Say You're One of Them (Oprah's Book Club)

by Uwem Akpan

  Jubril looked at the chief, then returned his gaze to the soldier. Admiration for the soldier spread on his face immediately, on the strength of what Chief Ukongo had told him about ECOMOG soldiers’ self-sacrifice. Jubril stood and offered up his place, though many in the bus said he should not.

  Colonel Usenetok picked up his dog.

  “Gabriel, you are not giving him your place,” the chief said calmly, and the other passengers concurred. Monica held Jubril down with both hands, as if she were planting a tree.

  “He has insulted my chieftaincy,” the chief declared, and then, turning to the soldier, said: “We don’t accept IDs on this bus . . . ask anybody.”

  “Yeah . . . ole . . . no ID!” someone said.

  “No mad soldierman ID!”

  “Your generals done steal our money finish in de name of ECOMOG!”

  “Kai, kai, kai, my people, forget about what the generals did!” the chief said, calling them to order, and turned to the soldier. “Let me tell you something, because you’re too young to understand the history of this conflict in our country . . .”

  “Which conflict, which history?” the soldier said. “Jou’re talking as if jou were a living witness when God created the world.”

  “Very good then. Even if you were there when Britain arbitrarily joined the north and south together to found this country, you couldn’t travel with us! Even if you were there when the British forged the Muslim-majority north and the Christian-majority south into a country, we couldn’t allow you. Whether you have a ticket or not is beside the point now. . . . As a royal father, the safety of my people is paramount. Too many of them are already dead, and now I don’t want them to be bitten by this mad dog!”

  “We no want dis dog for dis bus o!”

  “Human right before animal right!”

  “Police is public enemy number one!”

  Colonel Usenetok laughed at them. He held the dog closer to his heart and pecked it on the nose. Without warning, the dog jolted and convulsed in that deathly bark that the refugees had heard periodically outside. Its body was cramped, and its jaws wide open, with nothing more to vomit except a few drops of blood. While those around him squirmed and tried to push away, the colonel used his clothes to collect the blood. A foul smell filled the bus, and people tongue-lashed the ECOMOG man. Having this dog in their midst did not sit well with the bus refugees.

  “The gods of our ancestors will not allow jou, Nduese, to die!” the soldier prayed for his dog. “They must protect jou till we reach home and jou get the right herbs! The gods who guarded me in the war fields of Liberia and Sierra Leone, who never allowed the RUF rebels to cut my hands or legs, won’t disappoint me.” With this, the ECOMOG man brought out from under his rags a wreath of assorted talismans. The refugees gasped. It was bigger and more intimidating than the collection the chief had. He plucked one talisman that looked like a necklace of cowry shells and hung it around Nduese and poured some herbal liquid down the dog’s throat. A few drops trickled on Jubril. Nduese’s coughing began to mellow.

  On hearing the soldier’s testimony of rebels cutting people’s limbs, Jubril nodded, following every movement of the soldier with rapt attention and a bizarre smile, as if the ECOMOG man had hypnotized him. But while his sight was locked on the soldier, his pocketed wrist was vibrating, seemingly on its own. Unknown to all on the bus, Jubril’s mind was neither on the soldier nor on whatever they thought was in his pocket, but on the day his right hand was cut. He remembered the night before that day, how he tried to sleep but could not.

  Up until that last night he had been brave about it and actually walked around anticipating the event with gay abandon, a boy completely at peace with a just punishment, a sort of hero in his neighborhood. As far as he was concerned, the hand was dead. He absolutely believed that once the hand was cut off, he and others would be discouraged from stealing again. He ignored the hand and tried not to look at it and looked forward to being relieved of this source of self-hate. Jubril started using his left hand only. And just to make sure he did not mistakenly use the fingers or palm of the condemned hand, he tied a red rubber band around his right wrist as a reminder, as if to delineate a clear line between good and evil, love and hate. With this sort of clarity, he felt comfortable using his right elbow, for it was a part of the body he had not forfeited to theft. Two nights before the amputation, he had slept peacefully and even happily dreamed of the hand being cut.

  But that last night, alone in the room, he lay awake. While he still accepted that his hand should be cut off and prayed loud and clear that Allah’s will be done, he found himself many times, to his embarrassment, shaking hands with himself in the dark. He performed many types of handshakes and even pretended to shake hands with another person. For the last time, he used his right hand to feel the different parts of his body. He stood up and wandered around the cell, feeling the wall and the floor. He moved the fingers among themselves like a flutist or guitarist. He said good-bye to that part of him he had already sacrificed to theft, knowing that when day broke he would be wafted away by anesthesia.

  THE REFUGEES, SEEING JUBRIL unnerved and uncoordinated, believed that the soldier had charmed him. They appealed to the chief to ask his fellow idol worshipper, Colonel Usenetok, to remove his spell from the boy. Chief Ukongo did not say anything, though he watched the soldier with calculating eyes. The people murmured as Jubril continued to act strangely.

  “It’s jou Christians and Muslims who’ve charmed Khamfi with jour evil politics!” Colonel Usenetok said gleefully, putting down Nduese in his excitement. His eyes were like two points of light. “Jour faiths are interlopers on this continent!”

  “All soldier people are tieves . . . ole!” Tega said, and others booed him.

  “Hey, lady,” the soldier said, “I fought in Sierra Leone without pay. Government still hasn’t paid me for a jear now. . . . I didn’t steal jour oil money!”

  “And you dey call yourself army colonel?” Monica said. “You be yeye man o! Why you no steal? You no be good colonel at all, at all.”

  “Why are you saying this?” Madam Aniema asked.

  “Saying what?” Monica said.

  “My sister, what has this got to do with idol worship?” Madam Aniema said. “Stealing cannot be a good thing.”

  “But why de soldiers from our place always dey stupid?” Monica said, then turned to the soldier: “You, tell us, soldierman, wetin you dey retire to now?”

  “To dignity . . . conscience!” the soldier replied.

  Tega was the first to break the silence. She stood up and let out a guffaw. She laughed as if someone were tickling her. Emeka joined in, and then the whole bus sounded like a room full of giggling adolescent girls. Even the police, who peered into the bus after hearing the soldier’s reply, joined in the laughter. The chief sat there, looking at the soldier with an impish grin, shaking his head very slowly. It was as if the soldier were no longer a threat to the bus but a source of comic relief.

  “Soldierman, listen,” Monica said, motioning with her hands to the people to stop laughing. “Soldierman, you go eat dignity and drink conscience, abi? Your wife and children go dey happy well well to receive you from Sierra Leone empty-handed.”

  “No problem,” the soldier said.

  “No wahala, huh?” she taunted him. “We no tell you before? You be madman. . . . Na only crazeman who go reach colonel for army and no steal money for dis country.”

  “Jou’re the mad people!” he said, and pulled his dog closer to himself. “I’m going back home to farm as my ancestors did before oil was discovered in my village!”

  “Which farm?” Monica said. “Farmland no dey again for delta o! Mobil, Shell, Exxon, Elf. . . . All of dem done pollute every grain of sand.”

  “I’ll fish, then.”

  “Fish ke? Dem done destroy de rivers . . . no fish.”

  At this point, Monica gave up, melting into laughter. She laughed long and hard until she lost her breath. Others
started talking about the pollution of the delta, about how they must make sure all the oil companies moved away from there, and how the democratic government must be driven out of the area. They said the delta must secede from the country, so they would have the right to manage their resources. In time, they all stopped talking and were overcome by laughter, like laborers dropping off to sleep at the end of the day. It robbed their plans of the earlier bitterness and was no threat to the police.

  Only the soldier and Jubril kept straight faces. Jubril was disappointed and sided with the ECOMOG soldier. He thought the soldier deserved the best, having gone out to serve the country gallantly, as the chief had said. The fact that the chief was laughing too only made matters worse for the boy. Jubril began to realize that he did not understand the old man. He wondered when the driver would wake up so they could begin their journey.

  EMEKA SAID FINALLY, “IT’S like you don’t understand us, Colonel. We’re not saying you should’ve stolen . . . as in stealing. Remember, it’s your oil. It comes from your villages, by the grace of God! You should’ve made enough money out there to bid for an exploration license.”

  “I’ve no interest or expertise in oil business,” the soldier said.

  “You don’t need expertise,” Madam Aniema said. “Just money!”

  “Jou civilians can bid for licenses if jou like.”

  “Foolich talk!” Tega said. “Nobody back home get dat kind money . . . except your superrish soldiers from oder parts of dis country . . .”

  “I served this country within and abroad for thirty-two years. If not for my minority tribe, I would’ve been a yeneral by now!”

  “Are you saying since you’re not a general you didn’t get a piece of the billions of dollars the country pumped into ECOMOG?”

  “Kai, leave the generals out of this!” the chief said suddenly. “It’s people like this madman we should probe . . . not generals!”

  At this, Colonel Usenetok lost it. He untied the rope from his waist and wanted to flog the chief, but the people blocked him. They told him they were free to question him because they were in a democracy. The soldier was so angry he seemed delirious and started to hop and shove people all over the aisle, like a bad spirit. Without the rope, the ragged camouflage garment flared along with his temper. More talismans were exposed. He jumped over the heads of people sitting in the aisle.

  “Dis no be de savannah of Sierra Leone o!” a refugee said.

  “You think we dey urban warfare for Liberia?”

  “We must eject this madman.”

  The more they yelled at him, the more erratic his behavior became. He pulled out his hands like two machine guns and fired at people, his mouth producing the rat-a-tat. He shot at the ceiling and announced that he had brought down helicopters. He fired into the window and claimed he was keeping the RUF rebels at bay. The people called the police to come and deliver them, but they were nowhere to be found. When the colonel got to the front of the bus he stopped suddenly and said: “The government hasn’t paid my arrears. I come here and you’re robbing me of my seat—after six years at the war front, in the service of the fatherland? And you’re talking democracy? No stupid chief talks for anyone in a true democracy!”

  “No, my people,” the chief said, and stood up. “This madman’s worship is not the true religion of our ancestors! I know the religion of my ancestors. We don’t know what mad juju he brought back from his travels. . . . We must throw the soldier out before it’s too late! I repeat: Gabriel shall not surrender his seat!” Then he turned to the soldier: “As our ancestors say, you can’t quarrel with God and then scale the palm tree with a broken rope. If you insist, I shall leave this bus! And this whole bus must face the consequence once you reach my delta! My people will ask you what you did with me . . .”

  “Then jou shall not travel on this bus!” the soldier shouted, punching the air. “I’ve suffered too much for freedom in this country . . . in Africa. And jou want to eyect me from the bus because of my reliyion?”

  “You must go,” the chief said.

  “Let me tell all of jou in this bus, none of these white countries, which brought us Christianity and democracy, came to die for the Liberians. Did any of these Arab countries peddling militant Islam in Africa send troops to Sierra Leone? I say jou all are mad, to kill each other for two foreign reliyions. We wretched ECOMOG soldiers went out there to die for democracy while the little democracy in this country is being scuttled by yenerals and politicians and chiefs . . . rogues. We saved Liberia . . . Sierra Leone. Hooray to the West African soldier! I shall kill somebody before I leave this bus today. Try me. I have learned so much from where I have been.”

  “My people, see what I mean?” the chief laughed. “My son, making sense doesn’t depend on how many places you have visited. As our people say, if winning a race depended on one’s number of legs, the millipede would beat the dog hands down . . .”

  “Chief, you dey talk sense!” the refugees said.

  “Yet get wisdom well well!”

  “May you live forever o!”

  Chief Ukongo chuckled and fanned away the sweat that was beginning to collect on his face. He thudded his stick and looked around the bus as if it were his parlor. “As I was saying, my people, we’re not safe with his mad juju. . . . We must vote him out of this bus, since we’re in a democracy. Colonel, you said you have learned democracy abroad, right? OK, let’s practice it. . . . We have come to the end of campaigns and endless talk.”

  “But my quarrel is with this boy who has my space!” the soldier said. “And he’s ready to give me my seat . . .”

  “You’ve charmed the boy!” the chief interjected. “I’m his royal father and must protect him!”

  The soldier began to shout at the top of his lungs. He was telling the bus about the rebels of Liberia and the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. He rattled on about how ruthless the child soldiers were and how he had killed many of them, how he would not spare any child who carried a gun. He talked about how he had to start taking cocaine to march at the pace of cocaine madness exhibited by the child soldiers.

  The chief said his stories and boundless energy were a ploy to disrupt free and fair elections. He said his people would never be intimidated by a soldier ever again.

  MADAM ANIEMA REMOVED HER thick glasses, squinting her eyes and looking around the bus as if she had finally found a solution to the soldier menace. Then she brought out the little water bottle from which the sick man had drunk. She announced to everyone that she was carrying holy water. She made a sign of the cross, stood up hastily, and went about sprinkling the place with the water, to neutralize the soldier’s charms. People made way for her lean frame.

  “Saint Joseph, Terror of the Devil!” she said faintly.

  “Pray for us!” the bus responded.

  “Sacred Heart of Jesus!”

  “Have mercy on us!”

  She rolled out a litany of saints to come to their aid, and gently she sprinkled the water on the colonel, who was still fuming and ranting about being cheated, and commanded the devil to leave them. The soldier calmed down, looking on in disbelief.

  “Once the Church has blessed the water,” she said, “the spirit of God fills that water. Now we can travel with the soldier even to Moscow.” She turned to the soldier: “You find a place and sit down. You are OK. Thanks for what you have given to the country.”

  “I will sit down,” the soldier said.

  The passengers thanked her profusely, and some even asked her to preach to them. Monica begged her to sprinkle some of the water on her baby, which she did. They asked her why she did not sprinkle it on the sick man. She said that there was no need, since he had taken the pills with the holy water, and that the man would be fine wherever he was.

  “We no be like all dis nyama-nyama churches!” one Catholic man said from the back.

  “We know how to deal wid Satan!” another said.

  “Because we’ve been in this church business for t
wo thousand years now!”

  “Colonel,” Madam Aniema said, “you will be given a place—”

  “You’ve got the real thing, woman!” the chief cut in with his congratulations. He stood up again and smiled at everybody, like a headmaster whose student has just triumphed at a debate. “Your holy water is as powerful as what those bearded Irishmen sprinkled on our ancestors to make them instant Catholics. Then, the Church didn’t waste time dipping you into a river before you got the Spirit . . .”

  “Yesss!” the Catholics cheered.

  “Just three drops of water and you knew Latin like the pope,” the chief said.

  “Of courssse!”

  “I’m going to personally tell Rome to ordain you a priest . . .”

  “No, no, no. . . . That’s not our church!”

  “Chief, we no dey ordain women for our church!”

  A light murmur went through the bus. Some said Madam Aniema should be exempted from church tradition, while the Catholics said it was impossible to ordain women and warned outsiders to mind their own business. The soldier stood there, watching, surprised he was no longer the focus of attention. He looked at Madam Aniema intently, as if expecting her to offer him a seat.

  “My Catholic children, I am sorry,” the chief said. “I wasn’t trying to destroy your faith, OK . . . ah . . . ah . . . but as you can see this woman’s water bottle is too small for our trip. If this soldier’s six years’ madness returns on the way, we will run out of holy water.”

  “I no be against Catholic Shursh o,” Tega said. “But Shief dey talk sense.”

  “Yes, make we dey look at dis situation well well,” Monica said.

  Madam Aniema said, “We can all find a space on this bus . . .”

  “I insist he must be voted out, and I am speaking as a royal father!” the chief concluded.

  At this, they began to contribute money for the voting, which meant bribing the police. The chief whispered something into Jubril’s ear, and the boy quickly paid for both of them.