by AC Alegbo
‘What is wrong with you?’ Amaka shouted. ‘Leave it on Channel 7’
‘No, I want to see Tales by Moonlight,’ Obianuju protested. ‘I don’t want to watch your Yoruba Channel.’
‘Tales by Moonlight is not on today,’ Amaka yelled. ‘It is on Sunday.’
‘It will be shown today,’ Amaka insisted.
Mama was busy at the sewing machine on the veranda and kept shouting in at the two girls making a racket.
‘Amaka! Leave the TV for your sister.’ She always took sides with the younger sibling; she never cared to listen to both sides.
‘Mama, she’s been watching TV since morning,’ Amaka shouted back.
‘Haaa!’ The sound of a thud reached Mama from the living room as Raphael who had been fighting with the cushions on the sofa missed his step and slammed onto the carpeted floor.
‘Raphael! Won’t you go and sit down in one place?’ Mama shouted yet again, reaching the limits of her patience. ‘You want to hurt yourself. If I hear one more cry from you, you will be in trouble.’ Then she paused and seemed to remember something. ‘Where’s your brother? Let him help me watch you.’ There was no reply.
‘Arinze!’
‘Ma,’ I said from my perch not pleased at being brought into the palaver.
‘What are you doing?’ she shouted again. There was only going to be yelling today; everyone was going crazy, even Mama.
‘Nothing Mama but I don’t want to look after anybody.’ I kept my voice at a normal level. I didn’t have the strength to shout; I barely felt like staying awake. I wasn’t sleepy, just wanted to be horizontal.
Mama didn’t hear my reply and left her work to come look for me. She encountered my morose form on the sofa across from the sprawled form of Obianuju who was glued to the TV. Raphael had already left the sitting room at the sound of Mama’s voice; he must have taken his play to Mama’s bedroom with the double bed.
Mama noticed he wasn’t there before she saw me and when she did, she stopped moving.
‘Arinze, what is the matter with you? She asked a worried look on her.
‘Nothing,’ I merely mumbled. This wasn’t something I was going to let her make a drama of.
‘Are you ill?’ she pressed on. ‘What’s the problem? Tell me.’
‘Nothing Mama. I am not ill.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes ma.’
‘Then why are you sitting like that, like someone’s died?’
I looked up sharply. I hadn’t yet thought of that possibility. Someone could indeed die from the mess I’d witnessed. Up until now, all I’d been focused on had been Ireneh and the kind of trouble he must have got himself into.
‘Yes Arinze?’ Mama was still standing over me, waiting. ‘Did someone die?’
‘Mama, I am just tired,’ I said. ‘Nobody died.’
‘Okay then, help me go and wash all those dirty pots in the kitchen.’
This was exactly what I didn’t need. ‘Mama, can’t I do it another time? Abeg.’
‘Are you ok? I am asking to do something and you refuse? Go and wash those pots now. Amaka, when you finish watching that thing, go and fill that drum.’
I got up to go do the washing up; at least, I wasn’t being asked to go fetch water – that was a much more demanding task and I’d usually be the perfect choice for that. Mama must have deliberately let me off this time. In no time, I could finish my task and take up my brooding again. The pots were shiny when I was through.
Mama left me alone after that. She quite understood that something was eating away inside me but that I wanted to be alone. So, I spent the rest of that weekend mentally reliving that bloody Saturday.
As I expected, Eze wanted to discuss the episode; I reckoned he’d have told everyone in his house. I would have as well if the person in question hadn’t been the much feared Ireneh. However, I was eager to see that he kept mum in school. There’d be no point in creating a bad reputation for boy when the whole incident might blow over; TJ could recover and Ireneh could be back to school soon.
‘Did you see what happened?’ he began. ‘Ehn, I still tremble in fear thinking about it. Ireneh is really crazy o.’
‘Have you told anyone in our class?’ I asked immediately.
‘No. Why would I do that?’ He looked hurt like he wouldn’t have considered such a thing. ‘It is not their business.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Because everything could still be fine and Ireneh might come back to school soon.’
‘E-h-en? Did they tell you so? So TJ will get well?’
‘I don’t know if TJ will get well but he might.’
‘What if TJ dies?’ Eze asked. ‘How can Ireneh come back to school then? Won’t he be sent to prison?
That was a good question but one I had no answer to. He might well go to prison but what kind of prison would that be? What happens to a child killer in Nigeria? How could I tell? Such happenings were so rare, I wasn’t sure the country had a procedure in place to deal with something like that but what did I know?
‘I don’t know o,’ I replied. ‘Let’s just pray that TJ doesn’t die. I pity Ireneh o; the boy has got himself in real trouble – to stab a person.’
‘Better trouble,’ Eze affirmed. ‘He was lucky that his mama was there and that it was his brother he stabbed, otherwise, the crowd would have destroyed him.’
He had a point or, at least, that was what we all believed. The sense of the mob was so strong in our upbringing that one dared not misbehave in public. The crowd would descend on you quicker than your thought processes.
So, as far as we knew, that was going to be the end of Ireneh forever but I was keen to know exactly what had happened to him.
****
We were at the bus park at a quarter past eight the following morning. Tolu had got up and shoved me at seven fifteen. He was really wound up by our situation not that it was difficult to see why. Anyone who’d paid any attention to the barbarity of the mobs that operated in conflicts in the north would be wound up. I simply tried not to think too much about it or I’d be paralysed in fear.
I got up and joined the lad in getting our things ready to leave town. Besides a quick teeth brushing and a face wash, we did nothing else and didn’t stop for breakfast. We hailed two bikes again – they also were early risers – and directed them to the park.
We were the first passengers to arrive at the park and this wasn’t a good thing. It meant hours on end of waiting. The mini bus had to be filled before the driver would leave town; no one wanted to make a journey from north to south with only a half full bus – that was like setting alight thousands of naira. To cut costs, and we had to despite the fact that we were fleeing or we could end up stranded somewhere, Tolu and I went for a privately owned mini bus and paid the fare. The driver helped us lodge our luggage at the back of the vehicle and our wait began.
The mini bus registered an average of two passengers each hour. Though there was relatively good traffic between north and south, most people would use more reputable bus companies for safety and comfort. Safety was our sole aim now but ironically to achieve it, we had to play a little unsafe. With every passenger that arrived, Tolu heaved a very audible sigh of relief. I was nervous and anxious too quite infected by Tolu’s state. The young man kept wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers as he toured the bus park waiting. At one stage, he said to me, ‘Come, let’s sit down here, Rez so we can see the road and know if anybody is coming after us.’
He was sat on a low bench at a spot from where he could see everything happening in the park and everyone coming into and leaving the area. I thought he was going a little too far.
‘And how would you know who is coming after us?’
‘How would you know a murderous mob?’ he asked back in disdainful disbelief.
‘Well, how would they even recognise us as the people they want?’ I asked again switching questions.
‘Look Rez, forget about us. The thing you did c
ould start something else. It could easily lead to a small riot. I am not looking for people coming after you and me in particular. I am looking out for people coming after southerners and I am ready to fade once I see any suspicious activity.’
Though, I wasn’t inclined to think that my letter to the newspaper would lead to something that extreme, I thought not to argue with him. He was tense and allowed to be a little paranoid.
Five hours later and Tolu had lost half his body weight in sweat. He looked worn out and ready to pass out. In contrast, I was a little more relaxed now and even beginning to think that we might have been too hasty in our decision to leave Kano when we heard a loud noise in the distance of shouting people and running feet.
Tolu was a bullet as he left his bench and dashed off out of the park. His run sparked off some panic among the other people in the park; some went with him, others ran to the front of the park to judge the cause of the chaos. I was among this group and what I saw made me freeze. The driver who’d walked off earlier in the direction the noise came from could be seen fiercely sprinting back, a small crowd behind him doing the same. In a flash, we all turned around and fled hearing the driver as he yelled at us.
‘Get into the bus! Don’t run away! We are leaving now!’
Against my better judgment, I scrambled into the vehicle along with the other passengers pushing and shoving to get in as quickly as possible. Some had run off and were apparently going to be left behind. One of them was Tolu.
The driver started the engine amid cries from people in the bus. ‘What’s happening driver?’
‘Where are you taking us to now?’
‘Not everyone is inside the bus o!’
‘Driver, please drive quickly. They are coming!’
My heart was in my mouth as I joined the passengers in shouting. ‘Driver, my friend is not in the bus! He has paid for his seat. We can’t leave him.’
‘We have to go,’ the driver replied as he tore out of the park pulling away from the dust of the stampeding crowd behind us. ‘I don’t know what is happening back there. I saw people attacking two men and can’t just wait here. We could all die.’
I was restless as I looked out of the window for the nearest safe place to be let out. I wasn’t going to leave the city without Tolu but we’d spent all our money on the bus fare and could be in big trouble if we didn’t both get on the bus.
‘Driver, please turn left here!’ I shouted, pleading with the driver and pointing at a narrower tarred road that I’d worked out Tolu must have run onto. ‘This was where my friend ran into. You know that we were the first to come to the park and have been waiting since eight this morning. Please! Abeg!’
The driver looked in his rear-view mirror, saw my screwed up face and relented. The bus raced devilishly for three whole minutes before I saw a scared Tolu running out from a side road. I collapsed with relief.
****
I ventured back to the scene of the crime three weeks later. By this time, news of what we saw had spread in class; the treacherous Eze had not kept to his word and had spilled the beans. I watched as he kept hosting little briefing sessions with class members all day. When I challenged, he said he had to, to explain the boy’s absence.
‘It wouldn’t be good for the teacher to think that he just doesn’t want to come to school,’ he said.
When had the teacher cared about Ireneh’s reasons for being absent from school? I fumed. I thought he was an idiot and I let him know. It was like he had taken our little world and blown it open; he’d dragged the public in.
Mrs Deji had looked sympathetic as she questioned me about the incident. I didn’t care to wonder if she was being genuine; she’d have been anyway after all she was Ireneh’s beleaguered teacher, not his sworn enemy.
Anyway, I had to find out what had become of Ireneh and visited his mother’s shop. It was a Saturday morning and I’d sneaked out of home hoping to be back before my absence became a problem. She recognised me in the sad look that suddenly draped down on her as soon as she saw me. I stood over her stack of dried fish and chewing stick as I greeted her. Then she acted strangely by loudly calling out to me even though I was directly in front of her.
‘Don’t ask where Ireneh is? I am not the police. They didn’t even want to tell me where they have put my son so please go away and don’t disturb me.’
I wasn’t very shocked at this, remembering how she’d barged into our class a while back but I was upset all the same – at her rudeness and the fact that I had no definite answer about Ireneh. I turned to leave.
‘Wait! Come and help me arrange these yams,’ the woman called again.
Now she wanted my help, I grumbled silently. I couldn’t refuse her though. That was near unthinkable. I climbed the single stair into the shop and made my way to the pile of yams in the corner.
‘Just pick one and help me bring it to Mile 2.’
I was flabbergasted at this. She really did ask for a lot and whatever were we going to Mile 2 for. ‘I can’t ma. My people will look for me.’
‘Just bring the yam,’ she sounded a little exasperated. ‘We will take a taxi and won’t waste any time abeg.’
I couldn’t refuse again, not when she pushed that hard. I found myself praying that she’d be true to her words and we’d be very quick. I followed behind her out of the shop carrying the tuber of yam in a plastic bag. We walked to the end of the street and at the main road, the lady hailed a cab like she’d said. We got in the back and I heard her mention Badagry as she gave directions to the driver. I didn’t know what she meant by this but thought to trust her.
The taxi hit the expressway and drove on for what seemed like ages. I had no way of telling the time but I knew that I’d been away far too long. Any time now and my family would begin to worry. The taxi sped on. I waited for Mile 2 to arrive, not that I’d be able to tell by sight. I didn’t know very much about Lagos as there were only a few places I went to by myself besides the houses of certain friends and places like school and the parish church my family worshipped at. I certainly couldn’t tell how much longer it would be before we got to our destination.
It must have taken about an hour even though the roads were relatively empty by Lagos standards – not great. In time, the traffic thinned out some more and the roads looked wider. To the left, coconut palms suddenly appeared on the landscape and continued endlessly. Even the colour of the sand that swept onto the tarred surface before us had turned two shades whiter. All the signs were there – even though it was a few years since I’d been to the beach, some things are not that easy to forget.
I became restless. We couldn’t be going to the beach; what did Ireneh’s mother have in mind. ‘Is this Mile 2?’ I asked uneasy.
She could sense the anxiety in my voice and replied, ‘no but I want to show you something.’
Wasn’t that the sort of excuse kidnappers gave as they abducted children daft enough to fall into their trap, I wondered with trepidation. I looked around; there was plenty of free space to run away in. I was young and quick and could easily outrun the elderly driver and the woman by my side. That’d help I figured, if there weren’t others waiting to take me down at our destination, that is.
‘Drop us here,’ Ireneh’s mother ordered suddenly.
The car skidded to a halt somewhere indiscernible on the road. All before and to the left of me were road and coconut palms. I climbed out and waited to see if the driver would do the same. I stood on my toes ready to beat it but the woman came out of the car alone and walked off the road towards the beach motioning to me to follow.
I obeyed. I couldn’t go anywhere now and didn’t want to look stupid trying to run away without cause. I followed behind her as beyond a few more palms, little huts began to appear. A few people came out of some of the huts dressed as for an occasion. It was a little odd that they were all garbed in full length white robes and all barefoot although it was easy to see why it’d be practical to go without footwear on th
e beach.
More people poured out of more huts dressed in the same way – men, women and children. We mixed with the sea of white until at about the eighth hut when Ireneh’s mother began moving towards the entrance. Then I froze, perplexed but pleased. What was this place? What was Ireneh doing here?
He saw us and ran towards his now smiling mother, his white frock billowing around his legs and threatening to trip him. She looked overjoyed to see him and held out her arms as he ran into them.
‘How are you?’ his mother asked.
‘Fine ma.’
‘Rez! How now?’ he greeted me surprised.
‘I knew that you would be happy to see him,’ his mother said. ‘Go on. Run away and play. I am going to change.’ She moved off, leaving me alone with Ireneh.
‘Come on. I’ll show you our church before everyone enters there,’ he said very casually.
‘Where are they all going to?’ I asked.
‘To the beach for prayers. It is not my turn today. My prayers session will be tomorrow.’
‘Is this where you have been staying all this time?’ I asked. Surely, he couldn’t have forgotten that he’d stabbed his brother. I hadn’t been bold enough to enquire about what happened to TJ from his mother and thought to find out through Ireneh.
