Making Wolf (28 page)

There was one cupboard, and I aimed myself for it, feeling a fresh wave of dizziness. My clothes were inside, clean but not pressed. Also, my briefcase of money which surprisingly still contained the cash Ali had given me. I dressed up, but very slowly. I spent a few minutes looking for the shoes, but they were under the bed. I tried the door. It opened into a hallway with nine similar doors on each side with mine in the approximate middle. Lamps were hanging at intervals from hooks in the ceiling. I stepped into the corridor and blacked out.

When I came to I was in bed, clothed this time, with a kindly nun standing over me. She was Indian, fiercely furrowed face, benevolent smile. I generally hate nuns, but I was glad to see this one.

“It’s good to see you awake,” she said. “My name is Puja.” She didn’t sound Indian, or even Alcacian.

“Where are you from?” I asked. I needed water. My throat was parched, and I sounded like a frog in mating season.

Puja laughed. “Usually, people in your condition want to know where they are or what day it is. You have questions about my accent. Huh.”

“What’s with the…aren’t you a nun or something?”

“I’m a reverend sister.”

“Okay, so shouldn’t I be calling you ‘sister’ or some other reverent noun?”

She laughed again. I was learning she laughed easily. “Some call me Sister Haq or Dr. Haq. Puja’s fine also.”

“Am I dreaming you?”

“No.”

“Good. What’s wrong with me?”

“Malaria. You were delirious and dehydrated, too. I had to give you quinine.”

“Malaria? But I was taking Proguanil.” Except I hadn’t taken it for God knows how long.

“You have malaria. You’re better, but you need to take meds for a while.”

“I feel itchy.”

“Yes, quinine does that.”

“Right.”

“What’s your name?”

“Weston.”

“Weston, how is it that you were wandering in the forest with just the clothes on your back and a sizeable briefcase full of money yelling about pterodactyls?”

“I fell in with a bad crowd.”

“You were asking for your gun.”

“It was a very bad crowd.”

“Hmm. That will have to do, I suppose. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“Not really hungry. Thirsty, though.”

“Does your bad crowd…are they…”

“Not criminals or gangsters. They are revolutionaries, patriots!”

“You mock them. What did you do?”

“Let’s see. I don’t want to be a mass murderer, so I swapped something harmful for something harmless.”

“What are you talking about?”

I telephoned the number. I told the secret police guy about Epoch. He asked for a meet. He took it off me and gave me another cylinder. Harmless. With a tracking device. Asked me, told me, to take it with me to the Front meeting. And I did. Knowing it wouldn’t be long before the helicopters arrived. Knowing the existence of Epoch guaranteed the obliteration of the Christian Army. Knowing the choice made by Ali would determine its own survival.

If he had opted to destroy the virus, I wouldn’t have led government troops to his headquarters.

I hoped that Nana got out, that Church was dead. But I knew better. Church would survive nuclear holocaust and still have time to dance bata on the radioactive corpses.

As for Abayomi, who knew where he would end up? I didn’t care.

“I’m worried about myself, sister. I don’t care about anything. I have no ethics, no code of conduct.”

Puja pointed to her own chest. “Not a psychiatrist. Just a physician tending to poor Alcacian folk in the middle of nowhere.”

“You’re a reverend sister.”

“You want me to discuss the Word of God with you? The Risen Christ?”

“No, thank you.”

“Then what do you want?”

“To feel intensely about something. To want to take a stand.”

“What’s stopping you? You are mistaken if you think I will recommend God. My God is a refining fire who will burn away the impurities of self. You are still devoted to yourself, I think. You want a purpose, a mission statement for your life, and it does not include God or the Holy Mother or service. I cannot help you with that.”

“I have this recurring dream, you know. I’m walking through a marketplace, only it’s empty. All the stalls are open, the beans and grain stands with their measures ready for trade, but there are no humans. I usually end up in the butcher’s stall where a dead person will speak to me and then a flight of vultures will come down and eat them up.”

“Hmm.”

“Is that it? Don’t you have some words of wisdom for me?”

“There’s certainly a loneliness theme in there, but I cannot help you. I’m the least wise person I know, Weston. I’m a doctor. I am here to heal your body. I can tell you that every person who heals you gives birth to you in part, but I’m not your mother. Get better. You cannot stay here.”

“How long have I been—”

“Three days before your fever broke, but I think you were wandering in the forest for at least twenty-four hours judging by the degree of dehydration.”

“Do you have any newspapers? Or a radio or television?”

“I think there is a transistor somewhere. I’ll have it brought in.”

“Thank you.”

The letter I sent to my sister in London went like this:

Dear Lynn,

I feel like shit.

As I write this, my skin itches all over from quinine injections. My nails are shiny from scratching, and I have marks all over me—some from mosquitoes, some from itching. I should have trimmed my nails, shouldn’t I? Before you ask, yes, I have malaria; yes, I did take antimalaria pills, but they didn’t work; yes, that’s because I’m in Alcacia. In fact, I’m looking at that famous painting, the one after Poussin, by Gbamileke. Et in Alcacia ego. It’s at the end of my hospital bed. Oh, and yes, I am in hospital. I’m in the mission hospital, though I might not be by the time you get this. They tell me I’ve been owning malaria for four days now and the fever just broke. The ink smudges on the letter are from my sweat. I’ve tasted it, and it’s curiously without salt.

I’ll explain why I couldn’t email in a minute.

There isn’t enough water for me to take a decent

Do not fret. And don’t blame me either. I didn’t come to the home country for an adventure. I came to attend Auntie Blossom’s funeral. Then I got caught up in something…icky.

What I’ve sent you constitutes diary entries. I’ve scribbled everything that
happend
happened up till this point. I don’t know if it’ll get to you or if I’ll be able to send more. We’ll see. This should get to you via the
xxxxxx
embassy.
Every other commission appears to have an interest in impeding my progress.
That’s why I couldn’t send the emails—my account’s being monitored.

I think I should have stayed in London, making faux revolutionary noises with the Yoruba diaspora. Spilt milk in any case.

Do not come here. I am fine. Apart from the parasite eating my red cells and the poison that is meant to kill the parasite but is killing me as well, that is. Read the report for your information, but don’t take any action. If I need something, I’ll make a loud noise, okay?

Sorry, forgot to ask! How are you? Still pining away after the research job? I hope you’re well, my sister.

Lot of love.

Weston

XXX

Which sums up my current situation. I put the letter in an envelope which I sealed with the parcel formed by the copy of my journal entries and handed it to the waiting boy. I gave him a dollar for himself and twenty dollars for the courier service that the nuns had engaged for my use.

When he had gone, I settled back into the bed and scratched myself with a corn husk. I remembered talking to Lynn about Auntie Blossom. I had ideas of how to get her out of Africa, far-fetched schemes. I said Alcacia wasn’t kind to Blossom.

‘Alcacia isn’t kind to anyone,” Lynn had said.

The story I told in the letter was rather incomplete, but I felt sure the journal would fill in any gaps. I drifted off to sleep.

I harvested information from the transistor. The charge had run out of my phone and there was no charger in the mission.

The government had announced the complete crushing of both major rebel factions. The army was in the countryside mopping up stragglers and exterminating the minor groups to prevent a power vacuum. This had been “an elaborate operation meticulously planned over two years by special forces in conjunction with the secret police”. Craig was dead, Ali in custody, but there was no mention of Church or Abayomi. Or me. I don’t know what I expected.

I had to get back to civilization. I way past due to leave Alcacia.

“Is that young Weston?” said Nana’s father.

“Yes, sir.” I said. “What are you reading?”

“An unbelievably dull paper on Lagrangian Mechanics. Are you here for Nana?”

“She’s here?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m here for her.”

“Nana!” he yelled.

I was wearing seventies-style clothes, which is all Puja could find for me. My shoes were still serviceable, but my beard growth made me look like a schizophrenic hippie in the wild. There was a bad taste in my mouth. It happens with malaria. It would pass. I gave the Portuguese mission five thousand dollars, considering they were so decent toward me. A truck brought me to Ede, after which I caught a taxi to the Hastruup’s place to get my passport.

“This is a new look for you,” said Nana.

“It’s retro. It’s what all the cool kids are wearing these days.”

She looked softer in a way. Less intensity around the eyes. Perhaps it was the homely, loose linen she wore or the ankara wrapper under it. Maybe it was because she was home. She wasn’t hostile to me, although not exactly in love. Her father made an excuse and went inside the house with his Lagrangian Mechanics paper. His porch chair remained empty since Nana and I both preferred to stand. It was like he never left.

“How have you been?” I asked.

“All right, considering everything. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Yes, there is that. I’m glad you got out.”

“You turned out to be a cold bastard.”

“‘Bastard?’”

“You know what I mean. You’re the only one who’s bothered by all that Holloway shit, anyway.”

“That’s not true, and you know it. I think you just wanted to get a dig in. It’s okay since your lover is probably dead and I caused it. Partially.”

“If you’re talking about Church, we were only occasional lovers.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What, you thought I’d spend all this time pining over you? My main work over the last few years has been with the Front. You were an assignment. I just had to keep you in line, keep you controllable, keep them informed.”

“And there’s nothing left of us?”

She sucked her teeth. “Please.” She reached in the folds of her wrapper and gave me my passport. “I should warn you: Church cloned it.”

“I know. I figured that part out a few minutes after I saw you kissing him.”

“He’s probably alive.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should. He’ll be slightly upset with you.”

“Then he can look me up. We’ll talk.”

“…”

“Goodbye, Nana. I really did love you.”

I left her on the porch and went next door to Aunt Blossom’s house.

Girders shifted in the house, sounding like the bowels of a dinosaur. They ticked and creaked with the rapidly increasing heat of the day. The dimness was slashed by several shafts of sunlight finding gaps to shine through. I wanted to spit; my saliva was still bitter from the malaria. I plugged my phone charger in one of the illegal sockets and then went to the kitchen to drink some water out of a ceramic pot that I had filled from the well.

I climbed up the stairs to my old room which I’d colonized. I placed the briefcase on the bed and started gathering my meager belongings. I had been at it for about twenty minutes when my phone rang. I rushed downstairs, running my hand down the banister. Withheld number.

“Hello?”

“Open the door,” said the secret police agent I had been dealing with.

“What?”

“I’m outside. Let me in.”

“The door’s locked. I don’t have a key. You have to step over the fence, walk by the left side of the house, and go to the fourth window. There’s a loose board that you have to manipulate—”