You Must Set Forth at Dawn (73 page)

I had a personal matter that I had left to the last. “I think I should serve you notice,” I warned, “I am going to sue your government.”

“What for, Prof?”

“For gross defamation. I am going to sue your government, and your ambassadors are going to be summoned as witnesses.”

Gambari was visibly startled, and I wondered if he already guessed that I was referring to the lurid invention of Abacha's propaganda machinery, the glossy product of the fugitive rapist Abiola Ogundokun:
Conscience International.

“This packaged bundle of obscenities,” I continued, “was sent to key Nigerian embassies throughout the world, several of which in turn distributed them to institutions, human rights organizations, and even the international media. The president of my university was sent a copy”—and here I turned to Gambari—“directly from the Information Department of our United Nations mission, with a complimentary slip signed by one E. Agbehir.”

Again, Abdulsalami turned wordlessly to Gambari. The ambassador sighed, probably relieved that at least this publication had not been encountered by our delegation as a companion piece to the eulogy of Abacha as world statesman.

“All I know, sir,” he stammered, “was that this box of magazines was sitting in the office of Agbehir, the information officer. I saw it one day when I entered the office, and I was attracted by the Prof's photo on the cover. So I took a copy and opened it. Almost immediately I realized what was inside. I dropped it, I remember saying, ‘Uh-uh, I don't want any part of this. I don't want anything to do with this.' Later on, I found that the information officer had already sent me my own copy. I don't think I've even read it to this day. It must be sitting somewhere in my office.”

“I am going to sue the government,” I repeated quietly. “That's my first duty whenever I return to Nigeria. I'm serving you notice so that you don't complain that, after all, we had an amicable meeting, and so on. It's nothing personal, but I have to take you to court.”

The man smiled his broadest yet, spread out his surprisingly soft hands, and said, “Prof, everybody is suing me. Obasanjo himself has threatened to sue for wrongful imprisonment. What am I supposed to do? So many people are going to sue this government. I am not saying you're not justified, but where are we going to get the money to pay all these damages?”

“Well, that's for you to worry about. I'm suing. It's a duty imposed on me. Anyway, that's the one item I have on my personal agenda—I needed to get it off my chest. We really should leave you now, I'm sure you have other people to see.”

The photographer was summoned for the inevitable photographs. “But when are you coming home?” As we were set up, positioned, and repositioned for the satisfaction of the photographer, Abdulsalami continued to insist. “Next week? Next month? Everybody wants you back, you know. What am I to tell them when I return home?”

“Soon, soon,” I kept responding. “Soon. I can't simply pull up roots and return just like that, you know. I have acquired quite a few responsibilities here.”

“Well, at least a visit. Come home for a week or so, you can manage that. I'll give you my phone numbers. If you'd just let us know when you're coming . . .”

“I will. That's a promise.”

In the vestibule, an official rushed in. “Your Excellency, I wonder if the Prof can delay a few moments. Madam is just coming in, and I'm sure the Prof would like to meet her.”

“Where's she?”

“They're coming up in the elevator. They should be here in a moment.”

“Ah, please wait, Prof. My wife won't forgive me if she knew you were here and I didn't hold you long enough for both of you to meet.”

Mrs. Abdulsalami came in a short while later, accompanied by four women. It was a remarkable change. In the heyday of the “two Ms”—Mariam Babangida and Maryam Abacha—there would have been no less than a caravan of women, at least two dozen, if not thirty to forty, overdressed, overpainted, simpering satellites. Abdulsalami's wife was dressed very simply and, I soon discovered, had spent nearly the entire day observing the proceedings of the Supreme Court, herself being a judge. I spoke to her briefly, and could not help observing that she was somewhat ill at ease with me—not conspicuously, but she did seem a little short on spontaneity. I wondered which of my many reputations she had swallowed that had created that air of discomfort or if my entire surmise had been misplaced. Perhaps it was nothing but a cultivated judicial mien.

Later I was informed by a childhood friend of Abdulsalami that during the Abacha period, she had been very critical of the language of contempt that I employed toward Sani Abacha. She was in agreement with the content but belonged to that school of thought, quite prevalent among a substantial portion of our educated elite, that holds that a head of state was still a head of state, no matter what else he might be. This meant that he was entitled to the fullest respect from the nation's citizens. No matter what he did, you simply did not refer to him as “a murderous imbecile,” “cretin,” and other standard epithets that I found objectively descriptive of the man. Approval for the role I was playing in the struggle, yes. But it was wrong to be so abusive. A head of state was still “His Excellency.”

As further knowledge was obtained of Abacha's plots to get rid of all probable or imaginary obstacles in his bid for self-perpetuation, it emerged that Abdulsalami had himself been next for the jump. During interrogation, which routinely involved torture, some of the accused coup plotters had been offered the chance to shorten their agony and even purchase their freedom or survival by implicating Abdulsalami in one of the phantom plots against the Abacha regime. This attempt had commenced, it turned out, right from the interrogations that had preceded the trials and convictions of General Diya and others. A Colonel Lawan Gwadabe in particular, once one of Abacha's most trusted collaborators, had undergone horrendous torture in the effort to make him implicate his boss. He had been hung upside down, flogged, and had buckets of excrement poured over him.

Unfortunately for that colonel, he was, like his master, a devoted client of marabouts, one of whom sealed Gwadabe's fate by divining that he would one day become Nigeria's head of state. The prophecy reached Abacha's ears, and he promptly took preventive action. Perhaps the marabout also predicted a like elevation for Abdulsalami; those marabouts loved to please! Speculations were pointless with Sani Abacha, however. For whatever reasons in the murky recesses of what passed for his mind—and with steady prodding from his hatchet man, al-Mustapha—Abacha had begun the process of removing Abdulsalami from office and trying him for treason, with predictable results. Gwadabe was to have been the prime witness, but that loyal soldier, notoriously of Abacha's cast of mind in many other ways, refused to break. I wondered if, after learning that truth, Mrs. Abdulsalami would still be of the opinion that Abacha's anointed number one enemy had been too extreme in his choice of language.

THE PAST BEGAN to recede in the mind, ceased to influence daily habits and instincts or govern practical choices. Finally, I accepted my papers of release from the custody of fear and sent prudence on indefinite sabbatical. I could begin to act on the spur of the moment, plonk myself down at a table on the open pavement of a café or restaurant, walk the streets and enter recreation spaces with greater spontaneity, constrained only by my craving for anonymity. It was in this new mood that, headed for London, I accepted an offer of two tickets to Wimbledon from a Nigerian tennis coach, Jacob Akindele, who had been one of my volunteer marshals in the heyday of the Road Safety Corps. Jacob had a more impressive distinction, however—he could boast of having coached John McEnroe in his rookie days! In my mood of liberation, I prepared to venture into Wimbledon's hallowed precincts, my first such visit in more than forty years.

Not that I have ever been one for blood sports, least of all lawn tennis, whose genteel setting—most especially in England's Wimbledon—I have always considered a contradiction, the game itself being no more than a sublimation of the blood instinct that has stuck with such tenacity to every rung in the ladder of human evolution. Boxing is another matter entirely. It does not pretend to be anything else, and thus, I have never been averse to watching the occasional round of a boxing match, almost exclusively on television.

It was only natural that my mind should travel back to my last visit to Wimbledon as a fresh graduate, in the company of Barbara, my first wife, perhaps even then pregnant with Olaokun, my first son. Everything fell into place—this time Olaokun was bound to be in London, and I had two tickets. He also, I thought, must be feeling the pangs of withdrawal, having thrown himself into the fray body and soul, serving as secretary to the UDFN and neglecting the small computer publication business that had developed from his medical publication enterprise until it had gone bankrupt in the service of democracy. He had been compelled to return to his first profession, as a part-time doctor on call. I pictured him wondering what to do with himself now that he was deprived of preparations for preceding me into Abacha's lair, tried to gauge what his reaction would be when I informed him that I had never had the slightest intention of gratifying his wish! I called him up—did he wish to come with the old man? He was more than ready.

A summery day, the kind that Wimbledon aficionados pray for and sometimes get. Whatever was going on in Olaokun's mind, I did not know, and I wondered if his mother had ever told him that we used to take the bus and walk to Wimbledon during my stint at the Royal Court Theatre in 1958–59, when we lived in Maida Vale, Willesdon, and Putney, the last being nearest to Wimbledon. What went through the old man's mind, however, was the sheer air of freedom. I was walking among crowds without sprouting eyes all around my head, without being accompanied by a volunteer bodyguard or two, inconspicuous but close by. All I dreaded was to be recognized by anyone—
Just make them leave me alone,
I pleaded with the unseen gods.

Those deities are, however, practiced in turning a deaf ear. As we walked past the gates and began to drift through the crowd, the familiar sound shot through the air: “Prof! Prof! Professor Soyinka!”

I always know when I cannot bluff my way, pretending to be someone else. This was no voice of uncertainty, and, whoever it was, we were going to be ensconced within that place for the next few hours, when she would have lots of time to scrutinize me closely if I tried the gambit of self-denial. It is always an embarrassment when a “senior citizen” finds himself caught in a bald lie, especially by a mere juvenile.

I turned. She was petite and light-complexioned, and could easily have passed for an Indian. Yet it was not she who really caught my interest but her companion. Darker and of a somewhat more substantial build, she remained rooted by the entrance gate while the one who had called out ran forward excitedly. Not one probing step did she take in our direction. Her face read horror, unrelieved horror, her body—total petrification. She shrank progressively into her distant self, staring at the scene with wide-eyed apprehension.

The girl came up to me, her excitement bubbling over. “Yes, I knew it was you. I recognized you in spite of the hat.” She continued breathlessly, “I've read your books, I admire them a lot.”

“Thank you. And you? What's your name? Are you studying here?”

“Zainab, and I'm reading law.”

I nodded, gestured toward Olaokun. “This is my son, Olaokun.”

They shook hands. The congealed companion appeared to have thawed sufficiently to drag closer to our group on heavy limbs but remained several strides away. Her expression distinctly said, “Zainab is mad. She's stark raving mad. What's going to happen now?”

“When do you finish schooling?” I inquired.

“Oh, I've finished. I've qualified, but now I'm serving my attachment.”

“Congratulations. So you're on holiday? You enjoy tennis?”

“I love it. But I'm not on vacation. I live in London.”

I gave my self-deprecatory gesture. “I'm afraid I'm not very fond of tennis, but I wanted to see if I could recover my former taste for it, especially with the Williams sisters playing. When it comes to sports, I'm a racist. Are you also heading for Centre Court?”

“No,” she sighed. And she mentioned the names of the players she had come to see.

“Well, I hope you enjoy your match.” I made one more effort to include her shrinking companion in the exchange, nodded briefly toward her. And then, intrigued by this retiring girl, I decided on a little more time with both, wondering if there was a history that could be dredged up from my lamentable memory. Keeping my eyes not on the forward one called Zainab but on this other, I asked, “You did not tell me the rest of your name. Zainab what?”

The girl leaned forward, raised herself onto her toes, whispered in my ear “Abacha,” and quickly drew back, still smiling, to watch my reaction.

I have, I have been told, a most expressive face, but I do wear, I have also been told, a companion mask that comes down even faster and hides the expression. This time, neither alternative was on call—there was certainly no need for the mask. I was neither startled nor alarmed; I took it all in stride. Neither internally nor by any outward gesture did I sense any instinct toward recoil. It's difficult to explain, but it seemed to me that the most natural encounter in the world had just taken place; it fitted into the pattern of so much that had happened over the past five years. Yes, within that mannered, manicured setting, to be accosted by and come face-to-face with the daughter of the man who had done his utmost to terminate my existence, and on a day when I was relishing my release from her father's custody—it all fit in. If I had any emotion at all, it was delight. After dropping her “bombshell” she had moved quickly back to watch my reaction, and I could see she was a little disappointed. She saw me smiling, and it was not faked. I admire chutzpah.