by Odafe Atogun
‘There’s a reward for the information. What do you expect me to do?’ the man asked at last.
‘We expect you to keep quiet!’ Aroli said in a tough voice. He wanted to add ‘or we will kidnap you’, but he knew Taduno would not approve.
Taduno put up his hands. ‘We expect you to be a good neighbour,’ he said, looking directly into the man’s eyes.
The man looked away, but not before Taduno glimpsed the greed in his eyes.
‘Oh yes, I’m a good neighbour.’ The man’s voice was weak.
Taduno realised at that moment that the man’s heart was set on betraying them. TK was right: you can never appeal to the conscience of a greedy man, and you can never pay him enough. He turned to Aroli. ‘TK was right,’ he said simply.
Aroli nodded. ‘So what do we do? We could still fall back on my plan.’
Taduno rejected Aroli’s suggestion with a shake of his head. He must now attempt to stir the conscience of the man and his wife with his music. ‘Come with me,’ he said and rose to his feet. ‘I want to make music in the street.’
Judah appeared at the door just then. ‘You are here,’ he said hesitantly, looking from Taduno to Aroli.
Taduno nodded at him with a smile. He wondered how the boy and Lela could be so different from their parents.
‘I want to make music in the street,’ he said to Judah and unslung his guitar. Then he walked calmly out into the street.
They all followed him.
*
He found a bench in the street. He knew he had to sit down to play the kind of music he wanted to play. So he sat down on the bench. Lela’s mother joined them in the street with a look of horror on her face, sensing that trouble was on their doorstep. She sat on the pavement and folded her arms across her breasts. And as the first chords echoed from Taduno’s guitar, her conscience began to torment her.
Slowly, his music spread throughout the neighbourhood, soft and colourful. The people began to gather one by one, cautiously, knowing soldiers were nearby. They remembered that the President had proscribed all association through music, but they were enthralled by the melodies that suddenly filled the empty spaces of their lives. So they came.
Among those gathered were Vulcaniser and several others from his street, who had not ventured out of their homes in days. They all came out to listen. And as they did, they shook their heads in wonder and joy.
Judah placed his palms on his little cheeks and stared at Taduno in astonishment. He thought: How could my parents ever think of giving such a wonderful man away?
*
Taduno told simple stories with his music, shifting from one story to the next with glorious ease. He spoke in the tone of a folksinger through his guitar to the large crowd that had gathered, and they understood the meaning of his music, the flow of his emotions.
He did not chastise Lela’s parents with his music. Instead, he attempted to stir the conscience of all. And so he played beautiful wordless songs that his listeners would remember for a long time to come.
The soldiers soon showed up, causing many to take to their heels. They came with guns and tear gas and grenades, but Taduno’s music softened their hearts and they lowered their guns and opened their mouths in amazement. Those who had taken off came back when they saw that the soldiers were not attempting to arrest anyone.
Momentarily transformed by the music they were hearing, the soldiers took off their helmets. They wiped soot from their faces with their bare hands. They wanted the people to see them as human beings, not monsters. But it was nothing more than a fleeting transformation. Soon, it occurred to them that in the end they had to answer to the President, not to the people, and certainly not to some musician, however brilliant he was. And so, they pushed through the crowd and arrested Taduno.
FOURTEEN
Because of the gravity of his offence – making music in public at a time when all association through music had been banned – they held him in solitary confinement in an underground cell that sunlight could never penetrate. The cell had a single weak bulb which his captors turned on from the corridor each time they came to see him. They were all afraid of his guitar and refused to touch it or take it away from him. And all the time they could hear him playing soft music that threatened to melt their hard souls.
He slept on the cold bare floor, and refused to touch the food they offered him on dirty flat plates. He claimed he was fasting, and they wondered why anyone would fast.
‘Do you want to die?’ a soldier asked him.
‘No, I don’t want to die, I want to live,’ he replied.
‘Why then are you fasting if you want to live?’ the soldier asked.
‘Because I need strength to go through my ordeal,’ Taduno replied calmly.
The soldier could not believe his ears. He laughed at him as if he was a lunatic.
‘You need food to give you strength,’ the soldier said.
‘No, I need to fast to get strength.’
‘You’ll starve to death if you don’t eat.’
‘I’ll die if I eat. Food is not what I need now.’
‘Well, suit yourself,’ the soldier said, with a shrug. ‘Go ahead and kill yourself if you want.’
Taduno gave him a kind smile.
*
He wondered if Lela was being held in conditions similar to his, and he shuddered at the thought. He imagined her, a fragile beauty, lying on a bare floor in an underground cell somewhere in the city. He imagined her, alone in darkness for hours, with no one to talk to except the soldiers who brought her food and water. He imagined her . . . And then realising that such thoughts would only intensify the nightmare of his incarceration, he banished them from his mind.
He refused to think about TK, Aroli, Judah, Vulcaniser and the rest of his neighbours, knowing that it would only sap his strength without changing anything. It gave him some comfort that Aroli would look after TK. So he looked inward and simply allowed music to flow from his heart.
In spite of themselves, the soldiers began to gather at the door of his cell to listen. And as they listened they began to perceive their own foul odour. They began to see their own faces, as in a mirror; the faces of the servants of an evil tyrant.
They saw how dirty their uniforms were. They saw the hopelessness that was their lot and that of their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They began to understand that the reason they wore torn boots and smelly uniforms was because their master wanted their lives to remain in tatters. And they began to understand, too, that these tatters supported the prosperity of their master.
They began to sway to his music. They began to nod to his music. But they were too afraid to dance, knowing their master had eyes everywhere, and that soldiers were not supposed to dance.
*
On the morning of his fourth day in captivity, he asked for water. Because he had not taken water or food for three whole days, a soldier brought him water in a bucket.
‘Drink water, please,’ the soldier said. ‘Drink for all the days that you have not drunk. Drink for all the days to come. We don’t want you to die on us.’
‘Thank you,’ Taduno said.
He scooped water from the bucket with a plastic cup and he drank sparingly.
‘Drink more, please,’ the soldier begged. ‘I can get you many more buckets of water if you want. There is food too. You can have any amount you want.’
‘Thank you,’ Taduno replied.
‘Why are you thanking me?’ the soldier asked. ‘Are you thanking me because you want me to bring you food or because you want me to bring you more water?’
‘I’m thanking you because you are very kind.’
‘What about the food? Do you want it?’
‘No, thank you. I don’t want food. Thank you indeed.’
‘Do you want more water? Do you want more of anything?’
Taduno shook his head. ‘I have had enough water already. You can take the bucket away. I don’t want more of anythin
g.’
The soldier looked baffled. He could not understand what manner of man he was. Why would any man undertake a suicide mission? ‘Well,’ he muttered to himself and took the bucket of water away.
*
On the fifth day they allowed him to use a bathroom. They brought him a toothbrush and toothpaste in a plastic cup. They gave him a shaving stick too. And when he had taken his bath with a bucket of water, they brought him fresh clothes, a shirt and trousers – which were his perfect size – and a pair of shoes.
He refused to accept the shoes, insisting on wearing his own. They said it was okay with them if he wanted to wear his own shoes. But they insisted that he must have something to eat. So they brought him rice and a piece of chicken and a bottle of water. They set him a proper table in a bigger cell with a window open to bright sunlight. Keeping his guitar on the table where he could see it, he ate slowly.
When he finished eating, he sat back to wonder why they were treating him so nicely. Why did they allow him to use a bathroom? Why did they bring him fresh clothes? As he asked himself these questions, he realised that he was about to be taken before someone very important.
*
He waited for several more days, in the bigger cell that enjoyed bright sunlight. The days dragged. The nights were even longer. He slept on a small wooden bed, with his guitar next to him. Anxiety ate at him. And he knew that this delay was a deliberate attempt to weaken him.
They brought him food and water every few hours, insisting that he must eat and drink. He obeyed them because he was at their mercy. He was too tense to play his guitar while he waited. He prayed he wouldn’t have to wait for too long.
‘What is happening?’ he asked one of the soldiers.
‘You are going to appear before our master,’ the soldier replied.
‘Who?’
‘Mr President himself,’ the soldier replied.
He swallowed and tried not to show his surprise. ‘When?’
‘Soon.’
‘How soon is soon?’
‘I don’t know. We are waiting for instructions.’
He sighed and went to sleep.
He tried to sleep as much as possible to keep his mind from the waiting. But he couldn’t sleep for too long at a stretch because they kept coming to wake him up, to offer him more food and water.
And they kept telling him they did not know how long he had to wait.
‘Mr President is a very busy man, you see,’ they would say to him.
FIFTEEN
They brought him before the President on a Sunday morning. He had lost count of the days, but they told him it was a Sunday. They said the President sees troublesome prisoners only on Sundays, and decides their fate on Mondays. If the prisoner is lucky he gets a reprieve on Tuesday. If he is not, he goes to the gulag on Wednesday.
‘Your fate is no longer in your own hands,’ a soldier told him, as they drove him to the President’s office. ‘In fact, your fate is no longer in the hands of man. It is now in the hands of a mighty man. All you can do now is pray.’
Taduno nodded and said: ‘Thank you.’
‘I said you should pray, I didn’t say you should say thank you.’
‘Thank you,’ he repeated.
The soldier sighed. The fate of this prisoner is already sealed, he thought to himself.
*
He had more waiting to do when they got to the President’s office. After a long chain of rigorous security checks and counterchecks, they brought him into a sprawling, tastefully furnished room. A handful of men dressed in flowing gowns sat on comfortable leather settees at one end of the room. He sat at the other end, with a single soldier by his side; and he could tell that he was the only prisoner in that room. All the others were potbellied VIPs.
He sighed and caressed his guitar.
*
He waited and waited.
The soldier guarding him warned him not to play his guitar when he was before the President.
‘Why?’ he asked innocently. ‘Music is good.’
‘Mr President does not like music,’ the soldier said quietly. ‘Music has caused too much trouble for his government.’
‘I see,’ he replied.
They fell silent again.
An hour or so later, the soldier began to snore quietly. Taduno turned to watch him sleep for a moment. Then he shook his head in pity, knowing the poor guy was exhausted.
He continued to caress his guitar, resisting the strong urge to play his music to the VIPs. None of them paid him any attention. They just kept whispering nervously amongst themselves, strategising ahead of their meeting with the President. He wondered if they were powerful politicians, or businessmen, or both. Judging by their potbellies and the smell of money about them, he assumed they must be both.
He waited for hours before he was ushered in to see the President, ahead of the potbellied men who had been waiting for much longer. The men looked at him as they took him in, wondering who he was and why he carried the guitar that seemed so disturbingly alive.
*
A female secretary showed him into the President’s office and retreated silently, closing the sturdy door after her. At first, he felt lost in the vast office, and he wasn’t sure whether to walk towards the huge mahogany desk at the far end of the room where a man was seated, or whether to remain still until he was summoned. He became even more confused when it occurred to him that he was alone with the man at the far desk whose face was buried in a thick file.
Summoning courage, he began to walk slowly towards the mahogany desk, towards the man who had not even bothered to look up to acknowledge his presence. Halfway to the desk, he stopped, realising that the man behind the desk was Mr President indeed. And he made up his mind to wait until he was summoned before proceeding any further.
He waited like that, in one spot, for almost an hour, while the President went through the file before him slowly and quietly. Finally, he pushed the file away and rose to his feet.
‘Aha!’ he said expansively. ‘Please come over. So sorry to have kept you waiting.’
Taduno was disarmed by the President’s effusive manner. He blinked a couple of times, then shuffled the remaining distance to the President’s desk.
They shook hands. The President kept smiling broadly, that charming gap-toothed smile he always wore whenever he addressed the nation on TV. Taduno could not believe he was standing before the dictator who had ruled his country with an iron fist for eight years. He had always believed that the President’s charming smile was purely for the camera. But standing before the man, he realised that he was very charming indeed.
He felt his head spinning.
‘Very good to see you,’ the President said to him, like an old friend. ‘Please take a seat.’ He appeared to be unperturbed about the guitar.
He waited for the President to sit down before pulling back a chair to sit down. And then, very carefully, he placed his guitar on the desk, between them, as if it was a witness to all that would follow.
‘Nice guitar,’ the President commented.
‘Thank you.’ He wanted to play his guitar, but he remembered the soldier’s warning.
‘Thank you for honouring my invitation,’ the President began, ‘especially on a Sunday like this.’
Invitation indeed! Taduno thought to himself. Aloud he said: ‘It’s a very great privilege.’
‘I hope you have been very well treated by my men?’ the President asked. The charming smile remained on his face. ‘I hope they have catered for your every need?’
Taduno nodded. He did not want to say anything bad about the President’s men. ‘Oh yes, they have been excellent.’
‘Very good!’ the President nodded. ‘I have an important meeting to attend now. You may leave, and I hope you will be kind enough to come back in a few days.’
Taduno was speechless. Before he knew it, a burly soldier came in to show him out.
At the door, he threw one last look back. The Pr
esident’s head was again buried in the thick file on his desk.
SIXTEEN
They took him back to solitary confinement in the underground cell which sunlight could never penetrate. And they left him there alone with his guitar in the dark.
The soldiers who looked after him were baffled. They could not understand why his case was so complicated. Who is this strange man? Why is his case so different from others? They asked him these questions, but the only answer they got was the beautiful sound of his guitar.
His music made the darkness of his cell bearable, fascinating even. He had never made music in solitary confinement before, and he discovered that the music he made was rich and colourful. He discovered that there was light in his music. Before then, he never knew there could be light in music. And now that he had discovered this amazing secret, he played his guitar more often.
*
Each time he played, he taught his captors a few things. He taught them that the quality of life you live is not necessarily measured by the amount of comfort you enjoy. He taught them that a life lived with honour and courage in a dungeon is more fruitful than one lived in denial in an ivory tower. He taught them that a beautiful smile is worth more than a powdered face. And he taught them to always look inward rather than outward.
He slept with contentment on the cold floor of his cell. He loved the solitude of the place; it afforded him the opportunity to compose his music in peace. He noted the faint echo that rose from the floor and stayed just below the sound of his music. He understood that his music superseded that faint echo. And he realised that as long as it stayed that way, they could never break him.
His captors began to love him more than they hated him. They knew that they hated him only because it was their duty to hate him, not because they really did. And they admitted to themselves that they loved him because he was such an easy man to love.
*
‘Who are you?’ one soldier asked in wonder after listening to him play for hours. ‘Are you man or angel?’
He laughed quietly. ‘I’m both,’ he said. ‘I’m man because I live in a cold solitary cell. I’m an angel because I live above my circumstances.’
