Beatrice, already fading into the shadows, watched tearfully as the ‘dozers approached. They were almost upon him and the vibrations were coming from everywhere. Grabbing a cutlass Comfort had dropped earlier, Sunday sprang with a roar at the ’dozer. The policeman let off a shout and a shot, and Sunday fell in a slump before the ’dozer, its metal threads cracking his chest like a timber box as it went straight into the wall of his home. Sunday roared, leapt out of his body and charged at the back of the policeman, his paw delivering a fatal blow to the back of the policeman’s head. With a rasping cough, Sunday disappeared into the night.
Elvis was halfway through his act when Freedom Square erupted. Soldiers spilled out of trucks flooding the area. There was a stampede. People, food, furniture — everything was trampled underfoot. The soldiers laid into everyone with tough cowhide whips, wooden batons and rifle butts, and the air was heavy with screams and shouts. As far as they were concerned, the audience was as guilty as the performers.
“My head O!”
“Yee!”
“Move!”
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
“Bastard!”
Elvis, completely confused, was unsure how to react, not fully comprehending what was happening. He felt someone yanking at his arm. He turned. It was the King of the Beggars. He was yelling at him, but Elvis couldn’t hear any sound. The King slapped him hard.
“We get to go now,” he said while hurrying Elvis off the stage. They ducked behind an army lorry and headed for the edge of the square and the streets that snaked off it into the dark maw of the city. They had almost made it when a soldier stepped out of nowhere. He loomed large and dark, blocking off the light. Elvis saw the King disappear into the distance.
“Identify yourself!” the soldier barked.
“I … I …”
“Bloody civilians,” the soldier said, bringing his rifle butt down on the side of Elvis’s head with a resounding crack. From a great distance Elvis heard the soldier call for help to lift him into the back of a lorry.
Elvis hung from the metal bars on the window, feet dangling six inches from the floor, suspended by handcuffs. The pain was excruciating, building up in slow stages, getting worse with each passing minute.
At first all he felt was a slight ache in his shoulders, which spread until his whole body was one mass of pleasant sweet aches. After about ten minutes he felt a headache coming on, nothing serious. Twenty minutes later his arms were shaking and the pleasant aches were replaced by painful spasms as the weight of his body became unbearable.
Sweat was rolling off him in bucketfuls; his arms went numb and his fingers began to swell like loaves of bread. The rest of his body was torn by a searing-hot pain and he stretched downward, trying to bring his feet into contact with the ground. That only made it worse. Then his head exploded, and tears streaming down his face mixed with the sweat before hitting the floor in sheets of protest. His bloodshot eyes began to film over as his face became congested with blood and his tongue, swollen, protruded from the side of his mouth, forcing his teeth apart. Each pulse beat sounded a million times amplified, and he began to mumble incoherently. Pain did not describe what he felt now. Prayer followed.
After half an hour he was ready to deny his own mother. Against his will, a moan escaped his lips. Softly at first, then in a flood, he was begging, swearing, crying and sobbing. He was concerned with one thing and one thing only — stopping the pain. But then, just when he was about to slip into blissful unconsciousness, the beating began.
The inner tubing of a bicycle tire was used to flog him; it left no marks and yet stung like nothing he knew. Then a concentrated solution of Izal, an industrial disinfectant, was poured over the beaten area. This not only increased the pain, it sensitized the area for the next bout of flogging. He screamed until he lost his voice; still his throat convulsed. When his tormentors tired, they left him hanging there, dangling and limp. It went on like this every few hours for a couple of days. No questions were asked; only confessions were heard.
PORTULACA OLERACEA L.
(Potulacaceae) (Yoruba: Papasan)
An annual herb with bright yellow flowers, small and prostrate. lt has oval leaves that narrow toward the base. Uncannily like a bishop’s miter, the fruits open to reveal many warted seeds.
Crushed, the plant is applied locally to swellings and bruising and even whitlow to ease pain and promote healing. The juice, dropped into the ear or onto a sore tooth, relieves earache and toothache.
TWENTY-EIGHT
There is only one path: omenala.
For the Igbo, tradition is fluid, growing. It is an event, like the sunset, or rain, changing with every occurrence. So too, the kola ritual has changed. Christian prayers have been added, and Jesus has replaced Obasi as the central deity. But its fluid aspects resist the empiricism that is the Western way, where life is supposed to be a system of codes, like the combinations of human DNA or the Fibonacci patterns in nature. The Igbo are not reducible to a system of codes, and of meaning; this culture is always reaching for a pure lyric moment.
Lagos, 1983
The King of the Beggars edged into the police station. He had been trying to trace Elvis for four days now.
“Who dey in charge here?” he asked the policeman behind the counter.
“You go see duty sergeant.”
“Where is he?”
“He go toilet.”
“When he go return?”
“When he shit finish. Why so many questions? If you want to see duty sergeant, you must wait, dat’s all.”
The King sat down on a hard wood bench to wait, trying to block out the shouts and screams from the cells. After a four-hour wait, he saw a short, potbellied man stroll into the station, idly picking his teeth and belching intermittently.
“You,” the policeman shouted at the King. “Dat is duty sergeant,” he said, pointing to the short man.
The King went up to him and introduced himself, explaining that he was trying to locate Elvis. The duty sergeant regarded him with two dead eyes and, while belching a cloud of alcohol fumes into the King’s face, made a grunting noise.
“Well?” the King asked, suppressing the wave of nausea that rocked him at the odor from the sergeant’s mouth.
“Well what? Do I look like missing-persons computer? Please leave my office,” the sergeant said.
“I want to see my friend. He was arrested in Freedom Square four days ago,” the King insisted.
“Your friend? Who are you? Even if you be president himself, how I go know your friend?”
“Elvis Oke,” the King stated.
“Do I look de type of man to mix with your nonsensical friend?”
“Could you please check your records?”
The policeman made a big show of checking for Elvis’s name in the log book on the desk in front of him. His brow furrowed in concentration as he ran his finger down the pages. Finally after a few minutes he looked up.
“You sure dis is de station you want?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“You no sure. His name is not here.”
“What do you mean? His name is Elvis Oke and officers from dis station arrest him four days ago. I done go every other police station in dis area. It done take me four days to trace him to you. His name must be dere.”
“No curse me, you hear? Who are you? I don’t know and I don’t bloody care. If you do not hold your mouth I will arrest you.”