Homecoming of the gods Page 18

  ‘Like I said, it’s none of your business.’

  ‘But…’

  The elder boy stopped and faced the younger. ‘Look, we are leaving this town next New Year. February, at most. If you want to survive the hassles of the city life, you will have to start doing as I say.’

  ‘February,’ the younger was taken by that. ‘Phew, that’s my birth month. So I’ll be celebrating it in Noiā? That’s a handful.’

  ‘Yeah, it is,’ came the elder.

  Money loved his brother but he thought him too simple, and too naïve for the pressures of the life for which he’d been preparing him. He took the city-dream a bit too serious though and was not going to let anything get in his way.

  He shared in the boy’s worries and questions but he had no patience for those. His savings was up by five thousand. If worse came to worse, he would take his brother and disappear. It would matter very little if they called the cops on them.

  Now the two of them were in Madam Békhtèn’s hall making their rounds of soup and bottles of beer.

  ‘Look and listen.’ Money instructed his brother. ‘I know you have a leaky mouth. But please put a plug in it.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Keep your mouth shut. Don’t let me hear Hééb or the mayor’s son come out of your mouth in any form. If you make the slightest reference to it, I will put a large cleft on your upper lip. Do you understand?’

  ‘Well, I…’

  Without letting him answer, Money had stormed off to Madam Békhtèn’s hall. He could manage a few platefuls of that meaty and spicy soup.

  They had more than enough money and Madam Békhtèn’s cooks had more than enough soups with large lumps of meat.

  # # #

  Zach sat on one of the two other hospital beds and allowed his mind to roam. There were an abundance of things to think upon. The parable, Hééb, the missing boy, the school kids, his wife and father, the vegetable boy,…

  Zach was not surprised that the girl that had caused the clash at the barber’s shop had slipped onto that list. He thought of the agony that the barber had to deal with. Those that knew him would begin to question his judgment very much like Atta Boy giving him blows that were more deathly than his with those words. And there was the bible-buying boy, who now saw a chance in all of that to start his own ‘church’.

  His mind went to the nurse, her sister and the ‘incorruptible dream’ she was concealing and the word ‘dare’ rang back at him. The school kids, they had dared too….

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Whip and the Sacrifice

  The hunter did not return with the clothes as he was supposed to. In fact, he woke the next morning on the steps that led up to Madam Békhtèn’s, a leg kicking into his left side. How he got there, he could not tell. The headache was harder than those that came with his usual hangovers.

  ‘You drunkard,’ the owner of the voice called out to him. ‘Get the hell out of here.’

  He roused himself and before him stood a familiar face, one that he’d met one too many mornings one the same steps.

  ‘You didn’t hear me, did you? Get out of here, you idiot. Be gone.’

  The hunter roused himself finally. He gathered his coat about him and stood. It was soaked as was the upper part of his body. He could even taste salt in the tip of his tongue. The owner of the voice had first poured dirty water on him before digging a heel into his side when the water had failed to wake him.

  He almost fell into a heap when he realized what had happened. He had drunk the money Zach had given to him the night before. The original plan was to bite a bit out of it on a green bottle. It wouldn’t matter much and Zach himself would not complain even if he came to know.

  He had gone in for a bottle. He had taken two, three, and four. Everything faded from then. He could hardly remember anything thence. Every bit of the money was gone. But he knew all of it could not have gone into the drinking. He could have been robbed. He could have paid his debts in a frenzy. He could have thrown it all into a heap of dirt. He could have….

  It was a bit more torturous when he tried to remember his drunken talk. It could be anything; he could have said anything. Was this his way of showing his gratitude to a man that had been good to him? It was not just about the drinking, he was a thief! Slowly, he descended into the abyss of despair and self-loathing:

  ‘I truly deserve to be drowned in the Nānti River. I am indeed a sick man. Why was I not born a vegetable or even a fly? Why a man? Should I even call myself a man? And what about that gentleman talk I threw about town? Shouldn’t I be whipped like a child, or perhaps even like a horse, or even like a Christmas effigy? A loathsome thief. A bag of filth. I should have used that money to buy a bundle of rope and hang myself. What a loathsome scum! I could not have earned that money in a century! Oh, I’m not worthy of Yanda, not worthy of that man, not worthy of a strand of his beards, not worthy even of that vegetable boy….’

  It was a place that he was familiar with—with Yanda and with her whip. He’d been there many times, where he was the betrayer of the goodness of others. Yanda was not there to flog him and since every whip she gave him was her revenge (in which he found consolation), he decided to do the whipping himself on her behalf.

  However, he felt something that told him that it would be different with this one man who carried no whips. But he was too afraid, too fearful of himself, and too guilty of his own sins to follow it. He rather went to his hideout to clean up. He was not worthy of that man.

  # # #

  Mwāi did not tell his grandmother about what happened. He needn’t for it was written all over him. The mother wouldn’t pressure him though she saw it all over him. He was reflective. He was absent-minded, pensive and vague. He wouldn’t eat a thing all that evening and into the night. He hardly could wait for the next day.

  ‘Mwāi,’ the grandmother had reminded him. ‘You know you will be leaving for home next week. I don’t want them thinking I’ve been starving you. I need them to see you with a lot of cheeks.’

  ‘Grandmother, I am fine.’ The boy had said with a chuckle.

  ‘When you were a little mindless innocent baby,’ she began. ‘Your mother used to say that you were the reincarnation of her father. Does she still say that?’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Have you cared to ask her about him? Or rather, have you asked her why she thinks so?’

  ‘Well, she says I have a lot of hair except above my forehead. She says I will be bald like him.’

  She laughed. ‘Well, you certainly will be bald but I doubt if she meant those. Your grandfather was a strong man, for all those around him. He had his own weaknesses but he always stood for people in their own weaknesses—though they betrayed him for his. Your mother fancies that you will one day be that man for others.’

  She had elaborated. During the War, the farmer was certain that he was going to die. But he was not going to outlive his children. Not if he could save them. He was not the architect of his fate but he was not blind to it. Instead, he chose to make something out of it for others. So he’d called his family and told them that he’d ‘paid’ for their lives. They did not understand. He had no tubers of yam, no money to give and certainly was not the architect of their fates.

  ‘It was a mystery that took me years after his death to understand. His death became a ‘sacrifice’ for me, an exchange for my life and that of his children. We all wanted to live seeing that someone had died ‘for’ us. Our desire to live was borne out of a desire to not waste that ‘sacrifice’. We had a life behind us, in which we found guarantee for the future. We wanted to make something out of that sacrifice. Therefore, we did not give in to hunger and the suffering of those years. We strove through the necessities of each day with that memory in our eyes and those words in our ears. We had no excuses any more to give up on life.

  ‘That was his greatness. He never said anything without proverbs. He had your curiosity. He was a very profound man. His life
has become a proverb to us.’

  Mwāi had listened. It was not far-fetched why he chose to spend the holidays with his grandmother in Nānti. Her profoundness matched his curiosity and vice versa. She had told him the same words that he’d grown up listening about how he was a ‘special child’. In her mouth, those words were turned to burdens, to weighty challenges, which made his heart burn with passion to fulfil them.

  ‘You must strive to be same for other people. In that, you will find true greatness. And your mother’s words over you is that you become that man for others.’

  # # #

  Zach woke in the wardroom feeling frustrated at everything.—At the hunter for not delivering his change of clothes.—At Hééb’s mother for speaking about worldly things in other-worldly sayings when she could just say it.—At himself for not having the nightmare and for not being able to reach his family and hear their voices for a minute.—At the fact that he was going to have to walk to the river with a weak body…. His river ritual had gotten better with the bar of toilet soap and the tube of toothpaste. But it rained during the night and the morning was very cold. He had no other options though, not one he could explore.

  # # #

  The river ritual was uneventful. The river was becoming familiar, as were its features. The river was rising. Aside bumping into a snake, nothing else seemed to cause him substantial anxieties.

  He went to the shack, took out his ash-coloured shirt, the black wife-beater underneath, then the trouser and the coat. The boy had two shirts and a coat hanging from the nails in his shack. He tried the shirts on but they were too small. The coat managed to fit his body. With those, he set off to the river where he washed them, spread them on the grass and hoped on the sun. A while passed, then he returned to the shack to wait on his chances.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Happy Unbirthday

  The nine boys debated among themselves as they walked from Alright’s class as to what they would do for Pûjó.

  ‘Buy him a bicycle.’

  ‘Is it because you want one yourself.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘Let’s get him a new shoe.’

  ‘A shirt.’

  ‘A typewriter.’

  ‘Why that?’

  ‘I thought there are typewriters for disabled people?’

  ‘No, typewriters are for blind people. Got it?’

  There was silence as the walk continued.

  Mwāi had been remarkably silent. ‘Hey, Bongo,’ they turned to him and asked: ‘What do you think?’

  Mwāi had an idea, ‘Let’s host an unbirthday party for him.’

  The boys broke into celebration. He had just said it. But what did they have?

  ‘What do we have?’

  ‘I can manage a handful of sweets.’

  ‘Me, I can manage a pack of wafers.’

  ‘A bottle of Fanta.’

  ‘A bottle of Fanta, too.’

  ‘A pack of biscuits.’

  None among them disagreed.

  With that, they all dispersed. Mwāi felt proud as he led the way. He had prepared a surprise for all the other boys.

  # # #

  Thirty minutes later, they were reassembled in front of the hospital, each person clutching what he had to donate. Mwāi opened his backpack and took out a new velvet cravat from a green shoebox. The other boys did not get the point though they looked onto the new cravat with awe.

  They had questions: ‘Why a neckerchief?’

  ‘It’s not quite a neckerchief. It’s a cravat.’

  In the actual sense, it wasn’t quite a cravat but a neckerchief.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘What did the White King and Queen give to Humpty Dumpty on his unbirthday?’

  A cravat, they agreed.

  If they had any doubts following him, all those doubts disappeared into the sight of the unbirthday gift.

  They were in high spirits going into the unbirthday party.

  # # #

  Zach was not there when it happened. He would rue his absence for a very long time.

  ‘They even made the boy dance. Brought tears to my eyes.’ Nurse B had told him. ‘They called it an ‘unbirthday’. They had told me they got the idea from Humpty Dumpty. The White King and Queen had sent him a cravat for his unbirthday.’

  ‘Humpty Dumpty?’

  ‘Yeah, from Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking Glass. That’s according to them though. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland is more popular. That was the one I read myself. It’s suppose to be a sequel to the Adventures.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘An unbirthday present is a present given to you when it isn’t your birthday. If there are three hundred, sixty-five days in a year, and one of those is a birthday, the book supposes that suppose the rest would be unbirthdays.’

  ‘Wow. That’s some beauty there.’

  ‘They sang him an unbirthday song….’

  # # #

  Pûjó was very glad to see them. It was as if he had been expecting them. He lived in a world without music, a silent world but those boys had managed to get some across.

  ‘Happy birthday to you…’ was sung.

  ‘How old are you now…’ followed but Tamsie interrupted. ‘No, he’s not old. We should sing ‘How young are you now… instead?’’

  They got the idea and in unison, they begun to sing: ‘How young are you now….’ Not that they expected him to answer but they saw it in his eyes.

  After that, the cravat was presented and the food flasks beside the metal bed were opened. There were two spoons and two bottles of Fanta. Each one took a spoonful and passed to the other.

  # # #

  ‘There is beauty in life. Zach, don’t you think so?’

  ‘If someone will help you find it….’ He had told Kuniā as they drove to see her father.

  ‘Like Silas did. Like you have done with those boys. And for Pûjó. ‘My mother had a philosophy of life, a charming one, I suppose. You know, she believed in magic and taught us to believe in magic. She would role-play and tell us that she was our ‘fairy godmother’. There was always magic in life, she would say to her little kids obsessed with fairy tales. She taught us to find magic in the everydayness of life. ‘Learn to keep open the doors to your wardrobes and you may find a Narnia behind one.

  ‘And in the case where there was none, to transform our lives into magic in a ritual of symbolism. That, she insisted was the true meaning of magic. The true magician is not the one who seeks magic in the occult, but the one who transforms what he has as reality into magic for him and for those that share in his life. Well, I suppose we are all searching for magic. We either find it too quickly or don’t find it at all.’

  # # #

  Listening to him, Zach was sure that the mayor was very much himself. The man made an impression on him. It was not an impression of profundity or dramatic. It was an impression of intelligence and guilt.

  ‘Well, the title of ‘mayor’ is accidental, more or less. It’s not official though it’s bound to become, one day. That is how certain institutions are born after all. Not special duties are attached to the name, except the ceremonial ones.’

  There was a pause as the man pulled up his sleeves and continued. ‘Power is the ability to decide one’s fate or another’s, as the case may be. The reason why there will always be a place in the world for people like us is simply because human beings dread the burden of haven to decide their own fate. So they are going to run to those who can take upon themselves such burden, such anguish of soul, such dread of being the one who leads the way, on their behalf. That feeling of power I believe is the closest to what it means to be God. The running away, on the other hand, is the highest expression of our humanity. That is why men manufacture gods and make mayors as an expression of a people’s unwillingness to decide their own fate. There must always be those who will lead the way for others; those who will sing the verses while the masses join at the chorus. Mos
t people would rather prefer not to be the one.

  ‘When they put you in that office or that title on you, it becomes an unwritten covenant between you and them: “You are now the one to bear the burdens. We’d keep the wishes and the criticisms. But you can take the wheels”. They are going to come to you with those burdens and they are going to condemn you if you fail to fulfil them. In exchange for the title, they will see it as you ‘owe’ them to lead the way. And they have the right to be angry and complain when the journey gets tough.

  ‘When the burden weighs down on you, they will find a more high-sounding title and a larger office and put you in it. They hardly would let you go, not if they can’t find a replacement.

  ‘I have always believed that I was one of such men. I believed I had a voice for the verses and not the chorus. There are those who do, very few. I took nothing from life. I earned it for myself. Hell no, I have helped many people in life too.

  ‘But your desire to help people can turn to hatred for them in the knowledge that they will one day betray you. I’m too certain of that.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Now, Mr Zachariah, let me hear your own theory about my situation.’

  Zach was not in a hurry to answer.

  ‘You wouldn’t tell me that God is judging me, or would you?’

  ‘Not quite, sir. Bad things happen to good people. That’s like common knowledge to every human. It’s inescapable in the world. We know we are not alone.’

  ‘Then that means that I have been ungrateful all this while.’

  Zach laughed.

  ‘Ungrateful for all those my suffering have brought joy? Those to whom my loses have brought consolation for theirs?’

  Zach had no idea.

  He seemed tense and each adjustment on the sofa was an attempt to dispel all of that. Regardless, he caught on his words with sophistication. Nevertheless, an air of awkwardness still hung over him.

  The discussion moved back and forth until Zach was convinced that the mayor was very normal.