Chris Abani - GraceLand

Elvis watched his father’s face in the gathering shadows. He had watched him do this before: play records, drink and then cry into the night, the falling rain muffling his sobs. But tonight it felt different — unremarkable, yet different, like the masks that adorned the walls of the men’s cult house.

His father was talking to Beatrice’s ghost. Elvis had never seen anyone else account to the dead. Daily, people thanked, cursed, supplicated and yelled at God. But the dead were another matter. They were too unpredictable, too vengeful.

Sunday Oke let out a long sigh and wiped his eyes, completely oblivious to Elvis’s gaze. He should never have agreed to get involved in politics, he thought. Never listened to the supporters who had egged him on with promises of money and help, but who had disappeared leaving him with a heavy debt. He certainly should not have taken early retirement from his lucrative job as the district education inspector. The job had offered prestige and a good wage, which he supplemented handsomely with generous bribes from schools and headmasters who wanted favorable reports.

“I mean, look at me,” he mumbled to the empty stool next to him. “Oh, Beatrice, look at me, reduced to dis. Now I have to sell off my father’s land and dis house to pay dose debts, and to survive I have to take a job in Lagos, running away with my tail tucked between my legs.”

He took a deep swallow and grimaced loudly as the harsh liquor burned through his pain.

“My supporters, you ask?” he went on, refilling his glass. “I ask de same. As soon as things got sticky, de tricky bastards decamped to dat thief Okonkwo, who paid them generously. Me? I was left alone to foot de bill for de ambition of others.”

He took another mouthful and gargled before swallowing.

“What did you say …? Of course it was my ambition too. But I was stupid to let dem talk me — what? Don’t interrupt me, Beatrice. Just because you are dead does not mean I can’t slap your face,” he grunted.

Leaning back in the chair, he laughed bitterly through his tears.

“Of course you don’t understand. You are a woman, how could you? Honor is a secondhand concept for you, earned through your husbands or sons. But for us … for us it is different,” he continued. “I had come too far to step down. People were looking at me; my honor was naked in public and I had to clothe it.”

Sobs wracked his body and he fought to gain control. Meanwhile, the Temptations were “talkin’ ’bout my girl, my girl.”

Letting out his breath, he continued. “I know I lost. Dat is the consequence of war, Beatrice. Someone wins, anoder loses. But as long as de fight was with honor, both warriors can rest peacefully.”

Elvis continued to watch his father silently. Part of him wanted to reach out in comfort, but something deeper told him it would be wrong. This was too private a thing to be shared. Elvis left his perch and crossed the corridor, heading for bed. He noted Felicia’s absence with a strange pang. She was probably with her boyfriend, the one he had just found out about. Pulling the covers up to his chin, he let the drumming of the rain on the roof lull him.

The eldest guest blesses the bowl and says, “We have seen the kola, but the King’s kola must return to the King.”

History is at the heart of the ritual, marked in Igbo by the word omenala, which literally means “the way we have always done it.”

Lagos, 1983

“So we work for the Colonel?” Elvis asked.

“Dat’s right,” Redemption replied.

“I don’t like that.”

“Elvis, behave O! Dat’s why I no tell you, because I know you can act out.”

“But that guy is dangerous.”

“So you better behave.”

“What does he want us to do?”

“I told you, I no sure, but it is safe business.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t believe anything involving that man, or his friends, can be safe. Or legal.”

“I no talk say it is legal. But is only a little illegal, you know? Like when something bend, but not too much.”

“I don’t think there is such a thing as a little illegal. It is illegal or not.”

“Haba Elvis! So you are telling me dat stealing bread from bakery to feed yourself and killing somebody is de same? Everything get degree.”

“I don’t like this, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Fine. No like am, but do am.”

Having slept late, they had only both woken up a few minutes before. They were hurriedly shoving food into their mouths as they waited to be picked up. Elvis was still a little sleepy. After his conversation with his father, he had barely fallen asleep when Redemption had come round, banging on his door. He gave Elvis ten minutes to take a hurried shower before hustling him off. They had taken several buses and were now in a part of Lagos he’d never been to. As they waited, Redemption suggested they get some food in a nearby buka.

“So how long have you worked for the Colonel?” Elvis asked.

“For long time. Even dat last deal we do …”

“The cocaine?”

“Yes, dat was him too. Now he is in a new trade.”

“I don’t know what trade can be more lucrative than drugs. Why the switch?”

“Do you know if it is airplane we are buying and selling? Enough question. Eat.”

“But it is illegal no matter what kind of trade, right?”

“Watch yourself,” Redemption warned.

Just then, they heard shouts of “Ole! Ole!” from the small market to their left. It was half hidden by a timber merchant’s sprawling compound, and Elvis hadn’t noticed it at first. A small crowd chased a man out onto the dirt road between the market and the line of bukas. Elvis got up to get a closer look, but Redemption pulled him down.

“Stay out of it,” he hissed.

The crowd had formed an angry semicircle around the man, leaving the timber yard as the only possible escape; but the mean-faced workers gathered at the gate ruled out that option. The man didn’t look to be more than twenty, though it was hard to tell, partly because his face was dirty and bloody. A tire hung from his neck like a rubber garland, and his eyes wore the look of a cornered animal.

“But I no steal anything!” he shouted. “I beg, I no want to die!”

“Shut up!”

“Ole!”

“Thief!”

“I no be thief! I came to collect my money from dat man who owes me!” the accused thief shouted, pointing at a man in the crowd.

“Which man?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Dat one. Peter.”

The man he was referring to, a short, nondescript man, shifted uncomfortably. “Who owe you? Craze man!” Peter shouted, throwing a stone at the accused thief.

It caught him on the temple, tearing a gash, and fresh blood pumped dark and thick.

“I no be thief O! Hey, God help me! My name is Jeremiah, I am a carpenter. I no be thief!”

“Shut up!” the crowd shouted.

“Is he a thief?” Elvis asked Redemption.

“Maybe.”

“Or is he a carpenter?”

“Maybe.”

“Which one?”

“Either. I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“My name is Jeremiah. My name is Jeremiah,” the man kept repeating.

The crowd had grown silent; the lack of sound, sinister, dropped over the scene like a dark presence. Jeremiah was spinning around in a circle like a broken sprocket, pleading with each face, repeating his name over and over. Instead of loosening the edge of tension by humanizing him, the mantra of his name, with every circle he spun, seemed to wind the threat of violence tighter, drawing the crowd closer in.