Love Is Power, or Something Like That: Stories

Love Is Power, or Something Like That

^. 1 ^.

When the clock on the wall behind the complaints counter struck 7:00, Eghobamien Adrawus swung his legs off the sofa and undid the laces of his undersized boots. He heaved a sigh as the left boot dropped to the floor. He stretched his arms wide and corkscrewed his torso, then froze and clamped his teeth but not quickly enough to shut out the zoo-cage smell that had been hovering just beyond his consciousness and was now lodged in the roof of his mouth. His gagging sounded like a broken suction pump. Animals, he thought, and spat out a blob of mucus.

The cell at the back of the station had come alive. The prisoners had broken into their morning chant; they howled for mercy and food and invoked God’s retribution on the heads of their accusers. The stink of moving bowels wafted from within.

As his right boot fell with a thump, Eghobamien Adrawus yelled, “Sharrap before I come there!” and stamped his feet on the floor to give force to his threat. His face was a gargoyle mask of loathing.

A hush descended. It was short-lived. By the time Eghobamien Adrawus rose from the sofa, gathered his boots, and moved behind the counter to collect his rucksack, the walls of the station were reverberating with the prisoners’ cries. He opened his bag and drew out a pair of slippers and a blue adire shirt. He stepped into the slippers, dropped his boots into the bag, and undid the first button on his uniform, then snatched his bag and shirt from the countertop and rushed for the door.

In the fresh air outside, he took a deep breath. A crowd of prisoners’ relatives — with their multicolored containers of food, their crumpled clothes, and their anxious, sleep-smeared faces — was gathered underneath the gmelina tree beside the gate. On the parade ground the duty inspector was leading a troop of men through the morning drill. The green-and-white flag flapped lazily as it ascended the flagpole.

Eghobamien Adrawus undid the second button. The cold tugged at the hairs on his chest. His fingers were busy with the third button when he looked up, attracted by the flurry of activity to his right, where the cars were parked. A door banged shut and the engine of one of the police vans coughed and started. At this sound, a column of policemen who’d been standing about, killing time checking their guns and the fastenings of their helmets and bulletproof vests, lined up and jumped into the back of the van, which then rolled toward the porch, where Eghobamien Adrawus stood watching. A Black Maria pulled out from the backmost row of the park and lurched into place behind the van.

The fourth button on Eghobamien Adrawus’s uniform broke off and fell to the porch floor. He trapped it with his foot before it could roll out of range. He bent to pick it up, and straightened as the van stopped in front of him. Inspector Abacha was in the cab of the van, beside the driver.

“Morn, sah!” Eghobamien Adrawus saluted, drawing his feet together and thrusting out his chest. His shirt gaped open, exposing the slackened, sweat-browned neck of his fishnet singlet.

“Morning,” the inspector replied. He leaned forward to look out the driver’s window. “You dey live for Oyakhilome Barracks, not so?”

“Yes, sah!”

“Okay. We get operation near there, for barracks bus stop.”

“Ah, wetin happen?”

“No worry, nothing serious. Nah just those bus drivers. We get report sey they are causing go-slow.”

Eghobamien Adrawus nodded and stepped back.

“Enter motor,” the inspector said. “Make we give you lift, abi?”

“Ah, thank you, oga!”

Eghobamien Adrawus pocketed the loose button and bundled his mufti into the rucksack. He buttoned up his uniform as he descended the porch steps; then he hurried to the back of the van and climbed in, and when he pounded on the roof, the van sped off with a blast of its horn, followed by the Black Maria.

When the convoy, which now included three commandeered transport buses and two tow vans, arrived at the bus stop, the bus drivers and their hooligan cohorts scattered in flight, as they recognized from the battle gear and firearms that the police were serious. The policemen pumped their rifles, called out commands, and gave chase.

Though he was off duty and under no obligation to participate, Eghobamien Adrawus threw himself into the raid. He had just shoved a blubbering conductor boy into the Black Maria and was looking round to see where else he was needed, when he noticed a stealthy movement among a cluster of spectators gathered around some meat sellers’ stalls. He stared at the group and began to jog toward them. The crowd held their ground until there was no question where the policeman was headed. Then they broke apart like startled bush fowl and exposed a man creeping on his hands and knees, trying to get away. The man, too, decided to run and jumped upright, but before he took a step Eghobamien Adrawus was upon him and tackled him to the ground. One of the policeman’s slippers flew off from the impact.

“So you want to run, ehn?” he puffed, straddling the man’s chest and holding on to his shirtfront. He dealt him a slap and then grabbed his waistband to pull him to his feet. The man was tall, taller than him, and so fair skinned that Eghobamien Adrawus felt a twinge of spite. He delivered another slap to ensure that the man stayed cowed — he felt a coil of pleasure in his belly as he saw the imprints of his fingers glow red on the man’s cheek. He turned and tried to drag the man away, but he was surprised to find him resisting, not fearfully, pleadingly, but with unexpected force.

“Wetin I do?” the man protested, as he tried to prize loose the policeman’s grip on his waistband. The man’s feet seemed rooted to the ground, no matter how Eghobamien Adrawus tugged, he would not budge.

“You dey resist arrest!” Eghobamien Adrawus threw a quick look around. The other policemen were too busy to come to his aid, and he could feel the man becoming bolder, less respectful. His fingers began to slip — the success of the raid and the safety of his colleagues in that instant seemed vested in the grip of his fingers. He released his hold on the man’s trousers.

The man panted with triumph. He made a half turn to complete his escape, but Eghobamien Adrawus lunged forward and flung his arms around him. When he tried to lift him off the ground, the man gripped his shirt and locked legs with him. A black, foaming fury rose to the policeman’s throat. He glowered past the man’s shoulder at a table in one of the abandoned meat stalls. A thin rivulet of blood flowed over the table’s edge, pattering the ground.

Eghobamien Adrawus placed his lips against the man’s sweat-moistened cheek and snarled: “You dey challenge my authority — you no dey fear?” The man’s cheek muscles tensed, but he made no reply.

Eghobamien Adrawus bunched his shoulders and strained backward, and when the man resisted, he heaved forward. The man staggered back several steps and crashed into the table, bloodying the seat of his trousers. Eghobamien Adrawus felt a surge of power. He drove his knee upward, into the man’s crotch. As the man doubled over with a yelp, Eghobamien Adrawus released his clasp on his shoulders and landed a blow on his mouth. The man jackknifed to barracks attention, his eyes widening, his lips flapping loosely.

Eghobamien Adrawus took his time in selecting which part of the man’s body to inflict punishment on. He punched him in the stomach, the neck, the ear, and when his arms tired, he head butted him in the mouth. The man began to chatter pleas, blood seeping from between his teeth. Eghobamien Adrawus aimed a kick at his legs, and with a shout, the man fell to the ground. Catching sight of the pile of butchered meat on the table surface, Eghobamien Adrawus reached out and grabbed a cow leg — the hoof dug him in the wrist and bloodstained ligaments extended like hacked wires from the knee joint. Wielding the leg like a truncheon, he clubbed the prostrate man over the head.

Someone in the crowd yelled: “You go kill am o!” The policeman, snorting from his exertions, straightened up. He scowled at the wall of faces. Through the unbuttoned part of his shirt his belly heaved like a hippopotamus in labor. The man on the ground moaned and struggled up onto one elbow, his shoulders trembling from the effort. One of his eyes was swollen shut and blood bubbled from his lips and nostrils. Eghobamien Adrawus tossed aside the cow leg and bent to help him to his feet.

“Come,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”

Overloaded with prisoners, the Black Maria turned onto the road, puffing clouds of smoke behind it. Eghobamien Adrawus collected his bag from the back of the police van and left the bus stop. His barrack was a short walk away but he had only one slipper. He had searched for the second but with no result. He flagged down a passing okada.

When the motorbike came to a stop in front of his apartment block, he climbed down and strode off without paying. The okada rider — a foul-smelling adolescent boy with mud-colored hair and arms as thin as cornstalks — released a stream of abuse at his back, his voice cracking with emotion. The invectives, delivered in a mishmash of dialects and mangled English, flew from his mouth with gobs of spittle. After the policeman entered the building, the boy swung his motorbike around and rode off with a shriek of tires.

Estella was bent over the stove in the corridor. She looked up when a shadow fell across her cooking pot and, recognizing her husband, gave a cry, which was choked off before it could declare itself as fear or delight. She straightened up, wiping her hands on the front of her wrapper. Eghobamien Adrawus let her take his bag. He grunted a reply to her inquiry about his appetite, but feigned deafness when she observed that the neck of his singlet was stained with blood. He parted the curtain to enter the apartment, then halted at a dirty pot by the doorway.

“Nah Mama Adaobi pot,” Estella said quickly.

“But this nah the second day.”

“Ah Eghe, I don tell her make she remove am from my door-mot, but she no wan’ hear!”

He glared at her for some seconds, then nodded and strode into the apartment. Estella followed, not wringing her hands, but looking like she felt the need to. The window blinds were drawn and the TV was on. He walked to the recliner opposite and, with a grunt, sank into it. His arms dangled over the sides.

“Remove your shirt make I hang am,” Estella said.

She waited. His eyes were closed.

“Eghe. .”

“Bring the remote,” he said.

She walked to the TV and returned with the remote control. He raised his hand, wriggled his fingers to indicate that she hand it over, and closed his fist around it without opening his eyes. Pointing from the waist, he began to flip channels. The ashen, electrical light danced across his ebony skin.

“Your shirt, Eghe.”

His eyes snapped open. “Sharrap woman, can’t you see I’m busy?”

Estella wheeled round and strode into the bedroom. She tossed his bag in the corner and dropped onto the bed, disarranging the sheets and gripping her knees through her wrapper. She stared at the wall, her lips moving silently. Then she remembered the meal on the fire. She leaped up and rushed from the room.

Her husband was asleep. His mouth drooped open and a rope of saliva hung down to the steel insignia on his collar. Estella stood in the center of the room and watched the heave and fall of his chest, then walked up to him, sniffed his breath, and began to undo his buttons.

It was Estella’s voice that woke him up. He kicked away the bedclothes and rose; he winced from the weight of his head. He walked to the bedroom door and pulled it open.

“You see — I told you the TV will wake your father. Oya, turn it off now!”

“Ah, Mummy—”

“Now, can’t you hear?”

Estella was standing in the front doorway, with only her head and part of a shoulder visible through the parted curtain. As his nine-year-old son, Osamiro, shuffled toward the TV set, Eghobamien Adrawus leaped forward and grabbed the boy by the waist. He swept him into the air and whirled him around. Osamiro slapped his father on the head, then took hold of his ears. He shrieked with laughter when his father thrust his tongue into his belly button and made snorting, wallowing-pig noises.

“Me too, Daddy, me too!” said six-year-old Ododo, tugging at his father’s underpants.

Eghobamien Adrawus allowed himself to be wrestled to the floor. He bellowed in mock pain when Osamiro, his thin knees straddling his belly, blew a gust of air into his ear. Clutching the struggling boy to his chest with one arm, he reached out and pulled Ododo into the fray.

Estella struggled to suppress a smile. “You men, I just arranged the house. I hope you will clean up after you finish this nonsense play?” Pulling back her head from the doorway, she asked: “Eghe — you don ready for your food?”

“Yes!” Eghobamien Adrawus gasped in reply, as he writhed under his sons’ tickling fingers. Then: “Enough, enough! I surrender!”

“True?” Ododo queried, his hand still buried in his father’s armpit.

“True,” Eghobamien Adrawus said. “You win. Oya go. . go and watch cartoon.”

“Yay!” the boys yelled in unison. They sprang from their father’s chest and raced for possession of the recliner and remote. Eghobamien Adrawus rose from the floor, arranging his Y-fronts.

Estella was stirring the contents of the pot on the stove. The steam from her cooking shrouded her scowl of concentration. “I dey warm am, e go soon ready,” she said when her husband emerged from the apartment. He nodded and patted her on the rump. The neighbor’s dirty pot was still festering beside the doorway. With cautious casualness, so that his wife wouldn’t notice, he shuffled toward Mama Adaobi’s door to check if she had returned, but as it was still padlocked, he strolled to the balcony for some air.

With his elbows on the balustrade, Eghobamien Adrawus gazed out over the chaos of Poteko City. Three floors below, the earth seemed to pull at him. The rooftops were a sea of rust, with the masts of an armada of sunken TVs jutting from it. The heads of passersby bobbed like buoys. Across the road, in a clump of goat-shit-green bushes, he noticed the splayed carcass of a dog. His gaze traveled and landed on the hive of activity that was the bus stop. The commercial buses were back, their overripe-banana color marking them out. When he heard footsteps behind him, he turned.

“Your food don ready,” Estella said.

She gave off the smell of kerosene smoke, and a film of moisture lay on her skin. Despite long years of marriage, he still marvelled at her small size, her compactness. Her head, her neck, her arms, her feet, everything was molded in a way that overpowered him. As if she was made for a more perfect place.

“You say something?” Estella glanced up and caught her husband’s eyes. “Eghe, no!” she said, backing away. “Make you eat first.”

“No. I wan’ eat you.” He reached out to take her hand but she slapped him away. She spun round and strode toward the corridor, her hips swinging. He caught up with her in the doorway and clasped her by the waist.

“I want you, now, now, now.” He tried to trap her mouth but his lips skidded off her cheek. She laughed and wriggled away. “The children—”

“Wetin happen to them?”

“If they see us—Eghe! ”

He lifted her off her feet and threw her across his right shoulder. He pinned her kicking legs with one arm. “Make they see,” he growled, smacking her upended bottom. “They go know sey their papa love their mama.”

With a groan, Eghobamien Adrawus rolled off his wife’s belly. He turned onto his side and drew up his knees. His deep breathing melded with Estella’s, and the room resonated with their contentment. Estella stretched out a hand and picked at the hair on his shoulders. The late afternoon sun streamed in through the open window, and bathed the room in an orange-red glow.

Estella exhaled. “That one good,” she said.

“Mm.”

“Nah that time again o, I fit get belleh.” She paused. “Eghe, I wan’ talk to you about something.” No response. “About your uniform. I think sey we agree.”

“I know, I know. I wear am because we get operation for barracks bus stop this morning. I no fit wear mufti follow my people, you know.”

“Even still, I no want you to wear that uniform inside this house. You for don remove am before you come upstairs. Last week you wear am two times, this week you don start already. Small time now, the drinking go start again.”

Eghobamien Adrawus sighed. “Okay, sah,” he said.

“I serious o, Eghe.”

The bed rocked as Eghobamien Adrawus turned to face his wife. Her left arm rested between them. The scar beneath her elbow, where the bone had torn through the skin, caught his eye. He averted his gaze. Her eyes were shut, her eyelids fluttering lightly. He noticed how time had left wrinkles around her eyes, creases on her forehead, and furrows beside her mouth, like a map of her life.

“Estella.”

“Ehn?”

“Look at me, now.”

He saw himself, in the depths of her eyes, the way she saw him. But he was distracted by the tic that had sprung up on her left eyelid, and when he returned his gaze to her eyes, he’d lost the vision: he saw only his reflection.

“Yes?”

The skin of her left eyelid quivered like there was a worm embedded in the flesh. He opened his mouth to speak, but desolation overwhelmed him. He coughed and thumped his chest with his fist, as if to shake something loose. When he recovered, Estella said, “I dey come, I wan’ go baff.” She rose from the bed, picked her wrapper up from the bedpost, threw it over her nakedness, and left the room.

Eghobamien Adrawus rolled onto his back. He glowered at the ceiling, chewing his lips, so immersed in the acid broth of his thoughts that he didn’t hear his cell phone until the call was lost. When it rang a second time he rolled off the bed and, following the sound, rummaged through his clothes on the floor. The caller was his colleague, Chukwuma. The cell phone clock read 17:44. He’d missed the call again.

Estella emerged from the bathroom to the sounds of Tales by Twilight, the six o’clock kiddy TV show her children followed daily with the single-mindedness of mosquitoes. Their addiction to television was beginning to bother her; she would have to talk with their father about it. As she walked past the recliner, she said: “Osamiro, have you ironed your clothes for school?”

Osamiro ignored her. It was Ododo who answered. “Sh, Mummy.” He wagged his head in annoyance. “Aunty Alaroye is talking!”

Yes, she would speak with their father, she decided, turning the handle of the bedroom door. “Eghe,” she began, as the curtain fell into place behind her. But looking up to find her husband by the window, she caught her breath. Eghobamien Adrawus had put on his uniform. He was the picture of authority, the man in control; and he was staring at his open palm, his face scrunched up in fury. One of the buttons on his shirt was undone. When he looked up at her, she quivered, her hand rising as if to fend off a blow.

“Why you no sew my button?” he snarled at her. “You no see sey e don fall commot?”

She stammered. “I see am but, but—”

“But wetin?”

She searched so hard for the right answer that her head began to spin. But there was no right answer, only the truth. She had let her guard down. She had been diverted by his lovemaking, lulled by the mirage of normalcy. She had let herself lose sight of the apparition, the thing in black and battle-green that took over whenever he donned his uniform — that swaggered like it was drunk on authority.

“Sorry, Eghe.” She hung her head. “I think sey you go wear another shirt.”

Eghobamien Adrawus released his breath in a whoosh that beat Estella’s nerves like wind from a dodged collision. “Wetin you dey wait for?” he said. “You no go come sew am?” He watched as she rushed to the dresser and bustled about it, searching for her sewing kit. When she approached him, needle in hand, he unclenched his fist and held the button out to her. “Do quick o, the patrol motor go soon reach here.”

She dropped to her knees. As she raised her arm to hold the button in place, the fold of her wrapper loosened and the cloth fell to the floor. Naked, she began to sew, her fingers working like insect legs.

Eghobamien Adrawus tested the button for strength, then slipped it into its hole and smoothed the front of his shirt. “Where these people—” he said, but his words were interrupted by a horn blast. “They don come.” He moved to the corner to pick up his rucksack and headed for the door, the thump of his boots rattling the dresser. He stopped in the doorway and turned to Estella: “Till tomorrow.” He waited, as if he wanted to say something more, but then left without another word.

Estella listened for the children’s voices through the closed door. Her life would continue where it had left off: she would make the children do their chores; she would visit the neighbors, chat, laugh, exchange gossip, then come home to cook, clean, watch TV, and sleep. She felt once again the mistress of her house, her destiny.

The room darkened: the sun had dipped behind a cloud. The marshland smell of night wafted in through the open window, fluttering the curtains.

Estella rose to her feet, picked up her wrapper, and covered herself. Then she threw open the bedroom door so the knob smacked against the wall, and pushed aside the equatorially patterned curtain. The children’s heads whipped toward this explosion of sound, their eyes widening with fear at the look on their mother’s face.

“Don’t make me tell you again, Osamiro — turn off that TV!”

^. 2 ^.

With nightfall the five men in the cab of the police van grew silent — conversation, at this point, seemed like a dereliction of duty. The team had been assigned to patrol a section of the interstate route, but seeing as the night was too young to fritter away standing on the side of some deserted expressway, they had begun trawling the backstreets of the city, and spooled time with every detour and stop-off.

Constable Chukwuma, who was at the wheel, reached over and flicked on the car stereo: the blare of a saxophone filled the cab. Beside him, Inspector Habila let out a yawn. He took a pack of Rothmans from his breast pocket, shook a stick loose, placed it between his lips, and then leaned forward to kill the music.

“We near Havana Hotel,” Mfonobong said, his words punctuated by the krr-krr of his fingers raking his crotch. The men on either side of him shifted in their seats — the whole station suspected that he was slowly losing his life to an intractable venereal disease, but in the observance of good form nobody said anything about his piss-colored eyes or the sores that festered between his knuckles. At least, not to his face.

Glancing to his side, Chukwuma said, “Make I stop?” Inspector Habila raised his hands in a gesture of prayer and muttered, “Okay.” Then he added: “But make una no arrest anybody o, Madam Ruby done pay protection money.” A tongue of fire spurted from between his cupped palms and sputtered out in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Light and music spilled from the doorway of the long, low-roofed hotel building. The figures bobbing and swaying about the fringes melted away as soon as the car appeared. Its back doors swung open and three policemen emerged. Mfonobong headed for the entrance with long strides. Otizara and Eghobamien Adrawus followed.

Several groups sat drinking in the foyer of the hotel, their laughter vying with the boom of the music. The red bulb that hung from the ceiling turned everything in the room a comic-book monochrome. When the policemen appeared in the doorway, everybody froze in midsentence, midaction, like figures in an enchanted scene.

The scrape of furniture broke the spell. Madam Ruby, her enormous hips hemmed in by the arms of her chair, was struggling to rise.

Mfonobong leered at her. “Do small-small o, Madam Ruby, make you no for break the chair.”

Madam Ruby jerked her hips free. She took a moment to rearrange her skirt. “Hope no problem, officers?” she asked.

“Give me Gulder,” Otizara answered. He dropped into a seat, unstrapped his gun, and placed it on the table. The barrel pointed at his chest.

“You nko?” Madam Ruby addressed the question to Eghobamien Adrawus, but it was Mfonobong who replied, “Adrawus no dey drink for duty.” He grinned at her. “But you know wetin I want.” He leaned forward and hooked an arm round her waist. His finger slipped beneath the band of her skirt. “Kai! But Madam Ruby, your waist nah one-in-town.” Madam Ruby, with the grace of a bullfighter, spun away.

“Sit down,” she said. “Make I serve your friend.”

Mfonobong watched as she crossed to the freezer and stooped over it — her hindquarters formed the shape of a heart. He licked his lips, dropped his hand to his crotch. By the time she returned with a bottle of beer in one hand and a frosted mug in the other, he had moved to block her path to the table. She squeezed past, but as she leaned forward to open the bottle, he caught her wrist. “You know wetin I want,” he muttered, his breath fluttering her long, burgundy braids. “Make we go inside.”

Madam Ruby jerked her wrist free. “I no dey fuck police,” she snapped, “not even for money.” The bottle cap flew off with a pop.

Two of the customers, taking advantage of Mfonobong’s moment of speechlessness, rose from their seats and fled the room. The others, not daring to draw attention to themselves, huddled over their tables and read their ill luck in the bottom of their beer mugs. Mfonobong drew away from Madam Ruby. “You prostitute, common ashewo,” he spat. “Who you think sey you be?” His eyes glinted. “I fit arrest you now for. . for running criminal establishment! When I throw you inside cell with those armed robber we go see whether you no go open yansh!”

Otizara gave a snort of laughter and banged his beer mug on the table. Madam Ruby spun round to face Eghobamien Adrawus. “Your oga dey outside?” she asked.

“Sharrap there!” Mfonobong snarled at her. “Who give you right to question officer? Insubordination, you cockroach!” But he made no move to intercept her as, with a hiss of disdain, she brushed past him and slipped from the room. “Imagine that buffoon,” he growled, turning first to Eghobamien Adrawus, then Otizara. “Wetin she know about police? She think sey e easy to wear this uniform?”

Otizara gulped from his mug. Eghobamien Adrawus stared at the wall with a bored expression. His boots were hurting his feet.

“I no dey fuck police,” Mfonobong mimicked, and puckered his face. “Okay now, we go see whether another ashewo no go fuck police!” He turned and dove into the corridor of the hotel, where the chalets were located. Otizara watched the beer in his mug froth and bubble as he refilled it from the bottle, and then he addressed Eghobamien Adrawus: “Abeg follow Mfon,” he said, “make e no put us for trouble.”

Mfonobong stomped down the corridor, rattling the doorknobs. He had drawn his battery torch — whenever he burst open a door he pointed it like a sabre and hacked through the darkness. Eghobamien Adrawus followed some steps behind. As the door of the second-to-last room opened to the force of his kick, Mfonobong stopped. “Ah,” he said, jabbing with his torchlight. Eghobamien Adrawus drew up behind him and looked past his shoulder. The room was furnished with a mattress and a wastepaper basket. Condom wrappers and flaccid streamers of tissue paper littered the cement floor. A naked couple sat side by side on the edge of the mattress. The man’s face was bent to the ground and his hands cupped his groin. The woman stared into the torchlight, her features distorted by a fierce, cornered look. The room stank of petroleum jelly and mildewed plaster.

“Who are you?” the woman asked in a voice quavering between fear and anger.

“Sharrap there!” Mfonobong barked at her. He held the torchlight steady on her face, until she lowered her eyes. Then he swung it on her companion and ordered, “Remove your hand.” The man raised his head, his teeth locked in a grin of pleading. “Remove am, you no dey hear? You want me to arrest you?” The man lifted his hands, then placed them on the bed beside his skinny haunches, and turned to the woman, sweat trickling from the corners of his eyes. Mfonobong gave a short, harsh laugh and moved the light to the woman’s breasts. “Ashewo,” he taunted, and dropped his hand to scratch his groin.

Eghobamien Adrawus leaned against the wall and jammed his hands into his trouser pockets. He looked at Mfonobong’s back. He knew this game. He knew how it would end. He had watched this scene too many times. He no longer thought about interfering, so even the thrill he used to get from his power over fate — to stop it or let it happen, to save or not to save — was gone.

Mfonobong spoke. “You dey fuck police?”

“Ehn?” the woman said. Her hand crept toward the clothes on the bed.

“You hear me. Remove your hand from that cloth o, before I vex.”

The woman folded her arms over her chest and clamped her thighs.

Mfonobong stepped forward. His shoulders filled the doorway. He unhooked his gun and fingered the breech, the sound loud in the small space. “I ask you whether you dey fuck police, ashewo?”

“I can’t answer that—” the woman began, but fell silent when the man beside her grabbed her by the arm.

“Just say yes!” he hissed. When she compressed her lips in refusal, he whirled to the figure in the doorway and said, “Yes, oga, yes!”

Mfonobong glanced over his shoulder at Eghobamien Adrawus and creased his face in a wink. Advancing into the room, he said to the man:

“Get out.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” the man mumbled. He scooped his clothes from the bed, rose, and pushed his feet into his sandals. Keeping as far from Mfonobong as was possible in the tight space, he slid crabwise through the door.

The torchlight spotlit the woman’s uncertainty. “I don’t like this kind of thing,” she said, but her words faded into silence when Eghobamien Adrawus, with a warning cough, stepped forward.

He placed his hand on the door handle. “Do quick o, make we dey go,” he said to Mfonobong, who nodded as he uncinched his belt. With a final glance at the bewildered woman, Eghobamien Adrawus drew the door shut.

The patrol team had been at the checkpoint for more than two hours, yet the men still had not wrung all the fun out of Mfonobong’s description of his encounter with the prostitute. They blocked one lane of the outbound road with a cordon of oil drums and tree trunks, and lit bonfires in the drums to announce their presence to highway robbers. They stood in a circle round one of the drums, firelight playing on their faces, exaggerating their expressions. Inspector Habila had wangled a bottle of schnapps from Madam Ruby. They passed this around.

“You for don see her face when the condom burst.” This was Mfonobong. His colleagues’ laughter died in their throats. Inspector Habila lowered the bottle from his lips and turned to stare at him. “E burst?” he said.

“Mm-hm.”

“You stop?”

“For wetin?” Mfonobong said with a chuckle. “E don already happen, abi.”

Eghobamien Adrawus gazed at the bushes on the side of the road. He thought of his wife, his children, his home — he thought how lucky they were. For some reason Mfonobong seemed intent on destroying his family.

“Here, Adrawus, pass am.”

He took the bottle from Inspector Habila and handed it to Chukwuma, who raised it to his mouth. He felt how the warmth of the liquor would spread through his throat, his chest; but his imagination couldn’t replicate the solid weight of good alcohol hitting the belly. He’d made a pledge: no more, not when he was in uniform. Not after the time he broke his wife’s arm in two places and had to accept her judgment when she blamed the reek of his breath. She had laid down her ultimatum from the safety of Mama Adaobi’s doorway, and he, kneeling before her in his underwear, hungover and full of remorse, had given his word.

Now he had to fight not to intercept the bottle when Chukwuma held it out to Mfonobong. The pain in his feet drew his attention. He sat on the road, unlaced his boots, kicked them away, picked up his rifle, and rising, said, “I dey come, I wan’ go piss.”

The road flowed into the distance, a dual carriageway with two lanes in each direction, linking Poteko to the western delta, and onwards to the rest of Nigeria. It was divided by a strip of red earth that was overgrown in patches with elephant grass; and — in the section where the patrol team had set up their checkpoint — it was hemmed in on both sides by thick bushes and tall, wide-branched trees. From the bushes night sounds came: scrabbling noises in the undergrowth, predatory screeches and distressed squeals, the sheesh of breeze in the treetops.

Eghobamien Adrawus wandered so far down the road that his colleagues’ voices faded, and the checkpoint bonfires became faint sparks in the night. He liked the feel of the tarmac, the hardness of it, against the soles of his feet. Several times, for no reason at all, he lifted his knee as high as it would go and stamped down. The rubbish of travelers lay scattered about his feet: a Styrofoam container upturned and seething with ants; a smashed Pepsi can; a half-eaten turkey leg. He crushed an empty crab shell underfoot, then halted and unzipped his fly. His urine sprayed into the bushes.

“Adrawus! Nah you be that?”

The policemen peered into the darkness beyond which their firelight could not penetrate. Their rifle barrels threw long, wavering shadows against the road.

“Nah me o,” Eghobamien Adrawus called back. He drew closer with slow steps, emerged from the shadows, and approached the barricade. His colleagues lowered their guns.

Eghobamien Adrawus saw a shimmer in the distance. It grew bolder, became a glint. By the time it collected into two halogen orbs that arced through the darkness, he and the other policemen had taken up their positions. Mfonobong flicked on his torch, stepped into the path of the vehicle, and waved the torchlight with the wrist motions of a fly fisherman. At what seemed the final moment, the car braked with a screech of tires. It stopped within a hand’s breadth of Mfonobong’s knees. It was a black Toyota Avensis with a customised plate that spelled “EGO-1.”

“Sanu,” the driver greeted Mfonobong, who’d walked up to his window. Mfonobong remained silent. He trained his torchlight on the man’s face while Otizara circled the car, peering in. There was someone in the backseat. Otizara nodded.

“Park well and open your boot,” Mfonobong said.

The policemen made signs to each other with their hands. In a flash they had drawn up the plan of action: Mfonobong and Eghobamien Adrawus would do the talking while their colleagues guarded the road behind and ahead. The inspector, as befitted his status, would keep out of the discussion. Per routine, the inspector hurried over to the police van parked on the median strip and climbed into the driver’s seat, then turned on the ignition and flicked the headlights to low beam, to show preparedness to give chase. By the time the car pulled to the verge the game board was set, the pieces all in place.

Mfonobong rapped the roof. “Off your engine and come out,” he ordered the driver. A rush of chilled, Ambi Pur — scented air spilled out of the car door as the driver stepped onto the road. Smiling, he tossed a chunk of kola nut into his mouth. “My particulars,” he said, extending a sheaf of papers to Mfonobong.

“I ask you?” Mfonobong said. From the other side Eghobamien Adrawus asked, “Wetin dey your boot?”

The driver turned aside to spit. “Nothing,” he said.

“Open am,” Mfonobong said.

The driver’s smile hardened. He locked eyes with the policeman.

“I say open your boot, you no dey hear?”

The driver turned his back on Mfonobong and stooped into the open door to say something to the person in the car. There was an electric hum as the right-side back window rolled down.

“Come here, Constable.”

The authority in this new voice caused Mfonobong and Eghobamien Adrawus to start forward at the same time. The man’s thick-muscled head was turned to the open window; his face wore no expression. He was dressed in a sugar-white lace dashiki, with elaborate gold embroidery around the neck and sleeves. His paunch was distinguished, his goatee assiduously trimmed, his eyes hidden by gold-rimmed sunglasses. His cloth cap lay at the other end of the seat, discarded among a jumble of newspapers. He exuded the fragrance of one who would think nothing of spending a police constable’s salary on a bottle of cologne.

The light from Mfonobong’s torch reflected off the sunglasses. “May I know you?” he asked.

“You may not. Remove that light from my face.”

Mfonobong switched off the torch.

“So you’re the one who wants to delay me?” the man in white asked, addressing Eghobamien Adrawus. His voice was deep and heavy grained. He spoke English like one who thought in it. “You want to check my trunk? What do you want to see?” He raised his voice: “Abdullahi — enter the car.”

This command woke the policemen. “If you move!” Mfonobong growled at the driver and raised his gun. Eghobamien Adrawus rattled the handle, but the door was locked. “Open this door,” he said. At that moment, right beside his ear, Mfonobong roared, “Come down!” and pointed his gun into the car.

“What? Constable, you dare point your weapon at me?” The man’s surprise surprised the policemen — they exchanged baffled glances. Inspector Habila, who had come up behind them, interposed:

“I am the ranking officer here. Step out of the car and identify yourself.”

“I am not coming down from this car. . Inspector,” said the man, reaching into the folds of his cloth as he spoke. “As for identification, here, take it.” He extended his hand to Mfonobong, who lowered his rifle, leaned forward warily, and peered at the man’s hand. He jerked to attention. Ducking his head, he reached his hand forward.

“Wetin be that?” Inspector Habila asked, craning his neck.

Awe had turned Mfonobong’s rude baritone into a meow. “Nah bundle of five-five hundred o, oga,” he said.

The inspector snapped his heels and stood to attention. “Thank you, sah—ego one! ” he hollered.

“As you were, Inspector,” the man in white said. His fingers stroked his belly; he settled back against the seat. “Abdullahi?” he called.

The driver entered the car. The engine started. The windows rose.

Eghobamien Adrawus tore his gaze from the money in Mfonobong’s hand. The man’s disregard for their authority was not believable. If he wasn’t afraid, why did he part so easily with money, and so much of it?

Eghobamien Adrawus took a step forward. He looked back — the distance this put between him and the others made it harder to take the next step.

“Hold it!” he said. He placed his hand on the glass to halt its roll. “I still want to see what’s inside your boot.”

“Ehn?” Inspector Habila and Mfonobong burst out together.

“Yes,” Eghobamien Adrawus said.

The light was too weak to show if his words had any effect on the man. And then it was too late: Inspector Habila darted forward and struck his hand from the glass. “Adrawus!” the inspector hissed, pulling him away. “Wetin dey worry you? You no get respect?”

“But oga—”

“No but! But which but dey for the matter — the oga don settle us, abi?” The inspector clutched Eghobamien Adrawus’s forearm with one hand and threw the other round his shoulder, by turns massaging and slapping his neck. Their reflection in the closed window showed confusion on the inspector’s face as he sought agreement from Mfonobong, who was nodding vigorously. “Settlement nah settlement. Leave the man make e go.”

At the inspector’s words, the car shot forward with such power that Chukwuma, who was guarding the road ahead, had time only to whip his head up and shout in fear before diving into the bushes.

^. 3 ^.

The policemen stayed awake through the night in celebration of their good fortune. At daybreak, after they had divided up the money, Inspector Habila insisted that they would drop Eghobamien Adrawus at home. In front of his apartment block, the inspector looked down at Eghobamien Adrawus’s toes digging into the grass and muttered, “At least now you go fit buy the correct size of boot.”

As he plodded up the stairs, Eghobamien Adrawus wondered where his weakness came from — was it the hunger gnawing his insides or the compunction that he still felt at the escape of the man in white, or maybe it was the beer that he’d shared with his colleagues. By the time he reached the landing of his floor, he knew it was not the alcohol.

He met Mama Adaobi on the balcony. She was herding a group of schoolchildren toward the stairs. He saw Osamiro first, then Ododo. He had not been aware, until now, that he owed her a debt of gratitude for dropping his children at school in her beat-up station wagon.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Osamiro greeted, but made no move to approach his father. When Ododo looked up to find the path blocked by the figure in black and army green, he tried to hide behind Mama Adaobi.

Even though she was a friend of his wife’s, that gave her no right, no right, Eghobamien Adrawus thought. He glared at Mama Adaobi until she looked up.

“You don remove your pot from my doormot?” he asked.

She stared at him with surprise. “Ah-ah, Papa Osas, you dey vex?”

“Just answer the question!” he snapped.

“I don remove am.”

“Good.” He stepped forward and dropped to his haunches before his children. His hand shot out and caught Ododo by the waistband. He pulled the reluctant child into his embrace, then shook him back and forth until the boy burst into strained laughter. “Good,” he repeated. He reached into his breast pocket and extracted a single note from the roll of crisp five hundreds. To the ooh-ahs of the other children, he tucked it into Osamiro’s palm. “For you and your brother. Don’t tell Mummy,” he said with a wink.

When he entered the apartment, Estella was slumped in the recliner. Her eyes were closed. The window blinds were open and the TV was off. He stood in the center of the room, swaying. The belch that had been gathering force in his belly for hours, ever since he’d swallowed the first drink, erupted now. He raised his hand to wipe his lips and his rucksack slipped off his shoulder.

Estella leaped up and stood facing him — her eyes watching without blinking, the worm in her left eyelid wriggling.

“What is it?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said, and he began to talk. He talked about the anger that made him strike a man’s face with the leg of a cow. He talked about his too-tight boots and his sore feet, about the jail smell that woke him in the mornings, about the fear on the face of a woman who knows she will be raped. He talked about the man in white who smelled like a pot of flowers and gave out money like he was buying favors for the devil. He spoke so fast that spittle sprayed from his lips, then so slow, so low that she had to bend forward to catch the words. He was still talking as she took him by the arm and led him to the recliner, as she leaned over him to undo his buttons, as she stripped him to his underwear, her hands working with the sureness of routine. He talked till his voice became a murmur at the back of his throat. He talked himself to sleep. Then she folded his hands over his belly and rose to look down at him. She did not say anything. She did not have anything to say. Yet her gaze lay so heavy on him that when she finally turned away he smiled in his sleep, snuggled closer into the recliner, and said, “Good.”