LUXURIOUS HEARSES
This post is a month late, seeing it is part two review of Umwem Akpan’s book. See part one here
Jubril had been born in the South just like his mother Aisha, a Muslim girl who fell in love with a Christian man. The relationship between Barthromew, a Christian and Aisha had quickly become a community concern and besides the gossip that went by, pressure came from all sides. They proceeded to marry and Jubril was the second child of their marriage.
They were a model family, a point of reference for intertribal and mixed marriage. In fact, in his homily at the wedding, Father McBride had reminded the congregation that the couple was a symbol of unity in a country where ethnic and religious hate had simmered beneath every national issue…………..perhaps the myriad tribes and religions in the country would be welded together by the love within such marriages………., and the respect accorded in-laws would at least instill tolerance.pg. 174
And one day Aisha, without warning escaped with the children to Khamfi, her father’s original home. The boys grew up in a Muslim-only neighborhood and while Yusuf was interested in knowing his roots, indulging in the snippets of his family history, Jubril became distant. Yusuf became a victim of apostasy, mobbed by the neighbors and stoned to death. Whilst Jubril did not participate in his brother’s death, he had been close enough to hear him pray in tounges as the stones rained on him.
His former friends had held Jubril as a true Muslim for not allowing his family loyalties to come between him and his religion when Yusuf was given his just deserts, and Meta Nadum had rallied around him when he had readily submitted his hand to be chopped off as a punishment for stealing someone’s goat.
It was his friends Luka and Musa, among a chanting mob who stopped him dead in his tracks by declaring him no good Muslim because he could not join the street protest until he took the cows home first.
His defenses by producing the picture of his hero-governor never could hold, they accused him of being an enemy within. If he produced the chopped wrist, they would accuse him of stealing another man’s goat, even if he spoke Hausa with the proper accent, it still didn’t defend him. They insisted he was a southerner, they knew his baptism story as a small baby and before he began explaining the money his friends owed him, they wrestled him to the ground.
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 failing; he remembered dizziness beclouding him……..pg. 183
“It was late afternoon. It was before the new democratic government placed a ban on mass transportation of corpses from one end of the country to the other. Jubril had worked so hard to forget the previous two days that his mind was in turmoil as he waited to travel south with the crowd at the motor park on the outskirts of Lupa. He knew that even if people were stacked up like yam or cassava tubers in a basket, most would still be left behind. Fortunately, he had paid for a seat on the only bus left.”
Jubril a fair skinned teenager finds himself caught up in a religious conflict. A Muslim, he had done a good job disguising himself as a Christian fleeing south. Besides, in that time of religious conflict in the country no one would expect a Muslim or northerner to risk travelling with Christians to the south or in the delta.
With Nigeria on a war path, he abandons all the myths he had heard regarding the luxurious buses and all that had mattered is for him to escape to safety. He was from a village that practiced a conservative brand of Islam that made it impossible for him to watch TV or read newspapers.
As they wait at the motor park for the driver who has disappeared to scout for black market fuel, which had become scarce since the war, the languages spoken only emphasized his estrangement from the group. Ibo was mainly spoken and those that spoke English did so with accent peculiar to their tribes – all of them unlike Jubril’s accent. He resolved to speak little as the best way to disguise himself.
A good Samaritan, who had helped him to escape, had written the village in the delta where his father was born. He wished he had made this trip before, during the peaceful times. The mother, years before had insisted against Jubril’s protestations that his father came from an oil producing village in the delta region and that his father’s relatives would always protect him.
The story exposes the folly of what separates, only to be bearable in times of need. Jubril finds himself, for the first time in his life, not infuriated that there were so many women all over the place. And he did not react to them in any particular way, something that would have been impossible only three days before. He would have preferred to trek a thousand miles on foot rather than sit in the same vehicle as a woman.
The angst that had hitherto fretted his soul seems to lift and was replaced by some lightheartedness caused by secretly poking fun at some of his inconveniences. For example some of the women looked funny in their makeup and tight-fitting trousers. He constrained his urge to laugh out loud at these hell destined women, something that would do him in after successfully disguising himself thus far. He would see the lifestyles that challenged him as laughable rather than as sources of irritation and temptation.
His right hand had been amputated at his wrist for stealing. Nobody on the bus knew this, and it was important that Jubril kept this fact hidden. If they found out, they would know he was Muslim, for they had seen people like him before. His plan to run south would unravel. So now, though his elbow kept bumping into other refugees boarding the bus, making him whine with pain, he did not change his posture. He held a black plastic bag containing his few belongings in his left hand.
His seat in the bus had been taken up by Chief Ukongo, who would not badger off after Jubril’s polite request. The young man was to hitherto brace the long journey sitting on the aisle, something that would not long for the position that he stood at belonged to another pregnant woman with a child. In times of crises like this, even the aisle had been portioned and paid for.
Great perseverance, when such a sacrilegious word like Muslim or Islam in mentioned in the bus, and people would begin to search their neighbor’s faces, and Jubril feared that from their dangerous stares they could tell he was a fraud. He kept waiting for someone to pull his arm out of his pockets and the blows to start raining on him.
Unfortunately his mind revolted at his attempts to suppress his thoughts, and when not dwelling on his present circumstances, his mind travelled back to a past event that was tangled up in his flight from Khamfi.
Like his multi-religious, multi-ethnic country, Jubril’s life story was more complicated than what one tribe or religion could claim. He had lived all his life in Khamfi and was at home with his mother’s people, the Hausa-Fulani’s. He had always seen himself as a Muslim and a northerner. Looking at his skin color, he had no problem believing he would fit in where he was going. There were many on the bus, who were fairer than he was. He could have been from any ethnic group in the country. What worried him was that he did not know enough about Christianity to survive in this crowd. It seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. So many times, he cleared his throat and grabbed his Marian medal with his fingers and stroked it, his whole attention focused on it, as if the Muslim in him now shared the same catholic adoration he had considered idolatrous in Khamfi. Though Mary was accorded a lot of respect in his religion, he had always thought the Catholics went too far by making thousands of sacramental about her and setting up shrines. The advice of Mallam Abdullahi, the man who gave Jubril the medal, flashed across his mind: don’t feel too bad wearing the medal, as Maryam in the Koran was the mother of prophet Isa, Jesus. Though Jubril would rather not have been wearing the medal, this theology was good enough for him—and, besides, his rescuer had assured him that all Christians who saw him wearing it would think he was a catholic and let him be. Page 172
You will also find the pidgin spoken evoking some laughter, for example, the following lines:
When Emeka is smarting from the eviction of the sick man, and coaxes Jubril to tell the old man off for occupying his seat, Ijeoma, she of fighting with Tega over the luggage space earlier in the story says,
Abeg, no halass de boy,” “cally your anger go meet de porice. No be dis boy lemove de sick man from dis bus”
The tension in the bus was evoking sporadic arguments within the bus.
So the Chief who stole Jubril’s seat, wants to guard his honour even in crisis, so when he invites Jubril to sit on the floor near him, someone challenges the old man for asking the boy to sit at his buttocks. He revolts and refuses to be addressed improperly.
“I sure you want all of us to call you shief,” Tega said. “shief dis, shief dat…Too many shiefs for dis country. I go buy my Resource Control hat too!”
The humour and bile seems served in same portions:
“Look am not even supposed to be in this bus with you,” the chief said
Look, l’m not one of you!”
“Den leave de Luxurious Bus,” Tega said from her seat, “who you be? Abasha man? Babangida boy?”
“As our people say, before the discovery of peanuts, people were not eating pebbles….keep your Christianity to yourself!”
“No confuse us wid proverb,” Tega continued. “Maybe you be pagan…..wizard!” a few people laughed at her comments.
“Pagan, eh?” the chief said. ”how dare you call my traditional religion paganism!”
“But Chief, you dey play poritics wid dis ting.” Ijeoma said. “Just reave de seat.”
“if you be no Christian, wetin else remain?”Tega said.
“He is suffering from political correctness,”Emeka said, speaking for the first time since the police changed the TV channel.
“Let me tell you, “the chief said, “before the harvest of alligator pepper, the medicine man was already carrying his bag, not the other way round…..The religion of my ancestors is far older than yours in this country. This land belongs to us.”
….This was not the time to think about lslam and Christianity or God too much, he thought. It was a time just to be a human being and to celebrate that. What mattered now was how to get people to lay down their weapons and biases, how to live together.
…”As our people say,”he continued, “the world is full of gods, but the most important ones are called by their names. And also, do not forget: no matter how small an idol is, it is good to carry it with two hands” I chuckled at this, because it felt that he was mocking Jubril’s juju which he had accused him of hiding in the pocket.
And this Chief Ukongo, not wasted any moment to parade his royaleship, by hailing the people to unite around royal chiefs like the northerners are united around their emirs, goes on to narrate his boast of the military government under general babangida, only to be interjected by Monica.
“Na lie o…l understand dis one, “she insisted.”Dat general like power too much o. if no change handover date many times, if he no cancel our 1993 elections, Abacha no for become our leader…Na de same people. Locust years. De man dey use you. He no share power wid you, abeg.”
“OK, woman, it is not exactly like l was saying. All l was trying to say was that the military respected us. May l talk now, Madame Lawyer?”
“Just make you no lie for dis young man, Chief.”
“Gabriel, the point is, we taught those Sierra Leonean and Liberian rebels a lesson. We lost a lot of soldiers…for a good cause!’
“Chief, how many die for combat?”
“That’s codified information, not for everybody, you know. A lizard may listen to a conversation, but he may not say something.. I mean who are you to want to know how many soldiers died in combat?…”
This chief gives the impression of a typical royalty who can do anything to intimidate his subjects into submission. He is also a good liar…reminds an earlier statement that a chief who can laugh with the others in the bus that hard, could lie too.
“You and l”, he said as he hugged Jubril, ”must show this to the world. Remember, nobody has a monopoly on violence. So don’t go around trying to terrorize the Christians.”
“As our elders say, the ant’s hope of reaching the sacrificial food lies in the folds of the wrapping leaf”…chief’s response to Jubril when he asked him whether he would help him after they reached home.
The ECOMOG soldier, whom the refugees referred to as a madman, refusing to recognize his efforts in fighting in Liberia and Sierra Leone, they also referred to as Chief Ukongo’s fellow idol worshipper, for he has a bigger and more intimidating assorted wreath of talismans than Chief had. When Jubril is at some point lost in flashbacks of when his hand was amputated, they attribute his strange behavior to being hyponotized by the soldier’s charms.
It’s interesting to a reader to see the various shifting of opinions of people when acting in different situations. For example, Jubril is in awe of the soldier remembering what Chief had told him about the sacrifices of ECOMOG soldiers who served the country gallantly, but when one of the soldiers is actually standing in front of them, the Chief takes to indifference feigning insult to his chieftancy. Even the refugees laugh that to his claims of retiring to a good conscience and dignigty. This is laughable, reasoned against a belief that all soliders are thieves. In fact one of the refugeesguffaws and wonders why all soldiers from her place are stupid—not using their chance well.
“Soldierman, you go eat conscience and drink dignity, abi? Your wife and children go dey happy well well to receive you from Sierra Leone empty-handed.”
“No problem,” the soldier said.
“No wahala, huh?” she taunted him. “ We no tell you before? You be madman…Na only crazeman who go reach colonel for army and no steal money for dis country.”
The soldier on the other hand finds the refugees to be the mad people. Other than obsess with oil, he is going home to farm as his ancestors did before oil was discovered in his village. Except that Monica one of the refugees reminds him that the oil companies have polluted every grain of sand, to which he says he will do fishing. This too is vain, as as the rivers have been destroyed.
The dialogue evokes a conversation amongst refugees who start talking about the pollution of the delta, and about how they must make sure all the oil companies moved away from the area.
The earlier bitterness of the refugees seem to stop as some laugh their way into sleep. They find it ridiculous that even if the soliderman would not have stolen the oil money, he could have at least bid for an explotation licesnse, after all, expertise is not as much needed as money. He reminds them that coming from a minority tribe stacked his odds of becoming a general despite serving his country for 32 years. The refugees wonder whether his not being a general meant that he had not received the billons of dollars pumped into ECOMOG to which chief barks that the generals should be left out that matter, and instead, a probe should be done on madmen like the soldierman.
In an interesting way, Chief escapes flogging by the soldierman who resorts to an erratic behavior of shoving the refugees on the isle, and jumped over the heads.
“Dis no be de savannah of Sierra Leonne o!” a refugee said.
“You think we dey urban warfare for Liberia?”
It’s ridiculous that the Chief seems silent until the chieftancy or the national governemt is mentioned adversely.
For example, when the soldier compains of his arrears not paid by the government, after 6 years fighting for his fatherland…the fury of chief only seems to be provoked by the fact that the solider says no stupid chief fights for people in a true democracy.
He of the earlier talismans and claims that he ascribes to the ATR, also announces to the refugees that the solider’s worship is not the true religion of their ancestors—whatever the juju he had brought back from his travels.
It’s unbelievable to the soldier, and even to the reader, that after suffering too much for the freedom of his country, that the refugees would want to eject him from the bus on the account of religion.
“Let me tell all of jou in this bus, none of these white countries, which brought us christinaity and democracy, came to die for the Liberians. Did any of these Arab countries peddling militant Islam in Africa send troops to Sierra Leone? I say jou all are mad, to kill each other for two foreign reliyions. We wretched ECOMOG soldiers went out there to die for democracy while the lttle democracy in this country is being scuttled by yenerals and politicians and chiefs…rogues.
Whilst the soldierman’s address brings up important things to reflect, the chief’s thinking seems way set. Perhaps because there is a challenge to his way of thinking. He tells the soldier that making sense doesn’t depend on how many places he has visited. “ As our people say, if winning a race depended on one’s number of legs, the millipede would beat the dog hands down…” Whilst the refugees see this as wisdom, and in deed proverbial or idiomatic wisdom, the chief seems to use this to feign some mystique around him, perhaps to win the loyalty of his unwilling subjects-the refugees. Is it not what African leaders are wont to do. Chuckling away and fanning imaginary sweat in gatherings when they perceive to have said something important to the adoration of their people. A people tied to misfortunes that the only way to feel secure is to rally around these feel important people, who in turn skirt their eyes around their kingdom like some sort of parlour?
This same chief who ascribes to the traditional religion later is awed when the madness of the solider is calmed by the sprinkling of holy water by Madam Aniema. I guess it’s this quick shifting of attitudes that made Africans so gullible.
“Your holy water is as powerful as what those bearded Irishmen sprinkled on our ancestors to make them instant catholics. Then the church didn’t waste time dipping you inti a river before you got the Sprit…
“Just three drops of water and you knew Latin like the Pope,” the chief said
Even the chief offers to speak to Rome to make the madam a priest, to which he is reminded the catholic church doesn’t ordain women. When the outsiders interject with an opinion that there should be an execption to Aniema, they are quickly reminded to mind their own business.
Well, the madness returned quickly after,and more strongly at that despite the attempts to tame it earlier. Ridiculous that the chief insitist in voting to eject soldierman out, as opposed to showing tickets since he had Jubril’s ticket. The refugees, just like Chief were switching sides and it was proving difficult for Jubril to be comfortable.
Jubril is converted to Christianity, after Emeka possessed by some inhausted powers, descend on him claiming that he was an enemy. His marian medal is thrown away to the detriment of the catholics. Emeka takes off into the savannah, haunted by the inexhaustible spirit powers. When he sobers later to the realization that he has to board the second bus with the other refugees, he is shocked that the bus is full of dead bodies. Women, children and men, with blood everywhere as if someone had gassed the bus. Even the refugees after what they had seen seem to forsake the aura and mystery of the world of the spirit, and are not in the mood to listen to his spirit story to be allowed to board the first bus again.
The gullibility of people when faced with misfortune is evident. Chief opines that his country needs the hottest kind of the spirit to be cleansed, for when a ghost cat is stealing from your house you also buy a ghost cat not an ordinary cat..
The sad situation is that Jubril is not spared by the refugees. When the news stream on the TV, the madness of retaliatory attacks in the South, the mass number of corpses from the south etc, the refugees lose their mind. For people like him who could not belong in Khamfi and was haunted by how quickly Luka and the mob had flushed him, his future was still uncertain as the same madness had spread to the south. He had never thought that people in the south were capable of such violence and no one had told him that there were northerners in the south whose lives could be in danger.When he saw images of a mosque razed down he wept, in convulsions even though he himself had set churches on fire before. He took out his right hand to wipe a tear, and it was too late trying to put it back in the pocket. All Christianity, all form of reason desert the refugees as they impound on the boy, his pleas that “I come prom soud, but I be prom nord,” not saving him. He attempts to convey the mangled story of his religious identity, which is useless in the ovious murderous looks of the refugees.
“These were not the stares of catholics, or born-agains or ancestral worshippers. His conversion meant nothing to them. Their stares reminded them of his fundamentalist muslim friends, Musa and Lukman.
It’s breaking that Jubril dies being jeered at his Christo-muslim identity, which could not be embraced by either the northerners or southerners. He dies embracing his god of Islam who had at least been with him until that point of his flight.whilst chief washes his hands off the boy, he doesn’t use his supposed royal authority to save a citizen. Expected, since as an ancestral worshipper, he is an outside to the two foreign religions. It is the soldierman who tears at the kangaroo court, to no avail, attempting to save a citizen, before the refugees dragged him and Jubril and slit their throats.
WRITEthinking 