified butcher friend of Gumchi, whose population was not even one-tenth of Salzburg’s. After the burial, perhaps anticipating some psychological wounds that Menka might be tending, he preoccupied himself with the visitor’s plans for the rest of his stay, and especially in the immediate, for the evening after the burial. Heaven alone knew what he must have been thinking, but the man had clearly made up his mind that Menka was not to be left to his own devices. He had been most persistent, feeling that this was something that he owed Duyole, to look after his friend the surgeon. He left him his card.