Doing Dangerously Well

by Carole Enahoro

  Barbara had never seen Femi asleep. She had had no idea of how that beautiful face might look with closed eyes. And now she saw an infinite lingering. It looked like sleep, but his sockets were too deep, as if death had stamped a seal upon his eyes.

  That final sleep had not erased the expression from his face. He appeared to have died in a state of elation.

  She touched the screen, as if doing so might animate those features.

  A tear pricked her eye. She felt it sting.

  Had it been a good day that day? Had he been frightened?

  She felt paralyzed, as if her own life had stumbled.

  Had the sun shone that morning? Had he smiled then?

  His features intimated that he had embraced the final intelligence with senses heightened, as if ready to transform into the highest abstraction.

  Had he seen the knife? Had he felt it? Did it hurt?

  Tears fell down Barbara’s cheeks, warm tears that heated up her face. Sobs jagged her body.

  Had it been a good day? Had the sun been in his eyes?

  Her mind raced with myriad thoughts that condensed to produce an intense focus. She grabbed her bag and charged to the front door—and kept running, sprinting down the road, rushing past the landscape of an early spring. The boastful buds that thrust their way past the snow sickened her with their mocking ignorance of the soundless night of life’s cycle.

  She had left everything too long. She could no longer even try to protect her sister, whose active hours were spent in the pursuit of murder—she realized how much harder she would have to push to wash the evil away.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Haven and Hell

  Kolo woke up disoriented and on edge. He lay back on his iridescent silk sheets, checking the skin around his miniature nail beds, breathing through an oxygen mask to combat the effects of the gasoline fumes that permeated the garage. He flicked open his new embroidered Spanish fan and began to air himself.

  Although the international press had not condemned him for an alleged childhood incident, they took exception to assassination; whereas in Nigeria, the opposite held true. Unlike most paradoxes harboured by Nigeria, this one did not work in his favour.

  He set down his fan in order to stroke his brother’s photo: in doing so, he felt his own body being caressed. Their former nanny had been arrested and imprisoned, accused of the dereliction of duty that had led to his dear brother’s death. The thought of her created a sensation of implosion, so that Kolo’s breath sped inwards, choking him.

  Despite her conviction, the stench of fratricide still clung to him. Discussions would be taking place within the molue buses, taxis and marketplaces. He had no doubt that contracts on his life were being negotiated, some for as little as a crate of beer, though he reckoned he had few months’ grace: Nigerians were not known for punctuality.

  According to his calculations, if Lance Omeke had performed his task promptly, it would erase the collective memory of that childhood incident for enough time for public revulsion to abate. Kolo predicted that today could make or break his presidency, a handy euphemism for the difference between life and death. He had a plan to shift blame to another for Jegede’s murder. At that point, he hoped this irritating domino effect would come to a halt.

  Picking up a book of poetry, Kolo considered his fate. Alone, rejected, politically isolated, he needed to focus most of his remaining presidential efforts on the building of the dam and the renaming of the river that would allow his name to flow through history. Only then, he thought, would he be happy to cede his presidency to a less able candidate.

  He whistled for his security guard.

  “Yes, sir.” As the guard entered, he saluted, almost slicing out his eye.

  “Toothpick!”

  “Sir.” The guard spat out the offending object.

  About to slam the book closed, Kolo noticed one particularly irksome poem. “Listen to this man: ‘If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same, you’ll be a man, my son.’ Rudyard. What a name! Serves him right.”

  “Ah-ah! Has this idiot never been to Nigeria?”

  Kolo tossed the book aside. “Apparently not. From now on, I’ll stick to John Pepper Clark.” He closed his eyes in reverie. “‘Fear him his footfall soft light as a cat’s, his shadow far darker than forest gloom or night—’”

  “J.P.?” the guard interrupted harshly, knocking Kolo out of his trance. “We did him at school. Why can’t the man just say what he means?” He kissed his teeth in protracted disdain.

  Affronted by such disrespect, Kolo thought he would leave the man with a lasting legacy inspired by Kipling: lessons culled from his own experience, infused with dread for the coming day. “Words of wisdom: if you have talent, hide it; if you have a brain, deprive it of oxygen to downgrade; if you’re a great man, best to leave the country.”

  “You speak of Jegede, sir?”

  Kolo paused long enough for the man to suspect his error.

  The guard accompanied him in silence to the office.

  Following ever more labyrinthine routes, it took Kolo an hour longer to make his way to the office. The sounds that had once appeared to be minor trickles, endless drippings and echoes of faraway streams now overwhelmed him with their violence. Giant surges of water, torrential floods and booming explosions engulfed him.

  Today, the waves of noise outside offered an added backdrop of suffocating anxiety. He already knew the source of the additional unruliness.

  He buzzed his new confidant, the minister of finance. “Bring!”

  A few minutes later, the minister entered with a pile of papers from all media sources. “How are you doing today, sir?”

  “Well. And yourself?”

  “Dangerously well, sir, dangerously well.”

  Before he had time to reprimand the man for such casual interchange, words ricocheted off newsprint, trailing a smell of gunpowder: “Kolo! Killer!”

  Each headline fired off the same message: a sociopathic lunatic sat at the helm of the most unfortunate of nations. Despite his repeated threats of incarceration, journalists’ reportage had grown rampant, their claims vying for implausibility.

  Kolo grabbed the carved gold armrests of his chair. “Look at these fools. Where’s their evidence? And how can they put ‘killer’ and ‘murderer’ in the same article? What do they mean by ‘murder’? They don’t seem to understand that this term possesses great cultural diversity.”

  He’d touched on the minister’s bête noir—journalism—and the man responded with heat. “How can a killer be a murderer at the same time? Everyone knows killing is sanctioned. Murder is a completely different matter. No one likes a murderer. These people can’t even define their terms.”

  “Would you call a soldier a murderer?”

  “Exactly!” the minister thundered in unequivocal support. “You may be a killer, Excellency, but how could anyone call you a murderer?”

  A spasm caught Kolo’s big toe. He spoke in a severe, low tone. “How can I be a killer if I have never killed anyone?”

  Wrapped up in his condemnation of journalism, the minister of finance swept past this distinction. “Who trains these people? They can’t get anything right. They’re just journalists. Read this—they call you a demon in human form and expensive agbadas. As if they have ever seen a demon!”

  Wishing the minister had selected his words more carefully, Kolo sniffed back a sob. “This is ridiculous! Women are saying Jegede straightened their hair or yellowed their complexions by a mere touch of his never-manicured farmer’s hand. Oh, here, listen to this. Men are crediting this donkey, who has simply wandered from his stall in some yeye nowhere corner of Nigeria, who cannot even wipe his own buttocks, flicking his tail for all to see, with the propitious deaths of their enemies.”

  Far down in the mall, past the river moat whose drawbridge protected the governmental complex, voices had risen to drown out all other sounds, threatening to entomb Kolo in their
clamour. Surely the water pipes would soon burst, flooding his office and smothering him.

  The minister of finance closed the curtains. “Is this job worth it? Why waste your talents on such an unworthy country, sir? Please. You must calm down. Your heart is fragile. Do you want me to get the doctor?”

  Kolo massaged his breast. “Yes, please.” A sight added to the pressure on his chest. He collapsed back in his chair. “Christ on the cross! The international press has actually retouched Jegede’s photos! Is this what they call journalism?”

  The minister of finance kissed his teeth at the mention of his pet peeve.

  The phone rang. “Yes?”

  “Mary Glass, sir. I’ve just read—”

  “A moment.” Kolo waved the expectant minister away. “Continue.”

  “—these articles on Jegede.”

  A very unusual call—he could hear panic in her machine-gun delivery.

  She continued without waiting for his reaction. “We have informants within water activist groups here who have linked the bombings to the African Water Warriors, not Wise Water. That means only one thing, sir.”

  Was she too about to indict him? Et tu, TransAquus? “Please go on, Ms. Glass.”

  “Pardon? Uh, well, I think it’s obvious, sir. It seems to me that whoever killed Jegede did it on instructions from the AWW.”

  Smart woman—one step ahead of him this time. He felt uneasy trailing, and did not believe in sudden reversals. One small test, just to check how deeply she had been involved. “Okay. I’ll get the Inspector General of Police to bring in … well, probably Ekong.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ekong. He is our assassin.”

  “That’s not compatible with the name I heard. Lance Omeke, sir, is the rumour.”

  She had proved his conjecture: only two people knew Ekong’s first name and Lance’s last name—the president and the inspector general. “I never believe in rumour, Ms. Glass. Omeke would be too worried about soiling his clothes. No. I’ll get Ekong.”

  He put the phone down—let her stew, since she had tried to act independently of him—and then he called the inspector general, ordering him to the presidential complex. With one phone call, he would set the wheels in motion to place the blame on another member of Jegede’s organization. A certain Igwe. No first name, apparently. He would commission one of the other two assassins in Omeke’s “business” to implicate the man.

  In anticipation of the inspector general’s visit, Kolo opened the curtains, careful not to lift his eyes past the moat.

  To while away the time, he opened the bottom right-hand drawer to extract all the clippings about his brother’s professed murder. He sat with his hands over his eyes, as if shading them from the sun, ready to lower his hand further should anyone enter unexpectedly and see his tears. He could not stop them falling.

  A rap on the door jolted Kolo out of his thoughts. He stuffed the clippings back into the drawer, slammed it closed and wiped his eyes on his agbada. “In!”

  The inspector general marched to the sound of his own private military band, head high, body rigid. He stopped in front of Kolo’s desk with two stamps of his feet that made the chocolate trays rattle, then saluted with a quivering arrow of a hand that found its target. “Sir!” he yelled from the very depths of his belly.

  “Bring Lance Omeke.”

  “Sir?”

  “One of the assassins you hired.”

  “I hired, sir?”

  “Yes, inspector. You.” At least this would hurry him up for once.

  A slow dawn illuminated the intellectual vistas of the inspector general’s mind. “Omeke? You mean Lance Omeke did it?” Did the man not have faith in his own choices?

  “Yes, done. Bring. Contact the African Water Warriors—they will find him. Then get rid.”

  “Yes, sir.” There was relief in the inspector general’s voice. “No problem.”

  That must be it, thought Kolo. He wants to tie up loose ends. A strange reaction from a man who had expressed such faith in the talents of his convicts; he did not expect to hear the inspector general sounding so ruffled.

  The inspector general launched another quivering arrow to his forehead, slapped it back down to his thigh, then executed an intricate 180-degree swivel.

  I must contact Wosu P. Wosu, Kolo thought, and see if the military can train the police in basic practices such as marching, saluting and turning. After two years, they can perhaps progress to more complex protocols, such as proper attire and decorum.

  Members of Kolo’s publicity team now rushed in to fuss over him. Unlike most other departments, he had ensured that Public Relations was staffed principally with Westerners who had mastered the art of spin. A few Nigerians tagged along for training purposes.

  A woman took charge, her hair scraped back into a ponytail so tight she looked almost bald. “Mr. President, it is imperative we deal with this situation at once. And I’m afraid, sir, there’s only one way out. You need to speak of your admiration for Jegede.”

  She flipped the first draft of a public announcement in front of him. He read it rapidly.

  “I’ll do no such thing.” Kolo’s voice echoed off a high ceiling.

  “You need to keep your presidency safe.”

  The last word hit home—on the left side of his chest, to be precise. He started scratching out phrases with his pen. “Well, we can take out ‘national hero’ right now. ‘Self-made man’ will do.”

  “Certainly.”

  “‘A human colossus’? You have to be kidding. Replace with ‘very human.’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “‘Provided direction and unity for the country?’” Kolo simply stared at the head of PR.

  As these negotiations took place, she beckoned to an intern, who arrived with a large rectangular object wrapped in brown paper.

  “What’s that?”

  “A portrait of Jegede. You’ll need to replace your picture with his, just for a short period of time.”

  As they unwrapped a magnificent depiction of the man standing in a god-like pose with a preternaturally angelic face, Kolo’s restraint took flight. “In oils? You’ve done it in oils? Have you gone insane? Take it away right now. And who commissioned it, pray tell?”

  “I did.” She brooked no opposition.

  He tried to stare her down, but she stood firm.

  “Crayon, then. And you don’t need to find Nigeria’s greatest artist—best to support a student.”

  “No crayons, sir.”

  Eviscerated by this new humiliation, Kolo ensured that a small portrait of the terrorist was executed in acrylic paint with crude mounting. In order to accomplish this, they delayed two days. The press officer removed the resplendent oil painting of a majestic, light-skinned president that hung behind the presidential chair and replaced it with that of the regrettably sublime features of Jegede, then summoned the media. Kolo read out a statement clarifying his deep respect for Nigeria’s greatest icon. While the press took their snapshots of an imperious Kolo underneath Jegede’s painting, his aides hauled their president’s now redundant image to the basement, accidentally damaging some of the rococo flourishes to its frame.

  When they were all gone, Kolo sat down behind his desk, a shattered man, hardly able to speak, knowing that someone—or something—was trying to drive him to the brink of insanity. Riots had broken out in every major city, with thousands massacred by supporters of the same idol. Each time he thought of Jegede, visions of his brother’s face became more bloated, blue in colour, his eyes wide, as he sank downwards.

  He needed to move on the Igwe scheme, but so far he had been unable to contact the assassins. He considered phoning the inspector general again. As this thought lodged in his to-do list, his assistant buzzed him.

  “Yes?”

  “Lance Omeke, sir.”

  “Finally! Bring.”

  Lance strode in, wearing a black Stetson with a butterfly logo on the front. “Worraps?” He smiled wi
th a row of strong, intelligent teeth. “Jegede is gone.”

  Kolo’s spirits rose. “Did you bring body?”

  The man surveyed the rich textures of the room, with its Italianate chairs, embossed velvets, rich patterned carpeting and ivory inlaid tables. Kolo had taste: this he knew. Lance seemed particularly struck by the three chandeliers that hung over their discussions, and gazed up at their many rainbows like a child mesmerized by a toy.

  “Did you bring body?” Kolo repeated, not irritated, simply happy that at least one person appreciated the splendour that accrued to a presidency.

  “No. No transportation.”

  “Ah, I see.” Kolo sat back and laced his fingers over his shrinking belly. His body ached. “What took so long?”

  “Enh, well, you said three months, sha,”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “Since when has three months lasted four months?” He kissed his teeth. “How do I know he’s gone?”

  “Don’t you read newspaper? They’ve written about my work. It’s even on the television. Ah-ah! You’re president. Why can’t you follow these things? It’s your job. Anyway, at least I myself am a professional. I took photo.”

  “Aaah. Good, good. Bring.” Kolo laid a hand on his desk: he could hardly raise it to beckon to the man.

  Lance placed a stash of photos near Kolo’s hand. Kolo gasped. The man had taken thirty photos—twenty-nine more than necessary. They appeared to serve as trophies, as a form of murderous pornography. Wincing with revulsion, Kolo sorted through them, placing them in piles of full body injuries, head, chest, lower body and so on. Jegede looked as if he had been stabbed over a hundred times. An unexpected boon.

  “Good work. Good work.” Kolo pushed the photos aside. “So, you need your release papers? And payment, of course.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Before you go, I would be interested to find out who paid you to protect Jegede.”