Before the troubles, the yard echoed with life: children playing in giggling starts, mothers shouting gossip at each other, men sitting on benches playing checkers and drinking beer, music spilling out of rooms mixing with smells from the kitchens, giving the courtyard extra spice. I remembered the games of cricket, and Paul, who could bowl so fast his main job in the rebel army, if he is still alive, must be lobbing grenades instead of curve balls.
It was deserted. Most of the neighbors were dead or had fled south to safety. Something was rattling in the empty kitchens; some hungry rat despairing. Cobwebs hung in fine lacy decay from the soot-blackened walls. The bathrooms stood still in bracken-scum-surfaced puddles. A lovely breeze blew a newspaper across the courtyard vainly fluttering against the silence.
Hidden in a small latch space behind the headboard of my parents’ bed, I found the rolled-up bundle of knives. I took them out. One of my chores was cleaning and honing those knives: the imam’s circumcision knives. Small, curved blades that could cut through flesh with a whisper of effort. I grew to love them, polishing the silver blades until they shone. I stroked them, played with them, spoke to them. They in turn spoke of the blood-spattered hysteria of the younger boys and the grim, tight-lipped grunting and moaning of the older boys and the honest wails of babies. They spoke of the wisdom of blood — veins, capillaries; of flesh and bone — brisket, tendons, ligaments, and skin. When some of the other boys in school started bullying me, I took to carrying one of the knives hidden in my dashiki. Pain was a sharp, ripping lesson those boys learned early on.
Still hanging in the imam’s closet was a single Fulani robe. A shiny gray, it was symbolic of his office. Alone like that there was something about it that was both incongruous and melancholy. I felt the tears coming as I pressed my face into it and pretended I could still smell my father on it, even though my uncle must have worn it last. I pulled it over my head and it fell to the ground like a ballroom gown. I hitched it in my belt to keep from tripping, but still it swept the floor. I slipped one knife into the pocket of the robe and wrapped the others carefully and put them under the robe, tucked into the belt of my pants. With one last look at the empty house, I stepped out.
Barely a mile away, a man grabbed me. I didn’t know what he wanted and I writhed like mad, trying to get away. I attempted to bite his hand but he delivered a stunning blow to my head. As I tried to grab my robe away from the man’s clutches, my hand slipped on something hard and cold: the knife. I felt its sharp cut on my thumb goading me to action. I retrieved the knife; its gentle sag in my palm the weight of my decision. I struck. The first cut sliced off the man’s finger, splashing surprised jets of blood onto his robes. A terrifying rage came over me and I slashed wildly, ripping gashes deep in the man’s arms and face. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. There was blood everywhere. I broke free as the man convulsed and died. His face and arms crisscrossed with cuts. With a cold detachment that surprised me, I stuffed the bloody knife into one of my pockets.
I headed rapidly for the train station. The city center was alive with mobs. Fires burned everywhere, some from Igbo-owned businesses, others from cars or piles of goods seized from the markets. There were even some Igbos tied to flaming crosses, their screams pitiful. The night sky was a red glow. It must have been at least midnight and yet both the old and new towns were alive with people like red ants crawling over a lump of sugar.
The ancient city was split into two distinct parts. The old city held the old sultan’s palace, the central mosque, and the Islamic university, and was home only to the Fulani. Only they were allowed to live or conduct business in the old city. In fact, an infidel who so much as walked through there was courting death. The new city was called Sabon Gari — infidel’s quarter. It was here that all the non-Muslims lived, conducted business, and had their churches. It was the commercial hub of the city.
I had to cross five miles of Muslim-controlled territory before I got to the trains. Soon enough, I was stopped by a mob.
“Who are you?” one of them asked me in Hausa.
“Sheik Rimi’s boy,” I replied, also in fluent Hausa. The Fulani backed off. Sheik Rimi was important, not only because he had the sultan’s ear, but also because he was the feared ideological leader of the suicidal jihadic Maitasine sect. I only knew his name because my father hated him with a passion. Passion that was expressed in his use of the Arabic word walahi, and the way he used it, it snaked into the air and snapped back like a whip.
“Walahi! Fundamentalists will be the end of us all,” he said.
I figured it couldn’t hurt to use the sheik’s name in this situation, and it paid off. For a while anyway.
“It might be dangerous to mess with one of his boys,” one of the mob said.
“But up close, this one definitely looked like an infidel,” another said, advancing.
“Prove it,” the Fulani challenged. “Prove you are one of us and that the blood on your clothes belongs to an infidel dog and not a believer.”
“How?” I asked.
“Sing the call to prayer.”
In my best voice I began the call to prayer. A hush descended on the crowd as my voice went from a childish soprano to a cracked and smoky alto and then back again. The cracks teased some with memories of loves lost and dreams turned rancid. To others it was a caress that burned. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, a man screamed: “Stop! Somebody tell him to stop!”
The Fulani youth who stopped me initially pushed me roughly on my way. The rest of the trip to the train station proved uneventful. No one else stopped me. There was a train idling at the station and it was easy to sneak past the officials who were busy watching the mobs, onto the train, which was made up mostly of cargo coaches. Whatever they were carrying was very carefully held down with tarp. Ignoring the cargo cars, I headed for the one passenger car. It was empty and I hid in the toilet.
The journey down south to the nearest Igbo city of any significant size took thirteen hours. It was the longest, most harrowing trip I had ever undertaken. I kept expecting the train to stop at one of the many stations it rolled past and for the police or soldiers or an angry mob to pull me off and shoot me or eviscerate me. But there were no stops. The train was cheered at every station, town, and settlement it passed through and I guessed it had passed into Igbo territory when the cheering ended. A few hours later the train finally stopped, hissing angrily. I peered out of the window of the toilet, relaxing when I saw the sign on the platform. I was home.
I waited a few minutes before getting out of the train to be greeted by wails and screams of sorrow. The tarp had been rolled back to expose the cargo: dead bodies, hundreds of Igbo corpses, the harvest of a few weeks of carnage. Some of the bodies had started to decompose, filling the air with their rankness. Many were mutilated — vaginas, penises, mouths, noses, ears, hands, and feet were cut off or out. Even pregnant mothers hadn’t been spared; their fetuses cut out and draped sickly over them. I turned away, retching.
I saw a group of men surround the Fulani train driver. He stood in their midst trying not to look scared, but his eyes gave him away. The first blow, when it came, was sudden and caught him off guard. He sank to the ground with a sigh. The blows that followed were swift and the only sounds were the fading cries of the driver, the soft thump of fists on flesh, and the gentle grunts of the men. In a few minutes they had beaten him to death with their bare hands. But the bloodlust was keen now and they were not sated. Seeing me standing mouth open, robes spattered in blood, they advanced toward me. But the women in the crowd formed a circle around me, a wall between the men and me.