Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth

by Wole Soyinka

  Goddie chuckled. “The public is the same everywhere. Just like humanity. So? Welcome back. Now let’s get to the good news my CoS says you brought with you.”

  Dr. Mukarjee did relax and grew expansive. “Tradition, Your Excellency, is a mighty force. I give praise to the family tradition in which I was raised. Yes, Sir Goddie, as I carefully hinted in my message, you are sitting on gold.”

  Goddie melodramatically adjusted his sitting posture. “You can see me adjusting my seat.”

  “I was already sure, but of course, as again I hinted to you, I wanted to return home and make further tests.”

  “Frankly, I thought you were crazy. You went to Zamfara and were lucky to return with your skin, and still you were talking gold.”

  “That governor put me through hell. My team and my humble self. When he invited us to prospect, he did not say that the religious banditry had anything to do with it. We went in with our eyes closed.”

  “You came out alive, thank goodness. Some others did not.”

  “And came straight to you to complain, Sir Goddie. To lay a formal complaint before talking to our government. Looking seriously for foreign partners, that’s not the way to treat them. People should always lay their cards on the table, then there is trust. Business depends on trust.” The People’s Steward showed signs of losing patience. Dr. Mukarjee made matters worse by pointing to the crystal bowl. “That includes you, Your Excellency.”

  Now Sir Goddie’s risen hackles admitted no disguise. “Explain yourself.”

  But the geologist’s complacent smile only kept broadening. “Before departing, I sent a message. Your chief of staff assured me it was delivered. But we received no reply.”

  “What kind of a reply did you expect? You were granted an audience. You left me still shivering from the Zamfara experience. That was the last I expected to hear from you. Then, some days later, you apply for a prospecting licence from a place you admit you have never been. Never set foot on its soil. The question was, what had you suddenly discovered all the way from India?”

  It seemed impossible, but Mukarjee’s smile grew broader still. “What a mystery the world holds for us, Your Excellency, what a mystery. What surprises. Here I was, still grateful for my life. I had responded to a call from one of your governors. That visit ends in nothing but loss and lamentation. I leave Zamfara and head home to lick my wounds. Luckily our Nigerian partners urge me to stop at the villa and lay a formal complaint. I do so. You are a busy man, Sir Goddie, but you managed to spare me a minute or two. You apologize, then send me on my way.”

  Sir Goddie tried to mollify the geologist, evidently still suffering from effects of the trauma. “You know, as a businessman, one hits duds from time to time.”

  Mukarjee shook his head vigorously in disagreement. “No, Sir Goddie, this proved to be nothing like a dud. Let me explain, Your Excellency. You see, there are great goldsmith families, sublime craftsmen in their own right, all over India. In my part, however, which is near Kerala, a small town called Kochi, there are a few families who are not just goldsmiths but are trained tasters. You know, like tea. Or coffee. Even wine or alcohol and liquors. Please note—taste, I said, not test. I am speaking of places where the tradition is to beat gold so thin that it requires great sensitivity of the fingers to pick up a leaf of it. You need tweezers. And you have to choose the right gold for it. Not just any gold you pick up. The kind of gold you can beat thin. Very, very thin. Thinner than sheer gossamer. Think of the powdery wings of a butterfly, not even the wing itself but the powder on it, then imagine that powder as a single sheet. That is what we do. We beat the gold so thin you cannot hold it. Are you with me, Sir Goddie?”

  “I’m all attention.”

  “I had to give you the background. Take weddings. What you normally see are gold bangles and earrings and bracelets and necklaces, etc., etc. But when a girl marries, it forms part of her wedding feast. Those nearly intangible gold wafers are placed over her food. The significance of that garnishing is that no matter what else happens to her in life, she has tasted gold. Riches. Wealth has become part of her body and spirit, and no one can take it away from her. She eats that gold on her wedding night.”

  Goddie’s eyes popped. “Eat…gold? That’s metallic!”

  “Not when we have beaten it insubstantial. Her meal is covered in those wafers. Yes, Your Excellency. And so for us in that lineage of goldsmiths, our palates are trained from childhood to taste very tiny flakes of gold, sometimes just the dust. We pick up the tiny bits from the work surface—very special cover material—with the tips of our tongues, tiny, nearly invisible bits. That is how we grow up detecting the presence of gold in anything. Sir Goddie, the majority of the world doesn’t know this, but gold has a taste, a flavor. For those of us who are especially gifted, gold even has a smell. The true gold wizards can smell gold from across a room. But mostly, for the rest of us of normal talent, we can only taste it. But that is enough for our profession.”

  Sir Goddie was riveted. “Yes, go on.”

  “My earlier visit was unfortunately short—a very busy day for you. But you were most sympathetic. Very gracious. On leaving, you offered me a kola nut from the bowl on your desk—yes, that very bowl. I see you still have some.” An embarrassed giggle emerged from his throat. “I confess I did not quite share your taste in the kola nut refreshment—I think it’s an acquired taste. However, on returning to my hotel room I did attempt a bite…”

  The People’s Steward’s body snapped straight up. “You mean…?”

  “Yes—gold, Sir Goddie. Your kola nut tasted of gold.”

  “You don’t mean it!”

  “Yes, I do. I believe it’s the same seam of geological formation, with breaks through some long-forgotten seismic history, from the Zamfara deposit. And here, Sir Goddie, the formation is more surface than underground. It explains that most unusual rock formation that has been remarked so often by every specialist, including television’s Discovery. The rockhills of Gumchi are bursting with gold. I lay my family reputation on it.”

  The People’s Steward sat back. Took a deep breath. “Saved by the bell,” he said. He flipped over a page of his interrupted speech, stabbed a section of it with his finger. “Read that!”

  Mukarjee read the indicated section.

  When the late engineer’s will was read, the family found that the late engineer had bequeathed a portion of his wealth to build a model rehabilitation centre in the village of his lifelong friend, not far from this very spot. The government of our great party, POMP, uses this occasion to associate itself with that bequest and undertake to build the clinic as its first major action once it is returned to office. It will become a world-class rehabilitation centre for the victims of Boko Haram and a diagnostic centre for other victims of trauma. At the end of this address you shall all witness my formal signing of the C of O, the Certificate of Occupation, to that friend, Dr. Kighare Menka, witnessed by the family representative, here present among us.

  The geologist whistled. “Sir Goddie, this was indeed a narrow escape.”

  Sir Goddie nodded. “As our good preacher likes to remark, it is well and truly the hand of God. Nothing unusual in a government reversing itself. We could always substitute a piece of land nearby, even here in Abuja, but this would have been a tough call. That pestilential media would never let go. As for the beneficiary himself, the surgeon—another pain in the neck!”

  Mr. Mukarjee wagged his head in satisfaction, rose. “I know it’s a busy morning for you, Your Excellency. Permit me to take my leave.”

  “Certainly, certainly, Mr. Mukarjee. You shall of course be hearing from me. You are part and parcel of this—rest assured.”

  “Your Excellency, I place myself totally in your hands.”

  “You have given a most auspicious start to this year’s festival.”

  The prime minister ha
d already pressed his bell, and the Equivalent appeared on cue to see off his visitor. He sat back thoughtfully, instinctively reached out for the refreshment bowl, took out a kola nut, separated the lobes, and thrust a piece quite absentmindedly into his mouth. As he bit into it, his countenance changed and his entire body was galvanized. Moving rapidly, he pulled the crystal bowl closer with one hand, opened his desk drawer with the other. He shoved aside the toffees, sweets, and other cookies, picked out the remaining kola nuts one by one, laid them carefully in the drawer. He shut the drawer and removed the key, tucked it in the breast pocket of his agbada. He recomposed himself and pressed a button. Shortly after, the chief of staff appeared.

  “Bring me that C of O. Give me ten minutes, then call Teribogo from the Ex Co chamber.”

  “Yes, Your Stewardship.”

  As the door shut behind him, Sir Goddie bit savagely into the kola nut still lodged behind his teeth. “That bloody engineer! He’s still engineering problems for me from beyond the grave. This time, however…Let’s wait and see.”

  Father Davina was ushered in a while later, his habitual collected self somewhat on the skewed side. For the inaugural occasion, he was costumed as befitted a priest of Zoroaster, the anniversary of whose day of self-revelation to humanity—pronounced by Papa Davina the Day of Illumination—had been computed for that week. Celebrations had already commenced at his prophesite, conducted by his aides-in-worship, in far-off Lagos and close by at the Lokoja confluence. He had already organized a small service of worship in—of all places—Gumchi! The divine ceremony of the purification of souls was already in place in a makeshift Temple of Fire, to be lit at the appointed hour and in the presence of none other than Chief Modu Oromotaya. That chief had been both delighted and puzzled at the invitation, but not altogether surprised. He was not a fan of Davina and his ministry, considered him a charlatan and a hypocrite. However, professionalism called to professionalism, and he could not deny a secret admiration for Davina’s skills and mobilizing talent. Bestowal of one of the YoY Awards was already in the works by the astute entrepreneur—form alliances with your competitors if you cannot beat them. The People’s Steward had been penciled in as guest of honour but had yet to formally accept. Sir Goddie was a practical man. The voters’ list in Gumchi at the latest count amounted to no more than thirty-three thousand. Even under the most desperate situation, that could hardly be boosted higher than twice the authentic figure. Gumchi was not merely population-shy, it was physically circumscribed. Anyone could stand on one of those rock mounds and physically count the population if he was patient enough to remain there a few hours from dawn. Sooner or later the entire population would surface, and then all that was left was to make allowance for the bedridden and geriatrics and do the arithmetic.

  Still, the innovation of the Festival of Fire? It would be the perfect prelude to the People’s Choice Fiesta. Pitan-Payne Elder was not far wrong in his depiction of the village, but he was unaware of a remarkable cliff ledge just below the topmost boulder, as if a boulder had changed its mind midformation and flattened out itself instead of rounding out. It was mostly invisible to those below, since its positioning was nearly uniformly covered by clouds. Because it was set on the eastern side, the sun poured onto it with its first emergence. Gumchi was filled with legends totally disproportionate to its size and population, all kept alive among the taciturn villagers, especially as they became largely converted to Christianity. The platform was once reputed to be a place of worship that involved human sacrifice, with the victim secured to the centre of the platform—by what means, no one could actually say, since the ledge itself was polished smooth, with no evidence of any stakes driven into it, no markings of any sort, no inscriptions. The ledge was not uniformly flat, however. In the midst of it, nearly mathematically centred, was a wide bowl, nearly forty feet in diameter, smoothly symmetrical, just like a television dish, but embedded. Its deepest point at the centre would be no more than four feet.

  Legend had it that the victim was placed there at dawn and had vanished by the sun’s setting, sucked up, presumably, by invisible sun flues. The sacrifice of the victim was a guarantee of rains. In the equivalent of summer, there was evidence that a fire was lit within the obviously man-made bowl. At the end of the dry season, it was ritually cleansed by the priesthood to prepare it for the rains. That rainwater, gathered within the bowl, served the villagers as drinking water throughout the coming year. They made a pilgrimage up the rocks, each household reverentially gathering sufficient water for drinking—strictly for drinking. There was a stream at the base which flowed through the kola nut plantation, one whose value was about to increase astronomically and endanger the village’s character. That stream served for all other purposes—cooking, washing, bathing, cleaning, etc. But the water from the elevated rock bowl of the platform was restricted to drinking—no other purpose. It was alleged to prevent or cure no matter what diseases. It was sacrilegious to use even a drop of it for any other function.

  Christian conversion notwithstanding, Gumchi believed almost in totality that the platform was an abode of the deities and a meeting place of ancestors. They descended annually from the skies to observe the fortunes of their offspring, intervene in their activities and well-being. It was a place of reverence in which no strangers were ever permitted—at least, not until the arrival of the Christian missionaries. The Gumchi could gather water only on certain days of the year, when the deities were supposed to have been present. They bivouacked on the ledge on their way down to humanity, then departed. It was they, it seemed, who lit the fire in the hollow each year, feasted, descended into the rest of the world, inspected, returned, climbed, enjoyed a final banquet, then had themselves sucked back into the sky on the original transporters, long before Star Trek.

  That legend lent itself to easy conversion as the original Jacob’s ladder; thus the missionaries, to their later chagrin, encouraged its mystical hold on the people. Even before Papa Davina’s numerous scouting missions in search of a permanent home for the world’s first prophesite, he had heard of the legend. He had conquered the valleys, the rivers and their confluences, the ghettos and other marginal dwellings of humanity. Even while ensconced in the confluence of rivers in Lokoja, Papa Divina had set his sights on the rockhills of Gumchi and their hugging clouds as a spiritual reserve, the physical elevation of the Ekumenika march of divine colonization. Now with the approaching Festival, the exigencies of business beckoned. Gumchi Hills had acquired a multipurpose potential.

  Teribogo entered Sir Goddie’s presence and took his seat. He was taken aback to encounter an unsmiling People’s Steward, a dramatic transformation from the avuncular being who had addressed the new board members in the executive chamber a mere half hour before. Without a word, Sir Goddie pushed the forms towards him. Across the front page of the Certificate of Occupancy were two thick diagonal lines drawn in red and the word RESCINDED.

  Davina looked up at the Steward and asked, “What is this?”

  “I have decided that we must abide by the terms of the will,” pronounced Sir Goddie. “It is best that way. Neatest and safest. Certain complications have come up, and this is no time for controversies. The project is not safe.”

  Teribogo shook his Zoroastrian head in disbelief. “You are worried about safety? The Julius Berger people have constructed a first-class serial platform climb, with rest stations. Everything has been tested.”

  “I am not speaking about physical safety. And anyway, nothing stops your procession and your service of purification or whatever you call it. But from now on everything is limited to your Fire Temple. The festival kicks off with that event—nothing has changed. It will be like the Olympic flame—to formally launch the week of festivities. A first. You should all be proud. I think, even if I say it myself, it’s a brilliant adjustment.”

  Teribogo was also undergoing transformation. His voice became hard. “And what becomes of th
e world headquarters of God’s Ekumenika?”

  “I have thought of that. We’ll find you a new place to build your headquarters.”

  “With equivalent elevation? With the very clouds of the heavens nuzzling those rounded boulders? You can suggest a functional equivalent of the Gumchi—literally—skyscrapers of God’s own boulders? Sir Goddie, this was a project signed and sealed in Lokoja. It is Gumchi or nothing. The view alone is nine-tenths of the spiritual capital!”

  “I see you are shocked. Political exigencies do have their way of interfering with well-made plans. That is life for you. My job is to allow for and manage the unexpected. This is simply one of those occasions.”

  “We have printed hundreds of thousands of brochures, invested in ancillary business outlets. Sir Goddie, you and I have gone through the feasibility studies—this is a milk cow, the pinnacle of spiritual tourism. There are spinoff assets, other prospects stretching into infinity. This is one opportunity you cannot let pass.”

  The People’s Steward shrugged. “Don’t blame me. You killed an innocent man. He left a will. Again and again I’ve told you, I do not like your methods. I find them distasteful. Abhorrent. And dangerous. They endanger me. They threaten to undermine everything I have meticulously built. This is different from the Ikorodu thug. He would have ended up on the gallows anyway. Several times over. I agree you saved the nation a lot of headache. But this!”

  “No one meant to kill him,” Teribogo calmly protested. “It was an accident. The operation was simply to destroy some dangerous items in his studio.”

  “On account of what, Teribogo? Maybe it’s time you came clean. You keep hiding things from me—I do not like surprises. From now on, no more hidden agenda!”

  Teribogo took a deep breath, then looked nervously around. Sir Goddie reassured him. “This office is safe. I have it constantly swept, every morning. You’ll find the irony hard to believe, but the very man at the heart of all this problem—it was his firm that set up the system.”