Homecoming of the gods Read online

  ‘Not in that sense. He’s just managed to open a pair of blind eyes since then. I would even think it was accidental. Tell me what other miracles has he done since then? He keeps going off on some promises or teachings or vague talk.’

  ‘There was an epileptic girl.’

  ‘And a woman with diabetes.’

  ‘You kidding? How are you going to know if that’s ever happened. What about the doctors?’

  ‘There was one with HIV.’

  ‘That’s mad. It’s incurable. Even if he did cure the person, how are we to know?’

  ‘There was a man with ache in his back. Another had arthritis. Two others had mumps.’

  ‘And so? A portion of local leaves can do the same.’

  ‘He made a fat woman slim down.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be Madam Békhtèn.’

  They roared into laugh.

  ‘You are a sceptic, after all.’

  ‘You are a Pharisee.’

  ‘I am older than all of you here.’

  ‘You are making it about age now?’

  ‘It’s not an age thing but it is though. If you care to see it that way.’

  What I know is that young man is fake? Quote me any time any day. Besides why does nobody ask how he managed to get back from his condition? I thought his father was preparing to bury him alive.’

  ‘Not alive though. He says he had a vision in those days. He was taken up to heaven and introduced to other great men of God. He says when he met Jesus, Jesus told him to ‘go and finish the work I started’.’

  ‘It’s fairy tale stuff. I wouldn’t put a penny on that story?’

  ‘Why? Are you wiser than all the people following him?’

  ‘Of course I am. The crowd, my friend is untruth. That he has a following does not justify anything.’

  ‘But what if Jesus came to our town after all and we did not recognize him very much as his own people did not?’

  ‘No, Jesus would not come to our town. That’s ignorant. He would be in the Vatican.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘What has your church got to do with it now?’

  ‘There is one true church, my friend.’

  ‘You see? You see the narrowness of your mind?’

  ‘Okay, tell me where he’d rather be then?’

  They were interrupted by the sound of Daniel’s voice: ‘This gentleman here is right. As is every other person.’ By gentleman, he meant the sceptical old man. He could not hold himself back any further.

  ‘I’m sorry to interfere, gentlemen but I believe we are all on the same page. I believe these tales are to teach us something about our conditions as humans. Miracles are symbols—.’

  ‘Ben Capital can now see. What is the symbolism to it?’

  ‘Well, I am speaking of the miracles of the New Testament.’ He wouldn’t tell them that he did not entirely believe in miracles. They would stone him if he did. So he played around it. ‘They are symbols that those who wrote the Gospels used to describe the teachings of Christ.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘When Christ ‘opened’ the eyes of blind people, he meant the opening of eyes in a spiritual way. Or intellectual way—as the case maybe be. It’s a metaphor for something deeper than the obvious.’

  They did not understand, so in an instant, they gave him a silent and disparaging turn and returned to their original debate.

  Chapter Eleven: A Thin Line Gets Thinner

  The morning saw Zach throwing up. He had not slept a wink through the night. He had given thought to numerous things, none of which he remembered on his waking.

  The cold still ran through his body though he shivered the less. He was not sure he should tell Nurse B about his condition. She sure could help but he now felt she did not understand him. Moreover, she was right after all when she insisted that he was stressing himself out on a matter that did not directly concern him. And that feeling inserted a small divide between them, a divide that emanated from his own end. At the same time, he felt he was wearing her down with favours. It wasn’t polite to take her generosity for granted. It was his pride after all and he knew that. He was too sensitive for that.

  Nurse B on her path did not misunderstand him for all he presumed. She herself was as sensitive as he was. She was worried about his safety and the risk he was placing himself. For her carefulness and cautiousness, she did not think that it would be worth it after all. That morning, she came to check him and saw him. She was disappointed but she tried to hide her disappointment.

  She placed him on an IV and left him. The morning came with some relief for Zach when he fell into deep sleep for not haven slept for the night before.

  # # #

  However, the relief was a false one for he had another meeting on the other side of reality. He was in a hospital and they were wheeling his wife in. He had driven her to the hospital himself in a typical black-and-yellow taxi. He had lifted her and had carried her into the reception of the hospital, which looked vaguely like the one he was homing in for the mean time.

  He was sweating profusely and as he lifted his right arm to wipe his face, he saw that it was dripping with blood down to his coat, the blood of his wife. Things got worse when in that same instant, a nurse walked up to him with a stern face and announced to him that ‘she could not make it.’

  Zach broke down into tears, placing his face in his two hands.

  # # #

  ‘What is going on?’ Nurse B asked, breaking up a band of three other nurses that had gathered in a small circle. Zach was in the centre of the circle, with his face in his two hands and hot tears streaming down his eyes. The man was crying like a child and was muttering words amidst the low-pitched shrieks.

  ‘Zachariah, Zachariah, wake up, wake up….’ She called out and Zach woke up. He was not lying on his bed this time but was kneeling in the reception of the health centre with tears all over his face. He could even taste salt in his lips. The three nurses and a third, the stout one all looked on as they would to a man that recently turned lunatic.

  ‘What happened to my wife?’ he asked them in a voice full of concern.

  Nurse B dismissed the other nurses and led the way back to the wardroom. When they arrived, Zach realised that he was on the ‘real’ side of reality. He did not have blood on his right arm. But how come had he moved from a lying position on the iron bed to a kneeling position in the reception? What had happened?

  Nurse B was irritated and she did not speak a word. She just replaced the IV and left him to himself. The unanswered question returned to him as: What is wrong with me?

  # # #

  Later in the day, Nurse B delivered to him a food in a small flask before leaving. Again, she did not say a word. Zach managed a few mouthfuls. He could hardly move a limb on his body. His head felt so heavy that he was afraid it would explode. If anyone had told him that he was slowly running mad and was being held in an asylum, he would have believed the person.

  # # #

  Daniel and Ūö had a good time the day following their walk. By that evening, a thought flew past Ūö’s mind. She naively styled that she ‘was in love’. Immediately the thought flew past her mind, she brushed it aside with the same speed with which it had grazed her mind.

  But she had a woman’s mind—more so, that of an overgrown puberty—, one that was fickle when it came to such delicate and sensitive matters—and in her own case, it was inexperienced.

  In Daniel’s mind, a few other things made their passes through it. He now felt he was going to take the girl’s attraction a bit more serious.

  The thought however had stuck in a very obscure corner in the girl’s mind.

  Chapter Twelve: My Name Is Jonas

  Brim was still in great discomfort with himself over the idea that his brother had thrown to him. At the same time, he knew he would be in trouble if he failed to come up with potential lodgers—or rather with potential lodgers’ money. He would have no excuses to give as there were to
o many of them.

  They did menial jobs in and around the town but they had never stolen from anyone. It now felt like they were stealing from people. A good number of people were looking for lodgings. But unfortunately, Nānti was not the kind of town that one would expect to have luxury hotels and inns. It had only one, at the town centre. It was a shabby place, which was rarely used. It was now full to even its passages and verandas.

  He found a corner on the boulevard and sat out his depression. In every sense of the word ‘free’, he had never truly been free from his brother. He had found security in that for those years and appreciated his brother by being loyal. But the words and the treatments he’d received from his brother’s mouth and hands had hammered him into believing that he could not make it without his brother. Until now, he had no questions about that. He had never challenged that for a day. He had learnt to be guilty when he failed at gratitude.

  It was a dangerous place to be but there was no other for him, or so he thought.

  Depression was something he was familiar with. After the death of their parents, after which followed their dropping out of school, depression would become one of his most faithful companions. For his melancholy, he would become given to daydreams as an escape from what was the real world. Given the right environment, Brim would have become a true artist for he could extrapolate the real world into his many dream worlds and vice versa.

  In such moments, speaking with him would be next to impossible for he would role-play detectives, war generals, movie stars, villains and everything that caught his fancy in his mind. He was always vague and absentminded that it took his brother a slap to kick him back to life when his attention was needed. Sometimes he would cry when no one was beating him and other times, he would laugh when no one was tickling him. He had a very intricate way of demystifying things in his mind and finding a place for distant realities for himself.

  But Money was too much of a realist to stand all of that and systematically, had beaten all of that from him.

  The boy’s so-called return had more than angered him, it left him disgusted. It was the same boy that he’d carried with his own hands wrapped in plastic. The same boy that he’d spat all the way to where Hééb had led them on from a distance. It was insane and there was no way he was accepting it, not for anything. He just felt it would have been different if his brother had seen it the same way.

  The boulevard moment was one of those. I was the one to wake him with a tap on his shoulder. I had just arrived the town and was looking for a lodging myself. He seemed a local and so I approached him and addressed him as one.

  ‘Go away,’ was his answer.

  He appeared petulant and so I had to back off.

  I retreated in the most polite way, as any sensible person would in the land of strangers. But a few steps into my retreat, I turned to see that he was looking at me with a murderous sneer.

  Still watching him, I saw him stand and approach me, his eyes fixated on me. ‘Look at you fool. You come to this town looking for a miracle. You are an idiot, and so are all of you.’ He cursed, venting his swollen spleen on the nearest person in sight.

  I’m not a man to stand the insult of another, not when the insulter is a boy and not when the insult is not worth the stress.

  ‘Watch your mouth young man or you will lose it.’ I said with the intention of irking him.

  He approached with heavy steps, covering the distance until his face was lifted up to mine. I stood my ground to his disappointment—and to his curiosity. If he had any confidence, it was in his brother.

  ‘Not everyone that comes to town on account of the boy messiah comes looking for a miracle.’

  ‘So what brings you here?’ he asked backing off a bit.

  ‘I find the whole business curios. And I’m a man that satisfies his curiosity.’

  I had his attention.

  ‘One does not meet too many boy messiahs in one’s lifetime.’

  ‘Not on the average. So you think he’s fake?’

  ‘Come on, not everyone that comes to town on account of a boy messiah is a fool. Something is up. That’s my word. Take it or leave it.’

  It is needless to go any further than that. But a majority of what comes into my story is on account of Brim both in answering my questions, giving explanations and pointing out people to ask more questions. We became instant friends and even when he had no lodgings to provide, I had my curiosity about the town to satisfy while he had his to satisfy about the city life. That exchange made everything possible. It demystified all that his brother had put in his head about the ‘struggle’. I showed him that anybody could make his own way, not only in the city from where I came from, but also anywhere in life.

  That was all he needed to rebel against his brother. More so, he had his imagination wild again.

  # # #

  The next night saw Zach lying in a coffin. Just standing behind the coffin was the same man sipping from the leather cask, from the other nightmare.

  ‘Who is this?’ Zach asked him.

  ‘His name is Jonas Bādu. He died from AIDS complications.’

  ‘Oh, but that is me?’

  ‘Of course it is you. We are going to bury you now.’

  Zach woke with a start that had him bump his head on the wall. The first words to escape his mouth were in this order: ‘I am Jonas Bādu and I am in the hospital for AIDS complications.’

  # # #

  Nurse B almost let out a scream at that. ‘What?!’ she exclaimed and then turned to the elderly nurse with her and explained: ‘Ma, we certainly do not have any AIDS patients. He’s been in an out of deliriums recently.’

  Standing with her was another nurse who had come for inspection duties. The older nurse had walked into the wardroom and was asking Nurse B who the patient was. It was at her word that Zach had identified himself as Jonas Bādu.

  She left with the inspector nurse and returned an hour later. Zach was seated on the bed. His temperature had gone down but he did not feel any better.

  ‘I’m sorry, my name is….’

  ‘I know what your name is.’ Nurse B interrupted. She had lost all her initial generosity of spirit and there was no blaming her for she feared for Zach. Moreover, she did not want anything that would happen to him to be while he was in her care. He needed to leave the town and go home to his family.

  ‘What is going on?’

  ‘I had a nightmare. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, you will have to leave the ward as soon as you can. I can’t manage with all of those any more. It’s becoming embarrassing.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Zach felt bad with her leaving. He was not sure what was happening to him. But he did sense that he was inconveniencing the nurse—for lodging, for food and for medication, and worse still for his deliriums.

  Chapter Thirteen: Death Around the Corner

  Friday saw Ūö and Daniel in each other’s presence. It was spent as one of the times spent by couples who had known each other for years—in reckless abandon. They laughed, played, joked around, told stories and all caution flew to the wind. Daniel, the seducer, was not holding caution for all he cared, not when he was putting the girl in danger.

  # # #

  At Black’s shop, they all waited for news of Pac’s death. They were certain he was going to die though at the same time, they still clutched to a minuscule hope. As the days went by without any news, their hopes petered off into the other certainty of his death.

  On Black’s side, he felt certain that the rapper was going to die after all. He did not resist this feeling for he judged that he’d rather prepared himself for the worst case scenarios than be betrayed by the hope. It would take only a fool not to see that Pac had lived too close to death to escape it.

  When Saturday morning came, they woke to the news of the rapper’s passing, their reaction mirrored their acceptance of it. Black closed down his shop and they sat out the day in the gyming extension with everything Tup
ac on their lips. Their venerating words accompanied the rapper to his death. Candles were lit in a small circle and a framed photo of the rapper was placed in its centre.

  Even Atta Boy was present at the barber’s shop. And as tears streamed down Black’s cheeks, he joined in consoling him.

  It was not in theoretical words that he found comfort.

  ‘I believe he did not actually die. They put out the word so as to protect him from those East Coast dudes. You will see that he will reappear and make records off this one.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a publicity stunt.’

  ‘He even died on a Frigga. Friday the 13th. That’s special for all I care.’

  ‘I swear BIG and Puffy will pay for this.’

  ‘It was Suge that killed him. He was planning to leave Death Row after all.’

  ‘This is the end of hip-hop.’

  ‘Now, the game is now East Coast’s to win.’

  ‘He will resurrect.’

  ‘It’s the CIA that killed him. You see, he was a public enemy.’

  It was in the ones his heart told him: ‘He would forever be here, in our hearts, like he never left in the first place. His life was yours and so will his death. His death would mean as much as his life, and perhaps even more.’ Finding comfort in the promise of his ‘immortality,’ he had turned the day into a party. Into the day, they smoked blunts until they had exhausted his ‘bibles’. They drank until they were drunk and blasted the rapper’s records from the barber’s speakers, rapping along to the lines in unison.

  Pac had instructed that no one should cry on his death. In fact, he had made it plain that his death should be celebrated by a party. Those who pledged allegiance to his spirit knew to follow those instructions. He had extrapolated the life he had in this world into the next and had lived on the boundary between both, attaching no big hopes to any.

  In his death, we were consoled and grateful for the fact that he had lived. That was enough. More so, in our own time. Whatever he was given in his death was to this gratitude, in acknowledgment of the fact that his life was ours.