African Short Stories Vol. 1

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THE ORACLE

For Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)


Chin Ce

I

It was near noon but seemed to be morning yet. Koma�s uncle reclined by his choice corner before the veranda of the house under the shade of an ancient mango that now looked like a baobab tree warming his legs by the hearth. He had just lectured us against our silly game of cards and rounded off a familiar one about one of his travels round the world. Now he contemplated his pipe with a curious expression on his face. Komas and I pestered for another story.
�Onku, what can you tell us about the legend of the Kongo twin,� I ventured.
The December harmattan blew a stream of chilly bursts that scattered leaves and dusts. This season's was the strong type that would dry your skin brittle and freeze your bones if you let it. It brought nostalgic memories of my childhood that carried further to some distant and forgotten period in a dim past.
�Barwa or Parwa?� the old teacher frowned; his brows and moustache were etched white. �That story is well untold. Sunu, son of my good friend, Eva,� he called to me, �Why do you want to know things that should not be told to young ears?�
�A great teacher once said that the lore of old could tell where the rain began to beat us,� I feigned.
�Surely, your memory has not failed you, Onku?� Komas shot him a glance and we exchanged furtive smiles. We knew how to pull the leg of the grand master. Wonder aloud if his memory was failing and you had him. For Onku and his travels round the world made irresistible stories for anyone who had ears to listen.
He was a glorious old fellow, though well in his eighties now. His face had an unnatural tinge behind the hardened, marbled eyes that had looked fear and death in the face many times over. This great bird of our clan had known years of rare wisdom which the young, as he often said, had yet to understand.
�Barwa and Parwa,� he said again. �-the big lie of history; one black like coal, the other fair like ripe pawpaw,� he smiled to himself. It was as if a chapter of the story was lighting up in his memory. �After them, none could have twins again in the whole of Kongo�

�That was until Slessor came!
�Of course, there are other versions,� he acknowledged. �Some say they were not twins but brothers. Others that they were close friends, you know, 'five-and-six,' like you and Okoma,� he gestured good naturedly to his great nephew who had a different kind of smile on his face as he anticipated the old man.
Onku - the way we called him - was actually the great uncle of Komas and had become the oldest surviving member of the family as well as the entire clan of Omaha. It was said that Onku went to Cambridge but his unlettered grandfather, Aham, the great seer of Omaha, was the one who opened his head and placed the ancient knowledge of the clan in them.
�Yes, I still have my memory intact,� Onku had warmed to the bait. �And which one of you shall claim it when I pass on? �that is, if chickens will ever come to cockerels for guidance. Ha! Ha!�
We laughed with him.
�Oh yes,� he continued on his usual gay note. �Only the old can tell an original tune. But first, you must make me my pipe, Oko,� he commanded. �And you, Sunu, stir the fire to warm my bones!�
Komas still had the knowing smile on his face as he hastened to oblige him while I gathered the tinder to revive the dying hearth.
Onku nudged me with a gay chuckle, showing a whole pair of toothless gums save few brown and rusted molars. �Really,� he teased, �you boys waste your time with those cards you call a game,� he peered into my face. �College these days is a pack of cards, isn't it?�
�No, a load of books,� I corrected with equal humour. �Many books and quizzes, you know.�
�Baa!� he snorted. �And what do those chap books tell? Blind as bats and leading their young to the ditch. Baa!� he shuffled both feet on the ground. �If you learned at the feet of the oracle, you would come to know the true wisdom of Mother Earth, I tell you.�
Presently Komas was back with the pipe refilled just the way the old man liked it - with a trail of white cloud. Onku would tell you he had tended those herbs since his young days, even after his Cambridge and before his travels; in fact, from time immemorial. Soon he was puffing luxuriantly, sending out brilliant sparks of light accompanied with dull thuds of crackling seeds. His eyes glowed as he let the smoke drift through the chimney of his nostrils and ears. Then he blew straight to my face. I winced and made as if to cough, holding my breath. This was the part he seemed to like for he gave a loud chortle. �You must smoke a pipe one day, boy,� he told me. �Learn to open up your mind. Now where were we?� he asked.
�Barwa and Parwa,� Komas reminded him.
�The big lie of history,� I added.
�The tale is taboo,� he warned again; �might turn your head when you hear it. And no,� he raised his right hand and his wizened index finger dug into my chest. It felt like a sharp sting from a talon. �Only one survived: Barwa, or Babul the great, who seized the life force of his twin and lived for seven whole generations!� he motioned.

Then his voice began to sound like a tape about to fast forward. �Some say he never died but still lives, a phantom of a life-� he winked knowingly.

�The sort that, rather than go on in the land of the ancients, falls back to the abyss, the darkness of the void, to become an incarnate of Enshu himself-
�Enshu,� he smirked, �who never tires of the chase nor wearies of the hunt�� he paused. His hairy nostrils and lips were barely visible in the white cloud from his pipe.
�And we in this land, my boy,� his eyes, presently blood shot with mysterious gleams, dug into mine. I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach as his voice took on an eerie note.
�We are the quarry. Ha! Ha! Ha!�
My head was swelling, dizzy with unearthly gurgles and foggy visions that seemed to jog my body of memory alert.
Or numb?
Whatever the case, I must have been completely unprepared for what followed next�
*
Suddenly I was running.
Fast as the wind, fast as my thoughts, all seemed lost in the blur; the entire world had fled with a rapidity that astonished me. Only the sound of the wind cooed sharply and furiously against the ears as I ran along a dusty road, blind and not looking.
I must have been running for hours, maybe days. My breath was beginning to flail. My lungs stung; my belly was a violent ache as if something was lodged in my mid-section. I lurched violently, reeling left and right, my legs sagging from underneath me. Finally, I came down with a slow, weary slump, blacking out the fast receding world I fled from.
When my eyes opened again I found myself in a secluded corner of a wide desert, near a bare footstone among some dusty piles of rock. This was strange. Where was I?
It's Naigon, I realised. Here was the arid region so much talked about in Kongo legends where battles had taken place in human heads. Stretched ahead were the desert and sand mounds of an endless, sprawling wasteland. The sand and dusts swirled and danced in wild gyrations to surging winds.
�To be free at last,� I found myself muttering, although not knowing why I said that. Maybe it was the feeling of vastness and space in this region that had impressed itself upon me as I rested to meditate upon the prospect of tearing free from the sudden blight. For everywhere around me was yawning poverty and scorched parches of stone. The sun had become a never-setting glaze of terror, its countenance a fierce tinge of devilish vengeance upon this part of earth that seemed impervious to all noble intents.
I began to thirst. Beads of perspiration were dropping down my neck. I shut my eyes. I had a long history behind, and a promising task ahead.
The wind was lashing violently like a discarnate monster. Its deathly hand seemed to lace over my head; a sense of foreboding hovered ever so near. I was way to a past that was stealthily pulling me by the ears. I was seeing images of terror and, I knew, somehow, they were projected by a virulent power in a matrix of thought forms. The muscles of my eyes were hurting from the strain of keeping them tightly shut from these spectres of my imagination. It was a great effort to keep still in that terror and not let out a yell and bound away to any ever place. Sit still, shut it tight, and do not give away your hiding place with much of a whisper was what I told myself.

But out of the dark emerged a head, or what looked like a hound. Its teeth were barred, the lips curled in a snarl. It was hunched double as it sniffed the air. Its paws, hung limply from a gnarled hairy chest, made careless patterns on the ground. Our eyes met. I recognised him immediately as he gave a long growl of vicious temper. waB! That dreaded messenger of Babul and chief of his staff of minions!
�So there you are!� he barked in that taut manner of his liege. �You thought you could escape the power of my arms, didn�t you?�
My fear was full blown in one fleeting, paralysing moment. And then it was gone, made way for the contempt I had for the likes of these guards that were now emerging from beneath the sands.
�I have come a long way,� I replied, feeling a surge of strength welling from within. Surely, this new wave of energy could not be mine, I thought. It was as if some higher power had quickly impressed through my head, arms and fingers the power to fight at that moment where I had my back to a wall of sand. And all I needed to do was stretch a long and defiant arm that would summon the light to an explosive battle with my enemies. But it was obvious that this struggle involved a severe force I had not quite understood. So the balance of power was tilted against me. Even so, �I have come a long way, waB, I am not going back there, I said again.�

The hound was cast in the character of his lord. waB believed himself prince as his master was king. Their masks would haunt anyone, anywhere -those visages of terror and darkness robbing peace from the soul. And here in the blazing desert must one also strain and fight -all for the good purpose. Peace was, indeed, our purpose of coming to live on Mother Earth since the first beginnings...
These uncommon thoughts raced through me in milliseconds. It felt like an intense downpour, and they were pouring from a deep source within although I knew not where.
�We are here to take you back,� waB said again, with very little patience, adding finally: �to where you belong.�
�See who has come to tell me where I belong,� I retorted, but mine was with calmness, perfectly within the presence that had given me this serene composure to face my captors, I mused, just as waB�s eyes turned angry flashes of blood red. �Don�t be silly,� he snapped, �You belong back to where you fled. Now let�s go. You are enough disgrace to your fellows. Baba was there; he came personally in the midst of the congregation to welcome you...�
�Stop, you moron!� I suddenly yelled. �Stop parroting that murderous beast. Surely, waB, this web is not a life for you or me. We must stop; we must quit that den, or lose our selves to hopeless evil.�
waB only wrung his neck leftward and rightward, and then leant forward with a leering grin. �I knew you wouldn�t give easy,� his visage changed as he straightened his muzzle. �Take him!� he thundered. His eyes were his lord's firework, the smell of his breath, straight in my face, like carbon belching. The rest of them who had laid back now began to emerge from both sides, eyes in flame, lips curled, fangs barred; their measured stealthy walk, their single determination exuded from the virulence and meanness for which waB and his league were famous.

Rough paws jabbed at me from left and right. I felt like being torn to pieces by a hundred jaws, then flung hopelessly into an abyss of darkness and nothingness.

I woke up to find myself face to face with the dreaded lord of the realm. My legs and wrists seemed bound and spread apart. I was left hanging in space or floating upside down in a helpless, perplexing manner. The great Babul himself was dressed like a mediaeval warrior as he paced the air. His face was the colour of soot smeared thinly over a bony skull that brought instant revulsion as he gazed at you through chilly dead coals that served for eyes. His hands were folded behind his back. His huge black and red drape was hung down his shoulders, sweeping the floor and covering a pair of hinds ensconced in black leather boots.
�I brought you in,� he started with condescending friendliness� and a pause-
�So that you can fully appreciate the seriousness of the dilemma before you-

�And the enormity of my power!� he spat violently.
He let a few seconds pass, and then spoke again. 

�Prodigal, there is no running from the lord and master of the realm, in search of what? Wisdom? Moral? Which is better: to flee the thrall of my presence and then incur my wrath upon your head, or come willingly into my acts with all pleasure guaranteed...�
The unwilling quarry and the ruthless hunter, I sighed.

It was going to be a long and hopeless torture. I quietly helped myself to a passage in gentle comatose�

But there was to be no escape from the hypnosis of fear and desperation that had made captive of my mind and body. Babul�s voice still boomed rudely and noisily wherever I was.

�Now, this is my covenant...�

It must have been several hours, or several days later, I could not count the period of my captivity. Tired, hungry and abandoned, I beheld my captor as he slowly materialised from the darkness of unconsciousness. This time he looked like a true man of God, decked in regalia of white trousers and overcoat to match. His neat stockings, shoes and necktie were impeccably white
�You shall not be a rebel to my cause anymore; you shall be my newest prophet of the millennium.�
That gave me quite a start. The metamorphosis of prophets was indeed miraculous even for dissidents. Yet what had just come from this new barrel of neck, robust set of cheeks and heavily indulged lips seemed quite in character. Nothing must come by dint of work or merit except by the caprice of the lord himself. Was this not how his hierarchy jostled tirelessly to curry favours, I could imagine. But then I was laughing.
�Is this another miracle?�
Babul showed his teeth in an angry snarl, the beast underneath his stylish appearance wanting to tear to open. But he won�t let it yet.
�You must teach the faith,� he went on, ignoring my irreverent question. �Your role will be to gather them, many more disciples and masses who will be looking to you. They are groping in their minds for a few explosive tickets to health, wealth and power, and you have the tricks. Tricks are necessary if you must gain a stable following, you know?�
But I was silent.

My silence must have meant my consent, for Babul then adjusted himself to appear more solidly in a grand seat ornamented with circular mirrors. Copious silvery lining trapped flaming red lights and threw angry fireworks around the corners. He leaned a bit closer to whisper conspiratorially and I shrank involuntarily from the deathly chill which exuded from his embodiment.
�You know, I was going to add unto you the legacy of Pastor Chris. He did his bit very well and now he�s gone, blown up by a disgruntled church member, isn�t that rather sad?
�They said he preached too many fearful sermons,� he continued. �Well, now, those chilly waves of fear among the flock was power, you know?
�But I understand you want to teach peace, asalam, or whatever. We must add to them the comfort of a permanently witless state of consciousness. I will explain:
�There is a drawn battle for the mind of this world. Some old men who refuse to die - those compromisers of first disorder who can�t just keep their mouths shut - have been spreading their message of liberty, just like you do with your counter tales: throwing words around, and quite a few are picking up these seeds in their heart.
�Now you will preach unity and faith, peace and progress, but read my lips: that four-footed creature draws from my mind which controls every behaviour on this soil with robotic precision.
�Negate and convict them, persuade them to repudiate their worth; immobilise, demobilise and leave them stagnated in the contradictions of their doctrines and injunctions. Lead them to lie here by my feet.
�The great lie is their loyalty; the more ignorant the more loyal to the cause; the more fanatical and violent...
�No, no I can see you are confused again,� Baba waved his hands in the face of his frightened captive - being myself - who watched his every movement like a wary bird.
�Now let�s put it this way. As your lord, I ask you: what are those other faces of my peace and harmony but your violence and wars; of my love and service but your competitions and hatred for one another? Your free will has overrun or contributed to overturn every good for the ascendancy of mediocrity within the entire fabric of all nations: Simple quantum leveller, don�t you think?
�Your founding fathers did the same.
�Others are doing it everywhere.
�We are the hydra of every age on this soil.
�And all I am saying is lead - lead them on; carve a following. But teach these in verses and that great singing and dancing for which you are famous. And, with the powers I shall add to it, you might become the youngest prophet to razz the hunger of this age.�
�But l will tell you again, young man, to beware of sabotage: you tend to seek the moral behind my tale,� he leaned forward with a leer and shoved white-gloved claws in my face. �Now your lord cannot preside over the sabotage of his power, can he?�
I inwardly recoiled realising that what he actually meant by moral was truth. But cutting into his loathsome monologue, I blurted out: �I won�t!�
The two words seemed to jar him for he started briefly. Then the dangerous gleam appeared in his eyes again.
�You won�t? You mean turn again, tiger, against my will?� Babul growled. �Then I will damn you to hell. I will sit and preside over the radius of the brimstone that will consume you forever. You must understand, boy. East or west, the show must go on!

�Whether you want it or not!� he was roaring now like an angry lion.
Then there was silence.
His was the final, ominous threat, while mine was in contemplation of the complex paradox that gave rise to such a nightmare of human imagination. Or was it the silence of my own confounded grip by a titan who bestrode the human will with his awesome power and abuse of it? I could not tell�

 

II

Coming to think of it now, I could still have been under the dominion of that awful creature�s mind if I had not met Nagua and held his rescue present in my palms.
Nagua's gift was in the form of an ancient, loose bound note he called my memory. �Within these pages,� he had told us before we parted, �will be found every forgotten bits and pieces of your universe of dreams.

�And you can only so truly seek as to begin to remember again.�
When I leafed through the pages, bold letters began to ring in soft gentle peals:

-One day we would return to the beginning of it all in the great continuum of being...
Those were weird and wonderful words I'd never heard before at the start of any story. And on the page was a familiar angel looking resplendent and full of life. She had on a silk cotton dress that covered her neck; her eyes were bright as were her lips from which flowed phrases that sounded inaudible but incredibly beautiful. I flipped the leaves as her words came alive:

-There are many parts to everything that happens any moment, any time...

-Parts untold, unfelt and unappreciated...

Each page unlocked a memory that expanded and lighted my quest beyond all I had ever imagined. I went on randomly till coming to the ending lines:

-Ours is to part the blinds and help our minds to glimpse these parts in their wholeness...

I was vaguely aware of a sigh that heaved through my whole frame. Finally, Nagua had brought me away from the control and haze of darkness into the memory of my secret selves. It felt like the rousing of one life breath after another. An intrinsic part of my being, for once, felt real and true. It had taken just one brief moment to come into the awakening. Henceforth a good head was mine to carry and protect. And neither panic nor mortal fear could fall upon it again.

But it does seem like I'm telling it all in reverse mode, doesn't it?
Now, to how I met Nagua�

Babul had left me cowed, beaten, hungry and desperate. He had made it clear I was his prey; I would do anything he wanted in order to live or survive the harrowing ordeal of slavery and punishment in that dense dungeon he had created for rebels of his art, as he tagged me and my kind. But no sooner had his presence withdrawn from view than I began to scan my mind for an escape route. Freedom, sweet freedom, was all I breathed; was all I lived and could ever hope for...

Soon there came a sound like the soft humming of celestial bees, coming in from the asphyxiating deep, that dense silence that mortally terrified a soul. My mind was like a malfunctioned clock working slowly backward, then reeling dizzily anti clockwise. Yet listening to the droning, and so considerably dulled, I felt being gently, ever so gently, drawn out of all premonitions.

I saw a pair of legs in canvas shoes fleeting across the air in quick, determined motions. Those were my legs�

Then I went numb as the legs leapt high up and landed on the dust. I tried to jump but too late! I came down with a heavy thud. Something like a canister hit my head. The fumes hissed directly under my nose. Another. Then another.

I scrambled to my feet, lungs and eyes stinging, my face smarting painfully. In the haze, I caught a glimpse of hooded figures edging after me. Babul�s mad dogs! I spat and coughed violently. It felt like hell as more canister balls rained down.

Dazed, I ran harder. My lungs were threatening to burst. Then I burst through a thicket. There was my college hostel quarter... Or was it the female wing? Then there was �infinity!

�You have returned?� Mma asked.

I quickly awoke to an airy, dreamy place where everything changed. There was no monster masquerade, no bull chase and the nightmarish struggles.

There was only the beautiful angel whose fragrance of morning rose lit all the centres within me. A serenade was singing somewhere in my heart.
Mma was that familiar angel. I remembered how we parted ways a long time ago in not too happy circumstances. Now all I wanted was speak gentle words to her and not the callous abandonment of the past. But I couldn�t quite get them together. How would she take anything I said again? My heart thumped uncertainly.

Strangely she seemed without emotion. There was neither pride nor indignation in her voice, just the question which both of us knew the answer.
We were sitting side by side on a brown footstone under a low pine tree which whistled softly and endlessly. The sun was a pink, soft glow that blended gently with the azure hue of the clouds drifting so leisurely and lowly overhead that we could reach out and feel them in our hands. So close was everything, like the wind that rustled the pines. I could reach out to all things in this world by simply thinking of their beauty. There was an intimacy in everything that filled all space. I seemed to know many things yet there were so many things I was still to learn.
My apology tumbled jerkily. �I wronged you, Mamma,� I tenderly began. �I came to say sorry for leaving you the way I did. That's hardly how we are meant to treat each other.�
Yet, in spite of the peace and harmony around us, the words stuck in my throat. I felt like a prodigal who didn't deserve the welcome embrace. But Mma brushed this aside with a wave and the words: �No need for all that.� She reached out to prod the soft soil, scooping a handful of brown, yellow sand to let them sift gently though her parted fingers. �Do you know where we are, Sun?� she called me in that affectionate manner she shortened my name. We cannot be sorry for the past; it�s useless in the moment of truthful answers,� she said.
�I�m not clinging to our misdeeds,� I countered lamely. �But to correct them in order to move on with our lives...�
Her laughter rang out in the clear lustre of the pink sunshine interrupting my words. �What's there to correct when all is well within you? You always think in terms of wrong. But all is right here and now that brings us joy and beauty.�
I looked at her wonderingly. This was a new girl in such a short time. She was more sanguine than I had known her to be. Her youth and beauty shone with the disinterestedness which seemed to underline her confidence and strength. It was like the strength of a panther.
She must have caught my thoughts and was rather bemused. �You see, you left for your mission and then I found the oracle. I found Nagua.�

�Nagua,� I repeated. �Who is Nagua?�
Then it dawned on me. Mma had a new man in her life. A surge of emotion shot through me. Here, I thought, was I reunited finally with my life's dream and she was talking about another with such daintiness and sheer delight. But Mma laughed, throwing away sand from her hands and rising simultaneously to her feet. �Isn�t it beautiful,� she exclaimed, �the loneliness of this world and the companionship of your soul.�
The wind was rising softly, an invisible being that could only be felt and heard as sound. So was the rustling of the pine tree. Here was a silent land, spread-eagled, like an endless wild, and coloured with the unreality of pink majestic energy from the still overhead sun. �Come let�s play,� she called to me and without looking back, bounded gracefully into a low flowery brush.
I watched her for a few seconds, envying the joy and freedom of her every movement, the nimbleness of her body and the ease with which she glided in the air, hands spread out, beautiful round legs slightly poised for balance, and then it struck me how evenly balanced she was in our world. The more I watched her, the more it stirred in me an inner power, the strength to move, to forgo everything past and move into the fullness of living expression.
�Come,� Mma�s voice wafted close. My body rose in full vigour, yet I was unsure of my steps, trying to find my balance as my left leg caught in the sand and my right slipped, and my hands flailed briefly, a novice at the play.
Then letting go my attention on myself to concentrate on the �lan form before me, I was soon sailing effortlessly, cutting through the moaning wind spirits whose sound had heightened to a still, vibrating drone. I sped and the sun�s brilliance spread out to me her warm embrace of freedom and joy as I flung in the soft, pliant arms of my twin flame. Our union brought her gentle giggles in my face. A halo was spreading over her head. �How do you feel now?� she sang in the sound of the irrepressible wind.
�I feel I have everything I need here in my arms. You feel the same?�
She laughed in answer.
�And do I have that light on my head too?� I pointed. I was joyous and excited at the experience I was having in this wondrous corner of the universe.
�If you can feel it, then you have it,� she teased.
And sure enough I could feel a dancing and glowing around my face and head and cheeks, and all over my body. It was all around me like a huge globe. I stretched my hands and light beams flashed out in colours of white and blue and yellow. Mma joined and soon we were sending multicolour lightning crisscrossing in great waves in the skies. I threw a dart at her which she deftly deflected with a bright beam. �Defend yourself!� she declared as we parried darts. �I am Imamma, the golden breasted one. And you?�
I paused, and her beam caught my shoulder blade, knocking me flat to the ground. I reeled in pain.

Mma laughed. �It's only your mind,� she told me. �Nothing really hurts here, inside the memory of your worlds.�
Then I stopped, transfixed by the most incredible vision I ever saw. The beings of the universe!
Hovering close above, around and within, they were strangely familiar faces. I recognised them all: fathers, mothers, grandfathers and stepmothers, aunts and uncles, great uncles and a host of friends and relations I never recalled existed before. I knew them now, the ancients of days from across all races of the known and unknown cosmos.

These were my ancestors, our higher companions who watched over us, silently, quietly always there in the background of all things, all events, nurturing and ever so gently, bringing us closer into the fuller realisation of our purpose in this world. These were my universal family! And they were calling my name in the softest, gentlest notes of music. �Kusun!� I announced with great delight, leaping like a teen who had just found the solution to a life long puzzle. �I am Kusunku of the orange sun!�
The proclamation had come with miraculous healing power, the last serene blast in the universal awakening. I was like one for whom a bad spell had been broken; a violent downpour had ended, the clouds had receded and I could see clearly for the first time in a long while.

I sat down to savour this silent thrill of recovery. Mma drew closer, placing a gentle hand around my neck, and announcing in her quaint, soft manner: �I welcome you to the meeting of me and you, Sun of my flaming heart!�
I could only smile as she stretched her hand to me. I took it and she pulled me up my feet. �Come let�s wait. The search is nearly over. �For Nagua.�
I felt an old dull ache return, and we were back under the pine tree, sitting side by side, our knees drawn up with our hands clasped over them. After a long time had passed with the girl�s squinting and searching into the distance, I asked again. �Mamma, who is Nagua?�
Mma narrowed a pair of bright, intelligent eyes that were scanning the horizon as if expecting something to turn up there that very moment. �You know, there are times,� she said without looking in my direction, �that you sound like I will understand you full well only when we have returned finally to that great continuum of being.�
�Why is that?� I asked sheepishly.
�If you often act from the mind of fear and separation,� her eyes flashed a sudden brilliant light, �you lose the courage and freedom of your deepest heart within?�
Her radiant white gleamed softly, tenderly. Her twinkle was there, faintly though, with a softness which bore compassion flowing like a spring. I clasped my arms around her neck, trusting and melting completely in the warmth of her being.
Presently she exclaimed. �There�s Nagua! He�s coming our way.� And she was off in a quick sprint.
I followed her beautiful legs flitting nimbly across the rich ochre coloured soil toward a shadowy outline. As we drew close I could see that the figure looked strangely familiar in his bright white top and dark hued trousers. And when he turned to meet us, I realised with a jolt of surprise how foolish I had been to entertain doubts about the girl.
Nagua was no other than the glorious old fellow by the fireside, the greatest bard that ever lived in the Kongo tribe of Omaha and the whole region of Naigon: Onku himself!

So that was how I met Nagua�

And how I finally came to summon courage and seize the tale that had fooled the vain and meek. I was now ready for the final chapter. The final wakening, Nagua had said, was to confront the evil master, himself, face to face at his own demesne in the discarnate realm.

Crossing the earthly line and entering the fringe of the nether world was like delving in a moving screen where fuzzy shapes and dull colours were thrown before the vision in random black and white. The weird gurgling and howling of captive souls assailed your hearing, and the dizzy flight of life forms added to the horrendous illusion while you steadied your balance on the narrow path. One step out of turn was all it took to fall back into a warring world where you battled to break free from the tyranny of materialism and confusion.
And so with care and courage, I treaded. That was sure way to track the self acclaimed lord of the realm. I had to confront him at last with the secret he had hidden for so long from his human slaves. Because no longer was I his quarry. I was past the fear and awe that had paralysed the world for many, many generations.

A spiral of smoke from the conclave made it easy to locate the chimney residence. The approach was strangely unguarded save for few shadow energies that took form every now and then, trying to dig into your fears and grab at your mind. Babul knew few earthmen could summon the courage to journey out of their bodies, past the tunnel of terror and the shadow of death, to venture here where he fed from the energy of billions he had won to himself in worship and devotion.
Well, I may have been his fodder for some time but, unlike most, an unwilling one. For the matter had complicated further. The weaver of vanities had swallowed the ruse of his own omnipotence in the literal sense of the fable and had proven too complacent to credit anyone else with little intelligence. He had become the tortoise who thought he had all the wisdom of the world inside his personal calabash. Now a surprise awaited him.
I edged on gingerly, ignoring the hazardous motions around and without. Babul�s minions.

They were prancing in and out and poking mischief on my vision. Formless and lurid, manifested by vile thoughts, they sought outlets in the depressing miasma of any mind open to them. But now I was filled with great courage, I could tell where his power lurked, digging his forays onto our souls, and manifesting as fast as our pitiful thoughts of our own unworthiness attracted him. I waved aside a green faced one brandishing a weapon in my face. It fell back into the shadows with a puff!

The thick grey cloud of mist around the hearth soon became a circle of dull red walls at whose tiny entrance stood waB the daemon. Beside this loyal servant at the gate was a green faced animal sentry who seemed impervious to the lewdness around her with waB massaging her fleshy derriere while she gave excited grunts and an empty look in space.
Then my eyes met his.
The hound leader was wearing his beastly hooded visage and a red band around his snout. This time he was genial in his greeting. �Here we are,� he nodded, his hand dropping lazily to his side, �watching out for you, just in case.�
This last line was a lie. In a way, he was saying he knew I would be coming here at this very moment and he was just standing by to receive me. waB had grown into the dissembling that went with the art. It kept the audience in awe believing that the priest, like God, knew everything that would happen at any crucial moment in the lives of his devotees. But that was another ruse of the text.
Deftly he motioned the animal woman to hold on. She was somehow sheep staring at me with naked desire and chewing frantically on what must be flesh gums in her mouth.
�Follow me,� he turned, leading the way, still not resisting the urge to lay his hands around that derriere in a parting gesture. Then he hobbled forward like a silhouette in twilight. His dirty whiskers bristled in the dull grey smoke; his eyes darted left and right. Finally, he made a noise as if to throw up sputum or something worse. Then he seemed to think otherwise and gave a short, uneasy laugh.
�That day of the chase was nothing personal; just orders,� he began. �Surely, as one of us, you must understand.�
I gave him silence as we clumped through a decrepit hallway covered with dirty, slivery soot and webs. Everything here fell in with the depressing stockpile of smoke and mirrors that threw multiples of images all around the corners.
�Man, I am so relieved to have you back. I can�t tell you how terrible it was to fight a fellow brother in the cause. Anyhow,� he sounded almost apologetic, �with our eyes on our permanent interests, your enemy today might just be your friend tomorrow.�
�That open secret,� I replied indifferently, �Isn't it the cornerstone of your lies?�
waB gave a short, uneasy laugh.
�You have a strange sense of humour, man. There�s nothing we have that you seem to care for. Even our dos don't seem to hold water with you. Let alone our don'ts.�
I shook my head. �Not any more. When you see the trick of the tale, you are bound to a wake up call.�
�Trick of the tale!� he gave an uncertain smirk. �I can see why everyone told Baba you could be the ruin of us. Your ideas will do away with everything we cherish so much? Now that�s close to heresy. A tale isn't just a tale when we have loyal members for its cause ...um um�, he cleared his throat on a conciliatory note. �Everything you see here is... personal, you know. Can�t be too discreet though about our privacy, can we?" Now he was sounding strangely rhetorical.
�Isn�t that the ruin of us?� I smiled back to him. �Don�t worry, you are none of my business; you never were. After all, you are my kinsman, waB,� I assured him.
He grinned back, not understanding my meaning but blurting in his mechanical manner. �Who knows, one day, we could even become first cousins by his lordship...

�Now here is His Holiness, Babul the Greatest, Conqueror of the world,� cried the priest daemon, suddenly bowing very low.

 

He sat on a high stool decked with the dull glitter of red and silvery stones. The blood-red hood covered from his huge shoulders to his toes. You could imagine any primeval lord hunched in a high seat, the giant mirrors adding to his imposing size as he glowered down to his subjects below, and that would be the beast himself.
Babul was flanked by over a hundred high priests of his inner sanctum. They were dressed in their ceremonial crimson hoods, holding dim lighted objects in each hand which caught the mirrors and threw gleams around a dome that slanted dangerously above. He gave a satisfied nod to his priest and began to sniff the air around me. �You come to me with courage. But I see vexation in your eyes,� he began.
I smiled quizzically and he drew a blank.
He tried another angle. �Congratulations, young man, you have made it. Are you not honoured to be counted among the highest of my realm? This is a great occasion in your life.�
�Great indeed,� I interrupted, aware of the slight frown of disapproval from his hood as I walked straight up the raised dais on which he sat. It happened in seconds, too quickly for his expectation. It brought muffled gasps of surprise from his congregation.
�Now get your zombies out of sight. I want to speak to you alone,� I began in a calm, determined voice. �In your own interest, Babul,� I added, �for you won�t like them to hear what I have to say, I assure you.�
Babul was taken aback. But one look into my eyes decided for him. He waved a left to his men and, in a minute, the rigid, immobile order of psychic moguls disappeared through hidden doors in the wall. I glanced around a few seconds to be sure. Even the daemon waB was nowhere to be seen.
�Good,� I began, �I guess you know by now why I will neither serve nor be herdsman of your force in any way.�
�You gave me your silent agreement,� Babul snarled. He was clearly exasperated by what was becoming my merry go round with him on the subject of tending his slaves on earth. �When you put your hands on my plough, there's no going back!� his voice became a bellow that resounded with loud echoes in the open debris of his kingdom.
But I was unperturbed. The story was winding full circle in his face and you had to get used to the twin aspects of this conquering lord. The benign face he might reserve to loyal worshippers under his aura but the demonic visage was what he welded against any who dared doubt on some matters of contradiction in his ways. This time I couldn't give a whiff for either.
�It's not my fault how you interpret silence. Listen,� I stared into his self indulgent snout, �and I will tell this story...�
�Oh ho, you own the tale now,� he laughed in derision but he was uneasy as far as I could sense the chill around him.
�That part we don�t know yet is a tale that must be told, my friend.�
�Oh ho, I�m now your friend,� Babul scorned again. �You never called me that before, did you?� his face puckered with rage. �I am your lord!� he made that reverberating bellow again.
�And master,� I retorted. �Now listen. A long, long time ago, there were two brothers. And there was a crime. Surely you will recall what one did to the other.�
I sensed Babul freeze.
�Drink the blood, eat the flesh.
�Steal a mind; sell your soul.
�Anything for power and glory over the earth.
�And the smoky world of hell�
�Shouldn't you be asking to know this interloper?� I interrupted myself.
He was very still.

I continued. �Give the name and the spell is broken.

�A little drop of truth, a million tons of lies. Isn't that how you spin the wheel?�
Babul's face had turned the colour of ash in wet dew. �What do you mean by these silly riddles?� he sneered.
�Who owns the story, Baba? The weaver of myths -

�The millions who bow and clap their hands?
�Or the greed that only wants more and more?
�Now, what made the moral disappear like a mist in the rising sun?�
�I see you�ve been dreaming,� Babul began.
�But it is all a dream, Barwa,� I called his given name. �Two hundred years of the myth that fed your power.�
For a second I thought my eyes were deceiving me. The great lord was sweating profusely.
�There's only one trouble in your book, Babul: You underrate who we are inside -

�And overrate your own image in the mirror.�
�You can�t...� Babul practically choked like he was about to have a heart attack.
�Can't I?� I pressed on. �While you worked every angle of our ignorance, you never bargained for the other force - the light of awakened souls beaming up the universe.�
�See how you dare the anger of your lord!� Although Babul's voice was thundering everywhere within his dilapidated mansion, I had seen his desperation and that was the confirmation I needed.
�You were disembodied a long time,� I countered. �They call you lord; you're no more lord than these things by the smoky way...�
Then I relented with a shrug of indifference. Babul now knew that I also knew what he thought only him knew above everyone else. I had made my point on his origins and it was time to leave.
�Keep your hood and tell your slaves the truth, Babul. They will love you still. And when they wake up becomes their morning. Bye for now. I can find my way out.�
He was beaten.
Babul was down but not completely out, mind you. His final act would depend on the millions riveted upon his magic. Would they dare to look behind the drapery of his fiction? Would they follow their intuition or just a tale for its own sake? Would they find within their inner being the answers they sought, or depend on priests and tyrants for half truths that demean their souls? It was up to them. As for me, I had woken from a deep slumber where forgetfulness dwelled. Now I was ready to savour the beauty of hearts awake.
At the doorway, Babul called to me, �Friend,� for the first time.
I turned.
His horrid paws were folded across his chest. He looked deflated, the pride and arrogance almost gone. �I didn't kill my little brother,� he said. �It was he who gave up his life.�
That was a new version.
�They said you were twins,� I replied. But the usurper brushed that one aside.

�He gave up his life for me. Willingly, like all those who come to me, you see?�
I smiled. �Another half-truth,� I replied, �but I shall pass.�

Cousin waB was waiting for me by the hallway and snuffling his damsel, the greyhound woman, by the side. �It is done?� he hazarded as he turned to lead the way out.
�It is done,� I replied doubtfully.

The daemon leader betrayed no emotion; he was playing the game of knowing things before hand, their theatrics in divine omniscience. But then one thing was certain between us: we were past the time of muscles flexed and fangs bared against each other. For with fear and uncertainty gone now, he too knew the sign of the end when the audience no longer answered eagerly 'Yes, Yes!' to the call of 'Story, Story!! '
He parted the smoking blind to let me step past.
And in his mind I could read the dilemma of the art that enslaved him and his fellows. Here was their only tale of dread and might. Better to revel in a dream that promised everything they could want than the truth that shook them rudely and with no titles to their little selves. So, I thought, let it be a deep sleep for them that might never rouse awake.
At that point, waB paused to let me walk on through the chimney smoke that spiralled from the mouth of the gigantic coven that led to the borderline of the earthly realm.
�And now, each to his own woman, NwaBala,� I called his full name. He barely managed to contain his jolt at that one. �Look now unto your house, isn't it how it's said?�
�I mustn�t forget that piece of bone wisdom,� waB replied with a wink, stepping gingerly backward to his female company.

I was left alone to pick my way through the thickening flux, past the noises of life starved creatures. Half in and out of my mind, I kept wondering how-

How the likes of Babul could ever have counted to the many forever groping in the shadows of mighty dreams...

It nearly proved a costly mistake letting my mind wander. There was hardly a warning before it dropped -a devastating dart that paralysed the senses and brought me instantly to my knees.
Babul!
I had underrated the con artist again, and history was about to laugh for the umpteenth time. Why did I imagine he would let me out of his sphere without a fight?
Fool! I berated myself, to be annihilated by an underhanded cut, an exhumation of trickery and cowardice more sickening than this dense fog in this lowly graveyard.
Then I heard their gurgling: Babul�s minions and their gibberish that mortified and made stupor of the mind.
They were tearing the life force from me, to dissipate my energy in slavish duties. I would become a nameless cipher among those millions of zombies.
I was going to die!
The realisation stampeded me to action. I began a desperate struggle to defend myself, commanding, holding back the psychic attack, pushing against the onslaught on my existence�
It seemed like aeons.

Bravely I stood my ground.

And soon began to feel their claw holds weakening.

Gasping, I filled my lungs with vibrant energy currents of the spheres. I gently asked the blessed forces to enliven the invisible centres within me.
That was when I saw the light. In my desperation had I forgotten the great moral to bravely light up the world on a moment like this.
I began to visualise it, to feel it coursing, steady and unwavering, through my whole ethereal form.
It seemed an infinite length of effort and action.
Then I felt it more the very next time.
Like a gentle wave of energy, forming through a grey veil, a tiny blob, almost weak and imperceptible against the blindfold and paralysis of hell...
It came breaking out!
Without warning, letting a piercing keynote which coursed the length and breadth of the darkened void, its motion, unparalleled in power, burst forth, obliterating all in its way.
The streaks of heavenly fire scoured lovingly, and fiercely.

And in the next instant, I, Kusunku, caught in the wing of the heavens, was swirling up, and up, as a blinding sheet.
Then I was wide alert.
*
Under the mango tree, it was still noon but seemed to be morning yet.

Komas was laughing heartily at me. �Man, you look like you saw the ghost of Barwa himself! Don't tell me Onku�s monster gave you the boo-boo chase.�
Our uncle had an amused expression while he regarded me with a sly grin. Perhaps he was wondering if he had opened a head with his tale today, I mused only briefly.

�Did you find what you seek or has my story scared the life of you?� he teased.
I roused myself to reply evenly: �You know, it's no longer your story now, Onku.�

I could still remember a little and was trying to reconcile some of what happened with the familiar reality that had jerked me to wakefulness. The fire had burnt out. Only the ashes and debris remained. Onku's pipe, too, was spent and now rested within easy reach of his hand beside a footstool. I imagined it waiting for another moment to perform that subtle feat into the mystery of an untold tale.
�The story is mine as well,� I told him. �And I am going to do with it... what I have to do with it.�
�No teasing, son of Eva,� Onku laughed. �I think I've opened one head at last. And, sooner than I thought, the bird readies to soar to the realms of ancient gods.�
I did not understand his last cryptic verse. But it felt good to know the story was ours to remember and, perhaps, one day, tell as deemed fit to some others willing to hear. I too had become an inheritor in the line of the eagle clan.

2

SATAN

Patrick Tagbo Oguejiofor

*

 
NOT many people knew his real name. Very few ever remembered that he was originally christened Johnson Ibeagbunem. That used to be his name until his entire body was taken over by a completely different being called Satan, King of Hell. In fact, he got his new name from his new master. In the words of our village town crier, his master named him after himself for he proved himself a most worthy and faithful disciple of Beelzebub, the Prince of demons. To put it differently, he was synonymous with the being after which he was named.
He was the most dreaded man in our town. The traditional ruler feared him. The politicians avoided him like the venomous echi eteka; the police dreaded him. The heavens abhorred him; the earth loathed him and the sons of men dreaded him.
There was this common saying in our town that if you think police are inefficient, kill a policeman. This saying was not true with Satan for the police had lost over thirty of some of their best crime busters to his firing power. The most recent incident took place last Christmas. A popular Awka socialite has engaged the services of two anti-riot mobile police men, the type we call �kill and go� in local parlance. The man was �bastardly rich� to use the clich� and it was the practice that such big men go with police escort. This had become status symbol -just like the GSM cell phone before it become as common as poverty.
Actually, it was the young millionaire that Satan wanted to send to hell to join his master. But Satan ended up gunning down two policemen before eventually killing the man. The full story of how the killing was carried out was made available to us by the village rumour mill at Madam Cash�s drinking joint at Orji village of Obunagu town.
Satan was like the famous Izaga masquerade that made her public appearance only on special occasions when the Igwe was celebrating his ofala. As soon as Satan entered our town, even if it was midnight, every folk knew about it. He had this habit of firing seven shots of automatic rifle into the air as soon as he arrived town. He would do this right at the middle of the market square. Thereafter police at the various checkpoints within and around the town would disappear or scamper to safety only to return later.
The night before the young billionaire was assassinated along with two of his police escorts, we did not only hear the satanic shots, Satan actually came to the village and bought drinks for his kinsmen at various bars in our village. The trouble was that immediately after the tragic shooting incident, he took off, leaving the town to face the anger of the gods of Force Headquarters at Abuja who insisted that the killer of the two policemen and the socialite be found and brought to book.
Of course, the elders of our communities were incapacitated about arresting Satan and handing him over to the law. If police were afraid of Satan, why did they think elders were his friends and in a better position to lure him to their net? Besides, where was the powerful charm with which to lure Satan to sleep before apprehending him? What police was asking us to do was to catch a viper or a scorpion with our bare hands. As the saying went in Obunagu, you do not catch a viper with bare hands.
It had become the norm that whenever Satan killed a law enforcement officer our elders and distant relatives of Satan were all arrested and locked up in various police cells in our district. The irony, however, was Satan was hardly sought afterwards. The police would start looking for him only after he had left town. It was either that Satan had a strong charm (as the rumour mills had it) which made police keep away from him or that they were afraid of him.
There was this story about Satan. A policeman just posted to our district had walked into one of the bars in our village and asked if anyone had seen Satan.
�I am he,� said Satan, quietly sipping his beer from a glass.
�Did I hear you right?�
�I have no water in my mouth. Who do you say you are looking for?�
�Satan! Have you seen any man who saw him?�
�I am Satan!� Satan replied still sipping his beer. It was at this stage that the police man took a closer look at the man speaking with him and it was then that his instinct told him that the face matched the picture of the same Satan in police stations all over the country declaring him wanted for various bank robberies and the killing of several policemen. A cold shiver must have run through his spine. Was this the same legendary Satan? The policeman stood at attention and saluted:
�Good afternoon sir!�
�Good morning, my brother, how are you?�
�I am fine sir. Permission to fall out, sir.�
�Permission denied. Sit down and have a drink. Madam Cash come and take his order, please.�
�Never mind, I am on duty. Thanks for your kindness, sir.�
�Sit down and have your drink. Nobody ever turns down an offer of drink from Satan, is that understood?�
�Your wish is my command, sir,� replied the officer sitting down and making his order. When he finished his drink, he thanked Satan over and over again before leaving. Satan also gave him the sum of twenty thousand Naira. The money was in crisp 1000 denominations.

Satan began his reign of terror some ten years ago. He was the most handsome young man in Obunagu. He was elegant, light-complexioned and as tall as a bamboo tree. He had several nicknames including Nwa-anyawu ututu or �Son of the morning sun� because of his skin that glowed like the sun. No girl in our village had ever resisted his charms. He was also one of the most generous creatures God ever made even before the advent of his notorious career that lasted for a decade and placed our humble town on the national news during those inglorious years. He used to be the toast of the girls. He had a most unusual sense of humour and a most uncanny way of executing his tasks. It was said that Satan would successfully rob you while conversing with you. He would put the small gun on your stomach and continue chatting with you as he seized your money, wrist watch, jewellery and other valuables. He robbed without firing a shot except if the victim raised an alarm. He robbed the rich and not-so-rich. He killed when provoked, for nobody had ever threatened him. Like the biblical judge, Satan neither feared God nor had respect for any human being.
Satan had an uncanny sense of danger. The instinct in him was twenty-four hours at alert and that included when he was sleeping. The special mechanism scanned danger around him. He smelled danger even when it was twenty miles away. Minutes before any man pulled a gun against him, he had the fore-knowledge. When he decided not to use his guns if he did not want attention, he had the strength of ten Samsons put together. Like Joshua, no man had ever stood against him and prevailed.
The story is still told of how the police ambushed him along the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway. Satan stopped his brand new S-Class Mercedes Benz, parked it beside the road, got out his AK 47 and engaged the men. By the time the storm died down, seven policemen including an assistant superintendent lay dead. Satan rode over their bullet ridden bodies. Five pedestrians lost their lives in the carnage. Satan continued his journey unperturbed. It was as if he had merely swapped some flies perching on his arm. He did not sustain a single bullet wound in the entire encounter. That was Satan for you.
One of the good things Satan did for us was that he stopped robbing within our locality shortly after he became the household word. He equally stopped his cronies from operating in our village. One of his brother robbers who dared breach his unwritten law had one of his hands amputated by Satan himself. He also returned the stolen money to the owner who showered him with praises.
Satan always preferred the state-of-the-arts jeep and he would not use the SUV for more than six months before changing it for the latest and most expensive in town. Quite a number of successful bank robberies executed in commando style were traced to him. Satan loved red wine and beautiful girls and these were rarely lacking in his company. The story was told of how the police tried to take advantage of this with a most startling result. Somehow, the police managed to recruit one of Satan�s beautiful girlfriends to execute the job. The girl was supposed to kill Satan by massaging the colourless and odourless powder on any part of his body before love making. The killer-medicine was allegedly obtained from one of Israel�s secret service officer at the cost of ten million Naira. Ify, the beautiful girl, recruited to do the job, was injected with the antidote before she went into operation. It was said that once the medicine came into contact with a human body, the victim died within minutes except if an antidote was given immediately.
The very day the Force Headquarters was supposed to get a feedback from the girl, they received a strange parcel that was delivered through a popular courier company. Of course, the police had scanned the parcel for bomb before accepting it. The content of the parcel was strong enough to blind anyone who saw it. It contained the head of the girl sent to kill Satan. The police had promptly arrested the manager of the company for accepting to deliver the horrid cargo. The manger said he had initially rejected the parcel which Satan�s agent did not want them to open. But Satan had called the manager. He had told him that he was responsible for sending the parcel and he wanted it delivered without being opened. Satan did not threaten to harm the man if his orders were not carried out. But every child in Obunagu knew that Satan never threatened anybody. His instructions were as good as a death sentence if not obeyed to the letter. From that day onward, the police lost interest in Satan, irrespective of the number of banks he robbed from Onitsha to Enugu, Owerri to Umuahia, Aba, Port Harcourt and the entire Nigeria. Instead they went for his followers who were mere mortals.
Satan�s power soon became a big controversy in the village. He had become a myth. He killed at will and sometimes at the slightest provocation. He killed even when he was not engaged in a robbery operation. Yet, nobody could recall that he ever saw a prison cell. Once Satan suddenly disappeared and nobody saw him or heard his gunshots for six months. This led to all sorts of speculations. The rumour mills went to work again. One woman claimed that Satan had been shot dead by the police.
�Impossible!�
�Nobody can kill Satan. He has a bullet-proof body.�
�True.�
�The medicine man that cooked him used the foetus of a pregnant woman in preparing the powerful charm for him.�
�And nobody knows the secret of his powers. Nobody can render him powerless. Only the powerful native doctor that cooked him in powerful medicine.�
�But every medicine has its expiry date,� Ibekwe said.

I think Ibekwe was right. Satan visited Baba Ijebu that month. He was the notorious witch doctor that prepared charms for armed robbers. But Baba Ijebu was said to be patronized also by the police and soldiers who needed his services for protection and promotion in the force. Yes, Baba Ijebu was not your every day native doctor. He was said to have big clients even in Aso Rock, the nation�s seat of power. Nobody could see him except by special appointment with his agents. He lived in a remote village somewhere in south-west Nigeria but did his practice only inside some thick forests from where he procured the herbs with which he prepared his powerful medicine. He was said to have a vast knowledge of herbs. Needless to say, Baba Ijebu�s ability to make charms which rendered soldiers invisible at moments of danger or turn human bodies to steel was already world-wide. Baba Ijebu was said to have inherited his uncanny prowess from his famous grandfather who took part in the Kiriji wars. The warrior famous had commanded a unit in the Ijaye war. But for his great medicine, he would not have survived the wars and lived to his eighties. It was the secret knowledge of this great medicine that was passed down to Baba Ijebu.
There was this Nigerian Army Colonel who was sent to Somalia for peace keeping. Yes, Somalia, that East African country of warlords and religious fundamentalists who would not bat an eyelid to send you to the world beyond. Yes, Somalia was the destination. The same failed state of factious clans. The Colonel�s operation base was Mogadishu, Africa�s most dangerous city. Mogadishu was a place where anything went. Of course, the Colonel was afraid he will never return back to his beautiful wife and kids. He went to Baba Ijebu for the great medicine.
�The kind of medicine you are asking for is not just expensive to get but difficult to execute,� Baba Ijebu warned the colonel.
�I want this medicine no matter what it will cost me, Baba,� was the colonel�s reply.
Baba Ijebu nodded several times.
�Oga Colonel, it�s not just about money��
�What else will it take?�
�A very big sacrifice.�
�Good. Get the fattest cow. I will pay for it.�
�An animal won�t do. The blood of an animal would be too frail for the kind of power you want to get.�
�I don�t mind using a human being if you can find one.�
�Yes, it will require a human sacrifice. But it won�t take just any human being. We need a special human being. I need a human being with extraordinary courage.�
�What kind of human being?�
�I shall think about it later. But I will need to remove something special from the body of this human being for the sacrifice. I need a human being with the heart of a beast, a merciless human being.�
�What is this thing you will remove from this man-beast?�
�It is my business. I was told that my great grand father who passed this skill for this particular medicine got it from Igalaland. Sadly, the Igala priest that taught it to him never passed it to anybody before he died.�
�How much will I pay this man-beast for this special item from his body and will he remain alive after this has been removed from him?�
�I will be the one to pay him. I will discuss further details when you are ready for the job to commence.�
�I ask again, will the man-beast survive after the operation.�
�Definitely.�
�What is my bill for this medicine?�
�Five million Naira only.�
�That is no problem. I can get you the amount. Where can I find this man-beast?�
�That is no problem.�
�You mean you can find him for me?�
�Your money will do that for you.�
�So when do I come for this medicine?�
Baba Ijebu told him.
�Please come with six men to assist me in doing the job. Six strong men I need them to pound the herbs.�
�Soldiers?�
�Preferably. But they must all be married.�
�With guns?�
�I don�t need any gun.�
�We have a deal.�
�Exactly. We have a deal. After you have bathed in this medicine and eaten it, no man or spirit can harm you with whatever weapon. Only God himself can take your life and that will be when you have completed your assignments on earth.�
A week later, Satan found his way into the forest of Ibogun. He found his way without difficulty because he was a regular visitor there. He soon found his way to the clearing in the forest where Baba Ijebu was already waiting for him.
�This medicine will make you invincible and invisible, are you ready for it? Did you keep the rules?�
Satan who was not given to much talking nodded in the affirmative to the questions.
�You must start work at once. I have already paid your fees into your account. I have no time.�
�Still remember the rule after you have eaten the medicine? �
�Never to sleep with a woman on the first Sunday of every month.�
�That�s right. If you keep the rule after you have eaten the medicine nobody in this world can harm you.�
�And what are you waiting for before commencing work? I have an operation today in five hours time. My boys are waiting for me.�
�Be patient. The men who will assist me in doing the job are on their way. They will soon join us and we will start the work.�
Shortly after he spoke the Colonel and six huge men all in mufti emerged from the bush.
�It�s time,� the native doctor announced without any exchange of pleasantries.
�Strip and enter the shrine,� Baba Ijebu said to Satan.
 Satan complied. He was always in a haste to do anything that will add to his prowess and invincibility.
�Raise your two hands up!�
 Satan obeyed. The priest made some horizontal marks on Satan�s body. The six men stood near the medicine man and Satan.
Baba Ijebu marked their faces with native chalks and smeared their hands with the blood of a pig which was slaughtered before their arrival. The men also had yellow palm fronds on their lips.
�Your two hands behind your back,� Baba Ijebu ordered and Satan complied without delay. Next, the old man coughed deliberately.
Then it happened within a twinkling of an eye. Two of the soldiers held him and handcuffed his hands. His legs were also chained. He looked up at Baba after a failed feeble attempt to regain his freedom.
�Be still. You want a most unusual medicine and this medicine comes with unusual rituals and ceremonies. By the time I am through, you should be able to break free from these fetters without any assistance. That is the power of this medicine.�
Satan smiled. He was beginning to understand what Baba was doing. The handcuffs on his hands and chains on his legs were to test the medicine. Next, the men led him to a nearby tree where they tied him against it like a convicted coup plotter awaiting the executioners.
�Now look up. You will be one of the very few human beings in this planet and in this century to possess this great medicine.�
 Baba paused and started chanting incantations. When he finished, he muttered some monosyllabic words. Then Baba Ijebu raised his voice. �It�s time!�
This too happened within seconds. One of the men brought out a short, wicked axe and with all his might buried it right inside the chest of Satan who let out a loud scream. Nobody remembered the last time Satan screamed because of pains. Almost immediately, another man used a very sharp knife and tore out Satan�s heart from his body.
The heart, still dripping with blood was placed on a tray and passed to Baba who commenced his work almost immediately. The men now removed Satan�s lifeless body and took it to a place where Baba asked them to leave it.
It was the state Commissioner of police that announced the death of Satan in a special radio broadcast. The news of Satan�s death was greeted by complete silence in our quarters of the village where Satan hailed. It was too early to celebrate. Nobody was ready to believe the police except of course they saw Satan�s corpse. This was not the first time Satan was rumoured to have �died� only for him to awaken and deal with those who celebrated his death. This time everyone was cautious. The police kept their words of bringing the corpse.
At exactly 2:00 pm that afternoon a police patrol van entered our village square amidst buzzing sirens that hot afternoon. Satan�s remains were unloaded on the ground like a sack of grain. His face was intact as if he were just asleep, still shining bright, the same brightness that earned him the title, Nwa-anyawu ututu.
Fireworks of gun fires, knockouts, and celebrations followed. Then the corpse was hung on a crude cross right there in our market square for three hours.
Then there arose a sudden commotion in the midst of the feasting shortly after the hanging of the lifeless body of Satan on a crude cross. Everybody stopped and turned in the direction the commotion was emanating from.
Behold an elderly woman was carrying a coffin on her head. It was Iyom Uju, Satan�s mother. She was coming to pick the remains of Satan for decent burial. But the mob descended on her, smashing the coffin. They also stripped her and she too would have gone the way of Satan but for the timely intervention of police.
The elders in our midst had quickly recalled that she was a popular prostitute during her youth having abandoned her husband Mazi Okafor in the village and travelled to Onitsha where she was allegedly impregnated by one of her numerous boyfriends, the notorious Khaki-No-Be-Leather who was equally mobbed to death in the commercial city. Our townsfolk reasoned that had she not played the whore, Satan would not have been born and so many lives would not have been lost.
Others had argued that it was Mazi Okafor who was to blame. According to the story, Mazi, a young carpenter had betrothed Uju when the later was only seven and very beautiful. When Mazi eventually came for his wife the parents reluctantly gave her to him. At that time, Uju was a tall, attractive, light complexioned and elegant girl of eighteen. A beautiful woman, our people say, is obvious to many eyes. It was not long before Uju concluded that she was too good for Mazi Okafor.
That was how she escaped to Onitsha, the commercial city. It was during the reign of Otondo and Khaki-No-Be-Leather. These two notorious armed robbers made life a nightmare for the city dwellers. It was at one of the numerous hotels that Uju met the notorious robber and fell in love with him. Khaki showered her with cash and expensive gifts. Then she took in. Unfortunately, this happened towards the twilight reign of the men of darkness. The traders whose businesses were ruined by the activities of the children of darkness had swooped on the robbers and had them murdered in a most brutal manner. Their mistresses and accomplices were not spared. They were dragged out from their various brothels, stripped naked and roasted like goats with the police making feeble attempts to save them. One of the robbers managed to take refuge at a police station. But the rioters surrounded the station demanding that the suspect be released to them for immediate justice. The plea by the DPO that he would arraign the suspect in a court of law the next day was rebuffed. The police station was razed down and the robber slaughtered like the others.
Uju escaped because she had travelled to Asaba to see a gynaecologist when the Boys Oyeh, as the operations was called, happened. Their mission was to cleanse the city of robbers with jungle justice. Although several people condemned the practice of instant killing without the benefit of proper trial in a court, most people agreed that it brought sanity to the city. It was no gainsaying the fact that the gentle men of the roads had overpowered the law enforcement agencies. It was well known that the criminals had better weapons and faster moving vehicles. According to the story, the robbers were picked from their various hotels, dens and houses and brought to the streets were they were burnt to ashes with worn-out tires and petrol in the presence of thousands of people. Both Khaki-No-Be-Leather and Otondo perished in those riots that lasted a week.

Not many of us, particularly the youths knew this story. But most of us have heard of the Boys Oyeh days which took place in the late nineteen seventies at the commercial city of Onitsha. But little did we know that our humble community would be in the news as a result of the incidents that successfully rid Onitsha of robbers using a rather barbaric method. It was a sad and tragic story that the entire community had to pay the price of a careless seed sown years back by a wayward girl. Had Uju�s parents performed their duties by inculcating the right ethos on their beautiful daughter, may be Uju will not have gone to the city and this tragedy will not have happened to us. Today, our innocent town is still associated with Satan years after his reign came to an inglorious end.

 3

A Christmas to Forget

Marko Phiri

*

IT was Christmas in the city of Bulawayo. However, the Christmas spirit was palpably absent as working men and women had very empty pockets. The kids, well, their stomachs were just as empty.
�A mean old man whom you don�t know stole Christmas,� a father said, after his hungry children asked him why he had not bought them rice and chicken and brand new clothes. As he spoke, he reached for a brown plastic container popularly known as a scud and downed the contents. The children followed his every move as he lifted the scud from the old table and to his visibly filthy mouth. Froth from the opaque beer stained his upper lip and, turning the back of his hand into a serviette, he wiped the froth filled mouth. When the wife asked how come he could afford to buy a scud for himself but not a litre of Coca-Cola for her and the kids the father replied, �I�m drowning my sorrows.�
�I cannot get drunk on Coca-Cola,� the perpetually bitter and broke husband said, half to the wife and half to himself. He suddenly felt his head getting woozy. The scud was doing a terrific job taking him to a land where there were no ruling parties: just people minding their own business.
The wife wept. Four hungry little children all yet to reach their seventh birthday watched as the man they called Papa took huge quaffs of opaque beer and wondered if this was Santa Claus�s idea of a merry Christmas.
Elsewhere in the same city of long gone kings, a woman was screaming. The moon and the stars looked down without emotion. It was not the scream of unfettered festive ecstasy. The woman had bolted from a house in the high density neighbourhood half naked with a man with only his boxers on in hot pursuit.
�I will kill you, you stupid cunt. Come back I�m not done with you,� the man yelled as the woman disappeared into the night, her bare breasts jiggling violently. A night of passion had gone terribly wrong.
But this was Christmas and in the township, the bells jingled merrily, unaware of crime of passion about to spoil the birth of the child Jesus. But the neighbourhood wasn�t bothered. Men, women and nubile virgins were busy dancing the Christmas spirit away, their adrenalin being rushed by intolerable and intoxicating levels of alcohol, marijuana and all kinds of mind-altering and liver-cooking whiskies and vodkas bootlegged from South Africa.
More than 400 kilometres away in the capital city, Harare, an old man with a funny looking moustache laughed at his own jokes as he entertained his young family. �Thanks but no beer and cigarettes here: We are God fearing people.� This was beautifully calligraphed for all visitors to the palatial home to see. The visitors had to take note or risk raising the venom of the old fool who otherwise loved to present himself -this being Christmas- as Santa Claus himself. Only, this old man never kept a beard; just that funny looking moustache. But everybody knew this man was no Santa. Satan, maybe, but certainly not Santa.
On the dinner table were all kinds of weird foodstuff never seen and never to be seen by the cursing alcoholic in the opening paragraph of this Christmas tale. Some of the food remained untouched while some looked like it had only been nibbled at by curious and very spoilt kids. It was obvious the laughing old man and his family had just finished having a Christmas meal fit for a king. Fit for a cruel man. The poor man who loved scuds to a fault cursed bitterly as he walked aimlessly in the dark night, not really looking forward to returning home to four hungry children and an angry wife.
�I just want to die,� the alcoholic said.
�I just want to live forever,� the old man with a funny looking moustache mused as he watched his children sitting in front of a big television screen screaming excitedly as they competed for championship in the latest Playstation their mother had brought them from one of her many shopping trips in the Far East.
�Life is good,� the old man said rather loudly.
�What did you say?� asked the wife.
�Nothing, nothing,� he waved her off lovingly as he stroked her shoulder.
�Senile old fool,� the wife said in the secrecy of her heart.
Meanwhile, the screaming half naked woman ran blindly in the dark with the night breeze caressing her bare breasts. A few metres away, she could see three silhouette figures approaching. This was a period of the year when many township souls became nocturnal and there was virtually no fear of being mugged. Festive mood, they called it. Thus it was that parents gave schoolboys and girls permission to gyrate provocatively at the discotheque held at the local community hall for that one night only throughout the year.
The bare breasted woman ran right into three young men who were coming from the community hall and who had gulped one too many and decided to call it a night. Soon, she was pleading for help, going and on that there was a killer after her. �Please take me to the police station.�
�Yeah sure,� the drunken boys readily offered.
�What good Samaritans on Christmas eve. This sure is a Christian holiday,� she wept silently, grateful as one of the young men took off his jacket offering to cover her.
�Wait,� one of them said. �Let�s pass through my place. I can get her one of my sister�s blouses.�
�Great,� they all agreed, including the female. No report was made to the police that night. The three spent the night emptying their lust on the poor woman.
Meanwhile far, far away, the old man with a funny looking moustache closed himself in the bathroom. He took two blue pills and hastily swallowed them. Feeling like a stallion, he joined his young wife in bed. He never saw Christmas. His heart stopped while he was on top of his wife trying real hard to make her feel like a woman. When the cardiac attack set in the wife had imagined the spasms to be an orgasm.
And thus it was that it became known as a Christmas to forget.

4

Electric Mosquitoes

Marko Phiri

*

THE night was hot, so bloody hot it removed fish from the river -as the locals would have said in their local language to use the only hyperbole they knew to curse the heat. It was as if you could feel steam hissing off your skin, and it was that time of the year when night time was a torment as there was no sleeping to talk of. It was open season for mosquitoes. The tiny creatures were having their own perverted Christmas, and the situation was not helped by the stinking burst sewers that not only made existence in the township a living hell but provided the mosquitoes with ample breeding ground. In the past, long before the oligarchs decided that government of the people, for the people, by the people was out of fashion, the Bulawayo municipality would spray all areas that served as breeding ground for mosquitoes -not any more. Residents had been told by the broke city council that they need not worry about the mosquitoes as they were not the kind that spread malaria. What crap! Who feels it knows it! Titus Jubane grimaced.
In the still night, the only sounds that could be heard were crickets, occasional owl hoots, cats meowing, dogs on heat howling mad and -of course closest to the ears- the buzzing of those damn mosquitoes. Titus lay in his bed eyes wide open as he tried to force himself to sleep. The mosquitoes were having a field day as they jabbed him from all directions and he wondered rather grudgingly if the little devils had been sent by an evildoer to torment him. But he remembered he did not owe anybody any money to warrant this kind of treatment from some voodoo priest or priestess. To make matters even worse, there was no electricity and this appeared to make the feast for the mosquitoes even more sumptuous. Each time Titus attempted to swat the tiny beasts, he only succeeded in slapping himself silly, leaving his face burning, and the little devils would respond by mobilising friends and relatives and whole extended families to strike this man who wanted them dead.
There were no candles in the house to illuminate the room and give him some idea where, what, how to swat. He also did not have those mosquito coils that now came in all sorts of names and hues whose boxes had instructions written in Chinese. Everybody complained these were just like everything from that land that had found itself into the country: useless. Titus figured he was better off without the bloody coils for they would have made his misery even worse knowing that he was being tormented by mosquitoes despite having tiny smoke diffusing across the room and into his nose. And here he was in Zimbabwe inhaling Chinese smoke!
The mosquitoes buzzed so loudly Titus imagined there was a swarm right inside his ears. The grown man almost let out a scream as the assault from the mosquitoes continued without any sign they had had enough. He tried to cover his head with a blanket in attempts to escape the jabs, but he would soon reappear, like one submerged under water, as the stifling heat forced him out to face the music. And as soon as he showed his head, the mosquitoes lying in wait struck like the blood suckers they were. Titus had no clue when the electricity would be restored as the power company did not have any time table for the load shedding, and the ratepayers just had to endure long dark nights without any clue when they would be preparing their meals or watching their favourite television programme. It was that bad.
It was shortly after 20:00 hrs and this tortured man wondered why he was taking these body jabs in what appeared was going to be a very long, lonely, dark night. He remembered there was a local pub where imbibers enjoyed the privilege of a generator and even if other areas were dark, this place never slept. From Monday through Monday, the night birds partied into the night and used the absence of electricity as reason for them to stay out till late while their wives back home endured the torment of the mosquito swarms. Titus decided right away that was where he was going. He kicked himself, cursing why he hadn�t thought about this earlier -he wouldn�t have lost this much blood to the mosquitoes had he gone earlier. But then he had decided to retire early imagining the electricity would be restored in time for him to catch his favourite TV show. He did not wait to change his mind. He did not need any further persuading. He jumped into his clothes and moments later he was at the night club that was just a few minutes� walk from his home.
The patrons where already enjoying the hot night luridly gyrating to the latest house beats pirated from South Africa. Titus Hadebe never patronised local pubs, but today was an exception as he was literally fleeing from mosquitoes. And someone had very wrongly said a man�s home was his castle. How wrong!
Titus cursed as he walked into the pub. The ogling prostitutes eyed him, but he looked at them with the contempt he thought they deserved. �If only these people knew why I�m here! Damn those mosquitoes!� But no one asked him. Everyone seemed to be minding his or her own business, while others were busy doing nothing. One drunk was cupping the huge buttocks of a visibly tipsy and unresisting prostitute who appeared to have had a bath last Christmas. Perhaps she�s using the perennial water cuts as an excuse, Titus thought with a smirk. Another thin person danced to the psychedelic music and appeared lost in his own Bacchanalian universe where insobriety was a virtue. The beer was flowing and it was obvious this was going to continue into the next day, and in the morning, wives would be complaining that there was no money for bread. A tourist witnessing the night fun here would have agreed with Robert Mugabe and Joseph Chinotimba that the stories being told in the foreign media that Zimbabweans were a suffering lot was but the figment of the imagination and the creative work of the enemies of the state -and revolution.
It was a weekday and Titus never patronised pubs on days like this, but the mosquitoes had made him do it. He walked straight up avoiding unnecessary contact with fat men, thin women, fat women, thin men, and sat on a high bar stool so he could conveniently get his beer without making trips to the bar. Meanwhile, the barman was kept busy by the crowd that looked like they had been brought here by the same circumstances of dark bedrooms filled with mosquitoes and stifling heat. Titus kept throwing a glance at the clock above the barman�s head and wondered if the thing was working at all. It was only later that Titus recognised that the barman was giving him that knowing look that said I know you are waiting for a prostitute. Titus was immediately pissed off. He made a motion to explain why he was here, but he imagined how silly he would sound telling a long story about how mosquitoes had forced him out of the discomfort of his own bed. Yeah right, he imagined the barman sneering. Screw him; let him think whatever he wants.  
The time dragged on, and the more he watched the clock, the more it appeared to slow down just to spite him. The hour hand struck 2100 hrs, and there was no sign the electricity would be restored any time soon. Meanwhile, commotion broke out as some drunks apparently fought over a prostitute -what else would they fight over- but the nightclub strongmen who kept the peace quickly dispensed the only medicine they said the drunks knew: hard bare-knuckled punches to the mindless head. The noisy drunks where thrown into the dark for disturbing the peace -peace? What peace, Titus mused. And it was in this eerie darkness that the Devil lay in wait for such kinds as stories came aplenty here about some drunk being found with both belly and wallet opened. What a place, Titus winced as he took another bitter sip of what was now very hot lager because he was taking it as slowly as one who was broke and therefore worried that if he finished it in a jiffy, he would have nothing to drink and resort to making a nuisance of himself asking for alms to buy another beer. The religious types would crucify him.
He looked around and saw young girls who ought to be doing their homework -literally burning the midnight oil seeing that there was no electricity- but no, they were out enjoying the summer heat and exciting their raging hormones. In a corner, Titus could see a young lad who could have passed for a school prefect with his boyish looks pressing himself against a giggling schoolgirl who appeared to be asking for more of the pressing.
�You look surprised, must be your first time here,� the barman said having caught Titus rather like a voyeur watching the two young love birds respond to the urges of their young bodies.
Titus sipped his beer trying to think of a response. He wasn�t in a mood for empty talk now that he knew the barman thought he was here for prostitutes. He imagined the barman offering to find him a �decent� girl as bartenders were also known for doubling as pimps.
�Yep, it�s my first time here,� he said as he placed the empty bottle in front of the barman.
�Ci, ci, ci, ci, what a shame,� said the barman shaking his head in disapproval, �they must be home studying not here drinking beer and having sex,� he offered.
Titus did not respond, but in the privacy of his mind, he thought, if you do not approve, why let them in? After all the beer bottles are clearly labelled �not for sale for people under 18.�
Titus ignored him and said, �Another beer please, same order.�
The barman looked at him with an eye that said, �you must be one horny little devil to fail even to strike a simple conversation because you are thinking of a prostitute!� Maybe that�s not what the look said, but that�s what Titus in his self-conscious state of mind imagined to have been in the barman�s mind. His eyes strayed to a little rack behind the barman and he saw rows and rows of dusty packs of condoms, and he wondered for how long they had been there. How can these condoms gather dust like that? These people are sure not using them. This barman must be selling expired condoms. Who has time to check the best-before date anyway? Imagine you are ready for sex, you reach for a condom, but before you open it, you first check the date of manufacture and the date it expires! Talk about killing the mood! No one does that. This is criminal, Titus decided. He hated the place even more but he thought rather impersonally: I ain�t no activist, and continued drinking his beer.
Titus was the kind of guy who felt at home drinking in those fancy city nightspots where the prostitutes chatted in fake American accents and the boys spent the Diaspora cash like there was no tomorrow, not here where every riff raff who by some stroke of luck had picked a few greenbacks thought they were Phillip Chiyangwa. But he remembered with small gratitude he was here at this high density township night club because he was fleeing from mosquitoes that were virtually eating him alive. If it wasn't for this pub with its generator illuminating the night when the rest of the township was in darkness, he had no clue where he would have sought refuge.
As the barman pushed an ice cold pint of lager, Titus pushed a crisp one dollar bill which the barman closely appraised with a naked eye to make sure it wasn�t a fake.
�You didn�t check the other bill I gave you,� Titus said not exactly complaining but making a statement all the same.
�Well, it�s because no one comes with new bills here, this is where everybody dumps the old crumpled ones so I�m just making sure, no offence,� the barman said, and added, �that�s the reward for using other people�s money not our own. What has this old man done to our beautiful country?�
There he goes! I don�t talk politics; you never know who might be listening! Titus ignored him and instead pretended to concentrate on his beer. He knew barmen to be a talkative lot, but though he was here to while away the minutes -if not the hours- he was in no mood to whine about things he had no control over. Take electricity for example, everybody knew there were everyday power cuts, but everyday, everybody complained when the city was plunged into darkness. Why complain as if you were taken by surprise? Titus would reason, but as he was lost in his thoughts, there was sudden whistling from some excited drunk who took to the table and announced to all that he had just received an SMS that electricity was back. Everybody in the pub blew loud whistles to rival soccer hooligans as if they had been in the dark all along. Crap, Titus cursed. Is this the Zimbabwe we want?
He was taking his third pint and did not wait to finish it. He just got up and left the beer after having taken only two sips and the barman stared after him in disbelief. That guy must be loaded to leave beer like that, the barman envied. When he was sure no one was looking, he took the beer and put it under the counter from where he would be taking surreptitious sips, after all, the beer was still damn cold which was an added bonus as he did not have to siphon it into another container then get it chilled. As Titus stepped out, he felt the cool breeze gently hit his face and it felt good being out in the night with the full moon gazing down at the miserable mortals. But he knew what awaited him at home: mosquitoes which by now would have regrouped and called relatives and friends to lie in wait for their meal. But it was better now for Titus that the electricity was back, at least he would now be fighting an opponent he could see than painfully slap himself silly in the dark trying to swat the invisible loud bastards.
He was now a few meters from his home when he saw a group of silhouettes approaching. It wasn�t even after ten pm and he felt no reason to be afraid that he could be a victim of a mugging. If he was threatened in any way, he would flee into any of the homes as they would know him as one of the neighbours and offer him refuge. There were six or seven men and they made no attempt to make way for him. He could see one wearing a cap and his heartbeat began to do the samba.
�It�s people like you we are looking for,� one guy said. Titus ignored him as he avoided going through them.
�Don�t you hear we are talking to you?� another said as they blocked his way. Titus stopped. As he peered in the dark, he could see that two men where cuffed to each other and he instantly cursed why he had gone out that particular night. The questions came in rapid fire but Titus did not immediately respond. When he eventually overcame the shock, he said calmly:
 �I don�t understand what you are saying.�
Big mistake.
He regretted it as soon as he uttered it. It was as if he had sworn at these men who had not identified themselves but had still expected him to talk to strangers in the dark just like that.
�What?� one barked, �you mean you do not understand the President�s language?�
�You go around raping and killing women, and now you speak to us in the language of imperialists!�
What the fuck is this! Titus almost blurted out, but instinct told him the mosquito torment was just the beginning of a nightmare.
�Where are you coming from at this hour?�
�You waited for the electricity to go so you could go and terrorise law abiding citizens.�
�Today your luck has run out.�
�What is your name?�
�Show us your ID?�
They all seemed eager to outdo each other with these interrogation lines they seemed to have been rehearsing from wherever they were coming. The two cuffed men watched in silence, hoping these men who called themselves cops would take this man instead and let them go.
�How am I supposed to know you are cops when you didn�t even identify yourselves,� Titus said weakly.
Another big mistake! In fact, mother of all mistakes.
�Listen to this civilian telling us how to do our job.�
�Ah! What did you say?�
�Cuff him.�
�He will explain at the police station where he was coming from and where he trained to be a lawyer.�
�We are screwing your women and you say you don�t understand the President�s language, stupid boy,� another said as he fastened the cuffs on Titus� wrists.
Titus had to think fast.
�But I had just gone to the pub to wait for electricity to come back. I live in that house there,� he said in the President�s language, pointing at the direction of his house.
Big mistake again. The men burst out laughing as if they had just heard the funniest joke ever told.
�So you can speak the language.�
�Are we supposed to believe that someone can leave their home because there is no electricity?�
 �Why didn�t you wait in your house?�
�You think we are grade ones.�
Titus wept.
He had never before ever imagined there were people who spoke or reasoned like this. My God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was tempted to tell these very unreasonable men the true story of mosquitoes chasing him from the discomfort of his own home, but he imagined he already knew their response. By telling them he was coming from the pub the local cops were known to patronise, whether or not they were on duty, he had imagined they would understand, but it only appeared to make things worse.
�We know that dump. It must be closed down, we are now working overtime because of you people,� one said with palpable hate filling his tone. It was difficult to see their faces, but mean they were and these were the law enforcement agents the country had come to know.
�I didn�t know there was a curfew,� Titus said to one of the handcuffed men.
Big mistake! A not very muscular cop heard him and yanked the cuffs on Titus�s wrists.
�You didn�t know there is curfew? We are the law here, if we say you don�t move around at night you don�t move around at night.�
Titus winced as the cuffs dug into his flesh.
�Let�s go dump them at the station, our shift is about to end anyway,� one of the cops said.
All along, Titus had been walking close to a man who was also a cop but was not saying much. The thought of spending the night in the cells with swarms of the same mosquitoes he had been fleeing from his home was too much to bear. He knew these men wanted their palms greased and nothing else -there was no diligence, only overzealousness and human rights abuses! Everyone knew this, and the cops were quite brazen about it. Others had been known to be bribed with beer or meat for barbecue, just anything so that they didn�t just arrest you and for a crime you had not committed. They were literally a law unto themselves and all you could do about it was carry a grudge and hate them for the rest of your life. They would spend the night taking you across town just to break you, until you make them an offer they wouldn�t refuse.
Titus whispered to the quiet cop: �I�m working tomorrow and I have a little money here, please let me go.�
The cop looked straight ahead and said:
�How much?�
�Five dollars.�
Big mistake. The cop looked at him as if he had stepped on his corns and said out loud:
�You want to bribe an officer of the law huh? Do you know that�s another crime you have just committed?�
Oh my God!  
�You want me to get fired? You want my children to starve? You want to sleep with my wife when I�m fired?�
My God, what is this man talking about?
�What is this civilian saying?� another chipped in.
�You think we are playing here?� quizzed yet another.
The cop must have wanted the equivalent of his salary for they were known to negotiate or accept straight up what they had been offered, after all Titus knew five dollars was the standard fine for loitering or public drinking. But no, this cop was the incorruptible type, or at least that�s what he pretended to be for some unknown reason.
Moments later, they were at the police station where a host of drunkards were being beaten by irascible cops. For Titus, it appeared the bitterness stemmed from the fact that these lager louts could afford a night out during the week drinking themselves silly when the cops could not even afford to buy themselves beer with their meagre wages.
�I want to call my lawyer,� one drunken young man demanded, perhaps to intimidate the cops and have him released. �I know my rights.�
Titus sniggered and felt sorry for the young man, remembering lawyers were also being beaten up by cops across the country as they tried to get their clients released.
Titus felt sorry for the young man as one cop swung a baton stick to the young man�s face and bellowed, �I want to give you something for your lawyer to look at.� The other cops laughed, obviously enjoying themselves as if what they were doing was prescribed by some law enforcement manual.
�We want those with lawyers here,� a uniformed cop said, and pointing to another young man sitting next to the one who was having his face remodelled, �I don�t want to see your face here again, pay your fine and disappear,� he said, emphasising with a hard sjambok stroke on what looked like thin -or absent- buttocks.
The young man winced but was only too grateful to pay his fine and disappear into the night leaving behind his pal to face �the full wrath of the law.�
�You,� the top cop continued, referring to the guy who had demanded to see a lawyer, �we will wait for your lawyer. Throw him in the cell; the mosquitoes must be hungry now.� And the whole charge office was enlivened by boisterous laughter.
Titus sat quietly as the cuffs were removed and as they were ordered to sit on the floor, he was a bit assured he would not be spending the night in the holding cells for a crime he was yet to know. Now he could clearly see the men who had arrested him. They all looked like they needed supplementary feeding pretty bad. It had been reported that millions in the country would need food assistance, and Titus mused that the United Nations would do well starting the feeding exercise at this police post. He wondered miserably why the other cop hadn�t quietly taken the five dollar bribe as it was obvious he sure could use every cent he could get, if not for food at least for a new pair of shoes. The cop must have read his mind for he said, �That one wanted to bribe a law enforcement officer, throw him in the cell with the lawyer guy.�
Titus held his face in his hands, God this is not happening! Now he was going to face the same mosquitoes he was running away from back home. What luck! These mosquitoes must by now have communicated with each other through their own esoteric Morse code that he was here, that the party would go on after all. But he knew that there was nothing he could do: you can�t sue the police. Sorry mate, that's the country you live in. He was the kind of guy who had unkind words for people who fled the country to live miserable lives elsewhere as economic refugees; but now he envied them: at least their rights were respected. Here the cop was king. You don�t like it, well tough luck! In the morning he would be asked to pay the five dollar fine for his release and all would be forgotten.
All this because of electricity and mosquitoes?
Meet me in Zimbabwe.

5

Springtime Bird
From Season of Migration to Anywhere
 
Mohamed Sa�d Ra�hani
 
 *

 
WHEN the beautiful spring comes, I order nothing but mint tea on the terrace of this cafe but what I like most is the action of the waiter fetching very elegantly the small teapot with the fragrant sprig of mint flushing out of its spout. Having come to our table, he would raise his hand to the blossoms dangling down from the orange tree above our head and pluck a few flowers to dip them carefully down inside the small teapot before going away.
When summer comes with its sun growing broader and closer, ardour creeps into the souls of the ever-careful and ever-reserved beings, reviving in them the spirit of emancipation and leading them to seashores, riversides and streams. At this moment, yellow is my favourite colour, that of energy, strength and renewal. At this time, I enjoy ecstasy.
When autumn comes, with leaves and petals falling down, the winds of change blow all around and the heavily grey sky come down to converse with meadows and rivers. At this time, brown is my best colour: The colour of change. And I feel completely new and totally different.
 When winter comes, with its heavy rain, earth is satisfied with water, offering small farmers a chance to express themselves freely by guessing their next harvest and comparing the possible crop with the previous one. With farmers� redemption, at this time, I feel myself redeemed.
When spring comes back again, beauty covers the fields: Bees, flowers, birds, greenery, fervour, small insects, large animals, sensitive plants... All of them are looking for love and expecting offspring. All of them cover themselves with green and communicate in green. With spring, I feel reborn.
 Earth is pulsating with singing and chirping and the sky is palpitating with brightly living wings: Swallows, messengers of freedom and rebirth, flying everywhere so freely that you never can guess their destination out of their flight. They fly rightwards, leftwards, frequently changing direction and speed whenever they will, absolutely happy to be resurrected...
 People around here revere swallows and prohibit hunting them or even expulsing them from their nests mud-stuck in the ceilings of any house. Accordingly, swallows here enjoy their spring to the last drop. They fly without fear and perch freely wherever they want: on branches of trees, on clotheslines, on electric wires and never hesitate to spit on top of passers-by and cafe customers down on the terraces below, who would powerlessly wipe away the spit with their sleeves and smile broadly as they look up to make sure that it was nothing but the spit of swallows, spring-time birds.

6

For Everybody His Own Sky
 
Mohamed Sa�d Ra�hani
 
*

ABOVE the glowing horizon, the reddish sun extends a sparkling bridge floating beautifully on the crystalline sea surface and creeping towards the beach, caressing with its soft ripples the little child�s bare feet, pushing them forth toward the rocks and drawing them back whenever the tide withdraws: pushing forth and drawing back, pushing forth and drawing back...
�Daddy, is that where sharks live?� the boy asked, pointing with his forefinger to the ocean.
�Yes, darling, but quite far from here. Sharks prefer to live in the high seas,� replied the father, quite confident in his words.
�Are they strong, Daddy?�
�Yes, my son, shark is the king of the seas!�
�And, here on dry land, who is the king?�
�Lion, my boy. Lion.�
�But which of them can be stronger: Lion or shark?� the child seemed fascinated by the subject. Perhaps, in his enthusiasm, he was imagining every question- and every answer-visualized events animated by his fairy characters.
 The father, considerate and attentive to his child�s questions, replied with another question:
�But how could there be winners or losers in contests where neither of the competitors can face the other? Each one of them lives peacefully in his own kingdom? Lion in the jungle and shark down in the sea. And even if one of them should ever invade the other�s territory, he will inevitably die either by asphyxiation on land or by drowning at sea.
 All satisfied, the child smiled, watching the sea with wonder and asked again:
�But what can be there, deep down in the sea?�
�Life.�
The father realised his son�s embarrassment and confusion and shifted to explain:
�There are, at sea, the same setting found here on land: Mountains, dunes, caves, plains, rocks, trees, darkness and light. Life, here, is equivalent to life deep down in the sea and living animals here are equivalent to living fish in the sea.�
�But how can sea contain all these miscellaneous things and all these living beings?�
�Do not be deceived by appearances, my boy. What is deep down in the sea is much larger and much more diverse than anything outside.�
 The boy shaded his eyes with one hand, trying to fix the distant horizon:
�But sea surface is flat and still! It shows no prominent forms nor bizarre heads, nor any fish tails waving out in the regular sea waves!�
�Do not be fooled by surfaces, my son. Appearances can be deceptive.�
Using his hand, the father lifted his child's face up to the sky and said:
�Look, my son, at that beautiful blue dome up above?�
�The sky, Dad?�
�This blue sky is ours and the lions� too. But that undulating extension of blue water is the sky of fish and sharks.�
 He stopped for a while, then added:
 �If sea living creatures should ever out step that surface, their sky, they will be smothered and will die right away. Similarly for us, Earthlings, if we should ever out step with our naked bodies this blue dome, our sky, we will burn up to death.�
 The father concludes in a mumbling:
 �For everybody his own sky, my boy. There are many different worlds, many different species, many different styles of life and many different ways of thinking. This universe is infinitely diversified. This diversity is the greatest secret of life and the source of all the riches and wealth that you can see and feel. Without these differences around, we could never have enjoyed this moment of beauty that will make us go back home, all refreshed and happy!�
The sun was drawing its sparkling carpet off sea surface, getting ready to disappear slowly between the two skies, when the child, overwhelmed with happiness, proclaimed loudly:
�Life is beautiful, daddy!�
He said it adding his hand to his father�s. The father�s eyes fixed on the sky above and the child on the sea ahead.

7

 
The Three Keys
 
Mohamed Sa�d Ra�hani
 
*

 
I never know why my father, every dawn, slips downstairs to the disused room underground and shuts himself in for such a long time.
Would it be a prayer ritual?
Acts of worship and prayer, however, do not require so much vigilance.
Would it be a rite of witchcraft?
But it has no accessories for this kind of usage: No brazier, nor inkpot, nor weeds, nor animal dry parts...
 He is only reading!
 Through the keyhole, I can see clearly his great interest in the text between his hands. His eyes are wide open; head dangling almost to the level of his yellow book and his breathing is clearly heard in the utter silence of the place.
 Can he be reading an erotic book?
 Once he finishes his reading that seem to me much closer to a liturgy, he puts his object of worship in a dusty drawer and locks it. Then, he puts the first key, silver in colour, in a briefcase that is closed with a copper key which he then puts in an old box that he closes with a smaller key. Finally, he hides the small key under the right-end corner of the mat partly covering the floor.
On sensing him behind the door, I slip unobtrusively into the cubicle to avoid arousing suspicion. I stay there watching him climb up the stairs and look at his watch.
 That day, it was seven o'clock in the morning. From that time on, he would not be back home before noon. So, I would have ample free time to search for my father�s favourite book and read it in the same favourite spot.
Having made sure that he had really gone to work, I rush downstairs to the dark room. I slip my fingers under the right-end corner of the mat in search of the small key with which I open the box, enduring the acrid smell of old wood flying up to my nostrils. Then, I pick up the copper key that helped me open the briefcase. But inside it, I find no key in any size or colour although I am sure that I saw, with my own eyes, my father slip the silver key inside.
I vigorously shake the briefcase and heard a tinkling of several baubles within. I empty its contents to see many keys fall at my feet. I try the first key, the second, the third... I carry on trying until I find the silver key, which allows me to open the drawer and find myself finally in front of my book, my enigma.
 Is it the Koran?
 Not in the least; this is a strange book written with a calligraphy typically Moroccan but it is not the Koran.
 It is, maybe, a will, a legacy, since the prologue is in the form of a pyramid scheme of pedigrees, and my family name is mentioned in every branch and every root.
These can be my ancestors and this chart may be the path I must take to reach them.
In the following pages, the names of my grandparents seem to be written as titles on top of every single page. The text composed mainly of two or three paragraphs seems to be written with the hand of the grandfather mentioned in the title on top of the page.
Every text has been annotated by a different hand. This means that the book dates back to centuries ago. This probably justifies the deteriorating condition of the book that has been exposed for ages to mould and damp places and has suffered additional roughness caused by the curious hands of the following generations of my ancestors who came, on their turn, to write down their comments.
 What could they have written?
 I read the first witness.
I shudder thoroughly.
I read the second with great convulsion.
I read the third, the fourth, the fifth and I find myself shivering all over.
What has really happened to all my ancestors?
Do I belong to a lineage of the cursed?
Is it damnation?
Have all my ancestors been wretched and miserable?
Can wretch have such power as to set its hand on entire descendants?
 All my ancestors, throughout these pages, confess, in their own handwriting, their misfortunes and attribute it to their disobedience to the will written by my first great-grandfather who defined happiness and confined it to The Three Secret Keys.
 But where is this precious Testament?
 I search the book line by line, page by page, from left to right and from right to left, but all in vain.
 Theoretically, the testament should be at the beginning of the book as it refers to my great-grandfather.
 Where can this Testament be?
 Time is short and I feel more and more uneasy under the crushing pressure of emergency. Confusion overwhelms me. The book unravels between my fingers and suddenly its binding yields and its leaves scatter everywhere, unleashing a cloud of dust and hurly-burly of coughing and sneezing.
 Thus ends the whole process usually done in haste, with remorse and regret!
 At once, I leave the place to explore my family�s reaction to the chaos I have caused. Luckily, nobody seems to care. I look up at the sun and know that I still had some more time ahead. So, I go down back to the dark room to complete my task. This time, I choose to sit down on the mat and concentrate on cooling down my nerves, alternating inspiration and expiration so as to recover my balance and my ability to handle the situation wisely.
 Now, I am calm again and I can put everything in order with great dexterity and precision.
In a few moments, the book is well arranged and� Oh!
Here is The Testament!
Here is The Secret of Secrets!
Here are The Keys to Happiness!
Here are The Three Keys!

The Key of Freedom:
 �Everybody, my son, has got a fine thread deep inside relating him to the little child he has been with all his innocence, happiness, lightness and riotousness� generating questions and welcoming life.
�However, the great battle, dear son, will always remain centralized on the honour of grasping that thread. If ever you let that fibre fall in other people's hands, you will spend your whole life moving according to their will, dancing to their desire, cooling down to their order, and weeping to their consolation�
�At that time, my son, you should know that you have become a mere puppet, a real doll, with no force left and no will to act on your own.
�However, grasping the thread will still be far out of your reach unless you fall on the second key, �The Key of Dream:� your guide to your deeper world and your friend who will never care for your trouble when Truth is the target, leading you to the mirror, showing you your real face with your real name in your real environment�
�So, welcome, dear son, into the world of Dream: �the world of Reality!�

 The Key of Dream:
 �Dear son, you may love music to get rid of boring silence. You may also love plastic composition that sets your vision free from monotony. You may even love poetry to renew yourself with creative imagery and original rhyming. You may, even more, love theatrical shows that open the tiny worlds on the bigger ones developing gradually from comic hints to serious visions� However, passion, real passion, dear son, is to have a full dream in your own sleep and to remember it fully in your waking. This chance is denied to most humans: to get rid of all the natural laws and fly as free as a dove, as light as a cloud, as carefree as the wind; to throw aside all the social laws and get naked like a baby happy with his first steps running merrily in public places, careless of laws of age, gender, tribe or race� Real passion, my dear son, is to live your own dreams and make them come true.�

 The Key of Love:
 �Freedom, dear son, requires formation and tutorship. Dream can serve Freedom when his help is needed. Dreams, however, will need practical actions to make them real. Looking out to achieve �The Dream of Freedom,� there can be no practical action more efficient than Love.
�Love, dear son, is an endless journey. It is an adventure that can get you to the world of maturity, to the world of giving.
�Love is giving, dear son: Giving out of your money, your time, your mind, your soul and your body�
�Love is the highest manifestation of healthy development in your character. However, dear son, you will neither experience full love nor enjoy the pleasure of being in love before loving yourself.
�Love yourself before loving anybody else. Go back to yourself. Identify your shining points. Control your strong points. Enjoy your beauty before the mirror. Remember the happy moments and the shining memories that have taken place in your past life and bring them back again to your present. Review your positive glossary and your style in communicating with your interlocutors.
�Pride yourself on what distinguishes you from other people, knowing that only Difference justifies the continuity of Existence.
�Dear son, love yourself so that you can easily love others. By owning love, you will set the wretched free; by owning happiness, you will deliver the miserable out of their gloomy cells; and by owning light, you will make the whole place around you brighter for all those souls stumbling silently in their internal gloom.�

Now, it is midday.
I close the book and put it carefully in the drawer which I lock with the first key. I slide it into the briefcase which I close with the second key and put it in the box to shut it with the tiny key that I slip beneath the right-end corner of the mat.
 I get out and close the door behind me. Then I go upstairs to wait for my father in the dining room.
 The next day, at dawn, I have a new appointment with the same keyhole downstairs: attending my father�s rituals which are no longer a mystery to me.
From that time on, instead of paying attention to the book in my father�s hands, I would focus on his reactions to what he reads.
Nevertheless, my father�s mood seems unusually strange. Instead of being immersed in his book, his eyes freeze on the small fingerprints on the dusty floor and his concern grows sharper when he hears my feet pacing forth straight to the key under the right-end corner of the mat...
 At that time I see his eyes fixed on me through the keyhole.
 Is he asleep?
 But I can see him blinking!
Is he looking at me?
I glance around and make sure that I am all alone in the darkness behind the door.
 In trying to put my eye back to the keyhole, the door opens all of a sudden and I find myself kneeling down in front of my father who resists a grin:
 -Sorry, my son, to have you bothered with so much noise!
 I improvise a reply before surprise could paralyse me:
 -Yes, Daddy, and that is why I came down to find out.
 He pats my neck and carries on:
 -Very well, my son! Come in and find out!
 Then he strides away towards the stairway while I stand still watching him climb up the stairs one after the other.

8

Range Fed Chicken

Bruce Payne

*

SUNDAY morning, a little after nine, the Alpha Beta market was empty; it had just opened. A bleach-blond checkout lady sipped coffee while another filed her nails. The one with the coffee laughed. �Here he comes,� she chuckled, �look at him go.� The other checker put down her nail file. They watched with amusement as Mike Haywood ran across the parking lot, splashing through puddles in pouring rain.
Mike stood inside the entrance; out of breath, he looked for a dry grocery cart. A rangy teenage boy nodded to Mike with a toothy grin.
Mike recognized the box-boy. �How ya doin�?�
The kid dried a grocery cart then rolled it in Mike�s direction. �I�m well,� the boy grinned, �and my pants are dry.�
Mike thanked him. Everyone in the store knew Mike. He was a regular. The boy tried to compete with Mike�s corny jokes.
The bleach-blond waved. �Hi, Mike.� She turned to the other, saying something about Mike�s puzzled expression. �He always seems to be looking for something not in the Market,� she said, �ever notice?�
The other checker put down her nail file and smiled. �He�s like a lost river searching for the sea.�
Mike should have been concentrating on his grocery list, but his mind was on the Forty Niner game. Kick-off was at ten. Mike slipped the list from his pocket, but he could only think how badly the �niners played in cold, wet weather.
The box-boy caught Mike�s eye. �Sunday,� the boy said with a grin, �niners gonna get their butts kicked.�
Mike shot him a tolerant smile, fished a wrinkled dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to the kid. �Niners by fourteen.�
The boy tucked the bill in his apron pocket. �You're on, pal,� the boy winked then cocked his head. �Gotta get back to work.�
Mike stood in front of the meat counter, glancing once more at his list. �Pop corn,� he mouthed. �Q-tips, fruit, veggies, pasta, bagels, oh -and honey.� Mike pencilled in broccoli and pesto. �English Ale?� he asked himself, �Hell, why not?� He�d be thirty-four tomorrow.
A hefty butcher-lady craned her neck over the meat counter. �Somethin' ya like?� She smoothed her bloody smock.
�Chicken,� Mike said, �but nothing fed with hormones.�
�One?�
�Two, please.�
The butcher lady hustled two naked birds from the case, slapped them on a table and split them. She wrapped and taped them, then scribbled a price. �You health nuts,� she laughed with a grunt, �you�re drivin� me nuts.� She reached over the counter to hand Mike the packages but a pregnant woman in front of him blocked her reach. Mike stepped around the pregnant lady; he thanked her, put the packages in his basket and laughed under his breath.
The pregnant lady looked at him with a curious expression.
Mike�s amusement mutated into a loud laugh.
The pregnant lady glanced at the butcher lady then back to Mike.
Mike pointed to the label. �Says here range fed,� he snorted, �can you picture cowboys in Montana herding chickens?�
Light sparked in the pregnant lady�s dark eyes. �Where the deer and the cantaloupes play?� She said with a playful smile. Their eyes met for a second then she turned and left.
Half way down his list Mike saw her in the produce section; red grapes were in her basket, honeydew and apples. This mother-to-be knew plenty about prenatal nutrition. Her shiny black hair was gathered in back by a polished blue abalone barrette. Hair, Mike thought, that must feel as fine as a bird's feather. It was all he could do not to stare at her clear, soft skin and the fine, downy hairs at the nape of her sensuous neck. For a minute Mike forgot to breathe. Geeze-Louise! He was becoming an ogler! Mike turned his back to select broccoli and lettuce. It took little imagination to see her ripe figure under the thin cotton maternity dress. Mike could only hope the lady�s husband was as gentle with her as he had been with Mary -when Mary was on the nest. Mike blinked. Mary�s pregnancy increased their intimacy. Hormones, he supposed. Suddenly the lady was inches from Mike. Mike took in the sweet blend of her flesh mixed with earth from potatoes. In a heart-beat Mike moved on. She might think he was stalking her.
Mike found Q-tips on aisle B; two aisles beyond he tossed in linguini. He searched for Alfredo sauce, but could not shake Mary�s face and voice from his mind. Mike could almost feel Mary�s arms around him in bed -her breath on his neck. And in the mornings? Mary�s lyrical songs filled the kitchen.
The pregnant lady reappeared; she stopped for couscous and smiled politely at Mike.
Mike threaded his way through the check-out line.
�Hey! Mike!� the blond checker called, �what about your groceries?�
�Be right back,� Mike cried. �Left my check book in the car.�
The cars in the lot had the same colourless shiny roofs, their hoods beaded with rain. When Mike found his Honda he rushed inside and slumped over the steering wheel. Rain pelted the windshield.
�Mary,� he gasped, �Oh, Jesus-God Mary!� Mike tuned the radio to a classical station. Soon the music unclenched his fits�
 
 �Ohmygod! Mike! Hurry!�
�Choppy breaths, sweet cakes, remember?�
The traffic light would never turn green. Mary's maternity dress was soaked in pink fluid. �Hang on! Sweet cakes.�
Mary struggled for breath, her tortured face twisted with a scream. �This can�t be normal. Michael!�
Mike hardly knew her voice. He slapped the dash board. �This friggin light!� He punched the Honda through the intersection, the same time he dropped back Mary�s seat. �Can you believe it? We're going to be ancestors. Lean back. Mary! C�mon now, choppy breaths!�
An old lady in a Volkswagen crawled in front of them. Mike passed her on the right; subconsciously he breathed for Mary. �Deep breaths,� he cried, �yeah that's it -that's better.�
Another light. Mike turned left against the red signal and complaining horns. �C'mon, Mary breathe!�
Mary didn�t answer. Blood pooled on the Honda�s carpet, dark and thick. �Look down on us, Jesus! Don't do this to her!
�Right on Garden Street -punch it- high beams -horn- Mary! Talk to me!�
The Honda bottomed in a dip; something metallic scraped and Mary�s arm fell limp on the gear shift.
Mike rolled into Saint Francis� emergency entrance. �We�re here!� Mike bawled. �Mary!� he skidded into an empty ambulance entrance.
A masked team from the ER rushed over to the Honda; they transferred Mary onto a gurney then rushed into surgery.
The sign on the O.R. door read, 'Positively No Admittance,' in double sized letters. An hour and a half dragged. Twice Mike approached the doors; he pressed an ear to the door in strained silence. No Mary. No baby. Mike returned to his seat in the hall. He felt something light touch his elbow.
�Mr. Haywood?�
�Yeah? Mike Haywood. Where's Mary, the baby?�
A white line ringed the doctor's tight mouth; a perplexed glaze washed through his eyes. �I'm sorry.�
For sixteen months Mike slept with Mary�s pillow in his arms; he was never aware of the empty pain in his stomach. Mike�s boss loaded him with ample overtime. On his days off Mike avoided parks, beaches or schools, anywhere children might play or laugh. Mike did not drink. He read endlessly. Sometimes he would take in a movie. On nights when he went to bed too exhausted to eat, Mary would come to him in a dream. She always laughed as if nothing had happened. �Death is no big deal,� Mary would tell him. �Michael R. Haywood, get on with your life wilya?� Mary never stopped teasing him. Most of all she was happy.
Mike leased a small house across town; he bought a puppy.
 
He was startled by loud, rapid knocking on the driver's side window. Mike lifted his face from the steering wheel. The rain had stopped. Outside, a woman's voice cried in urgent tones. �Are you alright?�
It was her -the one in the store, the one on the nest. Her grocery bags were balanced on his hood; she was gawking at him. Mike turned off the radio then rolled down his window. �I'm okay, really.�
She blinked rapidly. �Oh, jeeze, I thought you passed out or something.�
Mike opened the door and stood in front of her. �It�s thoughtful of you,� he forced smile with a little joke to cover his embarrassment, �I was thinking of my tax audit tomorrow.�
Mike excused himself to return to the market for his groceries.
She was still laughing at his joke.
Fifteen minutes later Mike placed bags on his back seat. Fresh wind had swept away the clouds; the clear sky was washed in coppery autumn light. Mike had bought a six pack of English ale. For some unexplainable reason he felt buoyant. He checked his watch. Kick-off was just ten minutes away.
The pregnant lady waited beside the hood of his Honda. �I think I know you,� she said.
�Afraid I don�t-�
�You live on Clinton Terrace? You have a black lab, right?�
�Yes, but-�
�Your dog poops on my lawn every morning.�
�Yeah, I�m sorry.�
She paused; for the moment her dark hesitant eyes settled on the Honda then in his face. �Well? Neighbour? You going to offer me a lift?�
�Sure,� Mike placed her bags next to his in the back. �Hop in.�
She offered her hand, a little out of breath. �I�m Elizabeth Winslow.�
�Mike Haywood.�
�Yeah, right,� Elizabeth giggled, �cowboys and chickens.�
Mike drove south on De Lavina. When he stopped at a signal, he looked down at her melon-stomach. �When's D-day?�
�Doctor says two more weeks,� Elizabeth�s expression froze.
�Something wrong?�
Elizabeth covered a small burp. �Gas,� she said with a relieved smile. She removed the barrette from her hair. �Turned out to be a nice morning.�
�Football weather,� Mike gushed. �You and your husband picked out names?�
�Not married.�
She said it casually, as if Mike were taking a census.
�Rachel,� she continued, �for a girl I mean, Patrick for a boy.�
Mike stopped to let three kids cross on skateboards. Elizabeth placed his right hand on her stomach. �That feels like two more weeks?� Her eyes grew wide when she saw Mike�s watch.
Mike withdrew his hand. �You need to be somewhere soon?�
�The Forty Niners are playing the Eagles,� Elizabeth fussed with her groceries. �I'm a fruitless football fanatic,� she giggled.
�You know,� Mike injected, �Jerry Rice might break the record today.�
�He must,� Elizabeth said, �I prayed two novenas for him.�
Mike pulled over to steady the bags on the back seat; two diaper boxes had fallen on the floor. �I�ve forgotten all the stuff you need for a baby.�
Two blocks further Mike pulled into her driveway. �Someone waiting for you?� he asked.
�Not any more,� she said.
�Say, Elizabeth?�
�Hmm?�
�I have a new crib, a new playpen ...bassinet too -still in the box. I have no use for them.� Mike opened her door. �They're yours if you like.� He hefted her groceries. �What do you say?�
The same curious light returned to her eyes. Elizabeth hesitated with a thoughtful look.
�I know what,� Mike said, �While you think it over we can watch the game on my big-screen TV.�
Her brows lifted with a cautious smile.
�Oh, C�mon. I bought popcorn.�

9

Dogs
 
Mohamed Sa�d Ra�hani
 
*

HE owns nothing at home that may be targeted by greedy hands: No furniture, no dishes, no children, no woman... Nothing but the worn-out clothes which he has on him. Yet, every morning, he stands on the doorstep to nourish two stray dogs seeking, in exchange, their keeping watch over the door of his tumbledown house in this ghetto surrounding the city from every side: Hungry stray dogs apparently unable to discern thieves from proprietors but can, at least, in recognition to the Man who feeds them at day, show some sign of presence at night with a bark or two in case any stranger dares approach his door...
 The morning is foggy and cold. The Man steps out and sits on the threshold of his house. Dogs, in various shapes and breeds, approach him, but only two of them, a dog and a bitch, dare get nearer reaching out to lick his hands and shoes while the other five keep their distance...
It is getting cold. The Man and  the two dogs sit down face to face, blowing their white breaths on each other�s face before the Man stands suddenly up, steps back and disappears behind the door only to come back with his lap filled with bare loaves of stale bread that he begins to crumble at the feet of the two dogs who wriggled their tails with happiness, panted with appetite and looked now and then back to the other five dogs staying in the background at a safe distance...
 The Man finishes crumbling the bread. He reaches for the two dogs� necks to coax them, closes the door behind him and strides away towards the centre of the city in search of some work to enable him win his own bread.
 The two dogs stuff themselves with stale bread while grunting their threats to the other dogs in the near background to dissuade them from even the slightest idea of approaching.
 Having understood the warning message, the five dogs keep at rest, waiting while the two dogs devour the bread while glancing menacingly at them.
The male is planning to leave but stops suddenly to think of the remaining crumbs on the ground. He throws a look at the other five dogs but finds them indifferent to what is happening. Then, he looks at the bread spread all over and bends down to help the bitch lick the place clean.
 All of a sudden, the male lifts up his head and his eyes bulge in great difficulty trying to swallow what is stuck in his throat. He looks behind and bares his teeth threateningly to the other five who reply with constant indifference, lying on their stomachs and breathing softly without blinking an eyelash.
 The male returns to the remaining bread on the ground but finds the latest piece too hard to swallow. He keeps trying and trying until collapsing down: coughing heavily, blowing noisily, snorting madly, kicking about desperately, trying to get the bread stuck in its throat out or down by rolling over, kicking about and spinning around like a weathervane but only to clean the ground beneath.
 In the near background, the other five, sitting still in their little corner feigning inattention to the dying dog, seem, on the other hand, interested in the bitch involved entirely in eating and turning occasionally back to growl at them with great suspicion.
 When the bitch feels both stuffed and exhausted, she stops to rest by the pieces of bread rejected by the dying male, sniffs them one after the other before picking them up alternatively between her jaws. The other five dogs do not move. They just contemplate the scene, blinking their eyes nonchalantly.
The bitch tries to bark menacingly but the different sizes of bread stuffed between her jaws lessen the force of barking and make it dull.
 With flies devouring her hind parts, she shakes herself up to chase them away but the pieces of bread that she has long worked to master in her mouth fall down. She stoops down to pick them up in one go. When at last she manages to do so, she starts moving slowly away with both overweight in her stomach and between her jaws, glancing back alternatively at the other five and the remaining pieces of bread still on the ground until she disappears at the far-away corner in the end of the street.
 Hardly has the bitch gone when the other five get up slowly, tiptoeing towards the remaining bread scattered near the dead dog�s legs. They glance at the corner of the street where the bitch has just been. Then, they jump on the crumbs of bread, waving their tails to cool down the fear whizzing wildly in their hind part, constantly looking back to avoid any kinds of surprise or punishment.
 No sooner does the bitch reappear with her dangling breasts swinging freely between her legs than the other five jump up and run away at full speed without the slightest look behind. The bitch moves forth slowly sniffing at the old traces of bread but does not find a crumb. She looks up at the horizon to see the fleeing dogs, like five little points, in their mad race, drawing geometric shapes of all kinds, unbelieving their safety from a monstrous breed who prefer dying of indigestion to sharing a few crumbs.

10

 
Kawila
Translated from the Arabic by Nivin El Asdoudi and Scott Chaucey Munson

Yehia Moukhtar


*

THE blows from the eleven young men fell suddenly upon Kawila�s frail body from all directions, and his attempts to fend off the attack, or run away, were futile. He was frightened, deeply disturbed, and taken by surprise. So shaken was he by their menacing voices that he was unable to think clearly.
They went on beating him, unmoved by his bewildered looks and his cries, which echoed down the ferky separating El Genena wil Shibak and Toshka Sharq. They had entered the ferky together, chatting and laughing, but halfway down its length they first surrounded him and then pounced on him en masse, according to their agreed-upon plan. They were careful not to draw blood or cause visible injury, but were intent on causing him pain and preventing him from playing the tambourine for many months. Kawila�s head was buzzing, his whole body was aching, and he was barely able to move. They left him in this condition, and each one of them went his own way.
Despite his injuries, their words and dire warnings reverberated in his head. He was appalled that they believed the rumours circulating in the village and the surrounding hamlets. According to the rumours, girls and women dancing to Kawila�s music were mesmerized by his rhythmic mastery of the tambourine, and he was believed to exploit this skill in order to seduce them.
It never occurred to him that these allegations would lead to physical attacks by the young men of his village, for he often performed at their gatherings and weddings, sharing their moments of happiness and adding an element of joy to their lives. When these rumours first reached him he was untroubled by them, and he even mocked those who propagated them, because all of the girls and women were either his relatives or had been his people's neighbours for generations. He looked at their legs and feet with no desire, contrary to the suspicions of the young men. He wondered what they would think if they knew how many married and single women flirted with him and covertly chased after him.
It was the people�s trust in him, the fear of losing his livelihood, and his father�s warnings that prevented him from going down this path. It was Kawila's practice to look at the women�s feet in order to maintain the rhythm and adjust the tempo according to the abilities of each individual body, so that each would be able to express itself in moving and dancing. His role was to weave all of these bodies into one musical fabric, for dancing is an expression of joy and ecstasy, and he had imbibed the language of the body. He was convinced that human beings were born to dance and be happy, and that each beat could produce a different tone, depending on its proximity to the tambourine�s centre. There is a set of strings in the heart of each person that responds to these tones. The moment the right tone is heard, the body starts its sympathetic vibration. Only he had the key to all of these bodies at his fingertips.
Kawila was distinguished from his contemporaries and forerunners by his ability to put the dancers at ease, with his gift for generating different rhythms, variations, and improvisations. Only he was capable of making them dance all night, and the more aggressive his beats became, the more vigorous and ecstatic were the dancers, as if they were drawing from an inexhaustible source of energy. All of them preferred to dance to his beats, because only he could move them to the depths of their being. Their souls began to tremble before their bodies moved, soon to be drenched in a well of happiness. With his nimble fingers, he awakened something mysterious and ancient within them that transported them to another time and to another existence.
The tambourine beats evoked the Nile and the movements of its waves. For the nagarshad dancers, to dance was to swim in the river and hear the sound of the water submersing them. They surrendered to the tambourine, their bodies moving this way and that, following the rhythm produced by Kawila as they were surrounded and penetrated by the music. With his instrument he reached new peaks of perfection, and he felt the greatest pleasure when he saw the dancers enjoying their bodies and expressing their innermost secrets. It was as if their souls were conversing with his, and only then was the full power of the tambourine manifested.
Kawila knew full well that it was pointless to complain, for the eleven young men were chosen from nearly all the tribes of the region, not for fear that he would retaliate, for they were aware that he was powerless and had no one to support or protect him.
Among the volunteers there was a consensus and an urge to punish Kawila, and they had no fear of disapproval, for he was no more than a shar, who was paid, like all of his fellow musicians, in money, food, and kamanga cigarettes.
When Suleiman Bors asked him what had befallen him, he pretended that he had tripped and fallen all the way down the ferky, but Suleiman gave him a sarcastic smile, which cut Kawila like a knife to the heart. He was ashamed, but he decided to go back to performing again. Neither the rumours nor the beating nor the breaking of his bones would prevent him from playing. He knew that they did not intend to kill him. If he quit playing, this would only confirm the rumours. Playing the tambourine was all he knew, for he was not a tiller of the earth, and, because of his lean body, he was ill-suited for any other job. The arki, the kamanga, and the late nights, with nothing to sustain him but crumbs of shidi, had sucked him dry. All of this had rendered him incapable of doing anything but manipulating the tambourine with his nimble fingers. This was his source of strength and continuing vitality, the reason for his very existence. He knew that he should not succumb to the animosity, lurking deep within their hearts, that not even the music, the songs, and the dances were able to wash away. He would never abandon the hope that they would know the truth and repent, after he had reported them to Sheik Sharif Nateq. Only then would they apologize to him, by providing him with more arki and more kamanga cigarettes, and that would be enough to satisfy him.
Kawila was bed-ridden for three months, during which he yielded to his thoughts, and to the hands of his mother, Daria Gundo and Gabeya Marseya, the masseuse, who rubbed his skin with ghee and castor oil.
He was visited during his convalescence by Ibrahim Hamdoun, one of his assailants, who wanted to know whether the beating had been severe enough, or whether they would have to resort to more extreme measures.
When Kawila first saw Ibrahim, he wondered if he had come to apologize. But the look on Ibrahim�s face soon darkened any gleam of hope. Was there a possibility that he had come to attack Kawila again? Then, he would die of sadness, and if he survived, he would not be able to complain to the umda or seek the help of his neighbours, for the young men had spread rumours in order to so tarnish his reputation that no one would come to his aid.
Ibrahim narrowed his eyes, pointed his forefinger at Kawila, and said in a threatening voice, �It will be worse next time.�
 �Sit down first...let me welcome you...I wish you would learn the truth. I am not the person you think I am...�
The truth! Ibrahim and all the others knew the truth, for they were the ones who spread this rumour! The rhythms he produced on the tambourine were the real reason, and not his way of looking at the women. The men could see that he was able to transfigure their partners into different beings, more graceful and delicate. Their dancing was more than dancing; it was love-making in full view of everyone. They performed movements they never performed in their 'angarees', and their motions were accompanied by playful sighs.
The men, with all their hugs, kisses, and whispers of longing, were unable to produce the same effect on them as the tambourine. Kawila was not aware of their thoughts, and he wished he could tell Ibrahim that what hurt him the most was their inability to grasp the value of his music. These were not just ephemeral rhythms to be danced to and then swept away by the wind. He wanted to tell Ibrahim he once believed that he would forever remain a part of them, his memory lingering deep inside them. With his rhythms residing in their souls, and running through their blood, they would dance forever.
He whispered to himself, How can I explain this to the man who is blocking the door of the 'duwani' with his massive bulk, the selfsame man who even refuses to sit down in order to deliver his message?
If he was unable to explain to them the mere nature of his existence, how could he explain something that he himself found mysterious and puzzling? What they mistook for low gratification was for him something sublime. It was the fulfilment of an urge residing in the very centre of himself... more enduring than the trembling of two bodies in climax. It was a state of bliss. Kawila knew that the person who was blocking the breeze and the sunlight from entering the house would not understand. Neither would the ones who had sent him.
Ibrahim Hamdoun had to wait for some time before Kawila responded to his threat. �You think I am impious, but all of you drink arki and smoke kamanga. I am more religious than you think I am. He could not bring himself to add: �and even more religious than you are.� He went on: �The beats of the tambourine are echoes of a sound emanating from the sky and the river. The beats of the tambourine call out to something inside me. I do not know what it is. I feel that I have been chosen to relay to you the heavenly messages I receive.�
Kawila's words seemed strange even to himself, and he did not know what compelled him to utter them. He spoke against his will, in a manner unfamiliar to him. Ibrahim Hamdoun could see that the results of the beating had exceeded the young men's expectations. He thought, �Kawila has gone mad, and he is now hallucinating.� His body shook with laughter. This did not surprise Kawila, but it humiliated him, and he heard himself saying, �After all these years of basking in your generosity, how can I be ungrateful?�
The smile on Ibrahim's face disappeared immediately, to be replaced by a stern look.
 �Stop this nonsense! You must follow what we have decreed.�
 �What about my livelihood?�
 �I will ask them to give you enough to sustain you and your mother.�
 �I won't be dependent on charity!�
 �You owe your very existence to our charity.� He turned and left the room peremptorily, and Kawila followed him.
 �I won't perform at El Genena wil Shibak. I will find other villages.�
Ibrahim turned around, looked at him silently, then turned again and left.
It was impossible for the ones who prevented Kawila from performing at El Genena wil Shibak to let him perform in other villages. They were afraid that the women and girls would go wherever Kawila went, and would abandon their own gatherings.
The young men decided to follow and observe him on his first night in Tushka. When the dancing became more impassioned, and the air was suffused with the sandalyia and bent al sudan perfume, when the ululations flew up to the heavens, and the bodies began roiling and sweating, the men resolved that they would not let him defeat them.
Kawila returned to El Genena wil Shibaq on the back of Morgan Abdelsid's donkey. Morgan found him on the bank of the river unconscious, with the blood running from his hands. The fingers had been broken and the bones were exposed. Kawila did not know who carried him to his house.
When he regained consciousness he did not say a word. No shout of pain escaped him when his hands, from which the fingers had been severed, were immersed in boiled ghee, to prevent infection.
When the people of el Genena wil Shibak learned of this incident, the women felt pity for him, and swore never to dance again. The girls shed angry tears in private, but the young men laughed it all off.
One morning, Kawila's mother, Daria Gundo, went to his room with a glass of milk. Her only hope was to hear him say just one word. She found him where he lay, face turned downward, with a hand on his mouth, pressing the tambourine to his chest, enveloped in his eternal silence.

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