Lament for the Fallen (15 page)

Joshua is remaining calm by force of will. He wants to run and warn everyone and then get Symon out of the village as fast as possible.

‘If you become dangerous, how do we stop you?’

Symon does not hesitate: ‘Shoot me in the head at close range.’

‘Will that not kill you?’ Joshua feels as if his heart has stopped.

‘No, but it will knock me out for a while. Then get me home. Once I’m in the Achenian connect, the link will be restored.’

Joshua makes a decision. If Symon is dangerous, best get him far away. ‘We should go to Calabar first thing the day after tomorrow. That is two days earlier than we intended, but we must get you there immediately.’

‘I could leave now.’

‘There was a fatality, Symon. We have lost someone. Someone important. Someone loved. My place is at her funeral tomorrow.’

Symon stares blankly.

‘I am worried, Symon. Worried that this death becomes a trigger for unrest. You will need to remain out of sight.’

Symon nods agreement.

A thought: ‘Can you not repair the helicopter. Use that instead?’

‘No, it was in a poor state when it got here and is not designed for that range anyway. Now it is junk at the bottom of a river.’

Joshua frowns, pinches his brow. Sighs and nods.

‘Please, Symon, hold in there.’ He stands, heading for the door. Then he looks back, ‘Look after my friend,’ and is gone.

18

‘H/a/z/a/a/k–’ The sound rings in his ears: conversation echoing up a pipe. It is indistinct. Non-words that he struggles to make sense of.

‘Us/ga/rh/ ha/la/ah–’ Figures now. Prismatic, sharding. He blinks, trying to clear his vision. Stomps on one foot as if emptying water from his ear. Samara realizes he is standing.

The image focuses. He is in a room. There is a plush eggshell-blue rug on the floor, the Seal of the President of the United States at its centre, detailed in varying shades of blue. There are heavy sofas in an arc about an intricately carved wooden desk. The room is oval-shaped, a dark-wooden floor around the edges beyond the rug. Windows before him look out on to a green lawn.

He feels as if he is suspended within himself. Looking out on a scene frozen in a fragment of time.

There are paintings of George Washington and Bill Clinton, busts of Barack Obama and Hillary Osmani. A man is standing before him, in front of the desk, indicating people standing alongside him. He recognizes him. Eduardo Ortega, the president.

He is present.

Ortega is charming. His hair greying at the temples in the approved fashion. His teeth, well formed, regular and the exact shade of Presidential White required to hold office. ‘– and this is Robert Alvarez, my Chief of Staff, whom I believe you already know?’

He is a step behind Oktar Samboa and aligned with his left shoulder. He can see the back of the man’s neck where it rises out of his formal white cloak. Oktar has chosen a very pale-green skin-shade today, which he seems to believe will complement the rug he is standing on.

This is a memory, thinks Samara. I have been here. This has already happened. ‘Symon?’

But Symon is silent.

Oktar turns to Samara, a smirk on his sharp face. Oktar always smirks. He is 131 years old and has been considered one of the world’s smartest negotiators for more than a century. Samara hears him in his head.

‘Are you ready, Samara?’

Samara can feel the quiet space of the connect. There are others present. He recognizes the members of the Five and the remaining Seven gathered, looking out through him, into the room. They sense what he senses, know what he knows – as much as he permits within the confines of the meeting room he has created for them.

‘This is Samara Adaro, who is accompanying me and observing for my colleagues on Achenia. I am of the Seven and entrusted with negotiating for our people.’ Oktar is managing to sound only slightly patronizing.

Samara can feel, in the separate connection they share, Shakiso fuming. She does not like Oktar and believes that she should be there for Achenia. The others had felt that it would be inappropriate for both a husband and wife to represent them. Independence is not a family affair.

‘We have prepared a formal document stating our intentions,’ says Oktar and, turning to Alvarez, hands him a cellulose tube containing the handwritten one-page sheet of vellum they have prepared.

Alvarez holds it in confusion before he realizes the tube is hollow. He draws out the document, unrolling it. The penmanship is beautiful. The ink is black iridescence in the light streaming in from outside.

‘What is this? “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the universe –”’ he reads.

‘So, it has come to this,’ says Ortega bitterly. He motions at the scroll, ‘Not a long document for a declaration of such import?’

‘We thought you would appreciate the symmetry,’ says Samara.

‘What are you, security detail?’ asks Ortega, his voice caustic.

‘My dear President Ortega,’ says Oktar, honey and cinnamon now as he dances through the words. ‘This is a properly constituted document. You will see there the signatures of each of the Five and the Seven, as well as the heads of the six current polities. It has also been ratified by The Three.’

He pauses for a carefully calculated three heartbeats and then, almost casually, ‘And be kind to Samara. You realize we have only one form of “security detail” in Achenia?’

The others can feel Oktar’s smirk through the connect as Ortega jumps and General Marilyn Graham thrusts herself between them.

‘You dare bring a member of the Nine here? To the White House?’

Oktar’s voice is a blade slicing across the tension, ‘We are not at war, President Ortega. Samara is not in a battleskin and he is unarmed. He is here under the direct authority of the Five, and he will not exceed the mandate given him. That mandate is merely to observe and provide security support. Your security is here too, after all.’

‘Yes,’ says Graham, ‘but our security detail couldn’t blow up half the state while having a shit!’

‘Enough,’ says Hollis Agado, one of the Five justices, through the connect to Oktar.

‘My apologies, Hollis, I am merely ensuring they know that we’re not actually negotiating. This is a foregone conclusion. Our independence is not for discussion.’

‘We know, but there is no need to antagonize them further.’

Oktar addresses the president once more. ‘Mr President. Our declaration should not be a surprise. We have been discussing this for years. There is no debate here. You will be receiving a list of our offers, from technology transfers to payments for assets we believe the US Government may regard as its property. This includes the space elevator. You will see that it is more than fair, but we are open to negotiation on these points.’

‘And you want us to negotiate, with him as a gun to our heads?’ says Alvarez.

‘No,’ says Oktar. ‘If we can take independence as accepted, then he can wait outside.’ He pauses again, ‘With your security detail.’

Ortega and Alvarez share a glance. The president nods, motioning at the security officers in their dark suits lining the walls.

Samara is led to the lobby. It is a surprisingly hideous room with unpleasant furniture picked out in baffling shades of orange. Samara refrains from sitting. Or trying the tea. He stands comfortably in a corner and watches through the connect as Oktar negotiates.

‘I may not like him, but he is extremely good,’ says Shakiso. She appears before him, her hair swept back behind her ears and her green-cobalt eyes shining at him. He laughs with her.

‘My darling.’

‘My love.’

He can feel her hand as it caresses his face. He cups her head in his hands, kisses her gently on the forehead.

Across the room, a secretary watches Samara standing silently, motionless and expressionless in the corner. She yawns, bored, and scratches at an insect bite inside her shoe. Looking up again at him she thinks, strange people these spacers.

‘I am preparing your favourite for dinner when you get back,’ says Shakiso.

‘What, that thing with the sage leaves?’ he asks.

‘Yes, that thing with the sage leaves. And fresh tuna. And some yellow creatures.’ She chuckles, a sound filled with pure delight.

‘That would be lovely, my darling,’ laughter filling his soul. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, we both have some serious negotiations to monitor.’

‘If we don’t watch out, Oktar will have them begging for independence from us,’ and then she is only present in the meeting channel. He is left with a lingering memory of her scent, her laughter bubbling in his breast.

The room swims, his vision distorting again.

19

Red comes the dawn. Colours bleached and muted through the early-morning haze. A sombre boom from Ekpe House as the great drum is slowly struck.

And come the people. They sing as they walk through the village. Streaming out of their houses, gathering strength as they fill the streets. They are dressed in ochre reds and yellows, ukara cloth wrapped or draped, white and red beads around their necks. Their feet are naked and their heads are covered.

They sing for the mother who is lost, for the children who remain. They sing the songs of their ancestors for, amongst them, only griots are able to create new songs, and they have no griots.

They draw comfort as they enter the amphitheatre before Ekpe. Men, women, children; embrace, hold hands, weep.

Only when the amphitheatre is full and their singing owns the day does the masquerade leap out from hiding and on to the stage.

He is Ekpe, the spirit of their society, and this is his House. He is here to commit the departed to the earth. His body is a black, tightly fitting, thick, hessian-like fabric covering even his head. Around his wrists and ankles are dense, fibrous raffia balls coloured red and tan. A similar, enormous raffia ball covers his shoulders and chest. He leans on a long white cane and he carries fronds of freshly cut kola leaves in his left hand. Upon his head is the leopard mask and from behind rises a heavy, richly plumed, colourful tail.

Men gather on the stage behind him, singing and beating different drums, ekwe, udu and batá, ringing ogene and playing the single-string goje. A raucous fusion of instruments and cultures. They call out and the crowd responds.

Leadership of the song moves as people who knew her feel compelled to add new verses. Their voices rise, singing, sobbing, above the rhythm, and the others repeat, adding to the tapestry of her life.

Ekpe dances, turning in circles, his feet stamping, his gate wide and laboured. He will dance all day without rest.

Part noise, part music, it unites a community.

Those who knew her. Those who did not. None can doubt her importance, her presence. She was loved.

Through the day, the song ebbs and flows. People move between Ekpe House and the market where food has been laid out, provided by all the restaurants. There is conversation, and memory.

‘You were with her, at the end?’ asks Miriam quietly.

Abishai nods, yes.

She had watched as Samara brought down the helicopter. In the silence that followed, she had heard a faint groan. The wall behind her, shattered by stray bullets. A crumpled figure at its base.

She was sure she had led everyone to safety. When she carefully lifted the tiny body, she realized it was Mama Chibuke, her breathing a terrifying, sucking torment. Feeling over her chest, Abishai found the puncture in her lung. Holding her, ‘Mama, Mama, stay with me, please.’

The old woman was already going. Her eyes fading, her skin cold, her breathing in shorter and shorter gasps. Then, a final inhalation.

For a moment it was as if she was seeing someone she recognized. She smiled, her face young again, beautiful.

‘My husband.’

And then she was gone.

Miriam is holding the weeping Abishai. ‘She said that?’

‘Yes. It was all she said.’

‘Ah, it is well,’ and Miriam feels gratitude that her friend found a small measure of peace.

Late in the afternoon, as the drummers and dancers take a rest, Joshua stands on the stage. They are entering the final part of the ceremony and it is for him to say the eulogy.

‘Mama Chibuke lost all that she knew. Her husband, her children, her grandchildren. She fled violence in the hopes of making a new life. She made her home in Ewuru.

‘Mama became our peacemaker. She adopted us and made us her family. She feared we will give into the darkness she fled. She loved us. She called upon the best in us. She allowed us to experience our humanity.

‘We are all her children and we honour her.’

As he stops speaking, singing begins again from Ekpe House. The drummers emerge, carrying a plain cellulose coffin, with Ekpe leading the way.

The singing is quieter now, subdued.

The amphitheatre empties as the people follow Ekpe down Ikoy Road and out the south gate, along the path above the river and past the grazing fields. The path continues to just short of the trees before the graveyard.

They sing together, one people united in grief, as they carry her home.

20

Samara finds himself in a hotel bar. The carpet is threadbare, the remaining green pile like islands stranded against the torn backing. Avocado-green walls are covered in ingrained dirt, with darker stains on the corners and around light switches. Cleaner square patches pattern the walls where some of the pictures have gone missing.

There was a time when the room, with its dark-wood round bar and heavy black-leather furniture, passed through ‘faded grandeur’, but that must have been eighty years ago. It has now settled on ‘exhausted’, an attitude adopted by the grey, bored-looking barman.