Doing Dangerously Well (36 page)

“
Pas de problème, mon ami. Alors, comment vas-tu?”

“
Dangereusement bien, monsieur le Président, dangereusement bien.”

During the bus journey back to Jos, time stretched out like an expanding rubber band. Femi felt its tension, as if his entire world verged on snapping. The bus bumped along and swerved around potholes. His skin prickled with chafing so sharp that even the touch of his clothes caused high-voltage stings of intolerable pain. He felt like screaming. In agony, Femi could let no hand touch him.

Sounds too amplified, their decibels intolerable to his ears. Usually silent, Ekong’s cries for help sent jagged shards of shrill, discordant notes ripping through every nerve.

The ferocious gladiator scrambled around the bus, sniffing the air. “The smell! It’s choking me!”

“What smell?” Yussef asked.

“Gasoline. Everywhere.” Ekong lurched for the window and threw up over two passengers.

Yussef, usually terrified of this unpredictable and explosive character, turned his full attention to him, and whispered words of comfort. Gently, he placed Ekong in the seat next to Femi and went to clean up the vomit at the feet of the irate passengers. Lance just stared at him as he worked.

On the next leg of the journey, Yussef himself sat next to Femi, having noticed his leader’s discomfort. But although Yussef’s usual tangy odour was fairly weak, Femi’s strained nerves could hardly cope. Its pungency engulfed him in a strangling stench as powerful as any garrotte.

As they neared Abuja, the bus backfired. Yu screamed and jumped up, then just as quickly sat down. He hunched into himself, staring at the ground. Slowly, the stench of feces reached Femi’s nostrils. Yussef had defecated in his trousers.

A passenger in front whipped her head around. “Enh?” She sniffed the air. “Is that your smell?”

Femi frowned back. “Am I dead?”

“Enh?”

“Am I dead?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Okay. Then it must be my own smell. Only a dead man cannot produce it.” His eyelids drooped in disdain.

Highly indignant, she whipped back around.

Hardly able to move without pain, and incapable of helping Yu, Femi motioned to Igwe to assist his embarrassed comrade. His companion, sitting at the front of the bus, chose to ignore Femi’s gesticulations.

At the next stop, all five of them disembarked. As soon as they found a spot to settle, Femi noticed an almost physical
loosening of the knot of their friendship. He could barely move, so watched the others as he lay splayed on the grass a distance away, shocked to see Igwe grow uncharacteristically cantankerous, helping no one, the strain of recent events prompting him to resent Yu’s troubles. Lance immediately trotted off to the market to buy some clothes—not for Yussef, but for himself.

As if taking care of a baby, Ekong undid Yussef’s trousers and wrapped them tight in a plastic bag for later washing. The hardened warrior then laid Yussef on the grass, wiped his buttocks with leaves and cleansed him with bare hands cupping water. Afterwards, he pulled this dependent creature into some shorts. For the rest of the journey, Yussef was unable to meet anyone’s eyes.

The person Femi envied most was Lance, who disengaged entirely, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Not caring to remain in inconspicuous safety at each stop, he bought increasingly outrageous clothes and ornate jewellery, anything to spare himself from thoughts of life destroyed. All these changes stressed Femi the more: the gold too bright, Ekong too protective, Igwe too harsh.

Just when Femi could take no more, as his body grew so taut that his muscles spasmed, they reached their destination.

After disembarking, they walked for an hour to the outskirts of the city, then left the road to climb up through boulders, behind hills and past small villages.

“Finally!” Lance whooped as they spotted their compound ringed by cacti.

Yussef stopped dead, refusing to move. For some unknown reason, the sight of their home provoked a great fear in him. Tremors attacked his body and he urinated in his shorts.

Lance cackled. “I beg, Yu—remember to flip the thing out before use.”

“Why don’t you flip yours in before use?” Femi retorted, pointing to Lance’s tongue.

Ekong flinched. Igwe merely tutted and continued walking; Femi skittered behind him, unable to deal with any new emergencies. They turned into a Z-shaped passage of cacti that served as the entrance to the compound. The other three remained behind.

To catch his breath, Femi slowed to an exhausted halt. Despite the muting effect of the cactus hedge, he heard snatches of conversation between the three newcomers.

“Kolo … kill Jegede.” He recognized Ekong’s voice.

Then another speaker’s voice, very faintly, he could not hear the entire sentence, but it included the question “assassinate now?”

Femi walked towards the hedge to listen, muttering, “How can you kill a dead man, you idiot?”

The discussion was interrupted by Lance’s relaxed tones. “Needs protection …”

“You? Protect?”

Femi could not make out who had spoken, but the surprise was evident. Who were they speaking of assassinating or protecting? Him? Kolo? He moved closer to the hedge.

“American embassy wants …” A carefree voice wove through the air, likely Lance’s.

A question with more cautious inflection followed, the words too hushed to hear.

Lance continued in an offhand manner. “I negotiated … ambassador paid more. Make sure Femi is not killed. We must ensure his safety.”

Femi rolled his eyes in condemnation of himself: friends, not enemies.

“We’ll all be killed by Kolo.” Yussef sounded nervous: a brave
man or a coward? Femi could not tell. Nor could he predict what a coward might do to save himself.

“Only if he finds us.” That was Ekong.

By this time, Igwe had marched far ahead, so Femi weaved through the growing compound of adobe huts, some attached to small farm holdings, circling contours of giant rocks. The improvised village had grown so much that businesses had now settled there, with butchers, mechanics and market women gathering in ad hoc marketplaces.

Many of those he passed were still ailing as a consequence of the flood, and their struggles had ravaged their bodies. Insanity touched them in strange ways: a locked gaze, odd clothing, even an arm swinging at a more acute angle than normal.

With his legs cramping spasmodically, Femi struggled up a reach of granite and then dropped down the other side into the smaller compound that he and the other insurgents occupied. The surrounding boulders strategically protected them with crevices, caves and parapets. A flame tree stood at the compound’s centre, ringed by a depression where Ubaldous’s incessant perambulation had compacted the earth.

Femi’s mentor had grown even thinner. The number of self-selected amulets had increased, even in the few days since their departure: Ubaldous had affixed more twigs, stones, and sods of earth to his clothes and hair. His feet bled.

Femi began to weep. As he did so, his pains decreased.

He hurried down to his hut, and rushed though the compound past the other inhabitants. Once inside, he sat in a corner, trying to hide, tumbling back into the dark realm of unhappy thoughts.

“What’s the matter?” Igwe crouched to touch Femi’s face, stroking his cheek with a gentle hand. It reminded him of the tender caresses of his mother. Femi gazed at his friend, knowing that in his expression he would find acceptance and
approval. In that face, he had found his home and the tattered remains of his destiny. Then he shut his eyes once more, ready to succumb for a few days to the safety of suspended time, struggling to forget the man at the bus stop.

But thoughts of this man pumped endlessly into his unquiet mind, until the weight of them ultimately ejected him from this internal struggle.

“Ah-ah! He’s alive?” Lance observed Femi with a twinkle in his eye. “So this is how great philosophers contemplate? One day, I myself hope to learn how to use my own brain to assist me.”

“Don’t bother,” Femi shot back. “Your brain has probably withered through lack of use.”

“I doubt it,” Igwe cut in. “His brain is probably better-looking than yours.” He glowered at Lance. “It’s working all the time, trust me.”

“My brain is a work of beauty,” Lance laced his hands over his head, ignoring Femi. “Since it has hardly been used, it is in mint condition. When I die, I want to have it framed.”

“Since it is in mint condition, you could also sell it for chewing gum,” Femi snapped.

“Hm. I’ll give it a thought.”

“Don’t. You might ruin your work of art.”

“How now, Femi?” Igwe whispered.

“Igwe!” Femi said. “The man!”

“Which man?”

“I met a man with a backyard like a shelf. He kept repeating one phrase: ‘You can’t prove a negative.’ It is important, that phrase.”

Lance flicked dirt from under his nails. “You want to listen to an idiot blowing big grammar? No, the bombing campaign has been effective.”

“How?” Yussef did not dare to look up from the ground. “To turn people against Femi?”

Lance did not answer, but merely examined his nails, satisfied with their hard-won perfection.

Ekong sat down in a corner, eyes narrowed, silent, as if pacing in an imaginary enclosure. “Some people jus’ like to kill. Like hobby. Kill, wipe blade, sleep.”

“That stupid oyinbo woman with her Chinese proverb—she na toxic waste,” Igwe muttered to himself. He then hooked Femi’s arm under his to guide him outside and up the smooth surface of one of the outcrops overlooking their habitation. Once they reached the top, they lay down next to each other, the granite hard against their backs.

“How manage?” Femi asked. “No one carried bomb-now. It was a mistake.”

Igwe lowered his glasses in disbelief. He had to stare at Femi for many moments before his friend noticed.

“Why you sit there like statue? Do these people have premonition,
abi
? Did they consult with witch doctor? ‘I beg, kill rat to find place and time for bombing.’” Femi kissed his teeth.

“I don’t want to point finger, but best to shine eye for all three.”

“I heard gist. They are being paid to protect us. Anyway, no more Kainji. We move to Lagos as soon as we’re ready.”

“They move with us?”

“Of course. Are they not family? Lance jus’ be like photocopy of Amos. Him dress jus’ dey scream do-not-touch.”

“Reign don’ pass on that style. Yesterday call to reclaim his dress. Him and the yeye American phonetics wey he dey blow. You need to dismiss Counterfeit Amos from your mind!”

Amused, Femi nudged Igwe’s ankle playfully. “He dey jealous you-now? Na wah-oh! Green-eye jealous man like you—no
wonder you walk around all shaded up in your Nowhere-in-London shades!”

In pique, Igwe wrenched his leg away from Femi’s, crossing his ankles and changing the subject. “And Yussef. That ugly bobo, he jus’ condemn the human face.”

“Poor Yu. He is like a lost boy. He jus’ repeat Amos when he was small, small. When I waka with him every day to go school past the farms, he was so frightened of snake, he put his arm around my hip.”

Uncrossing his ankles, Igwe flipped to his side and murmured into Femi’s ear. These soft whisperings produced a violent effect, and Femi pulled his friend towards him, trembling with sadness and yearning.

With greater compassion, Igwe said, “And Ekong. You think he dey fear snake too? He advertise himself as killer. He use bomb for pillow.”

“Ekong is jus’ mathematical deduction. What organization does he need? He can start any war without us. Finish.”

“So they stay? Why?”

“What if they are innocent? They have already lost family. Now you’re wanting me to ask them to lose another!”

“No, Femi. But I have family to protect too. I don’t want to lose you.”

Fall’s foliage made little difference, Mary thought: the dust covered the sand, which covered the scree, which covered the rubble: layers and layers of false promises, which, in the end, hid not gold but more grit.

How had the terrorists got hold of the blueprints? Mary created a mental time chart. Five months after project commencement, dozens of copies—hundreds, perhaps—had left the building, sent to engineers and project managers, funding
partners and governmental ministers. Could have been a leak from Engineering. Or Sinclair. Or … the thought hit her hard. Barbara! An incompetent of unfathomable magnitude. She wouldn’t put it past her sister to have misplaced the set she gave her.

Thus, she braced herself to face the most unsavoury move of her entire career. She decided to phone Barbara at UNEP in Kenya.

After realigning her collar, she grabbed the phone. “Hello. This is Mary Glass. May I please speak to Barbara Glass in Herman Meyer’s office.” She stood up and looked over the haze of fountains at TransAqua’s entrance, sheets of water glinting off giant rock slabs.

“Pardon?”

“Barbara Glass, please.” Maybe her sister had already been fired.

The receptionist put her on hold. After seven minutes, she came back on the line. “I’m afraid there’s no Barbara Glass in Herman Meyer’s office.”

“Well, what about another office?” Mary squinted and spied Sinclair storeys below her, slithering behind the fountain on his way back to the office.

“There’s no Barbara Glass listed at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“Is there another name I could look up?”

“Can I speak to someone in Herman Meyer’s department? This is very urgent. I’m calling from TransAqua.”

“I’ll put you through to his assistant.”

Mary performed deep knee bends as she waited, her view of the entrance blocked by the air conditioner as she squatted down, the image refreshed as she stood up. Three minutes later, she spotted Janet trailing Sinclair, stop-start motions viewed through deep squats. Finally, a woman picked up the phone.

“Yes? How may I hel—”

“My name is Mary Glass from TransAqua International. I’m looking for my sister, Barbara Glass. She is apparently working with Herman Meyer.”

“We have no Barbara Glass here, I’m afraid.”

She stopped breathing. “Has anyone of that name recently left?”