This House Is Not for Sale (10 page)

G
abriel was considered the unluckiest person on earth. After his string of misfortunes his relations told him to come and live in the Family House, perhaps his luck would change if he lived under a lucky roof. Gabriel started out as a farmer. He planted yams and a few other crops. He wanted to be a rich man. He said his ambition was to own a house with twenty-four rooms. He didn't prosper as a farmer of yams. His yam harvest was usually poor. One year his harvest was good and he built a barn for his yams. He was proud of his yams. He boasted he would sell them and start work on his twenty-four-room house. That year there was a mysterious fire. Gabriel's barn caught fire and most of the yams got burned. He invited people to come with palm oil stew to the farm and eat free roasted yam. How much roasted yam could people eat?

The next year Gabriel planted tomatoes. He had gone to a nearby village to learn how to grow tomatoes. He said he was going to buy a pickup truck from the proceeds of his first tomatoes when he sold his first harvest. He said he would supply a manufacturing company the fresh tomatoes they needed for the manufacturing of their tomato puree. After he had planted the tomatoes, just before they would start ripening, a strange worm attacked the tomatoes. They shrank, they changed color, and they rotted and began to stink. That was how Gabriel's tomato-planting adventure ended.

Gabriel decided to move in a totally new direction and went into the lumber business. Lots of people in the business were switching from handheld saws to motor saws. With the handheld saw, cutting down a tree was a lot of work. First the men had to dig a long trench into which the tree would hopefully fall, and then two men clad only in underwear would hold the saw from two ends and start sawing away. It took weeks for the tree to fall, though they lucked out sometimes when the tree was only half-cut and then there was a storm.

Now someone had invented a motor saw that could fell trees within minutes and actually cut them up into manageable flat small parts. The popular brand was Dolmar. Gabriel's plan was to get a loan from the cooperative society and buy one of the new machines and then hire a sawyer to operate the machine. He would transport the timber to the big city and sell it off there. He got the loan from the cooperative society and bought the motor saw. He called friends to celebrate the purchase of the motor saw. He boasted that he was soon going
to become a millionaire. He said this motor saw was going to be the first of many more to come. That although this was his first, he would soon buy more. He also said he was going to buy a lorry with an iron body that would be transporting the logs to the big city for him and then he said that there was nothing stopping him from having his own timber shed in the big city. He said he could even start exporting his product to America, where he heard that even the rich built their houses with wood.

The man whom Gabriel hired to operate the new chain saw was nicknamed Sawyer; no one recalled what his real name was anymore. He was dark, a bit squat, and had really big muscular arms. He was adept at using the handsaw and would sing as he sawed, sweating heavily and ignoring the midges and tsetse flies that sucked away on his sweat and blood. He had not been trained to use a chain saw but said he would read the manual overnight. He did read the manual and used the saw to cut off a small tree to the admiration of onlookers. Some noticed that his hands shook and that the powerful machine seemed to want to jump off his hands but he gripped it firmly. He was a strong man.

That night Gabriel threw a party. He invited people to come and eat and drink. He bought the drinks with the remainder of the money that he had borrowed from the cooperative society. He was in a boastful mood. He said that this was just the beginning of great strides in business and once again drew a map of some of the things he planned to do and how he was going to expand his business and export timber to
America. People drank and danced, including Sawyer. A few whispered that they hoped Gabriel's luck would change, because behind his back Gabriel was nicknamed the man with the shit touch—everything he touched turned to shit.

Sawyer set out early for the forest with an assistant and the chain saw on his shoulders. The assistant carried a half gallon of gasoline. They first cleared around the tree with a machete, then Sawyer started the chain saw. It jumped into life and this startled Sawyer but he held the engine firmly in both hands and began to cut into the huge
iroko
tree. The trouble with the new machine was that it cut so far into the trunk quickly and he could not quite gauge the direction in which the tree was leaning. He cut and jumped back, and shielded his eyes from the sun's glare as he looked to see the direction in which the tree was tilting but he was not successful. Although it was only midday, Sawyer told his assistant that they should go home. He hoped that there could be an overnight storm that would help fell the tree.

When Sawyer came back so early, even without asking him, Gabriel was already boasting to people that the new saw could fell a dozen trees in a day. Sawyer explained to him that he decided to come back early so he could consult the manual but that he was sure the next day he would have mastered the saw.

Early the next day, Sawyer's assistant was screaming and panting as he ran into the community. He had apparently run all the way from the forest, where they were felling the timber.

“Sawyer, the tree fell on him. He is under the tree. Him and motor saw.”

—Who is asking you about motor saw? Is his waist broken? Or his legs? Or his hands?—

“All of him is underneath the felled tree.”

—Oh, no, was he screaming when you were coming?—

“I could not see him. He was under the fallen tree. I could not help.”

The men gathered themselves together, including Gabriel. It took a lot of effort to roll the fallen tree aside. The Sawyer was dead and buried forcefully into the soft earth. The motor saw was smashed to smithereens, with pieces scattered all over. Even the rock-hard white end of the spark plug was ground up finely.

The sawyer's family came for their son's body. They also came with a long list of things Gabriel should buy before they could bury their son. A white cow, seven black chickens, seven white chickens, seven yards of Hollandaise Dutch wax cloth, kola nuts, six bottles of aromatic schnapps, a bag of rice, and the money to marry a bride for their dead son who had never married. If all of these were not purchased, their son would not be buried, but even if he was buried his spirit would not be at rest and would haunt Gabriel and pull him into the neither-living-nor-dead world, where the spirit was now wandering.

Gabriel borrowed more money, some of his relatives contributed, they pleaded with the sawyer's family to tamp down their demand. Finally, the family agreed. They reduced their demand. Instead of aromatic schnapps they accepted a bottle of local gin
ogogoro
. The sawyer was buried.

Gabriel did not rest, he was soon embarking on another business venture. He had met a man called Adamu who was a cocoa buyer. Adamu supplied dried cocoa to the manufacturers of cocoa drinks and chocolate makers. So he claimed. He appointed Gabriel his buyer. Gabriel's job was to buy from the local farmers on Adamu's behalf and Adamu would pay Gabriel a commission. Adamu drove a big Honda 175 motorcycle.

—Won't he give up? Is it not apparent to him that wealth is not in the stars for him?—

—Why does he keep struggling, you cannot change destiny—

—Some people never learn, if he had been left alone and no one came to his help the other time with the sawyer case, he probably would be dead by now—

—I don't blame him, life is a struggle. The day you give up struggling is the day you die—

—If I were him I'd stop and ask myself why I am the only one who never finds success—

—He boasts too much, that is his problem. He was already boasting of how he would build a three-story house even before the first tree was felled by the motor saw—

—It is not good to boast, sometimes one's boasting falls into the wrong ears—

Gabriel was given a bicycle by Adamu. It was not free. It was on loan, and the full cost was going to be deducted from Gabriel's commission. Gabriel was proud of his new bicycle and the smell of the woven bags with which he was to collect
the cocoa. Even when he fell from the bicycle he boasted that it was better to fall from a bicycle than to fall while walking on foot. A younger cousin of Gabriel's had the job of driving away greedy goats from the cocoa spread out to dry properly while his friends played soccer.

Adamu soon came and picked up the bags of cocoa collected from different individuals by Gabriel. When Gabriel asked for payment, Adamu said to him not to worry. He would sell to the companies that buy the cocoa and then he would come back to pay. That was the last that was heard from Adamu. Even the bicycle, Gabriel soon discovered, had been bought on credit and was soon repossessed by the seller. Creditors flocked to Gabriel's house. They wanted their money back. Even those from the cooperative threatened to send him to prison.

—Why doesn't he go and try his luck somewhere else?—

—Can't he see that as long as he remains here he will never make any progress in life?—

—The forces holding him down are more than the eyes can see—

—He will just kill himself or be killed by those dragging him over money owed—

—His best bet would be to move to the house of his distant relation—

—You mean the man who owns the Family House?—

—Yes, his luck would definitely change there—

—If you live under the roof of a lucky man and his shadow falls over you, that may erase all the years of bad luck—

—To tell you how lucky the owner of the Family House is, everything that is planted around the house multiplies and bears so much fruit that the fruits weigh down the trees. Even the chickens and dogs and cats in that house multiply. Everything they sell, even water, sells out fast. It is a lucky house—

—The story I heard is different. They say he takes the luck of all those living under his roof—

—What I heard is that he uses their life to extend his own life—

—Gabriel is better off anywhere but here at any rate, his creditors will drag him to an early grave—

One morning Gabriel arrived at the Family House, presumably leaving his bad luck behind and hoping to start afresh.

He was soon going to the shop to help sell. He offloaded machetes from the truck. He helped wrap them in cement paper. He helped arrange them according to their different designs, sizes, and shapes. He was learning. He was happy. He was already thinking of how one day he would own his own store. He was thinking of how he would have a machete-loaning scheme for farmers who would then give him half of the harvest at the end of the year.

One day Gabriel was walking back to the Family House when he saw something a dull golden color on the ground. He picked it up. It was an empty bullet shell. He put it in his pocket and continued walking home. When he was lying down in his corner at night he brought it out of his pocket
and began to polish it with a piece of soft cotton cloth. As he continued to polish it the color began to change, it was now glowing. This became his pastime every time he was in bed. He loved the way it felt in his hand. He loved the way it responded to the cotton cloth. He would put it in his pocket all day and would only bring it out when he was lying in bed.

Gabriel was on his way back to the Family House when he heard running footsteps approaching. People were shoving him out of the way. Some people fell, stood up, and continued to run. Some lost their balance but regained it and continued to run. Gabriel did not see any reason to run. He was as a matter of fact fascinated. There was always one spectacle or another in the city. This was going to give him something to reflect on and chuckle about when he lay down later that night, polishing his toy.

“Hey you, don't move. Don't move one inch,” a voice commanded.

Gabriel could not imagine that these words were meant for him. He continued to watch people who were fleeing. They now seemed far away. They were no longer running. They looked like small objects in the distance, but he could see them looking back nervously.

Two strong arms gripped him. He was startled. He turned around. They were armed policemen. They were chasing a thief or a robber, it was not clear but they were after someone. Now they had him.

Gabriel did not return home. Nobody knew where he was. He was arrested and searched. The shiny empty bullet casing
was found in his pocket. There was no need to ask him any further questions. He was taken straight to prison.

By the time he was eventually released he had lost a lot of weight. He was told to remain in the Family House and see a doctor but he refused. He preferred to return to the village.

People in the Family House said his case was like that of the man who was visited by death. Death showed him a list of names, your name is top of my list I must kill you today. Unknown to death, this man made the best-tasting yam pottage. Don't kill me until you have tasted my pottage, the man pleaded. Death agreed. After all, Death reasoned, I will still kill him today whether on an empty stomach or on a full belly and why not do it on a full belly. The man went and prepared the most delicious yam pottage for Death. Even the aroma made Death's mouth water. The man served Death the yam pottage in beautiful dinnerware. Death was taken aback by the man's act of hospitality, nowhere had he been this welcome or well received. Death enjoyed the food so much that after eating, Death decided to take a nap. As soon as Death began to snore, the man went to Death's list and moved his name from the top of the list to the bottom. Death soon woke up, stretched, and decided that he was going to do the man a favor and repay the kind host for the hospitality. Death decided that instead of starting from the top of the list, he would start at the bottom.