Indigo (6 page)

“Have you anything to say? I have always found that a confession makes things easier. After that the days go by.”

“I am not guilty,” Jerry said. “Surely you know that.”

The captain looked at his clipboard, then began searching his pockets for a pen.

“I had a biro when I came in here,” he said. He looked at the floor. “I never start interrogation without my biro.”

The word
interrogation
didn't do much to help Jerry's calm, but the captain hadn't noticed. He was down on the floor now, looking behind the table legs and making Jerry move his feet. When he stood back up he checked his pockets again and then felt behind his ear. “Be right back,” he said.

When the captain left, Jerry thought he would close and lock the door again, but this time he left it ajar. Jerry could hear his footsteps leaving. What the hell, he thought; does he want me to try to escape? He knew of cases where foreigners had been left to rot in Nigerian jails for weeks, even months at a time, so was this captain telling him that he'd better take his chance now, that he'd better leave while the leaving was good? Jerry walked over to the door and looked out. There were several similar doors along the corridor, but all of them were closed and silent. Across from him, along the opposite wall, the hallway was composed entirely of windows, with a view out to a parking lot two stories below. Jerry had no memory of climbing stairs when they'd come in so perhaps the building was constructed on a hill, the other side butted up against a street. Beyond the parking lot there was nothing he recognized. He saw the low houses of a residential area and he could see children playing in the dirt, but he didn't know where he was.

Though the captain took his time, Jerry didn't step outside the room. And when he heard the footsteps again he did not go back to the table. Rather he remained where he was, leaning against the jamb, watching the captain come.

“Now,” said the captain. “Have you had time to reconsider? I believe you saw our evidence at the Federal Secretariat.”

“I saw it,” said Jerry Neal. “Why would anyone go to such trouble to involve me? I don't have enemies here; I am not political.”

The captain took the cap off his pen and started writing. Jerry saw the paper in the clipboard, but he could not read what the man wrote.

“I want to know what you intend to do,” said Jerry, “and I want access to a phone.” He spoke quietly and the man continued writing, as if he were taking down requests.

Finally, after Jerry had been quiet for a while, the captain looked up. “This is not America,” he said. “If you confess you may use the phone; if not you will be placed in a holding cell.”

Jerry believed that if he were really being charged with such a huge crime there would be more people asking him questions now, an attempt to publicly announce the name of the villain, just as there had been with previous fires. Surely there would be men of higher rank. “I didn't do it,” he said.

The captain capped his pen and stepped back toward the door. “Very well,” he said. “Please, come this way.”

Jerry wasn't handcuffed or restrained in any other way, but the captain went first. Then about halfway up the hall he thought better of it and pressed himself against the windows, letting Jerry pass him by.

When they got to the door at the end of the hall the captain reached around and opened it, giving Jerry a gratuitous shove, making him stumble, barefooted, into the next room. Here were the dozens of people he had expected, but they were not high-ranking officers. Rather the room contained prisoners, perhaps thirty of them, all jammed into three small cells.

“These are our holding facilities,” said the captain, opening one of the doors. “Since you are not guilty I know you will want to be with others who are not guilty, too.” He didn't shove Jerry this time, so Jerry held back. “What about my call?” he asked. “What about some kind of bail?”

But the captain made Jerry step far enough into the cell so that he could close the door. And then everything remained quiet until he went back out of the room again.

These cells were freestanding, unattached, like cages. Jerry had been placed in the smallest one, but one that contained seven or eight others, all of whom looked at him as if his presence among them were some kind of trick.

Jerry turned around and put his hands up on the bars, but with his back to the other men he began to feel a little cold. This wasn't funny. So far as he knew everyone at the school still thought he was at the ministry, negotiating proper visas for the teachers. He turned back around quickly, startling some of his cell mates. This room was darker than the one he'd been in earlier, but now that his eyes were adjusting he could see that the floor ran wet with urine and that in one corner there were even piles of feces, like ant hills. He turned around to face the bars, then back to face the men, then back to face the bars. He had no idea what to do.

By the time he had been in the holding cell for about five minutes his cell mates began to move. Jerry slid down the bars into a sitting position but as soon as he was seated a hand came to him, touching the edge of his leg.

“Oga,” said the man connected to the hand. “What you bring us dis day?”

Jerry jerked away, frightened, but trying desperately not to show it. He pulled the pockets of his pants out and let them hang, like deflated balloons. “Nothing,” he said. “I have nothing to give.”

As time went by he understood that each man in the small cell was trying to claim as much space as he could, though nearly all the space had been soiled. There was no camaraderie among these men, and little conversation. An hour passed but Jerry seemed unable to concentrate or think about anything but staying where he was. When six o'clock came the outside door opened and several policemen came in carrying water. Jerry was thirsty, but when a bucket was placed in the center of his cell he stayed away from it, not claiming any of it as his own. He was hungry too but no food came and when the sun went down and the cell grew dark he pulled his legs up under his chin, holding them tight and forcing himself to be still. After more time passed he put his hands against the bars and pushed his crumpled legs out and tried to lie flat, hoping he knew where the dry places were, his feet stretching among the others until they moved, giving him room. He put his hands behind his head and stared up into the darkness.

Jerry Neal had been in World War II. As an eighteen-year-old he had been on Guam, sleeping with his buddies in the tall grass, terribly worried about the Japanese. There really had been snipers then and he had heard gunfire, so he listened to see what he could hear now. There were thirty men in these three cells and he could hear them breathing and alive. He was too exhausted to worry anymore or to think about what tomorrow might bring and in a while he felt as though he were floating, and he would have slept, as deeply, at least, as he had in the deep grass on Guam, but he was awakened by the sound of movement near him and then by the feeling of that hand again, pushed out and touching him from another world.

“Oga, do not fret,” said the hand. “I myself sleep small and will stay nearby. I can warn you should trouble be coming your way.”

But however long the night, Lawrence Biko, the school's attorney, was in court the next morning at ten, and by dinnertime Jerry Neal was out of jail and on his way back home. He had been charged with arson in the first degree, but he was free on his own recognizance, a move that got the presiding judge criticized in the press and on the evening television news. Never before had a foreigner been charged with such a public and politically important crime, and to let him back out onto the streets seemed absurd, neocolonialist at best, and at worst a clear violation of the law.

Lawrence Biko did not speak to Jerry at the police station, but once in the parking lot, he smiled. “Well, well,” he said. “We have much to discuss. The court has ordered me to tell you that you cannot leave Lagos state without permission, do you understand?”

Lawrence was a big man. He had always reminded Jerry of a well-dressed and better-educated version of his administrative assistant, Sunday Aremu. He wasn't approachable like Sunday, but he was as expansive and humorous. Jerry occasionally had the feeling that Lawrence had too many irons in the fire, but he had always done a masterful job for the school. He had been the school's attorney since long before Jerry's time, and Jerry had never found cause to complain. He was not at all sure, however, that he wanted this man as his personal representative. Criminal law, so far as Jerry knew, wasn't Lawrence's cup of tea. Besides, if Jerry had any say in the matter, he wanted an American.

Lawrence edged his car into traffic. Now that he was outside, it was possible for Jerry to tell what part of the city the police station was in. It was in a part he didn't know well, a part where expatriates rarely came, but once the car was on the Marina, heading home, he looked at his solicitor and sighed. “Tell me what you think is really going on,” he said.

Lawrence Biko laughed. “Ah, Jerry, it is easy, don't you know? You are not important here. This is not about you at all. You were a mere convenience, a window of opportunity. The school's small visa problem gave them their chance, don't you know; it is nothing more than that.”

“Their chance for what?”

“To blame someone, of course, to find a dupe.”

Since Jerry didn't speak again, Lawrence continued. “Well, think about it, man. The government is cracking down on corruption, isn't that right? Auditors are going to all the ministries. The Ministry of Internal Affairs will surely have its audit soon. Put it together and what do you get?”

“So they burned the place down and blamed me?”

Lawrence laughed again and raised his hands off the steering wheel. “The fire started in the filing cabinets, with the school's toner fluid poured all over the place. It's a joke, but a typically Nigerian one. Clumsy perhaps, but effective in the end.”

“Then who really started the fire?” Jerry wanted to know. “Surely not the minister? And who is Nurudeen's father? He told me he was the minister's brother.”

“The minister, one of the vice-ministers, who knows?” Lawrence shrugged. “Whoever was skimming the money set the fire. You should know by now that if you're looking for corruption it isn't hard to find. And Nurudeen's father and the minister are from the same part of the country. That's what we call brotherhood in Africa, don't you know?”

“So they recognized our visa problem as a motive and framed us? Nurudeen's father came to get me so that I'd be on hand?”

“Maybe so,” Lawrence Biko said.

This was a lot to take in. The toner had been disappearing from the school for a month. And what a strange thing to use. Jerry wasn't even sure that it was flammable. He thought of Nurudeen and wondered if the boy had any idea to what use his handiwork had been put.

“You don't suppose it goes as far back as San Francisco, do you?” Jerry asked. “The consul general, all that talk about the laws having been changed.”

“Well, well,” said Lawrence. “I hadn't thought of that one. Won't it be fun unraveling all this!”

When they arrived at the school it was dark, but though Jerry was desperate for a shower and for his bed he wanted to get the board president on the phone, wanted, if possible, to see the man that night. As they passed through the gate he took Lawrence Biko's hand and shook it. “Whatever happens, I am sure the worst is over,” he said.

But Lawrence lost the lightness of his look when Jerry said that. “Oh no, my friend, the worst is yet to come. I'm afraid I can guarantee you that one.”

Was he joking? Jerry wondered. What could be worse than the last day and a half had been? “I mean for me personally,” Jerry said. “I never want to go through yesterday again.”

“But you surely have not forgotten the secretary, have you?” Lawrence whispered. “If she dies you will be charged with murder, which is another kettle of fish.”

Though he had seen her damaged body, Jerry indeed
had
forgotten the secretary. He hadn't thought of her once since his arrest. “How is she?” he feebly asked.

Lawrence put a calming hand on Jerry's arm. “No change,” he said, “no one knows what her chances might be.”

Until that moment Jerry had not allowed the prospect of going back to jail to enter his mind. He could handle the pressure of this situation, but he did not want to think anymore about that cell.

“Really, Lawrence, don't say such things,” he said, and for some reason that brought the robust Lawrence back. “Ah, but never mind!” said the lawyer. “Chin up! We don't cross our bridges until we come to them, don't you know?”

When Jerry got out of the car some of the teachers were waiting, ready to welcome him home. He smiled at them and was about to close the car door when another question occurred to him. He leaned in and asked Lawrence, “How did you know where I was? How did you find me and get me out so quickly?”

“Ah,” said Lawrence, “did I not say? I was awakened yesterday evening quite late. Indeed, it must have been past midnight when I got a phone call from a lady representing Nurudeen's dad.”

After Lawrence Biko drove away Jerry spoke to the teachers for a while, but though they had prepared food for him, he was too tired to eat and asked to be excused. He was surprised at the degree to which the experience had shaken him, and he wanted to be alone.

Inside his flat he was pleased to find that Jules was gone, with only a note reminding him to leave money for shopping before he left for work in the morning. Jerry ran water for his shower and while he undressed he tried to get the school board president on the phone. But just as he heard the man's voice he put the receiver down. What if the president took him to task for letting such a thing take place, or worse, what if the phone was bugged? Such an idea would not have occurred to him before, but if what Lawrence said was true, perhaps he'd better not take chances of any kind.