A long bus painted green and yellow went by the other way and Ajie read out the words written on the side, Welcome to the Garden City, Host of the International Trade Fair.
“Why are we called the Garden City?” Bibi asked. There were some trees and flowers about town, Bibi said, but she didn’t think they exactly qualified Port Harcourt as a garden.
“Well, it was supposed to be,” Bendic began, and then stopped by the lights, where some hawkers shoved their wares into the window.
“Oga, see fresh banana. This na original wristwatch. Buy groundnut, one for five naira, I give you three for ten naira.” A boy who was about Ajie’s height squeezed some foamy water quickly on the windshield before Bendic could tell him not to bother, then began to wipe it quickly with a brush attached to a long stick. Bendic asked Paul to select some bananas and groundnuts. Eight fingers of banana in a bunch, going for ten naira.
Paul selected three bunches. “Give me these three for twenty.”
“Bros, na thirty,” the banana seller replied, and Paul made a show of returning them. “Okay,” the seller seemed to yield, “take am twenty-five, this na nice fresh banana.”
“Twenty,” Paul insisted, his eyes now on the red light, a little impatient. “Okay,” he conceded, “bring five naira change,” and the banana seller braced the tray on his hip and searched his pocket frantically for change before Paul handed him the money. The other boy had finished with the brush and was polishing off the windshield with a cloth just before the lights turned orange, and Bendic gave him some of the change from the banana seller. “God bless you, sir!” He showed a set of white teeth and threw in a salute for Bendic’s generous tip as the car sped off.
Bibi was munching already, biting off the banana and throwing groundnuts in her mouth, perhaps already forgetting her question to Bendic about the Garden City.
“The original plan for this town,” Bendic began, “was for it to be a small, self-contained space surrounded by gardens and parks.” He tried to catch Bibi’s face in the rearview mirror. It was named for Viscount Lewis Harcourt, a British Member of Parliament and secretary of state for the colonies, in 1913. Lord Lugard, who was the governor general of the north and south protectorates of Nigeria, wrote to this man, asking if the new port city could be named for him, as no local names were suitable. Lewis Harcourt, however, never visited the city, Bendic said as he turned onto Nzimiro Street, which was at all times shaded by trees and where colonial houses still sat quietly, surrounded by large lawns and short picket fences.
—
The person at the gate banged it in a way no sensible person would. Ma stepped out of the kitchen into the parlor, knife in hand, onion tears in her eyes. “Paul, go and check.”
It was a Friday, and Ismaila had taken the afternoon off to go to mosque for prayers, after which he would visit his friends who lived near the central mosque at Mile Three.
The visitor, when he was escorted into the living room by Paul, didn’t waste time with salutations. “I have come from home,” he said.
Ma squinted a little bit. “Are you not Ikpo’s son…emm, Moses?”
“There is problem,” he said, nodding, and Ma became alarmed, dropping the hand that still held the kitchen knife.
“Is your father okay? What has happened?”
“My father is okay.” He sounded and looked weak, like someone who had trekked a long distance. “Your husband is not at home?”
As if on cue, Bendic walked into the parlor, tightening the wrapper on his waist. “Soldiers drove into town this morning with trucks. They shot down five boys.”
Bendic shouted, “What soldiers? Whom did they shoot?” Ma asked Moses to sit down and made a gesture at Paul to get the tired guest drinking water. Bibi and Ajie were standing near the room dividers as Bendic roared out his questions.
“As we are here,” Moses said, “there are people hiding in the bush still. We ran through the bush to Ogbogu. My father said you had to hear at once. The soldiers are still in Ogibah as we are here.”
Moses struggled his way through the story. Yesterday, he said, there was an altercation between Ogibah youths and some of the workers on the new gas pipeline construction. The police intervened, but the matter got out of hand when a policeman was hit in the head with a plank. The policeman landed in the hospital, fighting for his life.
The children were all standing in different positions, encircling Moses as he told the story. The smell of something burning was coming from the kitchen, and Ma snapped at Bibi to go turn off the stove, as if it were Bibi’s fault.
“Ifenwa!” Bendic was shouting into the phone receiver. “Come, please. Come down at once, are you hearing me?
“Get me my glasses, Paul,” Bendic said, and Paul hurried out of the parlor.
—
When Mr. Ifenwa arrived, they drove out together and Bendic came back very late that night. Paul had gotten the guest room ready for Moses, and Ma asked him if he would like to wash with hot or cold water. “Ka obula. Whichever one,” he replied.
Bendic left early the next morning. He said he and Marcus would pick up Mr. Ifenwa from his house before they headed out to see if they could get an audience with the commissioner of police. Bendic came back at about ten o’clock that night, and this went on for about two weeks, at which point the soldiers finally left Ogibah. Bendic was among the first people to enter the village after the soldiers left. He went with Marcus and they spent three days there. When they came back, he told Ma her camera battery ran out after the first day and they couldn’t find replacements in the shops in nearby villages. He told her he’d heard there had been one or two newspeople who came around, also some organizations, he wasn’t sure what they were, but nothing to reflect the scale of the event. “Nothing is left. They brought the whole place down.”
Bendic spent that evening looking through the notes he had taken on his tour of Ogibah. Bendic’s secretary, Ifiemi, had traveled to her village to see her parents, so the next morning Bendic called Paul into his study and asked him to type out a summary he had made of the event.
—
“Anything can happen to anyone,” Paul said to Ajie and Bibi later that evening, after he was done with Bendic in the study.
It was from Paul that they first heard the details of the killing, how, after gunning down the boys they saw idling away in the square, they burned down Mark Alari’s house — the first of many. Old men who couldn’t escape into the bush were manhandled and made to lie on the floor. They took, by force, any woman they came across. Houses were defaced with graffiti, and they shat in the town hall. By the evening, when they were done, a great smoke hung over Ogibah, and the air smelled of burning meat as the soldiers rewarded themselves with any livestock they could find, looting Mercury’s store and rendering all his cartons of beer empty.
“Anything can happen to anyone. What if they come here to take Bendic and Ma, what will we do?” Paul asked.