Taduno's Song (11 page)

‘I don't think so. He warned my mother not to tell anyone. He says if she does, he might lose the money.'

This last revelation came as a small relief to both men. Their secret was in the hands of a greedy man.

‘Okay, I will see you home,' Aroli said, rising to his feet. ‘Look, don't say anything to anyone about what you heard your parents discussing. And don't tell your parents you were here. If you do, it will make it difficult for Taduno to find your sister. Understand?'

‘Okay.' Judah nodded, staring into Aroli's face.

‘Let's go.' Opening the door, Aroli held out his hand to the boy.

The boy looked from one man to the other.

Taduno smiled at the boy.

The boy managed a smile too. And as he walked away in quick small strides beside Aroli, he wondered if God would forgive him for betraying his parents.

*

Aroli got back twenty minutes later to find Taduno and TK talking quietly in the living room. Without bothering to ask if either of them needed a drink, he went into the kitchen to get a bottle of beer. ‘We have to do something,' he said, after he had taken a drink and settled into a seat. He kept his eyes on the bottle of beer in his hand.

‘Do what?' Taduno asked.

‘Do something about what Judah told us.'

‘What can we do?'

‘I don't know. Anything. Sooner or later, his father will report us to the secret service man or the police.' Aroli sounded nervous.

‘I think what we can do is appeal to him not to go to the police, not to say anything to the man from the secret service. We could even pay him to keep quiet.' Taduno looked at Aroli, then TK.

‘You cannot appeal to the conscience of a greedy man,' TK spoke. ‘You cannot pay him enough either. His mind is set on the reward the government has promised. Nothing will change his mind. Even if you pay him, he will still want to get the extra from the government. I see only one solution – I must leave.'

‘You cannot leave,' Taduno said hastily. ‘You have nowhere to go.'

Aroli agreed. ‘You cannot leave. The streets are deserted. If you go into the streets, they will pick you out easily. And I'm afraid they will not take you in alive.'

‘Are you suggesting I wait for them to come and get me here?'

‘No, I'm suggesting we do something else. Maybe we should kidnap the boy's father. We could keep him here until Taduno is able to sing again and in a position to negotiate with the government.' Aroli spoke in a rush.

‘If we kidnap the man, his wife will go to the police. That will complicate the situation.' Taduno shook his head.

‘She will not go to the police if we make her realise that her husband will die if she does. See?' Aroli said.

‘We are not killing anyone.' Taduno's voice was sharp.

‘Kidnappers are supposed to back up their actions with threats. We do not have to kill him.'

‘We are no better than the government if we act in that way,' TK said, rising to his feet and leaning against the wall.

Taduno put up his hands. ‘I agree. Think about it. Apart from the people on this street, who else knows that TK is here? There may be others. You cannot rule out the possibility. It could be that the secret is out. And if that is the case, kidnapping Judah's father will do no good.'

‘I don't see a better way,' Aroli said stubbornly.

‘I know a better way,' Taduno said, rising to his feet, ‘I could stir the man's conscience with music.' He grabbed his guitar from a corner of the room with a sense of urgency.
‘Come with me, Aroli! We've got no time to waste.' To TK, he said, ‘Do not open the door for any reason. Go up to the attic and remain there until we come back.'

TK opened his mouth to say something, but only a deep sigh emerged. He knew now that his fate was in the hands of strangers.

THIRTEEN

They found Lela's parents at home, but there was no sign of Judah. The man and his wife welcomed them nervously and offered them cold water. They brought out kolanut too, in a blue plastic bowl. And then the wife disappeared to the backyard to eavesdrop on the ensuing conversation.

‘To what do I owe this visit?' Lela's father asked, after his visitors had taken some water and politely declined the kolanut. He kept looking nervously at Taduno's guitar. He sensed that the guitar meant trouble, and he wished he hadn't come with it.

‘Oh, we just came to visit you as neighbours,' Taduno said. ‘I am aware that I haven't paid you a proper visit since I returned.' He hesitated. ‘I mean, since I moved to this neighbourhood.'

‘It is very thoughtful of you to come,' Lela's father said, beginning to sweat profusely. ‘I see Aroli around a lot. He is always riding through our street on
okada
.'

Aroli nodded eagerly. ‘Oh yes, that is right.'

‘By the way, where is Judah?' Taduno asked.

‘I think he must be in his room sleeping.'

‘I see.' Taduno nodded, then hesitated. ‘I'm sorry about your daughter. I understand she was arrested by government agents. How sad!' He shook his head.

The man became downcast. ‘Oh yes, she was arrested many weeks ago. And we have not heard anything about her since. The police claim they don't know anything. Nobody knows anything. It is a shame that we live in a society like this.' He gave a small shrug.

‘It is a shame indeed!' Taduno shook his head. ‘But it may give you some consolation that Aroli and I are trying to find your daughter, and we have made considerable progress so far. Rest assured we will find her.'

A happy smile broke out on the man's face. ‘Oh, that is very kind of you! I cannot thank you enough.'

‘You don't have to. We should be there for each other as neighbours,' Taduno said, spreading out his hands.

There was a brief pause.

‘And that is why we have come to see you,' Aroli said, straightening up in his seat.

And then Lela's father suddenly knew why they were there. But he could not understand how they knew. Is it possible that his wife betrayed him? He wiped sweat from his face with his palm.

‘I'm listening.' His voice was a croak.

‘I have TK, the man the government is looking for, in my house,' Taduno began. ‘We understand that you are aware of this and that you intend to report to the authorities. If
you do that, Aroli and I will be arrested and we will no longer be able to find your daughter. So we are here to beg you to keep what you know to yourself.'

A long silence followed.

‘There's a reward for the information. What do you expect me to do?' the man asked at last.

‘We expect you to keep quiet!' Aroli said in a tough voice. He wanted to add ‘or we will kidnap you', but he knew Taduno would not approve.

Taduno put up his hands. ‘We expect you to be a good neighbour,' he said, looking directly into the man's eyes.

The man looked away, but not before Taduno glimpsed the greed in his eyes.

‘Oh yes, I'm a good neighbour.' The man's voice was weak.

Taduno realised at that moment that the man's heart was set on betraying them. TK was right: you can never appeal to the conscience of a greedy man, and you can never pay him enough. He turned to Aroli. ‘TK was right,' he said simply.

Aroli nodded. ‘So what do we do? We could still fall back on my plan.'

Taduno rejected Aroli's suggestion with a shake of his head. He must now attempt to stir the conscience of the man and his wife with his music. ‘Come with me,' he said and rose to his feet. ‘I want to make music in the street.'

Judah appeared at the door just then. ‘You are here,' he said hesitantly, looking from Taduno to Aroli.

Taduno nodded at him with a smile. He wondered how the boy and Lela could be so different from their parents.

‘I want to make music in the street,' he said to Judah and unslung his guitar. Then he walked calmly out into the street.

They all followed him.

*

He found a bench in the street. He knew he had to sit down to play the kind of music he wanted to play. So he sat down on the bench. Lela's mother joined them in the street with a look of horror on her face, sensing that trouble was on their doorstep. She sat on the pavement and folded her arms across her breasts. And as the first chords echoed from Taduno's guitar, her conscience began to torment her.

Slowly, his music spread throughout the neighbourhood, soft and colourful. The people began to gather one by one, cautiously, knowing soldiers were nearby. They remembered that the President had proscribed all association through music, but they were enthralled by the melodies that suddenly filled the empty spaces of their lives. So they came.

Among those gathered were Vulcaniser and several others from his street, who had not ventured out of their homes in days. They all came out to listen. And as they did, they shook their heads in wonder and joy.

Judah placed his palms on his little cheeks and stared at Taduno in astonishment. He thought: How could my parents ever think of giving such a wonderful man away?

*

Taduno told simple stories with his music, shifting from one story to the next with glorious ease. He spoke in the tone of a folksinger through his guitar to the large crowd that had gathered, and they understood the meaning of his music, the flow of his emotions.

He did not chastise Lela's parents with his music. Instead, he attempted to stir the conscience of all. And so he played beautiful wordless songs that his listeners would remember for a long time to come.

The soldiers soon showed up, causing many to take to their heels. They came with guns and tear gas and grenades, but Taduno's music softened their hearts and they lowered their guns and opened their mouths in amazement. Those who had taken off came back when they saw that the soldiers were not attempting to arrest anyone.

Momentarily transformed by the music they were hearing, the soldiers took off their helmets. They wiped soot from their faces with their bare hands. They wanted the people to see them as human beings, not monsters. But it was nothing more than a fleeting transformation. Soon, it occurred to them that in the end they had to answer to the President, not to the people, and certainly not to some musician, however brilliant he was. And so, they pushed through the crowd and arrested Taduno.

FOURTEEN

Because of the gravity of his offence – making music in public at a time when all association through music had been banned – they held him in solitary confinement in an underground cell that sunlight could never penetrate. The cell had a single weak bulb which his captors turned on from the corridor each time they came to see him. They were all afraid of his guitar and refused to touch it or take it away from him. And all the time they could hear him playing soft music that threatened to melt their hard souls.

He slept on the cold bare floor, and refused to touch the food they offered him on dirty flat plates. He claimed he was fasting, and they wondered why anyone would fast.

‘Do you want to die?' a soldier asked him.

‘No, I don't want to die, I want to live,' he replied.

‘Why then are you fasting if you want to live?' the soldier asked.

‘Because I need strength to go through my ordeal,' Taduno replied calmly.

The soldier could not believe his ears. He laughed at him as if he was a lunatic.

‘You need food to give you strength,' the soldier said.

‘No, I need to fast to get strength.'

‘You'll starve to death if you don't eat.'

‘I'll die if I eat. Food is not what I need now.'

‘Well, suit yourself,' the soldier said, with a shrug. ‘Go ahead and kill yourself if you want.'

Taduno gave him a kind smile.

*

He wondered if Lela was being held in conditions similar to his, and he shuddered at the thought. He imagined her, a fragile beauty, lying on a bare floor in an underground cell somewhere in the city. He imagined her, alone in darkness for hours, with no one to talk to except the soldiers who brought her food and water. He imagined her . . . And then realising that such thoughts would only intensify the nightmare of his incarceration, he banished them from his mind.

He refused to think about TK, Aroli, Judah, Vulcaniser and the rest of his neighbours, knowing that it would only sap his strength without changing anything. It gave him some comfort that Aroli would look after TK. So he looked inward and simply allowed music to flow from his heart.

In spite of themselves, the soldiers began to gather at the door of his cell to listen. And as they listened they began to perceive their own foul odour. They began to see
their own faces, as in a mirror; the faces of the servants of an evil tyrant.

They saw how dirty their uniforms were. They saw the hopelessness that was their lot and that of their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They began to understand that the reason they wore torn boots and smelly uniforms was because their master wanted their lives to remain in tatters. And they began to understand, too, that these tatters supported the prosperity of their master.

They began to sway to his music. They began to nod to his music. But they were too afraid to dance, knowing their master had eyes everywhere, and that soldiers were not supposed to dance.

*

On the morning of his fourth day in captivity, he asked for water. Because he had not taken water or food for three whole days, a soldier brought him water in a bucket.

‘Drink water, please,' the soldier said. ‘Drink for all the days that you have not drunk. Drink for all the days to come. We don't want you to die on us.'

‘Thank you,' Taduno said.

He scooped water from the bucket with a plastic cup and he drank sparingly.

‘Drink more, please,' the soldier begged. ‘I can get you many more buckets of water if you want. There is food too. You can have any amount you want.'