by Gavin Chait
Too much change, too fast. We do not wish to attract attention. We must keep a balance between our ambitions and the waning power of the militias.
The river is wide and deep. Trees form a dense wall along the bank. An occasional cleft, where a giant has fallen and smashed a brief opening in the canopy, exposes plants battling for light and space. There are still ancient rubber trees and oil palms from the plantations that covered most of Nigeria, but these are being gradually displaced.
He wonders how long before the forest frontier that the string of villages along the Akwayafe has put in motion will reach the cities. It should touch the outskirts of Calabar in only a few years. How will they respond? Will they even notice? So few people leave the cities to brave the wilderness.
He ducks round a tree trunk floating in the middle, its branches splayed out and trapping leaves and other debris caught in the water. He still has not seen Samara. No doubt he is swimming faster than him anyway, but he wonders how it is possible to hold his breath for so long.
He needs to be careful as he approaches this end of the village. The turbine is at the bottom of the river, and there are nets and shields to channel anything that may clog it – like that tree – but he has no wish to become trapped himself.
He swims back across towards the bank and spots the orange buoys marking the approach. A line of smaller white buoys lines the channel he needs to take, and he slips rapidly by.
Past the turbine are a series of small floating platforms consisting of fine-net cages. These are the hatcheries where they protect the various fish stocks before release. Much further downstream, just past the town, are fish traps designed to catch full-sized catfish and tilapia.
Soon he comes to the jetty, where he grabs on to the edge of the floating platform below the concrete landing. Dragging himself out of the water he looks around for Samara.
A group of children, usually twenty to thirty, would normally be here after school, jumping off the landing in an exuberance of ever-more elaborate dives. Today they are sitting rapt on the bank, in the shade of a kola tree, listening to Samara as he tells a story.
Samara’s tale
Wall of Souls
The village supporting the School is set up on a forested hill sloping down to a beautiful lake.
Children play and the village is quietly prosperous, for many come to visit as pilgrims or as students for the School.
Behind the village is a plain. Dominating the stony, mossy ground of that plain is the amber treacle light of the Wall of Souls. Within, the anguished, tortured faces of the dead. Souls drifting in random mobs, rows, singly – haunting and haunted.
The School is run by the weak, by the cowardly. Men and women who trained to run the Wall of Souls but never conquered their fears, never made more than passing forays into the amber. How could it be any different? For – one way or another – none who run the amber ever come back.
Through the wall is the promised land. Perhaps there is a School there, refining the most perfect candidates ever further. Perhaps there is a perfect world. No one knows. None return.
While the children train, learning what is known of the amber – its wiles, its terrors – the Wooden Spoon Samurai merely sits under a tree and watches the Wall of Souls.
It is a clear day: the Festival of Colours. The School is open to visitors and a market grows up before the Wall. Today is the final exam, when graduates will run the amber.
Younger students run short sorties into the amber, laughing. None will go more than a few body-lengths into the wall. It cannot distract the Souls from the real runners; there are just too many. No one knows how many, how thick the wall, how far the run.
One laughing boy runs in. As has been taught for hundreds of years, on the interpulse he runs for clear space, and on the pulse – when everything slows to glacial and terrifying frozen motion – he turns towards the ghosts so that, on the next interpulse, he will be thrust through them. Too slow. He is caught. The ghosts tear his soul from him. He gives one anguished look back at his friends, his life, then he joins the Wall of Souls.
The Wooden Spoon Samurai has been watching. He understands, and he will break orthodoxy. He does not ask. He does not wait. Even as the festival-goers mourn the death, he makes his run into the amber.
It is a no-light, no-warmth, no-cold, no-sound, no-smell, no-space inside the amber. In his head, the pulse. On the interpulse, the Wooden Spoon Samurai runs towards the ghosts. On the pulse, as the ghosts swipe at him – their fingers brushing against his clothes – he turns away, to open space.
He runs for hours in the no-space of the amber. Twisting, turning: towards and away. They reach for him, the Wall of Souls, but they do not touch him.
And then he is through.
Beyond is a plain. Barren, stony, covered in lichen and moss. There is no School. There is no promise. The horizon is unbroken. The air is still and cold.
He finds one old man still wearing the scarf of a graduate. He has been here many years, he says. There is nothing here. If you walk for a month, you will come to a cold, black, flat ocean. There could be fish in it, but he has no way of knowing. Neither is there any way of building a boat. He survives on lichen and moss.
There were others, braver than he, who tried to run back. To warn the others not to come, but – by the Samurai’s presence – he must assume they all failed. ‘Warn them,’ he says, ‘and take my scarf as a sign for any who would remember me.’
The Wooden Spoon Samurai does not hesitate. He does not flinch. He turns and enters the amber.
It is cold, dark, inside the amber. The ghosts are larger, faster.
He runs, turning towards and away. Then he is confronted by a ghost the size of a world. He looks up, stares at it. Then he turns away and towards.
He is through.
There is no point in talking to the adults. They are the weak and the cowards. The ones who were too scared to make the run and who are invested in the tradition of the School, hundreds of years in the making. He starts with the young.
He shows them the scarf. He tells them of the barren plain. There is no promise, there is no hope, only the land of the dead. They listen; they follow him. They convince their parents. They overwhelm the School. The School falls.
Now the village has a new purpose. They protect; they inform. The Wall of Souls is still there, but none run the amber. ‘Look if you must, mourn the dead, then go. Live your life. For we are already in the promise.’
And the Wooden Spoon Samurai? Why, that is part of legend.
11
‘– and now he is running around with the others and they all want wooden spoons!’ Esther has the part-exasperated, part-mystified voice of a parent whose child has reached an age where running around shouting and hitting things with sticks is a very cool thing.
Joshua laughs helplessly. Daniel, shaking his head and laughing, says, ‘My girls, too. All of them want to be samurai. They do not even know what samurai are!’
‘And,’ he giggles, ‘Nolue, at the university, told me yesterday she had to stop a group of youngsters jumping off the edge of the cliff into the river using bed-sheets as parachutes.’
‘Where was this?’ asks Joshua, horrified.
‘At the low end, near the jetty,’ says Daniel, still laughing.
Esther sighs, realizes the lunacy of the situation and laughs as well. Then she motions at Joshua. ‘This was your idea. I said we should sell him to the militia.’ But she is teasing.
They are sitting around the great kitchen table drinking tea. It is early evening. Time between responsibilities; the children are still out playing and it is too early to start cooking.
‘I am just worried about this. He tells stories to the children. Is not that the lesson of that strange tale? Tell the children and they change their parents? How many stories now? Every time I go to the university, someone wants to tell me a new one.’
Daniel nods and puts his mug down. ‘There is something in that, yet t
he stories are moving. I do not feel threatened by them. What do they teach? Do not throw your life away. Dedicate yourself to a noble calling. Honour others. We have been so concerned with building a self-sufficient society that we have lost some of our other gifts.’
‘Music?’ says Esther; her eyes are the dawn. ‘Yes. I miss music. We wait each year for the Balladeer and everyone loves him, but we do not play his songs after he goes, and we do not create new ones.’
‘We cook,’ says Joshua. ‘We have some of the finest cooks anywhere. Our designers have produced wonderful flavours in our produce and we all cook. Is not that our craft?’
‘And we design clothes, and buildings and tools. We play football against the other villages and we tell each other the stories of our forefathers. But these are all practical things,’ says Daniel.
‘Well,’ asks Joshua, ‘what is so wrong with our stories?’
Daniel grins wickedly, ‘You mean the ones that always start: “There was once a—”’
‘No, wait, let me tell it,’ interrupts Esther. ‘There was once a hunter named—’
‘Udaw Eka Ete,’ hoots Daniel, trying not to laugh.
Esther nods, very serious, ‘Udaw Eka Ete. One day he went to a Juju place and shot a monkey, after which he lay in wait for other prey, though none came. Just before sundown he set out for home, and, as he went through the sacred bush, he heard a voice calling him by name and saying, “Come back no more, for you have slain a beast that sought shelter in my sanctuary.” Astonished, the hunter tried to discover who spoke with him, yet for all his searching could find no one.’
Joshua is shaking his head and covering his face with his hands. Daniel is mock comforting him.
‘That evening, fever seized the evil-doer, whereon he sent for the Idiong priest to learn the cause of the sickness. The latter consulted the oracle and made answer: “Today you killed a monkey in the sacred bush, and the Juju has sent the illness in punishment for your misdeeds and as warning never again to transgress.”’
‘When –’ Esther has forgotten the name of her villain.
‘Udaw Eka Ete,’ chorus Daniel and Joshua, clinking tea mugs, Joshua still shaking his head and looking terribly disappointed.
‘When Udaw Eka Ete grew well once more, he avoided the forbidden place for a while but one day returned and set a trap there. Next morning he went to look, and found a great python caught within. This he killed and ate, not caring for the words of the Juju.
‘At evening time, he fell sick once more and again sent for the Idiong man to ask what he must do in order to recover, but the priest answered, “The Juju forbade you to kill any of the creatures who have sought refuge beneath his protection, yet you disobeyed. There is therefore nothing to be done. The Juju will kill you.” So the man died.’
Joshua puts up his hands in surrender. ‘Very well, I admit defeat. Our stories are superstition and rules about obeying mysterious orders. I know. I even tell those sorts of stories to Isaiah. Our stories are about duty. Samara’s stories are different. So many things. I agree. But what are they for?’
‘I remember an ancient quote. Something about all art being quite useless?’ says Esther. ‘We teach our children only the practical. The useful. Our houses are unadorned. We lack –’ she searches for a word, ‘– whimsy.’
‘He is very whimsical. All his emotions are close to the surface. He cries, he laughs. He is like a great child,’ says Daniel.
‘Is that why he has –’ Esther blushes, laughs, ‘– you know, no sex?’
‘No, he says it is recessed inside a protective pouch. He has a military function, and he says it is safer that way,’ says Joshua. He shrugs.
‘And his ears?’ she asks.
‘He will not say, but we can guess. I believe that the antennae are implanted in their ears and that his were cut off when he was captured so that he would not be able to call for help. Then he healed and regrew his ears, but he could not regrow the antennae.’
‘That makes sense. So, almost a child, and a potentially dangerous soldier, too,’ says Daniel, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
‘How so?’ asks Joshua.
‘Well, you know he does not sleep?’
They nod. Since his recovery after the Ekpe he has not passed out or slept. He spends his time in the jungle during the night. He does not stray far, and many people have returned with strange stories of his doings.
‘Last night, I went out after dinner to meet with one of the scouts who was going out on patrol in the north quarter. He wanted to know if we should keep the sentinels out around the crash and meteorite sites. I said, yes, for a few more weeks. We were talking and I see the old walnut tree, the one with the long branch—’
‘About five metres up? I tried climbing that as a child. I think everyone does,’ says Joshua.
‘He was doing a type of dance on it. Moving slowly through a set of routines. I realized it was a series of defensive and offensive movements. Very slowly, often balancing only on one foot, dropping suddenly, raising his leg straight above his head. The branch did not move. It was as if he was feeling the tree, able to control himself against the motion of the branch.’
Esther collects the mugs and rinses them in the sink. They are not dirty enough to put in the dishwasher, and they will use them again later. ‘Will Hannah and the girls join us for dinner?’ she asks.
Daniel nods and then continues, ‘We watched for a while. It was quite beautiful. Then he dropped off the branch and landed on the ground, like a cat. His whole body absorbing the shock. Five metres, and he landed without a sound. He runs faster than us, without tiring. He held his breath for seven kilometres when he swam with you.’
Daniel raises his eyebrows, his face half pointed at the table. ‘He may not be dangerous to us, but he is dangerous.’
‘What is he doing now?’ asks Esther.
‘He is in the market talking to Dala Oluigbo. They are discussing the design he wants for the boat. She has the biggest printer and he wants a five-metre boat,’ says Joshua.
Samara has been collecting the components he needs for his boat in a storeroom near the market, including the aluminium remains of the gimbals from the escape pod.
‘You also took him to meet with Gideon this morning? I take it the negotiations went well?’ asks Daniel.
It has not escaped anyone’s notice that building and equipping this craft will be expensive. The battery alone will cost most of the village’s savings. That money was to go to the type of large-scale, multi-material, high-precision fabricator that could print such large batteries.
‘Gideon and I were quite careful. Their money would not be of use to us. He also is aware of the things we most want to assure our complete independence from Calabar.’
Esther gasps and grins as she realizes. ‘He will give us a metal fabricator!’
‘Yes, he will give us a metal fabricator. A four-metre one.’ Joshua is grinning broadly.
Daniel is delighted. ‘That is wonderful,’ clapping Joshua on the back and giving Esther a hug that lifts her off the ground.
‘Why did you not tell us?’ she asks.
‘I am telling you,’ Joshua says. ‘That is not all. He will give us one of the latest sphere. He says that the new ones have a much greater range. In fact, he will give them to all the free villages. They are almost like a connect and will allow us to maintain contact with each other. We will not be so isolated.’
‘How does he afford that? Sphere must be expensive even for his people.’
‘His grandfather is the inventor and can produce more for us. They print them. It is difficult always to understand the things he says. Their culture is so alien. Members of the Nine are not paid. They serve for twenty-five years, and it is an honour to be selected, but they must have independent wealth to support themselves during their term.’
Esther is starting to cut vegetables for dinner. Joshua rises, inspects the cupboards and pulls out pots for cooking. The wooden spoons, unsurp
risingly, are missing. He shakes his head, smiling, and finds a spatula instead.
‘After his father died, he inherited the licences from the stories. There are thousands of stories, and every time people tell or retell them, there is some voluntary way for people to make small payments automatically. His wife is very wealthy, as are his mother and grandfather.’
Joshua touches Esther’s shoulders, kisses her on the back of the head. She turns, as she is cutting, risking injury, and smiles at him. He is silent for a few moments, Daniel and Esther waiting for him to finish.
‘Samara says, “Life is long, but love is the most powerful and fragile thing in the universe. I have time to make more money, but there is never enough time to share my gratitude for the people I care about.”’
12
‘Tell them,’ says Joshua.
It is morning of the fourth day, and they are at the university. The long, double-storey building is on the western edge of the village. Its great windows look out from the cliff, down to the wide river and out towards the ocean. On a clear day you can see distant columns of smoke out at sea from oil fires started half a century ago.
More than three thousand children attend here. There are no formal lessons, and every child, from the age of five through to twenty-five, is expected to learn. There are laboratories and workshops distributed throughout the building, with most of the space open and given over to soft chairs or chalkboards and informal meeting places.
Children are provided with slate computers all linked to the sphere in the road between the university and the apex of the market. They learn at their own pace, set their own lessons, work on their own interests. Professors are there to guide, and anyone who feels they are able may set up a new research group. The designers are only across Ekpe Road, and there is a continuous interaction between the businesses and the students, keeping them in harmony with the needs of the village.
