Taduno's Song (12 page)

‘Thank you,' Taduno replied.

‘Why are you thanking me?' the soldier asked. ‘Are you thanking me because you want me to bring you food or because you want me to bring you more water?'

‘I'm thanking you because you are very kind.'

‘What about the food? Do you want it?'

‘No, thank you. I don't want food. Thank you indeed.'

‘Do you want more water? Do you want more of anything?'

Taduno shook his head. ‘I have had enough water already. You can take the bucket away. I don't want more of anything.'

The soldier looked baffled. He could not understand what manner of man he was. Why would any man undertake a suicide mission? ‘Well,' he muttered to himself and took the bucket of water away.

*

On the fifth day they allowed him to use a bathroom. They brought him a toothbrush and toothpaste in a plastic cup. They gave him a shaving stick too. And when he had taken his bath with a bucket of water, they brought him fresh clothes, a shirt and trousers – which were his perfect size – and a pair of shoes.

He refused to accept the shoes, insisting on wearing his own. They said it was okay with them if he wanted to wear his own shoes. But they insisted that he must have something to eat. So they brought him rice and a piece of chicken and a bottle of water. They set him a proper table in a bigger cell with a window open to bright sunlight.
Keeping his guitar on the table where he could see it, he ate slowly.

When he finished eating, he sat back to wonder why they were treating him so nicely. Why did they allow him to use a bathroom? Why did they bring him fresh clothes? As he asked himself these questions, he realised that he was about to be taken before someone very important.

*

He waited for several more days, in the bigger cell that enjoyed bright sunlight. The days dragged. The nights were even longer. He slept on a small wooden bed, with his guitar next to him. Anxiety ate at him. And he knew that this delay was a deliberate attempt to weaken him.

They brought him food and water every few hours, insisting that he must eat and drink. He obeyed them because he was at their mercy. He was too tense to play his guitar while he waited. He prayed he wouldn't have to wait for too long.

‘What is happening?' he asked one of the soldiers.

‘You are going to appear before our master,' the soldier replied.

‘Who?'

‘Mr President himself,' the soldier replied.

He swallowed and tried not to show his surprise. ‘When?'

‘Soon.'

‘How soon is soon?'

‘I don't know. We are waiting for instructions.'

He sighed and went to sleep.

He tried to sleep as much as possible to keep his mind from the waiting. But he couldn't sleep for too long at a stretch because they kept coming to wake him up, to offer him more food and water.

And they kept telling him they did not know how long he had to wait.

‘Mr President is a very busy man, you see,' they would say to him.

FIFTEEN

They brought him before the President on a Sunday morning. He had lost count of the days, but they told him it was a Sunday. They said the President sees troublesome prisoners only on Sundays, and decides their fate on Mondays. If the prisoner is lucky he gets a reprieve on Tuesday. If he is not, he goes to the gulag on Wednesday.

‘Your fate is no longer in your own hands,' a soldier told him, as they drove him to the President's office. ‘In fact, your fate is no longer in the hands of man. It is now in the hands of a mighty man. All you can do now is pray.'

Taduno nodded and said: ‘Thank you.'

‘I said you should pray, I didn't say you should say thank you.'

‘Thank you,' he repeated.

The soldier sighed. The fate of this prisoner is already sealed, he thought to himself.

*

He had more waiting to do when they got to the President's office. After a long chain of rigorous security checks and counterchecks, they brought him into a sprawling, tastefully furnished room. A handful of men dressed in flowing gowns sat on comfortable leather settees at one end of the room. He sat at the other end, with a single soldier by his side; and he could tell that he was the only prisoner in that room. All the others were potbellied VIPs.

He sighed and caressed his guitar.

*

He waited and waited.

The soldier guarding him warned him not to play his guitar when he was before the President.

‘Why?' he asked innocently. ‘Music is good.'

‘Mr President does not like music,' the soldier said quietly. ‘Music has caused too much trouble for his government.'

‘I see,' he replied.

They fell silent again.

An hour or so later, the soldier began to snore quietly. Taduno turned to watch him sleep for a moment. Then he shook his head in pity, knowing the poor guy was exhausted.

He continued to caress his guitar, resisting the strong urge to play his music to the VIPs. None of them paid him any attention. They just kept whispering nervously amongst themselves, strategising ahead of their meeting
with the President. He wondered if they were powerful politicians, or businessmen, or both. Judging by their potbellies and the smell of money about them, he assumed they must be both.

He waited for hours before he was ushered in to see the President, ahead of the potbellied men who had been waiting for much longer. The men looked at him as they took him in, wondering who he was and why he carried the guitar that seemed so disturbingly alive.

*

A female secretary showed him into the President's office and retreated silently, closing the sturdy door after her. At first, he felt lost in the vast office, and he wasn't sure whether to walk towards the huge mahogany desk at the far end of the room where a man was seated, or whether to remain still until he was summoned. He became even more confused when it occurred to him that he was alone with the man at the far desk whose face was buried in a thick file.

Summoning courage, he began to walk slowly towards the mahogany desk, towards the man who had not even bothered to look up to acknowledge his presence. Halfway to the desk, he stopped, realising that the man behind the desk was Mr President indeed. And he made up his mind to wait until he was summoned before proceeding any further.

He waited like that, in one spot, for almost an hour, while the President went through the file before him slowly
and quietly. Finally, he pushed the file away and rose to his feet.

‘Aha!' he said expansively. ‘Please come over. So sorry to have kept you waiting.'

Taduno was disarmed by the President's effusive manner. He blinked a couple of times, then shuffled the remaining distance to the President's desk.

They shook hands. The President kept smiling broadly, that charming gap-toothed smile he always wore whenever he addressed the nation on TV. Taduno could not believe he was standing before the dictator who had ruled his country with an iron fist for eight years. He had always believed that the President's charming smile was purely for the camera. But standing before the man, he realised that he was very charming indeed.

He felt his head spinning.

‘Very good to see you,' the President said to him, like an old friend. ‘Please take a seat.' He appeared to be unperturbed about the guitar.

He waited for the President to sit down before pulling back a chair to sit down. And then, very carefully, he placed his guitar on the desk, between them, as if it was a witness to all that would follow.

‘Nice guitar,' the President commented.

‘Thank you.' He wanted to play his guitar, but he remembered the soldier's warning.

‘Thank you for honouring my invitation,' the President began, ‘especially on a Sunday like this.'

Invitation indeed! Taduno thought to himself. Aloud he said: ‘It's a very great privilege.'

‘I hope you have been very well treated by my men?' the President asked. The charming smile remained on his face. ‘I hope they have catered for your every need?'

Taduno nodded. He did not want to say anything bad about the President's men. ‘Oh yes, they have been excellent.'

‘Very good!' the President nodded. ‘I have an important meeting to attend now. You may leave, and I hope you will be kind enough to come back in a few days.'

Taduno was speechless. Before he knew it, a burly soldier came in to show him out.

At the door, he threw one last look back. The President's head was again buried in the thick file on his desk.

SIXTEEN

They took him back to solitary confinement in the underground cell which sunlight could never penetrate. And they left him there alone with his guitar in the dark.

The soldiers who looked after him were baffled. They could not understand why his case was so complicated. Who is this strange man? Why is his case so different from others? They asked him these questions, but the only answer they got was the beautiful sound of his guitar.

His music made the darkness of his cell bearable, fascinating even. He had never made music in solitary confinement before, and he discovered that the music he made was rich and colourful. He discovered that there was light in his music. Before then, he never knew there could be light in music. And now that he had discovered this amazing secret, he played his guitar more often.

*

Each time he played, he taught his captors a few things. He taught them that the quality of life you live is not necessarily measured by the amount of comfort you enjoy. He taught them that a life lived with honour and courage in a dungeon is more fruitful than one lived in denial in an ivory tower. He taught them that a beautiful smile is worth more than a powdered face. And he taught them to always look inward rather than outward.

He slept with contentment on the cold floor of his cell. He loved the solitude of the place; it afforded him the opportunity to compose his music in peace. He noted the faint echo that rose from the floor and stayed just below the sound of his music. He understood that his music superseded that faint echo. And he realised that as long as it stayed that way, they could never break him.

His captors began to love him more than they hated him. They knew that they hated him only because it was their duty to hate him, not because they really did. And they admitted to themselves that they loved him because he was such an easy man to love.

*

‘Who are you?' one soldier asked in wonder after listening to him play for hours. ‘Are you man or angel?'

He laughed quietly. ‘I'm both,' he said. ‘I'm man because I live in a cold solitary cell. I'm an angel because I live above my circumstances.'

The soldier shook his head in amazement. Those were the most profound words he had ever heard. He wished
he could swap places with Taduno. He wished he could sleep on his cold bare floor and enjoy the peace he enjoyed on that floor. He wished he could become a prisoner and own a guitar no one could ever take from him.

*

A few days turned into many days and weeks. And all that while, except for when they turned on the weak bulb when they brought him food, the only light he had had was the light made by his music. His music turned what would have been pitch darkness into golden brightness.

He fasted on some days, and on others he ate and drank water sparingly. His captors came to respect his wish whenever he declined food and water. In fact, many of them wished they could go whole days without food and water, just like him.

At first, they compared his smile to that of the President in his ivory tower. But they soon realised that the President's smile did not, could never, have the enduring quality of the prisoner's smile. Realising that his smile was a great part of his essence, his captors began to smile too, hoping that their smiles would help them transcend their circumstances.

*

Taduno woke up one morning to discover that he had a neighbour in the adjoining cell which had been empty all along. He wondered who the other prisoner was.

Later, he caught a glimpse of the writer who made Kongi a household name, as they took him away after a few hours of solitary confinement. He caught a glimpse of his intellectual beard and proud gait, and he wondered what he had written this time. In tribute to the man, he played rousing songs on his guitar for hours.

‘They brought Kongi here today,' one of his captors told him after he finished his songs.

‘You mean the man who created Kongi?'

‘We all know him as Kongi.'

‘I see.'

‘I wonder why they keep bringing him here. His eyes!' The soldier shook his head in disbelief.

‘What about his eyes?'

‘They are so penetrating they make us squirm in our boots.' He seemed to squirm even as he spoke the words.

‘Maybe it is the purity in his eyes.'

‘Does purity make people squirm?' the soldier asked.

He wanted to say, ‘Purity makes unclean people squirm.' Instead he said, ‘Maybe.'

‘It terrifies me sometimes. His beard is so commanding. His hair, I cannot describe it.'

‘Why did they bring him here?' he asked casually.

‘It is about something he wrote again. He's always writing something, that man!'

‘Yes, that man!' Taduno smiled. Very few men like him, he thought to himself.

He dreamed of the illuminated pages of books that night. The next day, a Sunday, they took him back to see the President.

SEVENTEEN

The President was nicer than the last time, and he did not keep him standing in the middle of his office for an hour. He attended to him straight away. He came round his desk eagerly to pull out a seat for him.

‘How are you doing?' the President asked, with a warm smile, when they were comfortably seated with the guitar between them on the desk. ‘I hope my men have looked after you very well?'

He returned the dictator's smile. ‘Oh yes, they've been wonderful to me.'