The Eyes of Lira Kazan (2 page)

 

Usually Ezima would pretend to be angry and the children would laugh. But now, tired, she just whispered automatically with no expression. She was bitter, sad to be leaving her family and her house. She was angry with Nwankwo for putting them all in danger – they had lived with armed guards for three years now. Six bodyguards standing two at a
time outside the house, and even following them to school. The frequent arguments between Ezima and Nwankwo usually ended with Nwankwo pointing at the children and saying: “What I'm doing is for them!” As if he could change their future.

It was he who had changed. He had become as hard as stone. He was impatient and forgot important dates: the children's birthdays, the day they met. When, two years previously, the government had annulled the examination that had made him a prosecutor, simultaneously demoting a whole year's graduates, Ezima had begged him to go back to being a lawyer but he wouldn't hear of it. The government had stripped him of his rank in order to remove him from certain cases and put somebody more compliant in his place. But he would not bow down – he returned to school, with Uche at his side, and successfully passed the examination again. Time, he said, was on his side.

On the day the diplomas were handed out in front of families and children, the police came to arrest him on unspecified suspicion of drug trafficking. They brought out handcuffs; those in power seemed prepared to do anything to eliminate him. And then the other pupils came forward, led by Uche, and formed a circle around him, creating a human shield, driving the policemen back. Nwankwo had tears in his eyes. There seemed to be a sign of hope and revolt in this crowd action, a proof that there was some sort of community. But when he saw his eldest son among his protectors looking so young and frail, not yet a man, in his Sunday best, his happiness faded, leaving him empty and afraid. He could not expose this child. He was the leader of a war that was lost.

 

Where was Uche now? His grandfather had maintained that the world of the spirits did not welcome those who died a violent death. He would be wandering somewhere between the two worlds, in the cold bush, down the red laterite
roads, along with the sick and the suicides and those who threaten travellers. Was Uche out there in the night, a lost and wandering friend? Could he see him running away? Did he blame him? Or would he protect them?

Uche's car had been parked outside Nwankwo's house so that it would be he who discovered the bloodstained body, shot in the head, the face frozen in terror, with open eyes. The body had been arranged in a macabre fashion with the trousers pulled down, as had those of the bodyguard which they had found in a hedge a bit farther away. This was a reference to the rumour that he liked men.

Other investigators had died before him. Each time, Nwankwo, their chief, had gone to the funeral and spoken of their courage to the families. Then he had gone away, leaving the children to fulfil their ritual duties. There were no children at Uche's funeral.

“Uche, you will be my Chi, my double, my guardian angel, my shadow,” Nwankwo had sworn, sobbing before the body of his friend.

And now this evening, in full flight, listening to the interminable Igbo story and Ezima's low murmur, he added to himself that he would have the skin of the bastard who had ordered his death. Uche would be allowed to rest in the land of the spirits.

 

The road was now close to the river, it followed the same path, both heading for the sea. On the back seat Baïna was now retelling the story. Her mother was now silent and exhausted, but the little girl doggedly clung on to every word, the load of yams, the nine heads owed to King Okanagba, as though they were the last remnants of a childhood that she instinctively knew was coming to an end that night.

The little girl had reached the part that usually made her shriek with laughter: the king's workers had taken off all their clothes, and the king's wife cried: “Hey! Are you all going to work stark naked now?” But Baïna couldn't laugh this
time because she was telling the story to herself. Her mother was at the end of her strength and her father seemed too preoccupied to think of her. She recognized that absorbed expression, that way he had of not being present – there was nothing new about that. In her eight years' experience, she felt that that was how she had always seen him. The day he had announced “We're leaving!” her younger sister Ima hadn't understood, Tadjou had complained that he didn't want to leave his friends, but she, Baïna, had not been surprised. It was as though she had always known it would happen. Her little black eyes had gazed into her father's in agreement. Tonight she felt that he was afraid. He seemed to start every time headlights came towards them.

Nwankwo was tormented by questions. Wasn't this exactly what they wanted, for him to leave like this? To murder him in cold blood as they had done with Uche might have caused trouble, questions from the opposition, stories in the papers. Let him go off and join the exiles! Over there in Europe or the United States he could tell them that half his people lived on less than a dollar a day, nobody would care. Would it have been braver to stay? What would life in exile be like? How long would it last? With a dictatorship, you just had to wait, they always collapse in the end. But with oil a collapse couldn't be counted on for as long as the chain of corruption remained well lubricated. Nwankwo could no longer bear to brood over these unanswerable questions. He listened to Baïna reciting and then joined in. He put on the deep voice of the naked soldiers, as he would have done on an ordinary night, and then carried on to the end of the story.

 

 

And together father and daughter recited the last words:

 

 

Two hours later, Baïna was asleep. The car was silent. They were approaching Lagos. First appeared the lights of the megalopolis, then the damp fetid smell. Mountains of rubbish grew at the gates of the city, at Oshodi, one of the biggest open rubbish dumps in Africa. Nwankwo had visited the stinking scene: rubbish in sedimented strata, with, above it, villages of canvas and plastic in which road menders and their families breathed in the toxic exhalations and fumes. Every day new loads arrived, rubbish and rubble from surrounding areas, but also from the rest of the world, hundreds of thousands of old computers, electronic components and heavy metals unloaded at the port of Lagos and brought to be dumped at Oshodi. And so the rubbish from the north arrived, while the riches of the south were embarked on the oil tankers. Nwankwo pondered all this, haunted by memories. The successful crimes of others represented his own defeats.

It was not yet daylight but the octopus-like city was already awake. Had it ever slept? How many inhabitants were there? Fifteen, twenty million? Nobody was counting any more. As
the night ended the daily bustle was just beginning. Already the first traders were setting up their market stalls beneath parasols bleached by the sun, and cars were preparing to join the great traffic jam, the Goslo, which was predominantly yellow, the colour of the town buses. In a few hours' time it would be solid with cars immobilized on the tarmac bridges, throbbing to the sound of Afrobeat music interspersed with the piercing sound of the muezzin, house windows wide open, children everywhere, a compacted crowd covering every square inch of land while street vendors hawked their wares and surreptitiously displayed their contraband merchandise. Nwankwo knew Lagos well as he had lived there before moving to Abuja, a soulless government town. Lagos was terrifying, enormous and dangerous – a monster, but so much more real. Everything was on show, the havoc, the children, the petro-millionaires whose glass buildings overlooked the oily slums. Was it hell or just purgatory? Nwankwo inclined towards hell. In any case it was Africa, with its noise, dancing, dust and crowds.

“For Africans,” his father used to say, “being alive means being in a group, and seeing the world through the eyes of the group, all acting together. Life is not an individual enterprise.” And yet Nwankwo was leaving.

He turned around and placed his hand on his wife's knee. She opened her eyes at once – she hadn't been asleep. “We're only ten minutes from the port,” he said. She nodded and turned towards her eldest son, talking to him gently. The car suddenly stopped and a rough voice called out from the side of the road. A torch shone into the car, onto the children's sleeping faces. A roadblock. The driver said something and the atmosphere immediately relaxed. The policeman's curiosity had been abated, partly by the car's diplomatic status, but mostly by a handful of green banknotes.

 

Ten minutes later the car stopped. It was time to get out. The children's legs were weak. The luggage was already
on the quay. A man stepped forward. Even in the dark one could see deep scars on his face, indicating that he belonged to one of the minority tribes in the north, but enough to scare somebody escaping danger in the early hours of the morning. Little Ima burst into tears when she saw him. The man pointed to a speedboat tied up just below. Nwankwo then said goodbye to his bodyguards, shaking their hands between his, although relations with these men who risked their lives following him remained cool to the end. He saluted the driver too, promising that he would contact the ambassador as soon as he arrived. The family set off towards the edge of the quay.

Nwankwo knew the choppy waters of Lagos harbour well. Pirates sped through them, paid by the local big shots to attack cargo ships, seize the merchandise and resell it to the highest bidder. He had often, when he was in office, sent speedboats out to a tanker that had just raised anchor and was suspected of not carrying the amount declared. Two hundred million dollars a day diverted, Uche had calculated, roaring with laughter. He always said laughter was poison to the lowlifes. It was also his cry for help.

This morning, Nwankwo and his family were the contraband cargo. A tanker was waiting for them out at sea. One by one they disappeared down the ladder, the mother first, then the children and then Nwankwo, as Ima continued to cry.

 

NORWEGIAN EMBASSY, ABUJA

 

CONFIDENTIAL

 

22 JULY

 

SUBJECT: EXTRACTION OF NWANKWO GANBO

 

OPERATION TORDENSKJOLD EXECUTED AS PLANNED. NWANKWO GANBO AND HIS FAMILY ARE NOW AT SEA ON BOARD THE TANKER HARALD HAARFAGRE.

 

GREAT BRITAIN HAS AGREED TO WELCOMEMRGANBO AND HIS FAMILY UNDER THE “JUSTICE NETWORK” PROGRAMME. HE HAS BEEN OFFERED A POSITION AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY. HIS CHILDREN'S SCHOOL FEES WILL BE PAID FOR AT A LOCAL PRIVATE SCHOOL.

 

MR GANBO HAS UNDERTAKEN NOT TO PURSUE HIS INVESTIGATION INTO GOVERNOR FINLEY AND HIS STAFF WHILE ON BRITISH SOIL. HE HAS ALSO AGREED TO REFRAIN FROM ANY PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA.

 

OUR CONTACTS IN THE FOREIGN OFFICE HAVE PARTICULARLY INSISTED ON THESE TWO POINTS. THEY BELIEVE THAT GOOD ECONOMIC AND DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND NIGERIA ARE OF VITAL INTEREST TO THEIR COUNTRY.

It was always the same in the girls' changing room after training sessions. There were the ones in a hurry who just got dressed and went, the sweaty ones who needed a shower, the chatterers who told you the story of their lives, and Tanya, counting the bruises on her shins and forearms. Lira took off her shoulder straps and guards, wiped away the perspiration between her breasts and then calmly put her clothes on. It didn't take long, just her lace bra, skirt, T-shirt and sandals. It was hot outside. Then she slowly rolled up her black belt and kimono, waiting for the moment when she and Tanya would be the only ones left.

“Hey, battered wife, didn't I tell you to wear shin guards?” Lira said, smiling.

“Clever boots… look at this bruise under my knee, that was you. It really hurt, your
gedan barai
. The rest is Putin. I hate getting him. Look at my leg, I won't be able to wear a skirt for a week now. He always looks as though he's going to kill you just by looking at you.”

“He's not called Putin for nothing!”

“He certainly looks like him. He must have come through the KGB – karate's part of the training there.”

“Shh! They can hear everything in the men's changing room. If he's really ex-KGB I don't want him to spot us.”

“How can you say that, Lira? You've been spotted long ago, you're constantly watched and you're on their files. I don't know why I'm still talking to you…”

“Exactly… Can I come round to yours tonight? I've got to make a call.”