Sterile sky, p.5
Sterile Sky, page 5
‘Did they kill people in your place?’ I asked.
‘They killed many people.’
‘Where is your place?’
‘Dakata.’
A student walked into the class, her right elbow bandaged. As she took her seat, other students went to her quietly.
‘They killed many people in my place too.’
‘Where is your place?’
‘Kwana Hudu.’
A dark, plump girl waved at Millicent. She responded by grinning and waving back.
‘My mother said Muslims started the killing.’ Her small lips moved gently when she talked.
‘It’s because Christians burnt a mosque in Sabon Gari.’
‘They burnt many churches and mosques in Dakata.’
‘Did Christians fight in Dakata?’ I asked eagerly.
‘Yes. Christians killed many Muslims.’
‘In Kwana Hudu, it was Muslims that killed Christians.’
‘My mother said it was not the first time Hausa people had fought strangers. Before the civil war, they killed many Igbos.’
‘When was that?’
‘Long time ago. She was a small girl then.’
‘That must be a long time ago, indeed,’ I said, staring into her beautiful eyes.
A tall boy winked at Millicent as he walked to his seat.
‘She said that was when the North and the South started hating each other.’
‘But the crisis was between Christians and Muslims.’
A frown creased Millicent’s smooth forehead. ‘Most people from the North are Muslims and most people from the South are Christians.’
I understood Millicent’s point. The majority of the students in my school were, like Millicent, Christians from the South. Prestigious and elitist, my school was considered a Christian private school. My primary schoolmate, Aminu, had sneered when I told him I had been admitted to Tony Cheta College and said, ‘That school is full of inyamiris and kafiris.’ I had not taken him seriously.
After a moment of silence she asked, ‘Where is SMG?’ A benign smile played on her lips.
‘I don’t know.’
I wondered why she had asked me about the bully. I also wondered where he was.
A teacher entered the class.
*
Baba returned home tipsy. He refused to respond to those who greeted him in the compound. He did not respond to me either. I stood up from a wooden stool in front of our room where I had been sitting, reading my social studies notebook. He flopped down on the chair, unbuttoned his uniform shirt and removed it. His white undershirt had changed colour and smelled of sweat. Then he loosened the long laces of his police boots. I watched him furtively as he retrieved some squeezed bank notes from his smelly socks. Raising his head, he caught my eyes. On his lips was a funny smile.
Baba went into his room and returned, looking sad.
A Christmas carol was booming somewhere in the compound.
Baba burst out unexpectedly: ‘People are still killing people.’ Loudly, he continued, ‘People are slaughtering people in silence, in hiding. We are living in an abattoir.’
‘We lost many students in my school,’ I replied.
Baba was not interested in my words. A long moment of silence ensued. I listened to the whooshing of the December wind outside. Our frail windows, open, banged against the wall intermittently. I heard a woman calling her children. Then I heard their footsteps as they ran to her.
Baba, who had reclined on the chair, suddenly sat upright and stiffened his arms, his two palms locked together, his head low. ‘People are still killing other people. Not soldiers, but ordinary civilians, using their loud religions and silent weapons.’
I did not say anything, but my interest peaked.
‘Life can become terminal, even before death,’ Baba continued.
Baba stood up abruptly, his face twisted aggressively as though he were quarrelling with someone. ‘And yet she took my children to the village against my wishes.’ He walked into the inner room.
Baba’s logic baffled me. If people were still killing people, was it not safer that Mama and her children had left for the village?
*
Christmas passed silently. Baba did not receive his salary in January and February. He said the military president had not approved the year’s budget. We survived on the naira notes tucked into Baba’s socks. That was when he was on a good shift. On a bad shift, when he guarded banks and houses instead of doing patrolling, he brought home nothing.
‘The bank gives me only five naira for lunch,’ he told me one day though I did not ask. ‘That’s corporate wickedness, isn’t it?’
I nodded.
‘I carry an ancient gun that couldn’t even save my life to guard the banks. And what I get is a meagre sum that the bankers would be too ashamed to give as offering in a church.’
We also survived on the amounts he pushed me to borrow from our neighbours who sold foodstuffs. Yes, Baba pushed me because, left to me, I would rather have died than ask any of those fat, slovenly Yoruba women to give me foodstuffs on credit. One of them stung me one day when she riveted her small eyes on me like a tough headmistress and said, ‘Murtala, tell ya papa say credit get limit o.’ The limit was that I never again returned to her kiosk to buy anything.
Baba got a new transistor radio before Christmas. When I was home on weekends or public holidays, I listened to the network news with him. Baba would respond to the news by saying ‘Umhum!’ to a news item, ‘Ehm hem!’ to another, or even a whole sentence such as ‘Didn’t I say it?’ to others.
There was an expression that sprang frequently from his lips: ‘Na wa for dis SAP!’ He expressed it in different tones. I had been watching Baba mouthing it for some time before he called me one day after the news.
‘Yes, Baba,’ I answered him, yawning. At weekends, I hardly slept. Instead, I read late into the night.
‘There’s something called SAP. Heard of it?’
‘I’ve seen it on paper and heard of it from you,’ I answered him.
‘That word is lashing every poor person with bulala in our country now.’
I took this as Baba’s way of putting things. Baba had the habit of complicating simple things, like a teacher bent on impressing his pupils. I doubted if Baba knew that what he said was called personification. How SAP whipped people was what I honestly did not know. Though I read newspaper stories with headlines containing SAP, I did not understand them fully. SAP must be an adult worry. I did not like having adult worries, even though Baba had taken to calling me a man recently. All I wanted now was to wash my face and to start washing my clothes and Baba’s. It was Saturday.
‘Structural Adjustment Programme,’ Baba burst out, startling me. He looked at me and chuckled. ‘That’s SAP.’
I tried to repeat what he said. ‘Stru-ctu-ral adjust-men…’
‘Aren’t we doomed,’ Baba interrupted me, ‘because our leaders who can’t adjust their own lives are adjusting ours? We’re being adjusted into poverty and violence.’
I remained silent. I had little interest in what Baba was saying.
Baba continued as I was about to stand up: ‘Do you know life is hard, Murtala?’
‘Yes, Baba. We’re always eating beans and garri.’
Baba looked into my eyes and said, ‘Murtala, do you know that several people out there can’t enjoy that beans-garri luxury?’
I was puzzled. ‘Baba, are beans and garri a luxury?’
‘I see, Murtala. You’ve hidden yourself inside your small books and you don’t know what’s going on around you. We call people like you the elite.’
Baba pronounced ‘elite’ as ‘ei-lait’, different from the way I heard my English teacher pronounce it.
‘Baba, I’m just reading my books to do well in school.’
‘Nice of you. Sometimes I see you as the lone ray in this darkness. That’s why I insisted on sending you to a private school, even if I can’t afford the fees! You’ll meet your destiny. Ah, I have suffered in life. We’re progressing backwards, Murtala.’
‘I want to go and wash.’
‘I bore you, don’t I? You have no worries, because I worry for you. You’re fed, your school fees are paid. Go and wash, but be watchful of SAP.’
I decided to stay watchful. Our compound was alive with people. Our big house had been occupied, except for two rooms. Most of the people that came initially, some former occupants of the house, were men. Later their families joined them.
Baba Tindele – for that was what I heard his wife call him – was a thin, dry man who occupied the double room opposite ours. He was quiet and reserved like Baba, only answering greetings with a couple of words, not caring to look at people. A week after he joined us in the compound, his family arrived. His wife was a huge, light-complexioned woman with pockmarks on her face. Her ten children were all like their father, thin and dry. You would swear that the children could not have come out of her enormous body. Three of them were severely ill and the woman spent her time attending to them.
A Fulani man who did not look like a herdsman had just occupied the room after ours. He was handsome, of light complexion and average height.
A man who limped because of a bad leg had already occupied the room beyond the Fulani man’s. He was a Muslim from Bendel State. He moved into the double room along with his two wives and thirteen children. Since he had arrived, I had never seen him or any member of his family without wondering how they arranged themselves to sleep.
A fat, muscular man Baba once addressed as Mr Godwin occupied the room before ours. We later called him Baba Eddy when his wife, two daughters and two sons arrived, all very eager to please people. They responded to ordinary greetings with extra enthusiasm, as if they had been done a huge favour.
Quite surprising to me was the appearance of a particular plump man in our compound. I recognised him from the police barracks: his bouncing steps, his headphones and his conspicuous exploits with girls. He talked, walked and did everything with style. I had not met such an unusual person before. The day I introduced myself by name, he flashed me a knowing smile and intoned: ‘M-Boy.’
I smiled.
‘I forced you to take medicine at the barracks. Call me Omodiale.’
I remembered and nodded.
*
People began returning to Kano City. The city that had shrunk to a ghost in the days of killing recovered quickly, fattened by people-filled streets busy with normal activities.
I saw heaps of debris along the road, near the burnt houses. Beside the cemetery that extended to the Airport Road lay a heap of burnt flesh, rotten. The odour was heavy in the air. A man and his wife, carrying Bibles, covered their noses with their palms as they hurried past me. I held my breath and quickened my step.
There were still burnt vehicles beside the roads. I felt uneasy each time I looked at them. They brought Helen and Ukpo to mind. Each day I yearned to discard these images and think beyond them. I wanted to become a recluse, hidden from the world.
Many roadside shops were locked up. Some of them remained vandalised. I saw the debris of burnt TV sets, radios, torches and electric lamps, swept into a heap. Beside the debris stood a man, well dressed but with only one ear. I drew closer to him to look at the stump of his roughly sliced-off ear. A short man in his work clothes was inside a shop, painting it.
As I walked along the police barracks, down towards Nomansland, I came upon a group of schoolchildren, staring at a skinny dog in the throes of death. It yelped, sprawling in a dry gutter littered with brown grass. Its legs and waist were smashed, with raw flesh and bones jutting out.
‘James, it resembles our dog,’ a little girl holding an older boy’s hand said. She looked from the boy to the dying dog.
‘It’s not ours.’
I pondered over what fate had befallen the dog that morning as I walked to school.
I had just settled in my class when Ola walked up to me, a wide-lipped grin on his face.
‘Happy survival, Murtala,’ he said, stretching out his hand for a handshake.
I stood up as we shook hands. ‘Same to you, Ola.’
I shifted to make a space for him to sit. Ola was the only boy who had confronted SMG when he was bullying me on the day I started school. I had sought an opportunity to befriend him. But the crisis had flung us apart. Although school had long resumed, Ola had just returned. ‘Did they kill people in your place?’ I asked.
‘No.’
I didn’t believe him. Could there be anywhere in Kano City they had not killed people? ‘But they killed people all over the city.’
‘No, Murtala. I live with my parents at GRA, close to the governor’s house. Nobody would kill around there.’
‘Oh I see. I thought they killed people everywhere.’
‘We didn’t even hear any sound of gunshots or fighting. We watched the destruction on our telly.’
‘Then why has it taken you this long to resume school?’
‘We travelled out of the country. My mum was not happy with the news of death around us, so we left for London.’
‘That’s nice. I welcome you back.’
‘Thanks, Murtala. I hope nothing happened to anybody in your family? I was thinking of you.’
‘I lost my younger brother.’
Ola suddenly became sober. ‘Oh I’m so sorry. Accept my condolences.’
‘Thank you.’
During the break, while Ola and I got chatting again, SMG walked up to us and stretched his hand for a shake. Ola hesitated before he took it. I took SMG’s hand too. He had a shamefaced grin as he told me, ‘Murtala, I’m sorry for that day.’ I nodded.
5
I Reach Our Village
I reach our village just after the rain, which has swathed it in a fresh, earthy smell. It ushers in an uncanny darkness. I do not see weaver birds on mango trees chirping their last tunes for the day. I do not see children hurrying to their homesteads with errands their mothers need to finish the cooking. I do not see latecomers hurrying from the stream, water splashing from the big basins they carry. I do not hear mothers calling their children loudly. I do not hear competing rhythms of pounding from various homes. Nor do I hear the loud laughter of young men returning to their homesteads. How could all these have given way to this eerie silence?
I walk faster. Reaching the village square, fear grips me. An unearthly wind whirls round me. I quicken my step, almost trotting, hoping to see somebody, anybody, whose appearance will reassure me of human beings still living. I had gone in the morning to Oweto Market while the village was alive with neatly-clothed women and children. Where are they now?
It is abrupt and terrifying: the loud, harsh, piercing cry of Owuna. He is in an angry masquerade with two short horns as eyes. He wears a red blanket and a red cap with an eagle’s feather stuck on it. He wields a horsewhip to lash any teenagers who get in his way. I dread him. My heart pounds in panic as his voice fills the air. Horrified, I turn round. Where is he? Teereeeeeeyaaaaaaa! The cry pierces my soul. Then he appears unexpectedly before me. I run. As fast as I can, I speed away towards Ogam Road. I take a sharp corner, heading for Obagaji Road, hoping to elude him. But he comes after me angrily. Taking another sharp turn, I head for the village square. Try as I might, he gains ground and, alas, catches me by the arm and flings me into the air. I eddy up like a whirlwind, fall back into his arms and then he hurls me flat on the ground, pressing me down with his right leg. I squirm helplessly, my scream receding into my throat. Then he raises his horsewhip and I spring up to run.
I must have woken up screaming.
‘Murtala! Murtala!’ Baba stood beside my bed in the outer room. ‘Tell me what you saw. Whom were you struggling with?’
I scrambled out of bed, sweating all over.
‘What did you see in your dream?’
I remained mute. I looked into the brightness of the electric lamp. Power must have returned after I had gone to bed. My body was hot.
‘What did you see in your dream? If you don’t tell me I’ll spank you. You must stop that habit of keeping nightmares to yourself!’
Baba was having one of his rare tantrums.
‘It was Owuna chasing me.’
Baba’s anger deflated. He sighed loudly and adjusted the towel around his waist. He stood with his hands on his waist looking at me, and then turned back to the inner room. As he walked away, he said, ‘What else will you see, as she’s taken my children to the witches?’
I heard him yawn loudly and the wooden bed creak. I stifled a yawn and rubbed my eyes. I heard the distant howls of dogs. Sitting down on a chair, I folded my arms across my chest and began to weep silently, taking care that Baba would not hear me.
Ukpo, where are you? I’ve lost my sleep to nightmares, as I have lost my laughter. When I close my eyes in sleep, thinking you’ll come, all I see is Owuna bent on killing me.
‘Murtala,’ Baba called, his voice echoing.
I did not answer. I wiped the tears from my eyes.
‘Murtala, am I not calling you?’
‘Yes, Baba.’
‘Stop crying. Sleep now. The world has heard too much of innocent crying. It has no respect for tears.’
I climbed onto my bed, but remained fearfully awake.
*
I took refuge in school. Not that home was uncomfortable, however. Baba gave me the comfort he could afford. When he had money, it showed in the food we ate. He would bring home goat meat and cook the food himself. But when times got tough again, as they always did, we reverted to beans and garri.
I became quite lonely, even in our big compound with its playful children. The thought of Ukpo and Helen, of Mama and my siblings took my mind away from the compound. Whenever I heard children playing, I thought of Emayabo, of Oyigwu, of Yakubu and of the trio. Frequently, I imagined them suffering from terrible illness, on the verge of death. I pictured a helpless and frustrated Mama, crying and praying. Much as this image haunted me, I did not mention it to Baba.
After Ukpo died, I realised that he and Helen were the only friends I had ever had. I should have made other friends, to share stories and laughter with. It was obvious that in my class no one was older than me, not even SMG, though some were physically bigger. Aside from the age gap, I found it difficult to befriend them because they had fancy things I didn’t. I was unable to forget Mama’s advice: ‘I’m not happy your proud father is putting you in a school where you will meet rich children. Don’t covet their things in anyway. Remember the womb you’ve descended from.’
