by TJ Benson
‘There is this game I used to play with Papa when I was a boy,’ says Max, picking Blue up and walking with him while André cleans up the kitchen table. ‘Do you know how to comb?’
The boy nods.
‘Now Papa has an event and he has to look smart. We have to comb his beard, his bia bia, the hair on his face.’
‘Macmillan—,’ Shariff warns.
‘We can’t have you looking like an animal, Daddy,’ says Max, eyes sparkling. ‘In fact, I think we need to give you a kiss.’
‘How many kisses are we giving Daddy?’ cries the boy.
‘Five!’ Max yells back.
‘Eight!’ yells André, and they charge at Shariff and, too paralysed with excitement to run, he falls with them as they pounce on him, enjoys their hands on his face, thinking they are all his grizzly animals, thinking they are what his life has come to. His sweat, his semen, his blood.
Before the auction of Time begins, Ladidi comes to him the way he woke up one morning and found fog had fallen on Kaduna and the air was dry and the wet season was over. She returns to him in the memory of rain; he doesn’t feel guilt for this child he had not claimed but lets the panicked thought Are we destined to be like our fathers? go and just wonders about her. If she were alive now she would be what, twenty-nine? Twenty-eight? She would have her father’s tall figure but her mother’s light skin, exactly like the woman in the sleeveless black dress, face half-hidden by a wide-brimmed hat who stands up in the middle of Macmillan’s address to go to the drinks stand and order a glass of mango vodka and Coke.
Why is she here? Memories of sweetness are time portals. Maybe she is the one; maybe Ladidi did survive the Miss World War after all. It doesn’t matter to Shariff. Sometimes the fact is overcome by the feeling.
So he allows himself to return to those early days when Sweet Pea had brought the girl to them, when she had been all the music André had filled the house with, the ending of a piece he would never complete. Ladidi.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As in most former colonies in Africa, the British masters left the buildings they lived in and administrated from behind when Nigeria gained independence. The Nigerian government took over and I personally found a fondness for the simple floor plans, high ceilings and arches when studying building construction at school. Maybe I have always had nostalgia for the past. I am most drawn to the Nineties, a time of military turmoil when the entire country was fluent in fear and silence, giving room for the rise of the urban mythology and superstition every Nigerian-born millennial will be familiar with. We are all rational adults now, but we all believed in bush babies, Lady Koin-Koin, or gypsies that could steal private parts in big market places. Many of us today would resist bending down to pick up a fallen item in a market: we all remember the stories; they were real to us once.
When I set out to write The Madhouse, I realised many would query the possibility of some elements, but I had to discard whatever presumptions of what was real to my imagined critic, because I am Nigerian and I was born into impossible times. We all knew someone who was delivered of a marine spirit by a pastor or of a djinn by an imam; we all knew that picking up money that didn’t belong to you would turn you into a yam tuber. These were facts harder than the clay we played with, harder than the voice on the radio announcing the ascension of one military dictator or the fall of another. People really dig up their dead to groom for the Ma’nene festival in Indonesia, and a physician of Nigerian origin named Dr Oluyinka Olutoye really operated on an unborn baby successfully. During the nine years of writing this book, the world kept plunging past what was possible and this gave me a lot of the impetus I needed to finish it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I want to thank the Ebedi Residency for providing me the space and time to map out the book. I would have had no direction for this manuscript if not for the generosity of Dr Wale Okediran during those six weeks. Sibbyl White and Romeo Oriogun were early readers and champions of the half-finished version. I am also grateful for the support of Abdulmalik Fadh, Iyanu Adebiyi, Rafeeat Aliyu, George Onyekachukwu, Roy Udeh-Ubaka, Hauwa Saka, Ademola Adefolami, Hauwa Shafii, Amanda Madumere, Sharon John, Farida Adamu, Sumayya Ilyasu, Daniel Obasi, my birthday twin Fuad Lawal – a clown and media mogul in whom I am well pleased, Don Handa, who is ever ready to remind me who the fuck I am, Tolu Daniel, who got me excited about the plot’s potential after reading the first draft, Socrates Mbamalu for his incomparable hospitality, Troy Onyango, who stubbornly believes in my work, Tonton Raymond, a genius who gets excited about anything I write, Logan February for their generosity of spirit, Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane, who taught me the joy of reading my work aloud, Muhammed Adedeji Akinyemi, who shouts my name wherever he goes, the wonder-photographer Victor Adewale, who really believes I am magic, and the ever resourceful Sada Malumfashi. I may have started writing this book years ago, but it would have been impossible to end it without you all.
Whenever I was weak, I had the support of my South African sisters Sibongile Fisher and Megan Ross: I will never stop thanking Short Story Day Africa for bringing us together. I had the gift of meeting the writing wunderkind Otosirieze Eze during the course of rearranging sections of the novel and he has kept looking out for me ever since. Thank heavens Transition magazine brought us together. Thank you so much Lola Shoneyin for your belief in me. Aysha Abdulahi keeps introducing me to new adventures and opportunities like my Nigerian publisher and I am thankful. May I learn to keep saying ‘yes’. Othuke Omniaboh handled the manuscript and me with care. Nina Mbah advised me to forget about quantity surveying and I will forever be grateful. Thanks to Mimi Mwiya, Mbasughun Ukpi and Patrick Eze for their unwavering love for me and my work. Mimi taught me to drink red wine from the bottle and my life is better for it. Thank you Monlee for friendship; I am glad our interest in each other’s work and lives hasn’t wavered over the years. I will always be a fanboy.
Frankie Edozien, Geoff Ryman, Julien Roland, Zukiswa Wanner and Nathan Suhr-Systma championed my first book and kept me excited about this novel towards the end with their inquiries and for this I am grateful. Thanks to Ikenna Nnubia and Malik Abdulaziz for our decade of friendship across different degrees, professions and cities. Catriona Ross is the editor writers dream about, working tirelessly over every sentence, every turn of phrase and covering my shortcomings with grace. Any errors left are totally mine.
Lastly I want to thank Julie and David Benson – not sure why I am thanking dead people but I don’t know what else to do with this immense gratitude I have for them. More than life, they gave me the impetus to create. All I am, all I can ever be, was born out of their dreams.
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