Luke Williams - The Echo Chamber

The crowd came from all over the town: people poured out of lanes, out of houses and backyards and made their way to Broad Street to join the celebrations. Before the glass façade of Independence House stood a makeshift stage, painted black, with a microphone, and chairs for the dignitaries. It was three o’clock. The Governor stepped out from the motionless shade of Independence House, on to the bright stage. Then came the architect, accompanied by Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister, in his white robes. For ten minutes, possibly more, the civic leadership emerged, followed by the members of the Lagos Executive Development Board, including my father and Mr Honeyman. A boy worked a fan to keep the flies from the Governor’s face. There was a pause. The crowd made a peculiar high-pitched noise. Drums sounded, there was a collective gasp as a pair of wooden poles were raised above the stage; unseen hands drew the poles apart to reveal a banner painted with the words: ‘MAY GOD GRANT PROSPERITY TO THE NEW NIGERIA’.

I stood to the side of the stage, with the children of the dignitaries, my hands resting on the edge. Young men perched in trees all along the street. Hawkers stopped, put down their wares; they too stared at the spectacle. Independence House, twenty storeys high, its windows flashing in the sun, shone brilliantly out above the crowd.

The Governor held his hand up for silence; uplifted, his sleeve fell below the elbow, and the drums became quiet. Presently we saw, stepping up to the microphone, a tall, pale man in a grey suit, with a powerful moustache. He put his spectacles on and said, ‘Welcome, friends of Nigeria. It is an honour to be opening this splendid building, the tallest Nigeria has ever seen. Independence House is much more than a mere architectural triumph, however. As its name suggests, it is a symbol of the great strides Nigeria is taking towards nationhood.’ The Governor paused and surveyed the crowd. ‘However,’ he continued, ‘there is much work still to be done. For instance, we must encourage the northern territories to participate more enthusiastically in democratic Nigeria. Hausa, Yoruba and Ibo must learn to put their own narrow interests aside …’

Suddenly I heard a rattling sound.

‘Ikoko Omon,’ said a familiar voice, a voice crackling like flaming leaves. ‘Ikoko Omon! Is that you?’ I turned, and gasped. Fighting her way through the children was the Honeymans’ cook: arms frail, wrapper hardly bulking out a withered crone’s frame, loose skin gathered below the chin, hanging like a lizard’s dewlap.

‘What have you been chopping, eh, Ikoko Omon? You are growing faster than a bamboo!’ I moved through the children to greet her. But she grabbed my hand and turned to face the stage, saying, ‘Not now. Listen. What a stupid man, with big big grammar. Look! Ikoko Omon. He begins to sweat for his pink face!’

‘Permit me to use an analogy,’ the Governor was saying. ‘If the wealth of Nigeria may be likened to a great communal pot of soup, then Lagos, this thriving city, is the ladle which serves the soup.’ He paused. ‘If the ladle does not serve the soup, then there will simply be no soup for the people. Nobody would be able to eat. Therefore, the ladle is important to everyone, to the soup, and to the whole country.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘Suppose,’ he said, mysteriously, ‘if there was no ladle to serve the soup, what would happen then?’

‘This question na war oh ,’ cried the Honeymans’ cook. Several of the children turned their heads towards her. ‘Ikoko Omon! Not everything that comes from a cow is butter.’

The Honeymans’ cook, peering between creased lids, turned from me to hurl a silent curse at the Governor. I shifted my weight. The Governor dropped his papers and bent to gather the loose sheets. Upright, he took his spectacles off and wiped his eyes. The Honeymans’ cook began to speak under her breath; chewing, spitting, formulating, with vitriol, arguments to undermine the dignitaries. She passed from curse to mockery, from mockery to incantation, as the Governor, returning the spectacles to the bridge of his nose, addressed us once again. Now he spoke of the darkness of Africa many years past, at the time of the Berlin conference, of the forces of evil, bad faith, cruelty and oppression, the intolerance, prejudice and poverty, the ignorance and superstition that had entombed the territory. ‘Empire has spanned a fine period in the transition of Nigeria,’ he said. ‘And the architects of Independence House have, in their own small way, contributed to that change. Thank you,’ he said, raising his arms and stepping back to take his seat.

Drums sounded, hands were flung in the air, faces glared with heat. But the awe that shone in every face seemed to cast a cloud on the Honeymans’ cook.

‘This big big grammar oh, he is a useless man,’ she said. ‘Can’t he shut his mouth? He will have sunstroke for his tongue. Talking this nonsense …’

Suddenly there was a shrieking sound. I reached for the Honeymans’ cook. Amid a great general roar, I saw a stream of women running down Broad Street towards the stage, leaping and screaming in a sort of frenzy. I saw that the women wore crowns of ferns and they had tied leaves around their waists, and they brandished sticks. The Governor and the dignitaries were hurrying from the stage, and voices were calling for we children to withdraw. But the Honeymans’ cook led me into the street, into the mass of bodies, and I didn’t stop her. I wanted to be there among the women. Perhaps I would come across Iffe! I raised my voice to ask after Iffe, but it was lost in the noise. It was exhilarating to see the women jerking left then right, answering unseen drums, kicking up their knees and thrashing their sticks.

What was happening?

As the crowd parted to let the women approach the stage, a voice rang out:

Whiteness is the beauty of the teeth.

Length is the beauty of the neck.

Full breasts are the beauty of a woman,

Whose nipples poke into mens’ eyes.

The women were flourishing their sticks. I stood some ten yards back, keeping close to the Honeymans’ cook.

The same voice cried out again: ‘All right, Balewa, it is four o’clock and we go come for you. Governor Mr Robertson don’t fear we will teach you a lesson with our sticks! Where is he who is called Robertson? Something very bad will happen to you!’

The street was white and hot, the sun directly overhead, and the women shouted and spoiled for trouble. To our right I heard a high wailing; it grew louder, higher and seemed to come deep from within the mourner’s chest. The Honeymans’ cook pointed out a young woman surrounded by onlookers, some of whom were trying to calm her stricken movements. Her grief could not be checked. Her body convulsed, tears slid freely from her face; her despair was palpable, open. Suddenly I felt light. I closed my eyes. The mourner continued to wail but her cries came to me now from a great distance. I leaned against the Honeymans’ cook, who whispered to me. Apparently the grieving woman’s husband had been killed in the slum clearances. He had refused to leave his house, and the bulldozers had knocked it down with him inside.

Suddenly there was a sharp crashing sound, and birds fled upward from the trees. In place of the dignitaries, soldiers had come on to the stage. They were shooting their rifles in the air. They stopped shooting, and a small dark man pushed through to the front of the stage. His voice was remarkably deep. I felt it in my stomach when he spoke into the microphone, ‘Quiet! Quiet please. Listen!’ He signalled to the soldiers, who shot into the air once more, several quick deafening shots.