Anthills of the Savannah

SEVENTEEN

The Great North Road

The kind of people — local bourgeoisie and foreign diplomats — who sidle up to you at cocktail parties to inform you that Bassa was not Kangan are the very ones who go on behaving as though it was. Why? Because, like the rest of the best people, they have never travelled by bus out of Bassa on the Great North Road. If they had, even once, they would have believed and stopped prating! But they always proffer the excuse that it is too dangerous, too sweaty and, above all, too long a journey for busy people.

Now, as the overwhelming force of this simple, always-taken-in-vain reality impinged on each of Chris's five, or was it six, senses even as hordes of flying insects after the first rain bombard street lamps, the ensuing knowledge seeped through every pore in his skin into the core of his being continuing the transformation, already in process, of the man he was.

What would happen now, he wondered, if the wheels of fortune should turn again and return him to the very haunts of his previous life, to the same cocktail circuits, those hollow rituals which in fairness to him, he always loathed for their sheer vapidity and perhaps even more for the physical pain they caused him? For being somewhat weak of hearing he was forced by the cumulative drone of a hundred or more conversations into an aural blockade in which he could do no better than wander aimlessly from one set of moving lips to another, hearing absolutely nothing, smiling idiotically. What would he do if — but make God no 'gree — he should find himself again in that torture chamber? He would pray for courage to tell each pair of lips and set of teeth before moving on to the next: 'Yes, but do you know that although you say so, it is actually true?' And for his courage he may perhaps be rewarded with the rare pleasure of seeing, since he could not hear, one vacuous idiot after another shut his trap for a few peaceful seconds in total mystification, because his piston lips may only have asked: 'How the go de go?' Beatrice was of course absolutely right about never going to cocktail parties, but then Beatrice never had the misfortune to be Commissioner for Information. No, Bassa was certainly not Kangan. From this authoritative windowseat in Luxurious Chris could now vouch for that!

The impenetrable rain forests of the South through which even a great highway snaked like a mere game track began to yield ground most grudgingly at first but in time a little more willingly to less prodigious growths; and a couple of hundred kilometres further north, unbelievably, to open parklands of grass and stunted trees. The traveller's spirits rose in step with this diminution of forests which gave the eye a heady facility to roam freely and take in wide panoramas of space stretching to a horizon where tiny trees on distant hills and against clear skies formed miniature Japanese gardens.

Even the asphalt on which Luxurious sped towards the North told its own story of two countries. Thickly-laid and cushiony at first it steadily deteriorated into thin black paint applied with niggardly strokes of a brush over the laterite beginning to break up and reveal, as the journey progressed, more and more of the brown underlay, forcing the elegant and beautiful Luxurious to lurch from side to side in order to avoid the deepest ruts and pot-holes. But Chris welcomed this disappointment of comfort for the blessing it had in tow, for it curtailed the recklessness of Luxurious which had been conducting herself like a termagant of the highway treating her passengers' safety cavalierly and bullying every smaller vehicle she encountered clean out of the way as though traffic rights were merely a matter of size. Broken roads and bumpy rides had their uses, thought Chris.

The lifting of his spirits which had enabled him to indulge himself in every kind of visual and intellectual conceit was due to one great and happy fact. Once Luxurious had left the metropolis of Bassa and headed into the forest tunnels that eventually led into the open country the security checks took a dramatic change for the better. For a while they continued to occur at about the same intervals of distance and were manned by about the same kind of strength. But their purpose had changed. They took hardly any notice of the passengers but concentrated on demanding and receiving gratification from the bus operators. Even when on one occasion a particularly fierce-looking policeman ordered all passengers to disembark it turned out to be no more than a clever ruse for extracting a bigger toll from the driver, and the few passengers including Braimoh who had actually disembarked were smilingly asked to resume their seats. So it was not only the magic of the countryside, though it did play its part, which enabled Chris's mind, so cramped lately, to float away over this wide expanse of grass-covered landscape with its plains and valleys and hills dotted around with small picture-book trees of every imaginable tree-shape and every shade of green. This flight from danger was taking on the colours and contours of a picnic!

The towns and villages on the Great North Road responded in appropriate ways to the general scaling-down in the size of structures as one pushed out of the rain country slowly towards the land of droughts. The massive buildings of the new-rich down the coast gave way to less imposing but still iron-roofed and cement-walled houses, in much the same way as the giant forests of iroko and mahogany and other great hardwoods had given way to flowering trees like flames-of-the-forest.

As the bus lurched from one side of the road to the other trying to avoid the sharp edges of washed-out bitumen Chris noticed that the same iron roofs were now borne more and more on the shoulders of mud walls plastered over with cement. But in due course this pretence was dropped and the walls owned up frankly to being of reddish earth. The march-past of dwellings in descending hierarchies continued until the modest militias of round thatched huts began to pass slowly across Chris's reviewing stand.

Police and army checkpoints came and went fairly regularly and had dropped their pretence of looking inside the bus from the forward door. Now they took their money openly from the operators with seeming good humour on both sides. But the driver and his mate never failed to grumble and curse the fellows soon afterwards.

'Make your mother hair catch fire,' prayed the driver on one occasion as soon as he had pulled away from a policeman with whom he seemed to have had a few initial problems.

The bus had been travelling for a little over five hours when it pulled up in the famous dusty and bustling market-town of Agbata, rather large and active for that part of the country. It was the main watering-place of the Great North Road beloved of seasoned travellers on this route. The passengers were glad to escape from the stagnant, cooped-up heat inside the bus into the dry hot waves of the open air. As they disembarked they kicked the cramps out of their leg-joints and sought out what privacy they could find in that unsheltered, sandy terrain to ease themselves. Proprietors of eating-houses and other shacks had regular running battles with every batch of freshly disembarked passengers especially the women eyeing their backyards in spite of many bold scrawls: DON'T URINATE HERE. Most of the men emboldened by tradition and regular travel did not wander around to the same extent like a hen looking for a place to drop her egg but simply picked a big parked truck, moved up close enough and relieved themselves against one of the tyres.

The next concern, food, was more readily available. Scores of little huts with grand names competed for the travellers' custom with colourful signboards backed up with verbal appeals: Goat meat here! Egusi soup here! Bushmeat here! Come here for Rice! Fine Fine Pounded Yam!

The word decent, variously spelt, occurred on most of the signboards. Chris and his companions settled for Very Desent Restorant for no better reason than its fairly clean, yellow door-blind. In the bus the three had prudently behaved like total strangers. But the last hundred and fifty or so kilometres had shown that they did not need that level of caution. And so now they sat boldly at one table and ordered their food; rice for Chris, fried yam and goatmeat stew for Emmanuel and garri and bushmeat stew for Braimoh.

They still did not talk much among themselves and could quite easily have passed for three travellers who perhaps knew each other slightly or even struck up acquaintance in the course of the journey.

The waitress brought them a plastic bowl of water to wash their hands and a saucer with caked soap-powder. It was clear the water had not been changed for quite a while and a greasy line of palm-oil circled the bowl just above the murky water.

Chris to whom the water was first offered looked instinctively first at his palm and then at the water and shook his head. Emmanuel also declined. Braimoh, boldest of the group, asked the young lady to change the water, which immediately brought in the smiling-eyed proprietress who had been presiding from a distance.

'Change the water?' she laughed. 'You people from the South! Do you know how much we pay for a tin now? One manilla fifty.'

'And the tankers have not come today,' chipped in the waitress still holding her bowl of dirty water.

'No,' said her mistress. 'The tankers have not come. Those people you see over there are selling yesterday's water at two manilla.' She pointed through the window to a man carrying across his shoulder like a see-saw a stout pole at each end of which was tied a four-gallon tin. There were two or three others like him manoeuvring their heavy and tricky burden expertly through the crowd.

A few kilometres north of Agbata there was a fairly long bridge over a completely dry river-bed and beyond it a huge signboard saying: WELCOME TO SOUTH ABAZON. It was amazing, thought Chris, how provincial boundaries drawn by all accounts quite arbitrarily by the British fifty years ago and more sometimes coincided so completely with reality. Beyond that dried up river there was hardly a yard of transition; you drove straight into scrubland which two years without rain had virtually turned to desert.

The air current blowing into the bus seemed to be fanned from a furnace. The only green things around now were the formidably spiked cactus serving as shelter around desolate clusters of huts and, once in a while in the dusty fields, a fat-bottomed baobab tree so strange in appearance that one could easily believe the story that elephants looking for water when they still roamed these parts would pierce the crusty bark of the baobab with their tusk and suck the juices stored in the years of rain by the tree inside its monumental bole.

At the provincial boundary Chris suffered a recurrence of sharp anxiety at the sudden sight of a vast deployment of police and troops larger than any they had encountered since leaving Bassa. But they took no interest whatsover in the passengers, neither did they delay the driver who went down and across the road to see one of them. As he returned to resume his driving-seat he waved to them in what seemed to Chris like a very friendly goodbye. But no sooner had he driven clear of their road bar than he broke into loud and unrestrained complaints about their greed and finally called down the curse of fire to scorch their mothers' bushes.

Security forces! Who or what were they securing? Perhaps they were posted there to prevent the hungry desert from taking its begging bowl inside the secure borders of the South.

As the bus plunged deeper into the burning desolation Chris reached into his bag and pulled out Ikem's unsigned 'Pillar of Fire: A hymn to the Sun,' and began to read it slowly with fresh eyes, lipping the words like an amazed learner in a literacy campaign class. Perhaps it was seeing the anthills in the scorched landscape that set him off revealing in details he had not before experienced how the searing accuracy of the poet's eye was primed not on fancy but fact. And to think that this was not the real Abazon yet; that the real heart of the disaster must be at least another day's journey ahead! The dust had turned ashen. A man on a donkey was overtaken by the bus, his face a perfect picture of a corpse that died in the harmattan.

…And now the times had come round again out of storyland. Perhaps not as bad as the first times, yet. But they could easily end worse. Why? Because today no one can rise and march south by starlight abandoning crippled kindred in the wild savannah and arrive stealthily at a tiny village and fall upon its inhabitants and slay them and take their land and say: I did it because death stared through my eye.

So they send instead a deputation of elders to the government who hold the yam today and hold the knife, to seek help of them.

After Agbata there were numerous empty seats in the bus. Braimoh moved down and sat directly in front of Chris who had been joined by Emmanuel since the girl had deserted him to sit with a fellow student-nurse.

'Young men are not what they used to be,' said Chris. 'You mean you let a girl like that slip through your fingers on a bus excursion?'

'I did my best but she wouldn't bite. And do you blame her seeing these rags I'm reduced to?' He made a mock gesture of contempt with his left hand taking in his entire person decked out in ill-fitting second-hand clothes. 'Such a tramp! And on top of it all you should have heard the kind of pidgin I had to speak.'

'Poor fellow,' said Chris with a gleam in his eyes. 'I am truly sorry for all this inconvenience.'

'I must confess I became so frustrated at one point I began asking her if she had ever heard of a certain President of the Students Union on the run.'

'You didn't!'

'No. But I nearly did. It is not easy to lose a girl like that.'

'And under false pretences!'

'Imagine!'

'Sorry-o.'

'Actually she is the shyest thing I have ever met in all my life. I don't think it was my clothes alone.'

'I shouldn't have thought so either. Your sterling quality would shine through any rags.'

'Thanks! The real trouble was getting her to open her mouth. She spoke at the rate of one word per hour. And it was either yes or no.'

'How did you find out she was a student-nurse?'

'Na proper tug-of-war.'

'What's she called?'

'Adamma. Her father is a Customs Officer in the far north.'

'A lot of information to piece together from yes and no.'

They laughed and fell into silence as if on some signal. They had each independently come to the same conclusion that though everything had gone reasonably well so far they must not push their luck by talking and laughing too much. It was in the ensuing reverie that Chris, gazing out into the empty landscape, had become aware of the anthills.

When he had read the prose-poem through and read the last paragraph or two over again he said quietly to Emmanuel: 'You must read this,' and passed the paper to him.

It was Braimoh who first drew their attention to a large crowd on the road half-a-kilometre or so ahead. Almost simultaneously everybody in the bus seemed to have become aware of the spectacle so unusual and so visible in that flat, treeless country. Many of the passengers had lifted themselves to half-standing positions at their seats the better to see this strange sight. What could it be? A check-point? The driver slowed down to a wary pace. As the scene came closer, a few uniforms began to emerge out of the dusty haze. There were a few cars and trucks parked this side of the crowd and a bus that was heading South and perhaps other vehicles as well slowly became visible beyond.

The uniforms were greatly outnumbered by people in regular outfits, presumably passengers whose journey had been interrupted, and even by ragged peasants attracted from the arid lives of a few scattered hamlets of round huts dotting the landscape.

The bus continued its progress to this mystery but at a mere cautious crawl. A road accident? No! There was something discernible in the prancing about which did not suggest sorrow or anger but a strange kind of merry-making. And now there was no longer any doubt. Beer bottles could be seen in nearly all hands and the dancing — for no other name seemed better for this activity — was constantly accompanied by the throwing of the head backwards and the emptying of bottles direct into gullets without touching the lips.

The bus pulled up to the side. Some of the crowd were rushing towards it like a tipsy welcoming-party. But the pulling up of the bus and the sudden explosion inside it, like a hand-grenade thrown from the crowd, of the word COUP! came on top of each other. The bus was evacuated like a vessel on fire. The driver, unlike a good and honourable captain, shoved people aside to get to the ground first.

Chris plunged into the crowd looking for someone who might have coherent information. Ultimately he sighted the police sergeant and pulled him aside rather brusquely in his breathless eagerness. The fellow was pleased to oblige, a bottle in his right and a Mark IV rifle in his left.

'Na radio there talk am,' was how he began. There was an unsightly shack of cardboard and metal thrown together to provide occasional relief to the check-point crew from the sun's onslaught and perhaps also a little privacy for negotiating difficult bribes from motorists. A radio set in there had apparently given the news.

'So at the same time we hear the news this lorry wey dem load beer full up come de pass. So we say na God send am. The driver talk say the beer no be him own, na government get am. So we say: very good. As Government done fall now, na who go drink the beer? So we self we de stand for sun here, no water to drink; na him God send us small beer to make our own cocktail party.'

His laughter was actually quite infectious and the little crowd that had quickly gathered around their story-teller nodding assent and swilling the beer at intervals, joined in the laughter. Even Chris had to laugh, but really as a bribe for getting more information, not from genuine amusement.

'Where is the radio?' he asked, thinking they must be putting out other announcements in the midst of martial music.

'They done thief-am. As we dey for road de drink a thief-man go inside carry the radio commot. This country na so so thief-man full am. But na me and them. They no know me? Before any vehicle can move out from here today I go search am well well and the stupid arm-robber wey hold my radio na him soul go rest in peace, with the President.'

'Did they say anything about the President?'

The sergeant looked at him suspiciously. 'Why you de make all this cross-examination? Wetin concern poor man like you and President, eh? I say wetin concern vulture and barber?' He was clearly enjoying the attention. 'Anyways, the President done disappear. They no fit find am again. They say unknown persons enter Palace and kidnap am. So make everybody de watch proper for this check-point.' He burst out into another peal of laughter taking his willing hearers. 'This our country na waa! I never hear the likeness before. A whole President de miss; like old woman de waka for village talk say him goat de miss! This Africa na waa!'

'No be you tell whiteman make he commot?' asked somebody from the crowd. 'Ehe, white man done go now, and hand over to President. Now that one done loss for inside bush. Wetin we go do again?'

'We go make another President. That one no hard,' said a third person.

'He no hard, eh? Next tomorrow they go tell you say your new President climb palm-tree and no fit come down again,' said the second man to a tremendous outburst of laughter. He was obviously a wit to reckon with, and knew it.

'So wetin we go do now?'

'Make every man, woman and child and even those them never born, make everybody collect twenty manilla each and bring to me and I go take am go England and negotiate with IMF to bring white man back to Kangan.'

Chris had detached himself from this bizarre group to look for Emmanuel.

'Can you make any sense of this?' he asked when he found him.

'Not yet, sir. Except it appears His Excellency was kidnapped last night and the Chief of Staff has sworn to find him but has meanwhile taken over the reins of government.'

'We must head back to Bassa. Right away. Where is Braimoh? Get our things out of the bus.' His obsessed seriousness was a rebuke to Emmanuel's faint-hearted sarcasm and he went away to his assignment somewhat chastened.

Chris plunged into another section of the crowd which was fast degenerating into drunken mayhem. Bottles were smashed on the road after they were emptied and sometimes before, and more than a few unshod feet were already bleeding. Any promising informant he approached was too drunk and, what was more, critical of him for asking sober questions amounting almost to mental harassment of his victims.

'Go and have a drink,' one of them said to him, like a man who, before his present state, had been used to exercising authority.

'I have had a drink. Several drinks,' said Chris, sounding superior without perhaps intending to.

'If you have drunk… As I have drunk… why are you standing straight like that? Or is it my eyes.' The fellow's head was going from side to side like an albino, though he was shiny-black like ebony.

'I am not standing straight,' said Chris, unaccountably mesmerized by this highly articulate drunk.

'No, it is not my eyes… You are not standing… I mean to say, you are standing as straight as a flag-pole. You get me? My difficulty then is: if as you say you drank as much beer as myself, why are you standing straight? Or put it another way. If two of us ate the same palm-oil chop, how come one of us, i.e. yourself, is passing black shit? That is what I want to know, mister. Two people ate palm-oil soup…'

'OK, we will talk about that later.'

'Later? Why? Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.' Hiccup! 'As my headmaster used to say.' Hiccup! 'He loved big words; and something else he loved, I can tell you… His cane…'

'Thanks! See you,' said Chris wrenching himself away.

The girl's desperate shriek rose high over the dense sprawling noises of the road party. The police sergeant was dragging her in the direction of a small cluster of round huts not far from the road and surrounded as was common in these parts by a fence of hideously-spiked cactus. He was pulling her by the wrists, his gun slung from the shoulder. A few of the passengers, mostly other women, were pleading and protesting timorously. But most of the men found it very funny indeed.

She threw herself down on her buttocks in desperation. But the sergeant would not let up. He dragged her along on the seat of her once neat blue dress through clumps of scorched tares and dangers of broken glass.

Chris bounded forward and held the man's hand and ordered him to release the girl at once. As if that was not enough he said, 'I will make a report about this to the Inspector-General of Police.'

'You go report me for where? You de craze! No be you de ask about President just now? If you no commot for my front now I go blow your head to Jericho, craze-man.'

'Na you de craze,' said Chris. 'A police officer stealing a lorry-load of beer and then abducting a school girl! You are a disgrace to the force.'

The other said nothing more. He unslung his gun, cocked it, narrowed his eyes while confused voices went up all around some asking Chris to run, others the policeman to put the gun away. Chris stood his ground looking straight into the man's face, daring him to shoot. And he did, point-blank into the chest presented to him.

'My friend, do you realize you have just shot the Commissioner for Information?' asked a man unsteady on his feet and shaking his head from side to side like an albino in bright sunshine.

Emmanuel and Braimoh, carrying the bags they had retrieved from the bus, arrived on the scene as Chris sank first to his knees in a grotesque supplicatory posture and then keeled over sideways before settling flat on his back. Emmanuel went down and knelt beside him and the girl knelt on the other side fumbling with the wounded man's shirt-front to stop a big hole through which blood escaped in copious spasms.

'Please, sir, don't go!' cried Emmanuel, tears pouring down his face. Chris shook his head and then seemed to gather all his strength to expel the agony on his twisted face and set a twilight smile on it. Through the smile he murmured words that sounded like The Last Grin… A violent cough throttled the rest. He shivered with his whole body and lay still.

The sergeant had dropped his gun and fled into the wild scrubland. Braimoh had raced after him past the clusters of huts and, a hundred yards or so beyond, had wrestled him to the ground. They rolled over and over sending up whirls of dust. But Braimoh was no match for him in size, strength or desperation. The crowd on the road saw him get up again and continue his run, unattended this time, into a red sunset.