“We no get time to waste,” another said.
Perhaps in days of peace, he would have had a chance to explain himself before a Sharia court. Perhaps he would have been tried and given a fair hearing, but these were wild days. Now, as he began to explain about the money Musa and Lukman owed him, Musa slapped him and wrestled him to the ground. They removed his babariga and fell upon him with clubs and stones. It was as if Musa was so angry he forgot to take out the sword, for he clubbed him with its sheath. Jubril lay on the ground, bent over, groaning, shielding his head with his hands. He did not react to his many wounds or wipe the blood from his body. He just lay there as his head swelled with dizziness and the earth spun around him.
Soon he did not feel the blows anymore. When he opened an eye, he saw that the circle of people who had beaten him had widened, receding from him. Some of them were beginning to shepherd the cows away. When Jubril saw Lukman going back to get the gas, he summoned all his energy, got up, and ran. They did not expect this, were caught unaware. Jubril ran toward the bushes, toward the pools, and they chased him, chanting, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!”
Jubril remembered running very fast and being surprised that he could move at all, given his wounds. When he looked back, the ranks of his pursuers had swelled; even those who had left the task of burning him to Lukman and Musa had joined in. They pelted him with rocks, but he did not stop or fall. He heard some gunshots, but he kept going. He went past the pools and up the hill into the savannah. The mob spread out and thrashed the cabbage farms. Jubril ran like a dog; he ran until his vision darkened. He remembered falling; he remembered dizziness beclouding him. . . .
Suddenly someone on the Luxurious Bus brushed past his pocketed wrist. This brought Jubril back to the more crucial business of maintaining his disguise. Instinctively, he pushed his arm deeper into his pocket. He cursed himself for dwelling on his flight. He begged Allah for strength.
When Jubril looked toward the front of the bus, he realized that two police officers had come aboard and were standing over the sick man. They were in plain clothes. Like soldiers evacuating a wounded comrade from the front, they held their rifles at the ready. They acted as if the sick man were dead, though he was still babbling. In spite of the pleas from Emeka and Madam Aniema and Tega, the police said it was better for the sick man to leave the bus, to make room for others. Hoisting him into a standing position, they frisked him and relieved him of his ticket. When the passengers murmured, the police assured them that they would put him on the next Luxurious Bus. The murmur turned to jeers as the police dragged him out and deposited him on a veranda.
More passengers came onto the bus, and Jubril had to keep moving back, still preoccupied with the image of the sick man. He left the chief ’s place and jostled from spot to spot in the aisle. But he was becoming more and more conspicuous, because most of the refugees in the aisle were beginning to sit down on the floor. When he looked at the chief, the chief either glared at him or looked away, as if Jubril was trying to rob him of his seat.
“It seems someone is in your seat,” said Emeka, who was still smarting from the eviction of the sick man, when Jubril leaned against his seat.
“Yessa.”
“Well, tell him to get off,” Emeka said. “This is the era of democracy, young man!”
“Ah . . . yessa,” Jubril said, covering his mouth with his left hand.
“Yessa ke? And leave my seat alone. It’s one man, one vote. . . . One man, one seat!”
“Abeg, no halass de boy,” Ijeoma said. “Cally your anger go meet de porice. No be dis boy lemove de sick man from dis bus.”
“Hey, don’t tell me what to do,” Emeka said, folding and refolding his monkey coat on his lap. “Is your husband a soldier?”
“You get wife yourserf?” Ijeoma said.
“Is this place not tense enough already?” Madam Aniema said.
“This is democracy,” Emeka said. “I have a right to shout if I want, OK. . . . Let me tell you something, you women. This is not the military era, when people could not get what they wanted or say what they felt. This is eight months since the generals were bribed with oil-drilling licenses so they could peacefully leave power for us civilians. Remember, you could never disobey a soldier then. Don’t forget that even here in the city of Lupa a soldier shot a bus driver and a bus conductor because they refused to give him twenty naira at an illegal checkpoint—”
“So what?” Ijeoma cut in, scratching her Afro, her big eyes narrow slits. “We civirians better pass soldiers? You dey talk as if you be de onry smart person for dis bus. And, what do you mean by ‘you women’?”
“Yes, Mr. Man, make you no insult us for dis Luxurious Bus o,” Tega said. “Na woman dey cause dis wahala for Khamfi?”
“No mind de man, my sister,” Ijeoma said. “He dey talk rike porygamous man!”
Emeka looked at one and then the other, surprised the two women were now in the same camp. He began to wag his finger at them as he searched for what to say, but Madam Aniema advised him: “Don’t say anything about them. If this gives them peace, so be it. Women are like that.”
“As I was saying, no matter what has happened, you cannot lose hope in democracy!” Emeka said in a friendlier voice, ignoring the two women, his words rising above the commotion. “Be hopeful, be hopeful!”
“Who tell you say we done lose hope?” Tega taunted him. “Na person like you wey escape Khamfi only in socks dey lose hope . . . not we!”
“No mind de yeye man,” Ijeoma said. “We say make you reave dat boy arone, you begin brame woman. No be woman born you?”
Jubril looked at Ijeoma and Tega, his countenance appealing to them not to argue with Emeka. He had been happy that the conversation had moved away from him, but now he was afraid it was coming back. He wished he could have asked the women to shut up, or that they would have known on their own that it was wrong to argue with men in public.
Sensing that more people were standing at the back of the bus, Jubril moved there to make himself less visible. But he had only stood in his new spot for a few minutes when someone asked him whether he was in the toilet line. He shrugged and shook his head no. But when the person in front of him and the one behind him said they were in the toilet line and were not offended that Jubril had cut ahead, he nodded and smiled sheepishly. Jubril craned his neck and was then able to discern the line snaking through the aisle around the passengers sitting on the floor. It seemed like the only stable part of a space fretted by anxiety and movement. The line stopped right in front of the toilet door, with the chest of the person who was next resting against it. Though Jubril had never used a toilet before and had no urge to use one now, he did not quit the line. He appreciated it, because he noticed that people who had bought the aisle spaces were tolerant and considerate. He wished the line would last forever, that refugees would take longer and longer in the restroom.
When he looked up front to see where the chief was, he discovered that he was sitting only three seats away and still eating his Cabin Biscuits, his cheeks plumped out like those of a Hausa-Fulani trumpeter.
JUBRIL WAS GLANCING PERIODICALLY at the chief, silently irritated with him, when suddenly the TV sets came on. The images hit him like lightning, driving his face in another direction. He shut his eyes. But he had already seen the images, and, as they say, what the eye has seen it cannot unsee. He felt violated. He could not process the pictures right away.