Chris Abani - GraceLand

Put the beef to cook. When tender remove from flame. In a deep pot, bring two dessert spoons of vegetable oil to heat. Add the onions, curry powder, fresh bonnet peppers, salt and the tomatoes. Leave on a low flame to reduce. Put in a pinch of salt. When the tomatoes have reduced, put a pinch of sugar in to take away the acidity. Pour in the stock from the beef, stir in the meat and leave to cook for thirty minutes. Arrange the yam and plantain slivers in a nice pattern and drizzle the stew over it.

The youngest male must carry the wooden kola bowl and show it to all of the guests in order of seniority and in order of clan.

The youngest male brings the ornate wooden bowl with the kola nut in it. Carved in the shape of an animal, the bowl has a center dip of peppered peanut butter, which the kola nut is dipped into before eating. ln the absence of this, and sometimes even in its presence, alligator pepper is presented as well.

Lagos, 1983

Elvis approached the veranda, where his father sat sipping meditatively on kaikai. The local gin had herbs and roots steeped in it, and the once clear liquid had taken on a murky mud color. He stood for a while in the doorway looking at his father, trying to assess his mood. Aunt Felicia’s visit had stirred up questions that he had buried deep inside himself, and now he wanted answers.

The street outside was busy with people hurrying past. A few threw casual greetings at Sunday. With a sigh, Elvis walked out and sat down on the low wall enclosing the veranda. It was waist-high and built of decorative cinder blocks that interlocked in a ladder pattern. Elvis hooked his heels into some of the holes to keep his balance. His position put him squarely in front of his father.

“Evening, sir,” he said.

“Evening.”

“Can I speak to you about something?” Elvis asked.

“If it is about my drinking, dis is medicinal.”

Elvis smiled.

“No, it’s about something else.”

“What?”

“You remember when Godfrey disappeared?”

“Uhuh.”

“Well, Efua came to see me saying she overheard her father and Innocent talking about money.”

“You remember dis?”

“Yes.”

“Never mind. What is your point?” Sunday asked.

Elvis noticed that his father’s eyes had hardened, but Elvis cleared his throat and pressed on.

“She said Uncle Joseph was discussing paying Innocent for killing and burying Godfrey in the forest somewhere.”

“Was I dere at de time?”

“In the room with them? No.”

“So why are you asking me? Go and ask Joseph, good-for-nothing brother dat he is. Here I am suffering while he is rich, but he cannot offer to help, eh? After I put him through school, gave him de money to start his business, made him de man he is today.”

“Why don’t you just ask him for help?”

“You know nothing, eh? I am de senior brother. No, he should know what to do. After all, did he ask me to help him? No! I knew what I had to do as his brother and I did it.”

Elvis considered the logic for a while, then realized that if he tried to explore it, he would be led away from what he wanted to talk about.

“Efua said that Uncle Joseph and you paid Innocent one thousand naira each to kill Godfrey. You paid the first installment and Uncle Joseph was to pay when the job was done.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Do you know what happened to Godfrey?”

“How should I know? Dat boy was a criminal, a disgrace to de family. Maybe he got killed stealing from somebody. For all I know, he is in prison in Katsina-Ala!”

“So Efua was lying?”

“Is it not de same Efua dat said Joseph raped her?”

“He did.”

“What are you talking about? Are you mad? I thought we had dis conversation years ago?” Sunday was yelling now.

“Easy — we don’t want the neighborhood to know,” Elvis cautioned.

Sunday swallowed a glassful of kaikai and shuddered. The alcohol cut the edge off his anger.

“If not dat I have been drinking, I would beat you to an inch of your life, you bastard!” Sunday hissed.

“Listen, I am grown now. I am no longer afraid of you,” Elvis said, unhooking his feet from the wall in case he needed to get up in a hurry.

“How can you say dese things about your own family?” Sunday asked.

“I saw Uncle Joseph raping Efua. I saw him.”

“So does dat make us murderers?”

“That is why I am asking you if you had anything to do with it.”

“And I said no.”

Elvis rubbed a hand across his face and looked out into the street. They lived in one of the few places where Maroko made contact with the ground. Halfway along, the street sloped up into a plank walkway. But outside their house, the street was muddy and full of potholes. In the abandoned uncompleted building across the street, the makeshift buka was turning a good trade in fried yam and dodo. He watched the crowd coming and going and absently made a note to get some before it closed.

In the middle of the street a taxi idled, the driver’s door open. The interior light was on and Elvis could see the driver talking to a young woman in the passenger seat. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but everything about the man’s manner indicated that she was his lover. Soft highlife music from the car radio leaked into the night.

“I don’t believe you,” Elvis said, turning back to his father.

“Who are you to believe or disbelieve me? Look at dis mad child, dis world has spoiled!”

“Innocent came to my room a few nights after the murder,” Elvis said, pausing at the word “murder.” That was something, to call it that, but what else was it? he thought.

“I gave him food and he seemed very afraid. He mentioned Godfrey, then fled in terror,” he continued.

“So you harbored a known criminal in my house?”

“What do you mean, ‘a known criminal’?”

“Well, you said Efua told you dat Innocent killed Godfrey. So you knew he was a criminal and yet you harbored him in my house.”

Elvis stared at his father, mouth open. This could not be happening, he thought.

“Shut your mouth before a fly enters it,” Sunday said. “All your life, you have been like dis, eh? Never having a grip on de real world. You are just like your dead mother. Touched.”

“Leave my mother out of this!”

Sunday stood up threateningly.

“Are you shouting at me? Are you crazy? I will—”

“Sit down, old man, before you fall down,” Elvis said, rising to his feet.

They stood staring each other down for a few minutes; then, unexpectedly, Sunday folded, his rage gone, replaced by a look Elvis took to be shame.

“Dis world has spoiled,” Sunday muttered under his breath as he sat down.

“Dad.”

Sunday looked up. It sounded strange to hear his son call him Dad, but he liked it.

“Dad,” Elvis repeated.

“What?”

“Did you pay Innocent to kill Godfrey?”

“You don’t understand de difficulty of trying to be a man in dis society. So many expectations, so much pressure. You will see.”

“So he is dead.”

“I never said dat.”

“You didn’t have to. Dad, did you have anything to do with it?”

“Do you know what people ask you when dey meet you as a young man? Who is your father? First, dey want to know your father’s name, de stock you come from, before dey decide whether to bother talking to you.”

Elvis was silent. He reached for the kaikai. With trembling hands he put the bottle to his mouth and took a deep drink. The liquor burned through him in a series of hacking coughs.

“Easy,” Sunday said.