“The gods of our ancestors will not allow jou, Nduese, to die!” the soldier prayed for his dog. “They must protect jou till we reach home and jou get the right herbs! The gods who guarded me in the war fields of Liberia and Sierra Leone, who never allowed the RUF rebels to cut my hands or legs, won’t disappoint me.” With this, the ECOMOG man brought out from under his rags a wreath of assorted talismans. The refugees gasped. It was bigger and more intimidating than the collection the chief had. He plucked one talisman that looked like a necklace of cowry shells and hung it around Nduese and poured some herbal liquid down the dog’s throat. A few drops trickled on Jubril. Nduese’s coughing began to mellow.
On hearing the soldier’s testimony of rebels cutting people’s limbs, Jubril nodded, following every movement of the soldier with rapt attention and a bizarre smile, as if the ECOMOG man had hypnotized him. But while his sight was locked on the soldier, his pocketed wrist was vibrating, seemingly on its own. Unknown to all on the bus, Jubril’s mind was neither on the soldier nor on whatever they thought was in his pocket, but on the day his right hand was cut. He remembered the night before that day, how he tried to sleep but could not.
Up until that last night he had been brave about it and actually walked around anticipating the event with gay abandon, a boy completely at peace with a just punishment, a sort of hero in his neighborhood. As far as he was concerned, the hand was dead. He absolutely believed that once the hand was cut off, he and others would be discouraged from stealing again. He ignored the hand and tried not to look at it and looked forward to being relieved of this source of self-hate. Jubril started using his left hand only. And just to make sure he did not mistakenly use the fingers or palm of the condemned hand, he tied a red rubber band around his right wrist as a reminder, as if to delineate a clear line between good and evil, love and hate. With this sort of clarity, he felt comfortable using his right elbow, for it was a part of the body he had not forfeited to theft. Two nights before the amputation, he had slept peacefully and even happily dreamed of the hand being cut.
But that last night, alone in the room, he lay awake. While he still accepted that his hand should be cut off and prayed loud and clear that Allah’s will be done, he found himself many times, to his embarrassment, shaking hands with himself in the dark. He performed many types of handshakes and even pretended to shake hands with another person. For the last time, he used his right hand to feel the different parts of his body. He stood up and wandered around the cell, feeling the wall and the floor. He moved the fingers among themselves like a flutist or guitarist. He said good-bye to that part of him he had already sacrificed to theft, knowing that when day broke he would be wafted away by anesthesia.
THE REFUGEES, SEEING JUBRIL unnerved and uncoordinated, believed that the soldier had charmed him. They appealed to the chief to ask his fellow idol worshipper, Colonel Usenetok, to remove his spell from the boy. Chief Ukongo did not say anything, though he watched the soldier with calculating eyes. The people murmured as Jubril continued to act strangely.
“It’s jou Christians and Muslims who’ve charmed Khamfi with jour evil politics!” Colonel Usenetok said gleefully, putting down Nduese in his excitement. His eyes were like two points of light. “Jour faiths are interlopers on this continent!”
“All soldier people are tieves . . . ole!” Tega said, and others booed him.
“Hey, lady,” the soldier said, “I fought in Sierra Leone without pay. Government still hasn’t paid me for a jear now. . . . I didn’t steal jour oil money!”
“And you dey call yourself army colonel?” Monica said. “You be yeye man o! Why you no steal? You no be good colonel at all, at all.”
“Why are you saying this?” Madam Aniema asked.
“Saying what?” Monica said.
“My sister, what has this got to do with idol worship?” Madam Aniema said. “Stealing cannot be a good thing.”
“But why de soldiers from our place always dey stupid?” Monica said, then turned to the soldier: “You, tell us, soldierman, wetin you dey retire to now?”
“To dignity . . . conscience!” the soldier replied.
Tega was the first to break the silence. She stood up and let out a guffaw. She laughed as if someone were tickling her. Emeka joined in, and then the whole bus sounded like a room full of giggling adolescent girls. Even the police, who peered into the bus after hearing the soldier’s reply, joined in the laughter. The chief sat there, looking at the soldier with an impish grin, shaking his head very slowly. It was as if the soldier were no longer a threat to the bus but a source of comic relief.
“Soldierman, listen,” Monica said, motioning with her hands to the people to stop laughing. “Soldierman, you go eat dignity and drink conscience, abi? Your wife and children go dey happy well well to receive you from Sierra Leone empty-handed.”
“No problem,” the soldier said.
“No wahala, huh?” she taunted him. “We no tell you before? You be madman. . . . Na only crazeman who go reach colonel for army and no steal money for dis country.”
“Jou’re the mad people!” he said, and pulled his dog closer to himself. “I’m going back home to farm as my ancestors did before oil was discovered in my village!”
“Which farm?” Monica said. “Farmland no dey again for delta o! Mobil, Shell, Exxon, Elf. . . . All of dem done pollute every grain of sand.”
“I’ll fish, then.”
“Fish ke? Dem done destroy de rivers . . . no fish.”
At this point, Monica gave up, melting into laughter. She laughed long and hard until she lost her breath. Others started talking about the pollution of the delta, about how they must make sure all the oil companies moved away from there, and how the democratic government must be driven out of the area. They said the delta must secede from the country, so they would have the right to manage their resources. In time, they all stopped talking and were overcome by laughter, like laborers dropping off to sleep at the end of the day. It robbed their plans of the earlier bitterness and was no threat to the police.
Only the soldier and Jubril kept straight faces. Jubril was disappointed and sided with the ECOMOG soldier. He thought the soldier deserved the best, having gone out to serve the country gallantly, as the chief had said. The fact that the chief was laughing too only made matters worse for the boy. Jubril began to realize that he did not understand the old man. He wondered when the driver would wake up so they could begin their journey.
EMEKA SAID FINALLY, “IT’S like you don’t understand us, Colonel. We’re not saying you should’ve stolen . . . as in stealing. Remember, it’s your oil. It comes from your villages, by the grace of God! You should’ve made enough money out there to bid for an exploration license.”
“I’ve no interest or expertise in oil business,” the soldier said.
“You don’t need expertise,” Madam Aniema said. “Just money!”
“Jou civilians can bid for licenses if jou like.”
“Foolich talk!” Tega said. “Nobody back home get dat kind money . . . except your superrish soldiers from oder parts of dis country . . .”