Chris Abani - GraceLand

“Where are you going?” Elvis asked. His wits were returning, fueled by terror.

“To find motor to steal. Wait here.”

Elvis nodded and shrank into the safety of a mango tree’s shadows. He held the gun gingerly, afraid it would go off and kill him. Shortly, he heard the sound of a car pulling up; but unsure of who was driving it, he stayed hidden.

“Elvis!”

He got up and looked. Redemption grinned at him from an old Mercedes-Benz. Elvis ran to the car and jumped in through the window, not bothering to open the door. As Redemption roared off, a barking dog chased after them.

FISH PEPPER SOUP

INGREDIENTS

Fresh fish

Fresh bonnet peppers

One fresh plum tomato

Palm oil

Uhiokiriho

Utazi

Onions

Maggi cubes

Salt

Crayfish

Akanwu

PREPARATION

You can use any kind of fish for this dish. Just make sure your fish is fresh. The best test for freshness is to put the fish in a bowl of water and watch to see if it moves. It should at the very least twitch, otherwise it is a little too old. Clean and gut the fish; this might include descaling if it is a scaly fish like tilapia.

Put the fish in a pot with a little water and put on to boil. Add all the other ingredients and leave to simmer for about twenty-five minutes. Serve in bowls with fresh basil.

This spicy dish is great for women who have just undergone labor. The heat of it, mixed with the herbs, releases healing enzymes and can even cause stubborn afterbirths to fall out. In some older members of the clan, there is still the belief that fish pepper soup, cooked with the right herbs, can endow the consumer with a fish’s abilities in water.

And so the kola makes its journey round the room and is seen by the eldest of all the clans.

Every time the ritual takes place, the history of all the clans present, and their connections, is enacted. This helps remembering.

Abeokuta, 1983

Elvis sighed, unwrapped a Bazooka, and read the fortune on the insert, desperately seeking words of wisdom.

“Bazooka Joe says: ‘A friend in need is always a pain.’”

That wasn’t much help, so he unwrapped another.

“Bazooka Joe says: ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.’” Still not much help.

“Bazooka Joe says: ‘It is never right to do wrong.’”

Another:

“Bazooka Joe says: ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’”

Bazooka Joes were pretty big chunks of gum, and by now he could hardly move his jaw. Still, he unwrapped another.

“Bazooka Joe says: ‘Time waits for no man.’”

“Elvis, easy, you go get lockjaw,” Redemption cautioned.

Elvis laughed and went back to looking out of the window. They had been driving since late the night before. Beyond the window, cornfields rustled in the breeze. He remembered the corn his mother grew in a small area of her garden and how their blond stalks, pregnant with seeds, brushed him teasingly as he played near them, their pollen on his arms, itching when it mixed with sweat, his shoes covered in a layer of golden dust, like sun-yellowed snow. In the distance, leafless, dried, skeletal trees held up the horizon with bleached silvery arms. Shading his eyes against the sun, Elvis looked ahead, through the windshield, absently wondering how Redemption could see to drive.

Finally running out of Bazooka Joes, and not being able to hide from it any longer, Elvis asked the question.

“What exactly happened back there?”

“I no sure, but I think dat we were trading in spare parts.”

“Spare parts? What are you talking about?”

“Spare human parts. For organ transplant.”

“What?”

“Light me one ciga and I go tell you,” Redemption said.

Elvis lit two cigarettes, passing one on. Outside, the landscape had changed to a haze of greenery. They had left the savannah and the cornfields behind and were now surrounded on either side by a dense forest. Tall palm trees and thick foliage lined the road. Elvis never ceased to be amazed by the way things changed here. Nothing happened in subtle degrees — not the weather, not the movement of time, and certainly not nature. It was impossible to see more than a couple of feet into the forest on either side, and Elvis wondered if it would be like the twilight of the forests back in Afikpo, near their house, where he went to escape his father’s anger. Once inside, it was easy to lose a bigger pursuer in the tangle of liana, ferns and other underbrush, and the darkness: not as dense as night, but a gloom far moodier, far scarier, penetrated only by the call of invisible animals and birds. Its safety was tenuous, as though it held a threat worse than a beating from his father.

“So tell me.”

Redemption took a deep breath and looked at Elvis.

“Keep your eyes on the road!”

“You sure say you want to know?”

“Just tell me.”

“American hospitals do plenty organ transplant. But dey are not always finding de parts on time to save people life. So certain people in Saudi Arabia and such a place used to buy organ parts and sell to rich white people so dey can save their children or wife or demselves.”

“They can’t do that!”

“Dis world operate different way for different people. Anyway, de rich whites buy de spare parts from de Arabs who buy from wherever dey can. Before dey used to buy only from Sudan and such a place, but de war and tings is make it hard, so dey expand de operation. People like de Colonel use their position to get human parts as you see and den freeze it. If we had cross de border yesterday, airplane for carry dose parts to Saudi hospital so dat dey can be sold.”

Elvis was silent. He stared out of the window, but kept seeing the heads in the iced cooler. He felt strange, like there were two parts of him, each watching the other, each unsure. He watched from another place as his hands trembled and his left eye twitched uncontrollably. He did not want to talk about this anymore, but somewhere he had crossed the line on that possibility.

“How much?”

“It depend on de part. Human head fetch ten thousand dollars.”

“But there is no head transplant surgery.”

Redemption laughed. “Elvis, eh! Dey can use de eyes and also something dey call stem cell. Anyway, heart is also ten thousand. De oders, like kidney, are like three to ten thousand dollars. It is big money for de Colonel.”

“So if we sell them to the Saudis at ten thousand, how much do they sell at?”

“Dat depend. If your only son dey die, how much you go pay for spare part for him?”

“Anything, I guess.”

“Dat’s right.”

They sat in silence, broken only by their breathing and Leo Sayer on the car radio, reassuring them, “You make me feel like dancing.”

Finally, Redemption said it. “You no go ask about de children we carry?”

“I was afraid to.”

“Well, as I hear, dere is too much damage to de organ as de Colonel de harvest dem. Also, not all survive de journey. So many of de parts are thrown away.”

“Oh my God!”

“Yes, dose children will arrive in Saudi alive, den, depend on de demand, dey will harvest de parts from dem. Fresh, no damage, more money for all of dem.”

“And none of the Americans ask questions about where the organs come from?”

“Like I said, if your only child dey die, you go ask question?”

“How could you get us involved, knowing all this? We are as bad as the Colonel and the Saudis.”

“No forget de whites who create de demand.”