by Robin Winter
"Movie night?" Wilton asked as if Sandy had just crashed through from some other world.
"Yes. It was Lindsey's idea in the beginning. Once every two weeks or when we can get the reels from the Embassy after they're done with them, we run our own cinema here—downstairs or sometimes at our place in Ibadan. These guys have never seen our movies. Most of what we get are kinda old, but no one minds."
"Like The African Queen?" Wilton finally took a good bite out of her sandwich.
"Did that one a couple months ago. You shoulda heard them cheer when the torpedo blew."
"Perfect," Lindsey said. "That will do. Keep every servant under observation for a few hours at least."
Sandy scooped up her little bag of popcorn.
"I'm gonna make this myself," she said. "Jonas can sure mix a drink but he likes to take the lid off the popcorn too soon."
"Can you blame him?"
"He laughs hard enough to piss himself, that's for sure," Sandy said.
Chapter 27: Sandy
October 1967
Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria
"It's over. Biafran lines tore like wet toilet paper," Lindsey said.
Lindsey, Sandy and Wilton sat down at dinner together in the Lagos apartment. Rice and chicken, some boiled greens and a lot of spices. Sandy breathed in the scent. The new cook did a good job—he was a Mid-Western Igbo, one of the folk they'd hidden and shown movies during the invasion. He'd been a cook for a batch of Brits in pre-Nigerian-Independence days.
"So the war's practically over," Lindsey said.
Sandy eyed Wilton with unease, thinking of the curious collection she'd seen in Wilton's room after one of the houseboys complained. Stacks of cans of fish and meat, packages of what Sandy considered utterly inedible dried stockfish, and a box full of medicines doubtless intended for Gilman. It was the room of someone who knew the war wasn't over.
"But the frigging Biafrans keep fighting," Sandy said. She didn't want to quarrel with Lindsey, but complacency seemed like asking for trouble. "Not gonna be so easy."
"Nigeria had to get serious." Lindsey picked up her fork. "In the long run, there's only one possible outcome. Biafra's what, a quarter the size of the rest of Nigeria? They need other countries' recognition and that, they're not going to get."
Oh, that explained a lot. No American support then, for Biafra. No declaration and no supplies.
"Outsiders will keep this war going. Caritas and other nonprofits shipping food and medicine, American and European charities pumping in all they can." Wilton tilted her head like one of her sparrows. "Can you stop it?"
"Gowon countenances the aid," Lindsey said. "He thinks it looks noble and civilized to let food, medicines and supplies reach the enemy."
"Or maybe he knows that with every day of war more die. The longer the conflict, the fewer the rebels. The charities only reach a few." Wilton studied the braised pepper chicken on the platter and finally took a leg. "The minority tribes never receive significant supplies."
Sandy felt sure that Wilton stinted herself at every meal they'd shared, so it was good to see her taking food. Wilton seemed too fuck-all nervous. Give her a chance and the next thing you knew she'd probably be sick.
"Wilton, what in hell are you doing?"
Wilton was wrapping the leg of chicken in her paper napkin, corners tucked with care. Wilton's hands jerked. "I don't know," she said. "I really don't know."
She replaced the meat on her plate and Jonas appeared to take her soiled napkin away. He slipped a new one onto the table at her side. Sandy decided Jonas should get a bonus this month.
"Don't go screwy on us. Eat the damned thing," Sandy said. "You can't take it with you."
"Yes," said Wilton, "I'm going back to Biafra."
"How are you going back?" Lindsey said. "Curfews and armies aside, it's a stupid idea. There's no reason to risk it."
Sandy saw Wilton straighten and look at Lindsey, stare at her as if they could be enemies, and to her surprise it was Lindsey who glanced down and adjusted her fork. Had Wilton won a point? Yeah, well, Wilton probably did supply Lindsey with information, and maybe Wilton had some work to do in Biafra for Lindsey. But Wilton wasn't right these days. She needed peace and rest, not spy work.
"The way I came is the way I shall go," Wilton said, not touching the meat on her plate. "The lines are full of holes."
"They were. But you're always the first to say beware of assumptions." Lindsey made a delicate gesture with her knife as though to puncture Wilton's quoted words.
Wilton said nothing, as if being quiet was an argument. Cripes, Sandy didn't need these two fighting.
"Look. Let me get you on a plane tomorrow night to Madrid instead. Then back down to the island of São Tomé, or maybe Fernando Po. Neutral Portuguese protectorates. They come in handy, times like these. I know there are flights from those islands direct to Biafra." Lindsey gave a nod of satisfaction.
"Money." Sandy lifted her fork laden with steaming hot chicken. "Come to my office after dinner and I'll float you a loan. Compounded daily of course. I have to make my profits after all." She was joking, but Wilton didn't seem to notice.
"Yes," Lindsey said. "That will do. There, that's settled."
Chapter 28: Wilton
October 1967
Ibadan, Western Region, Nigeria
Wilton woke in the night. In the guest bedroom of Lindsey and Sandy's retreat, she opened her eyes as if she heard someone call her name, her hand tightening on the woven coverlet. Surely she should rise and answer.
King Solomon heard God call his name when he was a small boy. He had risen and gone to his teacher and asked if the old man had called. Two more times, and then his teacher understood. "It is your Lord who calls," he said to the child who was to be king. "Bow down and say you wait to serve Him, and He will speak to you."
Wilton turned her head on the sheet and stared at the window. A wide and empty sky, no clouds, no moon, only the seething stars. No unusual noise, yet she felt an unnatural sensitivity to the very rustle of the wind and the faint noises of insects in the grass and trees outside. A thought of urgency had broken her heavy rest.
She'd been in the main room of the Ibadan house that afternoon, looking over her notes when she felt someone watching her. When she looked up, the eyes moved in one of Sandy's masks. A carved black visage decorated with cowries stitched about the edge, one that would look jovial if you didn't stare.
Wilton rose and went to it, knowing that she held God by the hand. She had no fear. But the eyes stared back, greedy and knowing as if they gloated upon something tasty barely a reach away. Then they winked out, gone before she spoke.
Now she understood the incident as clearly as if a dream came and whispered it in the restless dark. Wilton felt the panic sweat in her palms and on her face. She'd seen her first evil spirit today because she no longer walked with God. In her pride she had told Gilman that God would warn her if she stepped too far from Him and the warning had come.
Abandoned, she lay in the bed and looked up at the ceiling for a sign. She had done something so wrong, taken some step she could not name, that had tumbled her down from the light of God. Penance. She must have righteousness back, the knowledge that she served a holy cause.
Like King David she'd cast ashes on her head and rend her clothes that the Lord could see her repentance and take her once more into His Care. Nothing else mattered. Hell was the place without God.
She closed her eyes and remembered seeing Lindsey against the window, a halo of brilliance about her shapely head. Was she the error, ambition and love intruding between Wilton's heart and God? Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. No ambition but His, no love contending.
God needed witnesses. She would head deep into Biafra. It was her war. In some measure the suffering was the product of her hands, as much as her birds were. She looked down by the bedside at the box which held her paintings and paper, and the small bag that leaned against it. She kept them near eve
n when she slept. Once she had hoped to study nature and thus to know God better. Then other ideas had pried their way into her.
She gazed upwards, trying to see the future, to brace herself against it. Her fingers tightened on the cotton web, the wet of her hands making the fabric clammy. She heard the confused moan of voices, saw the unreachable wasted eyes and faces grayed with panic. That drunken gaze whose intoxication meant famine. The imagined dead piled in the corners of her room, visions of holocaust, bodies tilting on each other, the dusty black skins stretching in bloat. Her eyes felt dry, wide open against the night.
Wilton lay there, prostrate before her God, but He did not look back. He had saved her time and again, from the assassins in Lagos when Oroko had intervened, from the soldiers at the secondary school when she'd given the painting to the Major. Countless times she'd relied upon His invisible Hand.
What could she do for God? She must bear witness to what came. All the people dying, all the blood swallowed by the orange earth. Surely soon He would look down upon her and see her contrition, see her loss, see her will to sacrifice whatever it took to return to His Grace. He was the only desire, must be the only desire of her soul. Ask and it shall be given, ask and it shall be answered. The promise lightened the dull beat of her heart, carrying an omen of absolution.
Chapter 29: Sandy
October 1967
Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria
"Sarah, we must talk."
The voice broke in on her sleep and Sandy sat up, her pulse racing, gasping for breath. She heard only the ticking of her alarm clock, looked around the bedroom, seeing a slit of gray where the window gave no hint of the weather to come. Too early for that. No one stood in the room. No one spoke, only her memory.
Sandy lay back against the pillows wishing she could go back to sleep, but she knew better. Whenever she heard her mother's voice, it banished rest. Didn't matter how tired she might be. Her heart ached and she forced a slow breath. She could write them letters every week, but it didn't silence her parents' voices in her head. She looked up at the ceiling, trying not to think about her mother. Strange how clear remembrance could be, exactly when you didn't want it.
Sandy summoned images of the latest film they'd shown on their servants' movie night, Some Like it Hot. The servants had puzzled over it, so she'd given them a simplified interpretation. Oroko quizzed her closely about the cross-dressing, and she wasn't sure he got the joke. Maybe that movie was a bad choice. She'd laughed at the time, but right now all the funny in it seemed to have drained away.
Sandy came late into Lindsey's office that morning. A bumbling slow morning and she wanted to find someone to amuse. A good laugh might set her right.
"Where the bug fuck is Wilton?"
Lindsey's brown eyes narrowed.
"Gone," she said. "Gone sometime before four this morning, without any of the things we offered."
"Goddamned crazy git."
"Nothing you can do," Lindsey said. She flexed her cramped writing hand. "She grew up here, remember. She's always taken her own way. In the long run it won't matter."
But she said it like one who resents the words, as if she put blame on Wilton's head.
"Do you know what she's doing?"
"She took her packages including the medicines, so my best guess is she's crossing lines to meet up with Gilman. Maybe she'll persuade Gilman to come back with her."
"Yeah, and whose army," Sandy said. Crossing the lines would be like admitting the Biafrans were wrong. She couldn't imagine Gilman doing that at this late date.
Chapter 30: Gilman
November 1967
Near Orlu, Biafra
The dry season found Gilman and Sister Catherine betwixt and between towns at a crossroads. They established their clinic in one end of an old hotel. At least the hotel had screening for their small bedroom and study to keep out the mosquitoes.
One evening Gilman sat trying to read the tiny print of the text on falciparum malaria in the uneven light of the gas lantern, all too aware of Sister Catherine's blessed and unreal stillness. Guess they beat that into nuns in the convent. Gilman would never have made it. Having the nun for a roommate in this tiny refugee-crowded Biafran town wasn't a choice, but it sure was humbling.
A faint noise startled her. Something at the window, like a white kerchief, moving. Gilman turned in her chair, her notes sliding off her lap. Sister Catherine stared at the window. A pale hand appeared, then a face. Wilton.
"Don't come to the window," Wilton said, her voice pitched to carry only to them. "I'm breaking curfew tonight and must be on my way. You need to move on—go further into Biafra or leave the country. Move tomorrow. Try Uli or Umuahia. All's well with Lindsey and Sandy. Look by your side door for the gifts they sent."
Gilman began to protest.
"Hush," Wilton said. "It's not safe. Wait a little before you try the door. Ten minutes. Let me get away first."
Wilton was gone.
"That was a bit of a shock," Sister Catherine said, the evenness of her voice like a remark on the weather.
"Wilton," Gilman said. Her heart thudded with unspent adrenaline. She wanted to make an excuse for Wilton, but couldn't find the words for it.
"Kate Wilton," Sister Catherine said. "Ah."
"You remember?"
"How could I ever forget. I've heard a lot about her," Sister Catherine said. "One of the orphans her father raised at his school told me stories."
"What did he say?"
"You went to college with her—I'm sure I know nothing new to you, except…"
"What?"
"They say she's a snake charmer. And that she performs exorcisms. It didn't half tick off some of the priests."
"You're kidding." Gilman had to laugh. "I saw her do it once, and all she scared was a batch of honking hornbills."
By the side door they found a sack of medicines, mostly antimalarials and antibiotics, and tucked between the little boxes, a wad of Nigerian pound notes.
"Angels guard her," Sister Catherine said, crossing herself after her first pleasure over the medicines subsided. "The situation's changing. It's going to be harder for her to play these tricks."
"We keep saying that, don't we. I hear Ojukwu hired mercenaries. A German and a guy from England and another maybe from the Netherlands. It doesn't look good. As if he didn't trust his own people to defend the country. Yeah, no kidding things are changing."
Chapter 31: Wilton
December 1967
Biafra, Nigeria
After leaving Lagos, Wilton traveled a familiar route heading first North then following the roadways East using mammy wagons for transport. Peace Corps volunteers and adventuring Europeans did such things every so often, so while a novelty, she could pass for nothing worse than a crazy white. She had a chain of people she contacted along her way who gave her food and shelter, grateful to return old favors her father or she had sown in past years. She listened more than she talked, as if she took in this laborious way, the temperature of the sprawling giant Nigeria.
Winding her way south, she'd given her last hoarded supplies to Gilman and Sister Catherine before moving on along side roads. Now Wilton walked among the shanties between towns. Though face after face turned in her direction, she looked too poor to be a good target for begging. A hand touched her elbow.
"Do I know you?" Wilton said. These days no one moved as fast as they had, and everywhere wanderers tried to trace the familiar in faces, so there was no offense.
"You are the woman who talks with God," the young woman said. A curiously set face as if she had a mask on. Worn and dirty clothing, like so many these days. "Come and bless the place where I sleep so that my child will return to me."
Wilton opened her mouth to explain that she no longer could do such things then closed it again. Maybe it wouldn't matter. Prayer was prayer and she tried to walk with God every day. She followed the young woman who kept pulling her cloth closer around her with repeated backwards looks th
at spoke of past fears come true. Each time Wilton looked back to see what the woman saw, there was nothing unusual for such a place and time. Slapped together shelters of wood and corrugated aluminium, plastic moving in the slight wind.
The woman stopped at the door of a cardboard and sheet metal shelter, moving her bony arm in a gesture of welcome.
"Here is my place. I smell evil. If you frighten it my son will come back to me."
"How was he lost?"
Wilton knew she didn't want to go in through the crooked opening. The woman was right. The smell was bad. Sweet and sticky and putrescent. Wilton reached for God with her mind like a child reaching for a comforting hand, and felt that her grasp brushed but could not hold. She stumbled and stopped. The woman's nostrils widened.
"It was the bombing, thunder in the sky," the woman said. "I ran. I ran so fast and when I stopped he was no longer on my back where I had carried him, though I had knotted my cloth so well. The tie is still in the cloth. But this spirit in my room keeps him from returning to me."
"I will see what I can do," Wilton said, "God willing."
"God willing." The woman crossed herself like one who has seen nuns make the gesture but never performed it before herself. She backed away and left Wilton staring into the partial darkness.
She bent her mind to prayer before she ducked her head and squeezed into the tiny space. She kept custody of her eyes, looking down only at her feet as nuns did who relied upon the eyes of God, praying without words. Then she saw something move, drift toward her like a piece of gauze caught on a breeze. A sound, not human nor animal but similar to a tight string plucked. Wilton took three fast steps backwards out of that place, looking for any trace to prove what she had seen was real. Nothing around her but the late sunlight on shacks and glittering bits of tin. Nothing in her but her fear.
First the eyes of the mask at Ibadan. What did seeing that movement and sound mean?
"I have done what I can," she said, and it sounded like a lie.
