The Gurugu Pledge

by Juan Tomas Avila Laurel

  ‘Ah, but he was very trusting of his neighbours.’

  ‘Or very scornful of them.’

  ‘Scornful? Why scornful, eh?’

  ‘Because he actually didn’t care that people saw him handling everyone else’s money, licking his fingers and then eating.’

  ‘So why not just come right out and call him a dirty pig, eh?’

  ‘Let me finish the story, we’ll do the press conference afterwards,’ said Alex. ‘So, I was just a poor neighbour of that wealthy man, but his behaviour caught my attention, and having heard what brother Darb said about there being a little girl in that house who could turn herself into a woman, I’m now convinced that what they used to say about that man was true. Brother Darb, would you say that man might have been a foreigner?’

  ‘He could have been. I didn’t see him often enough to say one way or the other.’

  ‘Ah, this one never bought things in the grocer’s so as not to run into his girlfriend,’ someone else said, laughing.

  ‘I rarely shopped there, it’s true, but that’s because I did my shopping before I got home.’

  ‘It’s very strange that we never met before, brother Darb,’ said Alex, ‘because I also cleaned animal hides for a while, for the man who ate money in fact.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said another voice. ‘You’re actually saying the owner of the grocery store was the same man who gave out work down by the river?’

  ‘You’re right!’ said Darb. ‘He was.’

  ‘Well, after you’ve finished this story you’d better give us some convincing reasons as to why you two actually never met, when not only were you neighbours but colleagues besides.’

  ‘Me, I know why,’ someone else said. ‘It’s obvious, Darb did the job in his underpants, because he didn’t want the little fish pecking him on the … Are the women asleep? But Alex did the job totally nude. And so now comes the real story, because why did some men do the job nude and others do it wearing their underpants?’

  ‘Yes, why was that?’ asked someone else.

  ‘Maybe Peter Darb didn’t have the same measurements as Alex Babangida!’

  ‘The same measurements of what?’

  ‘Not everyone is brave enough to reveal their secrets, oh!’ the man said with a guffaw. ‘But no, what I truly mean is that those who worked in their underpants probably didn’t look at those who were naked, or maybe they all worked so hard they looked only at the animal skins, and that is why they didn’t recognise each another in the neighbourhood. What do the protagonists themselves say?’

  ‘I say you’re all very funny,’ Alex laughed. ‘But you’re also helping to remind me of things I’d forgotten about from back then, so let me go on: there was the man who ate money, a man who thought nothing of putting his hands in his mouth after he’d handled those banknotes and coins.’

  ‘But maybe this only actually happened the one or two times you saw it.’

  ‘Why do you say that, eh?’

  ‘Well, according to what you said, that man was wealthy, he wouldn’t have been out looking for work all day, so actually he’d have eaten before you. You went there to buy things to eat or cook, and you’d have been doing so an hour or so after he’d already eaten.’

  ‘Well, I don’t really think that’s it, although it may well be true that we ate, or I ate, I don’t know about brother Darb, after that man had already eaten. But that wasn’t what I found strange about him, it was that he didn’t care about the dirtiness of the money.’

  ‘What makes a man rich cannot be bad for him!’ exclaimed someone, prompting more laughter.

  ‘I’m glad I’ve brought a little cheer to the residence tonight, but it didn’t seem funny to me at the time. Let me explain: from what was said about that man, he was a foreigner and he liked to emphasise his foreignness. Indeed I now recall that he used to pay us in euros.’

  ‘In euros?’

  ‘Yes, in euros. Did he not pay you for cleaning the hides in euros, brother Darb?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Well, I do, and if I’m here now, it’s because of the two or three euros I earned cleaning those hides, maybe it was a sign. Anyway, I was told he was a foreigner and that he used to be high up in Idi Amin’s regime.’

  ‘Amin Dada the dictator?’ someone asked with furrowed brow.

  ‘The very same,’ said Alex.

  ‘Goodness, and then after Amin he worked for the Nigerian dictatorship, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but believe me, I’ve got nothing to do with Babangida the dictator, we have the same name, but that’s just a coincidence. So anyway, that man was high up in Amin’s regime, and when Milton Obote went after Amin, for it’s more likely that’s what happened than the other way round, Amin’s allies took off, and that’s how that foreign man ended up in our quata. They say he escaped with a lot of money and weapons taken from the regime he’d served.’

  ‘So he paid you in euros stolen from the Ugandan treasury?’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘Why impossible, eh?’

  ‘Because euros didn’t even exist back then! Or if one or two did, Amin certainly wouldn’t have had any.’

  ‘Let me finish the story, although I’d like to make it quite clear that he may have been rich, but he paid us a pittance. Anyway, what they said about that man was this: he served Amin, perpetrating countless atrocities, which is why he knew Amin’s hiding places and was able to escape when his boss made a run for it. He crossed borders at will, greasing palms until he reached Nigeria, where he stopped and set up camp in Yankari Park. Using all the influence he’d accumulated under the dictator, he managed two things: firstly, he made sure nothing bad was ever traced to him; secondly, he got a job as a Yankari Park warden. That didn’t happen right away, it took him some time, but as everyone knows, if you can grease the palms of the decision-makers, you’ll get what you want eventually. So, he settled down in the nature park and as he’d arrived armed to the hilt, he soon came to rule over the area.’

  ‘Do you mean to tell us he controlled the park using his personal arsenal?’

  ‘I don’t mean to tell you anything, but I was told he worked there, and I was also told that he was powerful enough to decide what went on in the areas under his jurisdiction as a park warden, even that he may have overstepped the boundaries sometimes.’

  ‘What about the euros, eh? What about the hides?’

  ‘Wait and let me finish the story. As park warden, that man who’d fled Kampala had the authority to shoot down any animal and do as he pleased with the meat and hides. Quite literally as he pleased, because it’s said he was a tremendous glutton, something he’d learned from his boss, Amin, who ate everything, and ate for two or three.’

  ‘OK, so he was a glutton and he ate the meat of the animals in that park, there’s nothing so very strange about that. What about the euros, eh?’

  ‘I’m coming to that. It’s said he converted his section of the park into private property and began to organise clandestine hunting safaris. The people who took part in these secret safaris paid him in euros, which is why he had euros to pay us for cleaning the hides, though like I said, he didn’t pay us many of them.’

  ‘You have spoken well, brother, now it makes sense! Now finally we believe you, and what a great man he was, no? He’s a foreigner, he drives to a new country in a 4x4 packed with weapons, his pockets and suitcases stuffed full of stolen money; he greases the palms of those in power, secures a section of Yankari Park for himself and basically becomes lord of the manor. He hunts animals and, having come from a regime of renowned gluttons, he swells his belly and exploits a few fellows cleaning hides, no? Was there any meat to buy in your neighbourhood?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Darb.

  ‘There might have been at the store, the house shop I mean, but I never asked,’ said Alex.

  ‘Well, he was a great man all right. See how an African big man gets rich? He organises illegal hunts, t
he whites pay him vast quantities of euros and he tosses a few crumbs to anyone prepared to clean the skins from his bounty, no? He probably even used the same weapons he’d commandeered in his own country to shoot the animals with. What a great man, no?’

  ‘Great indeed,’ said a man who was propped up against the residence wall. ‘I ask your kind permission to act as griot, a calling I apparently inherited from my father before I had to leave him and my home because there was nothing to eat. I will tell of that another day, and I also ask that you ignore the fact that I cannot stand up straight, for that too is another story. I, son of Manfu, son of Bayadé, son of Cumyor, son of Manfaré, hailing from the south-west and the north-east, will now perform the story of a great African’s downfall, an African who was a colonel major under Chief Amin. Amin became exceedingly powerful, so powerful he even humiliated the Queen of England, expelled the shameless Hindu usurers and was hoisted upon shoulders like the King of Kings he was and always would be. But he erred and his errors were seized upon by his envious enemies and his mighty entourage of lieutenant generals and colonel majors was disbanded, vrum!, trat, trat, craak!, bum!, Tac tac tac tac creek! Several days passed and then, Hallo, I am a Ugandan colonel major and I am venturing abroad, because the houses are on fire down there and enemies are on my trail. Here’s a little something for the weekend, for I know times are hard. And then flip flip flip, the dollars leap from his pocket and land in the pockets of the guards at the border crossing. Then waaaaaa! Everything goes calm, nobody saw a thing, Please pass, Sir, go in peace, Good morning, Sir, and Welcome. Then craak! He halted his 4x4 and he put his luggage down and because he was rich and knew his country’s secrets, he showed off his potent weaponry and those who ruled the roost in his new habitat were quickly persuaded of his tremendous power and might. Hey, colonel, nice weaponry, you be in charge of this area and look after the animals. But watch out for the whites, they love stealing ivory. Really? Yes, really, they’re crazy about it. Right, at your orders, I’ll keep my eyes peeled. He kept them peeled, peeled as wide as the sky itself, until he could see for miles around. He saw everything, as if he were the all-seeing eye, and into that beady great eye came elephants, rhinoceros, antelopes and any other beast within his reach. As you know, he was armed to the teeth, and he had bountiful ammunition, so no one could constrain him. He settled comfortably into his new position, his new house, his new wife, his new children, and he sat down at his new table and flop flop flop, he filled his belly with zebras, rhinoceros, elephants, crocodiles, antelopes and rats. He made people humbly call him Sir and he ate absolutely everything, just like Amin had done, until he grew to be eight feet tall, eight feet of courage and might. Sir’s stomach grew into a giant globe and if your nose went anywhere near that enormous belly it got a potent whiff of all the kilos of meat he’d eaten, practically without sharing any of it with anybody. His neighbours didn’t even know he had thousands of kilos of meat at his personal disposal every single day. Very few people had the good fortune to ever see that magnificent belly, bulging beneath his foreign tits. Did you have the good fortune, brother Darb?’

  ‘No, brother, I did not,’ said Darb trying not to laugh.

  ‘And what about you, brother Alex, did you get to see your neighbour’s magnificent belly?’ the griot asked.

  ‘I can’t imagine how I could have, no.’

  ‘Well, if you’d peered under the table you’d have seen his shiny round stomach packed tight with crocodile meat, although nobody ever knew for sure whether there even were crocodiles in Yankari Park, and so, I want to buy some salt please mister, OK, give me 50 in notes, you hand it over, flip, Here’s your change, and off you go on your way and then you look under the table and you see the stomach, bulbous and magnificent, glinting from the giant turtle he’s just devoured, and all that meat made Sir strong, and all those illicit hunts left him with mountains of hides, so many that piled high one on top of the other they were nine feet tall and comprised a huge variety of animal species. With all those skins, and with Amin’s madness swelling his head, because he’d been a loyal servant to Amin, he ordered hundreds of drums made and he formed a great army of drummers that pom pom pom, bum, pom porom pom pom, bum marched from the park through the jungle and all the way to Victoria Falls, where—’

  ‘Stop!’ someone cried.

  ‘What? What’s with the interruption?’

  ‘I see where you’re going with this, friend. Why do African stories always have to have unhappy endings?’ that someone persisted.

  ‘Who told you how the story ends? For all you know they might all live happily ever after,’ said the griot, the man who claimed to be Manfu’s son.

  ‘Hundreds of drummers march out of the jungle and reach Victoria Falls … It’s hardly going to end well, is it? I mean, given “Sir” and his backstory, the poor drummers don’t really stand a chance.’

  ‘Are you trying to finish off my story for me, brother? Because now I’m confused, are you a griot? Was your father a griot?’

  ‘How about we finish it off together?’

  ‘I just didn’t realise your father was a storyteller, that’s all. And if he was, why have you kept so quiet until now?’

  ‘Why do you say “my father”? Could my uncle or grandfather not have been a storyteller, or even still be one? Could it not simply be me who’s the storyteller? Is it customary in your culture to speak of someone else’s father when you’ve never met them?’

  ‘No, it is not. I didn’t mean any offence, brother, I was just taken aback by the way you interrupted me. May I go on telling the story?’

  ‘Yes, brother, finish off the story,’ someone else said.

  ‘Of course, friend, finish your story,’ the interrupter added. ‘But let me share with you a saying from my village: Don’t rush to judge the quality of another man’s teeth, for he may end up with your whole mouth.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean, eh?’

  ‘That maybe you’re talking to the only person here who can make sure your story, and the stories of your fellow residents, will cross this sea and be told on the other shore.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll shut up and continue only if expressly asked to do so,’ the griot said, clasping his hands together as if asking to be forgiven.

  ‘I’ve given you my blessing, friend, please finish your story.’

  ‘OK, I will continue, but let’s light a candle first. In my tradition, a story should not come to an end in the dark.’

  ‘I don’t know if there are any matches left. We shouldn’t have let the fire go out, we’ve become slack, the story really ought to end before a roaring fire, no?’

  ‘We didn’t have much firewood, we were too tired to gather more. And if we’ve become slack, it’s because these stories have helped us to relax,’ someone said.

  ‘I will be bold,’ the griot said, ‘and finish the story anyway, the story as conceived in Sir General Amin’s head. Dressed in their uniformed finery and banging their thousands of drums, the soldiers approached Victoria—’

  ‘Wait, wait,’ that someone with the saying said, interrupting again. ‘Wouldn’t it be more fitting if Sir’s army met its demise at the source of the River Nile? I say this because General Amin was from Uganda, a country that’s no stranger to waterfalls. Each to their own and a logical conclusion, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘May everyone here be witness to the fact that this brother is saying I don’t know the geography of my own continent.’

  ‘Your own continent? Well, that’s something we might discuss another time, friend. But for now, please carry on, I just thought it would have been appropriate for the story to come full circle.’

  ‘If this story were yours, you’d be free to end it according to your own science. But it’s not, and besides, you’ll surely agree that the mad magnitude of the man with nine feet of animal hides is best conveyed if the story matches his greatness, so I’ll carry on. That man ate all kinds of meat imaginable, his stomach grew huge
and round, though you couldn’t see it, you couldn’t tell he had such a pronounced and prominent belly. He hunted so endlessly that he managed to accumulate nine feet of animal hides and he built hundreds of drums from their skins and he formed an army with dozens, nay, hundreds of drummers. When his land called out to him, and because the madness in his head had started pouring out of his ears, he ordered his army to march to wherever his grease-addled brain commanded, and so they reached the Victoria Falls of the River Zambezi, and without so much as stripping down, they jumped off, every last one of them, drums and uniformed finery and all. But before they were swallowed by the waters below, three hundred feet down, every African story ever told was preserved for posterity in the rumble and echo of their drums, and that’s how the story of the crocodile-devouring glutton ends.’

  ‘Bravo!’ someone said, frantically applauding.

  ‘Bravo indeed,’ another person said.

  ‘This one is a fine griot, oh,’ said someone else.

  ‌

  ‌III

  The candle was put out for the night. Alex Babangida, Peter Darb, the griot, Peter Ngambo and all the other inhabitants of the residence covered up their heads, one eye poking out from underneath their blankets. That they had blankets at all was only thanks to the efficient efforts of a charity based in a village in the foothills of the mountain, a village that was in fact more of a town, and which flew the Spanish flag, although it was in Morocco.

  Before their dreams could fly them to promised lands, their minds drifted back to the thunder of the drums and the men marching in Amin’s underling’s army. They’d launched themselves into the void, leaping out over a waterfall and into a river that would take them to the sea, the back door to cherished Europe. Or not even the back door, more like a back yard on the other side of the street, facing away from Europe, meaning their bodies would be buried in accordance with Mother Africa’s customs, if indeed their bodies were ever found. Anyone looking for metaphors and paradoxes would be able to open their books and say: Ah, yes, they were heading north, but the Zambezi brought them here, strapped to hundreds of drums made for a glutton escaping prison, a prison built on the orders of his master but intended for others, thousands of others who’d thought themselves his compatriots. Because Amin, it’s worth reiterating, ate for three, indeed he was even so bold as to vouch for the taste of his enemies’ flesh, and he fornicated until his lust was utterly satiated, robbing pretty young maidens of their virginities and leaving them with nothing but their own misfortune to lament. Girls from the city of Jinja were brought in droves to the nine-foot ogre’s bed, and the English gentlemen who witnessed these acts of outrageous barbarity believed them to be African customs. They believed that it was African to shoot dissidents, that it was inherently African to stick a rod up a political prisoner’s backside and leave him to die a slow and painful death, indeed so desperate were they to believe these African things that they thought nothing of bowing their heads to allow the poles of the indomitable Conqueror of the British Empire’s throne to rest upon their shoulders. Yes, they carried him aloft, thus giving credence to his claims of having triumphed over his enemies, the evil forces that wished him ill. Amin and his full nine feet, which in reality were but six and a few inches, thus ushered in an era in which African civilians were obliged to leave their homelands and go and live elsewhere.