A lake of fire and water. This lake is a legend of the Igbo. It is invisible, hidden in a fold in time, but there.
That day we were fishing on the Cross: a breathtaking river over two miles wide, in many places etched out of the horizon only by the line of palm trees on the opposite bank. It was dotted with sandbanks—many of them a good acre big. These glistening white mounds humped the river every dry season and lasted months, developing a whole ecosystem of water hyacinths, bull rushes, fluorescent white egrets, basking hippos or crocodiles, and fishermen camps.
There are many tales about how the Cross got its name. There are always many tales here, Grandfather said. Don’t trust any of them, he always cautioned. Trust all of them, he warned. Some say it got its name because the Igbos are Hebrews who wandered down to West Africa from Judea and some of them brought fragments of Christ’s Cross with them. Some say it is because in the past the Igbo used to crucify thieves and murderers on its bank. Some say it was named after the frustrated British engineer who worked for the Colonial Service Works Department. Not that he was named Cross. Just that he refused to make sacrifices to placate the water spirits, so the mother of them, the mami-wata, pushed down every bridge the man tried to build across it to link the first colonial capital of Calabar with the hinterlands. This was long before the capital was moved to Lagos, which I guess had friendlier spirits.
Eight bridges this unnamed British engineer tried to build, until in frustration he threw down his T-slide and retired to Sussex muttering about “bloody nigger river can’t be crossed, I won’t let it become my cross.” But it did. He carried it around Sussex until mami-wata came for him on his deathbed, or so I imagine. Still, the Cross flowed: a magnificent river.
Canoes; some no bigger than single-person kayaks, others bordering on small schooners and ships, glided up and down the river, skating like dragonflies, propelled by the powerful pull of oars or poles exerted by knotted biceps.
That was a special night: the gentle slap of the water on wood, the rustle of drying salt, the calls of river birds, the strange hippo barks, and the ticklish smell of the herbs burning gently to drive away mosquitoes wove magic around my senses.
I trailed my fingers in the water, sifting as if for a morsel of archaic wisdom carried by the river’s memory. Grandfather said this river was older than Job.
“In the Bible?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, smiling.
He said when the earth was young and this land still a dream, the river cut its path through a mountain, a tear of sweat racing down a giant’s face.
“How do you know?”
“Because it speaks to me. Hush, listen.”
I couldn’t hear anything.
Neither of us paid much attention as we drifted down the delta to the mouth of the sea. I must have fallen asleep, fingers still trawling the water for wisdom, because I woke to the dry rasp of a tongue on my fingers. Startled and unsure what creature it was, I drew my fingers back with a yelp. A dolphin clicked at me in laughter, dousing me with salty water as though in benediction, and vanished in a white spray for the ocean.
“Lucky boy. What a blessing,” Grandfather said. “That dolphin has just taken your soul for safekeeping—always.”
“My soul? Does that mean I will never die?”
“Maybe.”
That was when he told me about the sacred lake with the pillar, half-water, half-fire, all woman.
“We believe we were the first sentient beings in the universe. Our father, Amadioha, sent a bolt of lightning down to strike a silk cotton tree and the tree split open revealing man and woman. But after Amadioha made men, they ran wild with the lust of power in their noses. Who knows why? Maybe Amadioha wasn’t skilled in making people, all his manifestations seem as though made by a mid-tier elemental. So, God, not Amadioha, sent down its essence. It descended as a pillar: half-fire, half-water. It descended to and arose from the surface of a dark lake in the center of the earth. This new deity we call Idemilli. To control our excess and ensure our evolution, Idemilli took all the power from men. Now, to enter into the confines of power we have to be deemed worthy enough by the guardian.”
“And what does this guardian look like?”
“She is a woman all fire and water and more brilliant than a thousand suns; at least those who have been lucky to see her say so.”
“Why is she a woman?”
“Because she has to be.”
“Tell me more about the lake. Does it still exist?”
“Some say it always has, in some dimensional warp.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Even if I had, you wouldn’t believe me and I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Does everyone know about the lake?” I asked.
“No.”
“Is it sacred?”
“Very. It is the repository of human souls who are yet to gain access into the world: a source of great power for any dibia who enters there. Legend says that the fish in the lake guard the souls, swallowed deep in their bellies.”
“Why the fish?”
“Because the ancestors are concerned with the living, angels with the running of the universe, and neither elementals nor men can be trusted.”
“And this lake is real?”
“Very.”
“But it sounds like a tall tale.”
“It is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does. Everybody does. It is real because it is a tall tale. This lake is the heart of our people. This lake is love. If you find it, and find the pillar, you can climb it into the very heart of God,” he said.
“Where is this lake, Grandfather?”
He tapped me on the breastbone.
“Here. It is at the center of you, because you are the world.”
“How will I find it?”
He taught me a song. We sang it over and over, together, for the rest of the night until I couldn’t tell where his voice ended and mine began, and where mine ended and the river began and where the river ended and my blood began.
But I have forgotten that song. I wish I hadn’t because I think it would bring me much comfort to sing it.
Oh well
, I think, eating the last of the fish, wondering whose soul I can taste smoking down to my stomach, and if anyone has eaten mine yet.
Ghosts Are a Gentle Breath
over Moving Fingers
Whatever I am dreaming about wakes me dripping with sweat. Judging from the light, it is midafternoon. I jump down and walk outside, surveying the banks to make sure there are no basking crocodiles. The bank is clear, but I can’t be sure of the water, so I throw some fish I caught earlier into different parts of the river, watching closely for any ripple that would indicate the presence of the water leopards. Everything is perfectly still. Placing my rifle on the edge of the bank, I dive in. The water is tepid. Not too different from the temperature outside. I swim for a while, trying to wash the stale sweat off, and the bad dreams with it: difficult without soap. Noticing what looks like a log floating past, I race for the sandbank. Better safe.
I dry slowly in the dying embers of the sun, and as the water evaporates a slight chill wrinkles my skin. For some reason, I feel like I am being kept here on the sandbank by some spirit’s still unfulfilled wish. It is a stupid superstition but something I feel strongly nonetheless, despite the fact that there has been no proof of it. An egret lands nearby and studies me with curious eyes. I feel a breeze across the river’s face and look up. A canoe drifts slowly past, a skeleton piloting it. I shiver, suppressing an urge to scream. Sometimes my childishness still plagues me.
The canoe becomes entangled in some lilies growing in a green and white cluster, and though the tides are pulling at it, I know because the lilies are nodding their white heads in time that the boat will not dislodge. The skeleton sways back and forth with the boat’s motion and it makes me think of an elaborate decoration on a Swiss clock. There is a cobweb between the bony arm and the empty chest. It is beautiful and shimmers in the fading light. I wonder how long this poor soul has been lost, even as I admire the cobweb, thinking it reminds me of another time. Of the doilies and small caps I used to crochet all those years ago.
I reach out my hand and try to touch the spider’s web. It is perfect. But I can’t reach it.
Just as well
, I think, catching myself. For all I know, this could be a booby trap. The enemy knows our reverence for death and its ritual and could have just sent this downriver intentionally. I examine the bones. There is no way to know what he, or she, died of. Standing up, I back away from the boat and gather some pebbles of varying size and weight and then lob them at the canoe. If it were booby-trapped, this would set off any bombs. Satisfied that it is clean, I walk over to one of the huts and pull a long pole from its roof, and with great difficulty I maneuver the canoe aground.
Leaving it for a while, I dig a shallow grave in the shifting sand, knowing it will be washed away in next year’s flood. But that is unimportant. What is important is that this person be buried. Be mourned. Be remembered. Even for a minute. Before I take the skeleton out of the canoe, I reach in and pull the cobweb gently free. I drape it over my head like a cap and then lift the skeleton with ease, careful not to shake any bones loose. To come back complete, it is important that one leave complete. Laying it in the grave, I cover it hurriedly and say a soft prayer and play “Taps” on my harmonica. It is the least I can do.
There are so many restless spirits here. Maybe this is why I am dallying here, delayed by the need of this lonely spirit to find rest. Tomorrow I will leave with the salvaged canoe. That is the way here. I feel the grateful blessing of the spirit in the wind on my cheek.
“Farewell, friend,” I whisper.
Truth Is Forefinger to
Tongue Raised Skyward
Every star is a soul, every soul is a destiny meant to be lived out. They fill the night sky, revealing like a diviner’s spread the destiny of those gifted in reading their drift, their endless shift, like a desert, revealing and burying the way alternately.
I have killed many people during the last three years. Half of those were innocent, half of those were unarmed— and some of those killings have been a pleasure. But even with all this, even with the knowledge that there are some sins too big for even God to forgive, every night my sky is still full of stars; a wonderful song for night.
I sigh and lean back in the canoe. The current has changed direction and is flowing upriver now; inland. The corpses, like a reluctant company of dancers, bump into each other as they hit the sudden swerve of the water, bump into each other and waltz lazily back the way they came. The corpses seem to be mocking me. They seem to say,
Don’t worry, you’ll be one of us soon, you’ll join us in this slow dance.
My Luck is dead.
This is what my mother would say if I die in this war. I say
would
because she is already dead; but that is another matter. My Luck: that’s what she named me, fourth son after three daughters, all of whom died of mysterious sicknesses before they were eight. In this culture, a woman who bears only daughters is not worth much to her husband and family: maybe not worth anything. In my family, the women lose a lot of babies. Like Aunt Gladys. I remember the night she came round to our house all bruised up from a beating from her husband. I was only five but I remember it. We were all sitting by the fire outside roasting corn and pears, my father, my mother, and I.
They talked in muted whispers, my parents and her, in the low glow from the fire, with the shadows riding close by; they looked haunted. Though they were whispering, I could make out that she had somehow lost her baby, and I thought it was careless of Aunt Gladys to lose her baby like that. I mean how can it be in your stomach one minute then lost the next, sailing down a river of red. The last part I had just heard: Aunt Gladys saying it was like a river of red, the blood that gushed from her. It made me think of the chicken we had killed for our Sunday dinner that still had unlaid eggs in her. My father took the eggs out, his eyes sad. I poked them, surprised to find that they were soft like snake eggs, and my stick pierced the soft case of one and the egg burst, revealing a spit of blood and mashed bones and feathers. Father covered it in sand and muttered under his breath.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Praying. You should too.”
But I didn’t. I still haven’t: not for any of the lives I have taken. Or the ones I have lost. But it was hard to imagine Aunt Gladys’s river of red having small crushed bones and feathers. Does her husband pray even now for the life he took? I was very quiet, even then I said very little. I should have been asleep and it was a rare privilege to be allowed to sit with the grown-ups, so I wasn’t about to mess that up by talking. I looked up from the ground and studied Aunt Gladys crying there and risking everything, then I stood up and came over and curled myself into the small of her back, my tiny arms around her belly. I’ll never forget the sigh she let out. It was like she had taken the last breath of air on the planet but had to let it go.
“My Luck,” she said. “My Luck, do you know what lonely feels like?”
I didn’t know. To my five-year-old mind it might have been like losing my puppy or the dirty secondhand teddy I loved so much.
“No, Aunty,” I said.
“Lonely is a cold, itchy back,” she said.
I laughed and snuggled closer, one hand scratching her back through her thin blouse. She sighed happily and my parents laughed. I keep that night close, like a well-worn photograph of family, of a time when we were happy. My father died shortly after that night, and my uncle, my father’s half-brother, became my father and my mother became his mistress, and I the burden that stared at him daily with a malevolence he couldn’t beat out of me.
I stretch and lean further back and stare into night, the wood of the canoe hard against my back like a hand. A little fire burns in the leaking metal pail I found on the sandbank. I filled it with hot coals and kindling and set it in a wet block of wood in the center of the canoe; the way I had seen Grandfather do so many times. It would keep me warm this cold night, and the light, too faint to be seen from the bank, was enough to comfort me in that river of the dead. Fire and starlight and the wood of the boat; and something else—hope that I will find home in the morning. Thinking of Aunt Gladys, I know now of course that she was right. The heart is not where we feel loneliness. It is in the back. I press mine harder against the wood behind me, but it is cold and wet from the river. With drooping eyes I watch the fire die.