Luke Williams - The Echo Chamber

So, it is the next evening after I wrote those words about Mai Yanka and the mistake he made with his cigarette. Evie, I know I am taking a lot of your time with this letter. Please have patience! I will not waste any more time. I will get straight to the point of what I am trying to tell you, which is more terrible than the things I have thus far related.

I was telling you about the Ibos and how some of them had managed to escape up on to the plane. Well, now Mai Yanka looked up at the plane and shouted, ‘Ibos off!’ I don’t know how the Ibos could come down without steps. He shouted again, ‘If you do not come down, know that things will be very bad for you.’ More faces appeared at the windows of the plane. But the Ibos did not come down. Now it was Mai Karfi’s turn to shout. He said, ‘Perhaps you do not understand what my colleague is telling you. I will speak plainly. If you do not come down now, we will crucify you.’ The Ibos did not come down. Mai Karfi said, ‘OK. I will leave you to think about what I have just said.’

Someone was sent to get some hot drink. We passed the bottles around between the soldiers. When we finished, Mai Karfi went up to the plane and shouted at the Ibos. He said that it was their last chance to come down. They did not come down. He said, ‘Bring me a rocket gun.’ Some soldiers went to the Land Rover and brought out the rocket gun. All the time it was being built Mai Karfi cursed the Ibos. He called them stupid goat and nyamiri and he told them that Ironsi was nyamiri, and that many Ibos had been killed and now it was the turn of the Hausas to rule. When the rocket gun was built Mai Karfi pointed it at the belly of the plane. I could see the faces of the Ibos in the windows. Their eyes were very wide. But they did not come down. Mai Karfi thought for several minutes. He talked to Mai Yanka. I think that he was afraid to rocket the plane. The reason is because it belongs to a European. After some time Mai Karfi shouted at the Ibos. He said, ‘OK. Listen to me. You cannot stay on that plane for ever. We are patient. We will wait. Perhaps we will find another set of steps. Perhaps we will open fire with our rifles. Perhaps you will die of thirst. Perhaps I will rocket the plane. But whatever happens you will all die. Listen to me. Listen to what I propose. If you come down from the plane now, not all of you will die. Do you understand? If you come down now only the men will die, not your women or children. That is all I have to say.’ Mai Karfi paused. Then he said, ‘My colleague and I will smoke a cigarette and when we have finished you will give me an answer.’

I do not know what the atmosphere was like on that plane as Mai Karfi and Mai Yanka smoked their cigarettes. When they were completely smoked the door of the plane opened and an Ibo man was standing in the doorway. He looked very small. All the soldiers pointed their rifles at his heart, myself included. The Ibo man said, ‘We will come down.’ His voice was stony. ‘How will we come down?’ That was a question every soldier was asking himself. I was no exception. The sun was very bright. One of the soldiers suggested that we should make them jump and smash into the ground. Everyone laughed, even Mai Yanka. The Ibos in the plane were no longer looking out of the windows. They had become quiet. Mai Karfi thought for a bit then ordered us to form a line of twenty soldiers, ten on one side and ten on the other side, standing face to face. We had to hold hands with the soldier opposite to us, with our arms crossed over very tightly to form a hammock on to which the Ibos would jump.

The Ibo man watched from the door of the plane. He didn’t jump but instead said, in the same stony voice as before, ‘What are you going to do with us?’ ‘Shoot you,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘When?’ ‘Now,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘Where?’ the Ibo man said. ‘Here,’ Mai Karfi said. ‘On the runway. Against the wall.’ ‘And you will not shoot the women and children?’ ‘No,’ Mai Karfi said, ‘that is what I have said.’ ‘What will you do with the women and children?’ the Ibo man said. ‘We will send them to the hospital at Enugu. Now, jump! I will count to three.’

That is what the Ibos did, they jumped, the women, the children, and the men. There were nine of them, three men, four women and two children. The children were two girls who were gripping their mother’s breasts. Most of them were bleeding. It was a terrible sight. I had to look. But I could not say a thing. One of the women could not stand up because her foot was shot off, and her daughter just stood beside her and held on to her hand. A Land Rover came, and the women and children got in, and the Land Rover drove away to Enugu hospital.

Now it was the three men who were left. Mai Karfi lined them up. No one spoke for quite a bit of time. Two of the men were bleeding, one from his arm and one from his head and leg as well. Mai Karfi said, ‘Has anyone anything to say?’ No one replied. He asked again. One of the Ibo men said that he had something to say, the one who was bleeding from his head and leg. Mai Karfi asked why he had kept quiet at first. The Ibo man said he had only just thought of something that he wanted to say. ‘Say,’ said Mai Karfi. ‘What have I done?’ the man said. ‘Do you want to know what you have done?’ Mai Karfi shouted. ‘Do you remember January 15th?’ The man replied that he remembered January 15th but even before January 15th he had been in the Police Force and that he was neither a politician nor a soldier. Mai Karfi shouted, ‘Nonsense. The point is that you are an Ibo man.’ Mai Yanka dragged that Ibo man to the wall. The Ibo man started to struggle and shout, but Mai Yanka is very strong. Mai Yanka is thin like a hungry cat, but he is very strong. The Ibo man struggled harder, and Mai Yanka hit him on the head with his gun. A hole appeared in the Ibo man’s head, and blood poured from it. He still struggled, but now he was twitching as well, and Mai Yanka kicked him on to the ground and dragged him against the the wall and shot him in the head.

Mai Karfi spoke to the two Ibos who were still alive. He said, ‘Has anyone got anything to say?’ The second Ibo man, who was an old man with bullet wounds in his arms, said, ‘May God forgive the Hausas for they do not know what they are doing. May God bring unity to Nigeria.’ This made the soldiers laugh again. Mai Karfi laughed loudly too, and then Mai Yanka took the old man to the wall and made him kneel on the ground with his face against the wall, and he did that quietly, and then we heard him praying to God, and Mai Yanka shot him in the head. He fell down on top of his dead brother with his head in his dead brother’s lap, right where his blokkus were, and when the soldiers saw this they let out plenty of cheers and laughter, and more hot drink was passed around. Myself, I did not want to cheer, because although the Ibos were not my brothers, even so they were not my enemy. But I could not do a single thing. Evie, I could do nothing at all, because I was not Hausa and I had to prove to the Hausas that I wanted the Ibos out of the North. That was what I had to do if I did not want to die.

When the drinking and laughing finished we turned to the last Ibo man, who was still alive. He was a young man with a handsome face. If Mai Yanka is ugly this man was handsome to the same degree that Mai Yanka is not. Mai Karfi said to him, ‘Have you anything to say?’ He looked at Mai Karfi in his eye but did not say anything. Mai Karfi stood looking at him in the eye and taking puffs of his cigarette. The Ibo man smiled to himself and then spat on the feet of Mai Karfi. Mai Karfi did not flinch. Very slowly he said, ‘I see we will have to shut up your foolish mouth.’ The Ibo man smiled again. Even though he was very handsome when he smiled his face became even more handsome than before. He smiled and then he spat on the feet of Mai Karfi. This time Mai Karfi flinched. He said, ‘Take that shege and hold him tight.’ Two solders took his arms and twisted them behind his back. Mai Karfi said, ‘Get me some hot drink.’ We drank from the bottles of hot drink, and the soldiers mocked the Ibo man. They told him things were very bad for him and that he was not going to live many more minutes, and that the minutes he had left in this life would be the most terrible time for him.