Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

Imoni looked up and saw Yunusa coming. “That’s the guy whose accommodation we’re trying to secure, just surfacing.”

“I see.”

Yunusa joined them. “Hello.” He shook hands.

“You’ve come in good time,” Imoni observed.

“I didn’t meet the man, so I left immediately. How goes about the accommodation?”

“A good circumstance. Your receipt’s on the way.”

Imoni smoothly plucked the receipt from Aham’s hand when he came around. “Still that amount?”

Aham ignored him. To Yunusa, he said, “You’re back so soon.”

“I missed the man.”

Later, as they left the hall office, Imoni said, “We planned to go to Bee Hive. Could we now go?”

“What’s the time now?” Aham looked at his own wrist watch.

“Three thirty,” Yunusa said.

“Why don’t we wait till around four-thirty?” Aham advised. “Just walk around and see the school.”

“Okay.”

They were now walking casually along a main street into the D hall area. Both Aham and Imoni stood shoulder to shoulder at six feet, while Yunusa and Yinka, taking the flanks, shrunk by a few inches.

Imoni never tired of inward criticism of the school’s depreciating beauty, was now impressed by the place and its unusual and wonderful elegance occasioned by the revived plants all around. He thought that was how a university environment should be. Some rouges here and there, and the intertwining at the hedges. The return of pleasant horticulture. Some of the plants still had protective gears. That somebody thought about these plants out here. Aham said the unseen hand responsible for the change was a friend; an Indian or Bangladeshi. He could even be Singaporee. They all looked one-in to him. He gave the man’s unseen back a pat.

“Who is that guy?” Yinka suddenly asked.

“Haven’t seen him before?” Imoni asked. “Ah, he’s all bristled up. That’s Silas on the stomp.”

“What’s he doing? See. He has no audience.”

The others laughed. “His audience is visible to him alone,” Yunusa told him. “He with his invisible audience is a common spectacle here.”

Yinka stared on, perplexed. In earnest, and with strains of his fury standing out on his face, Silas was making a ferocious speech with the professional delivery of a gifted politician at a rally. “They want to kill poor Silas,” his hands were moving. “They want to drive me underground because I dare uphold the truth. But their actions will come to naught. Even now, they whimper with their bruised nose. Even the veecee, Mr...”

Yinka was shocked. “He calls the Vice Chancellor? His name, and by Mr.?”

“The guy can tear. One of the warheads we have here. Whom does he spare? Let’s go, else you turn spectacle instead of Silas himself.” Imoni drew him by the hand.

They amused him with Silas’ stories, providing him with a lot to laugh at, especially his softness for women. He would get to know him anyway, they told him, then he would learn to ignore him. The young man had such incredible eloquence, but he appeared underfed and unbalanced. So, why were they ignoring him? he inquired. Why they were ignoring him, no one knew, said Yunusa. His condition was put down to opium. So, they were told. And some said he studied too hard and had brain fag. And others, he took a relation’s woman and a curse was following him.

Yinka couldn’t hold back on Silas whose voice sound was being reduced by distance. “Such unskilful display of strength can’t deter me,” Silas was saying. “The university as a fine soil for intellectual activism, not kneading unworthy.... Abilities should be determined by...”

The quartet received and extended pleasantries at the trade fair complex corridors, then crossed into hall B. Through the entire frame of the school, transfer and transport of furniture, gathering of sweepings, interesting circumstances and initial marks of a young semester, enterprised earnestly. Some students with a head start had already taken to entertainment.

“Waltz,” some students practising music with instruments under a tree called.

“Orlando.”

“Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year.”

“Aham.”

Hands were in the air.

A student from the opposing direction hooked fingers with Imoni, and was on his way again.

“You’re karried?” Yinka asked.

“Ah, he’s woked,” Yunusa said, laughing.

“And you?” Imoni asked him.

“Karried.” They both affirmed their fraternity. “This is Illya du?”

“Illya du Sahara,” Imoni told him. “I even want to see the Chief, Bokassa, very soon.”

“We’ll both go together, then. But, what’s the guy’s karability?”

Karability meant the Chief possessed the vision and wisdom of their ancestors. The local Palm Wine Drinkards Club was blessed with a Chief, a fellow empowered by insane gods and surrounded by his own voice. In the club, few were called, but many were chosen. It sought converts, but never begged for them. Imoni and Yinka spent some time discussing the club and affirming their fraternity.

“I guess I have to go back,” Yinka said later.

“Why?” Aham asked. “We’re just taking a stroll around. Aren’t you enjoying it.?”

“I am, but I have to see a friend about the new bed space. I want to swap with a friend of his.”

He would be missed, they regretted. They exchanged addresses with him and begged him not to go watch that poor Silas. But, he had a problem. The place had completely disarranged his geographical balance; what it did to every new comer. “How do I go back now?” he asked. He was told to just turn left, go straight, then, after about five hundred metres, turn right.

“Thank you.”

“Small. Bye.”

The hall, B, remained the noisiest in school, Imoni was telling his friends. Like a musical competition going on. “Can’t you hear the music from this hostel? Those must be outdoor speakers.” Even then, a truck arrived with some musical equipment. He was always amazed at the size of those speakers. He waved a female fan.

Often, a door bore a poster of Ghadafi, Castro or one personality or the other. Aham raised a hand to one of two young men passing nearby. One, light complexioned, and slightly on the stocky side, carried snacks in one hand, and the other hand hooked two bottles. He had both hands spread out clearly in a self-important manner. “Who are those guys?” Imoni asked Aham.

The lanky one was part of a little group they hosted at a Law dinner the previous day, Aham said. He didn’t know the one carrying those things.

He thought those things were usually put in things, Imoni said. Or was the young man trying to show the whole world he was going for a snacks dinner? Such ceremony he was making about it, he continued. The young man even had to polish that with an assumed good walk. Designer walk. He commented on the form of the fellow’s shoulder, open wings and roughly rolled-up sleeves. He just wondered where they picked up such habits.

The young man spoken about was supposed to be a royal off-shoot, Yunusa told them. The son of an influential and wealthy traditional ruler. Was it then why he had that pedal walk? Imoni asked. What was he exhibiting?

It was probably the way he elected to live his own life, Aham replied. It was a free world here. People should be free with their inclinations.

Yunusa began to relate more than Imoni probably would wish to hear. He related how he had encountered the young man and two others in a very bewildering instance at a popular barbecue spot the previous day and how they shook the place.

“Those guys must have caused some other guys some anxiety,” Imoni observed after the narration. “But, do they think they’re still in secondary school? They must be insane.”