Taduno's Song (21 page)

It was a very hot day, and as the heat increased, more
and more people thronged the square to wait for the breeze that would arrive at nightfall to dry their sweat.

*

Taduno was furious when Aroli showed up with Mr Player that night. He was already beginning to get used to his new life at the square, even beginning to enjoy it. And then Aroli showed up, just like that.

Without thinking, he grabbed Aroli by the neck and shook him with the full force of his rage until some of his friends grabbed him and pulled him away.

‘You could kill him!' Thaddeus reprimanded him.

‘He has no business bringing anyone here to see me!'

‘Remember, he is your friend.'

‘What friend would give his friend away?'

‘Calm down,' Thaddeus said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Calm down, see what he has to say.'

He took a few deep breaths, and then his rage subsided.

‘I'm sorry,' Aroli said, holding a hand to his neck.

‘Why did you bring him here?'

‘He came to look for you. He said it was very urgent, a matter of life and death. I had no choice but to bring him to you. I'm sorry, I didn't know you would be so upset.'

‘I'm sorry for choking you.'

‘Trying to kill me, you mean,' Aroli said with a laugh.

They embraced warmly.

Mr Player cleared his throat beside them. ‘Taduno, please come with me. It is important that we talk.'

Even though he wasn't happy to see Mr Player, he knew
he must listen to what he had to say. So he followed him into the night, away from the others.

*

‘Why didn't you show up at the studio as agreed? And why did you come to live here?' Mr Player asked.

‘Because I no longer want to make music to praise a tyrant,' he responded plainly.

‘Have you taken time to think about the consequences of your action? Have you thought about what Mr President can do to you?'

‘I haven't and I don't care.'

Mr Player shook his head. ‘What about Lela?'

‘What about her?' There was fear in his voice. ‘How did you know about Lela? Who told you?'

‘After the meeting we had with Mr President, he sent for me and he explained your predicament to me.'

‘The bastard!'

‘He said the reason why you don't want any money from him is because you want to secure Lela's release instead. Are you going let her die now?'

‘Yes, I will let her die if that will save me from praising tyranny with my music. They can only kill her once. They cannot kill her twice.'

Mr Player laughed, a pitiful laughter.

‘You don't know what you are saying. Do you think they are just going to put a bullet into her head and kill her just like that? My dear friend, you are wrong. They will kill her slowly, very slowly. They could take up to a year,
even more, to kill her. That's not the kind of death you wish a loved one.'

Taduno shivered at Mr Player's words.

‘I advise that you report to the studio tomorrow to make the song that will save your girl's life. For your information, Mr President is already making arrangements. He plans to fill the national stadium with people. He is also setting up viewing centres with standby generators all over the country where people can watch the concert. He is upbeat about it all.'

‘Tell him I'm not going to do it!'

‘I'm sure you will have the opportunity to tell him so yourself,' Mr Player replied in a frosty voice.

‘Yes, I will tell him to his face.'

Mr Player turned and walked away.

The square was a very sad place that night, without music and without stars in the night sky.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Soldiers invaded the square the following night, just as Taduno and his friends were preparing to go to bed. A truckload of them came, and they kicked everybody's arse and whipped them with
koboko
. Everyone scampered away into the night, and only Taduno remained. He knew that they were there for him and saw no point trying to run.

They seized him roughly and plunged a syringe filled with sedative into his arm, according to the instructions of the President. But then a couple of over-zealous soldiers took it in turns to pierce him with another syringe and another and another and another. And he became dead with sleep, as dead as a dead mule.

They bundled him into their truck and drove him across the border into a neighbouring country where the President had a good friend, also a dictator. They took him to a hilltop hospital – a mental asylum – and they dumped him on his back on a clean white bed in a clean white room.

He wasn't aware of where or how far they had taken him
because he was in a sleep of a dead mule. He lay there on his back in that country with no name, a country where the only name that could be mentioned was that of the dictator who ruled it. Everything was named after the dictator, even the people were named after him. He was the grand leader, the owner of the country and its people, and it was to this country that they took Taduno.

*

It was rainy season in that country, so the rain pelted the zinc roof above him ceaselessly while he slept. The President could not come to see him; it was pointless. He needed him to be awake to be able to talk to him. So he waited anxiously for him to come out of sleep.

One of the soldiers came up with a clever idea, one that made much sense to the dictator. They brought Lela to the asylum, cleaned her up and dressed her like a nurse, and instructed her to look after him.

She sat like a ghost in an armchair next to his bed and watched over him while he slept. At night, she crept into bed beside him and slept with her eyes partly open.

The people she saw appeared a little strange to her. They were of much darker skin, of a different look, and they spoke English with a different accent.

*

Taduno slept for over thirty days, and all that time she sat by his side and fixed a constant gaze upon his face. The
waiting stretched her endurance. It stretched her imagination more. She never knew that one could be so dead to life for so long and yet be so alive.

She left his side only to use the bathroom or to go to the adjoining room where they served her food. One day as she ate breakfast, a maid told her, ‘This place is a mental asylum. You and your boyfriend are in a private ward, that's why you don't see any other patients around.'

‘But why's Taduno in a mental asylum?' she asked. ‘What am I doing here?'

The maid offered no answer.

Lela finished eating and returned to his side. She felt so alone, even though she was sitting right next to him, even though she could hear the gentle rising and falling of his chest.

They came to feed him through his nose with tubes. She couldn't bear to watch, so she would always turn her face away until they had finished and were out of the room. She felt very sad to see him like this. She never spared a second to think about herself or about the dingy cell where they had previously kept her. Her thoughts were totally focused on him, and her passionate prayers solely for his benefit.

*

And then one morning, more than thirty days after he was drugged by the President's men, he opened his eyes very slightly and then shut them again. A heavy rain was pouring that morning. He remained very still in bed, on
his back. He opened his eyes a second time and everything appeared to be covered with the haziness of a dream, a white dream that seemed to stretch endlessly before him. He closed his eyes, as if to grasp the reality of things, to ascertain the authenticity of life, but the haziness of a dream remained. He did not hear anything, not even the unceasing musicality that spread a faint chill as the rain pelted the roof above him. Realising that he was expending too much energy trying to focus, he allowed himself to drift back into sleep.

By his bedside, Lela sat up in the armchair. She had noticed the movement of his eyelids and her brow creased into anxious lines as she reached out and took his hand, gently, so as not to startle him. She wondered what he saw when he opened his eyes. Did he see her? Did he recognise her? She waited for him to show further signs of life.

*

The next time he opened his eyes the rain had stopped, but the faint chill continued to spread, even now that a soundless musicality prevailed upon the world. She did not intend to allow him to slip away a second time. So when he opened his eyes, she called out his name softly.

He did not hear her, and all he could see was the hazy white dream. That was all he could hear too, and he wondered how it was possible to hear a dream. He noted that the world about him was eerily quiet, the kind of quietness that follows a storm or a great loudness. He frowned as he tried to understand it all.

Lela sensed his struggle. She called his name again, reaching out to take his hand. He turned in the direction of her voice. Lela? He saw her sitting in a chair staring intently at him and he wondered how she got there and what she was doing there. Where was there?

The frown on his face deepened as he stared back at her. He tried to open his mouth, but it was as if his lips had been glued together. He made a more determined effort, and this time succeeded in mouthing her name, ‘Lela . . . ?' A pause. ‘Is it you?'

Before she could say anything in response, a handful of soldiers swarmed the room. They had been watching them all this while, waiting for him to wake up. They had delivered her to the hospital so that she would be the first person he saw when he came out of sleep. Having served her purpose, they bundled her away.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The President visited him the next day, by which time Taduno's recollection of things was complete. No one had spoken to him since they bundled Lela away. He just lay there on his back in the white bed, drifting in and out of sleep.

They came to feed him once, not through his nose this time. He sat up in bed, they planted the tray of food on his lap, and he ate very slowly. He did not know what he was eating, did not care actually. He wondered where they had taken Lela and what they were going to do to her. He could not understand why they kept him in a white room. A mixture of stale smells teased his nostrils.

Without warning, the President walked into the white room. He wore his enigmatic smile and he came towards him like a long-lost friend. He looked very smart in a dark T-shirt and blue jeans. Taduno had never seen him dressed in that fashion before. He sat up in bed.

‘Good to see you again, my friend!' the President greeted effusively. ‘You have slept for a long time!'

Taduno just stared blankly at the man.

The President pulled back the armchair by his bed and sat down. ‘I am so sorry my men drugged you so much. That was not my instruction and they have been duly punished.'

‘Where am I? Where is Lela?' he managed to ask.

‘Don't worry, you are in a safe country not far from our own. Lela is safe too. So please don't worry about her, for now.'

He sighed with frustration. ‘Where is this place?'

‘You are in the private ward of a mental hospital.' The President smiled, as if giving him a piece of good news.

‘A mental hospital?'

‘Yes, a mental hospital.'

‘What am I doing in a mental hospital? Why did you bring me here? Why did you bring Lela here?'

‘As I said, you are in a private ward, much nicer than the public ward. I'm sure you know what the public ward of a mental hospital looks like.' He paused. ‘Mr Player told me you reneged on your promise and decided to go and live at TBS with homeless men. If you insist on being stubborn, this is where I intend to keep you and Lela . . . in the public ward, I mean. And I will leave the two of you here for the rest of your miserable lives.' He hardened his smile to prove his point.

Taduno stared.

‘Let me tell you, the nurses in the public ward used to be mental patients themselves. So if you remain stubborn, I will leave you and Lela in their care for the rest of your lives.'

‘You are a sick man.'

‘No, I'm not. You are the patient here.' There was steel in the President's voice. ‘Now I must leave,' he said, rising up. ‘Mr Player will come to see you shortly. You can leave with him when you are ready to honour our agreement.'

‘Wait! Where is Lela?'

But the President had already walked out of the white room.

He shut his eyes and groaned, ‘TK, you said a miracle will come. Where is that miracle now?' The anguish of his own voice engulfed him in that room.

*

He was surprised to see Mr Player looking so very frail when he walked in, as if he hadn't eaten in weeks, or as if he had been through severe torture. His hair looked unkempt and he hadn't shaved in a long time.

‘What happened to you?' he asked with concern.

Mr Player sighed, a soft tired sigh. ‘They kept me in the public ward all this while,' he said in a small voice.

‘They brought you here too?'

‘Yes, and they kept me in the public ward.'

‘Oh my God.' Taduno raised a hand to his mouth.

‘Let's make the music and end this whole ordeal, I beg you. If not for your sake, do it for Lela's sake, do it for my sake. This place is worse than hell . . .'

‘Do you know where they took Lela?' he asked after a short silence.

‘I don't know, I haven't seen her. Look, they could keep us here for the rest of our lives, and we could grow
to be ninety, even a hundred. Let's make the music, I beg you.'

Taduno bowed his head in thought for a long time. When he looked up, his eyes were two lifeless stones. ‘You may leave my room now,' he said tersely.

‘What?' Mr Player said in a startled voice.

‘I said leave my room now!'

Mr Player clasped his hands on his head and began to cry. ‘You got me into this whole mess in the first place. I was minding my own business when you came to me. Look at me now. Look at me!' He spread out his hands hopelessly.