Abel finally came to a quiet realisation about Lagos; a disturbing truth that had been niggling at the edge of his mind. It revealed itself to him as a city of dissemblers, and he had joined them in that dance of dissemblance. Everyone was hiding some deception that would, like a pebble flung against a mirror, shatter the image of their fake lives.
For two days after the Santos debacle, Abel and Ada stayed indoors. They spent most of the time upstairs. They had left firm instructions with the guard not to let anyone in. The house help was also barred from leaving the premises under any guise.
They seemed to be waiting for something to break and it got to a point for Abel, where anything would have sufficed: the police, Santos, Soni walking in with two heads. He would have been glad for anything to break the tedium of the slow hours.
But nothing happened. Santos didn’t call and neither did the police. Even though it made Abel happy and relieved, there was still some residue of fear, as if the calm was no more than the compressed moment between the flash of lightning and the thunder.
He read books, watched movies, played with Zeal and chatted with Calista. She had arrived in Boston and was busy trying to settle in at Harvard, although she still found time to send him pictures from the shower.
Abel hadn’t told her about Mayowa. For once, Ada was his only confidante and he knew the secret would probably die with him, her and Santos. How did one send a lover a text to say I killed a man last week; beat and kicked him to death with my bare hands and feet? It wasn’t going to happen.
Helen called a few times asking him out to the movies or a reading but Abel always found an excuse at the last minute.
Then Auntie Ekwi called on Thursday night to say she would be coming the next day. She breezed in early that Friday morning in her Ankara gown and head tie of the same material, all of which smelled faintly, as always, of camphor.
‘This night vigil is still pending, you know. Our brother is still missing and as the Bible says, we ought to pray and not faint. Are we ready for tonight?’
Every time she walked in that early in the morning, Abel would remember her mother, his grandmother, who used to sell snuff, tobacco, smokers’ pipes and gin. He remembered accompanying her early in the mornings to the houses of those who owed her money. They would arrive at 6am, sometimes a little before. His grandmother would rap on the door with her walking stick and rouse the inhabitants from sleep. They were always upset, but somehow that early morning call and, Abel guessed, the dread of having an old woman wake up the neighbourhood with cries of how she was being driven to poverty by a heartless man or woman, always made them pay up. It must have been from her that Auntie Ekwi learnt how to drop in on people before daylight.
‘Auntie Ekwi, we are ready,’ he said as he settled opposite her. Ada was already with her.
‘Good, good. I shall send the prophet a text. How is Zeal? Any news from the police? We all saw the stories in the paper, but like I told you in my text, Daddy has been unwell. I would have been here since.’
Abel told her it was OK. She had sent texts a few times. Daddy was what she called her husband. He was down with typhoid fever, she said, and she had been playing nurse.
‘Our wife, could you please get me some water? Thank you.’
The moment Ada was out of earshot, Auntie Ekwi leaned close to Abel and spoke in Igbo.
‘Chiedu, what is this talk about her having a boyfriend? It was all over the papers how she has been carrying on with some handsome young man. You live in this house, you are the man of the house; how can you let that happen? The people at home will not be happy.’
Something about her tone, her conspiratorial manner just cracked Abel up and he was still laughing when Ada came back bearing a glass and bottle of water on a tray.
‘What’s so funny?’ she asked as she set the tray down. She poured water into a glass and handed it to Auntie Ekwi who took one sip and spat it out.
‘It is cold, chukwu nna. Our wife, please get me warm water, room temperature. My cough has not fully gone.’
‘Yes, Auntie.’ There were questions in her eyes as she looked at Abel, who just smiled at her as she left with the tray.
‘Oh, I have now become Ali Baba, eh?’ Auntie Ekwi said to Abel in English.
‘Auntie sorry. I am really sorry. That handsome young man is me. These people just write what they like.’
‘But that’s what you should have said instead of turning into a laughing jackass.’
Ada returned with the tray, poured water into the glass and passed it to Auntie Ekwi.
‘Should I go and come back later?’ she asked in Igbo, looking from aunt to nephew. She was smiling but, having lived with her for almost three months, Abel knew there was no mirth in it.
‘Our wife, please sit down and tell me about Zealinjo. How is he doing at school? I hope he is as intelligent as his father.’
Ada sat down, crossed her legs and ignored the question, a fixed smile on her face.
Breakfast was an awkward affair. Then, when they were done and Abel called on Ada’s driver to take Auntie Ekwi home, Ada objected, saying she needed the driver because she would be going out in a hurry. Abel took Auntie Ekwi to the gate where he found and paid for a cab.
Ada was lying on the couch in the living room when he came back in.
‘I thought you were going out?’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Really?’
He glared down at her, trying to control his rage. ‘Ada this is childish,’ he told her, and stomped off to his room.
He was taking off his shoes when his door was pushed open.
‘And talking behind my back is not childish?’ she asked, framed in the doorway, her uncombed hair cascading over her forehead and shoulders.
‘Is that what this is about?’ He switched on the light.
‘Yes. She sends me on the same errand. Twice. So you guys can talk about me.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘See … You were rude to my auntie and I think you should apologise,’ he said as he stood and took her hand. ‘Come.’ He shut the door and led her to the couch. ‘She asked how I could let you have a lover while I was living here.
‘A lover!’ Ada exclaimed, sitting up.
‘Yes, the handsome young man you have been seen around town with, remember?’ She grinned. ‘Now you see why I was laughing. You shouldn’t have treated her that way. Auntie Ekwi can be talkative and troublesome, but she has a good heart.’
‘I know, but all this stress is getting to me. I will call her and apologise. We are seeing her tonight too. Don’t be angry, handsome young man.’
‘It’s alright.’ He took her hand in his. ‘She told me on our way out that Santos called her.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That you and I fired him for no just cause. How that would never have happened if Soni was here.’
‘Did she ask him what he did? Did he say?’
‘Of course not. He said something or the other about taking money from Dr Nicole and not washing the car. Something silly.’
‘Good. We have to talk now. We need to fix the Santos problem. What do you think we should do?’
‘Let’s give him what he asked for and let him get lost.’
‘No, if you give him money he will blow it and come back for more. We will have to keep looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.’
‘So, what do we do?’
‘I don’t know, but we have to find a more permanent solution.’ She left him to his thoughts and long after she was gone, he sat wondering what she meant by ‘permanent solution’, hoping it wasn’t what he felt she meant.
—
On the morning when they were getting ready to leave for the next night vigil, Auntie Ekwi came to them and said the Prophet had been given a word. ‘He wants to see you two,’ she said.
The Prophet was seated behind the tiniest table Abel had ever seen, in a claustrophobic office that seemed to have been carved out as an afterthought. A noisy fan rotated overhead, ineffectual against the heat.
‘You will do saara,’ he told them. ‘Find at least twenty-one homeless children and feed them for three days. There must not be less than twenty-one. Three days. Then we will return here next Friday for prayers. I see dark clouds and we must dispel them with kindness and giving.’
‘How does one find twenty-one homeless children to feed?’ Abel asked as they walked outside into the brightening day.
‘There is always a way,’ Auntie Ekwi said.
‘Please help us ask around,’ Abel told her as they got to her car. Her husband was still recuperating, so she had driven. ‘I have no idea what to do or how to find twenty-one homeless children.’
‘I will ask questions,’ Auntie Ekwi said as she opened her door. Ada was beside her in two strides and on her knees in a heartbeat, surprising Abel.
‘Auntie Ekwi, please do not be offended,’ she said in Igbo. ‘This whole wahala is beginning to affect me. Forgive me please.’
‘It is OK, please get up, get up,’ Auntie Ekwi said glancing from right to left in embarrassment. They hugged, and Abel and Ada walked to their own vehicle.
‘That was something. I didn’t expect you to do that in public.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. Apologising on the phone, in the house, yes. But in public? I was impressed.’
‘I may have my crazy moments but I love your brother and I will do anything to make him happy and keep the peace.’
She pulled out and hit the road with a squeal of tyres.
—
Abel’s mobile woke him. He had drawn the curtains the moment they got home, turned the AC as high as it would go, and crawled under the duvet.
It was Umannah. ‘We haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything OK?’
‘Yes,’ Abel answered. ‘I just haven’t been feeling well. The stress of it all is beginning to wear me out.’
‘That happens. I thought we should meet so I can bring you up to speed with what we are doing.’
‘Sure. Why don’t I buy you lunch today, at 2pm. I will text the address. Is that OK?’
‘That will be fine. I will expect the address.’
A message came in from Calista as he sent Umannah the address of a restaurant. It was a short message with a picture of her naked in bed.
Do u miss me d way i miss u? she asked.
Yes, much more than you miss me, Abel replied. Have been sleeping. Just woke up. How is Boston? He hit the send button and set the phone down on the rug.
There was a commotion at the door and Abel could hear Philo’s voice: ‘Come back, here. Uncle is sleeping.’
Zeal. Abel got off the bed, opened the door and asked Philo to let him in.
‘Uncle Abel, let’s watch Happy Feet.’
‘Sure.’ Abel took the DVD case from him and lopped Zeal on his bed. He put the movie on and went into the bathroom to shower.
He ate a light breakfast in the room, feeding tiny bits to Zeal, who squealed with delight at his favourite parts of the movie as if he hadn’t watched it over ten times already. The boy fell asleep halfway through and Abel tucked him in and read for about an hour before getting dressed. Philo came to fetch Zeal who woke as she lifted him.
‘Happy Feet!’ he cried as his gaze rested on his uncle. Then he closed his eyes and nodded off.
When Abel stopped to tell Ada he was meeting with Umannah, she didn’t stir or ask questions like he would have, especially with the Santos problem still hanging.
‘Take some money. Fifty, sixty thousand. Say it’s to show appreciation for what they are doing,’ she told him, not taking her eyes from the Desperate Housewives episode she was watching.
Umannah was early and already drinking a beer when Abel arrived at the restaurant.
‘You got here before me.’ Abel checked his time: it was still eight minutes before 2pm. He would have been there earlier if he hadn’t stopped at an ATM to get the money Ada had suggested.
‘Punctuality is the soul of business,’ Umannah told him as they shook hands.
‘Shall I order for us?’
‘Yes, I am not used to fancy Chinese restaurants. Whatever is good for you is good for me.’
‘It’s a Thai restaurant,’ Abel said before he could stop himself.
Umannah didn’t seem to have noticed.
‘We discovered movement on your brother’s accounts,’ he said when their starter arrived.
‘Yes. We got a court injunction. The family was suffering. His business too.’
‘And the new account that was opened in his company name with you and his wife as signatories?’
‘We had to have money in an account we could access easily. It’s an operations account, basically.’
The questions came and Abel answered, impressed that the police were, at least, as Nigerians like to say, doing something. They had polished off a bottle of red wine by the time the meal came to an end.
‘The commissioner and DCP Balogun are on my case. They want answers and we have two weeks to deliver,’ he told Abel. ‘We have learnt quite a few things and I will discuss some with you next week before I submit my report.’
‘That’s good.’ Abel reached into his jacket; the moment seemed right. ‘I hope this doesn’t offend you but I just wanted to show some appreciation for what you are doing for us.’ He placed the envelope on the table.
‘Oh, no offence taken.’ Umannah palmed it and put it in his own jacket. ‘As I told you, I knew your brother and he helped me once. I feel I have to pay him back,’ Umannah said as he pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘We will meet here, next week. I like their food. Classy. Money is good, my brother.’ They shook hands. ‘If I eat here with my own money, my wife and I will fight over chop money.’
Abel sat again after Umannah was gone. He had been scared but was now relieved that there had been no mention of Santos or Mayowa. As he waited for his bill, he considered what Ada had said about a permanent solution and shook his head. Santos was family; a blood relative. He had to find a way to sort that problem out in a way that was not too permanent.
—
Sunday crept by. Abel spent all of it upstairs, first in bed then watching movies with Ada. Neither of them bathed until evening.
They were overwhelmingly lethargic, as if the sleep they had been denied on Friday because of the night vigil had finally caught up with them.
Auntie Ekwi sent a mid-morning text on Monday: I found a place in Ajegunle.
Ajegunle! That was one place he had never been to in Lagos.
‘It should be fine. I don’t think it’s as bad as it used to be,’ Ada told him when he brought it up.
‘Have you been there before?’ he asked as they made a list of things to buy for the three days they would have to feed the twenty-one homeless children.
‘No, but I have heard good things. Call Auntie Ekwi.’
‘Is it not human beings who live there?’ Auntie Ekwi fired back in Igbo. ‘What is all this about? So living in Lekki has made you soft?’
Abel mumbled something and said he would call her back. She was obviously in a foul mood.
Ada called her later and they agreed to go to Ajegunle the next morning.
First they would visit the home they had been directed to. It was called Brothers’ Keepers Foundation Home and run by a young woman. Auntie Ekwi had seen a story about the place in the papers.
‘So you don’t know her?’ Ada asked.
‘No, but it shouldn’t be difficult. She takes care of the homeless: AIDS orphans, kids with different ailments – those who have been abandoned. She is always happy to get help.’
Ajegunle surprised Abel.
On the shift from the upscale locale of Apapa into Ajegunle, there appeared to be something like a time warp, as if one dimension had ceased to exist and another had taken its place.
He had expected a jungle but found an urban sprawl clawing at respectability. There were paved roads and multi-storeyed buildings. It was still a ghetto but one that was gradually and systematically shrugging off its past.
Their destination was called Dustbin Estate – a settlement, literarily on top of a refuse heap. They had to park and walk, and after a certain point the ground softened underfoot as if padded with sawdust.
But it wasn’t the soft soil, the quasi-terra-firma that unnerved them; it was the unnerving stench. There was no reprieve, just a massive stink that hit you so hard you almost retched. Abel felt like the stench would never leave the soles of his shoes.
They found the home, which was no more than a rectangular structure built right by the canal. The floor was calcified refuse but the children sat on it as if on Persian rugs.
Stella Maris, the lady who had set up the place and now ran it, was all smiles as they explained that they had come to visit and feed the kids.
‘God will bless you,’ she kept saying as the children milled around, tugging at her frayed gown and pointing at the well-dressed strangers.
They had to see the Baale of Dustbin Estate, who was like some kind of overseer and chief, she told them, before they could drop off their gifts, since she and her foundation were there thanks to the magnanimity of the Baale and his community.
The Baale’s house was a bungalow. He was sitting outside, smoking and drinking kai-kai, the local brew.
‘Who be dis people?’ he asked.
‘Dem bring food come for our children,’ she told him. He nodded and spat a glob of saliva into the gutter.
His house was different. Although built atop the refuse dump like the rest, he had paving stones on the floor. Still, there was no mistaking the fact that they were in Ajegunle. A thin rivulet of brackish green water ran from across the road to his verandah, before snaking its way under the house to the back where it met the canal. Every time the wind blew, the stench would waft up and foul the air.
The Baale asked a few questions and then Abel presented him with the Gordon’s Gin and pack of cigarettes Stella Maris had asked them to buy.
‘God go bless you people. Your children no go get wahala like these ones for here.’ The Baale prayed as he set down the gifts and pocketed the ten thousand naira Abel had added.
Abel and Ada left Auntie Ekwi to handle the delivery and instructions. They also gave Stella Maris a cheque for two hundred thousand naira. Abel had wanted them to bring cash, but Ada had cautioned against it, saying she could be attacked and robbed once they left.
Stella Maris told him that she graduated from the University of Lagos with a 2.1 in economics and had been hoping to get a bank job until a story she read about a girl she knew changed her whole life. The girl had gotten pregnant, was thrown out of the house and found dead three months later, her breasts and private parts sliced off.
‘I decided to do something for girls like her. So, I rented an apartment where I can house people in need. I set up that school with assistance from the Fountain of Life church so the children can, at least, learn to read and write.’
‘How do you raise funds for this?’ Ada asked her.
‘Churches, some NGOs and kind-hearted people like you.’
Ada and Abel exchanged a glance. He made a mental note: when all this was over, he would make sure Stella Maris and the children under her care got something from them every month.
—
Bros, Iyawo is only a wife. Me and you are blood. Don’t let her scatter our family.
He read the text again and again, glad to hear from Santos and happy that the tone had changed. He’d been amazed at Ada’s rage and direct attack, but the more he thought about it the more he realised that that had been the best thing to do under the circumstances.
Santos had come ready and Abel had caved without a fight. It was Ada who saved the day. Both men were neck-deep in the Mayowa affair and if Santos squealed Ada suggested they turn the thing on him, get a good lawyer and see what happened.
He studied the text again and sent a reply: Meet me at Terra Kulture. 2pm.
‘What are you going to tell him?’ Ada asked.
He couldn’t see her expression because a young lady was braiding her hair and her face was turned to the wall.
‘Offer him twenty and ask him to leave Nigeria.’
‘Leave Nigeria and go where?’
‘Canada. He always dreamt about going abroad even as a child.’
‘Visa?’
‘I spoke to Nnamdi; he knows someone who can arrange it for a fee.’
‘Guarantees?’
‘Well, I am thinking of talking to Auntie Ekwi about it.’
‘No, don’t drag Auntie Ekwi into this.’ Ada whirled round, pushing the girl away. ‘Make Santos behave or I will fix him myself. I have suffered enough since Soni disappeared for anyone to stick his finger in my eyes. I can be respectful but I am never foolish.’
‘Take it easy, Ada.’
She turned back to face the wall.
He drove to Terra Kulture, his mind in tumult. Could Santos be trusted? Would he accept twenty million naira and disappear? Should he up the figure? Give him something more substantial, something that could buy him a house in Canada? His mind was so pre-occupied he ran into a black Toyota Avensis as he turned into Ajose Adeogun.
‘Oga, you no dey see?’ the uniformed driver barked as Abel stepped out of the car.
He recalled immediately what Santos had told him once in traffic as they watched two men yell at each other after a fender bender: ‘If you hit someone and you are driving the bigger car, don’t step out. Make them come to you. If you stay in your car they will show you respect; if you step out they will insult you.’
‘I beg your pardon, do you know who I am?’ Abel snapped, surprising himself. ‘Who do you work for? Don’t you have manners? Is that how you talk to people?’
The driver took a closer look at Abel; the spanking white shirt, the black trousers, black leather shoes and gleaming BMW X5.
‘Oga, my oga won’t be happy with me,’ he said, his tone now diffident and deferential.
Abel checked the damage. It wasn’t much – a slight dent. ‘Take it to the panel beater,’ he ordered and handed him a wad of notes.
The man looked at the money, then up at Abel. He accepted it, bowed and drove off.
When Abel got into the car, his hands were shaking so badly he sat there and took his time calming down. Do you know who I am? He had asked the man the question he hated the most. And he was not sure he knew who he was or had become.
—
Santos seemed jumpy when Abel sat beside him.
‘Bros, how far?’
Abel ignored him. ‘I will buy a small house in your name in Canada and give you ten million naira. Total will be thirty million. I will help you get the visa and buy you a ticket. The day you step foot in Nigeria is the day you die. Send me a text if you accept my offer.’
Santos’ mouth was still hanging open as Abel returned to his car. In the vehicle, he set his head upon the steering wheel and wept like a baby.
Back in Lekki, he crawled into the cloying darkness under the duvet, the air conditioner on full blast. He wanted to crawl deeper and deeper, to be swallowed whole, to disappear and forget it all. Three months, and everything had changed. He had crossed some invisible line and become someone he could not even recognise. There was blood on his hands and lust on his mind. He had assumed another man’s wealth; how could he not be affected?
Days ago, he was being choked by the stench of filth in Dustbin Estate; now it was his descent into Hades occupying his thoughts. His life was gradually becoming a mad dash from things he couldn’t handle. When the running would end, he had no idea. But while he still had some control, Abel wanted to keep fighting this thing taking him over like a body-devouring virus.
He cried, stopped and cried again. He wished he had never received that text message, that Soni had never been abducted, that the papers hadn’t gotten wind of the story, that he had never agreed to go along with Santos and make Mayowa ‘vomit that money’. He was tainted, a man for whom redemption lay only in the impossibility of retracing his steps.
He remembered the day his father died and the stranger who had come to tell him.
‘I have some bad news.’ The man had made him leave halfway through his lecture. ‘There has been a death in the family. Your father was shot two days ago.’
Abel had staggered, stunned, as if the news was a physical blow. The man reached out a hand to steady him. He said his thanks, ashamed of the fact that when the man said there had been a death in the family, his first thought had been of his mother. Later, long after he had cried and been consoled by Calista, he was finally able to appreciate the irony of the situation. He was the one for whom everyone was on an unending vigil and here he was getting ready to bury his father.
‘It was a policeman in Benin,’ his sister told him days later, when he got home. She had been in the car when it happened. ‘We were going to See Uncle Benny. The policeman was clearly drunk and he wouldn’t let us drive through even though the car in front had just been let through after the driver gave him a tip. Daddy had also been drinking but that day it was as if Daddy wanted the man to shoot him. Daddy said, “No, I must drive through and I won’t give you a farthing.” But the man would not listen; he just kept telling Daddy to reverse. When Daddy refused, he started deflating the tyres. That was when Daddy came down from the car. Mummy was screaming as Daddy went to stop the policeman. Daddy pushed him away and the man just turned, pointed his gun and shot Daddy in the stomach. Twice. Then he ran.’
Their mother would never discuss it, not then, not ever.
When Abel found Soni and told him, his brother had run off screaming ‘NO’ over and over again, as if the policeman who had shot and killed their father was hot on his heels. They would drag him back to the room many hours later in a drunken stupor.
It was in Calista that Abel had sought comfort and lying there in the darkness under the duvet he wished he could call her and unburden his heart to her one more time but this was one secret he could not share.
—
The church was full. Abel and Ada had had some trouble finding a spot to park and every available space had been taken up inside too.
‘It’s a special service,’ Auntie Ekwi told them, clearly elated. ‘It happens once a quarter.’
The Prophet was in his element. He danced, he pranced around, he spoke in tongues and anointed members of the congregation with oil, many of them falling under the anointing.
This time, the night seemed shorter, as if familiarity made the hours speed by.
Just before 5am, the Prophet stood at the front of the church and waited for the congregation to file past. A young man was holding up a bowl of anointing oil and the Prophet would dip into the bowl and slap his open palm on the congregant’s forehead, smearing them with oil as he screamed ‘Take it, my son’ or ‘Take it, my daughter’.
The congregation went round and round until it got to a woman kneeling in prayer at the back. Those around had let her be, but when the crowd thinned an usher went to prod her. The kneeling woman keeled over; she had died on her knees.
Everyone ran.