The Extinction of Menai

by Chuma Nwokolo

  He muttered something inaudible into his beard. I chose not to seek clarification. Eventually, he said, ‘Can I see any of your books?’

  ‘Don’t have any here.’

  ‘You’re ashamed of your stuff, aren’t you? I know this guy . . .’

  Mentally I rolled my eyes. ‘Only new writers carry their books around.’

  ‘How can I trust you to write my story if I’ve never read one of your books?’

  ‘You’ll never read anything else either if you don’t stop pestering me! Your killers are probably circling the airport right now!’

  He rose with alacrity. ‘Fine, I’m going upstairs. But I’m trusting you with my reputation.’

  ‘Not to mention your life,’ I muttered.

  ‘Don’t write me into a monster. Even terrorists are getting good press just now. That Bantu vigilante in Nigeria, he’s all over BBC, isn’t he, and it’s not all bad. I’m just a regular law student who suffered a depression. D’you know how many students break down every year?’

  Frankly, I said to myself, I don’t give a hoot.

  ‘And don’t forget it was my idea to disable the bomb,’ he added, jabbing at my laptop. ‘Write that in as well.’

  I ignored him, and he finally got the message. He turned to go, reaching for the rucksack. ‘Leave that!’ I said, too stridently.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need it . . . for inspiration.’

  He hesitated, but I did not blink. Unless the bomb was with me, I was just going to spend all day worrying that a lunatic was about to blow me up. He shrugged and left the rucksack. Halfway up the stairs, he paused and started descending again. I steeled myself to argue some more over the custody of his bomb, but he had something else on his mind.

  ‘Could my short story get more? Say, twenty thousand pounds?’

  I frowned at his choice of pronoun. I phrased my response carefully, repossessing my intellectual property. ‘My stories have earned substantial sums before,’ I said airily.

  ‘I want half of every penny over ten thousand five hundred pounds,’ he said peremptorily. ‘That’s my final offer.’ Then he turned and went upstairs.

  I thought that for a student who had spent nine years retaking law courses he was demonstrating a monumental ignorance of the basics of offer and acceptance. Still, this was not the time to quarrel over speculative royalties. Moments later, the TV went on upstairs and Spiderman, Batman, or some other rodent-human began to save the world at a disconcertingly high volume. Ten minutes later, I was still staring at a blank Word page.

  It dawned on me that the possession of the bomb alone was enough to give Dalminda his year’s vacation in jail. If he didn’t realise that, then it was no wonder he kept flunking his law exams. My hand reached for the phone. This way, Lynn would still get her offbeat story while I got to keep all my hard-earned royalties.

  Only one thing stopped me: the possibility that the police might well arrive and be unable to see either the suicide bomber or his bomb. I walked over to the bomb, unzipped the rucksack, touched it. It was there all right. And yet . . .

  Rubiesu simini randa si kwemka!

  I set my computer on my lap and started tapping away. I was Humphrey Chow after all, short story writer. Even if no one else saw the bomber, everyone should read his story. Upstairs, a bomb exploded on TV and I jerked, sending the laptop to the floor. Its screen winked off as its battery scooted halfway across the room. I retrieved it and put it back in with trembling fingers, then tried powering on the laptop. Nervously I watched it boot up. It seemed to remember all I had written. If this was a hallucination, the computer was hardwired into it as well. I began to write. Desperately. Lynn was going to have to change her taste in short stories. Or I’d have to take Grace’s advice and interview for the dog-walker job.

  PENAKA LEE

  Ubesia | 15th March, 2005

  ‘I don’t want to start a war,’ wheezed the obese governor.

  ‘There’ll be no war,’ said Penaka Lee confidently, raising his voice over the tumult of rain.

  Governor Obu pushed away his trolley of files and clasped his hands behind his head. They were alone on the veranda of the Governor’s Lodge in Ubesia. The only other human in sight was the gardener bent double over a flower bed, labouring in the rain in an obsequious show that was lost on the distracted governor. The first lady of Sontik State was away in the federal capital on her minorities rights campaign, but the power of her presence was such that Penaka half expected to see her striding out onto the veranda. Sonia Obu was conscientious and charismatic—an electoral asset for any candidate—but her husband had been elected twice and had run out of electoral options. He needed other kinds of assets, like Penaka’s pragmatic ruthlessness, to stay in power.

  ‘There’ll be no war,’ Penaka repeated, speaking with a confidence that came from decades of successful deal-making.

  ‘You’ll say that, won’t you?’ The politician tipped his weight backwards until the front legs of his raffia chair left the ground. He stopped pushing back when he put his body in same precarious position as the rest of his life. ‘But you can’t guarantee it. Despite all the promises from your men in black, in the end, nobody can guarantee it.’

  ‘There are no guarantees in this business, Your Excellency. But Washington doesn’t want war in this delta. Every shell that falls in Ubesia will add ten cents to the price of gas in New York.’

  ‘The Biafra War killed millions. I don’t want to be responsible for another civil war.’

  Penaka did not reply. He could see that the sanctimonious governor was arguing with himself, working himself up to the inevitability of secession. In the end, Governor Obu would take the decision that best suited Governor Obu. Just then, it did not take much imagination to figure out what that decision had to be. In four months, Obu’s second and last term as governor of Sontik State would be over, and he was not on business terms with any of the front-runners to succeed him.

  One of those front runners was the deputy governor, who had refused to take his slice of the monumental heist that liquidated the Petroleum Communities Development Fund. He could not be trusted to cover Obu’s back. If the governor didn’t want to stand trial for the deals he had cut with his budget, he had to argue himself into a secession decision—and quickly, too. That would entitle him to another two terms as president of a new Sontik Republic. If things panned out right, that would take him to his sixty-second birthday; ten more years of presiding over the richest oil wells in Africa would give him the opportunity to create a succession plan that would cover his back. Penaka sipped his soda water slowly. He gave Obu all the time he needed.

  ‘They’re waiting for my declaration? They’ll recognise us as soon as we secede?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He hesitated. ‘Your Excellency . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Penaka looked around. He wondered how much to say, for the natives could be damned sensitive. ‘The Sontik traditional ruler is a strong federalist, but he’s very sick. This is the time to strike, before—’

  ‘That’s no problem. The Nanga is dying, and Elder Rantan, who will replace him, is already in my pocket. The only problem is that we don’t have an army.’

  ‘Once you give me the word, Sekurizon will mobilize—’

  ‘I don’t want mercenaries . . .’

  ‘These are security contractors,’ said Penaka, smoothly, ‘not mercenaries. I have a planeload of them standing by in Bogotá. They are more efficient than mercenaries. They guarantee outcomes. We have used them before, and they will train up your military in no time.’

  Obu grumbled, ‘Abuja will send troops. I know they will. The president has said so. I’m not afraid, but I don’t want bloodshed.’

  Penaka was silent.

  ‘How long will the American destroyer wait?’

  ‘Five days, maybe less,’ lied Penaka. The US naval exercises were scheduled to run a couple of weeks, but the lie was necessary to keep the pressure on the dithering gov
ernor. ‘Once you make the secession announcement, the American destroyers will move into the Bight of Benin—which will now be the Sontik Republic’s territorial waters—to protect your oil rigs, which are of US strategic national interest. You are happy to sign a security agreement with the US?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘After that, Abuja will not dare move without provoking a full American invasion.’

  Obu licked his lips. ‘They won’t dare, will they? It’s just that I don’t want to start a war.’

  Penaka sighed. ‘I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I will, just to reassure you,’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The three battalions that Abuja will depend on to put down the rebellion are on our side. They will march down to Sontik State okay, but they will join up at double salary. Not one shot will be fired. There’ll be no war.’

  Obu released his generous weight, and the two front legs of his chair slammed onto the veranda with a thud. His eyes were hooded with derision, and Penaka knew he had overplayed his hand.

  * * *

  WHEN PENAKA Lee left shortly afterwards, the rain was coming down in steady sheets and the gardener had given up. A steward followed Penaka down the long pathway to the car park holding a large umbrella, but it didn’t stop him getting wet.

  He slipped into the back of his limousine, allowing his PA to pass the steward a crisp note through the crack between the window and the door-frame. He dried the rain from his face and hands with a handkerchief before pulling out his phone. He opened the air conditioner vents, but his hands were wet again, this time with sweat, as he dialled his intelligence contact in Abuja.

  There was a short pause as Belinja’s security loop kicked in. ‘Hello?’

  ‘He’s not biting,’ said Penaka.

  There was silence.

  ‘He’s scared,’ suggested Belinja. ‘Maybe next week.’

  ‘He’ll never be ready. He’s a coward. He doesn’t believe I can deliver Nigerian battalions to the Sontik Republic.’

  ‘Maybe I should have a word with his security adviser . . .’

  ‘Lamikan? Well, that’s a thought.’ Penaka sighed. ‘Leave it with me.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ asked Belinja, sounding apprehensive but somewhat expectant as well.

  A month earlier, when Penaka had promised to put an American destroyer in the Gulf of Benin to establish his bona fides with Obu, Belinja had been quietly derisive. Two weeks afterwards, a training exercise originally scheduled for the Indian Ocean was rezoned at the last minute, and Belinja’s unwillingness to take the other man on faith had evaporated.

  ‘I’ll set up a couple of meetings with some friends,’ said Penaka absently, ‘organise a little escalation. Do you have a newspaper publisher on your books?’

  ‘I have all of them.’

  ‘I want a paper with a decent circulation.’

  ‘How about Patrick Suenu’s Palaver?’

  Penaka was indifferent. He did not read Nigerian newspapers, ‘That should do. I have a story to plant. Could you . . .’

  ‘I’ll arrange it.’

  ‘Thanks, Belinja.’

  The phone went dead, and Penaka massaged his cheek muscles. He did not like ditherers. He would be fifty-five in April. He did not have all the time in the world. It was a big country; it needed big decisions. Big decision makers. And if it burned, there were fifty other countries on the continent. He lowered the partition window between him and his staff. ‘Go,’ he said to his chauffeur. ‘Confirm our flights for Kinshasa,’ he told his PA.

  He had been caught on the wrong side of a Nigerian crisis before.

  It was not an experience to be repeated.

  SLEEPCATASTROPHES

  Kreektown | January/February, 1999

  Oga Somuzo

  Saint John

  Allotua Allegi

  Renata Torila

  Jani Agams

  Ariz Agams

  Eddi Fadamu

  Births

  Ogazi Kroma-Alanta

  Extant Menai population: 430 (NPC estimates)

  LYNN CHRISTIE

  London | 16th March, 2005

  ‘I am worried for you, Humphrey Chow,’ I said.

  We had the Chinatown restaurant all to ourselves. Every five minutes, a surly waiter tacked by to see whether we wanted something more. He wore an accusing frown, as though our refusal to order extra dishes was responsible for the imminent closure of his cold restaurant. My wintry blue overcoat was buttoned to my neck. But for my black boots, I might as well not have changed out of my nightdress, for all the good my clothing did me. Humphrey risked another bite of his tacos. We had managed to find a Mexican restaurant in Chinatown, and their tacos tasted more like wafers from a Chinese menu. Still, I was carrying a couple of extra kilos, so any excuse to abandon a meal after a spoonful was welcome.

  ‘I can’t think why,’ he said. ‘I finally write something you like and you’re worried for me?’ He’d dressed with his usual absentmindedness, wearing a green scarf on top of his blue flannel shirt.

  I caught myself spinning my wedding band. ‘Where’s the suicide bomber?’

  He looked up. ‘It’s fiction, Lynn, remember: I don’t do autobiography. Anymore.’

  ‘Why use real names? Why set the story in your holiday home?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ll change the names around. It just helped me visualise, you know. It was a literary device.’

  ‘I don’t want to sell it, Humphrey Chow. I don’t want to show it to a publisher.’

  He stopped chewing. Now he looked worried. ‘You said you liked it. You said it trumps Blank.’

  ‘It’s the strongest stuff you’ve written yet—speaking as your agent. But speaking as your friend, it’s also the most disturbing tale I’ve ever read.’

  ‘Since when did the status of agent and friend become incompatible?’

  ‘I was looking to send it to Maximus. What if he reads it and writes you a twelve-month contract to deliver a collection? What then?’

  He looked away. I could tell he did not relish the pressure either. It had taken him a year to follow up on his last story, and even though he claimed to be flowing now, there was still a huge jump from making the boast to putting fifty thousand saleable words on a ream of A4 paper. My ring was spinning fifty metres an hour and rising, though that was just everyday-grade worry. ‘Humphrey Chow, I’ll shop your tale around . . . but keep writing!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He grinned.

  ‘And stay fit.’ I left my worry ring and nudged his greasy plate away from him. ‘I want you in good shape when Grace is done with you.’ I patted his hand and pulled on my gloves.

  Humphrey blew a kiss. For the past six or seven months our parting shot was usually a variation of a wedding proposal, sometimes from me and sometimes from him. It was nothing to worry about, so long as no one considered it to be anything but a joke. I don’t always keep it, but my policy was take the book to bed, not the writer.

  I left him reaching for my plate.

  ZANDA ATTURK

  Kreektown | 18th March, 2005

  I had switched off my mobile phone and spent three nights at Ma’Calico’s. The deadline for my column had come and gone. I was not much of a drinker, but I spent my afternoons and evenings at the bar downstairs. I told myself I was, like Hameed the secret service agent, prospecting for information on Badu in the most practical way. Yet I was filled with despair. It couldn’t be long before Patrick Suenu’s posse arrived on the trail of his AWOL reporter.

  A bus arrived from Ubesia carrying a group of organisers. They came with a public address system, musicians, and a sizeable crowd of their own. They took a fortifying round of beer at Ma’Calico’s and set off for the square to hold a secession rally. I thought they were pretty slow on the uptake and went along to watch the fun.

  They had come the day before, played their music, and made their stirring speeches—but the not-so-secret secret agent was watching from the door of Nt
upong’s Joint, and nobody had joined the rally. The secessionists had given up after an hour and piled, discouraged, into their buses.

  The reception this time couldn’t have been more different.

  Amana saw me gaping at the crowd and laughed. ‘Hameed left this morning. He got an urgent summons to come to Abuja for top secret briefings.’

  ‘If it’s top secret, how do you know?’

  ‘I saw them faking it at the post office.’

  * * *

  SO FAR, I had avoided investigating Kreektown with any kind of thoroughness. For one thing, I did not want to confront the condemnation of an empty Atturk house—or far worse, an Atturk house occupied by roughboys or strangers from Ubesia. I spent my days in my rented room. By early evening, the drivers and conductors from Ubesia would begin to arrive and the bar at Ma’Calico’s would grow interesting enough to bring me out of my hermitage.

  The butcher brought the news of the old man’s death. He didn’t sell much meat in that village, so he also did some palm wine rounds, which helped him stay on the cutting edge of what anaemic gossip there was in the community. But in the land of gossip the death of Mata Nimito was a table sweeper. The butcher walked into a heated argument on the virtues of local gin and announced, raising his voice above the hubbub, ‘Hundredyears don die o!’

  ‘Hundredyears?’ I asked.

  ‘That dead people dia chief.’

  ‘GodMenai!’ Something like remorse touched me, manifesting as a thirst for beer. ‘He was still alive?’

  The butcher looked at me strangely. The timing of his laughter was off. He had not sold much palm wine that day, which was bad for his sobriety; he had a firm policy of potting his wine in his belly rather than have it go sour in his kegs. He quietened and continued, ‘Everyday, I use to drop one bottle for am, yesterday’s own still dey dia!’ He peered at me. ‘So you know Hundredyears?’

  Recoiling instinctively, I shook my head. ‘What killed him?’

  He laughed sarcastically, his careening voice inviting other villagers into the joke. ‘Old man like Hundredyears die an dis one dey ask wetin kill am! Okay, na witch kill am!’