And After Many Days

by Jowhor Ile

  “I say you took money from Company,” Jonah shot back. “You are exactly like your father, bowing down to paper money and coins. And as for that son of yours, ha!”

  “There is no need for hot blood yet.” Bendic raised his voice from where he sat in his armchair. The chair had wooden legs that ended in an imitation of the paws of a great bush cat. Bendic had been taking in the scene calmly, and now that he raised his voice, a little quiet returned to the room again, and eyes turned toward him. “It’s a serious accusation Jonah is making.” Jonah squeezed his face and nodded from where he sat on a bench. “Nwokwe is here with us,” Bendic continued, “and can answer for himself, here in our presence. We will discuss what we can today and come back tomorrow if need be.” Nwokwe’s face was like an open sack of nails. “Let us all bear in mind,” Bendic’s voice soared in the still air of the room, “that this thing trying to rip us apart is actually coming from outside. If we don’t understand that first, then we will be wasting strength on the wrong matter.”

  Heads nodded. “It’s true,” said one of the young men leaning against the wall. Seats had been arranged behind the sofa but weren’t enough.

  Application Master got up and called out greetings. He called out a few times before quiet fell on the place. An old man by the corner was shrugging, and his “Let them shut up so we can get to the bottom of this” was the only sound breaking the silence.

  Application Master began to speak. “Our people say rather than let the antelope escape completely, let us at least slice off his tail.” Grunts of approval from the crowd followed. It’s true. It’s true. “This meeting will continue tomorrow, but we are here already, so we might as well talk…

  “Company has been here for nearly three decades. There are young men in this room who were not yet born when they came to tap oil from our ground. Nobody here can say we have treated Company badly. And that’s not to say our stomachs are too sweet with happiness. What your God has blessed you with, you can’t quarrel with it. You use it and move ahead in life, for your own good, for your children, and for your neighbor, too. Is it not so?” Application Master paused.

  “It is so, it is so.” More grunts from the crowd.

  “Before Company came, we were here, the oil was here, right here.” Application Master stamped his foot on the tiled floor. “Right here, under our feet. Did we make trouble when they came here combing through our forests? When they said the government sent them, did we not make way for them and even show them around? Did we not agree when they pointed at the places they wanted to dig their burrow pits and set their derricks? When their work destroyed our farms, when they cut through people’s houses to build their pipelines, did we fight them or seize their workers so that their work would not go on? Did we not accept the money they paid for damages?

  “Everyone here knows what happened in ’71.” A groan escaped some older people in the room. Someone echoed the year and snapped his fingers. “If you were too small,” Application Master continued, “or not born yet, ask your parents, let them tell you what our eyes saw here in 1971. We have managed since then with Company—not friends, not enemies.

  “Now that they have decided they want to build pipe for gas, not oil, they want the pipes to go through our farms and our waterside near Idu. I have only one question to ask: If the ones they built for oil are killing us now, why should we allow them to put up new pipelines when we don’t know what damage they might cause?”

  Nwokwe rose to his feet and his snuffbox clattered onto the floor, destroying the calm Application Master’s speech had created. “If not for Company!” he shouted. He didn’t even look down at the fallen item. Someone next to him picked it up to hand back to him, but he waved the hand away. “If not for Company, you think we would have been anything that we are today?” His voice was loud, like someone in the middle of a quarrel.

  “This secondary school we have now, that our children attend—people from other villages come here now for school—how long did we stay before it was built? The only primary school we have, is there anyone in this room who doesn’t know how that came about?” Nwokwe paused for a while, as if expecting someone to respond to his questions. “Did the government know us before now?” he asked, looking around the room. “Did any tarred road run to us before? Does this village lead to anywhere? So why do we talk as if we don’t know these things? And because I speak my own truth, the truth that I see with my two eyes, does that mean I’ve accepted a bribe from outsiders against my own people?

  “If not for Company, would we have the mono pump that gives us water? How many villages—count it yourselves—around here have tap water? Do they not drink from their wells still? Without Company, mosquitoes would be eating us up here in the mangrove, and all these people in the government wouldn’t have known we even exist.”

  “So, you have not accepted money from anyone?” Bendic asked.

  “He has eaten money, that is why his mouth is so sweet for them,” someone said from the benches before Nwokwe could respond. Ajie saw it was Morgan, a muscular man who had a reputation as a radical member of the OYF.

  “I want all of you to listen to what I am saying today and mark it on a wall somewhere,” Nwokwe continued gravely. “Some of you forget we are a small people. All these bigger groups in this country who go in and out of government, do you think they would look in our direction if we didn’t have oil? We can all disappear from here in a single afternoon, all of us in the whole twenty-four Ogba villages, and they wouldn’t even notice. They wrestle for power among themselves as if we don’t count. As our people say, when the elephants have a wrestle, it’s the grass below that feels the stampede. One day you will say that I said it. All I want to tell you is this: Let us stay close to Company; what they are offering may not be the best, but we can’t be claiming our rights and then lose out completely.”

  “They have offered you money,” Ikpo said as he stood up, pointing a finger at Nwokwe. Ikpo was a man of about fifty. “They have offered you money, and you may have accepted, so that their gas pipes can run past behind your house. You think we are fools?” Ikpo’s voice was level but hard. He looked like the sort of man who, in his younger days, would have invited whatever was to happen tomorrow to happen right now. “I won’t blame you if you want to accept, or if you have accepted, but at least have the decency to keep your mouth straight when you speak. And as you are taking this money, do us a favor and tell them that pipeline shall begin and end at your house. It will be a very short pipeline. I don’t know if anyone else here has grown soft enough in the head to join you. And if gas fire burns, it is your family who will be consumed, since you have decided to go deaf in both ears.”

  “So that is what you wish for me.” Nwokwe’s voice came back wounded. “That my family be destroyed. All of you sit down here and listen to what this man wishes on his brother.”

  “You will be the one wishing it on yourself,” Ikpo retorted.

  The meeting stretched until Paul and Ajie got bored and went downstairs to meet the other children at the usual place by the water tank stand, over which the house had thrown a huge shade. They sat on the rungs of the steel ladders, dangling their feet, catching up on things. The sun dipped toward Uhwo and turned the sky orange red.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ajie and Ossai emerged from the hedges and followed the path beside the flower fence. Someone watching from the church would see only one head bobbing above the flat top of the flowers. Ossai was a clear head taller, even though he was barely two months older than Ajie.

  They walked past the church and smelled the tannin that was poured regularly all over the window and door frames to keep termites away. Across the road, in the schoolyard, the old gmelina trees stretched their vast branches and littered the ground with fruits. Ossai stepped over them, but Ajie squashed some underfoot, making the juice squirt, mapping their trail with a darker, inky brown.

  It was around seven-thirty in the morning, and they were heading for a quick was
h in a nearby swamp. Ajie had been idling in bed when Ossai arrived; he told Paul he was going out. He threw a bar of soap, a sponge, and a fresh change of clothes into a plastic bag and left with his friend. Paul, who’d had an early shower in the bathroom downstairs, was back in bed and didn’t look away from his book when Ajie spoke. Ajie and Ossai shut the door to the staircase, and the house sank deeper into that quietness houses often settle into right after breakfast at holiday times, just before the steady flow of visitors begins.

  “Gmelina stains never wash out,” Ossai said as he looked back at Ajie. His own fresh clothes were in a black cellophane bag clutched under his arm.

  “I’m not wearing white,” Ajie replied, “so it doesn’t matter.”

  The edges of the school’s football field were well marked, and at either end of the field was a standard-size goalpost. They walked past the classroom block to their right and then the school farm behind it, and by the corner was a path that led to the bush. Grass brushed against Ajie’s ankles. He walked a few paces ahead of Ossai as they filed into the bush, taking care not to slip on the clay earth. Creepers, bracken, and bamboo emerged in a rush of darkish green, and the canopy of clustered trees dimmed the sun.

  It felt odd to have appeared here, three minutes away from the road. And it wasn’t just the filtered gloom and coolness. Each time he stepped into this swamp, Ajie felt that it claimed him, glazed and held him apart from the world outside.

  They heard a rustle. Ahead of them was a man in a brown loincloth, climbing down a palm tree. He held on to a harness with one hand, and with the other he held a blue keg foaming with palm wine freshly tapped from the tree. They greeted him when they got to the foot of the palm wine tree, and he grunted back at them and continued his business.

  The two boys came into a clearing where wild jewel orchids were pushing out their last flowers. They stripped and bunched their clothes together on top of a shrub by the pond. Ossai first gave his shorts a quick wash, rubbing and kneading the cloth as it squished out lather, then a final rinse. Ajie sat at the edge of the pond, dipped his toe in it, and flicked the water. He cleared the water lilies to a corner and squatted beside the pond, looking into the opaque green water. A warm crack of sunlight fell through the trees and touched his back. He dived. The splash was as loud as his dive was clumsy, and then a hush fell over the space. The water bubbled and rippled. It was as if the swamp held its breath for a few seconds and then let go in a rowdy babble that rose sharply among the startled birds in the trees.

  “It’s dangerous to dive in like that,” Ossai said, easing into the water. “There are usually sticks at that end of the pond. People set their nets there sometimes, so you need to check first.”

  Ossai rubbed his head and body with a green soap that smelled clean and rubbery, like an eraser. Ajie climbed out of the pond and searched in his bag on the side. The green Palmolive soap was too big to hold in one hand, so he held it with both. He smeared it on his head and all over his body, then let himself back into the pond.

  They dried themselves, and Ossai moved his drying clothes to a spot where the sun had gained ground. He shivered a little in the sunlight, then picked up a stone and flung it across the pond. It startled a little bird by the bank.

  “Do you know the name?” Ajie asked as they watched the bird fly away.

  “Kpamboy,” Ossai replied.

  Ajie thought it might be a gray hornbill. “I wonder what it’s called in English…not too sure,” he said under his breath. The gray hornbill had yellow feet, but this one’s feet were black. Ma’s Encyclopaedia of Tropical Birds covered a wide range of species and had colored pictures. Ajie and Paul used to play Spot and Name and often had unresolved arguments over shades of plumage, length of tail, and birdcall. Ma, who was expected to have the last say in these matters, said that some of the species they found in Ogibah may not have been named in English. This response was unsatisfactory in the competitive atmosphere. “The rain forest,” Ma would continue importantly, “supports the highest diversity of all living organisms the world over.” She would transform into the schoolmistress before her classroom, a biology teacher dressed in calf-length georgette skirt and chiffon blouse, with a chalk in one hand and an efficient duster in the other.

  Ahead, on top of a rotting palm trunk, a squirrel in its perfect camouflage coat stretched out, calm, disregarding. Ajie picked up a stone and aimed.

  “The head is mine if you hit.”

  “I’ll have to knock it dead first.”

  “The head is mine if you hit, like I said.” Ossai waited for the shot. “And you’ll need a bigger stone if you intend to harm it at all.”

  A siren went off that startled both Ajie and the squirrel. “Oh no!” Ajie shouted.

  “It’s ten o’clock,” Ossai said.

  “Where is it coming from?” Ajie asked.

  Ossai felt the clothes to see if they were dry. The khaki shorts had a starched stiffness to them. He folded the washed clothes into the cellophane bag, hopped into the fresh shorts he’d brought along, put his shirt on, and left the button undone. “Base Camp,” he replied.

  “When did they start blowing this siren? I don’t think I heard it when we came last year.”

  “Not sure when it started, but it’s every Tuesday morning now, by ten. My father said it’s a signal for the engineers to rest their drilling machines.”

  “Really?” Ajie said. “I’ll ask Bendic when we get home.”

  “He will know better,” Ossai said. “My father is just a night watchman at the Location.”

  “That doesn’t mean he can’t know why,” Ajie said softly. “I just want to hear what Bendic will say.”

  They came out of the bush, and the sun bore down on them as they walked toward the school. The sun had baked everything it could reach, and the ground ahead of them shifted like steaming fluid.

  “I’m sure by now they’ll be looking for you.”

  “They won’t. It’s our holiday, and I can go anywhere I want,” Ajie said. He wasn’t some soft city boy who couldn’t be away for a minute without being missed.

  “Okay, then. Will you follow me to my house so I can check something for my mother?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll come back with you to your house.”

  “Okay.”

  —

  Loud voices were already coming from Bendic’s parlor as Ajie and Ossai came up the stairs. Ajie knew the parlor would be packed full of people. Bicycles were parked beside the door downstairs, and they both went upstairs and Ajie opened the door a bit, put his face through the screen door and scanned the crowd of men sitting.

  Paul was with the young men who stood at the back. His bright blue T-shirt stood out among the tired old ones the others wore. Still, standing there with his face set and attentive, he was very much part of the group. When Ajie asked Paul later that evening what the meeting was about, Paul explained. “Company wants to give Ogibah one million naira for the new yam festival celebration.” Ajie was in bed listening to Paul, who was in his own bed across the room.

  “They want to build gas pipelines, too, and some people’s farms and houses would be affected. They want to pay compensation. Mark thinks they should be made to wait. That if they give them an easy way, they would take us for granted, like they did in the past. He said, ‘Why is it okay for them to take all the resources in our land, destroy our homes, and leave us with nothing?’ But people think they are going about trying to buy off individuals rather than dealing with the whole community as one. People suspect Nwokwe is Company’s inside man, although he denies it.

  “Others suggested we accept the money and buy cows with it and share among everyone for the festival. Whether we accept their terms is another matter. Someone cautioned them to bear in mind that it is the devil we are dining with here; we should therefore use a long spoon. These people have government on their side. They look like they are asking us, but they are not; they prefer to indulge us, at least. If any commoti
ons come out here, then you will see who will come to battle. Everyone here knows you cannot fight government. No medicine can kill government. They will burn a holy shrine and go scot-free: something an ordinary person would do and not last the hour without falling down dead.

  “Are you asleep?” Paul asked.

  “No,” Ajie replied, “I’m listening.”

  There was a faint distant drumming from the night. It could have been coming from another village, although as Ajie slid toward sleep, the drumming advanced and retreated, as if emanating from the farthest quarters of Ogibah or close to his window or the room next door, where Bibi was asleep.

  Ajie had barely set eyes on Bibi throughout the day. They separated each time they came to Ogibah: They became boys and girls, each doing his or her own thing. Bibi had come in sometime that afternoon to ask Ma for a George wrapper and scarf for a dance practice she was taking part in. She had beads around her left ankle and on her wrists, and she had applied talcum powder all around the length of her neck and on the top of her chest and back. She would have looked really idiotic had they not been in Ogibah.

  Did someone give birth? Ajie wanted to ask, but didn’t. He would have heard the singing if there were a newborn. The showering of powder, the party of family and friends singing, dancing, and ringing bells from one end of the village to the next was always a rowdy affair.

  “I am organizing a sports competition tomorrow,” Bibi said to Ajie. “But you have to register if you want to participate.” With her head-girl initiative, she had formed a committee of organizers and given leadership posts to some. “It’s for both boys and girls,” Bibi added before Ajie could say he wasn’t interested.

  The distant drumming of the night persisted, and Ajie thought he could make out voices, but he couldn’t tell if it was just his own mind already in the zone, tilting on the edge of sleep, and conjuring up things. There were the three of them, Ajie thought, Paul, Bibi, and him. Before the beginning of his memory, which was to say from the beginning of this life, there had always been the three of them. Paul and Bibi were the first people he saw, the first he touched. Everything he resented and liked, everything he knew, thought, and felt, his smile and the angry pounding in his veins, were all from them, and now, for the first time, taking notice of this made him feel incredibly lonely. The sort of lonely feeling that Bibi would have been tempted to slap out of him. Just the kind of thing that would have made Paul look at him in his usual bemused way and say, “My friend, what are you saying? Please be serious.” But he sensed it that night, it hung about the room, the feeling that things may not always be like this, that they would one day grow up and live across town from each other, like Ma and her cousin Auntie Julie, or even die, like all of Bendic’s siblings, whom he hardly ever spoke of.