He thanked Allah for the reprieve that closing his eyes had brought him. He had found a way to avoid Monica. There was no limit to what he could endure, he thought. While others found peace in things external, his own came from deep within: the triumph of finding a way to maintain his tradition, his uniqueness, in a strange world. Now, if only he could get the chief to leave his seat, he thought, he could put his forehead on the headrest and pretend to sleep until the bus moved, until the bus reached his father’s village.
Abruptly there was quiet, a deep silence that Jubril instinctively knew could only come from shock. And then four or five people read aloud what was written on the screen:
Breaking News: Religious Riots, Khamfi
The passengers became restless again, and a din rose above the TVs as everybody began to talk at the same time. Some said they knew the dead they had seen on TV and shouted their names. Others said this could not be their Khamfi—the multiethnic, multireligious city a mere two hours north of the motor park.
The Khamfi they saw that evening was the corpse capital of the world. Churches, homes, and shops were being torched. The sharp, unblinking eye of the news camera poured its images into the darkening bus, bathing the refugees in a kaleidoscope of color. Jubril could sense this effect behind his eyelids as the camera zeroed in on charred corpses sizzling in electric-blue flames. Cries of fury poured into the bus from the TV screens, heightening the agitation of the refugees. Jubril listened for the voice of the chief but did not hear him. Was he still in his seat? Was he asleep? Why did he not say anything when everybody else was talking? He turned his ears more deliberately in the chief ’s direction and then his eyes.
The refugees rose to their feet at the sight of hungry-looking almajeris running around with fuel and matches, setting things and people afire. They were much younger than Jubril’s friends Musa and Lukman. In the bus, anger replaced shock and passive complaints. It was not really the sight of corpses burning—or the businesses of their southern compatriots being leveled by firebombs, or the gore when some of the kids were fried in gas before they had a chance to use it—that roused the refugees. All over the country, people had developed a tolerance of such common sights; decades of military rule, and its many terrorist plots directed at the populace, had hardened them. What riled them was the sight of free fuel in the hands of almajeris.
The shouts of the refugees rang out into the approaching darkness and rallied the people outside the bus. The verandas emptied, and everybody came together, milling about the bus like winged termites around a fluorescent bulb. Hearing the word fuel made Jubril uneasy. He remembered Lukman and his gas jar and the matches in his pocket. He remembered Musa and his sword. He remembered the crowd chasing him up the wide valley, the gunshots, the stones. It felt as if all the people around him were Lukman and Musa and would soon smoke him out. His wounds seemed to burn under his clothes. He hid his face and tried to breathe normally.
“Where’s our driver?” Madam Aniema shouted, as if someone had hit her. “Is he back with the fuel yet?” The shock of hearing such anger in a sweet woman’s voice almost made Jubril open his eyes.
“The driver has not come back yet!” Emeka said.
“Are those children using fuel or water?” she continued.
“Water ke? Fuel!” Tega said.
“Who give dem fuel to burn people when we no fit get fuel tlavel home?” Ijeoma said.
“Our fuel, our fuel . . . southern oil!” some of the passengers began to chant.
For a moment it sounded as if the bus would explode with anger. Finally Jubril opened his eyes.
The toilet line had melted into the crowd, because those who had been sitting on the floor were now standing. Jubril could feel Monica right behind him, her child wailing into the commotion, kicking and flailing his tiny hands. Monica, in an attempt to soothe him, kept tapping her feet to rock him, breaking the monotony of his cry. Jubril pressed against the person in front of him to make room between his back and Monica.
“Who dey give dis Muslim kids dis fuel?” Monica said.
“Politicians!” Emeka said. “They’re using southern fuel to burn our people and businesses!”
“Nobody go touch our oil again,” Monica said. “Dem dey use our oil money to establish Sharia, yet dem done pursue us out of de nord!”
The bus filled with loud plans about how best to stop the government and multinational oil companies from drilling for oil in the delta. Some said they would have to put this into effect as soon as they reached home and started cursing the driver for delaying their departure.
“You be against national interest . . . national security!” said one of the two police officers as he pushed his way onto the bus. He was pointing a pistol at everybody, waving it from side to side. The people pushed into the seats, some climbing on top of others to get out of his way. When he had come midway into the bus, his colleague appeared and covered him with an AK-47.
“Na our oil!” Monica said to the first officer.
“Who’s talking?” the officer asked.
“Na me,” she said.
She pushed forward fearlessly with the baby, even as others were backing away. She shoved Jubril aside, then handed her baby to someone. She gathered up her long dress with both hands, as if she were going to wade into a knee-deep stream. “I say, na our oil,” she said again to the police. “We dey democracy now, you hear?”
All eyes had turned from the TVs to the confrontation between Monica and the police. Some were begging her to calm down. For Jubril, it was not just that he felt this was the wrong time to challenge the police; he also did not like the fact that a woman was standing up to the law. Maybe he would have taken it better if the bus were filled with only woman passengers and the officer of the law was also a woman. Monica was standing right in front of Jubril, just her body separating him from the gun. He tried to ease back into the crowd, but nobody would let him; nobody wanted to take his place. So he just stood there staring vaguely at Monica’s calves and feet, holding his breath and praying that the police would not open fire.
“Who be dis woman?” said the police.
“Daughter of oil,” Monica said. “And who be you?”
“You are asking me?” the officer said.
“Yes?”
“I dey warn you o, stupid woman. You done lost your mind to dis Sharia wahala!”
“I say you get ID?” the woman said. “Or dem done send you to kill us?”
“ID? Why should I show you my ID?”
“Come, woman, you better behave o,” the other officer said from the door. “Or soon you go be daughter of bullets.”
“Oya . . . go ahead,” Monica said. “If you finish killing me, then kill my baby, OK. . . . Wetin I get for dis world again?”
“We just dey enforce government order!” the police retorted. “Government order!”
“We no dey military government,” Monica said. “We dey for democracy now.”
“Shut up. . . . Government is government! Government oil. Federal government oil, you hear?”
The officer at the door backed out of it and fired warning shots into the night sky. The sounds of people running and scrambling outside entered the bus.
Inside, the refugees hushed, even Monica. She stood there as if she was expecting the bullets to hit her. The police asked the man holding the baby to return him to Monica. The man started trembling, as if suddenly the child had turned into a viper. Monica took her baby reluctantly from the man, not so much because of the officer’s order, but because fear of the police could have caused him to drop the child. She sat down on the floor like a zombie. When the police went away, she began to cry, pacing herself with periods in which she rattled on about her dead husband and children.