New York, My Village

by Uwem Akpan

  CHAPTER 35

  Thank you, my landlord

  WHEN JEFF AND BRAD CAME TO THE DOOR, I WAS STILL trembling. Yet I could not but entrust them, too, with the whole truth of my new bites.

  They pushed inside anyway.

  They did not express any shock at my floor—though I knew their apartments were not yet re-infested—and I apologized to Brad because the dust made him sneeze. As they stood around silently like folks at the funeral of a fellow soldier, my mind churned with the details of the priest’s war chronicle. His losses had whipped me so hard it broke the tension I had felt in my body since I went to pee the previous night. I needed to cry. But my eyes itched, for I had no tears left. Feeling a cold wetness in my shoes, I realized I had been sweating. Even though I also realized I had been too shocked to remember to thank Father Kiobel or wish him a safe journey, a strange peace had come over me.

  Though there was no time to share Father’s story with the guys, their quiet presence anchored me, like I had known them since childhood. I was grateful to them—folks who themselves had also been touched by the tragedy of war and were equally on their painful but invisible refugee journeys.

  THEIR CLOTHES WERE MORE FORMAL than usual, like they were taking time to say a proper farewell. Jeff was in black Dockers trousers, black shoes, and black shirt. He had a black blazer with padded elbows. Brad wore black Birkenstock shoes, black trousers, and a black cotton shirt and a black knitted scarf. When they paced the apartment, they did so delicately to avoid kicking up the dust, but it felt dreamy, like watching zombies. When we finally found the words for small talk, they begged me not to scratch my dick, to avoid infection.

  They asked if they could help me pack. I said yes. It was our last group activity. I instructed them we needed first to spray my suitcase and laptop case inside out and set them on the bed. But Jeff gestured to us to hold off as he grabbed the can to work on the bed first before we laid down the bags. Then he sprayed our hands and I did his. Next, one man held out a shirt or audiobook or belt or passport and the other sprayed—at close range—till it was damp. I folded and placed it in the suitcase. When I pulled up a big plastic bag of ujajak and other spices and sprayed, Jeff said he would like to keep the spices because he had already figured out how to use them. Brad insisted Jeff must share with him and Keith, who had bought Yemisi Aribisala’s Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds right after our Buka dinner. When Jeff nodded, I opened the top buttons of his shirt and shoved it down till it sat snug but uneven on his stomach. I buttoned up his shirt again like a child’s.

  Then I picked up the sealed envelope I had addressed to Canepa, containing proof of rent. I wanted to write on the other side of the envelope, “Thanks for sharing your Biafran story” or “I hope one day the Lord gives you peace over Marco’s death.” But I gave up, for this was not the time to talk about deaths. I settled for, “THANK YOU, MY LANDLORD!” and underlined it. When I gave the envelope to Brad, he received it with two hands, like a certificate. Then he raised and held it sideways so Jeff could spray without wetting it. Then Jeff opened Brad’s shirt buttons so he could slide it in, as I had done for Jeff with the ujajak. Brad patted his stomach as if he had just filled it with a pleasant meal.

  I asked them to mail the envelope when I was gone. “And by the way, Canepa assured me this morning he’ll exterminate the whole place,” I said. They exclaimed that the old man had already left them a message to that effect.

  I abandoned the beddings and suit and winter coat—all too thick to dampen. After closing the suitcase, we sealed it with another round of spray. Since I had used up my powder stuff, I was tempted to take some from the floor. But Brad shook his head and went and got some of his for my electronics. The first thing I did was to pour some into the envelope of Ujai’s letter and seal and shake before placing it in the side pocket of the laptop case. The remaining powder was just enough for my laptop, wristwatch, phone, and headphones. I discarded the boom box and books. “Hey, you’re not returning to Caro in these dusty loafers!” Jeff said at the door, picking up the rag from the plastic bag by the door to wipe my shoes. Then l locked up and handed them my keys and some money for Lucci so he could clean the place up.

  By the stairwell where our friendship began, we made to hug, but pulled apart instead. It was our final humiliation, like Usen and me at that train station, this inability to say a simple goodbye on our own terms. We looked stupid, like children spooked by their shadows. Brad folded his arms; Jeff put his hands in his pockets; I looked down the stairwell. A text from Keith suggested they should help me pack. A few dogs in his apartment moaned and whined once his name was mentioned, as if they were standing in for him.

  “Would you like to take the spray to the airport?” Jeff asked, seeing I was still clutching one can.

  “Ekong, we could just toss or keep the damn thing, you know,” Brad said, coughing. “You’ll be fine!”

  “Could you guys spray me?” I said.

  They shook their heads, looking at each other, then at me. “Hey, dude, don’t be such a wimp,” Brad said to me, looking away with tears forming in his eyes.

  “Ah, no … nope … not a good idea, Ekong,” Jeff stammered, and stepped back.

  “Yes, yes, just help your friend out one last time,” I said, winking.

  They exchanged glances again, and then Jeff shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, this is what I never wanted for any of my friends.”

  Silence.

  “Well, if not for you, my dear friends, my fears would’ve killed me,” I said. “Now If the sprays succeed where those failed, at least, let my corpse travel home unafraid. As our people say, you’re better off being buried by friends than by enemies … if you could clean my loafers for Caro’s sake, you can certainly ensure I take no bug eggs to her.”

  Reluctantly, Jeff collected the can and led us downstairs. Brad thumped behind me with the suitcase. We descended slowly, Jeff setting the pace, conscious of my bites. I spread my stride and held the rails, worried my dick might have worsened. Then Jeff completely stopped on the next landing, because Keith’s dogs were barking and crying and clawing at the door. I knocked lightly and rubbed on the door with a flat palm to say my goodbye to them. It gave them a bit of peace. We continued our descent silently, Jeff holding the can like a gun for a mercy killing.

  By the mailboxes, Brad put the suitcase down and grabbed me in a breathless bear hug, blurting out that we should be okay, since they were going to spray me anyway. His stubbornness shattered the gloom. And, after Jeff’s side embrace because of his spice pregnancy, we backslapped and exchanged bro fists and spoke and laughed in exaggerated whispers, like we did not want the bugs to know we had one-upped them.

  We had retrieved a bit of our dignity.

  When, finally, I stepped back and breathed in and pinched my nostrils and nodded, they knew it was time to cleanse me. Like relatives praying over you before a long journey, they asked me to close my eyes while they took turns to spray till I felt the balmy dampness all over my body. They sprayed till the fumes contracted my scalp like ice and drew tears from our eyes, and finally the pain I felt listening to Father Kiobel rained down my cheek. Next, in the manner of airport security, they asked me to remove my shoes. They blasted inside, over, and under them. They misted my socks before I put the shoes back on. When I picked up the suitcase, they sprayed the bottom. I promised to call from Ikot Ituno-Ekanem.

  I wobbled out into the taxi with my load. I turned to wink at the guys. They gave thumbs-ups with both hands. When the vapors in my clothes drew a double sneeze from the driver, finally I relaxed in the hope that even if our nemeses were already in the car, I was safe.

  Acknowledgments

  There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

  —Maya Angelou

  I WAS BORN A YEAR AFTER THE BIAFRAN WAR (1967–70). For two and a half years, most of the ground offensive was in minority lands.

  Its crazy stories shap
ed my 1970s childhood. In the last fifty years, they’ve followed me all over the world. These past ten years have been really difficult because, beset with self-doubt and despair, I was bent on fictionalizing this war from the perspective of the minorities of the Niger Delta. And I didn’t always know whether I was weighed down by the prospects of writing a second book after Say You’re One of Them, or by the very bruising war or wars I was trying to portray.

  I ring my first bells of gratitude for Bishop Camillus Umoh of the Catholic Diocese of Ikot Ekpene in Nigeria. Between you and me, between me and our beloved diocese, you know how grateful I am for your support. When I finally told you I could no longer continue in the priesthood—because I needed to write—you made me know there’s life beyond the stole. “Uwem, whatever happens, don’t forget your God, for God is God,” you said tearfully in August 2015. “At the end of the day, we do what we must do.”

  But I can never forget what you saw as a child of ten in Nto Ubiam at the beginning of the Biafran War, and in your subsequent refugee years in Abak, and what it meant to return with your family to homelessness at the end of the war, because Biafra had razed your home. According to you, this was when the war finally broke your stoic old man. He died shortly after.

  Thanks for accommodating my vicious interrogations, as I came back again and again, like a bad dream. Still, I didn’t get to ask you enough about the young boy who was conscripted on his way from school by Biafran patrols and your uncle who, after the loss of his home, refused to be a refugee even in other parts of Annangland; he chose to “sit out” the war in the forests, playing cat-and-mouse with Biafran sharpshooters. “My uncle wasn’t the type to leave his land for anyone, even for a day!” you’d said that day in late October 2016. “We were shocked to see him alive when we got home.” You said he told you how your home was burned. He was the one consoling your father, his brother. He and your mom were determined that the family would start afresh.

  Though I heard my maternal auntie, Eka Ajimmy Udoh of Ikot Ama, has similar stories and was a refugee back in my village for the duration of the war, I couldn’t subject her to any kind of serious questioning because she’s now an old woman. Besides, they said she doesn’t like talking about this stuff anymore.

  I thank the late Lieutenant Colonel Etuk, our geography/English teacher at Queen of Apostles (minor) Seminary in Afaha Obong. You were the first ex-soldier I interacted with. As you tried to prepare us for 1988 WAEC exams, we teenagers were more interested in war stories than map reading or summary. We wanted to know why you joined the military. We wanted to see your rifle. Many times, we asked whether you killed somebody. Your reply was always that tribalism and corruption could kill a country. You could never satisfy us, even when I personally followed you to your Peugeot 504 station wagon after class. We repeatedly grumbled whenever you cut us off by uttering those lines: “Boys, make no mistake, war is not good for anyone. The best thing is not to start one, though some of you high schoolers look like folks who might start another civil war …”

  I also thank you, Monsignor Kenneth Ennang, my high school rector and essay teacher, for the stories of Biafra ordering our people to surrender their weapons before the war, weapons they later used to kill us. And you still cringe when you recount how the Nigerian army later arrested, harassed, and almost executed Dominic Cardinal Ekanem near Ikot Ekpene’s abattoir, accusing him of being pro-Biafra, because he insisted that killing and torturing Biafrans could never lead to reconciliation.

  I’m grateful to late Fathers Linus Ntia and “Akwa Oku” Isidore Umanah and Monsignor Sylvanus Etok. Your war experiences were unique as young pastors. What you saw in this war, in the Biafran “camps,” the eye cannot unsee.

  Father Ntia, in 1971, a year after the war, you baptized an infant Uwem Akpan at Saint Alban’s Parish in Inen, and then, ten years later, served me First Holy Communion in the Prince of Peace Chapel of the Generalate of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus in Ikot Ekpene. A gentle soul, you were always reluctant to put your war experiences into words, because when you did it was incoherent. You literally fidgeted and wrung your hands, as you fumbled the explanations of God’s love because of your memories of the camps, where our minority “refugees” were brought but were never released. As children, we hated your idap-idap (sleepy-sleepy) sermons and even prayed the cardinal should transfer you elsewhere, till we were old enough to realize you yourself never returned from the stupid war. But we always loved your confessional, because you never scolded us on behalf of God. Rest and enjoy the bosom of Abraham, where you don’t need to preach.

  Akwa Oku Umanah, the first Annang Catholic priest, you and I started a high school together at Saint Mary’s Parish in Ikot Atasung/Ikot Obong Otoro, Umuahia Road, right after my high school. I couldn’t fathom why you woke up before four a.m. to say the rosary, and I’m glad you quickly understood that kind of monkish Roman Catholicism was beyond me! Your account of some condemned sabos being handed over to Igbo masses by Biafran soldiers to kill just sounded unreal in my ears. But the closest you came to capturing the trauma for me was saying you’d become addicted to calling the Blessed Virgin Mary’s name all night, to break years-long reels of memories of hearing the last confessions of folks you were convinced didn’t deserve to die—for you knew them and their families back home—and yet couldn’t save them.

  Seeing my anger, one day in 1989, you told me: “My young seminarian and teenager, sooner or later, you’ll learn that, sometimes, there’s nothing you can do, except be present to the suffering around you.” Akwa Oku, may the rest of paradise heal your memories.

  Monsignor Etok, I’m unable to express my gratitude for you sharing your war experiences; I’ve heard of your abduction by Biafran forces and personal meeting with Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, from others. I treasure your advice to me in the Priest’s Council in 2012 and your references to the war.

  Thank you, Fabian and Francesca (Ekpoudom) Udoh of South Bend, Indiana, for your hospitality and for allowing me to dip into your memories of this war. Telling me of the deaths and terror this war visited upon your different families in different parts of Annangland opened up new vistas for my project. Fabian, may the souls of the five members of your family, including your parents, who perished in the first two years of war rest in peace. Your details of Nigerian army jeeps repeatedly plowing through throngs of Annang refugees on Ikot Ekpene–Uyo Road during Biafra’s 1968 Recapture of Akwa Ibom/Cross River—when the Nigerian army pulled out all thirty thousand troops in the “Atlantic Theater” to go free Port Harcourt, the oil city—have stayed with me, as well as the account of how your only surviving sibling still to this day has a stray bullet lodged in her waist from Biafran “spray-bulleting.”

  Francesca, thanks for sharing with me the story of your father who came back from “the camp” at the end of the war with a bullet in his head and died with it. He was a victim of that First Capture of minority lands, in 1967, when the Igbos stormed in and shot or disappeared folks who disagreed with the war or openly refused to be called Biafran or refused to join the army. His crime? Being an influential headmaster who refused to endorse Biafra.

  Thanks to the Annang confessors who convinced the Biafran authorities to spare his life. He’d crawled out of a mass grave, soaked in blood, to startle even the executioners. In the pause this gave everyone, the priests, who used to visit your family before the war, testified that they knew him as an upstanding citizen of Biafra. Luckily, a compromise was reached to detain him till the end of war, because to release him would give our sabo ethnic groups the false hope that once you were taken across the Igbo border you could come back. No, once you were disappeared over that point-of-no-return line, you needed the extraordinary powers of resurrection, like Jesus, to reappear.

  Since I met you in 2005, thirty-five years after the war, you’ve asked me repeatedly: where exactly did Biafra, this Igbo-thing, learn to torture like this? How do I get rid of the faces of the soldiers? What did Ojukwu and his think tank
of intellectuals use to poison the hearts of our Igbo brethren against us? How many of our villages needed to burn before the International Red Cross took note? Like many of our people, you believe that Igbo propaganda was such that Catholic Charity even flew in weapons for Biafra, some of which would’ve been used against our minority Catholics! “Uwem, if the world only knows of three tribes in Nigeria, why are you shocked that it couldn’t care less if two hundred forty-seven or five hundred ethnic groups were wiped out because of oil?” you’ve said many times.

  SIR GABRIEL UDOH of Obot Akara, thank you.

  I can’t forget how much you said you wanted to join the Nigerian army once a Biafran soldier set your home on fire with a gas bomb and you had no time to rescue anything—and you couldn’t even cry, as that could’ve been misconstrued as resistance. How you ran and prostrated yourself before the Nigerian army at Ikot Ekpene Stadium, begging to join, when they overran Biafra. You were already training with them when the tears of your widowed mother made you, her only son, leave. How up till today, in your late seventies, it still haunts you that you didn’t go to war to rescue some of the minors whom Biafra had pressed into service, boys who finally returned, if they returned at all, destroyed by drugs or the trauma of being forced to terrorize their people. You noted that while Igbo boys were camped and trained in paramilitary ways, our children were simply abducted and thrown into war. Our children were “better” spies because they didn’t have Igbo accents.

  You were too ashamed, too angry to talk about the rape of our boys or men.

  Your wife, Alice, kept telling me how much the war memories have tortured you over the decades and what it meant for me to listen to you. But, as soon as you told me sixty-eight villages were torched on that side of Annangland alone, I quickly said, “Sir, please, just give me, like, a detailed description of five or ten burning villages, nothing more!” I negotiated for a discount, just a small neat number for my fiction for the sake of my sanity. But you were ready to take me around to all the villages, assuring me they’d since all been rebuilt. After doing a tour of a few, where you introduced me to war survivors who were still seething, people with too many crazy stories for my own good, I rallied my spirits to listen to them.