Chigozie Obioma - The Fishermen

“The Fishermen,” Pastor Collins cried once he saw us, thrusting his hands in the air.

“Sir,” Obembe and I chorused in unison. “Welcome, Pastor.”

“ Ehen , my children. Come and greet me.”

He stood slightly to shake our hands. He had the habit of shaking hands with everyone he met — even little children — with certain unusual reverence and humility. Ikenna once said that he was not a foolish man for his meekness, but that he was humble because he was ‘born-again’. He was a few years older than Father, but was short and solidly built.

“Pastor, when did you come?” Obembe said, flashing a smile, standing beside him, and although we’d thrown our shirts away into the dump behind our fence, he smelt of the esan grass, sweat, and of something else. The Pastor’s face brightened at the question.

“I have been here a while,” he replied. He peered with a squint into the watch that had slid from his arm to his wrist. “I think I have been here since six; no, say, since quarter to six.”

“Where are your shirts?” Mother asked, perplexed.

I was startled. We had not planned a defence, not even thought about what it would be and had merely thrown the shirts because Abulu’s blood had stained them, and entered the house with our shorts and canvas shoes.

“The heat Mama,” Obembe said after a pause, “we were soaked in sweat.”

“And,” she continued, rising to her feet, her eyes scanning us closely. “And look at you, Benjamin, your head all covered in mud?”

All eyes fell on me.

“Tell me, where did you go?”

“We’ve been playing football at a pitch near the public high school,” Obembe replied.

“Oh dear!” Pastor Collins cried. “These street football people.”

David began to remove his shirt, distracting Mother. “What for?” Mother inquired.

“Heat, heat, Mama, I’m feeling hot, too,” he said.

“Eh, you feel hot?”

He nodded.

“Ben, put on the fan for him,” Mother ordered while the Pastor chuckled. “And go right away, both of you, into the bathroom and clean up!”

“No, no, let me do it,” David cried. He hurriedly carried a stool to the switch box pinned to the wall, mounted it and wound the knob clockwise. The fan came to life, swirling noisily.

David had saved us, for while they were at it, my brother and I slipped away to our room and locked it. Although we’d worn our shorts inside out to conceal the bloodstains, I feared that Mother, who often found out what we did, would discover everything if we’d stood there a moment more.

The watt bulb caused me to squint for a moment when my brother turned it on when we entered the room.

“Ben,” he said, his eyes filling with joy again. “We did it. We avenged them — Ike and Boja.”

He locked me in a warm embrace again, and when I rested my head on his shoulder, I felt the urge to cry.

“Do you know what it means?” he said now, detaching from me, but holding my hands.

“ Esan —reckoning,” he said. “I’ve read a lot and know that without it, our brothers would never forgive us, and we could never be free.”

He gazed away from me now to the floor. I followed his eyes and saw bloodstains on the back of his left leg. I closed my eyes, nodding in acceptance.

We huddled into the bathroom afterwards and he bathed from a bucket he placed in a corner of the Jacuzzi, scooping water sporadically with a big jug, and pouring it on his body to wash off suds from a bar of soap. The soap had been left in a small pool of water, which had dissolved it into half its original size. To use the soap judiciously, he’d first rubbed it on his hair to lather. Then, pouring water on his head, he rubbed himself with his hands as the water and suds swam down his body. He wrapped himself with the large towel both of us shared, still smiling. When I took over at the Jacuzzi, my hands were shaking. Winged insects that had flocked in from the tear in the netting behind the louvres of the small bathroom window to congregate around the light bulb, crawled about the walls of the bathroom while the ones that had shed their wings formed insect goo around it. I tried to focus on the insects to steady my mind, but I could not. A feeling of some great terror hung about me, and as I tried to pour water on my body, the plastic jug fell from my hand and broke.

“Ah Ben, Ben,” Obembe called, dashing forward. He steadied my shoulders with his hands, “Ben, look me in the eyes,” he said.

I could not so he raised his hands to my head, moved my head to focus on him.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Why Ben, why? Ati gba esan —We have achieved reckoning. Why, why, Fisherman Ben, are you afraid?”

“The soldiers,” I mustered. “I’m afraid of them.”

“Why, what will they do?”

“I’m afraid the soldiers will come for us and kill us — all of us.”

“Shh, put your voice down,” he said. I had not realized that I had spoken aloud. “Listen, Ben, the soldiers won’t. They don’t know us; they won’t. Don’t even think of that. They don’t know where we are or who we are. They didn’t see you come here, did they?”

I shook my head.

“So, why then do you fear? There is nothing to be afraid of. Listen, days decay, like food, like fish, like dead bodies. This night will decay, too and you will forget. Listen, we will forget. Nothing”—he shook his head vigorously—“nothing will happen to us. No one will touch us. Father will come back tomorrow and take us to Mr Bayo and we will go to Canada.”

He shook me to get an approval and I believed — at the time — that he easily knew when he’d convinced me, when he’d totally upturned a belief of mine or a piece of inferior knowledge as one would upturn a cup. And there were times when I needed him to do it, when I deeply craved his words of wisdom, which often moved me.

“You see it?” he asked, shaking me now.

“Tell me,” I said, “what about Daddy and Mama; will the soldiers not touch them either?”

“No, they won’t,” he said, punching his left fist into his right palm. “They will be just fine, happy and will always come to Canada to see us.”

I nodded, was silent a while before another question — like a tiger — sprang out of the cage of my thoughts. “Tell,” I said softly, “what — what about you, Obe?”

“Me?” he asked. “Me?” He wiped his face with his hand, shaking his head. “Ben, I said, I said: I. Will. Be. Fine. You. Will. Be. Fine. Daddy, will be fine. Mama, will be fine. Eh, all — everything.”

I nodded. I could see that he’d become frustrated with my questions.

He took a smaller jug from inside the big black drum and began washing me. The drum reminded me of how Boja, after he got saved at a Reinhard Bonnke evangelical convention, persuaded us to be baptized else we’d all go to hell. Then one after the other, he coaxed us into repentance and baptized us in the drum. I was six at the time, and Obembe, eight, and because we were much smaller, we both had to stand on empty Pepsi crates to be able to dip into the water. Then one after the other, Boja bent our heads into the water until we began to cough. Then he would lift our heads, his face gleaming, hug us and declare us free.

We were dressing when Mother called out that we should hurry up, because Pastor Collins wanted to pray for us before he left. Later, when the Pastor asked my brother and me to kneel, David insisted he would join us.

“No! Get up!” Mother barked. But David made a face, ready to cry. “If you cry, if you try that, I will flog you.”

“Oh, no, Paulina,” the Pastor said, laughing. “Dave, please don’t worry, you will kneel after I finish with them.”