Say You’re One Of Them (27 page)

“Oh, you come flom Anambla?” Ijeoma said.

“
Kpom kwem!
” Emeka said, his eyes fixed on the screen. “Come on, Tom, give it to them. Give it to them. . . . Blow the head off that pagan Muslim with firebombs!”

“I come flom Anambla also
o,
” Ijeoma said. “
Na
my prace
o.
”

But Emeka did not pay her any attention. “My Dubem, give them the fight of their lives. These people have to be taught a lesson.”

“Yes, dis countly berong to us too!” said Ijeoma.

The fight on TV went on, at times the Christians gaining an upper hand, then the Muslims dominating. For many on the bus, perhaps Khamfi looked more like some of the towns down south, in the delta, that General Sani Abacha had sent soldiers to obliterate because the natives had asked for their land to be developed after four decades of neglect and environmental degradation by government-multinational oil companies. Government troops had stormed the delta with tanks and rocket launchers and terrorized the people. Some reporters said it was the perfect excuse for the government to rein in the increasingly rebellious oil villages of the delta. Others said it was easier to drill oil in land not cluttered by hungry, illiterate natives, who stood around begging for food, water, and medicine. Whichever the case, the few survivors had fled and become refugees in big, multiethnic cities like Lagos, Kaduna, Jos, and Khamfi.

As Emeka urged his people on, Jubril touched the chief ’s shoulder lightly and bent down to whisper in his ear.

“Who told you to touch a royal father?” Chief Ukongo hissed.

“Mmmh,” Jubril mumbled, and stepped back.

Nobody was listening to them: they were all glued to the TV. Even those in the toilet line had turned around to watch. They inched backward each time someone got out of the toilet. It was as if nobody could afford to miss a thing.

“Wait a moment,
who
are you?” the chief asked Jubril, as if he had just noticed the boy. “Don’t hang around me!”

“Yessa,” Jubril said.

Some people stared at them, angry because the chief ’s voice had distracted them from the TV. But the old man was unfazed. He fanned himself slowly. From his demeanor and commanding voice, it was not hard to see that he once enjoyed honor and close ties to the generals. Now, though his fortunes had depreciated since the introduction of the so-called democracy and he may have even lost weight, he refused to believe that he had degenerated to the level of this dirty, arrogant teenager.

“I say, who are you?” the chief repeated. “You seat thief . . . who are you?”

The boy whispered, “No . . . Jubril . . .”

Realizing that he had given his Muslim name, Jubril straightened up immediately, his heart pounding. He looked around to see whether anybody had heard him, but nobody was paying attention. Jubril faked a smile, pulled closer to the chief, put a finger in his mouth to alter his accent, and said, “Sa, I mean Gabriel . . . G-a-b-r-i-e-l . . . angel of God!”

“I don’t care about any angel of God. . . . Remove that stupid finger from your mouth. You are disgusting!”

“Just shut up, you two,” Emeka said.

“Where two of
una dey
when police come here?” Ijeoma said. “Why you no talk den? Make you no disturb our cable TV
o!
”

“Cowards!” Monica spoke for the first time since the police incident. “Royal fader, my foot!”

“I say everybody shut up,” Emeka said again. “I
dey
watch my people do combat! You get relative who
dey
do Schwarzenegger for cable TV before?”

“You
dey
ask me to shut up, huh?” Monica said.

“By the grace of God,” Emeka said.

“Wait, you and me go wear de same trouser today!” the woman said.

“Too many madwomen in this bus today,” Emeka said.

Monica carefully put the baby on the floor, got up, and tried to gather her clothes for a fight. But she found that cumbersome. She wanted to remove her long dress altogether. But her neighbors held her back and tried to talk her out of causing trouble. They admonished Emeka for calling her a madwoman. “I for teach you lesson now now!” Monica managed to say to Emeka.

Jubril was unsure about how well he had corrected his mistake. The chief ’s face was blank, so he started to relax again. He thanked Allah that Emeka and Monica and Ijeoma had distracted the bus the way they did. He considered this another miracle and celebrated it in the depths of his being. Actually, Monica’s action had lessened the ill will he had felt toward her. As she was challenging Emeka, he had been rooting for her to make more noise, to antagonize Emeka so the focus of attention in the bus would never come back to him and the chief.

Now Jubril allowed three people to pass him in the toilet line, just to make sure he remained behind the middle TV. He shut his eyes again. He shifted his wrist nervously in his pocket. Mentioning his real name was a close call.

JUBRIL
WAS
NOT
USED
to being called Gabriel, though it was an old, new name. He had always been ashamed of what his mother told him about his pre-Muslim, Christian roots. Now he tried to repeat “Gabriel” quietly to himself many times, as if he were reciting his
tasbih,
in a bid to get used to it. He did not want to be taken unawares again. “
Na
just a name,” he said to himself. “Just a name. Jubril and Gabriel
dey
mean de same ting.” He started to imagine himself in his father’s village and hearing people calling him, “Gabriel, Gabriel.” He imagined himself turning immediately to the source of the call. He imagined himself awaking in the morning as soon as he heard “Gabriel.” He learned to spell it backward. He started to sing the name in his mind, but he was having problems with the
J
and
G.

Before the riots, it had pained him that his personal story was not as straightforward as he would have wanted. Over the years he did everything he could not to remember the parts that he knew. If people said anything about the delta or about the Atlantic Ocean, he would quickly change the subject, because, in his mind, that was the shameful place of his birth. He equated
southerner
with
infidel,
and even when someone told him there were Muslims in the south, especially among the Yorubas of the southwest, somehow his mind had refused to accept that these southern Muslims were real or genuine. He felt privileged to be a northerner and did everything to groom that part of his identity.

When people talked about the oil wealth of the south, he would feel anger rising in him and wonder why Allah would have given the oil to the land of the infidels. So he was relieved when during the recent campaigns, some politicians started telling the crowds that the crude oil actually belonged to the north and not to the people who lived in the oil fields of the delta. Like many, Jubril was swayed by their spurious argument: that the oil deposits in the delta were the result of years of sediments being carried from the north by the River Niger; the politicians wondered why the delta people should then claim the oil as their own; they wondered why they should ask for a bigger budgetary allocation from the new, democratic government. As they spoke, Jubril, who had skipped taking the cows to graze, had applauded and roared with the crowd. Though he could not read properly, he gladly received two copies of the booklet that propagated these arguments, one for himself and the other for his mother. Other northern politicians who came to town but did not say the oil wealth belonged to the north or that they would introduce total Sharia did not get a big crowd.

Now Chief Ukongo’s sarcastic “
Who
are you?” cut deep into Jubril’s soul. The events of the previous two days had knifed through his Muslim identity. Running in the bush from Khamfi, Jubril’s mind had become a whirlwind of questions: Allah, is it true that once a person is baptized, as my mother said I was at birth, he remains a Christian forever, never able to remove the mark from his soul? Are you punishing me for this infant baptism that I did not choose? You know that as long as I can remember, I have always felt every inch a Muslim, and to prove my steadfastness, I did challenge Yusuf ’s apostasy and sacrificed his brotherhood to you. . . . If the world will not accept me as a southerner-northerner, will you also condemn me as a Christian-Muslim? Though I was attacked by Musa and Lukman for being a fake Muslim, Allah, please, give me the wisdom to convince the Christians in this bus that I am truly one of them. Lead me home, merciful one, lead me to peace. . . . Allah, your religion of Islam is a religion of peace.

Suddenly there was chaos in the bus. The irresistible pull of the cable pictures was gone, replaced by grainy black-and-white pictures of refugees in a police-and-military barracks in Khamfi. The images were unsteady, as if the local cameramen were trembling with the pain of their compatriots while filming. When the pictures steadied a bit, you could see the people who had been displaced. They sat everywhere, in the fields, on the verandas, and some were still running into the barracks. Many were like the people in the bus or in Lupa Motor Park, clutching the few belongings they could escape with.

The passengers were now standing, agitated, searching around for the cause of the change in TV stations. The first person to find his voice was Emeka. He pointed at the screen and shouted, “My cousin, my cousin. . . . Let me see my cousin! Let me see my friend! Give us cable TV.” Then he pointed at the police officer who had the remote control, and everyone glared at him. The officer dangled the remote from his fingers like it was the ultimate symbol of power.

“Which cousin? Shut up!” said the officer to Emeka. “Listen, dis foreign TV channels
dey
spoil de image of our country. Dese white stations
dey
make billions of dollars to sell your war and blood to de world. . . . We no bad like dis. OK, why dem no
dey
show corpses of deir white people during crisis for TV?
Abi,
people no
dey
kill for America or Europe?”

“You
dey
speak grammar!” someone shouted. “
Wetin
concern us wid America and Europe?
Abeg,
give us cable TV.”

“Remove dis toilet pictures!” said another.

“So our barracks be toilet now?” the police answered. “What an insult!”

“You
na
mad mad police,” Monica said.

“OK, cable TV no be for free anymore!” the police said.

“But, it’s our pictures we are watching on cable TV,” Madam Aniema said. “Why should we pay you to see ourselves and our people?”

The police answered, “Because government
dey
complain say cable TV
dey
misrepresent dis religious crisis.”

“Officer,” said Ijeoma, pointing to Emeka, “you no hear dis man talk say he done see his cousin for inside cable TV? We no go pay notting. We done pay for Ruxulious Bus arleady!”

“Government order!” the police said.

“Which order?” said Ijeoma, grabbing her Afro in frustration. “How you take hear dat order? No be you and we
dey
dis bus togeder?”

“
Amebo
woman, you understand police work? Stop interrogating us!”

“Please, show me my cousin!” Emeka said, tears running down his face. Please, return to that channel. . . . I want to see my cousin again! Is he alive?” The police did not even look at him. “Officer, I’ll give you whatever you want later . . .”

“
Later?
We no
dey
do
later
for cable TV,” the police said, watching Emeka’s hands like a dog expecting its owner to offer something. “Give us de money now now. . . . Cable TV, life action . . . e-commerce!”

“E-commerce?” Emeka said, looking around.

“Oh yes, e-commerce no reach your side? You tink we police no
dey
current?”

“My brothers, whatever it is, I’ll pay you later . . . I swear!”

“Show us de money, we show you your cousin . . . quick quick. White people call
am
e-commerce.”

“Which white people?” said Monica. “
Abeg,
leave white people out of dis cable talk.”

“Please, don’t shout at them,” Emeka begged Monica.

She laughed at him. “I no tell you before? Now you go beg me tire
o.
”

As Emeka searched in his pockets for money to give the police, many refugees intervened and begged Monica not to exact her revenge on Emeka by insulting the police.

“Please, show my cousin,” Emeka said. “I know he’ll never let Jesus Christ down in this battle. . . . I pleaded with him to run south with me, but he said Khamfi was the only home he knew. He was born in Khamfi . . .”

Seeing the ten-naira note he was offering them, the police laughed and asked him the last time he saw a N10 movie. He told the police he had lost everything in Khamfi. They told him to also consider his cousin and friend lost.

Emeka looked as if he had been thrown out of a film premiere and sat down. His disappointment infected the whole bus. Some cried, though nobody wanted to give the police more money. Jubril felt like giving Emeka a N50 note but did not, fearing such charity might draw attention to him.

Others prayed aloud for the day when they—the
talakawas,
the wretched people of this world, who were the subjects of such black comedy on TV—would be rich enough to watch the irresistible pictures of their pain and shame. The murmuring in the bus gathered momentum; people pounded their seats. Everybody was talking except the chief and Jubril. The chief sat tight, like most postcolonial African heads of state. Jubril realized he was the only other person who did not condemn the police publicly, so he joined the protest to be in step with the majority.

“You toilet people
dey
cause trouble for dis bus!” one policeman shouted at the line of TV-watching, backward-moving refugees.

“We no be troublemakers
o
. . .
biko!
” a man pleaded, turning to face the toilet.

“Shut up . . .
na
you!” the police said.