Chigozie Obioma - The Fishermen

Boja found a spot from which one of the televisions could be glimpsed and sneaked in between two men, leaving Obembe and me, but we, too, finally found a spot from where we could only see intermittently if we bent leftwards through a small space between two men whose shoes reeked like rotten pork. Obembe and I were submerged for the next fifteen minutes or so in a sickening claustrophobic sea of bodies that gave off the most profound smell of humanity. One man smelt of candle wax, another smelt of old clothes, another of animal flesh and blood, another of dried paint, another of petrol, and one, of sheet metal. When I got tired of covering my nose with my hand, I whispered into Obembe’s ear that I wanted to go back home.

“Why?” he asked, as if surprised, although he too was scared of the big-headed man behind him, and probably wanted to leave as well. The man had eyes that stared inwards at each other, the kind of eyes commonly known as quarter-after-four eyes. Obembe was also afraid because this scary-looking man had barked that he should “stand properly,” and rudely shoved Obembe’s head with his dirty hands. The man was a bat: ugly and terrible.

“We shouldn’t go; Ikenna and Boja are here,” he whispered back, stealing gazes at the man from the corner of his eyes.

“Where?” I whispered back.

He let a good time pass, slowly tilting his head backwards until he was able to whisper: “He’s seated in front, I saw—” But his voice was ferried away by the sudden uproar that broke out. Frantic cries of “Amuneke!” and “Goal!” rent the air, throwing the hall into a tumult of jubilation. The bat-like man’s companion elbowed Obembe in the head while flailing his arms in the air, shouting. Obembe let out a yelp that was absorbed by the riotous wail so that it appeared as if he was rejoicing with the men. He fell against me, cringing with pain. The man who’d hit him did not even notice, but went on shouting.

“Let’s go home, this place is bad,” I said to Obembe after I’d said a dozen “Sorry, Obe.” But feeling this might not convince him, I said what Mother often said when we insisted on going out to see a football match: “We mustn’t see this match. After all, should they win, the players aren’t going to share the money with us.”

This worked. He nodded in acceptance, stifling tears. I managed to edge forward and tapped Boja on the shoulder where he stood, sandwiched between two older boys.

“What?” he asked hurriedly.

“We’re going.”

“Why?”

I did not reply.

“Why?” he asked again, eager to return his eyes to the screen.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Okay, see you then,” he said, and swiftly turned back to the television.

Obembe asked for the torchlight but Boja did not hear the request.

“We don’t need the torchlight,” I said, as I struggled for space between two tall men. “We can walk slowly. God can guide us home safely.”

We went out, his hand on the place the man had elbowed, perhaps feeling it to see if it had swollen. This night was dark — so dark we could barely see except for the light of cars and motorcycles intermittently passing on the road. But they were very few because everyone seemed to be somewhere, watching the Olympic match.

“That man’s a wild animal, he couldn’t even say sorry,” I said, fighting the increasing urge to cry. It was as though I could feel Obembe’s pain just as he did; the urge to cry overwhelmed me.

“Shhhh,” Obembe said just then.

He pulled me into a corner close to a wooden kiosk. At first I did not see anything, and then I, too, saw what he’d seen. For there, standing by the palm tree outside our gate was Abulu the madman. The sight had come with such suddenness that it seemed unreal to me at first. I had not seen him since the day we encountered him at Omi-Ala, but in the days and weeks that passed, in absentia — or perhaps from a distance — he’d gradually filled my life, our lives, with his afflictive presence. I’d heard his story, been warned against him, had prayed against him. Yet I’d not seen him, and without knowing it, I’d been waiting to — even wanting to see him. And there he was, standing in front of our gate, staring intently into our compound, but seemingly not trying to enter it. Obembe and I stood there watching him as he gesticulated, waving his hand in the air as if in a conversation with someone he alone could see. Then, suddenly turning, he began walking towards us, whispering something as he went along. As he passed us, we heard — between muffled breaths — the whispering of something that I reckoned Obembe had heard distinctly, too; for he grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the madman’s path. Panting, I watched him walk away into the outstretched darkness. A shadow of him created by the headlamps of our neighbour’s truck loomed briefly over the street and then vanished as the truck drew closer.

“Did you hear what he was saying?” Obembe asked me once we lost sight of him.

I shook my head.

“Didn’t you?” he breathed.

Just as I was about to answer, a man carrying a child on his shoulders waddled past. The child was mumbling a nursery rhyme:

Rain, rain, go away

Come again another day

Little children want to play…

They were barely out of earshot when Obembe asked again.

I shook my head — to gesture that I hadn’t, but it was a lie. Although not distinctly, I’d heard the word Abulu had repeated as he passed. It had sounded the same way it did the day the end of our peace was initiated: “ Ikena .”

A dubious joy swept through Nigeria, spreading from evening into morning the way locusts pour down at night, and vanish by sunrise, leaving their wings scattered through the town. Obembe, Boja and I rejoiced deep into the night, listening as Boja gave us a minute-by-minute commentary of the game, movie-like, so that Jay-Jay Okocha dribbled the opponents the way Superman delivered the kidnapped, and Emmanuel Amuneke had jet-balled his goal-scoring kick like a Power Ranger. Mother had to intervene around midnight, insisting that we retire to bed. When at last I slept, I had a million dreams and was asleep into the morning when Obembe tapped me forcefully, screaming “Wake up! Wake up, Ben — they are fighting!”

“Who, what?” I asked in confusion.

“They are fighting,” he clattered. “Ikenna and Boja. It’s a serious fight. Come.” He moved in the ray of light like a disoriented moth and then, turning to see me still in the bed, cried: “Listen, listen — it is fierce. Come!”

Long before Obembe woke me, Boja had woken up, cursing. The rickety lorry of our cross-wall neighbours, the Agbatis had torn through the thin layer that separated the dream world from the unconscious world with the sporadic buzz of vroom! vroommm! vroommmmm! Although the truck woke him, he’d wanted to wake early so he could go practise drum-beating with other boys of our church. He had a bath, ate his portion of the bread and butter Mother, who’d gone to her shop with David and Nkem, had left for us, but had to wait to change into a new shirt and trousers, because — although he had stopped sleeping in the room he shared with Ikenna — his possessions were still in his closet. Mother, the falconer, had repeatedly pleaded that he move in with Obembe and me, saying: “ Ha pu lu ekwensu ulo ya —Leave the devil to his den.” But Boja did not yield. He contended that the room was his as well as Ikenna’s, and that he would not leave. And since Ikenna and he were not speaking, Boja had to often wait for Ikenna to wake and unlock the door without having to ask Ikenna to open it. Ikenna, however, had stayed out for most of that night to partake in the wild street celebrations that had swept through Nigeria, and remained in the room well into noon. Obembe would add, too, much later to me alone that Ikenna had returned home drunk. He’d said he’d perceived a strong smell of alcohol on Ikenna when Obembe let him in through our shutters because Mother locked the main door and gate at midnight.