Homecoming of the gods Page 8

  He stopped his ramble in a moment of deep thought and continued almost immediately. ‘He’s a good boy. I know he will see the Face of God.’ He said in reference to the boy. ‘His suffering has not tainted him by the slightest. I used to see him pray at the grotto. I would watch as he would look upon that glorious face with tears in his eyes. That is his only consolation in the world… one day; he will look upon the Face of God. But where is my own consolation?’

  The boy stirred and continued his sleep.

  The words had gotten heavier in his mouth. ‘I am a fool. I am indeed good-for-nothing. You know, in my drunkenness, I go about town telling everyone of how she maltreats me. They used to look upon her as an evil woman that whips her husband in front of the children. Now they sympathize with her for all the sufferings I have brought her. You see, I have not only brought her shame, I have tainted her name. She is a good woman with lofty dreams for her children. She wants to take them to the big schools in the cities. She wants them to be doctors and lawyers. All I bring to her is shame. You know the school kids, they used to mock my boys…they tell them that their father lives in a bottle and that it is not blood that flow in my veins but gin. You know, it makes the younger one of the two fight all the time. I know all about it. His brother is an angel in human form. He goes to the Holy Mother to pray for his father.’

  The emotions were getting stronger to the expressive Shakespearean manner with which the hunter told his story.

  ‘He would look to the face of Mother and say: save my father. But how could I ever be saved?’

  By now, everything had gotten sloppy for both of them.

  # # #

  The hunter’s story was not an unlikely one. Nicholas ‘Othí’ Ūdiun was born and raised in Nānti by his mother whose memory though distant still tortured him. Mama Ūduin was in many ways a strange character. It would seem almost at an instant that she was mad. There is no ascertaining now whether she actually was. Melancholic, bad-tempered, gluttonous, petulant, gross, a curser and a swearer. Those were in the least the images that the hunter had of the woman. It was from her that the hunter had learnt how to complain of how much he had suffered and to use his own sufferings as an excuse to cause others to suffer. His mother was just that to the degree of an atom bomb.

  He was the product of a very short marriage that had ended in his father’s death. She seemed to have been a normal woman until then. She had raised him alone and poured all her vindictiveness, her sorrows and agony into his ears. As a child, she would curse and swear aloud at him with very mean words, having no one else on whom to pour her agony.

  The boy grew and she transferred to him all responsibilities for her life, one that the little boy bore diligently and lovingly. After the War, she insisted on their moving to the bigger cities, Noiā, precisely. There were better opportunities there. Her twelve-year-old boy had other plans. He wanted to go to school. There was promise in the city for him, a promise that turned out to be a nightmare. They followed the band of people that were leaving for the cities knowing about the city a little less than its name. He had a desire to survive but all of that was crushed by his mother who was a burden that he accepted to bear with all his heart hopeful of bringing joy to her heart.

  They turned to begging on the streets like many other people of their class. In no while, the woman got accustomed to it and would not let the boy go, no matter how much he begged, not even in reward to his patience. The memories of how he spent the flower of his youth on an ungrateful woman’s old age was not at all one that he could stand. The thought of it drove him to mad grief. And every time the big city’s name was mentioned, especially by his wife, he would fall into painful silence.

  ‘I should have ran away. Many of the young people there were running away from under the bridges and from the motor parks. But I loved that woman. I was hopeful of being able to bring her some joy into her life, something that had eluded her. I hung around until six years passed under our noses and she died without a single word of gratitude. I could have become a criminal as I was full of hatred and anger but I suppose the reed had been bruised beyond repair. I only wanted to escape the city. I came back home and became a hunter. I could still be a gentleman if only….’

  He hung to his words as the boy stirred again. He was now very much awake and though he couldn’t see the other two men in the fire-pot-lit shack, he recognized them by their voices. He seemed to be more comfortable in their presence.

  He had ran from the hospital ward for two reasons. The first was his shyness and his fear of people, which made it extremely hard for him to stand people. He had no friends and it was extremely hard to find him in a bunch. Second, he had nightmares back at the ward. The other boy’s deathly face had followed him to his dreams from the first time he saw it. It felt as if he someone had laid him in a morgue and when he ran, he ran as one would from a morgue.

  And even though the face was still there in the dark, he was reassured in the other men’s presence.

  As to the hunter’s obsession with the fantastical image of a ‘gentleman’, I would suppose it to be nothing more than his own personal ideal. Since his time as a young man on the streets of a big city, the image had stuck in his mind and had become indelible. And very much like happens when in a drunken or ecstatic frenzy, it would flutter out of his mouth. He never said it when sober. And Madam Békhtèn’s colour television helped to fuel the fantasy.

  ‘They say gentlemen rule the world now. They wear glasses on the tip of their noses and high shoulder coats and speak from their noses. The world has no place for drunkards anymore.’

  He finished off at that and inquired of Zach what had brought him to the town. Zach told him he had come to see the mayor on account of the other missionary. He did not feel the need to hide anything from the man who had told him everything about his own life.

  ‘That boy,’ Othí began, ‘I felt sorry for him. We all did. It amazed us all how he managed to make his way into the mayor’s home. How did he get that goddess of a girl? I know men who fantasize and masturbate to her photos. You see, some people are favoured in life. Not everyone gets the girl, you see. He wasted it though.’

  ‘The mayor, tell me about him?’

  ‘Oh, he is a good man, a happy one too. But his face has been scarce in a long while now and all the cheerfulness in it has not been there in the more recent times. He keeps losing weight as well. We all feel sorry for him.’

  ‘Any idea why all that is happening?’

  ‘Last year one of his sons died mysteriously and another is currently dying of an incurable disease—mysteriously as well. The boy has been taken to the best hospitals all over the world but they’ve brought him back home to die. He is better for dead already.’

  That did not ring any bell to Zach.

  He made it clear that he wanted to meet the man.

  ‘Why? You wish to console him?’ the hunter laughed alongside his question.

  Zach smiled in silence.

  ‘Well, we the poor find consolation in the tears of the wealthy. In those, we are reminded that no one is beyond our fate. Some may call it spite but it never is. It’s consolation to the poor to see the rich suffer as well. We rejoice at it.’ Zach looked on with surprise and even dismay in his eyes.

  The hunter was regardless sceptical of the meeting, ‘That goblin Hééb is hardly going to let that happen. I know of a man who could make that happen though except that he is not in town at this time.’

  A moment of silence slipped them by.

  In that moment, something passed from one man to another and they became brothers.

  Months later, Zach remembered that their discussion had been attended by the loud and persistent croaking of what he imagined to be a very fat frog. Holding the frog toy of his child reminded him of that and he had smiled boyishly.

  Chapter Eleven: Madam Békhtèn’s Hall

  On the west of Nānti, on the edge where it joined with another town was its busiest street. The street
had about six blocks of very old flats and four more blocks of single-rooms that had public toilets and very little ventilation. There was an open plot that had been converted to a football field. At the end of the street where it joined the boulevard was a two-storey building that held a large hall as an outbuilding. The hall was otherwise known as Madam Békhtèn’s hall. It was in that hall that men gathered to talk, drink, watch television—and waste time and money.

  Across the road, and two blocks farther from Madam Bekhten’s hall was a lone barbershop that grazed the edge of the junction that joined the street to the boulevard. The barber was a fop named Black. He wore many fake gold rings and chains. And occasionally plaited his hair into cornrows. He had a large and unruly dog and loud speakers from which Tupac would be heard blasting from ‘Now Open’ to ‘Closed’.

  A man slipped into the eight-iron-column hall through the backdoor and dropped off his umbrella by the door among three more other umbrellas. It was a very cold night but the hall was hot inside and so the man took off his coat and headed towards one of the remaining empty white plastic roundtables.

  From his right oozed the aroma of freshly-prepared soup. It was a familiar one. As he took the seat and searched for his wallet, he seemed to be oblivious of the small crowd gathered around the legendary Madam Békhtèn’s large colour television. They had turned the seats and were now facing the television directly. From outside, California Love filtered in from Black’s shop.

  In 1996, there were four colour televisions in Nānti. The mayor’s, Reverend Father Francis’, Sir Daía’s and Madam Békhtèn’s. Except Sir Daía’s, the other three had large satellite receivers that consumed the schoolchildren who finally came to describe them as ‘large plates used to communicate with aliens from outer space’. The members of the Holiness Church of Nānti were certain that it was one of the signs of the end of the world.

  Black was bent on getting a colour television, a cell phone and of course a ‘satellite plate’ of his own and he was hiking prices on the things he sold which included weed, pirated copies of rap tapes, movie cassettes, fake jewellery, porn magazines and other random items. From time to time, he hosted swap meets. He had a gym of dumbbells and barbells at an extension at the back of his shop that included a small betting shop. For those that kept their ears to the ground, there were news that Black was a gun dealer. It was not at all incredible for he looked like it. At his gym, the young men gathered to smoke and discuss Tupac, Suge Knight, Nas, Dr Dre, B.I.G, sports, the state of the nation, the women they were all laying, the best sex position, etc. Other times they fought and argued on top of their voices.

  The television in the mayor’s house was always turned on and so Hééb did not seem to be taken by the one that now had the attention of the men who were now watching an old episode of The Simpsons. Among them was a bald, muscled and rough-palmed mechanic, who did not understand a thing about the show. He would just giggle with wide eyes at what the others giggled at, laugh at what they laughed at and sip from his own bottle of local gin.

  Hééb had settled in and was now warming up to his plate of soup when someone among the small crowd touched his neighbour and motioned him towards the new comer.

  ‘Hééb!’ the man called out and got the attention of the others. There were shouts of ‘Hééb!’ and greetings that soon died down as the watching resumed.

  Two broke from the television and joined Hééb at the table. They were the same pair that Zach had met alongside the hunter at Truth Is Life.

  Brim and Money (pronounced Mor-ni) were half-brothers. Money was the older of the two and by far the more enterprising and practical. Brim, three years younger, was a dreamer and, as far as his brother was concerned, a joker. He would slip in and out of reveries and was mostly absentminded for that. At nineteen he still retained much of his childishness, which kept him from untouched by the coarseness that existed all around him.

  They joined up with Hééb at the table and Brim was about telling the ‘mayor’s boy’ that he really would love to own a television of his own with a larger ‘satellite plate’, a Mercedes 300 and a cell phone. ‘A plate of soup for two people,’ he called out instead mimicking the mayor’s valet. He was being devious in his demand on the man’s smugness. Hééb did not protest. It suited his aims for the night. He was not a very generous man except on occasions when there was something to gain. And so he did not protest the call when it was made.

  ‘Hail to the next mayor of Nānti!’ Brim flattered loudly as the plates were delivered. That got the attention of the crowd making them sneer.

  Hééb would never come to the hall except on a similar occasion of self-interest for he considered those men beneath him. It was evident in the way he carried himself around them. It was normal for guests at the hall to come in through the front door and say a loud general greeting to those inside. But he would not take any of that.

  The other two young men knew him too well and they suffered his pride gladly. And Hééb was a man who was quite sensitive to flattery. He would flush when he was called ‘the young mayor’ or ‘the second mayor’, or like Brim had ‘the next mayor’. Such flattery would ease him into his good mood. He hated such upfrontedness with which Zach had addressed him. More than just the address, everything about the ‘bastard’ seemed to threaten his peace, and undermine his pride.

  ‘How was your day, sir?’ Money asked. He knew that only a desperate situation would bring out the goat to Madam Békhtèn’s hall.

  ‘Twas good on everyday standards,’ Hééb answered trying as hard as possible to hide his excitement. ‘Things are still on tight leash for my boss. He’s been in a bad mood for a long while now.’ He always gave such excuses to discourage any potential favour-mongering.

  ‘Mercy me.’ Brim said. ‘How is that goddess of his?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Money rebuked. ‘Don’t mind him,’ he said turning apologetically to Hééb.

  Hééb snorted. ‘Anyway, something came up. This stranger came up to me with a face like a dead Pharaoh’s, and said he wanted to see the mayor like I was to just open the gates to him.’

  ‘Damn him,’ Money said trying hard to show his indulgence in the other man. Following the rebuke, Brim had returned grumpily to the television crowd, which had now changed to a sports channel that was showing footages of the past Olympic Games.

  ‘Don’t remember ever seen him before. Suppose he is a bastard.’ By ‘bastard’, he meant a stranger, one that was not welcome.

  ‘How does he look like?’

  ‘Can’t quite tell. As it was just as I stepped out this night. But he had a thick beard.’

  ‘Damn me!’ Money swore and called out to his brother. ‘That man at the tavern, he had beards?’

  ‘Yeah, he did.’

  ‘It’s him.’ Money then went on and intimated him of their encounter with Zach, of the drunkard and the vegetable.

  The two encounters correlated.

  ‘Keep an eye on him for me.’ Hééb instructed still with his usual air of importance. If he oversteps his boundary, then…’

  The other young man nodded. He knew that he did not mean ‘kill’. If he meant ‘kill’, he would have gone to someone else, probably Black. He meant ‘dispose of him’, more like ‘chase him out of this town’.

  ‘Yes boss.’

  # # #

  At the boy’s shack, Zach was asking about cleaning up and the answer did not at all seem handy. ‘There is a small valley on our east, a few minutes’ walk. A small stream flows through it.’

  Zach had not known what to expect, which made the answer come off with a bang.

  The hunter had more instructions: ‘The people of this town are snobbish to strangers. I suppose you can handle that.’

  Zach wanted to help him rephrase that part of the instruction. ‘I suppose you can continue handling that.’ Instead he stood and began taking off his coat which was damp outside to the light showers. He emptied its pockets and hung the coat close to the firepot where
the small pieces of charcoal were quickly turning to ash. He then went back to examine the contents of the coat which included a small paper envelope of the boy’s drugs. Nothing could be worse than finding that he had little less than a day’s meal worth of money left. A large chunk had gone to the boy’s treatment and the drugs. ‘Oh my God,’ escaped his lips. Once again, Zach was struggling to hold back the feelings of frustration that were rising from deep down. ‘God will help us,’ he finally managed. There were going to be some pawn broking, either way God was going to have to provide.

  A few more words from the hunter and the two parted to meet the next day. The hunter left and Zach had a hard time moving the cement blocks closer together. When he was done, he lay on it and, pushing out all thoughts that would fuel his frustration (especially that of home and of his condition), he slept.

  Chapter Twelve: Madam Békhtèn

  The Saturday morning saw a notorious light green Mercedes 300 drive into town. It was just five minutes after five o’clock. A twenty-five year light-skinned man with Jheri-curled hair sat directly behind the driver and Madam Békhtèn beside him. Nānti’s roads were not at their best and so the car moved with an irregular rhythm.

  The woman at the back was a very busty one. It was not strange to hear among the men that gathered in her hall snotty comments that related to ‘Madam Békhtèn’s chestnuts’. There were questions like: ‘how in the world does she carry those things about?’ The teenage kids would curse with words like ‘an empty head as big as Madam Békhtèn’s breasts’. Many of the men that frequented her hall had secret fantasies with Madam Békhtèn’s breasts in them.

  But Madam Békhtèn was too sensitive for that. After roughing up two men on separate occasions, everyone kept their eyes off her hooters. At least, in her presence. She was one of the two women in all of Nānti that wore trousers in public. And occasionally, she would get into a pantyhose or a miniskirt. Reverend Iňaō Ūnarö of the Holiness Church of Nānti always had a place in his sermons for her and those men she was leading to hellfire. ‘But her plans will not work, not in this town and not while I’m still here. Hallelujah. Now everybody stand up, face her hall and now command Holy Ghost fire to come down and destroy it. In the name of Jesus! Fire! Fire! Thunder! Die! You witch! Die! Die! You spirit of Jezebel, die! Die! Die!’