Luke Williams - The Echo Chamber

Dear Evie,

I am very happy to be corresponding with you and I pray this letter finds you well. My mother is content that you asked about her health, and she is surprised to hear that you are not married at all. Do you know, Evie, I myself was surprised that you do not remember many of the things I wrote to you about in my last letter. I am especially surprised that you forgot Babatundi, he was your favourite. Your little b! I will tell you about him in another letter.

For now since you asked I will tell you what happened when I joined the army. They were terrible things, so terrible I think they will give you bad dreams. I am talking about what I witnessed in October 1966, when I was twenty-four years old, not long before the war in Biafra began. Some of the people who took part are still alive and living as free men of Nigeria, so please do not repeat this letter to anyone. Promise me that, Evie! Myself, I have told only one other person. My wife, Sue. When my nightmares arrive it is Sue who wakes me up. Then we go to the kitchen and drink some whisky. But sometimes my nightmares arrive too often during the night, and she says to me, ‘Try to stay calm, and do not shout too loudly, because our son will know that you have trouble.’ ‘Yes, Sue,’ I tell her, ‘I will try to stay calm.’ I will try to stay calm in this letter as well, even though I must recall a troop of ravenous wild men.

It began when the Ibos arrived at Kano airport. There were many of them, men with their wives and children, and their luggage too, all standing on the runway in a group. They wanted to escape from Kano, but they had no luck, because we in the 5th Battalion had been ordered to surround the plane. Twice that morning they had tried to board, and twice we had made them go back.

Evie, what happened next I saw with my bare eyes. Suddenly a Land Rover drove on to the runway. It was carrying soldiers, and they were shooting their rifles in the air, shouting, ‘Ina nyammari.’ When the Ibos heard this, they began to run, and the soldiers jumped out and started shooting. Ka-Ka-Ka . The Ibos were running helter-skelter all over the runway and getting shot down before they could escape. When the other soldiers saw that their brothers from the Land Rover were shooting, they started shooting too, in the direction of the Ibos, flinging their rifles up and down.

Myself, I just stood there on the spot. What grievance did I have against the Ibos? I was very surprised because even though I knew there would be trouble, no one had told me that killing was going to happen at Kano airport. A battalion leader called Mai Karfi, a Hausa, came to me and shouted. He said that since I was a Southerner and a Yoruba if I did not want to shoot I must go to the airport office and cut the telephone wire. I did this and returned to the runway. Now there were no more Ibos running. Some had bullets in their stomach, some were gasping, some were screaming, and blood was rushing everywhere, from their nose and legs and arms, everywhere. What I saw was a massacre, and if you see me trembling you will know what a massacre is.

Mai Karfi ordered the soldiers to stand at ease. Mai Karfi means The Most Powerful Man. His Lieutenant was Mai Yanka. Mai Yanka means Great Killer of Human Beings. Mai Karfi was thirty-three and he had helped to torture General Ironsi in the July coup. He had been promoted after that. Mai Yanka was twenty-two. He was very ugly. He was thin and looked like a starving cat. His favourite film was Gone with the Wind and he had seen it seven times. Evie, do you know who this Mai Yanka was? He was Sagoe. You must remember Sagoe! Babatundi’s brother! But we did not call him Sagoe anymore. In fact he is a completely different person to the person you and I were afraid of when we were children in Lagos. And some of the things I saw Mai Yanka do, before the time in the airport that I am telling you about now, as well as what he did at the airport, as you will soon see, and also what he did to other humans later during the war, well, Evie, all this means that I cannot think of Mai Yanka as Sagoe, and I cannot think of Sagoe the child we both knew as Mai Yanka, and I will advise you to do the same.

Mai Karfi reloaded his rifle and approached the plane. During the commotion some of the Ibos had run up the steps to enter the plane, a VC10, and they had kicked the steps down. There was screaming coming from inside, and I saw faces looking out from the windows of the plane as well. Me, I was very aware of the bodies lying all over the runway, some of which were moving and groaning. But Mai Karfi did not seem aware at all. He ordered us to attach the steps back to the plane. But we couldn’t lift them up straight. Mai Karfi told us to stand at ease. He cursed the Ibos and lit a cigarette, one for himself, and he gave one to Mai Yanka too.

Mai Yanka had this clever way of starting his cigarettes, of putting them into his mouth. I had admired it plenty of times. What he did was this, first he lit the cigarette, but not in the usual way of sucking with his mouth. He held the cigarette in his hand and put the flame to the tip until it was alight, then he flipped the cigarette up into the air. It jumped up from his finger, tumbled around, then he jerked his head forward. He caught the cigarette between his teeth. It happened very quickly. After that Mai Yanka always looked proud and he smoked his cigarette in silence until it was completely smoked.

But there was one time when he made a mistake. It happened in the yard at Kano barracks. All the soldiers saw it, and what we saw amazed us. What happened was that Mai Yanka lit his cigarette as usual in his hands. He flicked it up, but just then a breeze came, and that cigarette tumbled too far, so what Mai Yanka caught between his teeth was not the filter end but the fire end, which jammed quite far inside his mouth! He shuddered, and a small whimper came from his throat. Maybe the fire was burning his throat. Very slowly he took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it in front of his face. Next he did a strange thing. Evie, he put the cigarette back between his teeth again, the fire end, and closed his mouth around it!

Only a small part of the filter end was poking out from his mouth. I could not believe my eyes. Mai Yanka looked at all the soldiers with a sly look, as if he were daring us to speak. He shuddered again and a small puff of cloud came out from his mouth. Not one person said a single word. Mai Yanka is a famous man. He has done things to human beings that no human being can ever do to a fellow human. Now plenty of smoke was coming from Mai Yanka’s mouth, and now smoke started to come out of his nose as well, and smoke was pouring from his whole face. Evie, he looked like a kettle boiling on a stove.

Do you know what Mai Yanka did next? He started to smile. Now you know that this Mai Yanka is a famous man. As he smiled the smoke rose into the air above his head, and it was snatched by the breeze, and suddenly I saw it form into strange shapes before my eyes, snakes and arms and fists and smashed faces and women’s breasts and the Devil’s horns and broken teeth and penises and old men’s beards. I asked myself what would happen if that cigarette wasn’t finished soon. Would Mai Yanka catch fire? Would he melt? Would he ever be the same man after that fire inside his brain? Mai Yanka grinned back at us as if he was enjoying that cigarette more than any other cigarette he had ever smoked in his whole life. When it was finished his face was very dark. He spat the butt on to the drill yard, then pulled his boots and socks off one by one. He took his shirt off as well, and then he started to pace back and forth across the drill yard, very quickly, back and forth and to and fro, swinging his arms. Mai Yanka was cooling off.

Now it is late at night. Evie, it has taken me longer than I thought to write this letter. I am tired and in one minute I will put my pen down and go to the kitchen and drink some whisky with Sue. Then perhaps I will come back and continue to write this letter. Or perhaps I will go to sleep and continue to write tomorrow evening when I get back from work.