by Wole Soyinka
They heard Taiila move. She lay the woman’s head gently on the floor and straightened out her body. She looked up at them and spoke quietly,
“She is dead.”
The man crashed down beside the stilled body and began to sob. A few figures began to move towards them.
The priest’s words seemed to come from a very long distance.
“It is our fourth death since they began to come in. We lost two children in succession. There was an old man before that….”
A group had gathered about them. The priest appeared to bring himself back to his duties, bowed his head and murmured, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Knowledge of death filtered through the crypt, a chilly current through air that had only begun to warm up. The shadowy inmates underwent changes of infinite subtleties, drawing together even more, purging individual fears in the font of shared loss. Prayers rose in hushed voices from one corner to the other, a mother embraced her children in a sudden spasm of love, hugged them until they hurt. Her tears fell in mourning for the unknown one, death spread its cold tentacles through the festering gloom but it bred no fear in the breasts of any. They had seen too much.
Perhaps the priest sensed their growing feeling of intrusiveness. He turned and said, “Let’s return to the vestry. I shall ask the man we need to see to meet us there.”
Relieved, they followed his path-finding form through the febrile chamber of grief. Ofeyi wondered how they looked to all these fugitives, Taiila especially, foreign and beautiful in the midst of such squalor and destitution. Yet her eyes as she rose from that hard death-bed had held such oceans of sadness, reflecting a suffering that he had not thought possible in one so young. A nun’s cowl-framed compassion, held and eternalized in a pietà of luminous stone.
Ofeyi, oppressed by the feeling of superfluity found his discomfort turning to irritation when the priest stopped again to pick up and quieten an agitated child, whisper a comfort to a new apparition from the gloom, and hold in both his hands the withered fingers of an elderly invalid who had strained to raise his wasted body and receive his greeting. The geriatric sank back in its bed, a beatific look on its skull-face. There was no corresponding limb sprouting from the other shoulder, only a wad of lint and a rubber sheath….
How long had they hidden in this grotto? How many more of such catacombs awaited discovery before the search was over?…Messala…Mesalla? The name rose in his mind…must, carbon-dating, scrolls that disintegrated and writings that turned invisible at the first touch of sunlight…a brave self-immolation that slept for a thousand years—was it Massada? Was this how it always began, these treasures that brought scholarly salivation to the lips of burrowing fanatics. Dead Sea Scrolls and dead men’s bones that are never permitted rest. He found himself casting an involuntary glance at what had struck him as the weak, assailable parts of the shelter, a sudden vision of the mob breaching the walls…fire, sword and rapine. Walls in a slow-motion collapse beneath towers of fire. A methodical extraction of the rubble, brick by brick. Dust and ash, ghostly cinders in a harmattan wind….
Why do they bother, these antiquarian hands forever disturbing the ghosts of history. With so much ever-present manifestation, why raise the old accusing stones and reveal powdery bones of condemnation. Let it all be. Raise earth around and above it. Let grass grow upon it all and let fresh, rich millet feed the children of survivors. And a hundred years from now when the land makes a shift in iron development and metallic jaws chew up the strange forgotten hillock don’t let the grubbers in among pain-sanctified potsherds, enamel chips. Or a concrete font with the strange twisted wiring around its base. These futile reconstructions, of what use ultimately are they since they neither stop nor caution against the reenactment…ah yes, poke poke poke…a fascinating piece, most fascinating…poke poke poke…do you observe this broken bolt? Take a good look. I would say the marauders broke in through here wouldn’t you? Poke poke poke. This sector…I suggest we dig here, this sector…poke poke poke…there, a rare piece of luck! A child skeleton entire. A bit of the skull is gone, could have been done with an axe…now, we had better scrape away carefully here…what did I tell you? A most remarkable story. Unique graphic details. Mother obviously trying to shield infant…most touching…with that glazed coating it could almost be a Henry Moore…beautiful beautiful! Now this…yes, that posture, probably praying when struck down. These twelve in the…must have been the vestry…can’t see any wound can you? Probably suffocated to death. Reminds me of the Burghers of Calais. Such martyr composure even after these years. This one at the altar, looks like he was wounded somewhere else but crawled all this way to die…we won’t prize those fingers off without breaking a bone or two I’m afraid. Much rather preserve the altar, most quaint. Skeletons we have more than enough of…I say, remember these antiquated sewing things? Quite a find this. I suppose most of them were brought to Africa by those Victorian missionaries. I happen to know about them you see because one of my great forebearers…
Do you think it’s the ash? Carbon? Carbon does act with astounding preservative powers…we’ll take it up with that chap when he gets here. It’s the layers of ash we have to thank I believe. Truly remarkable. It must have been quite an inferno. A very strange sect, not one I’ve ever encountered. Some sort of fundamentalist Christians I think…given to quite primitivist representations of angels and things like that. Reminds me of some of those Ethiopian Christian art…quite close to the Greek Orthodox bunch that lot. Strange history…must look into what evidence there is of a Nilotic link…
Caruthers! Come here quick! Take a look at this. Do you see? Not in the least negroid. Female too. Look at that brooch! And this necklace. Can’t be a coincidence. Indian jewellery. And the bones…here, take hold of the end of the tape will you…see what I mean? Such fine bones, truly fantastic limbs. Beautiful? She must have been phenomenal. Look at the jaw-lines. The man is negroid all right. Badly broken from blows. Must have spent some time dying, probably defending her to the last breath. Tough brute. We’ll tag them Quasimodo and Esmeralda shall we? Here’s another of them…
A child’s hand reached out of the darkness and tugged him by the trousers. Ofeyi heard a churtle and looked down. On the floor he discerned patterns which the child had drawn. Some light fell there, covering about three square feet. On this the child had worked the figures of birds, houses, animals and abstract shapes. She wanted Ofeyi to admire it. Ofeyi stopped, placed his arms around the child’s waist. Looking into her eyes he saw them turn to mere sockets, their gladness of achievement lost forever, even to the pick-wielding intruders who would not be shaken off from probing the ash-shrouded catacombs of the future.
Caruthers, yes, you are right. A child made these cave drawings but what does it matter now? And then Ofeyi’s eyes switched to a far different grouping which began in the corner of the light patch and faded away up the darker wall. She had relegated her tragic memories of the catastrophe to this obscure surface—a baby’s flight arrested in mid-air, plummeting towards a blazing fire…a tight-robed figure presiding over a scene of slaughter…a long line of waiting victims…as Ofeyi’s eyes accustomed itself to the gloom he saw that the child had prolonged the line to the very edge of the floor, continuing the figures up the wall as far as her hands could reach. Then came her mound shapes. Sacramental loaves? Onion images? Or simply bundles? Every bit of space that was not taken by the sacrificial scenes had been covered with irregular loaves. Had someone come round distributing loaves of bread? Or was it the bundles which lay so liberally around, the symbol of dispersion, disintegration, the symbol of the final surrender of individuality?
He rose. He reached out a hand to pat the child on the head and stopped himself in time. The gesture seemed grossly patronizing. He walked on briskly to rejoin the others. The wooden box was again moved aside and they passed through the altar and into the vestry.
The catechist shut the door.
“A brother is making enquiries. They all know the lady from the posters. If they’ve heard or seen anything we shall know in a moment.” He paused and turned to Taiila. “I hope you were not too distressed. Perhaps I should not have taken you in to see them but…”
“I am not as fragile as I look” Taiila assured him.
He nodded. “No. Still it was unfortunate that the woman should die just then. We are not always so gloomy.”
“How do you feed them?” Ofeyi demanded.
He smiled. “The Lord provides. We have a very good little organizer. He warned us of your approach as a matter of fact. We owe him our very survival.”
“A local?” Zaccheus asked.
“Oh yes. I see you did not discover him on your way in. But he had his eye on you all the time. Quite a fierce watchdog he is. Perhaps you ought to meet him. He knows his way around, he may be of use to you some time.” He opened the door and called out, “Aliyu.”
What they had taken to be a heap of rags stirred fully to life. It grew taller in a series of jerks, like a puppet being assembled, extending and retracting in horizontal directions—forwards, backwards and sideways, while somehow contriving to add a few inches to its height after each one of these motions. A central axis became gradually discernible, the staff which they had also observed tangled up in the bundle. Now they saw a wasted limb twine itself creeper-like around the staff; the other, hardly more fleshed or disorientated, but with more apparent pith stabbed the ground at an incongruous angle. Only the arms were strong, the entire locomotion of this strange human contraption appeared to depend on the propelling force of the arms. Above those arms and powerful shoulders a head was stuck with the barest suggestion of a neck. It was an elongated head with a distinctly horizontal axis, ravaged by smallpox marks and with one eye permanently closed. Its striking length was further accentuated by a conical cap at its rear end. At last he was stretched out complete and he moved towards them with strong practised hops. The shape became quite familiar to the visitors—the manifested resilience of the human body against sheer cussedness of the Cross-river environment, its frequent epidemics, blindness inflicting plagues, spinal infections and mind-drugging flies. Ofeyi wondered briefly, confronted by this half-human apparition, was the blood-lust that seized upon the populace just another legacy of climate? Another deformity like the effects of meningitis or the blood-poisoning of the tse-tse fly? A diminished responsibility created by a virus in the air, flooding the victims with a need to degrade more fortunate humanity in an image of their own pain and desecration? Or was there a truly metaphysic condition called evil, present in epidemic proportions that made them so open to the manipulation of coldly unscrupulous men? There had to be a cause beyond mere differences in culture, beyond material envy—for their victims were largely equals in the court of penury, there had to be a cause beyond resentment at the right of their victims to stay different in their midst. For this was not a mere question of slaughter. A relish had coloured their actions, a deep hunger of perversion both in inventiveness and magnitude, as if they sought to balance unnatural mutations, their human forms with a vengeful outrage on the face of humanity.
Ofeyi glanced at the residual being and was amazed at the happiness which suffused his pock-marked face, this object at which Nature had thrown everything in a singular concentration of spitefulness. Twisted, part-blinded, hunchbacked, visually unwholesome, a mockery of all that was human yet he greeted them with unfeigned friendliness and pleasure, threw a brave salute at the catechist and waited.
Elihu saluted in return and asked, “Everything okay Aliyu?”
He grinned back. “Ebrything Oooh-ke!”
“These are friends….And this is Aliyu, sergeant-major, food organizer, watchman and general factotum for our little camp.”
Impulsively Taiila held out her hand. Aliyu saluted again, suddenly stuck his staff under his arm-pit and balanced on it so that he could take her hand in both of his. Zaccheus, then Ofeyi both shook hands with him also, Zaccheus adding a salute to his greeting.
It seemed one way to reconcile oneself to humanity, to see in it nothing but the symbol of deformation, a cursed shell which grinned and survived all visitations. Elihu continued to speak in his praise: “You know what name our population here gave him? The Lion of the Tabernacle.”
Aliyu’s grin grew larger and larger. He gave a salute again and his massive teeth bared in a frothy curve through his debris-laden face. “Go in” Elihu said. “Find Mr. Ngosi and ask him if he’s found out anything.”
Aliyu’s face looked instantly troubled and he cast a meaningful glance in the direction of his post. “It will be all right” the catechist reassured him. “We will remain here and keep a look-out.”
The cripple looked dubious but he saluted and obeyed.
“They killed our minister” Elihu told them, “but no one else was touched. He went out to confront the mob and they struck him down. Aliyu had been with us for some time, he used to wait outside the temple on Sundays and beg for alms. One day the minister asked him if he would like to help with odd jobs, cleaning the premises and sweeping out the temple once in a while. That is how he became attached to us. Well, when he saw our leader struck down he rushed at the mob and attacked them with his staff—and a few curses too. They were all people from the next township, that’s where Aliyu himself comes from, so he knew them quite well. He told them they would have to kill him to get at the temple. And that’s the whole story. We were all waiting in there, barred and shuttered in fear and trembling. The leader had made us promise not to move until he had failed. He took only Aliyu with him.”
Ofeyi was struck by a sudden certainty. “You are Cross-river yourself aren’t you.”
With a sad smile the man confirmed it. “Our minister wasn’t. I should have gone to meet the mob. I spoke the language. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Perhaps his fears were well-founded. Although we are all Cross-river we again have important differences. Where I come from our people tend to look down on others from Kuntua. The sight of me could have incensed them inordinately.” Thoughtfully he added, “Who can tell if they won’t even turn on us next. When all the so-called aliens have been hunted down or chased out, if the killing lust has not quite died down…” He shrugged.
“And they never came back?” Taiila asked.
“The killers? Oh yes they did. On the way back from some less fortunate settlement. We were barred in and silent, just as you found us today. Naturally they thought we had taken flight, abandoned the place. Even so they stopped, considered burning down the church. But Aliyu somehow drove them off. He said we had fled but had left him watchman over the place and were paying him well. God knows how he managed to make it sound convincing, but they just poked a bit of fun at him and took off. One of them threw him a severed head as parting gift. It is buried over there—by our minister.”
The man he called Ngosi came through the vestry and stood at the door, staring in disbelieving horror. Elihu turned round and saw the expression on his face and laughed. “I think we had better go in. Mr. Ngosi thinks I am foolish to expose myself in this way. I keep telling them I am in no danger but they won’t even let me go and forage for food with Aliyu except at night.” Aliyu nodded vigorously, grinned and hopped towards his post.
Elihu led the way into the vestry and shut the door. “Mr. Ngosi, these are the people in question.” He introduced them one after the other.
Ngosi, a big man who looked continuously over the heads of the visitors shook hands with them, distantly and solemnly. That ceremony over he coughed, and swallowed, continuing to stare into the wall.
“Well?” Elihu prompted.
“The news is not good Brother Elihu.” He hesitated. “But neither is it certain.”
“Go on” Elihu prompted. “These people have been searching for some time.”
“We think she may be in Temoko, and that she is either dying or dead. A woman was brought into the compound with what looked like great efforts of secrecy. It took place at night and she came in in military ambulance. They kept even the normal guards away from the gates. Some of our people were hiding beside the walls of Temoko just before the ambulance brought this woman. They were trying to decide whether to knock for admittance or to run on. They saw the stretcher taken out of the lorry. There was a nurse they said, holding a bottle, and rubber tubes attached to her arm and to her nostrils. It was dark but they caught a glimpse of the face. She did not seem to breathe.”
There was a long silence, then Ofeyi made a request. “I would like to talk to these witnesses.”
“Call them” the catechist instructed.
Ofeyi felt Taiila’s consoling fingers on his arm.
5
SPORES
XIV
“Now it’s interesting you should be interested…”
Karaun Karaun Karaun…
“Most interesting you should be interested, in that particular laydeee…”
Karaun Karaun Karaun…
In vain he tried to keep his mind on the object of his search. So he turned it on the club-foot of the grinning governor of Temoko before him, most of whom was swallowed by the wide polished desk and terraces of files. Dwarf? He reminded him of a rounded egg on the back of an ant; that timber neck thrust over folded arms gave his back a strong suspicion of a hunch. Perhaps the recent encounter with Aliyu had begun to colour his sight. The music of the gongs rippled over the man’s spine, bounced off his occiput and pinged across the table surface…Karaun Karaun Karaun—Pause
Karaun Karaun Karaun…
Clubfoot seemed indifferent to its influence yet his words seemed to follow that all-pervasive rhythm.
