Chris Abani - GraceLand

“So what is your point, my friend? We all have to die sometimes, you know. If it is your time, it is your time. You can be in your bed and die. If it is not your time, you can’t die even if you cross de busiest road. After all, you can fall from de bridge into de road and die. Now isn’t dat double foolishness?”

Elvis stared at him, shook his head and went back to staring out of the window.

Outside, the road was littered with dead bodies at regular intervals. “At least take away the bodies,” he muttered to himself.

“Dey cannot,” the man interjected into his thoughts. “Dis stupid government place a fine on dying by crossing road illegally. So de relatives can only take de body when dey pay de fine.”

“What about the State Sanitation Department?”

“Is dis your first day in Lagos? Dey are on strike or using de government ambulances as hearses in deir private business. Dis is de only country I know dat has plenty ambulances, but none in de hospitals or being used to carry sick people. One time, American reporter dey sick in Sheraton Hotel, so he call for de ambulance. De hospital tell him dat he must book in advance and dat de nearest available time is de following Tuesday. When de hotel staff insist, talk say de man was about to die, de ambulance department told dem dat dey only carry dead people for a fee as part of funeral processions. If de man was alive, dey suggest make de hotel rush him to de hospital by taxi,” the man continued, laughing.

“How can you find that funny? That is the trouble with this country. Everything is accepted. No dial tones or telephones. No stamps in post offices. No electricity. No water. We just accept.”

“Listen, my friend, anybody rich enough to afford telephone in country where most people dey fight for survival, dey should have de decency to wait for a dial tone.”

Elvis could hardly wait for his stop and trudged home wearily, shoes ringing out on the walkways. It was late and much of Maroko was asleep, awash with moonlight. In the distance a woman sang in a sorrow-cracked voice that made him catch his breath, stop and look around. In that moment, it all looked so beautiful, like a sequence from one of the films he had seen. Then the silence was broken by the approach of menacing steps. He turned and saw several figures coming toward him.

“Hey!” one of them called.

Alarm bells went off in Elvis’s head and he took off at speed, trying to keep his balance on the walkway. The figures chased him for a while, their laughter following him. He did not stop until he got home and slammed his door behind him.

Redemption was right; he had to think with more than his guns.

THE CALL TO PRAYER (ISLAM)

God is most great God is most great.

God is most great. God is most great.

I testify that there is no god except God

I testify that there is no god except God

I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God

I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God

Come to prayer! Come to prayer!

Come to success in this life and the hereafter!

Come to success!

God is most great. God is most great

There is no god except God.

The shape is always traced by a divine finger. Look always to the King’s head for the star. It never lies.

The ideal kola nut has four lobes, which join at the nut’s apex, in the shape of a star. The four-lobed kola nut is rare. The most common is two-lobed. The number of lobes, determined by the line running across the kola nut’s apex, determines what kind of person the petitioner is.

Afikpo, 1976

Friday. Under the stern but amused gaze of Oye and the excited, not-missing-anything nine-year-old intensity of Elvis, spread on raffia mats on the veranda, Aunt Felicia and her friends settled down to prepare for the weekend and the parties they wanted to attend. The formal year-long mourning period for Elvis’s mother had just ended. The entire family had performed the full rites, with the exception of his father. Igbo men didn’t mourn women publicly. It was considered bad taste.

The giggling girls had an air of excitement about them that blew through the mustiness of their grief with a welcome freshness. Gone were the unkempt hair and black clothes, and it seemed to Elvis that he had only just become aware of color, seeing it everywhere and in everything, vividly. From the radio in the corner, the Reverend Al Green crooned, “I’m so tired of being alone, I’m so tired …”

The girls plaited their hair into wild and wonderful shapes: sensuous cornrows that disappeared on the horizon of the head, holding the promise of love; straight fingers reaching up to graze the face of the sky; bangs that fell in spiral caress around their faces, or natural locks interwoven with cowrie shells and bits of silver and gold. Aunt Felicia had invented a plait called Concorde, complete with a Concorde -shaped aircraft taxiing down the crown of the head to the nape. She and her friends swapped makeup tips, tweezed eyebrows into thin whispers, hot-combed their hair into burned flat runs or Afro blowouts that eclipsed the sun every time they walked by, suffering as they singed, pulled, tied and yanked. Shaved hair from armpits and legs fell in among giggled methods of birth control, the most popular being to drink a bottle of bitter lemon after sex.

“Kills de sperm,” Aunt Felicia said.

Elvis longed to try on their makeup and have his hair plaited. Aunt Felicia finally gave into his badgering and wove his hair into lovely cornrows. One of the other girls put lipstick on him. Giggling, and getting into the game, another pulled a minidress over his head. On Elvis, it fell nearly to the floor, like an evening gown. He stepped into a pair of Aunt Felicia’s too-big platforms and pranced about, happy, proud, chest stuck out.

Looking up, he saw his father, Sunday, coming up the path. Aunt Felicia and Oye took in Sunday’s approaching figure with alarmed gasps and then looked back at Elvis’s cornrowed hair, painted face and dress, but it was too late. Elvis had kicked off the platforms and was halfway down the steps running to meet Sunday. He thought that somehow his father would like him better with the new hairdo. Sunday had not been the same since Beatrice died and he’d lost all interest in his son, except to reprimand or punish him. Sunday stopped and squinted as Elvis approached, face changing in slow degrees from amusement to shock and finally to rage.

Elvis ran straight into the first blow, which nearly took his head clean off. As he fell, his father grabbed him with one hand, steadying him, while with the other he beat him around the head, face, buttocks, everywhere. Too shocked to react, still out of breath from his sprint, Elvis gulped for air as his father choked him. Suddenly, Oye towered beside them. Sunday glanced at the steel of her eyes and dropped Elvis like a rag. She caught him, enfolding him into her as he sobbed himself into unconsciousness.

When he came to, he was cocooned in Oye’s soothing and healing smell. His lip was cut and he couldn’t see out of one eye, but he could hear his father ranting in the backyard, giving Aunt Felicia a rough time.

“No son of mine is going to grow up as a homosexual! Do you hear me?!” he shouted at her.

Elvis could not hear her mumbled response.

“When you have your own children, you can do what you like. But Elvis is my son. Son, not daughter …”

Aunt Felicia’s voice cut him off.

“Don’t interrupt me when I am speaking — otherwise I will beat de living daylights out of you!” he screamed.