by Wole Soyinka
“They wanted to kill me Ofe.”
When it finally sank in he asked: “Who wanted to kill you?”
“Chief Biga.”
“That gambler? He’s the hatchet-man of the Cartel. What did you have to do with him?”
“Nothing. He threatened to burn my face with acid. I told him I preferred to be killed.”
“But why? Stop talking in bits and pieces. What had he to do with…?” He struck himself on the forehead. “Of course. Betting!”
He wrapped his arms round her and encased her completely. He felt the shiver die down and her body relax. “What happened exactly?”
“I found out later it was because he had lost thousands at the Casino. The finals of the Beauty contest were on just then and everyone seemed to think I was certain to win it. I suppose that was how the idea came into his head. I was in the hotel and someone came and called me. Some Big Shot wanted to see me he said. So I went. There was Chief Biga in this posh suite surrounded by four or five of his thugs. You know what he said?”
“Go on.”
“He held out one hand and said, ‘Here it is. Two hundred cash.’ Then he opened the other hand and said, ‘Here it is, scarred face for life.’ There was a tiny bottle in that hand. He smiled that fat smile of his and said, ‘I want you to disappear for a while Celestial. My Pontiac is outside to take you to a private motel I own in Cross-river. On the house,’ he said, ‘everything was paid for a month. Drinks and food.’ Of course I knew what it was all about, I had only to remember what a reckless gambler he was.”
“Why are you trembling? It’s all over.”
“I’m afraid Ofeyi. Tell me not to go on this trip.”
“Iriyise…!”
“Tell me not to go. I don’t want to disappear ever again.”
“Then DON’T GO!”
“I had never been so alone. They kept guards at my door day and night. There must have been millions at stake. I never went out. Saw nobody. And I had only just met you. It felt like dying.”
“All right. When the band arrives I’ll let them come in and see you. With this temperature no one in his right senses would expect you to leave your bed. Any layman can see you’ve got pneumonia and pleurisy and I don’t know what else.”
“What is pleurisy?”
“Who cares? All I know is that you are too ill to travel.”
He barely caught her whisper. “No, just too frightened.” But he felt her shiver again and could not mistake a fear which lay deeper than past recollections. He was helpless before it. Beyond a desperate longing, which seized him suddenly, to rock and croon to her like an infant he had no knowledge how he could combat the darkness that her fears had conjured up. It lay between them, murky and threatening. Reassurances choked in his throat, a protective love proved futile and reduced him to a fellow-sufferer. This fear, now so tangible that he could touch it all around him was made even more persuasive because Iriyise was not given to such forebodings, capricious though her other moods might be. Her eyes, larger and luminous from the effects of the fever stared straight, it seemed to him, into the heart of an event whose definition however eluded her. Ofeyi now felt her fingers bite into his arm though her voice had turned drowsy:
“Don’t go to sleep Ofe.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
Where their skins touched he felt a soapy lather of sweat. She grew smaller, curling herself tightly into his body. He felt she would sleep now, her fears would pass and she would return to her elusive, unpredictable self.
The room, down in a kind of semi-basement on a level lower than the distant street, was insulated from the traffic roar. The street itself was several houses and a junkyard away. Iriyise’s cell was buried deep in the vast honeycomb creating in its muffled recesses the morning hour which Ofeyi called the White-Collar Silence. It began just after the workers had departed for office and the housewives had not begun to stir themselves for the shopping spree, the hair-dresser rounds and the jewellery hunts. An earlier silence, one he loved even more was the Petty-Traders’ Pause. First came furtive noises, the rustle of baskets and wares gathered and sorted. A little change went into tins, a kettle simmered, some pap bubbled on the hearth, a breakfast was eaten in silence. Drugged motions, even in the eating of breakfast. The splash of water at the morning wash was muted. All sounds sifted through as though in awareness of the larger army of sleepers in household or large compound who needed and deserved their extra hour of oblivion. The quiet opening and closing of doors. Shadows stealing forth with scrolls of mats, trestle shapes on which they would sit by their stalls. In the streets terraced pyramids made from packing cases were unveiled where they had stood all night and all year; from their impossibly vast recesses the wares emerged for display on the wooden terraces of the stands.
Those roadside queens of the petty trade, ethereal in the morning light before the earthy transformation for their confrontation with bargaining humanity! They move like wraiths through alleyways. Even burdened with the day’s merchandise they are creatures of another world, their plump forms made even more shapeless by wads of wrappers and a money-belt securely round the waist. They leave the home with a softness extracted even from the key turning in the lock, from the two halves of a window married into place with a sleight of hand, a mere shush in the growing twilight; a final tug at the multitudinous folds and sash then footsteps fading into distance to minister to the needs of strangers…and a live, palpitating silence that follows their departure, a hive falling back into a last recoil before it joins the common frenzy in glare of daylight.
Morning after morning Ofeyi savoured it all, wondering which of these phases of morning had formulated Iriyise’s childhood. He tried to picture her in a context of sounds that would accompany the resuscitation of a white collar executive household. A chorus of Smith’s alarms, zee-ee-eths of curtain rods, the rusty creak of levers on glass louvres, running bathwater, electric buzz of razors, Madame’s high-pitched querulous morning voice and the clink of silver on china? And the garage, then the car doors opening and slamming perhaps? It did not seem to matter. Iriyise could be raised in a foundling home and there would only be differences of detail in her, not of essential nature.
With the tinny coda of a bicycle bell the White Collar Silence finally descended on the morning, a deep contented sigh, a winnowing of synthetic impurities. Brief though it would be it was a period of exorcism. Sounds reached him only through walls and distance, through the dens of iniquitous ecstasy in which Iriyise’s neighbourhood was honeycombed, sifted through her black glossy mop of hair and gentle breathing which told him that Iriyise had finally fallen asleep. If she could have another hour of such peaceful sleep before they arrived or he could stop them before they broke into the house…but there wasn’t much chance of that. Alone of all the cars that came into that area only the long American amphibian risked its fenders and paint on the ninety-degree turn through narrow wall corners into the courtyard. The driver would bring it right up to the window and toot his damned horn. Two notes, A Natural and B Sharp, swore Zaccheus. If the notes sounded flat he judged that the battery was running down.
Ofeyi decided to slip out from under her and prepare to dash for the courtyard at the sound of the amphibian.
She stirred, called his name. He lay still, hoping she was only half-awake. She was, but then her arm moved from its angled rest on his chest upwards, her hand dug in between his neck and the pillow, imprisoning it more securely. She began to breathe in the even pace of a deeper sleep and he woke an hour later to see her face above his, propped on an elbow.
“You fell asleep.”
“The spirit was willing but the silence was deep.”
“What got into you suddenly? Why ask me that question after all this time?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Oh yes I do. A song came into my head.” He hummed a brief tune. “Oh wh
ere were you Iri-yi-se…where-o-where-o were you? Yes, I think I’ll ask Zaccheus to work some more on it.”
“Is that all of it? Sounds rather lean to me.”
“Don’t try to be clever. When it’s completed you’ll hear it. Not a moment before.”
She prodded him in the chest again and again. “You are the one trying to be clever. I know why your mind went back. I am going on this tour, you are not coming and you are afraid I’ll end up with a big businessman up there.”
“They don’t like argumentative women up there.”
“We’ll see. Now tell me who you have arranged to bed down with the moment my back is turned.”
“Your very best friends, naturally.”
“Don’t joke about it. Who have you got in mind and don’t think I don’t know.”
He shrugged, composed himself and waited to hear the latest divisive effort of her so-called friends. When it came it was bull’s-eye and he winced. “You think I haven’t heard of Miss Career Diplomat?” She cut short his protests. “I suppose she understands you better than I can. Is it true she has a degree in something administration?”
Marvelling at the detached curiosity of her tone, he nodded yes before he could stop himself. She leapt on him then in fury, a fistful of his hair in either hand and Ofeyi felt his scalp about to be lifted clean off. “So there is someone! You knew who I meant right away!” He seized her wrists and tried to calm her down. “Your fever Iri, stop it!”
“You are going to her. You would even bring her here, I know you.”
“Use your brain now. I can’t come with you because I’ve resigned. I am no longer on the campaign staff! But I must first take a warning to the old man in Aiyéró. He must get the word round to our people.”
“It’s a lie, I know you. You cooked it up.”
“For the hundredth time—I must dash to Aiyéró!”
He pressed her backwards onto the bed by the wrists and pressed her down with his weight. Even as his body touched her he felt her vibrant skin, expectant.
“Look at your skin Iri, you are burning.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Malaria, fever and sweat he took her. Their mingled sweat soaked the sheets and she clawed as he sank into her. Then she lay quiet. Her mood continued strange. He had expected she would say: “that should keep you till I get back but of course you are just a woman wrapper.” Or boast that her smell on him would kill off any woman who touched him in her absence. She did not even make him declare that no woman “of your sort” ever filled him so completely. Instead she pushed him off, then half-lay on him. Her hair strayed and tickled his nostrils. When she spoke it was with a calm, distant consciousness of what she actually uttered.
“I don’t want to die yet.”
Startled, he could only gape and try, futilely again, to traverse the distances in her wake.
“I don’t want to die yet.” And then she appeared to come back to him, teasing but earnest. “Even though you’ve ruined me. I’ve never leant on a man the way I lean on you. No one.” There was a moment’s silence, then she turned at a sound outside. “I think they are here.”
The huge ship slurched round the sharp corners of the building, taking off its customary grains of cement and losing in turn a square inch or two of its own paint. A lush note rent the early morning silence on the paved courtyard. Before the car came to a complete stop a waddly figure stepped out in unbuttoned jacket and staggered slightly. The car braked prematurely and Zaccheus was half knocked against the door. He looked reproachfully at the driver who merely shrugged and said,
“Boss, you’ll kill yourself one of these days.”
“Blame the car then. It feels the same moving as standing still.” He was already yards away, excitement over his cherubic face.
Iriyise let down a corner of the curtain, then pulled it up sharply. Another figure, a lean brief-case of a man with a satanic beard had also stepped out of the car. He wore a Tyrolean hat with a pink feather. Iri had rolled off at the sound of the outer door opening and pulled a sheet over them. Ofe glanced at the door.
“Did we lock it?”
Zaccheus burst into the room and Iriyise shouted at him, “Lock the door after you.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Lock it—quick!” To Ofeyi she said, “The fool’s brought Aristo.”
But the salesman already stood in the doorway, grinning benignly into the room, his arms outspread to accept the tribute of welcome. “Iridescent, where is she?”
Iriyise reached an arm behind the bed and her fingers closed on a shoe. Zaccheus gestured helplessly. “I thought the man was waiting in the car. Look, Aristo…”
A mauve shoe flew through the air, barely missing the Tyrolean hat. Aristo ducked out of sight and Zaccheus slammed the door. A tornado now erupted from the bed, fought its way into a dressing-gown snapping at Zaccheus, I’ll have it out with you later, ignored his protests and flung objects around until she found a weapon. Ofeyi calmly wound the discarded sheet around himself. Before Iriyise quite left the room they heard Aristo’s voice outside the door protesting, “But why throw shoes at me Celestial?” Zaccheus clutched his head and shouted, “You bloody fool, you mean you are still waiting?”
Then the door flew open and the first blow of the heavy coat-hanger took the surprised Aristo flush in the mouth. “You think you can burst into my bedroom uninvited?”
“Lady…”
And then, suddenly wiser he turned and fled down the passage, Iriyise in pursuit.
Ofeyi shook his head. “That girl is going to collapse on you on this tour.”
Zaccheus had opened his instrument case and begun to piece his saxophone together. “Who? Firebrand?”
“She’s ill.”
“She’s tough.”
A loud plea from the hunted man outside made them look out the window. Iriyise had him trapped between the car and the wall but could not reach him with the hanger.
“That chick ill? Aristo doesn’t think so.”
“What is he doing here? Are you taking him on tour with you?”
“We ain’t taking him nowhere. But he’s coming. He’s got his limoswim parked by. How come he can get hold of a Corporation plush anytime he likes, that’s what gets me. Why all the perks and quits?” He exclaimed suddenly, “Hey, Firebrand ain’t horsing you know. If that stone had got him…”
“He asked for it.”
“Christ! We nearly lost the Prince of Sales just then. He had better just get out of it.”
“Iri doesn’t like men who carry tales. She doesn’t mind it from women so much.”
“What tale has he been carrying?”
“About me. Nothing serious, just mischief.”
“Not to the Corpse was it?”
“Yep. He’s just a fool.”
“He is dirt!” Zaccheus exploded. “Haven’t we got enough trouble with those Corporation fatsies without he stirring up more crap. He’s Dirt!”
“He’s just a fool. He thinks if I get the sack he’ll get a chance to sell her to his big friends. That’s how his mind works. He’s just a silly man.”
“Yeah? Your funeral man. Got any cocoaine?”
“In the cupboard. Pour me one too.”
Clicking his mouth in rhythm Zaccheus reached up in the wardrobe. “Pour me one-two, one-two, one-two; pour me one-a-two…” He took out the bottle and fished out two glasses from the junk on Iriyise’s dressing-table. Voices drifted in from the courtyard where the rest of the band had poured out of the car to plead for Aristo’s life. Zaccheus flung open the curtain and told them to “leave the lady be. Maybe she’s got good reason for what she’s doing.” Turning back into the room Zaccheus pulled out the cork and took a long sniff. “Man, it’s ripe.”
“Straight from the source.”
They clinked glasses and drank. Suddenly Zaccheus swore. “It was him wasn’t it? Before he knew what cocoaine actually was, went and told the fatsies we were sniffing dope. Man, I would have drowned his head in a butt of the stuff if the lads had let me.”
Ofeyi smiled at that. The thought of mild Zaccheus holding a man’s head down in a butt of cocoa wine…
“Ho, you don’t believe me eh? Ask the boys. I was that good and mad I could homicide the bastard.” He suddenly examined the bottle closely. “Hey, you and Celestial are slow. But I suppose you have riper things to do with your time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Isn’t this the same bottle we brought back from Aiyéró?”
“Same one.”
“You’ve hardly touched it. Man, I’ll never forget that party. That was some education. If anyone had told me all that condensed milk in the cocoa-pod could throw such humane-killer punch….Say, how’s it coming on? Government going to legitimize the stuff?”
“Not a chance.”
“Not even with all the songs of praise the chemist boys are singing on the stuff?”
“Zack, you forget who owns the shares in all those foreign sounding distilleries. Not to talk of the imported foreign liquor trade.”
“Yeah. That’s a mess. But what the hell, it makes the stuff more exclusive to the congosentries…hey? What you laughing at?”
“Where did you pick up that word?”
“In the report. It said, the congosentries can distinguish between the cocoa wine from one kind of soil and from another.”
“Cognoscenti.”
“Oh. And what’s that?”
“Them that knows.”
“What? Oh. Fancy me thinking it was some forest guards in the Congo or some such stuff. How come they make up words like that. Trying to frighten the poor farmer who’s going to read it that’s why.”
