You Must Set Forth at Dawn (53 page)

DESPITE THAT MOMENT, I was unprepared when the news came. I had permitted myself to banish the sad, eloquent glimpse that I had received of Femi's certain destination and restored him in my mind to his familiar surroundings. That dark presentiment, I decided, had been nothing but the product of my own fears. The doctors, the omniscient ones, had sent word back that we could banish all anxiety. From being extremely grave, there had been an upward swing in his condition, said the experts. I telephoned the hospital and received their reassurance—the pressure on his brain had eased, his condition had stabilized to such an extent that the surgeons were now prepared to operate on him. He was alert, could speak, and was fully aware of his surroundings and of the preparations for the operation. He had even shown signs of recovering his habit of self-deprecation. What stupid fears! It was in a buoyant mood that I prepared to ensure my arrival in Frankfurt in time for his operation or as soon as possible afterward, taking as much work as I could with me. Every moment I could spare would be spent with him during the period of his convalescence.

I was on my building site when the news came. The workers had left for home, and I had gone there to look at the progress they had made and, as always, marvel at my temerity in expanding the scope of the house I had planned originally—just a cottage with plenty of grounds. The Nobel Prize had, however, engendered grandiose ideas—a writers' annex, no less, to play host to three or four writers, artistes, or researchers for a few months every year. It was an ambitious concept, one that was still within my means at the time, but of course it played havoc with the original, quite modest architectural plans. Once modified, they dragged in their wake further modifications as the building progressed. Femi's words constantly rang in my ears in absent complaint: “I want to be involved in the project, you hear, make sure I am involved in it right from the beginning.” The hell, I thought, you built that Golden Pillar, Broking House, from scratch, keeping me out. You'll see this only after it has been roofed and is ready for occupation!

It was typical of the irrationalities that sometimes marked our skirmishes. After all, the funds that had enabled me to make a start had come from Femi in the first place. On the advice of my bank manager, I had placed a substantial chunk of my Nobel Prize money in a fixed deposit for the first six months, where, if it conformed to habit, it was supposed to earn me some interest. I had not realized that after the expiration of the first six months this deposit would be automatically reinvested for the next six months, and so on and so on, unless I gave instructions to the contrary.

Blithely, a month or two after the first half year, I attempted to withdraw what was needed to shore up my grand project with gravel, clay blocks, cement, steel rods, and labor. Nothing doing, said the bank manager, your money will not be available till the end of the year. Femi, amazed as usual at my naiveté in money matters, immediately wrote a check for what was needed to break ground, purchase material, and rescue my building schedule.

Now I stood alone on a mound of gravel, surveying my domain wistfully, wondering how soon I might see it finally materialize into the edifice I could picture so clearly in my mind. Motunde, my young ward and grounds manager, drove up in my jeep. She had long since finished her own work and normally would have had no cause to return to the building site. I wondered what determined visitor had penetrated my rented home and sent her racing to warn me. Though she was young enough to be taken for my daughter, I would often wonder if our roles were not really reversed—she the patient, indulgent guardian and I a precocious but unpredictable ward. That was the way she had resolved to relate to me, to my frequent amusement.

I watched her take her time descending from the jeep, then walk slowly toward me. To her normal expression of ambiguous, often unsettling affection was now added the quiet but determined air of one who had come to take command of a crisis situation. This change in her bearing was familiar, and I simply waited for her to reveal the cause. When she came close, she stood still and looked at me wordlessly for some moments. Then, abruptly, she shook her head as if to rid it of some unbearable pressure and turned her gaze away, as if she wanted me to follow that gaze beyond the twilight gathering over the rim of the surrounding hills and see what I feared to know. I understood instantly. I think I let out a deep sigh, walked away from her, and stared into space.

She walked over to stand facing me, her large eyes bathing me in compassion. I asked her to leave, said that I wanted to be alone. She did not argue. I wandered off the building grounds, walking along the red laterite tracks that passed for roads. I did not feel bereaved or sad. I felt nothing but rage—rage at myself for permitting hope, even having seen what I had in the dark glassy tunnel of my friend's eyes. How could I have permitted myself to be so blinded by the pronouncements of mere doctors when I had glimpsed the truth and bidden him good-bye? For it was that moment on the tarmac that returned to rebuke me, the definitiveness of my gaze into the opaque tunnel and my encounter with the abyss of emptiness. If I had kept faith with that unambiguous intimation, I would by now have ceased grieving and could have turned my foreknowledge into a source of strength from which others, more needful, could draw solace.

INVOLVED OR NOT in the planning, designing, or laying of brick on brick, Femi was integrated into this house yet struggling to take shape. His laughter and interminable stories formed part of the foundation, echoed in advance of the raising of the walls. It was impossible not to see him striding from his bedroom—assigned to him right from the designing—to the dining room, groaning with fatigue as he took off his boots on a return from a hunt in my own locality, reminiscing on the highs and lows of the day, already looking forward to the next outing. It seemed incredible that there was nothing physical left of Femi to inhabit the grand undertaking, nothing but an elusive shadow that I vaguely grasped as an impossible absence.

It is only when a house has been lived in, when its walls have been pawed, its doorstep scraped by feet, and its humanity defined by the blend of human sweat, waste, and cooking that it may earn the right, through some accident of abandonment, to become a ghost house. Without having once leaked at the roof, however, without having squeaked at the doors, echoed with music, eavesdropped on a domestic quarrel, or played voyeur at the rites of love, this mere statement of intent, crisscrossed only by foundation channels, pocked by excavated mounds of sand and stacked clay bricks—my home to be, my long-dreamed-of sanctuary—had suddenly become a ghost dwelling.

PART VII

Nation and Exile

The Road to Exile

I never feel I have arrived, though
I journey home. I took the road
That loses crest to questions. . . .

 

IBRAHIM BADAMASI BABANGIDA, THE GENIAL DICTATOR, HAD TAKEN THE nation for a long and twisted election ride that lasted nearly five years. From his first proclaimed date for handing over power to his ousting in 1993, when he “stepped aside,” Babangida set up commissions for the “return to civilian rule” and took his time studying their reports. He decided on election dates, postponed them, banned and unbanned politicians at will, detained some and released them, set down rules and impossible conditions for the registration of parties, set the same rules aside, promulgated two ideologies—
a little to the left
and a little to the right
—created two political parties that would supposedly reflect both, wrote the party constitutions, built two identical headquarters in the capital of each state of the federation, subsidized individual contenders simply to engender false hopes, changed the balloting system, the registration system, the primary system, and so on, then began all over again. Finally, in May 1993, bowing to pressure from the international community, the dictator permitted the elections to take place.

The voting was completed, with more than two-thirds of the results released into the public domain by the Electoral Commission and showing a clear indication that Bashorun Abiola was headed for a victory, when Babangida annulled the entire process. His response to the avalanche of cautionary articles, satirical cartoons, public rumblings, threats, reasoned advice even from within the military, and passionate denunciations that inundated private and public spaces and the media was to remain holed up in his fortress, silent. By now I had given up all hope of reformation of a fumbling yet manipulative mind. I resisted all appeals to resort to the telephone, call the dictator, and remonstrate with him. Indeed, I contributed only one published tract—“There Is Life After Power, IBB”—and that only after much persuasion from multiple directions, including within the military. Not for the first time, I felt that words had reached the limit of their effectiveness. In the adage of the Yoruba, the dog that is fated to lose its way in the bush will remain deaf to the hunter's whistle.

It was the final insult, a contemptuous thwarting of the popular will. There was a lull, a period of utter disbelief; then civic movements commenced plans for contesting such brazen arrogance. I had traveled to Europe to wind up overseas commitments in readiness for what promised to be a protracted struggle when, on June 26, 1993, the people took to the streets. A graduated strategy of protests and street demonstrations was swept aside by public impatience—or even, possibly, by the regime's agents provocateurs, the government's massive countermeasures being already primed for preemptive action. I had been part of the planning, so I really did not have much of a choice—I prepared to return to Nigeria. It turned out to be the kind of a journey that, in calmer moments after the event, I would come to regard as a mirror reflection of the nation's journey toward democracy—every bit as laborious, twisted, and unpredictable, an obstacle race devised and overseen by the wily manipulator to whom Nigerians had given the name “Maradona.”

I was frankly annoyed that yet another crisis was devouring my life, making me shortchange other constituencies—principally the creative. Once again, a part of myself was being placed on hold, and it was clear that this was going to be a long hold. I wound up my affairs as fast as I could, then braced myself for yet another period of turmoil.

The main uprising was in Lagos. Lagos has always tended to be volatile, and, additionally, Lagos was the base of the dispossessed president, even though he was an indigene of Abeokuta. On the morning of June 27, I was at Charles de Gaulle airport, ready to board my plane. So were dozens of other passengers bound for Nigeria. Then came the announcement that all passengers dread—at least those who have anxious ones awaiting their arrival or business to attend to at the end of the flight, or who simply want to get home, shake the dust of alien lands off their feet, and sleep in long-abandoned beds. No, the flight was not postponed, delayed, or canceled. It simply was not going to touch down in Lagos. Owing to unrest in Nigeria, and in Lagos especially, the airline had been advised not to fly into Lagos. It would go only as far as Cotonou. Dissatisfied, I spoke directly to a flight officer. The report that his airline had received was that rioters had taken over Lagos, traffic was halted everywhere, and the entire city was paralyzed. Fatalities had occurred in double digits. There was mention of a curfew.

There was an ominous incident at the French airport that morning, and perhaps it played a role in the airline's decision not to land in Lagos—unlike others flying from other European airports. At the beginning, it did look as if it were simply another false alarm—an absentminded passenger had left a shopping bag on a bench, and the area was cordoned off. The French SWAT machinery went into action, and eventually the package was blown up in a mild, controlled explosion. It was sufficiently near our departure gate for my curiosity to be aroused, so I spoke to one of the police officers who had been left behind to guard the debris. The bag, it turned out, had contained a small radio. After poking through it, the bomb squad had determined that the radio was packed with some timers, detonators, and other bomb-related materials, though it contained no real explosives. The owner of the bag could not be traced, but everything pointed to him or her as being one of the Lagos-bound passengers. It was not a comfortable prelude to returning home. I could not help surmising that the owner had panicked for some reason—perhaps at the sight of an approaching officer—and decided to abandon the compromising baggage. Was this linked in some way to the confrontation that was building up in the nation over the aborted elections?

Knowing the volatility of Lagosians especially, a delay of even a day or two might mean that it would become impossible to enter Lagos at all. It was not a pleasant prospect, having to wait out the protests in Europe. How would I explain it to others? How would I explain it even to myself, who, after all, bore the responsibility for traveling out just before the planned eruptions? The airline staff proposed that the next day's flight might be able to enter Lagos and offered to put the passengers up for the night. That was not only dangerously late for me, but there was no guarantee that the next flight would not undergo the same fate. There was only one solution—to fly into neighboring Cotonou with Air France, then travel overland to Lagos the following morning, by taxi if necessary. I had friends in Cotonou from whom I might be able to borrow a car and a driver. I would play it by ear. This was one instance when I definitely lacked prescience, but my passage into exile was about to begin—only I was journeying in the wrong direction.

Paulin Houtounji was minister of culture in the Republic of Benin at the time; he was a feisty academic philosopher with a small, compact frame, now tending toward a slightly comic rotundity, who never allowed his stammering impediment to prevent him from saying whatever he had in his head. On arrival, I decided, I would check in to a hotel, then contact him. Air France may have exaggerated the Lagos situation—other flights did land without any problem in Lagos, we found out later—but then, many passengers also found themselves compelled to pass the night at the airport and all of the following day, and the next, as the streets were impassable. Still, if I wanted any confirmation about the grimness of the situation in Lagos, Paulin soon settled that for me when I appeared in his office the following morning. He snorted his disbelief, struggled with his stammering for even longer than usual, then exploded.

Lagos? He declared to everyone within earshot that I was mad. He had no problem providing a car to take me to the border at Seme, but after that, I would be on my own. Both his car and driver, as well as his secretary, were at my disposal for as long as I needed them, but I would discover, he assured me, that Seme was as far as either could go, no matter how willing they were. No vehicles had been able to cross the border for the past thirty-six hours. Official diplomatic vehicles, commercial transport, whatever—everything was being turned back. Paulin insisted that his secretary accompany me in the hope that, along the way, she might talk some sense into me and bring me back in time for a reunion lunch in the sane environment of Cotonou.

I must confess here to an irrational presumption of my ability to penetrate any space, however hostile. It has to do, I suspect, with a deeply lodged rejection of restriction of my movements, be it on the authority of the state, of an individual or circumstance, or of some material impediment directed at me, personally or generally. Perhaps it is not so much irrational as it is nonrational; that is, I tend not to subject such challenges to the process of reasoning. If the space is obviously unbreachable, then, of course, it simply never occurs to me to want to go there. It poses no challenge whatsoever since it has placed itself beyond my human interest. Need also has something to do with it: Do I
need
to go from Apanla to Oponlo? I do? Good! I need, therefore I shall. Obstacles are supposed to disappear, simply because
oga
⁴⁹
needs to go. It is one of the mysteries of my existence—looking back, that is, oh yes, only on looking back after the event, after several such instances. Only then does it strike me that I have conducted myself in a nonrational manner. At the time, however, the situation is outside the province of reasoning.
Have need, will travel.
End of doubts and beginning of motion.

THE APPROACH TO the Nigeria-Cotonou border told the story at first glance. For miles we cruised past a long line of vehicles parked along the road right up to the border, unable or unwilling to cross. On the Benin side of the border, a few quickly conducted interviews with motorists painted an even bleaker picture.

I crossed over to the Nigerian side of the immigration post. There I met those who had earlier risked penetrating the Nigerian space beyond the safety of the border post. They returned within an hour of their venture either with damaged vehicles or with depleted pockets, having been forced to pay a toll for getting even as far as the first roadblock mounted by demonstrators. Check-mate? Well, at least I was now standing on Nigerian soil. I sent back Paulin's car, his secretary's voice ringing in my ears till the last moment, urging me to return with them and take up the lunch offer in the affable company of Paulin.

The taxi drivers on the Nigerian side were mostly strolling aimlessly around the border post, usually a beehive but now unnervingly emptied of any noticeable motion. They lolled in the tree shade or hung around the exits with their eyes strained in the direction of Lagos, determined perhaps to be the first to catch any bit of news emerging from there through some luckless traveler. I stood with my all-purpose bag in front of the Immigration office. Resting against a windowsill was an easily identifiable secret service agent—the notorious SSS—perhaps the one in charge of that sector. He recognized me, looked astonished, but was instantly alert. I told him that I needed to get into Lagos.

“Prof,” he said, “I don't think it is wise to go into Lagos today. In fact, I don't think you'll be able to get in at all.” He waved his hand in the direction of the idle groups of men and abandoned vehicles. “None of them will risk it. Some tried, and they've brought back sad stories.”

“And you? What kind of stories have you got?”

“Stories? That's what I have just told you.”

“Intelligence reports,” I said bluntly.

He laughed. “Haba, Prof!”

We went among the taxi drivers, and the response was uniform—and firm. Even as we approached, a number of them scrambled up, waiting expectantly. I wasted no time in disappointing them.

“I am in no position to tell you anything,” I said. “I've been away nearly a week, so you know more than I do. I flew in only last night from Paris, through Cotonou. That's because the captain refused to fly us into Lagos. Now, which of you is taking me into Lagos?”