CHUKWU, I will again take you to the deeds that are necessary to explain and defend the actions of my host and to plead that, should it be the case that he’s harmed the woman in the way I fear he has, he would have done it in error. So I must say, simply, that my host was transformed by the embrace I spoke of. His healing, Egbunu, had begun. He bought a car the following week with part of the money Jamike returned to him—his money! I need not waste time trying to describe the joy, the relief my host felt at this touch of redemption. For when a man has dwelt in misery for long, he becomes blind to the life that surrounds him like the ocean surrounds the shrunken earth. I, his chi, was delighted, for he’d become again a man of peace, even if part of his soul was still black with sorrow. For now, it was enough.
It restored his confidence so much that he and Jamike drove in his new car to his old house, the property his father had left him. A few days after he received the money, he decided to reach out to Elochukwu. Elochukwu was shocked to hear from him. And when he saw my host, he wept, saying that if he knew it was going to go the way it did go, he would not have encouraged him to travel to the foreign country. The thing was, Elochukwu kept saying, that you loved Ndali so much. “I saw it, Nonso. I saw it so much that I just thought you would never be happy if you did not try to resolve the problem with her parents.” My host agreed. He would not have been happy if he had not tried all he could to be with her. Together, they attempted to reach the man who had bought the property, but the phone yielded no result. The number had gone into disuse, and the man, unreachable.
The next day, he went to the property with Jamike. This was one of the things Jamike had promised to help him do. It was on the list of the three important things he had said that Jamike must do to help him heal and be whole again, so his forgiveness could be complete. “One,” he’d said to Jamike, with whom he now perpetually spoke in the language of the fathers, “you must help me find Ndali, and restore her to me. I love her and have lived for her. You took her away from me and you must restore her to me with your own hands.” Two: “You must help me get back all that I lost. My compound and my poultry. I want to get back my father’s land and rebuild my poultry farm on it. You must help me do this.” Three: “You must help me forget about the things the prison men did to me. I don’t know how you will do it. Pray for me, counsel me—anything, just make sure I don’t remember them anymore.”
The first thing they did was go back to Ndali’s father’s house. He told Jamike about wanting to send the letter to Ndali through the gateman, and Jamike agreed that he should. So they drove at night, one week after their reconciliation, to Ndali’s family house. Then he went up to the gate while Jamike stayed back in the car. He knocked, deeply afraid. The small gate opened, and another man, one of those with whom he’d served at Ndali’s father’s party four years earlier, appeared. To his great relief, the man did not recognize him.
“Oga, wetin I fit do for you?” the man asked. “You wan see Oga Obialor?”
“No, no,” my host said, his heart leaping at the thought of seeing Ndali’s father again. He looked about him, up at the two black plastic septic tanks towering above the gates, then at the man. Then he brought out a wad of cash, twenty thousand naira. He stretched it out to the man.
“Er, Oga, what is this?” the man said, stepping back rapidly.
“Money,” my host said, his breath catching.
“For wetin?”
“Erm, I want you to, erm—”
“Oga, you wan do bad thing for my Oga house?”
“No, no,” he said. “I want you to give this letter to Ndali for me.”
“Oh, you want Madam Ndali?”
“No, I want to give her a letter,” he said.
“Okay, bring am. I go give im mother and them go give am to am for Lagos. Bring am.”
Chukwu, at first he gave the man the letter and the money. The fellow thanked him and returned back in. But when he told Jamike, the latter said, “What if her mother opens it?” My host was stunned. “Did you write your name on the envelope?”
“Yes!” he cried.
“Then they will open it, even try to make sure it doesn’t get to her. The man should just give you her address, or give to her by himself.”
He ran back to the gate and asked the man to bring it back.
“Why, Oga you no wan send am again?”
“No, no, I go come back with am,” he said. “Do you have her address?”
“Amdress? For Lagos?” the man said.
“Yes, for Lagos.”
“No-oh. I be omdinary gateman.”
“Do you know when she go come?”
“No, they no dey tell me that kain thing.”
“Okay, thank you,” he told the man. “Keep the money.”
He left, despondent but thankful that he had saved himself from the possible outcome of Ndali’s parents seeing his letter. Jamike counseled him not to despair and assured him that they would eventually find her. It was early March, he said, and she would most likely return for Easter if they are big Catholics. Jamike advised that they try to recover his house in the meantime. In a moment that reminded me of Tobe, the man who’d helped my host in the strange country, Jamike and he drove to his old compound. He parked his car outside what used to be his garden and sat waiting in the car for Jamike to return. The garden had been cleared, and in its place was a pile of unused gravel and a few cement blocks. A wheelbarrow lay tumbled over the gravel, a red rag tied to one of its handles. There was a big signboard with the inscription: LITTLE MERCY NURSERY AND PRIMARY SCHOOL, P.M.B. 10229, UMUAHIA, ABIA STATE. He looked about him. What of the house of the neighbors? They were still there, only now what he believed was a telephone pole stretched out from beside their compound. On the long cable, a few birds—sparrows—sat, gazing emptily into the distance.
To soothe his anxiety, he focused on the toy bird he’d bought from a crafts store and hung from the rearview mirror of his car. The toy bird swung back and forth when the car was in motion, reminding him of a hen he once had which he’d named Chinyere. He tapped the toy’s beak and stirred it into a whirl. He watched the rope twist at the top and knot together until it reached its limit, then begin to unwind, the bird swirling quickly as the centrifuge that was the rope propelled it. He found meaning here, Chukwu, the way a desperate man, if he looks close enough, finds meaning in just about anything—a grain of sand, a quiet river, an empty boat rocking on the shore. The twirling rope that held the bird, that handlike object, like a sailor’s, directing its course, that cord that binds two things, each of which moves when the other moves, shifts when the other shifts.
He’d been seated for what he thought was close to thirty minutes, and Jamike had still not come out. Although he’d rolled down the windows, it was suffocating. The rain had stopped for a week, and now the days were hot and humid. A bell tolled from the premises of what had been his home, and now the voices of children rose in an enthusiastic chorus. As if nudged by something he could not see, he got out of the car and began circling the big fence that had been erected around the property, stopping only in front near a pile of gravel and blocks. He saw as he walked that only a little of what his family had built of the fence remained. Most of it was now fresh unvarnished bricks held together by rough ligaments of cement. Lizards tailgaited each other across the wall in rudimentary choreographic movements. The chickens had loved them, and even though the lizards were fast and too slippery for them to hold firmly, the roosters would frequently catch them and eat them. Once, a white hen chased a weak gecko who had ambled into the yard and nipped it against the base of the wall, causing a chap in its beak. For days, even weeks, the striking image of the hen with the live gecko in its mouth remained in his mind. When the chicken had turned from the wall, the gecko’s tail curled up its face, stretched up the space between its eyes, so that it seemed the bird wore a Roman centurion’s helmet, complete with the cock’s red comb.
He stopped behind the school, separated only by th
e fence from the place where his poultry once was, and he could not move any farther. For in the place where, years ago, his fowls would have gathered, their voices melding in squawks, was now a little crowd of children who were jointly reciting a poem. This opened a sudden hole in the shield of his spirit, large enough for the dart of hatred to again penetrate and shatter the peace that had held him together beyond all comforting. It broke him, Agujiegbe. He bent, one hand on his thigh, one elbow against the wall, and wept.
When he emerged again from behind the school fence, his enemy was waiting for him. The same man whom, for more than one week, he’d loved with half his heart—the only part capable of such a feat. For the other half was dead, a permanently tranquilized flesh. The man came with a frown on his face, but when he saw my host, his countenance slumped even deeper.
“What is it, brother?”
“Tell me what they said,” he said, without so much as a glance at the man’s face.
“Okay. The person who now runs the school says there was no way they can move from this land. The man they bought the land from has moved to Abuja. The school is doing well here and the government recognizes it. The land is not open for negotiation. What took so long was because I was waiting for him to finish a meeting. A long meeting, my brother.”
He did not say anything but drove in silence until they reached his apartment. Rather, he communicated with the voice of his conscience, that reticent being in the other compartment that was his soul. Chukwu, whenever I’m in a host and the voice of his conscience dialogues with the voice of his mind, I listen closely because I have come to know that the best decisions a man makes come when both voices agree.
—You are full of hatred again, Nonso. Remember he has done nothing to you now.
—Nonsense! How can a reasonable person even say that? Look at the land, my compound, the house of my father!
—Put your voice low. Calm yourself. A man who whispers too loudly will be heard from a distance.
—I don’t care!
—You promised never to hold anything against him anymore. You said you have forgiven him. He asked if you wanted to be his friend, and you said yes. After he gave you your money back, you could have said no and he would have left and let you alone. You even prayed to his God and went to his church with him. Now you hate him again. Now you are plotting to harm him again. Look, just look: a knife lies on the floor of your imagination, stained with his blood. Is this good? Is it?
—You don’t understand how much evil this man has done to me. Keep quiet! You don’t understand a single thing!
—That’s not true, Nonso. It is not me but you who is weak and in need of understanding. What has he done? For the past two weeks he has helped you, done everything you have asked him, as if he were your slave. He has spent most of the time with you, done everything for you. How much did you get from the six thousand euros he gave you? 1.4 million naira. One hundred thousand more than he took from you four years ago. Yet he has nothing. Look at him—are these not the same clothes that he wears every day? You have been to his apartment, a face-me-I-face-you apartment. It has one window, and it is an old one made of wood. Sometimes, when he sleeps at night, he can hear termites scavenging within its walls. If he were not a truly changed man, would he have this kind of money and endure near poverty so that he could mend that which was broken?
The voice in his head did not respond now.
—Answer me. Do you keep silent now?
He said nothing. Instead, with a sigh, he steered the car into the compound and parked it.
—I will say no more to you. Count your teeth with your tongue. Count your teeth with your tongue, Chinonso!
The dialogue with his conscience seemed to have borne fruit, for it seemed that his anger had dimmed by the time they entered his apartment. While his enemy waited in the sitting room, whispering to himself, he went through the back door to the kitchen in the yard. He took the knife from the cupboard, the image of the fated stabbing still in his mind, but then he put it down again. He stamped his feet into the earthen floor and bunched his fist. “My house, my house,” he said. He threw his fist into the air as if his assailant had appeared before him and fell on his knee. “No,” he said, “I will not suffer alone. I will not. I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
—Ngwa nu, ka o di zie, the voice returned to him in a whisper. You may do as you like; I will not say any more to you.
He went back into the apartment, the anguish visible on his face.
“My brother, what is it?” Jamike asked.
He merely gave the man a look. From the crate of Fanta under the bed, he brought out two bottles.
“I am getting us something to drink. Wait here.”
He went to the kitchen and set both drinks on the table. Then he closed the kitchen door. He threw a portion of the first uncapped bottle into an empty bucket on the floor and unzipped himself. He held the bottle over the bucket and urinated until it frothed over. Then he let the rest into the bucket. When he was done, he put back the cap on the Fanta and, with a tip of his finger on the cap, shook the drink to mix it together. He then placed the bottle on the table beside the other one.
Egbunu, I was horrified, even before the act began, for I had seen the intent of his heart. But I could do nothing at this point. I have come to understand that the most persuasive voice of caution a man can hear before any action is that of his conscience. Should he not be persuaded by that, not even a gathering of all his ancestors living in Alandiichie can change his mind. For the conscience is your voice, Chukwu—the voice of God in the heart of a man. Compared to the conscience of a man, the voice of his chi, of fellow man, of an agwu, or even of an ancestor is nothing.
When he stepped out to drain the bucket into the gutter behind the kitchen, it occurred to him that the bottle might carry the smell of urine. So he turned to the sink and washed it with water from another container, his finger firmly on the cap. Then he wiped the bottle with a rag and took it into the living room. He placed the bottle on the center of the table before him and said to this man, “Take and drink.” And the man to whom he had offered the drink took it, gave him thanks, and drank. The hated man drank it with a light twitch on his face, and then a bemused gaze. My host watched him drink without a word and drank until the bottle emptied. Then he set it down by his feet and said to the man who hated him, “Thank you, brother.”
IJANGO-IJANGO, that night, Jamike’s chi projected through the ceiling as through a rip in the aperture of time, into the room.
—Son of the morning light, it said to me. My host has atoned for what he has done.
But, Chukwu, I was displeased. I told it about the full extent of my host’s suffering and how I had not done much to prevent it. I told about how I had gone to the caves to look for it or any word but failed. The chi listened with a silence and sobriety that struck me with awe.
—The great fathers say that when a child who does not know his left from his right tells a damaging lie, he can be forgiven by both the living and the dead. But when an elder tells such a lie, even his ancestors will curse him. Your host is receiving what he deserves.
—The great fathers say that an old woman often feels uncomfortable when she hears a proverb in which dry bones are mentioned. I’m guilty of all that you have said. But still I ask that you recall that a man who insists on breaking the bones of those who offend him in the slightest way will become crippled before long. With these words, it went on to plead with me to restrain my host. I will not relate all that it said, but I will emphasize that it exhibited the new character of its host and assured me of its host’s repentance. But there was also something it said that moved me: Jamike was not a bad person at first. He was made so by people, including my host. The chi related the incident even my host had recalled in Cyprus in which, while in primary school, my host and his friends had repeatedly mocked and shamed Jamike, calling him Nwaagbo for having big breasts. It was these things, the chi said, that had caused him to begin
trying to control others, to assert himself, in hopes that he would heal himself by so doing. I believed it and resolved to persuade my host even more strongly to forgive Jamike.
OSEBURUWA, if a man dwells in the debris field of revenge for too long, he might step on something—the blade of some weapon, anything—that could injure him. For the field is a wasteland filled with an assortment of things, and one cannot always know what he will find in it. Indeed, I must say that my host had stepped on something in the wasteland that bruised his feet. He became ashamed of what he had done to Jamike. He was convinced that Jamike had known what was in the bottle but went ahead and drank it anyway. Why he could not tell. Was it out of fear? Was it out of reverence? But it disturbed him greatly that a man would knowingly drink another man’s urine—no matter what the man had done. He resolved that this was the furthest he would go with his revenge. That thing Jamike had done was the ultimate act of atonement, enough to pay for the loss of the woman he loved, the penis that violated him, the loss of his father’s house. He swore to never again lift a finger against Jamike.
So rather than do harm to Jamike, he would not see him anymore. Agujiegbe, if, for instance, he remembered the event in the prison or the beating at Fiona’s house or any of the things that sent him into a murderous rage, and Jamike was not nearby, he would vent and the anger would leave him. He could wail, he could hit his wall, or his furniture, or threaten to harm himself, but at least he would no longer lay his hand on a man who was contrite, who was truly sorry for what he had done—a transformed man who had returned that which he had stolen from him.
So when he told Jamike he no longer wanted to see him, he did not give these reasons for why, only that he did not want to.
“I will respect your desire,” the other, visibly troubled, said. “But, my brother, son of the living God, I want to be your friend. I will miss you. But I will not do what you don’t want me to do. Believe me. No longer will I come to your apartment, or to your shop. I will not call you as you have requested, unless it is urgent. And even then I will text you, first, I promise. But oh my brother, Chinonso-Solomon, my bosom friend, I pray for you. I pray for you. But I will do as you have requested. Yes, indeed, no longer will I look for you! No longer will I knock on your door! God bless you, my brother, God bless you!”
An Orchestra of Minorities Page 39
