Smiling, she went in search of a taxi. Was it happiness about the keys or something deeper, a response called up by the crisis in which she and her friends were enmeshed? Whatever it was, she struck up a conversation with the taxi-driver and very soon she was learning things she didn’t know, about the death of Ikem, about the missing Commissioner for Information and about the planned meeting tomorrow of the Taxi Drivers Union “to put their mouth into this nonsense story” of Ikem’s death.
“If you get somewhere to go make you go today. Tomorrow no taxi go run.”
By the time they got to her flat the rapport between Beatrice and the driver was such that although she took a little time finding her spare keys he did not mind in the least. The beer she offered him to make the time pass more pleasantly he put away under his dashboard until his break-time. He promised to bring the empty bottle back tomorrow on his way to the meeting.
“Don’t worry about the bottle,” said Beatrice.
“Why I no go worry? I be monkey wey dem say to give im water no hard but to get your tumbler back?”
Beatrice burst into laughter as she climbed back into the car for the return journey to the parking-lot. Even the joker had to laugh then at his own joke.
CHRIS’S LAST HIDEOUT had been raided as promised at midnight. Beatrice had got ready quite early but had had to wait until there was adequate traffic on the roads before venturing out to put a call through to the house. The conversation was brief and undetailed, without proper names.
“Any visitors?”
“Yes they came at twelve.”
“Any problems?”
“None so far.”
“So far?”
“Well, none really. Nothing at all.
“Thank God.”
Click!
She went into her flat as she sometimes did, quietly by the kitchen entrance. Elewa was at the table dipping dry bread in a mug of Ovaltine while Agatha watched her leaning on the doorway between the kitchen and the dining-annexe.
“What are you watching her for? And what sort of breakfast is this? No eggs… no margarine…”
“But she no ask me for egg or margarine.”
“She no ask you?”
“Make you no worry, BB. This one done do.”
“Agatha, you are a very stupid girl and a very wicked girl… Get out of my way!”
She pushed past her back into the kitchen, broke and whisked three eggs for an omelette. While it simmered she brought breakfast things out of the refrigerator to the table—margarine, marmalade, honey, orange juice, milk. Then she sat down and insisted that Elewa eat the egg and drink the fresh orange juice. She literally waited on her not just because her grief entitled her to it but she wanted her solicitude to be a ringing rebuke to Agatha who had made no attempt to conceal her resentment at having to serve someone she clearly felt, judging from the contempt in her eyes and the way she curled her lips, was no better than a servant herself.
After the first surge of anger Beatrice found herself feeling for the first time for this poor, twisted, desiccated, sanctimonious girl something she had never before thought of extending to her—pity. Yes, she thought, her Agatha deserved to be pitied; this girl who danced and raved about salvation from dawn to dusk every Saturday, who distributed free leaflets (she had once even sneaked up to Chris when Beatrice stepped out of the room and given him one). Yes, this Agatha who was so free with leaflets dripping with the saving blood of Jesus and yet had no single drop of charity in her own anaemic blood.
As she drank her coffee and nibbled at the bread and omelette she was having just to keep Elewa company and make sure she had a little something nourishing and needful for her condition she wondered why Agatha should want to be so beastly to the girl.
Of course being a servant could not be fun. Beatrice knew that. She had never belittled the problem or consciously looked down on anyone because she was a servant, so help her God. For she was sensitive enough and intelligent enough to understand, and her literary education could not but have sharpened her perception of the evidence before her eyes: that in the absurd raffle-draw that apportioned the destinies of post-colonial African societies two people starting off even as identical twins in the morning might quite easily find themselves in the evening one as President shitting on the heads of the people and the other a nightman carrying the people’s shit in buckets on his head. So how could a girl like Beatrice, intelligent, compassionate, knowing that fact of our situation look down on another less lucky and see more to it than just that—blind luck?
But there was more to it. There had to be. Look at Elewa. Was she not as unlucky as Agatha in the grand capricious raffle? A half-literate salesgirl in a shop owned by an Indian; living in one room with a petty-trader mother deep in the slums of Bassa. Why had she not gone sour? Why did she radiate this warmth and attraction and self-respect and confidence? Why did it seem so natural to install her in the spare bedroom and not, like Agatha, in the servant’s quarters? She was Ikem’s girl, true. But was that all? And how come Ikem singled her out in the first place to be his girl from the millions just as unlucky as herself? There was something in her that even her luckless draw could not remove. That thing that drew Ikem to her, and for which she must be given credit.
Ikem! Oh yes, Ikem. Provocative, infuriating, endearing Ikem! He was, had to be, at the root of these unusual musings! She recalled the last visit he had paid her in this flat. Though she was to see him a couple of times again subsequently, the last time only the other day at Chris’s place when they had all watched the news of his suspension together, that last visit here at her flat had risen with his death to dominate her consciousness of him and driven earlier and even later memories firmly into the background.
It was perhaps the strong, spiritual light of that emergent consciousness that gave Elewa, carrying as it turned out a living speck of him within her, this new luminosity she seemed to radiate which was not merely a reflection of common grief which you could find anywhere any hour in Kangan, but a touch, distinct, almost godlike, able to transform a half-literate, albeit good-natured and very attractive, girl into an object of veneration.
But even more remarkable was the way this consciousness was now, at the ebb-tide of her anger impinging on despised Agatha, who had wilfully placed herself until now beyond the reach of Beatrice’s sympathy by her dry-as-dust, sanctimonious, born-again ways; yes, impinging on her of all people and projecting on to the screen of the mind a new image of her; and in the background the narrator’s voice coming through and declaiming: It is now up to you women to tell us what has to be done. And Agatha is surely one of you.
And do you know what? Perhaps it might even be said that by being so clearly, so unpleasantly, so pig-headedly unhappy in her lot Agatha by her adamant refusal to be placated may be rendering a service to the cause more valuable than Elewa’s acceptance; valuable for keeping the memory of oppression intact, constantly burnished and ready. How about that?
It was Agatha’s habit to cry for hours whenever Beatrice said as much as boo to her; and Beatrice’s practice to completely ignore her. But today, after she had deposited the used plates in the sink, Beatrice turned to where Agatha sat with her face buried in her hands on the kitchen-table and placed her hand on her heaving shoulder. She immediately raised her head and stared at her mistress in unbelief.
“I am sorry Agatha.”
The unbelief turned first to shock and then, through the mist of her tears, a sunrise of smiles.
THE VOICE had become expansive, even self-indulgent. Two calls in one day! In the morning it was to give her full marks for moving the horse; but, if the horse was still in Bassa, to impress upon her that the city was not a safe environment for him. So she had better be thinking quite soon of a cross-country gallop.
“It’s not me you should worry about; I can promise never to find a horse. It’s the others who are more efficient than myself in the matter of finding horses.”
Completely bemused at the en
d of this strange mixture of whimsy and deadliness Beatrice found herself saying the words: “Are you genuine?” which rang almost as strangely in her ear as the communication that had given rise to it. He gave no answer. Perhaps he was already half-way to replacing his telephone and didn’t hear the question. Or perhaps he heard but did not wish to put himself in the vulnerable position of being questioned. If so, fair enough. One should not look a gift-horse in the mouth. The fellow wasn’t hired by her as her private detective, so he was within his rights to lay down conditions for his freely volunteered assistance.
Assistance, did she say? So she was already assuming he was on her side, already taking him for granted. So early in the day. Careful now, Beatrice, careful. How did her people say it? Don’t disparage the day that still has an hour of light in its hand.
That evening he called again to answer the question.
“You asked was I genuine? If by that you mean do I ride horses or do I play polo the answer is an emphatic no. But if you mean do I like horses, yes. I am a horse-fancier.” Click!
So he did hear it. Only he needed the time, a whole day, to work out a clever answer. Oh, well. She couldn’t really complain… though she must admit to being a little troubled by the tone of sportiveness creeping into his manner. But again, why not? Why should this unconventional benefactor be judged by her own sedate sense of seriousness. Was she forgetting that kind though he might have been to her on one occasion he was still a practising hangman? And what could be more natural than for a man in his profession to have a somewhat unorthodox sense of humour—gallows humour, in fact!
Two other things that happened that day compounded Beatrice’s anxiety. The National Gazette had come out in the morning with a strange story: The Commissioner for Information, Mr. Christopher Oriko, who had not been seen in his office or his residence for the past one week had according to unconfirmed reports left the country in a foreign airliner bound for London disguised as a Reverend Father and wearing a false beard.
What were they up to now? Was this a smoke-screen behind which they hoped to eliminate their second victim less messily than the first?
Then at six o’clock came a police statement declaring Mr. Christopher Oriko, Commissioner for Information wanted by security officers in connection with the recent coup plot and calling on anyone who had information concerning his whereabouts to contact the nearest police station and warned citizens that concealing information about a coup plotter was as serious as failing to report a coup plot or taking part in a coup plot; and the penalty for each was death.
This announcement had not come as a complete surprise to Beatrice. Still to hear those idiotic accusations made against the backdrop of that unflattering full-face picture of Chris dug up from God knows where staring out at you from the screen injected a chill into one’s circulation, even without the ominous death sting at the end.
She and Elewa sat in reflective silence after the announcement. Agatha who seemed to have heard it from the kitchen and moved up to the door was leaning on the doorway, silently. Then the telephone rang as though on cue shattering the dramatic silence. Elewa sat up, her head held high like a deer that sniffs danger, its erect ears waiting for a confirming rustle. But no stealthy sound came and no flashing movement, and she sat back again. Beatrice’s change of countenance, the tone and words of her half of the conversation had dispelled the air of dread which had lately attended telephone calls. The conversation was indeed about the announcement but whoever Beatrice was talking to seemed merely to be expressing friendly concern. When she dropped the telephone Elewa and Agatha had been having a quiet discussion of their own on the matter.
“Madam, make you no worry at all,” said Agatha. “Whether they look from here to Jericho, they no go find am. By God’s power.”
“Amin,” replied Elewa. “Na so we talk.”
15
CHRIS MEANWHILE had been weaving a nest of heady activity in the circumscribed quarters of his retreat. If only Beatrice had had more direct access to him in those few days of his rapid metamorphosis into the new career of prized quarry she might have learnt to be less surprised by the strange behaviour of his hunter; for even in his harried run Chris had stillaleft himself scope for heightening the drama of the chase. This apparent luxury made his tight corners not only more enjoyable to him but on occasion went so far as to offer him the illusion that he had turned hunter from hunted; that he had become the very spider manning a complicated webwork of toils and not the doomed fly circling in orbits of seeming freedom that nevertheless narrowed imperceptibly to a fatal impingement. Was this a necessary part of the psychology of hot pursuit that it will deceive even its own purpose, not to talk of the predicament of its victim, into liberal-looking sportiveness and fairplay?
Chris’s new network was fastened on the support of friends who harboured him in spare rooms and Boys’ Quarters and even, on one dramatic occasion, pitched him through a loose board into the steamy darkness of the ceiling. This hide-and-seek gave everyone concerned a nice conspiratorial feeling of being part of an undertaking admittedly risky but still far short of menacing. However, after the police announcement spelling out the death penalty for everything including this kind of game, Chris and his current host had a serious talk together and decided that they could not rule out the chances that one or two people who had played a role in the affair so far might be frightened by this turn of events into quietly informing against him to buy their own peace. So the need for him to move out of Bassa entirely became suddenly urgent. But it was going to be tricky and there was no way it could be accomplished in one step in the short time he had. So it was arranged that he and his aide-de-camp, Emmanuel, should make a preliminary move out of the Government Reservation Area to the northern slums under the care of the taxi-driver, Braimoh.
Emmanuel Obete was the President of the Students Union who after a couple of visits had brought his bag along one afternoon and simply stayed on.
“Why have you come to me?” Chris asked him, not on the first day nor the second but as they ate a hurried breakfast of fried plantains and corn pap with his host on the third morning.
“For protection,” said Emmanuel who was revealing a new side of himself as a clown of sorts. Chris and his host looked at each other and laughed.
“Do your peoplé have a proverb about a man looking for something inside the bag of a man looking for something?”
Emmanuel laughed in his turn and said no they didn’t… but wait… they did have something that resembled it: about digging a new hole to get sand to fill an old one.
“He is something else,” said Chris to his friend. And he did not trouble the young man again about his reasons.
Emmanuel was also a fugitive wanted by the police. But being of only middling importance in police estimation he was not given the VIP treatment of having his wait-and-take picture on television. A troublesome Students Union official was nothing new to the Kangan police, and they were not about to make a song and dance about him.
“Now I want to tell you the real reason I came to you,” said Emmanuel later in the day.
“I see,” said Chris. “Actually the one you gave in the morning was good enough for me. What is it this time?”
“Well, this time it is because the security people are so daft they will look for me everywhere except where you are.”
“There you go again underrating the state security. Very dangerous, you know. Better to overrate your enemy than to underrate him. OK, look at this matter of the fatal gunshot. Anyone who can come up with that kind of thing can’t be a complete fool.”
“I don’t believe they came up with it, sir. Pure accident, that’s all.”
Emmanuel’s low opinion of the army and police was matched only by his dismal estimate of Kangan journalists. Between the two he would give a slight edge in fact to the security officers. And fortunately for him the incredible ease with which he had planted the story of Chris’s escape to London in the National Gazette came in
handy as indisputable proof. He, Chris and their host had such a laugh when the news appeared; and Chris had to admit, shamefacedly as a former Editor of the Gazette, that the affair put the journalistic profession in Kangan in a very poor light indeed.
“Of course it would not have happened under your editorship or Ikem’s,” said Emmanuel in a tone that was not entirely free of certain impish ambiguity.
“Thank you, Emmanuel. Such gallantry.”
“No, I mean every word, sir.” And it seemed, this time, he did.
But Chris had some difficulty getting the matter off his mind. Long after the merriment over Emmanuel’s brilliant success had subsided he kept repeating to himself: “One telephone call! From a senior Customs Officer who for obvious reasons would rather not reveal his identity! Unbelievable!”
Chris’s disguise for his first hop was nothing as fanciful as Emmanuel’s priest’s cassock. He wore Braimoh’s everyday clothes and cap to match, and a few smudges of pot-black on his face and neck and arms to tone down a complexion too radiant for his new clothes or pretended calling as a retail dealer in small motor-car parts. The one-week growth of beard he had nurtured just in case, was discarded as not too great a success, especially when his host suggested, half-seriously, that the Reverend Father’s beard in Emmanuel’s rather more successful fiction might have the result of drawing police attention instinctively to people’s chins for some days to come.
Braimoh had two passengers in the back seat of his old cab when he arrived to pick up Chris for the critical journey to the north of the city. His estimate was eight or nine odd security roadblocks to cross. Chris said good afternoon to the two strangers behind and took the front seat beside the driver. Before driving away Braimoh reached into the untidy junk in his glove-box and brought out three kolanuts and offered them to Chris.