Say You’re One Of Them (25 page)

Jubril had joined the huge crowds chanting and brandishing the picture of their hero, the Manzikan governor. For three days, Jubril had gone out and demonstrated for the Sharia system to be established in Khamfi, though he, like most in the crowd, knew that in Khamfi there were as many Christians as there were Muslims.

It must be said, though, that for Jubril, it was not just a naive celebration—or a political rally, as the southern press had insinuated. Actually, the pro-Sharia rally swelled because people like him were ready to personally testify with their maimed limbs. Their presence had energized the rally. When Manzikan State gave single women in its employ a three-month ultimatum to get married—even if it meant being someone’s third or fourth wife—or lose their job, Jubril and Musa and Lukman had gathered and cheered. They were convinced that Sharia should be extended to the whole country. Brothels and bars were shut down. When Manzikan warned that those who did not wear the Sharia beard could not bid for government contracts, barbers had long lines of devout men waiting to have their beards carved up. Jubril even accompanied Musa to the barber’s shop.

Now, Jubril laughed at his friends’ accusations, brought out a small picture of the hero-governor from his pocket, and held it high for everyone to see. But Lukman and Musa insisted and in fact swore that they would never fight against Christians with Jubril on their side.

“Dis boy
na
souderner,” Musa said. “Inpidel.”

“Enemy widin,” Lukman said. “How we go pit make war wid dis barbaric Christians when one of us be one of dem?”

This was when it actually dawned on Jubril that the crowd was heading toward Kamdi Lata, the exclusive Christian quarters, and Shedun Sani, the mixed areas, to wage war with the Christians. The accusation his friends made against him became even more painful. He immediately swore by Allah that he was a real Muslim, but that was not enough. With the tension in the land, it was a terrible time to accuse someone of apostasy or of coming from the south. Jubril tried to tell the growing throng that his accusers actually owed him money and had refused to pay, which was true. But Lukman and Musa insisted that Jubril was not one of them, even though he spoke Hausa with the proper accent. Jubril wanted to talk about his brother’s death, but they stopped him. He wanted to show his cut hand, but they threatened to accuse him of stealing another goat and warned him to stop the delaying tactics and to confess. Seeing how things were going, Jubril tried to explain his roots as his mother had told him, a story that he did not know well and did not care about until now.

“Jubril, dem no baftize you as small baby?” Musa asked, a mischievous smile dangling on his lips. “We know you, we know your baftism story.”

“Answer quick quick,” one of the bystanders said.

“We no get time to waste,” another said.

Perhaps in days of peace, he would have had a chance to explain himself before a Sharia court. Perhaps he would have been tried and given a fair hearing, but these were wild days. Now, as he began to explain about the money Musa and Lukman owed him, Musa slapped him and wrestled him to the ground. They removed his
babariga
and fell upon him with clubs and stones. It was as if Musa was so angry he forgot to take out the sword, for he clubbed him with its sheath. Jubril lay on the ground, bent over, groaning, shielding his head with his hands. He did not react to his many wounds or wipe the blood from his body. He just lay there as his head swelled with dizziness and the earth spun around him.

Soon he did not feel the blows anymore. When he opened an eye, he saw that the circle of people who had beaten him had widened, receding from him. Some of them were beginning to shepherd the cows away. When Jubril saw Lukman going back to get the gas, he summoned all his energy, got up, and ran. They did not expect this, were caught unaware. Jubril ran toward the bushes, toward the pools, and they chased him, chanting, “
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!
”

Jubril remembered running very fast and being surprised that he could move at all, given his wounds. When he looked back, the ranks of his pursuers had swelled; even those who had left the task of burning him to Lukman and Musa had joined in. They pelted him with rocks, but he did not stop or fall. He heard some gunshots, but he kept going. He went past the pools and up the hill into the savannah. The mob spread out and thrashed the cabbage farms. Jubril ran like a dog; he ran until his vision darkened. He remembered falling; he remembered dizziness beclouding him. . . .

Suddenly someone on the Luxurious Bus brushed past his pocketed wrist. This brought Jubril back to the more crucial business of maintaining his disguise. Instinctively, he pushed his arm deeper into his pocket. He cursed himself for dwelling on his flight. He begged Allah for strength.

When Jubril looked toward the front of the bus, he realized that two police officers had come aboard and were standing over the sick man. They were in plain clothes. Like soldiers evacuating a wounded comrade from the front, they held their rifles at the ready. They acted as if the sick man were dead, though he was still babbling. In spite of the pleas from Emeka and Madam Aniema and Tega, the police said it was better for the sick man to leave the bus, to make room for others. Hoisting him into a standing position, they frisked him and relieved him of his ticket. When the passengers murmured, the police assured them that they would put him on the next Luxurious Bus. The murmur turned to jeers as the police dragged him out and deposited him on a veranda.

More passengers came onto the bus, and Jubril had to keep moving back, still preoccupied with the image of the sick man. He left the chief ’s place and jostled from spot to spot in the aisle. But he was becoming more and more conspicuous, because most of the refugees in the aisle were beginning to sit down on the floor. When he looked at the chief, the chief either glared at him or looked away, as if Jubril was trying to rob him of
his
seat.

“It seems someone is in your seat,” said Emeka, who was still smarting from the eviction of the sick man, when Jubril leaned against his seat.

“Yessa.”

“Well, tell him to get off,” Emeka said. “This is the era of democracy, young man!”

“Ah . . . yessa,” Jubril said, covering his mouth with his left hand.

“Yessa
ke?
And leave my seat alone. It’s one man, one vote. . . . One man, one seat!”

“
Abeg,
no halass de boy,” Ijeoma said. “Cally your anger go meet de porice. No be dis boy lemove de sick man from dis bus.”

“Hey, don’t tell me what to do,” Emeka said, folding and refolding his monkey coat on his lap. “Is your husband a soldier?”

“You get wife yourserf?” Ijeoma said.

“Is this place not tense enough already?” Madam Aniema said.

“This is democracy,” Emeka said. “I have a right to shout if I want, OK. . . . Let me tell you something, you women. This is not the military era, when people could not get what they wanted or say what they felt. This is eight months since the generals were bribed with oil-drilling licenses so they could peacefully leave power for us civilians. Remember, you could never disobey a soldier then. Don’t forget that even here in the city of Lupa a soldier shot a bus driver and a bus conductor because they refused to give him twenty naira at an illegal checkpoint—”

“So what?” Ijeoma cut in, scratching her Afro, her big eyes narrow slits. “We civirians better
pass
soldiers? You
dey
talk as if you be de onry smart person for dis bus. And, what do you mean by ‘you women’?”

“Yes, Mr. Man, make you no insult us for dis Luxurious Bus
o,
” Tega said. “
Na
woman
dey
cause dis
wahala
for Khamfi?”

“No mind de man, my sister,” Ijeoma said. “He
dey
talk rike porygamous man!”

Emeka looked at one and then the other, surprised the two women were now in the same camp. He began to wag his finger at them as he searched for what to say, but Madam Aniema advised him: “Don’t say anything about them. If this gives them peace, so be it. Women are like that.”

“As I was saying, no matter what has happened, you cannot lose hope in democracy!” Emeka said in a friendlier voice, ignoring the two women, his words rising above the commotion. “Be hopeful, be hopeful!”

“Who tell you say we done lose hope?” Tega taunted him. “
Na
person like you
wey
escape Khamfi only in socks
dey
lose hope . . . not we!”

“No mind de
yeye
man,” Ijeoma said. “We say make you reave dat boy arone, you begin brame woman. No be woman born you?”

Jubril looked at Ijeoma and Tega, his countenance appealing to them not to argue with Emeka. He had been happy that the conversation had moved away from him, but now he was afraid it was coming back. He wished he could have asked the women to shut up, or that they would have known on their own that it was wrong to argue with men in public.

Sensing that more people were standing at the back of the bus, Jubril moved there to make himself less visible. But he had only stood in his new spot for a few minutes when someone asked him whether he was in the toilet line. He shrugged and shook his head no. But when the person in front of him and the one behind him said they were in the toilet line and were not offended that Jubril had cut ahead, he nodded and smiled sheepishly. Jubril craned his neck and was then able to discern the line snaking through the aisle around the passengers sitting on the floor. It seemed like the only stable part of a space fretted by anxiety and movement. The line stopped right in front of the toilet door, with the chest of the person who was next resting against it. Though Jubril had never used a toilet before and had no urge to use one now, he did not quit the line. He appreciated it, because he noticed that people who had bought the aisle spaces were tolerant and considerate. He wished the line would last forever, that refugees would take longer and longer in the restroom.

When he looked up front to see where the chief was, he discovered that he was sitting only three seats away and still eating his Cabin Biscuits, his cheeks plumped out like those of a Hausa-Fulani trumpeter.

JUBRIL
WAS
GLANCING
PERIODICALLY
at the chief, silently irritated with him, when suddenly the TV sets came on. The images hit him like lightning, driving his face in another direction. He shut his eyes. But he had already seen the images, and, as they say, what the eye has seen it cannot unsee. He felt violated. He could not process the pictures right away.

The noise from the TVs replaced the din of the bus, as everybody hushed and turned their attention to the screens. Everyone in the toilet line looked back to catch the action—except Jubril, who had reopened his eyes and was thinking about how to overcome this latest hurdle. He wanted so much to be part of the crowd in every way. It was no longer about whether Allah would punish him for watching TV. It was just that his conservatism stiffened his neck, and he kept his back to the screen. Jubril wanted to relax and let his guard down. But, now, wherever he looked he seemed to be confronted by faces. It was like driving against traffic. He tried to look at the ceiling but could not even manage that. Feeling that his predicament was written all over his face and that it might draw attention to him, Jubril stared at his canvas shoes. He looked so hard that he could have counted each tiny thread, but he did not actually see anything. Fear rose and spread over him like goose bumps. The fingers of his left hand became sweaty and trembled. His cut wrist was numb, and he tried to move his elbow into a more comfortable position.

When he tried to turn around to face the TVs, he could only make it halfway, like a clogged wheel, and found himself looking out a window, a welcome distraction. He poured his gaze into it.

The sun had gone down. The crowd outside the bus was not as restless as before. More refugees had crowded onto the few verandas. Some people sat wherever there was space in the park, clutching their belongings, expecting other buses. Everybody looked tired, and even the chatter was subdued.

Out on the savannah, as if in a dream, some of the evergreen trees seemed to swell as they let out gentle sprays of bats into the twilight. High in the sky the bats mixed and mingled and flew in one direction, toward the park, as if blown by the wind. It looked like a giant shapeless figure with many legs atop the evergreen trees. They gradually filled up the sky. After a while, it was like a big black wave, stretched out, bobbing, shrieking through the dusk.

Someone tapped Jubril on the legs. He looked down, then quickly away. It was the pregnant lady, seated on the floor, breast-feeding her baby. Her name was Monica. She had escaped with just her baby. Her big eyes were red from crying, and her face was swollen with sleeplessness. She held on to her infant with all tenderness. She was wearing a long white dress that someone had given her in the course of her flight. Two sizes too big, it seemed to provide the extra cloth she needed to nurse in.

“
Haba,
my broder, you no fit even watch TV?” Monica teased Jubril, an uneasy smile washing over her face.

“Me?” Jubril mumbled like the chief, pretending to watch the bats outside.

“You alone
dey
suffer for dis riot? Or you want tell me say your situation bad
pass
de sick man
wey
police
comot
for dis bus?”

Jubril nodded. “Yes.”

Though he had resigned himself to being in close proximity to women on this journey, the sight of a woman breast-feeding did not settle well with him. He did not like the fact that she was smiling at him or talking to him while doing this. He could not look down, for that would mean seeing her breasts. He did not want to talk with her, return the smile, or do anything to encourage her attention. Yet he tried to be gentle in his response. This woman had to be handled more carefully than the TV, he thought, because she was directing her attention to him and demanding a reply.