Anthills of the Savannah

'Let me tell you people something. When my wife here came to me and said: Our daughter has a child and I want you to come and give her a name, I said to myself: Something is amiss. We did not hear kpom to tell us that the palm branch has been cut before we heard waa when it crashed through the bush. I did not hear of bride-price and you are telling me about naming a child. But I did not contradict my wife because I want fish in my soup… Do you know why I am laughing like this? I am laughing because in you young people our world has met its match. Yes! You have put the world where it should sit… My wife here was breaking her head looking for kolanuts, for alligator pepper, for honey and for bitter-leaf…'

'And Snaps and agriculture chicken.'

'True. Those as well. And while she is cracking her head you people gather in this whiteman house and give the girl a boy's name… That is how to handle this world… If anybody thinks that I will start a fight because somebody has done the work I should do that person does not know me. I only fight when somebody else eats what I should eat. So I will not fight. Rather I will say thank you. I will say whoever ate the foofoo let him mop up the soup as well. A child has been named. What else is one looking for at the bottom of the soup-bowl if not fish? Wherever the child sleeps let it wake up in the morning, is my prayer… My wife, where is that kolanut? I shall break it after all.'

Everybody applauded this strange man's sudden decision, sparked off perhaps by the utterance of the word prayer. Elewa's mother could not keep up against the powerful current in favour of the old man. She opened her bag and handed a kolanut to him.

'Elewa, go and wash this and put it into a plate and bring me water to wash my hands.'

Elewa and Agatha went into the kitchen to do as the old man had commanded. After he had washed his hands and wiped them importantly with a sparkling napkin that contrasted so harshly with his own dirt-and-sweat-tarnished jumper that used to be of white lace he assumed a sacramental posture, picked up the kolanut in his right hand and held it between four fingers and thumb, palm up, to the Almighty.

'Owner of the world! Man of countless names! The church people call you three-in-one. It is a good name. But it carries miserly and insufficient praise. Four-hundred-in-one would seem more fitting in our eyes. But we have no quarrel with church people; we have no quarrel with mosque people. Their intentions are good, their mind on the right road. Only the hand fails to throw as straight as the eye sees. We praise a man when he slaughters a fowl so that if his hand becomes stronger tomorrow he will slaughter a goat…

'What brings us here is the child you sent us. May her path be straight…'

'Isé!' replied all the company.

'May she have life and may her mother have life.'

'Isé!'

'What happened to her father, may it not happen again.'

'Isé!'

'When I asked who named her they told me All of Us. May this child be the daughter of all of us.'

'Isé!'

'May all of us have life!'

'Isé!'

'May these young people here when they make the plans for their world not forget her. And all other children.'

'Isé!'

'May they also remember useless old people like myself and Elewa's mother when they are making their plans.'

'Isé!'

'We have seen too much trouble in Kangan since the white man left because those who make plans make plans for themselves only and their families.'

Abdul was nodding energetically, his head bent gently towards his simultaneous translator, Emmanuel.

'I say, there is too much fighting in Kangan, too much killing. But fighting will not begin unless there is first a thrusting of fingers into eyes. Anybody who wants to outlaw fights must first outlaw the provocation of fingers thrust into eyes.'

'Isé! Isé!!'

Abdul, a relative stranger to the kolanut ritual, was carried away beyond the accustomed limits of choral support right into exuberant hand-clapping.

'I have never entered a house like this before. May this not be my last time.'

'Isé!'

'You are welcome any time,' added Beatrice following Abdul's breaking of ritual bounds.

'If something pursues us we shall escape but if we pursue something we shall catch it.'

'Isé!'

'As long as what we pursue does not belong to somebody else.'

'Isé!'

'Everybody's life!'

'Isé!'

'The life of Bassa!'

'Isé!'

'The life of Kangan.'

'Isé!'

After Elewa's mother and uncle had left with Aina and Braimoh in the old taxi, the party continued in the quiet and relaxed afterglow of the day's ritual intensity. But it proved a day extraordinary in stamina and before long a new surge of passion was building up secretly below its placid expansiveness.

It began in ripples of simple reminiscence. Emanuel, it was plain to see, was rather pleased with himself and so chose to congratulate someone else, Beatrice, on the evolution, as he called it, of the two-headed toast to people and ideas. She, on her part, was a captain whose leadership was sharpened more and more by sensitivity to the peculiar needs of her company.

'I must say I liked your spirited stand for ideas.'

'Mutual Admiration Club forming up again,' sang Abdul.

'And jealousy will get us nowhere,' sang Beatrice.

'But looking back on it,' continued Emmanuel passing up the bait of banter, 'I think you taught me something very important by holding out for people. Do you remember the day you told me that Chris had taught me to be a gentleman?'

'It was only a joke.'

'Jokes are serious,' said Abdul impishly.

'Yes they are… That day and again today you were making me aware of my debt to Chris. I don't know why I never thought of it before but the greatest thing he taught me was seeing the way he died.'

The jesting mood died instantly in the air, folded its wings and fell like a stone; the tributary conversations dried up.

'I was kneeling on the road at his side weeping uselessly. She,' he nodded his head in Adamma's direction, 'was trying to do something. Then I said something idiotic like Don't go, don't leave us please. And, I can't describe it, that effort — you could touch it almost — to dismiss pain from his face and summon a smile and then crack a joke. He called it The Last Grin.'

Beatrice started in her seat.

'Yes I remember,' said silent Adamma. 'The last green. But he did not finish it.'

Beatrice rushed away into her bedroom. Elewa followed after her. While they were away nothing more was said. After a few minutes Elewa came back.

'Is she all right?' asked Abdul a little ahead of other inquirers.

'No trouble. To cry small no be bad thing. BB no be like me wey de cry every day like baby wey him mother die.'

'Madam too strong,' said Agatha. 'To strong too much no de good for woman.'