Doing Dangerously Well

by Carole Enahoro

  The sky began to spit rain again.

  Each community, regardless of its size, knew when a stranger was in its midst. Femi could hear the trails of conversation as he walked through the crowds.

  “Who be this man wey jus’ land yesterday? Ibrahim’s cousin?”

  “No, no. He left two week ago. In taxi which forget door.”

  “Enh! He no even stop for Usman place? He jus’ waka pass. This yeye man!”

  “He put leg for road by five this morning. I myself saw him. With my own eyes.”

  “Five? Ah-ah! Does he know who he is?”

  As Femi strolled through the shantytown, he spotted a man pointing at him in the distance. Within seconds, the army and TransAqua security appeared, firing shots indiscriminately. Femi ducked behind a shack. In his haste, he slipped in the mud, tripping into a sewage ditch. He fell on his shoulder in the human waste. The stench almost blinded him. He leapt up involuntarily, in horror of the bacteria and disease the excrement must certainly contain.

  A blow on his shoulder thrust him to his knees. He jerked his head up to find five men, faces covered in black cloth masks, brandishing rifles, screwdrivers and machetes. They yanked him up and away, scraping his knees raw. They all wore red strips of cloth around their right wrists. These were “area boys”—unemployed youth—the local mafia that rules every town, more ruthless than TransAqua security and less accountable than the army. He decided to put up no resistance. They shoved him into a concrete hut and forced him to the floor.

  A tall man with an SMG, two belts of bullets crossing his chest and a kerchief around his mouth approached. With the slit of light offered by a tiny window, his bloodshot eyes were easily visible, even in the dust of the shelter.

  “Jegede?” he snapped.

  Femi did not answer.

  A young area boy showing early signs of illness-thin, blistered and suffering from some respiratory distress-whipped a cloth into Femi’s face.

  The leader kicked the boy. “Jegede! The million-dollar man!”

  Femi wanted the man to understand that the pride in those reddened eyes, a pride based on the creation of fear, was in this instance useless. What others feared, he welcomed. So he smiled. And in smiling, he began to laugh, small snickers that brought tears to his eyes. A person can consider life a tragedy or a comedy, he thought, but both were rooted in the absurd. Femi wished to greet dying-the most perverse transition of all-with the disrespect it deserved. He folded his arms to observe his own death in peace.

  “Don’t worry,” the leader said. “The area boys are behind you. We are here to protect you.”

  Femi searched the faces of the young men in utter disbelief, finding no clues to their loyalty to him or to any cause except their own survival. Then, as he shifted his gaze, he noticed a small shrine, typically erected to honour ancestors, in the corner of the room. In this case, all the objects and offerings surrounded a newspaper clipping of his face.

  His father’s chauffeur drove Beano through the embassy gates. As he surveyed the vast compound-shipshape, sober, as symmetrical as a French garden, featuring a huge concrete edifice of severe angles-his skin prickled with pride. The unforgiving minimalism suited his father’s militaristic style.

  For once, the ambassador beamed on greeting his son. “Beano! Great to see you!”

  “Hey, Dad! Been working out?”

  “Gotta keep my sanity, son. Things fall apart over here. I don’t plan to.”

  They entered a room of monumental proportions. “Wow!” Beano gaped around. “How many toilets in this place, Dad?” Before his father had time to blast a reply, he winked. “So, any news?”

  “If I have to meet with that writhing snake Kolo one more time …” His face grew red, and the colour spread over his scalp. “Pompous, slippery, conceited asshole. Bottom line, I gotta call off all coverage of Jegede. At least, unless it paints him as a terrorist.”

  Beano studied his sneakers. Then the ceiling. “Okay. No problem. I’ll get the local press in Nigeria to pump Jegede up, instead of the US press.” He remembered the delicate ego. “What am I talking about? Jegede will probably get too popular for Major General Wosu to deal with when he gets into power.”

  Now an audible sigh. “No, son, no. Then we start the negative spin. Terrorism, killing, that kinda thing.”

  “Whoa. That’s what I call creative, Dad. Think I should meet this guy Wosu?”

  His Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America dropped his gaze down to the tongues of his son’s trainers. “Nah. It’s all in the timing. Don’t want to be accused of conflict of interest. Wait till he’s president first.”

  “I wish I had your kind of, you know, like, expertise.”

  “Don’t you worry, son. Just focus on the press for now. I’ll get you some names. I know ’em all.”

  “You do? Jeez, Dad!” Beano took an elastic band out of his pocket.

  “Don’t forget radio for the rural areas.”

  “Radio? Really?” He tied his hair into a ponytail. He did not hear a sigh, but he saw it in his father’s face. It had its effect.

  “It’ll—hell, let me do all this.”

  “You? But, Dad …”

  “No, no. You’ll just bungle it. I know what I’m doing.” He scratched his crewcut. “I’ll just get someone onto it. Jegede’s profile’ll be so high over here, the international press won’t dare touch him.”

  “Really? You reckon it’ll work?” Beano produced the dimples.

  Femi returned to Jos by bus, surrounded by area boys. The air smelled of small things that inhabit the natural realm, tiny creations that nonetheless emit a powerful fragrance. He could not identify the odour, but it reminded him of peace. While searching a pocket, he found a piece of paper with Barbara’s illegible rounded letters. He shuddered, remembering her in her African finery, spouting proverbs. He read the scrawl.

  The rivers and seas lead the hundred streams

  Because they are skillful at staying low.

  Therefore, to rise above people

  One must, in speaking, stay below them.

  To remain in front of people,

  One must put oneself behind them.

  —Lao Tzu

  Regardless of pressure from the foreign press, the people of Nigeria began to doubt the safety of the structures that governed the water’s flow. And despite the growing epidemic of waterborne illness, despite the thousands of citizens who lay dying or blinded by it, the people came to begrudge any attempt to sell their water, even to those who pledged to purify it.

  For the first time in the nation’s history, the white desert sands of the north joined with the red, heavy soil of the south, the mountains of the east protected the harbours of the west. All was as one—from the nation’s newest cities to its oldest kingdoms, from minarets of shining mosques to crosses on tin-topped shacks, from proud nomads on their camels to powerful chiefs on their thrones. The divisions that had wrenched the country apart throughout its tumultuous history no longer existed. The mighty Niger River and its raging waters had connected them all.

  Femi’s group grew bolder with each step, gathering momentum, drawing thousands of people to their cause, people of differing tongues, people whose loyalties had shifted from homeland to nation. Water knows no tongue, no village, no religion, no race, no nation group, no boundaries; it flows past these, flows through them, uniting them all.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Dirty Hands

  More members joined Femi’s group, some strong and resolute, others brought to safe harbour by friends. Those afflicted with mental illness were placed in an ever-expanding village on the outskirts of Jos, circular huts of mud, wattle and stone that opened out onto enclosed courtyards. People arrived traumatized, pilgrims in mourning, angry, defeated or crying. Relatives climbed up the plateau, bringing the ailing and unhinged, exhausted living remains of once robust spirits, looking for care and a reason for their existence.

  Here, Femi hoped the rolling
hillocks, tumbling to greet them, would bring them peace. Undulating breezes could caress their faces, each wave as caring as the last. In response, those lost in other worlds would mutter, or scream, or pace on bleeding feet, as if they could hear nature’s song.

  In addition to this great number, a greater number still: the dispossessed, the enraged, the impoverished-eager for insurrection.

  For Femi’s safety, Igwe ensured that he lived some distance away, concealed within a rise of boulders. Here Ubaldous also lived, spending the day circling around a blood red plane tree, arguing with unseen enemies.

  The most ardent revolutionaries always managed to find Femi’s hidden shelter. Among these were three newcomers, all in good health and prepared for action: Ekong, a bundle of ferocity and rage whose name, by fluke, meant War; Yussef the Ugly, whom Femi simply called “Yu”; and the charismatic Lance, with his movie star looks. Everyone knew Lance could not have been born with such a name, but they indulged him anyway.

  The trio built makeshift shelters outside Femi’s dwelling and offered to assist him as he prepared to visit TransAqua’s construction headquarters.

  All was calm. The entire arc of sky was flour-dusted with stars, on a cloudless and dazzling marine blue night. Inside his darkened hut, Femi squatted down naked and bathed, splashing water over his body with a small gourd. Drops of water tingled as they trickled down his back into a bucket. He felt Igwe’s eyes on him, concealed behind dark glasses, as he dried himself and as he dressed in his ragged clothing.

  Once Femi had finished, Igwe opened the newspaper and struggled to read in the flicker of the kerosene lamp. Femi tiptoed over to his friend, crouched down facing him and tenderly pulled the paper down. Igwe smiled—a sweet, accepting grin.

  Softly, Femi’s fingers brushed over his friend’s cheekbones towards his hairline, making Igwe’s nostrils quiver. The tips of Femi’s fingers slipped under the arms of Igwe’s glasses and, for a moment, rested there. He unhooked the glasses and began to pull them off. His companion stared directly at him with such boldness of expression, such longing, it made Femi start. He continued to bare his friend’s eyes, yearning to prolong such exposure. Igwe blinked. It seemed like pleasure.

  “Thank you,” Igwe whispered.

  Femi cocked his head, still staring into and beyond the eyes of his most precious friend. He could hear Igwe breathing, not the soft breath of a man maintaining existence, but the shaking, violent breath of a man struggling to mask emotion. With an air of ease, Femi sat next to him, away from two kerosene lamps dancing in farther recesses of the hut. Darkness hid small movements, minor brushes, quick glances. Their arms touched.

  The three new members entered. Two of them immediately froze, discomfited by the intimacy they’d interrupted. Igwe quickly put his glasses back on.

  “Any instructions, Femi?” Lance, the only one blithely unaware of any tension, adjusted his new stetson.

  “Yes. We leave tomorrow and we’ll be gone for three days. Please get your supplies together.”

  Janet placed a series of newspapers on Mary’s desk in a fan shape. Mary watched her assistant saunter back to her cubicle: not a good omen.

  She flipped open the first paper. More tributes to the great Femi Jegede! One of the articles compared him to Ken Saro-Wiwa. In the next paper, some fawning journalist dared to draw parallels to Mandela. She chucked them aside. Two more papers had no need for the language of shadows: they portrayed him as a hero standing in his own light. Then she picked up the most putrid-a comparison to Che Guevara.

  Unfortunately, she recognized the similarities. Both Jegede and Guevara exuded sexuality, incandescent beauty and a signal intensity. In the flesh, in movement, such qualities might be all one would see. But in the static images of Jegede, she discerned a person willing to die. What would others identify in a photo of her, behind that bland facade? A person willing to kill?

  If she-the potential agent of Jegede’s destruction-could grow so entranced by his image, how tightly would the great American public embrace him? Almost to suffocation. And that asphyxiation would paradoxically breathe life into him, while choking the life out of her.

  With fumbling hands, she grabbed the phone and called Kolo.

  “President Kolo? Mary Gla—”

  “Have you seen the papers?” His voice fractured as his composure fled. “A bush man like Jegede wanders out of his village and blinks into the spotlight like this? A man of no substance-some inconsequential, blank-faced illiterate straying onto the world stage? He’s lost! The man is disoriented! Someone should rescue him!”

  “Is there a way of—”

  “Don’t worry!” Kolo snapped. “I’m seeing to that. Three parties have located a baffled man ambling without direction. They’ll deal with him.”

  “Assassins?”

  “Ex-convicts. Same difference. They’re with him now. They appear to be taking their time, that’s all. In the meantime, I need more protection.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.” She put down the phone, making no further effort in that direction.

  Instead, she stood and looked out the window, staring down at the entrance to TransAqua. Sinclair and the boys emerged from its mirrors, heading downtown to a bar, or more likely to a strip club on the outskirts. They walked past the building’s vast fountains, water crashing down mammoth blocks of rock five storeys high, some of it evaporating into the desert’s arid heat. Her eyes followed as the men emerged from behind the waterfall’s mist until their shimmering figures disappeared into the distance of the Acquisitions team’s parking lot. From their leisurely pace, it appeared as if Sinclair had firmed up new plans, perhaps even in cahoots with Jegede to oust Kolo. She had to act decisively, on intuition—which was not her strongest point.

  With a brisk search of the Internet, she researched the activities of the African Water Warriors, hard-core militia from Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, where decades of struggle against the oil industry had produced sociopathic killers. Through a crackling mobile signal, she managed to contact the group, via an imprisoned member.

  Mary cut to the chase immediately. “I have $25,000. There are three people sympathetic to your cause in Wise Water. Find one of them. Your two groups need to work in parallel. A bonus, of course, will be forthcoming.”

  The skies grew heavy as the humidity worsened. Throughout August, the rain fell in an endless onslaught, battering corrugated roofs like rapid gunfire, so thunderous that people had to shout to be heard. Puddles joined together into muddy streams, currents through which people had to push, planting each step firmly before taking the next. Rain abated, only to appear again accompanied by explosions of thunder and shocks of blue lightning that lit up the entire sky in cracks of neon.

  President Kolo had always been nervous of the raging storms whipped up by the rainy season. He hated the constant deluge of water, loathed the unpredictable nature of lightning and the violence of thunder’s boom. With widespread discontent and his presidency under constant threat, he was exhausted.

  He picked his way from his residence through the long corridors and stairways to his office, sniffling at his misfortune, personally affronted that nature had seen fit to threaten his equilibrium during the time of his greatest tribulation. His besieged silhouette stood at his office window, dwarfed by the glass that towered above him. As he fingered plush burgundy curtains, he stared at the torrent. He winced in anticipation of each bolt of lightning, his fat digits clutching the velvet. They tightened as his pounding heart waited for the next crack of thunder to blast through the heavens. He waited a few seconds. No thunder. He waited a few moments more. Silence. He relaxed his grip. The crinkled velvet eased out of its tight ball, recovering in cautious stages from the imprint of his grasp.

  An instant later, the heavens exploded. Kolo yelped. He ran to the curtains and rolled his body up in them, shaking. He stood there for many minutes, allowing this gentle womb to bring momentary peace to his life. He wept.

  The initial eupho
ria of having attained the presidency was over and panic had set in. Most knew how dangerous his position was; few understood how distracting, how utterly exhausting, the preservation of life could be.

  Still encased in the curtain, Kolo stroked the velvet, running his hands up and down the fabric, feeling its pile move in the direction of his hand and then flick gently back into place like tiny feathers tickling his skin. Four allies had turned against him. How many more lurked in dark corners and clubhouses? After a life spent building alliances, plotting his way into their company, bribing them into loyalty, he had now been thrust back into the position that had plagued him during the entire period of his unhappy childhood.

  When the thunder stopped, Kolo crept away from the window and sat down, a shrunken figure behind a giant desk in a football stadium of an office. The bureau had been specially imported from the Congo and was made of wenge wood, a rare hardwood in dark brown with a most pleasant grain. Kolo stroked it. Its drawers had been decorated with silver plaques depicting his rise to presidency, crafted by the famed Asiru family of Osogbo. He followed the panels. On the top left drawer, his birth in front of smiling chiefs, with his brother in the background. On the bottom left drawer, Kolo in the foreground, waving as his brother rose with the angels to the skies.

  Kolo secretly scoffed at the term “identical twin.” Very little about his brother had seemed a duplicate of himself. His brother’s eyes were set wider apart, his nose and lips smaller, his skin lighter than Kolo’s. On some level, deep in their subconscious, others must have sensed this. When people greeted them both, they shook his brother’s hand first, stared into his brother’s eyes and asked him questions regarding both of them.

  His brother was also more affectionate. He loved to tease their mother. Kolo, on the other hand, would scurry away from such contact, hiding in cupboards with books and newspapers, more a child of his father.

  The top right drawer depicted Kolo holding university degrees, with a small inset of his trip to Mecca. The next drawer showed Kolo with a sun shining above him and his arms around Nigeria’s natural resources. At the bottom, on the biggest drawer, was Kolo on a throne, the Nigerian flag behind him, in an agbada so large that its ends were cut off at the sides of the panel.