Making Wolf (19 page)

“Elemo was arrested earlier today based on an anonymous tip that he had been connected to the murdered private investigator Efriti, who was found shot dead with his wife Clara earlier today. Eye witnesses state that Efriti himself had been firing shots at an unidentified male before being himself shot dead. It is unclear if his intended victim was responsible for his death.

“It is also unclear what Elemo’s involvement was, but before he could be questioned another detainee beat him to death with a pestle. Police sources have—”

I had no idea what Churchill had done, but I didn’t really care. I wasn’t sorry Elemo was dead.

I wasn’t sorry for anything.

A taxi dropped me at the main entrance of the National Theater. The percussion coming from inside was seismic. I was on time so I knew it was a curtain-raiser act. Hands and drumsticks assaulted tight animal skins with a frenzied, manic energy. It was not full of people—theater was not top priority in a land of struggling masses. At the ticket hall they took one look at my reservation and sent a tightly-gowned Chinese woman to lead me away through a side door.

Our footfalls were silent on the Persian carpet that lined the corridor. The air was sweet, fragrant. The sound-proofing was perfect. Here, there was no vulgar African drumbeat. There was ambient classical music. Not my forte, but even I could identify it as Vivaldi. The Chinese woman asked me in Yoruba if I would like some champagne, and I said yes. What the hell, I had just survived an assassination attempt. I deserved to celebrate. Her Yoruba was educated, fluent, like she had lived here all her life except for the absence of a regional accent. She could have been from Nigeria or Cuba or Ghana. Before I could ask any questions, she ushered me into a small room with vases, statuettes, sofas, heavy curtains, and Diane Olubusi.

“Thank you, April,” she said.

“Good evening, Mrs. Olubusi,” I said.

“I believe, in this informal atmosphere, first names are called for. If you have no objections, that is.”

“I have none.” I sat on the adjacent chair.

She wore a low-cut white dress, designed in such a way that gave the impression of a woman wrapped in a bolt of silk that was about to slip off. The fabric was so sheer that her nipples raised bumps, and the fullness of her breasts was implied in the cleavage. She smelled like a botanical garden with all the flowers in full bloom. On her left wrist she wore a single gold bracelet. Nothing on her neck but creamy fair skin devoid of spot or blemish.

April brought me a long-stemmed glass of bubbly, and I tipped it toward Diane, who raised her glass in an ultra-feminine gesture. Her slender fingers ended in black fingernails.

“Shall we see the rest of the opening act?” she said.

I nodded and she led me to a balcony that could seat ten. The sound assaulted us as soon as she opened the door. There was a man in ofi underwear and nothing else playing a saxophone solo reminiscent of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Diane was rapt, even though the whole scene seemed too perseverative to me. Then it was over and I dutifully clapped. April refreshed our drinks.

The play was titled
Mother for All
. I should probably have recognized the main players, but I didn’t. I had never really liked theater.

“Are you familiar with the legend of Moremi?” she asked.

“I vaguely remember being told about it in school and by my mother.”

“
Mother of All
is a dramatization of it.”

“Should be fun.”

Then it started.

Moremi is a fact-based myth from Ife, the birthplace of the Yoruba in Nigeria. It might be based on history, but who knows what drunken eunuch was taking history down in those days, or in fact, who rewrote it? Ife suffered several raids from the Igbo, who appeared inhuman to the Yoruba because they garlanded themselves in raffia.

Unable to defend themselves from the otherworldly invaders, the people of Ife suffered numerous attacks until one married mother-of-one, Moremi, decided to let herself get captured in order to learn the secret of the Igbos, their weakness, their flaws. When captured, she was given to the Igbo king as a slave, but she was so noble and wise that they made her the queen. She discovered that the Igbo were human and owed their fearsome appearance to foliage and were afraid of fire during battle. Moremi escaped back to Ife and told of what she knew. The next raid had a different outcome as the Ife warriors ran among the Igbos with lit torches and set fire to them. This victory stopped the raids and made a hero out of Moremi. The tragedy was that Moremi had promised a river goddess her only son if she succeeded. The goddess demanded that she kill her son. After some futile negotiation she had to comply. The whole of Ife shared her sorrow and declared that she was now a mother in perpetuity to them all.

“Some versions of the story say the son was not dead, that he woke up on the river bank and was taken up into heaven,” whispered Diane. Her lips were close to my ear, and I could smell the fruity champagne on her breath. I was aware of nothing else but her lips and the skin of her neck at that moment. I gripped the armrests of my chair so tight to stop me from misbehaving. I turned to her, and, in the light reflected from the stage, I saw her pupils turn my way. Her mouth was slightly open as if in mid-speech.

“You’re going to have to let me enjoy the play, Diane,” I said, but my voice was not my own as so often happens when I’m stressed.

I turned back to the scene playing out. Moremi, in bed with her husband, explained why she must go with the Igbo invaders. Her husband brought up the slight problem of gang rape.

Diane was silent. During the intermission we discussed inconsequential things, irrelevances delivered with polite smiles. During a scene where the Igbo king first made love to Moremi, however, she placed her hand on my thigh. I was not sure if she was aware of it. She seemed genuinely aroused by the stylized sex scene unfolding. I did not move, and her hand remained there until the end of the play.

Following Diane home was a bad idea. Unfortunately, I did not have a what-would-Jesus-do state of mind. In a way, there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. I was not equipped to resist succubi like Diane Olubusi; neither did I even want to.

At three-forty-five a.m., I thought of Nana but immediately pushed her out of my mind.

At six a.m. Diane finally fell asleep. I remember thinking Moremi could not have loved her husband or child that much to set off on a spy mission without caring about the consequences to her family. What motives could she have had? Was he abusive to her? Had she even wanted a family in the first place?

At eight a.m. I checked my phone messages. Nothing from Nana. Missed call from Abayomi Abayomi. One message from Churchill.

“Bawo ni, brother? Listen, wherever you are, don’t go out tomorrow. Stay at home and watch television. That’s all I have to say. And keep this to yourself. Ire, o.”

Whatever that meant.

It was daylight. Did I have enough time to rush home and hunker down?

Diane was calling my name from far, far away. I woke up again.

“What time is it?” I asked. I wasn’t fully sure where I was.

“Ten o’clock or thereabouts. Listen to the news. Look at what has happened.”

This, then, was what Church meant. Ede Market was on fire.

The image was of several fires, all from different parts of the same sprawling market. The report said it was unlikely to be accidental in origin because witnesses reported explosions in the early hours. There is no effective fire brigade service in Alcacia. The fire engines are wide American beasts, cast-offs without a functioning water hydrant infrastructure to support their operation. Roofing blackened and rolled back. Wooden framework glowed orange and produced steady burning flames or persisted as embers. The occasional gas cylinder popped and caused secondary local eruptions. Pathetic locals used buckets to try to put small areas of the fire out. They were not successful. Mobile phone footage showed one man on fire after trying to retrieve goods from a store. It was unclear if the person was looting or trying to rescue his livelihood. Reporters interviewed tearful men and women who mourned the loss of their livelihood.

The Ede market usually covered one square mile. From a distance it seemed to have been constructed by a six-year-old given limitless supplies of corrugated iron, wooden support beams, and the kind of electricity supply that leads to fireworks displays every forth or fifth night. The shops were all the same—box constructs with storage in the back and stalls in front where goods could be displayed to customers who walk down narrow aisles. They were all tightly-packed, and there was a saying: you touch one shop, you touch them all. It would not have been difficult to raze the market. A message from the Liberation Front of Alcacia followed the conflagration footage.

It was a grainy image of three men, only the middle one sitting. The other two held in turn an AK-47 and a rocket launcher. All were masked. None looked like Church in stature. The rhetoric was not broadcast. Clever. The public would know who to blame since LFA had taken responsibility, but not why. The chief of police gave an interview.

Diane rose from the bed, ethereal and unreal to me. She moved like her feet did not touch the ground, like she was borne on a cushion of clouds. She started dressing up.

“Will you be all right on your own?” she asked.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“To the household prayer. My staff is quite religious, and they feel calmer when I’m present.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“God, no.” She leaned in and squeezed my penis under the sheets. “I want more of this.”

She put on a chaste dress and tied a scarf.

“Do you have any books I can read?” I asked.

“There’s a library downstairs. The corridor next to the dining room will take you there.”

She left.

I rolled in the sheets and stretched. Silk feels different. It’s the kind of sensation that makes you decide to be rich on the spot. That is the result of sleeping with quality.

I went to take a piss and looked in the medicine cabinet. Antidepressants, sedatives, Senna, painkillers. What’s she depressed about? I wandered about aimlessly at first. I touched curtains, blew dust off busts of Roman generals.

I did not plan to look through Diane’s things but I found the empty house irresistible. I rummaged like a gentle hurricane, a good and nosy private detective. First, I went to the library and selected a translation of Arabian Nights. The books were all hardcover and looked new. It was more the size of a community center library than privately owned. The titles said nothing to me—I got the feeling they were picked by an interior decorator. I searched several of the rooms. That task was unrewarding.

I took digital photos of family snaps for later comparison. I perused correspondence, but it meant nothing to me. I had no context. There was also routine, bill-paying shit as well as supplications for funds or appearances at charity events or schools. Useless. I found a study on the first floor. Routine as well. Computer. Desk. File cabinet. M.C. Escher print. There were four books on the shelf, all written by Pa Busi. It occurred to me that this was his study. I could imagine him sitting down writing one of the manuscripts, hemorrhoid cushion in place on the seat. I carefully went over every inch, photographing any important-looking documents. My soundtrack was the singing from the prayer service. I imagined Diane singing, then I imagined her lips, then imagined kissing. Focus! No diary. Nothing locked, which was a good thing. In one drawer I found a pretty impressive and distressing stash of porn. Extreme humiliation, body fluid swapping variety. I supposed nobody could be good-natured all the time.

I searched some more and returned to the bedroom with my book. My heartbeat was steady. I put on the TV. The news told of how none of the city beggars who usually slept in the market were harmed. A local government politician made an incredibly offensive remark about beggars being like animals, able to sense danger. From the news commentary nobody registered offense.

The crescendo of a chorus reached me briefly, the result of a transient acoustic anomaly. Presently, Diane returned and we fucked.

Toward the evening, Diane became strangely morose, and I left—in a cab this time. The streets were stable, although there were many more police checkpoints than usual. They focused more on getting bribes than searching the taxi, which was good for me since I didn’t want them to find my handgun.

The house was empty. No sign of Nana. A couple of envelopes had been slipped under the door. Each had a number written on it. I opened them. Cash. The same amount in each envelope. I figured they were rent payments and left them on the table. I sat down and spent fifteen minutes phoning Nana. Straight to voicemail without negotiation.

This time a sense of dread hit me with heavy finality, and I became certain of one thing: Nana was missing. Why had it taken me so long to reach the obvious conclusion? Given the country and town I was in, there was a whole range of possibilities. She could have been abducted, raped or killed at random. Someone might have offered up her body parts to their juju god. The secret police might have taken her either for a random, arbitrary offense or by association with me. One of the rebel groups could have taken her. Efriti might have arranged to have her killed as part of getting to me. But he and Elemo were dead and gone now, so there was no one to question. She could have been in a car accident. She could be in hospital with amebic dysentery. E fucking T could have taken her home. Alcacia held limitless possibilities for swallowing people into her maw and not spitting out the bones.