A Million Years with You (20 page)

Even so, everyone tuned in, hoping to hear something official, something better than the many rumors. Mostly we heard the usual highlife and juju music. But one memorable morning in January, we turned on the radio and heard Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

Uh-oh. That wasn't right. In fact, it was terrifying. The radio station seemed to be under new management, which must have happened during the night. People whose phones still worked began to telephone each other feverishly. Eventually it emerged that soldiers had killed the prime minister, also the premier of the Northern Region, also Chief Akintola, premier of the Western Region, as well as other soldiers and important political figures. The rebels had taken over the government buildings and the radio station and God knows what else. In short, there'd been a coup.

We didn't know this early that morning. We just listened with horror to the Unfinished Symphony. But I am here to tell you that if unexplained western classical music comes over the only radio station of a third world country, the feathers have hit the fan.

 

Because Steve was so knowledgeable about the political situation, the American consulate called him up to see if he had learned anything, but for all his connections, he was as surprised as they were. Then someone from the Peace Corps called to report a rumor that Akintola had been killed, but no one could confirm it.
What do you mean, can't confirm it?
I said to myself.
I'll confirm it
. And I got in the car.

On the way to the premier's residence, I made up a story to explain my visit. I would tell whoever wanted to know that I had an appointment with one of the premier's assistants, and would feel safe in doing so because I had already met that person and was sure that at the first sign of trouble he would flee. As I approached the premier's driveway, I saw a searchlight—the kind used to find planes at night during World War II —still on and pointed at the sky. That it was on in the daytime, or for that matter that it was there at all, seemed sinister. The lights in the residence were on too and the doors were open, which also seemed sinister. And when I drove up in front of the residence, I saw the premier, naked except for his jockey shorts, lying dead on the lawn.

So the rumor was true. Evidently he was shot inside the residence and dragged outdoors. As I was taking in the enormity of what I was looking at, a soldier with an automatic weapon ran up to my car, wide-eyed and very excited. “What are you doing?” he shouted. He seemed frightened. I started to tell him about my fictional appointment, but before I could finish he was screaming that I was in great danger and should leave at once. So I did.

Steve called the consulate and I called the Peace Corps, but by then they probably knew about the coup, because the prime minister's body had also been found, as had the body of the premier of the Northern Region.

The coup was said to be bloodless because not many people had been killed. For a day or two everything was quiet. Even so, the radio continued to broadcast classical music by Brahms and Beethoven, which seemed even more dire than the Unfinished Symphony, no doubt to remind us of the gravity of our situation.

But there wasn't a single word of real news. Instead, rumors kept coming. We heard that the United States and Great Britain were angered by the coup and planned to invade Nigeria with paratroopers to restore the displaced government. Having lived at Fort Bragg, I didn't like the sound of that, as nobody would want to be in a place invaded by the 82nd Airborne.

At this point Tom Johnson wisely decided to go home, and not a moment too soon. As Steve drove him to the airport, a gang of thugs stopped them, and Steve had to joke them out of burning his car. Not an hour after Tom's plane took off, the airport was closed, along with the ports and all the borders. We expatriates learned that we were hostages, to be used unless the United States and Great Britain changed their minds.

I should have gone with Tom, taking the children and the dogs, but I didn't. I thought that perhaps after the coup the country would have a new government and things would settle down. They didn't, but at least some people were benefiting from the confusion: we learned that at the morgue where Chief Akintola's body had been taken, the attendants were selling views of his corpse. At first the price was high, but day by day the price went down, until the body could be viewed for a shilling. But even at that price I didn't go there. I'd already seen the body.

A rumor began to circulate that American citizens would be evacuated by plane. I went to the consulate to get on the list. I then went home, and as I was going into our condo my neighbor, a woman from India whose husband taught at the university, ran up to me because she too had heard the rumor. She was frantic with fear, with which I could certainly empathize, and she asked for my help in getting her and her family on the plane. Yes, they were from India, but her infant son had been born in the United States.
Hooray!
I thought, and told her I'd do everything in my power, and with that I went back to the consulate and insisted that there was an American in our neighborhood who was not on the list and was too young to leave without his parents. He and his parents should also be on the list. Miraculously, the consulate agreed and added their names. I went back and told our neighbor, who wept with relief. I wept too, but it was all for nothing—the plane never came.

Soon after that I heard that soldiers were massing at the school my children attended. Why were my children in school at a time like that? Because all the other children were also in school. The parents wanted to keep an air of normalcy, and everybody thought the school had no military importance.

We were wrong. I rushed to the school, where I saw soldiers with machine guns all over the place, some digging trenches across the lawns and walkways, others positioning huge artillery pieces as if they were expecting something. I didn't know who these soldiers were or what side they were on, which is certainly the down side of being a civilian in another country's war, but on the other hand, what did it matter? I grabbed my children and shoved them in the car.

Just then the headmistress, an Englishwoman, marched up to the commanding officer, who was loading an automatic weapon. She coldly informed him that he and his soldiers were on school property and they must leave at once.
Good God, woman, what are you doing?
I thought, starting my car. The officer gave her the briefest possible glance and went on loading his weapon. I later learned that the soldiers were establishing a perimeter. They were expecting an invasion from the north.

Needless to say, that was my children's last day in the school, if only because I realized that the headmistress had very poor judgment. Thus my children may have been the only people in Nigeria who found a silver lining in the very heavy cloud. Well, perhaps not the only people. By then the radio station had resumed its broadcast of highlife and juju music, and introduced a new highlife song called “Machine Gun,” pronounced
Mochine
(with the
o
as in
mop
and the accent on the first syllable)
Gon
. I hope the musicians made some money.

 

I wanted to go home, but the borders were closed. I thought of trying to get near the border of Niger by car, then abandoning the car and crossing the border on foot through the bush at night. I planned, of course, to take my children and the dogs, but the walk across the desert to the nearest community would have been difficult for the children and could have put them more in harm's way than they were already. So I didn't do it. Anyway, it wasn't really a plan. It was more of a fantasy. All this time we heard gunfire and saw smoke from burning buildings.

Steve learned about one of the fires, not in Ibadan but in Lagos, where he'd been staying with two men, both good friends, in hopes of meeting a certain lawyer who had taken part in the coup. Steve had requested an appointment, but the appointment didn't materialize, so Steve spent the night in the house of one of his friends. There was only one bed, so the three men shared it, with Steve in the middle. All of them were asleep when the lawyer burst into the room. “Where is this man Thomas?” he shouted. Steve sat up and reached for his tape recorder. The lawyer grabbed the microphone and delivered an oration concerning the coup, during which the governor's house had been consumed with fire. Steve later learned that the lawyer himself had burned the house—he had sent some thugs to set the fire—but being a lawyer, he hadn't mentioned his involvement.

 

One day an army jeep pulled up in front of our house. Two soldiers with automatic weapons got out and banged on our door. To say I was scared doesn't describe it, but I opened the door. The soldiers were from the Northern Region, and one was an army officer, a very good friend. His name was Lieutenant Ogli, and he was from one of the small tribes in northern Nigeria—a man whom we knew very well. The other man was his driver, a sergeant. They had been fighting insurgents in the north, but the fight had spread to the army itself and non-Ibo soldiers were killing their Ibo comrades. Lieutenant Ogli was unwilling to do this, so he and his sergeant were transferring themselves to the south. He came to see us, he told us, to show that he was still alive.

When the army jeep appeared, our neighbors hid in their houses. Suddenly the street was deserted, with every door shut and every window covered. But there was one exception. Our neighbor Phil Stevens was in the Peace Corps and therefore more courageous. He came straight to our house because he was concerned for our safety. Glad to see that we were okay, he shook hands all around and joined us for coffee. I will never forget his honor or his courage. I had freedom from fear, at least for the moment.

 

Steve continued to travel around, visiting political activists, and I did too, as by then even I was involved with the political situation. Steve and I came to an agreement. We would not travel together or at the same time, so if trouble came while he was traveling and I was at home, I would try to escape with the children, not waiting for him. If I was traveling and he was at home, he would do the same and not wait for me. This was no way to live, but it was the best way we had, so, secure in the genuinely comforting knowledge that Steve would abandon me if necessary, I drove to Enugu in the Eastern Region to interview an Ibo gentleman, a colonel in the army and also a government official. He had a story to tell and he wanted someone to hear it, and as we sat on his sofa in his pleasant, western-style living room, he carefully explained what had happened to Ibo people after the coup. I liked him very much and wrote down everything he said, although his accounts were horrifying. A few days later, after I was back in Ibadan, I learned that he too had been killed.

 

In all this fear and trouble, certain events seemed very important. Lieutenant Ogli's visit was one of them. Another happened later, when our daughter got sick with a high fever. I put her in the car to take her to a doctor—a white South African whom I had never met but who ran a clinic at the university and to whom the university had assigned us. But on the way I came upon a long line of stopped traffic, perhaps seventy or eighty cars, which soldiers were searching for weapons and ammunition. Some of the soldiers were taking everything out of the cars, including the seats, from which they sometimes ripped the upholstery, while other soldiers stood by with their automatic weapons trained on the drivers and passengers.

I got out of my car and just looked at all this. My daughter was lying on the back seat, twisting from side to side with her eyes rolled up into her head, and my distress must have showed. Have I spoken earlier of the intuition, sensitivity, and empathy of many African people? I saw a young soldier looking at me from a distance. Then he walked up to me and asked what was wrong. I took him to the car so he could see my daughter and told him I was taking her to the doctor. He took one look and understood. He called to the other soldiers to let me through. In tears, I tried to thank him, but in an urgent voice he said, “Go with God” and waved me out of the line of waiting cars so I could pass them. This was the good part of the experience.

The bad part came ten minutes later, when I carried my daughter into the clinic. By then she wasn't moving and may have been unconscious. The Nigerian nursing assistant jumped up from her desk to call the white South African doctor. He was in his office and hurried out. But when he saw me standing there, he said he wouldn't help me. At first I didn't understand, and thought perhaps my daughter was so sick that nothing could be done. I must have asked a question to that effect because the next thing I heard, to my unbelieving ears, was the doctor saying that I once had taken my children to see the Peace Corps doctor, an American woman whom I had come to know as a friend. Somehow the South African doctor had learned of this and it angered him. If I didn't want him then, I couldn't have him now, so I should leave, he told me.

I couldn't make sense of this. Did the doctor want my daughter dead because long before I had consulted another doctor? I begged him, saying I hadn't meant to offend him, and the visit to the other doctor wasn't my daughter's fault. She was only eight, I told him. But the white South African doctor was firm. Whether I meant to or not, I had done him wrong and I would pay for it. He went back to his office and shut the door while his nursing assistant watched him dismally. I had no choice but to take my daughter home, back through the line of cars that were being searched for weapons.

The Peace Corps doctor had since moved to Lagos or I would have taken my daughter to her in the first place. I would also have taken her to the Ibadan hospital, to the doctor who had offered to help the chief priest, but I couldn't get there because the road was blocked. Anyway, by then I had lost confidence in that hospital. Here's an excerpt from another letter I should never have written to my parents: