He felt connected to his newfound universe of diverse and unknown pilgrims, the faceless Christians. The complexity of their survival pierced his soul with a stunning insight: every life counted in Allah’s plan.
THEY WERE STILL BEGGING God silently, together, in different ways, when the mob began to pour gas all over the homes in one last attempt to teach Mallam Abdullahi a lesson. Two men came and stood by the door to the room, spraying the place. The fuel fell on the mats like the first raindrops on banana leaves. Jubril and his companions stilled themselves and waited for the flick of the matches as the fuel’s coldness, sharpened by the harmattan wind, stung his wounds. The raiders were so close that any movement could have given them away. Like a statue in the rain, Jubril did not blink. He felt the liquid hit his eyes. He waited for the kind of fire that he himself had set many times on the property of infidels in Khamfi . . .
Jubril felt someone tapping him on the shoulder and jumped.
“I did not mean to hurt you,” Chief Ukongo apologized. The pain on Jubril’s face made him look to the chief like someone who was dying to control whatever powers he hid in his pocket. “Well, son, whatever pocket juju . . .”
“Notting dey my pocket,” Jubril said.
“You know what I have in my pocket?” the chief taunted him. “If you deny your juju in public, he can’t defend you. I hope you know that. Anyway, yours can’t overpower mine. . . . If you try me, son, I’ll kill you!”
“Ah ah, Shief Resource Control,” Tega said, “leave dis boy alone.”
“First, you have cheated him out of his seat,” someone said. “Now you accuse him of hiding juju in his pocket.”
Monica asked, “Chief, you want steal his money too?”
“What money does this little goat have?” the chief said. “I was just tapping his shoulder to show him my bus ticket. . . . It’s now time for me to prove that I am not encroaching on his rightful seat. My only problem with this boy is his attitude.”
“Yessa,” Jubril said, nodding vigorously, for the prospect of getting his seat was close. He dug into his bag and brought out his ticket again, in case they would need to compare the two. People sat up or craned their necks to see the chief ’s ticket.
While searching in the bag on his lap, the chief assured them, “You’ll understand me better when you see my ID . . .”
“ID? We no want any ID!” Ijeoma warned him. “Come, make you lespect yourself o!”
“You don’t want to see my ID?” Chief Ukongo shouted at her, and tapped his chest repeatedly, as if his most sacred of rights had been desecrated. “Young woman, who made you the judge between a royal father and this rascal? You expect me to bring out my ticket . . . without even seeing my ID? Do you know who I am?” Having said this, he yanked out a huge talisman from his bag, plucked one feather from it, and blew it into the air. The people shouted in fright, and those who were near where the feather landed backed away. The chief broke into some incantation, his head shaking like the tail of a rattlesnake.
“Now, young woman, you can come and ask me for my ticket,” he finally said. “And you, young juju man, let’s see who is more powerful. Bring out what you have, and let’s see!”
Jubril asked the police, who had come onto the bus when they heard all the commotion, to settle the matter once and for all. But when the officers saw the situation, they left, saying they would come back when they finished drinking their beer.
The chief laughed at Jubril and told his challengers that they would suffer when the bus reached his domain. “Do you know who has been keeping the peace in the delta?” he said. “The police recognize my status. Do you know how I got onto this bus in the first place? You’ll regret inviting the police!”
But Jubril was not intimidated. He wanted justice.
“Our son, our son,” Madam Aniema said, “please, beg the police not to come into the case! We have suffered enough already on this trip. Please, what is your name?”
“His name is Gabriel!” the chief said immediately.
“Ah, Gabriel, our angel,” the lady continued, “are you rich enough for police intervention?”
“She’s right, young man,” Emeka said. “You moved too fast. You know these are extraordinary times. All of us were admiring your patience with the chief. Things would have worked themselves out, you know. You see how these policemen denied me a chance to know whether my cousin and friend died or survived the Sharia war in Khamfi. They are ruthless.”
“To invite police to help you for dis country,” one woman said, “is like farmer wey invite locust to his farm!”
“No sane parent want expose his daughter to rapists,” another said.
“Gabriel, you see, for dis country,” Monica said, “de police, de soldiers, no be norderners or souderners or Christians or Muslims—just plain rogues. . . . Dem no fit give you justice.”
“I warned you about mentioning the word Muslim, did I not?” the chief said.
“I dey sorry,” Monica apologized. “I forget.”
“How come nobody listens to royal fathers anymore in this country?” the chief said. “What is wrong with us?”
Emeka stood up and went to where Jubril was, stepping carefully over the chief ’s feather on the way, to explain things to him. “You see, Gabriel,” he whispered, “you know that, since this is a civilian government, we should try to settle our quarrels without bringing in the police or soldiers. The generals stole billions of our oil dollars during the years of military rule. . . . Now some of these generals have turned around in these democratic times to back laws that would cut off the limbs of poor chicken thieves . . .”
“If we drag dese same generals go Charia court,” Tega came in, “what part of deir body we go cut? What part go remain? Still we no go recover our money. Charia cannot toush dese rish Muslims o! Before you know it, dem go run go Common Law court. Even de rogue governors who introduce am no go smell de so-called Charia court. Dem go run go ordinary court for immunity against de same Charia . . .”
“My sister, just take it easy,” Emeka pleaded with her. “Just allow me to carefully explain things to Gabriel.”
But she said, “My advice to all of una be say make we poor people dey learn to protect ourselves. . . . Gabriel, quick quick, go remove dis case from police hand.”
But Jubril was past hearing. His mind had drifted back to his woes as they analyzed the crisis. His vacant face wore a collapsed smile. His eyes were distant, vaguely transfixed on the ceiling of the bus, away from the TVs.
How will my father receive me when I reach Ukhemehi? he thought. What will I tell him about Yusuf? Would my leaving Islam for Deeper Life placate him and the extended family? Yusuf had said some of them had remained Catholic and some relapsed into their ancestral religion. What does justice demand of me? When would I tell my father the whole truth? Yusuf must have told him I was a conservative Muslim when he visited home. What do I tell them about my hand? How long could I keep it hidden? Maybe I should lie to my people in the delta, tell them that I did not steal, that I was forced to confess, that I never in my life supported Sharia. Maybe if they knew that, they would be more sympathetic to my situation.