The sense of elation I had experienced in the courtroom dissipated as soon as the Black Maria drove through the gate of Bande maximum security prison where Justice Kayode had ordered me remanded until my trial resumed. The vehicle screeched to a halt inside the prison grounds and the warders ran about in a great bluster, as if my arrival as their ward was an event bound to shake the vital centre of their lives.
Alighting from the vehicle, I noticed the severity of the prison’s design, the maze of concrete pathways that connected the cells. Tall mahogany trees stood outside the prison’s high spiked walls, like spies.
Alone in a cell my heart shrivelled within me. The cell reeked of a variety of smells, mementoes left by all the previous occupants. The four walls seemed to draw imperceptibly closer, threatening in time to meet in an embrace and crush me. Death entered and stayed in my thoughts.
A beam of light shot through the cell’s high-set window into the centre of the room. A multitude of motes danced within the beam, floating in a kind of hopeless limbo. I soon had the sensation of becoming one of the motes, freckly, weightless and flimsy, one among a million gyrators in an unending dance.
At night different sounds intruded on my solitude: the swaying of trees, the chirr of insects, the croaking of frogs, the shabby shuffle of roaches, the low requiem of mosquitoes and the terrible braying of demented prisoners.
*
Eight days later I was visited by the new court-appointed psychiatrist.
Joshua was on duty that afternoon, a stocky fellow with a beer belly, a scarred face and small, serpent-like eyes. The other warders know to keep their distance, allowing me some space. They announce their presence discreetly, as if their eyes dread the prospect of meeting mine. Even when they bring me the bland-tasting beans that are the staple diet here, they shy away from my gaze. Joshua is different, a creepy monster with a surly coldness about him.
“S. P. J. C. Mandi,” I heard a male voice say outside my cell. “State certified psychiatrist. I’m here on the orders of a high court to see suspect number MTS 1646.”
“De suspect dey sleep,” Joshua announced in his baritone.
“Well, then, we’ll go in and wake him.”
“Go in?” asked Joshua incredulously. “Go in? Mister doctor, nobody fit enter that cell. The man be crazy man. You can’t fit to enter the cell. God forbid bad thing!”
“I’m the only one who can determine that the suspect is crazy. Not you, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t fear, Mister doctor. I no do your job. But I get two eyes. I done look the man well, well. I swear, he be proper crazy man. Allah!”
“I’m awfully sorry then that Justice Kayode did not have the wisdom to appoint you. What’s your name by the way?”
“Joshua,” answered the warder. “Corporal Joshua.”
“Yes, Corporal Joshua. I happen to be the one asked by the court to report on the suspect’s mental state. Now if you don’t mind, could you please open the cell so that I may get to work?”
“I know say me no go school, but no way I fit open that cell. I no fit contravene protocol, at all at all.”
“Okay, Corporal Joshua, I see that we’re a little confused here. My job is to interview the suspect – where and when I choose to do it. Your job is to provide me with security. And even then you must not be too intrusive. Do you understand?”
“I understand, but…”
“No, there are no more buts. You’ll do what I ask. Now open the cell.”
Joshua grunted in capitulation and slid the key into the lock. In stepped a tall man, spare and athletic, bearded. He looked straight into my eyes and smiled.
“Dr S. P. J. C. Mandi,” he said, extending his hand for a shake. I sat up on my mattress and took his hand. He tightened his grip and held on for an oddly long time. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. A real pleasure.”
He was warm and suave, a man capable of establishing instant familiarity. I had to be on my guard, I cautioned myself; I had to keep unthawed some of my distrust of men who serve systems.
Finally letting go of my hand, he explained his presence. “Justice Kayode has asked me to examine you.” He paused and averted his eyes, ashamed of the indelicacy of his words. “Examine is perhaps not the right term. It’s more like an interaction, a, what’s the word I’m looking for… a dialogue. My job is to have a dialogue with you. Then to advise the court on certain matters.”
I nodded and he continued.
“Perhaps we should start by taking care of one or two procedural issues. The first is that I propose for our dialogue to be held right here, if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t, I told him, but where was he going to sit? Apart from a mattress on the floor the cell was bare.
“No problem at all. I intend to stand.”
I shrugged, indifferent.
“And, if you don’t mind, may I request that you stand when we talk? Things are easier that way.”
“How?” I asked, hardly able to hide my curiosity.
“Blood circulates better when we stand. And people are more honest on their feet.”
“Are they? I know people who’ve told the baldest lies standing.”
In a serious vein, he said, “It’s a matter I’ve given serious consideration. And my conclusion is, it’s harder to hide or distort our true feelings while standing.”
“Is this a scientific insight?”
“Call it my personal insight. No scientific journal would be likely to accept an article from me on the subject. But who cares? Some of the most important discoveries in life have never been reported in any journal.” He winked at me, a twinkle in his eye. “You may be interested to know that some of my colleagues view me as something of a maverick. The unkinder ones might even call me a quack.”
Disarming and charming as he was, I had to remind myself sternly that he was not my friend. He was a scientist, I a caged animal in his laboratory. He might masquerade as a genial and humorous man but he could just as easily slip into his other skin as a diviner of minds. What was he here for but to plumb my deepest motives and uncover my hidden desires?
“I have no problem standing,” I said gruffly.
“Thank you.” His tone sounded a little officious. “Now the second procedural matter has to do with the length of our meetings. You have the veto. You may call things off any time you wish.”
“Very generous of you, Dr Mandi.” I spoke too brightly.
“Ah, there’s the issue of nomenclature to iron out. I’m quite happy with my initials. You must call me S.P.J.C.”
“That would be presumptuous. Besides, it’s such a mouthful! Ess Pee Jay Cee.”
“Well, that’s what you get when the Catholic Church names you. Simon Peter came with baptism. Jude with confirmation. My parents threw in Chika to appease the ancestors. For years I didn’t know how to hold the names together. You don’t walk up to people and introduce yourself as Simon Peter Jude Chika Mandi. Somebody might fall asleep while you’re at it. But my chemistry teacher in secondary school solved the problem. He strung together the initials I have used ever since. Saved me a lot of headache, that wise fellow.”
I began to smile, until I saw the doctor’s eyes fixed on my teeth. Was he puzzled by the brownish stain on the two front ones? I clamped my mouth shut.
“I understand that you absolutely refuse to tell anybody your name.”
“On the contrary,” I said in a low, weary voice. “I do tell my name.”
He laughed. “Like the ones you gave to the detectives? Those won’t do. Nobody is going to put down Exile on an official document. Perhaps you should know that the prison bureaucracy hasn’t given you a very flattering name.”
“You mean MTS 1646?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been wondering,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“1646 is of course your cell number.”
“I figured that out. But MTS?”
“Mentally Troubled Suspect.” He scanned my face for my reaction. I averted my eyes, and shrugged. In a strange way I found the information laughable, like a fool’s predictable witticism.
He fell silent, twittering. Then he said, “I have to leave now. We can’t get into the big issues today. I’ll return tomorrow at 1:30. Would you need anything?”
I thanked him, but said no, he could not give me what I wanted. Then I told him about the cockroaches and bed bugs, the mosquitoes and their sad songs.
“I can’t claim to know much about roaches and bed bugs. Their history is as shrouded as their ways.” Then, moving slowly towards the door, he said, “But there is a story about mosquitoes and the ear.”
“There are stories,” I corrected him. “I know quite a few of them. But I still hate their melancholy droning.”
“You sound like a harsh critic.” He was now at the door. “But remember that mosquitoes may be more moved by kindness.” He laughed, and without looking back, said, “See you tomorrow.”
He exited so fusslessly that, moments later, I still felt his presence in the room, reinforced by the echo of his parting words: moved by kindness, kindness, kindness.
*
I looked forward to my next meeting with Dr Mandi with mixed emotions. Expectancy was mingled with a sense of foreboding, a vague fear that peril lay in store if I placed too much trust in the psychiatrist.
He opened the conversation gravely. “I’ve thought a lot about the way we ended yesterday: the bit about MTS.”
“Oh.” I was not sure what this was leading to.
“I know you’re not mentally troubled.”
My brows shot up. Had I heard right?
“If you believe that, then the adjournment is a waste of everybody’s time. Your report will merely repeat what Dr Mara has already told the court.”
“I’m afraid not. My hands are tied in that regard.” His face was mournful and tired.
In a perplexed tone I said, “I don’t get you.”
Dr Mandi narrowed the space between us, to within the range of quiet speech. “The state, my friend, has decided to try you as a mad person. That’s the only reason the case was adjourned. After what happened in court, you must understand why.”
“But I don’t,” I protested.
“Don’t you understand the implications of saying in open court that His Excellency is a rapist and murderer?”
“But that’s the truth!” I cried, forgetting to subdue my voice.
The doctor’s eyes danced in the direction of the door. I turned and saw Joshua watching us with alarm, the whistle between his lips. I said, “It’s true. These mosquitoes won’t let me sleep.” Joshua removed the whistle, shook his head and scuffed away. After his disappearance, I faced the doctor and continued in a lower tone. “What I said in court is the truth. The man is a rapist and murderer.”
Dr Mandi put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, “Who in this country doesn’t know that? Remember he has run our lives for two decades.”
“But I’m speaking quite literally,” I said on a note of protest. “Even before he seized power he raped a woman I knew, a prostitute. He later killed her. Quite literally, I must repeat.”
“I know. And you know what?” A conspiratorial glint was in his eye. “Most believe your story. It’s the topic of conversation everywhere: here in this city, throughout the country, even overseas. The reports by the foreign media are what Bello’s most concerned about: he’s been trying to spruce up his regime’s image. That’s why you’re in trouble. You can’t publicise dirty secrets about the Life President and hope to sleep peacefully.”
I sighed bitterly. “I realise that.”
“I have received clear orders from His Excellency’s office to report that you’re a madman. I was compelled to sign a paper to that effect.”
I threw him a disgusted look.
“I had little choice,” he said.
The anger that welled up inside me was of an odd kind, tinged with contempt and pity. As our eyes met again, I said, “Whatever happened to principles? And integrity?”
He shrugged, less ashamed than I thought he should be. “In the real world necessity sometimes takes precedence over conscience.”
“I pity any man who would say that!”
“I probably deserve pity. But I know it could have been worse. For both of us.”
“How?”
He again inclined himself forward, to whisper into my ears. I drew my head back, as though to avoid bad breath.
“You were to be poisoned,” he said. “That was the first plan.”
He saw the startled look on my face and smiled, as if privy to still darker secrets.
“Yes, my friend, I hear things. I know a statement was already drafted to the effect that you committed suicide. Yes, that you recanted, then took your own life. That you couldn’t live with the shame of the bare-faced lies you told in court. You owe your life to some anonymous fellow who published a letter in the international press to the effect that he could corroborate your allegations. He said he feared His Excellency would order you to be killed in order to cover up sordid facts in his past. The letter was published the very day your food was to be laced with enough cyanide to kill a cow. That’s what forced the presidency to abandon its original idea and switch to Plan B – to discredit you. Which is where I come in.
“I was told what to do, at gunpoint. When your trial resumes, I’ll take the stand and describe you as schizophrenic. Justice Kayode will pronounce you guilty on one count of second-degree assault and one count of second-degree murder. Because of the international attention, the death penalty has been ruled out. You’ll be sent to jail for a few years in the hope that the world will forget you and all you said in court. That’s the idea.”
“That’s the idea? And everybody knows it?”
“Well, let’s say the major actors. Certainly Justice Kayode, the prosecutors, the police. A new decree will be issued tomorrow that makes mad people legally responsible for their crimes. The decree will be made retroactive, specifically to cover your case.”
More out of fury than doubt, I asked, “Why should I believe you?”
“Good question. I don’t know the answer.”
After a moment I asked, still agitated, “If my fate is already sealed, then why are you here? Why is there a trial at all? The system you serve could have thrown me in jail without a trial. It happens every day. So why the needless ceremony? Why the adjournment?”
“The reason is called due process. This country is in deep trouble if Western diplomats send home reports to the effect that Madia doesn’t observe due process in criminal trials. Or that we don’t apply the rule of law. There’s nothing worse than that to discourage foreign investors, freeze international aid, and keep the tourists away. The state may make up its mind behind closed doors but it must stage a public show to impress upon the world that it’s an open, deliberative machine. Nor is Madia peculiar in this regard. It’s the same everywhere: Europe, the United States. In your case Justice Kayode must go through the necessary motions even if he has reached a verdict a priori. Indeed, especially then.”
*
Due process and the rule of law. The phrases resurrected a figure from years ago, a professor at the University of Madia who ran a course in Legal Ethics. He was a fattish man with restless eyes, popular with students for his unusual phrases and his classroom style. When he taught, he jumped and romped and beat up the air, like a novice karate artist in practice.
One day he strutted into class, wrote RULE OF LAW on the blackboard, and underlined the topic with a quick unsteady line. Then, making a sharp turn towards the class, he exclaimed, “To hell with the rule of law! Give me the rule of justice!”
He was crazy, that was the consensus of his colleagues. They said a professor like him was the price the country paid for recruiting jeans-wearing, cursing, American-educated academics. Nobody disputed that he was a legend in his own right. One day at a faculty meeting he put his hand in his pocket for a piece of paper but pulled out a condom instead. He had done it in error, this much his detractors conceded, but he still had to be a lunatic to carry such things around.
Sam Ajira – that was the eccentric professor’s name.
*
“Do you know how I feel right now?” I said to Dr Mandi. “Like a fly trapped in beer. Drowning more and more each time I bat my wings to leap to freedom.”
“Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me your story.”
“You’re part of this charade,” I snapped. “I don’t want to participate in it any more than I have already.”
“Trust me,” he said.
“Trust you? You who have signed a false report. You who will say things in court you know to be untrue. Trust you?”
Briefly, his professional composure seemed to unravel. “A gun was put to my head. Yes, I could have chosen to die for integrity and principle. Sometimes, believe me, I feel ashamed that I didn’t. But what principle does a dead man defend? What truth does he espouse? You may not know it now, but I’m also going out of my way to help you.”
“What exactly do you want from me?”
“Tell me everything that happened.”
“Why? I tried to tell the police and Dr Mara after my arrest, but they were not interested. I tried to tell it in court, but the system you serve stopped me.”
“The slaves of the system. That’s who stopped you,” he said.
“But aren’t you one of those slaves?”
“How can I deny it? But I’m an unhappy slave.”
“The only thing I’m left with in the world are memories. And I honestly don’t trust you enough to share them.”
He scratched his head. Then he said, “Do you know a fellow named Ashiki?” I trembled, but said nothing. “Well,” the doctor continued, “I haven’t met him yet, but I believe he found out that I was working on your case. He left me a message to pass on to you.” He pulled a piece of paper from a file and handed it to me. The message was handwritten in capitals:
THE JOURNEY BEGAN AT GOOD LIFE
“A bewildering message,” the doctor suggested.
“Not to me,” I answered.
In silence, I thought about the implications of this development – the sudden exhumation of the one man who knew something about my previous existence.
“I’ll tell you my story, under certain conditions,” I said. “First, I want to write everything down. So I need pens and sheets of paper.”
He nodded his agreement and handed me a notebook and a pen to be going on with.
“I’d also like to see the Daily Chronicle reporter. I want him to be the custodian of my story.”
A frown crossed his face. “It’s impossible to smuggle a reporter in here.”
I shrugged. “If you want me to tell my story…”
He smiled at my persistence. “All right. Perhaps it will only be difficult, not impossible. I will try to arrange to bring him to you.”
“Thank you. Meanwhile let me write a message, just in case you see Ashiki.”
I tore out a sheet from the notebook and wrote, “Violet made death easier to bear.” The feel of the paper brought back pleasures I had long forgotten, the scratchy song of pen and ink.