Making Wolf (15 page)

“Were you—are you a Holloway Baby?”

“I’m the first. Myself and my sister Lynn are the first discovered Holloway Babies. Not the oldest, you understand. Which brings me to my mother.

“There used to be three of us—me, Lynn and an older brother called Simon. Simon developed some form of kidney tumor as far as I’ve been able to determine. He needed a kidney transplant. I volunteered to be the donor, but even preliminary tests showed that Simon and I were not genetically similar enough. Then they tested Lynn, and the result was the same.” I sipped my juice to cool down the inside of my mouth, which was hot and dry. The ice was melting fast. ‘My father did other tests, including getting a babalawo to test the auguries, to see if my mother had been unfaithful.”

“And the verdict was that she played away?”

“Yes.”

“What did your father do?”

“Drove my mother out without any financial support. I want to—I need the toilet…”

“Through there.” She aimed me and I staggered away.

When I locked the door, I vomited.

I cleaned up best I could and returned to the living room. “I can’t do this, Mrs. Olubusi. I’m sorry. I…we…I want to leave now.”

She stood up, seemed concerned.

“You look unwell.”

“Goodbye.”

Leaving Ma Busi’s house like that was most unwise. It found its place among a long line of unwise moves I had made that day. Going there without preparation was daft. Going there after seeing my father? That was the kind of demented move I could only attribute to heat stroke. The pièce de résistance was leaving without having them call me a cab. It took forty-five minutes to get to the nearest bus stop, which, you will recall, has a tendency to be unmarked in Alcacia. I saw people clotted together, and I joined in. Not many buses required in the rich quarters except to bring the impoverished workers—the house niggers.

I rode the bus in silence even though my phone rang twice. The second time it was insistent, and people stared with irritation. I just looked out of the window. There was a shanty town growing under the bridge intersection we were approaching. Dirty children played in the abundant mud. No piano lessons required.

I waited a few minutes outside the apartment before Nana returned.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Freudian ambush,” said I, taking shopping bags from her.

“Tell.”

“Maybe later. I need a shower and clean clothes right now.”

I washed in tepid water.

Nana hammered out an essay while I cleaned myself. I felt less miserable after some soap and sympathy. The gears in my mind meshed once more. I thought I’d leave the widow Olubusi for another time.

I called Church.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me.”

“Hey, brother. How you dey?”

“Worried about D’Jango.”

“Oh, that. Ma se iyonu, aburo. Tell me where you are; I’ll come and get you.”

“Nope. Tell me the pickup point. I’ll find my way there.”

“Haba, are you still hiding your location? Brothers don’t behave like this toward each other.”

“You are so right. Brothers don’t.”

“I’ll call you back with the details. I’m in the middle of something.’ He hung up, and I pictured him sticking a rusty screwdriver into someone’s middle.

While dressing up I received another phone call.

“Hello?”

“Is that Mr. Weston?” A familiar female voice.

“Who are you?”

“I left a message for you before, sir. About a job, sir. I am looking for my husband.”

Right. “Leave a number. I’ll call you back. I’m in the middle of something right now.” I was using Church’s words. Shudder.

‘Okay, sir.”

She read out a number that I did not copy and put her out of my mind. I wore a pullover on top of jeans. I put the gun in my waistband at the back—I’d rather accidentally shoot my arse than my dick. It was getting to evening and the sting of the sun was less.

Nana crept up on me and hugged me from behind. She noticed the hardness of the gun and removed herself.

“Where are you going?”

“To check out the place where Pa Busi died.”

“To what end?”

“Officially, to get clues as to where any assassins could shoot from and see if there’s evidence to be gathered.”

“And unofficially?”

“I’m just justifying my fee, marking the time so I have something to report.”

“You’re a bad man.”

“Just giving the people what they want.”

Church called.

This time it was obvious that we were going to the interior. We went in a jeep, and Churchill was in military boots. There were four of us—me, Church, Tosin and D’Jango. We careered along the V8, the main expressway connecting south with northwest. Leaving Ede would not be an easy thing for three rebels and a private investigator. There were random and arbitrary checkpoints. The police and customs were easy as they could be discouraged by simple stern looks from Church. The real problem lay with the army, although they were usually more concerned with inbound rebels than a contingent like ours.

“It’s easy. We go into the fighting zone armed, and we come out as refugees. I do it three times a week,” said Churchill. The others nodded assent.

“What do you do about army checkpoints?” I asked.

They all looked at each other and then me.

“If you are about to be captured shoot yourself,” said D’Jango.

I looked at him. “I can’t help noticing that you didn’t do that when your time came. You allowed yourself to be taken.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, a hypocrite. There’s a slight difference.”

“Long as you’re not calling me a liar…”

“When we come to an army checkpoint keep your trigger finger ready,” said Church. “We can’t brazen our way.”

As it turned out we only came to one checkpoint, and it was the custom and excise boys.

We traveled for three hours, but there was no stopping for food, which made all of us tense. Tosin had a skin condition that made him itch and the rest of us worried about contagion. His skin was flaking off and floating in the air-conditioned interior before being sucked out or recirculated.

We had our guns on the floor. D’Jango had the safety on his machine gun off, which caused me to sweat. I knew he was like a talisman to the rebels, thought to be unstoppable and invulnerable with a keen sense of survival, but one bump in the road, the right kind of bump, could mean the end for all of us. Or at least those of us in front of D’Jango. He had his eyes closed, but I knew he did not doze because of the blinking movements. More likely to be covertly sizing me up. Church brought him to all incursions for good luck and guidance, but D’Jango, I was sure, survived at the expense of others. I would have to watch him.

We paid our way through a toll booth. Here there were children shoving food items at us, and we bought some puff-puff and coke. No, not drugs. Puff-puff is a sweet, fried snack made from flour and coke is a carbonated drink.

After continuing along the slightly narrower V8, Church turned into a side road, then off the road entirely. D’Jango held his gun off the floor, eyes still closed. Tosin stopped scratching and seemed alert, and I just copied them with no clue about what I would do.

The jeep came to an abrupt stop, and Church jumped out. “Change,” he said. He opened the trunk and stripped off his clothes. We were all to wear camouflage fatigues. They looked like federal troop uniforms, and I said so.

“Yes,” said Church. “You can be an officer.”

“I’d say a hail Mary first,” said Tosin.

“Pull the stripes off,” said D’Jango. “Makes you a target.”

I did.

“All right, march,” said Church. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder and magically acquired military bearing. “No singing, though.”

We went through the bush in a direction that seemed random to me. There was no real footpath, just Tosin clearing the way with a cutlass. The undergrowth was not dense, and it was clearly a path they had used before. Mosquitoes fed on me constantly. I tried to remember if I’d taken antimalarials that day. What had I heard about day-biting mosquitoes again?

We were in a column with Tosin on point, Church behind him, me, and D’Jango at the rear. Church whispered to me occasionally.

“The thing is the rebel positions are generally surrounded by Feddies. They have no real intention of quashing the rebels, but they will fiercely resist any kind of advance toward populated areas. No, sorry, I mean areas of financial import. The point is, we’re unlikely to encounter any fighting. Once we get past the federal positions we bury these uniforms and change into civilian wear again.”

“I don’t recall any federal positions when I was taken before,” I said.

“Those were camps. Base camps. Not areas we were fighting for. Nobody truly cares about a half-dead conurbation or some land peeled off the side of a mountain. Start moving toward a dam or oil refinery and see how animated and explosive the army gets.”

Our going was slowed by animal traps probably left by hunters. Tosin refused to destroy the livelihood of another man.

“Strange,” said Church. “Mass destruction of government property through armed struggle he doesn’t mind, but clear a few traps and he becomes reverent of downtrodden peasant heroes. Still, it’s good. It will ensure we arrive at night.”

I had not realized I’d be spending the night. Also, Church had ordered all cell phones off as part of a communications blackout. Nana would worry, but it could not be helped.

Then a big explosion turned everything bright and hot. Foliage and clumps of earth and chips of wood that used to be trees and grass and debris fell to the ground. I was already there, prone, unable to breathe because my nose and mouth were pressed into wetness by something heavy on my back. A high-pitched whistle had been activated, and it was loud and constant. The Feddies were signaling each other. I had to shift the weight behind me, or I would drown on dry land. I could move my hands so I tried to clear the dirt out of my eyes. The wetness was blood. I retched, panicked, flailing like a pinned bug. I tried to roll, called for help, but the infernal ringing drowned out even my own voice. Someone helped me, and I scrambled up. The weight that used to be on me was Tosin’s smoldering torso. His arms, legs, and head were gone and some of his blood was in my mouth. Church and D’Jango were talking, but the whistle was too loud for me to hear them.

Then it occurred to me that there was no whistle; the sound was my ears ringing. Threnody for Tosin. My gun was still in place and did not look to have gone off, for which I thanked my ancestors. I pulled it and cocked it like Church was pantomiming for my benefit.

We started running.

“Hearing working again?” asked Church.

I nodded.

He patted me on the shoulder. “Would have been an old land mine. Fuck knows who planted it: us, them, or some other fatherless motherfuckers. Fuck knows when it was laid. Poor Tosin.”

We slowed to a forced march. There were some gunshots behind us. Or in front of us—we couldn’t tell with any certainty. My muscles were stiff and sweat was pouring off me. I had a few minor cuts, but the Kevlar and extra steel plate stopped anything fatal. I had Tosin’s rifle, but I was concerned about the blast damaging its action and thus did not feel it was an advantage.

Church had lost his compass, and we had no idea where the fuck we were.

And it was dark.

Not pitch, because we could still see each other and avoid rocks and trees, but torches were out. Even I could tell this, and I’d never been in the bush. D’Jango kept moving his head as if he were trying to look everywhere at once, trying to swing his muzzle in the same direction as his eyes but failing.

“I know I’m a novice here,” I said in a fierce whisper, “but this situation looks to be one that requires us to stay still and find our fucking bearings.”

Church looked at D’Jango who shrugged.

“We wait, then,” said Church, but he didn’t say what we would be waiting for. We each picked a tree and sat at the base, covering ourselves with elephant grass and leaves.

“Most of the snakes won’t crawl up your trouser legs here,” said D’Jango. “Usually they drop from the trees. The thing to worry about is the scorpions. A bit dry for leeches, so count your blessings.” He tucked everything tight into his boots and cradled his rifle.

Fireflies floated out from their hiding places and were like errant sparks. Or Christmas lights. It was all depressing. I could tell Churchill was embarrassed because he did not speak much, and when he did there was no cavalier humor or lewdness.

I dozed off.

I had a dream in which I was at an empty marketplace. Nana’s dream, now mine. Through the stalls I waded until I reached the butchers’. The meat was all laid out as if the butcher had just left in mid-cleave. The knives were laid out as if in use. There was cow’s blood flowing off the table into a bucket. There were no flies. Nothing lived there.

Tosin’s head was on a slab. He blinked at me and smiled. He was wearing wraparound shades. His neck ended in a jagged wound, and the remnants of his windpipe curled outwards, occasionally letting forth bubbles.

“I’m not pretty, eh?” he said.

“No,” I replied.

“Will you learn anything from all this?”

“I don’t know. Am I meant to?”

“Abo oro la nso f’omo luwabi. To ba de inu e, a di odindi.” A hint is all you need give a good person. It grows into full knowledge inside them.

“Do you know?”

“Me? Why ask me? I’m dead.” His eyes were animated. He looked around him, at the chopping block. “Do you know, when you dress an animal you have to avoid cutting into the gall bladder at all costs?”

“It makes bile, and bile makes the rest of the meat bitter. Yes, I know.”

“Good. It’s time for me to leave now. My ancestors are waiting.”

Heavy wings flapped, and I saw vultures descending, about a dozen or so. They covered his head as he was trying to say something else.

Then I woke up with Church kicking my side.

“We’re moving,” he said.

D’Jango had made moves while I slept. He found the rebel position, and a path through the Feddies. We moved. I ached along. My entire body was pain, and I hardly paid attention to where I was going, what was going on around me, or if I wanted to fucking survive or not. How loud is a racing heart? Can people around you not hear? But then we were through.