“Well, dere is an easy solution. You kill de goat. I’ll help you. You know de butchers always get a choice cut.”
“Why are you so eager to help? Aren’t you killing a goat?”
“No, we can only afford a chicken.”
“Chickens are easy enough to kill, certainly easier than rubbernecked turkeys. Or goats,” Elvis said.
“But as you know, de hardest thing about chickens is catching dem. Dey weave and bob like crazy, running in a straight line, den veering off to de right or left suddenly, sending everyone crashing into walls.”
Elvis laughed. He was very familiar with chasing chickens.
“So what do you say about de goat? Have you never killed one before?”
“No,” Elvis said.
“What of a chicken? At least tell me you have killed a chicken.”
“One,” Elvis said in a voice that betrayed the freshness of the memory. Having caught the chicken, he had grasped it firmly by its wings and laid it on its side, trapping both its legs and wings underfoot, all the while following the instructions Aunt Felicia was shouting at him. Lifting its neck tenderly, he plucked a few feathers to reveal its pulsing pink neck.
“Now comes de real test,” Aunt Felicia had said. “If your knife is sharp enough it will sink through de neck like butter, severing de head completely.”
But that chicken did not die easily. Even when they immersed it in a pan of scalding water to ease the plucking, headless and all it sprang up and sprinted off before beating itself into an acceptance of death on a tree stump.
“What is it?”
Elvis told Hezekiah about his chicken.
“Don’t feel so bad — if dey could, chickens would kill us. Dat’s de way it is.”
“Have you killed a goat before?”
“Many,” Hezekiah said.
“Are they easy to kill?”
“No. Goats are a different matter. Dey have eyes dat watch you, not letting you get away with anything. And dat bleat, so childlike. It’s not easy. But den being a man is not, abi?”
“I don’t want to kill anything.”
“Sometimes we have no choice.”
FRIED YAM, PLANTAIN AND BEEF STEW
(Igbo: Ji Egerege, Unine Ya Stew)
INGREDIENTS
Yam
Plantains
Vegetable oil
Cubed beef
Diced onions
Curry powder
Fresh bonnet peppers
Salt
A tin of chopped tomatoes
Sugar
PREPARATION
First, peel the yam and plantains and slice them into thin slivers. Next, wash yam and plantain slivers and pat dry with paper towel. Put two dessert spoons of oil into a frying pan and bring it to heat, and then add the yam and plantain slivers. Fry until crisp. Leave to drain on a large plate with a paper towel.
Put the beef to cook. When tender remove from flame. In a deep pot, bring two dessert spoons of vegetable oil to heat. Add the onions, curry powder, fresh bonnet peppers, salt and the tomatoes. Leave on a low flame to reduce. Put in a pinch of salt. When the tomatoes have reduced, put a pinch of sugar in to take away the acidity. Pour in the stock from the beef, stir in the meat and leave to cook for thirty minutes. Arrange the yam and plantain slivers in a nice pattern and drizzle the stew over it.
SEVENTEEN
The youngest male must carry the wooden kola bowl and show it to all of the guests in order of seniority and in order of clan.
The youngest male brings the ornate wooden bowl with the kola nut in it. Carved in the shape of an animal, the bowl has a center dip of peppered peanut butter, which the kola nut is dipped into before eating. ln the absence of this, and sometimes even in its presence, alligator pepper is presented as well.
Lagos, 1983
Elvis approached the veranda, where his father sat sipping meditatively on kaikai. The local gin had herbs and roots steeped in it, and the once clear liquid had taken on a murky mud color. He stood for a while in the doorway looking at his father, trying to assess his mood. Aunt Felicia’s visit had stirred up questions that he had buried deep inside himself, and now he wanted answers.
The street outside was busy with people hurrying past. A few threw casual greetings at Sunday. With a sigh, Elvis walked out and sat down on the low wall enclosing the veranda. It was waist-high and built of decorative cinder blocks that interlocked in a ladder pattern. Elvis hooked his heels into some of the holes to keep his balance. His position put him squarely in front of his father.
“Evening, sir,” he said.
“Evening.”
“Can I speak to you about something?” Elvis asked.
“If it is about my drinking, dis is medicinal.”
Elvis smiled.
“No, it’s about something else.”
“What?”
“You remember when Godfrey disappeared?”
“Uhuh.”
“Well, Efua came to see me saying she overheard her father and Innocent talking about money.”
“You remember dis?”
“Yes.”
“Never mind. What is your point?” Sunday asked.
Elvis noticed that his father’s eyes had hardened, but Elvis cleared his throat and pressed on.
“She said Uncle Joseph was discussing paying Innocent for killing and burying Godfrey in the forest somewhere.”
“Was I dere at de time?”
“In the room with them? No.”
“So why are you asking me? Go and ask Joseph, good-for-nothing brother dat he is. Here I am suffering while he is rich, but he cannot offer to help, eh? After I put him through school, gave him de money to start his business, made him de man he is today.”
“Why don’t you just ask him for help?”
“You know nothing, eh? I am de senior brother. No, he should know what to do. After all, did he ask me to help him? No! I knew what I had to do as his brother and I did it.”
Elvis considered the logic for a while, then realized that if he tried to explore it, he would be led away from what he wanted to talk about.
“Efua said that Uncle Joseph and you paid Innocent one thousand naira each to kill Godfrey. You paid the first installment and Uncle Joseph was to pay when the job was done.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Do you know what happened to Godfrey?”
“How should I know? Dat boy was a criminal, a disgrace to de family. Maybe he got killed stealing from somebody. For all I know, he is in prison in Katsina-Ala!”
“So Efua was lying?”
“Is it not de same Efua dat said Joseph raped her?”
“He did.”
“What are you talking about? Are you mad? I thought we had dis conversation years ago?” Sunday was yelling now.
“Easy — we don’t want the neighborhood to know,” Elvis cautioned.
Sunday swallowed a glassful of kaikai and shuddered. The alcohol cut the edge off his anger.
“If not dat I have been drinking, I would beat you to an inch of your life, you bastard!” Sunday hissed.
“Listen, I am grown now. I am no longer afraid of you,” Elvis said, unhooking his feet from the wall in case he needed to get up in a hurry.