Anthills of the Savannah

FIFTEEN

Chris meanwhile had been weaving a nest of heady activity in the circumscribed quarters of his retreat. If only Beatrice had had more direct access to him in those few days of his rapid metamorphosis into the new career of prized quarry she might have learnt to be less surprised by the strange behaviour of his hunter; for even in his harried run Chris had still left himself scope for heightening the drama of the chase. This apparent luxury made his tight corners not only more enjoyable to him but on occasion went so far as to offer him the illusion that he had turned hunter from hunted; that he had become the very spider manning a complicated webwork of toils and not the doomed fly circling in orbits of seeming freedom that nevertheless narrowed imperceptibly to a fatal impingement. Was this a necessary part of the psychology of hot pursuit that it will deceive even its own purpose, not to talk of the predicament of its victim, into liberal-looking sportiveness and fairplay?

Chris's new network was fastened on the support of friends who harboured him in spare rooms and Boys' Quarters and even, on one dramatic occasion, pitched him through a loose board into the steamy darkness of the ceiling. This hide-and-seek gave everyone concerned a nice conspiratorial feeling of being part of an undertaking admittedly risky but still far short of menacing. However, after the police announcement spelling out the death penalty for everything including this kind of game, Chris and his current host had a serious talk together and decided that they could not rule out the chances that one or two people who had played a role in the affair so far might be frightened by this turn of events into quietly informing against him to buy their own peace. So the need for him to move out of Bassa entirely became suddenly urgent. But it was going to be tricky and there was no way it could be accomplished in one step in the short time he had. So it was arranged that he and his aide-de-camp, Emmanuel, should make a preliminary move out of the Government Reservation Area to the northern slums under the care of the taxi-driver, Braimoh.

Emmanuel Obete was the President of the Students Union who after a couple of visits had brought his bag along one afternoon and simply stayed on.

'Why have you come to me?' Chris asked him, not on the first day nor the second but as they ate a hurried breakfast of fried plantains and corn pap with his host on the third morning.

'For protection,' said Emmanuel who was revealing a new side of himself as a clown of sorts. Chris and his host looked at each other and laughed.

'Do your people have a proverb about a man looking for something inside the bag of a man looking for something?'

Emmanuel laughed in his turn and said no they didn't… but wait… they did have something that resembled it: about digging a new hole to get sand to fill an old one.

'He is something else,' said Chris to his friend. And he did not trouble the young man again about his reasons.

Emmaunuel was also a fugitive wanted by the police. But being of only middling importance in police estimation he was not given the VIP treatment of having his wait-and-take picture on television. A troublesome student union official was nothing new to the Kangan Police, and they were not about to make a song and dance about him.

'Now I want to tell you the real reason I came to you,' said Emmanuel later in the day.

'I see,' said Chris. 'Actually the one you gave in the morning was good enough for me. What is it this time?'

'Well, this time it is because the security people are so daft they will look for me everywhere except where you are.'

'There you go again underrating the state security. Very dangerous, you know. Better to overrate your enemy than to underrate him. OK, look at this matter of the fatal gunshot. Anyone who can come up with that kind of thing can't be a complete fool.'

'I don't believe they came up with it, sir. Pure accident, that's all.'

Emmanuel's low opinion of the army and police was matched only by his dismal estimate of Kangan journalists. Between the two he would give a slight edge in fact to the security officers. And fortunately for him the incredible ease with which he had planted the story of Chris's escape to London in the National Gazette came in handy as indisputable proof. He, Chris and their host had such a laugh when the news appeared; and Chris had to admit, shamefacedly as a former Editor of the Gazette, that the affair put the journalistic profession in Kangan in a very poor light indeed.

'Of course it would not have happened under your editorship or Ikem's,' said Emmanuel in a tone that was not entirely free of certain impish ambiguity.

'Thank you, Emmanuel. Such gallantry.'

'No, I mean every word, sir.' And it seemed, this time, he did.

But Chris had some difficulty getting the matter off his mind. Long after the merriment over Emmanuel's brilliant success had subsided he kept repeating to himself: 'One telephone call! From a senior Customs Officer who for obvious reasons would rather not reveal his identity! Unbelievable!'

Chris's disguise for his first hop was nothing as fanciful as Emmanuel's priest's cassock. He wore Braimoh's everyday clothes and cap to match, and a few smudges of pot-black on his face and neck and arms to tone down a complexion too radiant for his new clothes or pretended calling as a retail dealer in small motor-car parts. The one-week growth of beard he had nurtured just in case, was discarded as not too great a success, especially when his host suggested, half-seriously, that the Reverend Father's beard in Emmanuel's rather more successful fiction might have the result of drawing police attention instinctively to people's chins for some days to come.

Braimoh had two passengers in the back seat of his old cab when he arrived to pick up Chris for the critical journey to the north of the city. His estimate was eight or nine odd security road-blocks to cross. Chris said good afternoon to the two strangers behind and took the front seat beside the driver. Before driving away Braimoh reached into the untidy junk in his glove-box and brought out three kolanuts and offered them to Chris.

'Make you de chew am for road. Anybody wey see you de knack am so go think say you never chop breakfast.'

The two men behind laughed rather a lot at this and Chris not being sure whether they were people who laughed much ordinarily or hid malice behind laughter cast a questioning glance at Braimoh, even as he reached for the gift.

'Dem two na my people. No worry.'

Chris took the proffered kolanuts, and thanked Braimoh. Then he gave one to the two men behind as though in appeasement and put the others in his pocket. Seeing where they had been fished out of he would need to wash them before eating.

Emmanuel darted out for a quick goodbye and vanished again behind the main house into the Boys' Quarters. It had been agreed that he would travel separately to rejoin Chris later.

They passed the first three check-points without trouble. The soldiers and police looked tired and waved cars through rather inattentively. Chris was almost certain that Emmanuel's Gazette story must be more than marginally responsible for thus putting the law off their guard. He was something else, that boy Emmanuel. Why did we not cultivate such young men before now? Why, we did not even know they existed if the truth must be told! We? Who are we? The trinity who thought they owned Kangan as BB once unkindly said? Three green bottles. One has accidentally fallen; one is tilting. Going, going, bang! Then we becomes I, becomes imperial We.

The traffic was beginning to slow down at the big bend in the road just before the Three Cowrie Bridge. Another check-point, no doubt. Stupid fellows the police; they would choose the approaches to a bridge to disrupt traffic! At long last Braimoh cleared the corner, and ran full tilt into it! This was no ordinary check-point but a major combined army and police operation. There were two military jeeps by the roadside and three police patrol-cars flashing their roof-lamps. Ahead, passengers were being ordered out of vehicles.

Braimoh panicked and made the first move of a hasty U-turn, which was a serious error considering the flashing patrol-cars waiting to give chase! The man behind Chris shouted to Braimoh to get back into line, and he promptly complied. But it would seem his ill-considered move had already been noticed.

'Oga come out quick! Make we use leg.'

Chris was out of the car like a shot and so was the man who had spoken. They were on the kerb side of the road, fortunately.

'Quick, make we de go!'

As they walked smartly away from their car towards the bridge the soldier who seemed to have noticed Braimoh's suspicious move was coming briskly towards them. Chris was watching him through the corner of his eye until they drew level. The soldier stopped.

'Hey, stop there!' he shouted. Chris and his companion halted on the sidewalk and turned to him, standing on the road. His face was scarred by three heavy marks on either side. He had accompanied his order with the unslinging of his automatic weapon. The width of a car separated him from Chris and his companion.

'Where you de go?'

'We de go Three Cowrie Market.'

'Wetin de inside that bag? Bring am here.'

Chris's companion walked down the kerb between two cars and opened his dirty shopping bag for the soldier to inspect.

'You there, come down here. Wetin be your name?'

'Sebastian,' replied Chris, using the name of his steward from instant inspiration.

'Sebastian who?'

He didn't know. But luckily he realized quickly enough that it didn't much matter.

'Sebastian Ojo.'

'What work you de do?'

'He de sell motor part.'

'Na you I ask? Or na you be him mouth?'

'I de sell motor parts,' said Chris.

'How you de sell motor part and then come de march for leg?'

'Him car knock engine.'

'Shurrup! Big mouth. I no ask you!'

But he had already diverted the scorching fire away from Chris and given him a little respite just when he was beginning to wilt and quiver a bit at the knees. His right hand, heavy and idle beside him, stirred into life and went to his trouser pocket where it found one of the kolanuts and brought it out. The soldier's eye caught it and lit up. Chris split the nut and gave the bigger half to him and put the other into his own mouth. The soldier took the offering eagerly and crunched it with noisy greed.

'Thank you brother,' he said, fixing his gaze on him and squinting in what might be an effort of memory. 'Na only poor man de sabi say him brother never chop since morning. The big oga wey put poor man for sun no de remember. Because why? Him own belle done full up with cornflake and milik and omlate.' He resumed his squint at Chris and then tapped his forehead. 'I think say I done see you before before.'

'Sometime you buy small something for repair your machine for him shop?' said Chris's companion.

'Which machine? I tell you say I get machine?'

'Make you no mind. No condition is permnent. You go get. Meself as I de talk so, you think say I get machine? Even common bicycle I no get. But my mind strong that one day I go jump bicycle, jump machine and land inside motor car! And somebody go come open door for me and say yes sir! And I go carry my belle like woman we de begin to pregnant small and come sitdon for owner-corner, take cigarette put for mouth, no more kolanut, and say to driver comon move! I get strong mind for dat. Make you get strong mind too, everything go allright.'

The soldier now wore a wistful smile which sat strangely on his savaged face.

Across the bridge they walked leisurely, waiting for Braimoh and his lone passenger to get through their own ordeal. Chris's spirits had returned to such a degree that a certain jauntiness was discernible in his walk. He even suggested to his companion that walking through check-points would seem to be their best bet from now on.

'You think you no go forget your job again?' his companion asked teasingly. 'When you no fit talk again that time, fear come catch me proper and I begin pray make this man no go introduce himself as Commissioner of Information!'

'Me Commissioner? At all. Na small small motor part na him I de sell. Original and Taiwan.'

'Ehe! Talkam like that. No shaky-shaky mouth again. But oga you see now, to be big man no hard but to be poor man no be small thing. Na proper wahala. No be so?'

'Na so I see-o. I no know before today say to pass for small man you need to go special college.'

His companion liked that and laughed long and loud. 'Na true you talk, oga. Special College. Poor Man Elementary Cerftikate!'

They walked along merrily discussing in confidential tones their recent success. Chris wondered why the soldier had stopped them in the first place. Had he noticed them get down from the taxi?

'At all!' said his companion. 'Make I tell you why he stop us? Na because of how you de walk as to say you fear to kill ant for road. And then you come again take corner-corner eye de look the man at the same time. Nex time make you march for ground with bold face as if to say your father na him get main road.'

'Thank you,' said Chris. 'I must remember that… To succeed as small man no be small thing.'