Once Upon a Time in Lagos: Episode 6

 

Luckily for me, the dog’s drunken master provided a diversion. It was attached  by a rope to its master’s  waist (I wasn’t aware of that when I was in the train), and they both  suddenly fell off the carriage. They both landed on their heads on the track and from the look on the master’s face I could see that he was dazed by the fall. While the occupants of the other carriages were trying to hoist them back into the carriage, the dog bit somebody. I heard the sound of hard swearing and I guessed it must be coming from the person bitten by the dog.  I was relieved since they seemed to have forgotten all about  me. After I walked a distance of about a quarter of a mile, I looked back to see what was going on. The train had started again and was vanishing in the distance.  

I was in a wide semi-circle of the rainforest, with what appeared to be a part of the Ibu river as radius, and the nearby hills forming the western circumference. There was not a sign or sound of a human being, only the splashing of waters of the Ibu river and the interminable crying of African darters and grey-crowned cranes. Yet, oddly enough, for the first time I started feeling the terror of someone that is being hunted by killers. It was not the Lagos police, or even the Sagamu police, that I was afraid of, but the other folk, who knew that I knew Mr. Reddington’s secret and dared not to let me live.  I was certain they would pursue me with a keenness and vigilance unknown to any Nigeria’s law enforcement agency, and that once their grip closed on me I should find no mercy.

I looked back, but there was nothing in this landscape except the rich vegetation and its animal life. The Nigeria’s sun glinted on the metals of the rail line and the wet stones in the nearby Ibu river and the Eruwuru stream, and you could not have found a more peaceful sight in the world. In spite of that, I started to run. Crouching low in the canopies  of the rainforest, I ran till my eyes were blinded by sweat. I was still in a bad and frightened mood, and I continued to feel that way till I had reached the rim of one of the hills and flung myself panting on a ridge high above the waters of the Ibu river.

From my vantage point I could scan the whole supposedly Sagamu area right away to the railway line and to the west of it where green fields took the place of rainforest. I had a bird’s view of the area and yet I could see nothing moving in the entire area – I mean, things like a car, bicycle, or even a human being. Then I looked in the east beyond the ridge and saw a new kind of landscape, consisting of shallow green valleys with plenty of shrubs that are occasionally dotted by African corkwood trees and the faint lines of dust which spoke of highroads. Last of all, I looked into the blue December sky, and there I saw something that set my pulses racing.  

Low down in the south an airplane that resembles a Supermarine Spitfire was climbing into the heavens. I immediately started feeling this plane was looking for me, and that it did not belong to the police. Nigerian Police do not have airplanes at the time anyway. For an hour or two  I watched it from my position on a ridge high above the waters of the Ibu river. It flew low along the top of the hills, and then flew in narrow circles over the valley up which I had come. After it did that, the pilot seemed to change its mind and, rising  to a great height,  it flew away.

This type espionage from the sky began to get me worried, and I became less excited about Sagamu and Abeokuta countryside, the places I had chosen for a refuge.   These hills by the Ibu river were no sort of cover if my enemies were in the sky, and I must find a different kind of hideout. I looked with more satisfaction to the green hamlets beyond the ridge, for there I believe I should find isolated huts or lonely houses that may serve as good hideouts for me.

About six in the evening I came out of the covers of the rainforest to a dirt road which wound up the narrow valley of a lowland stream. I followed it cautiously and soon enough I reached a kind of a pass where a solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road passed through a wooden bridge, and when I reached the bridge I saw a young man leaning on the parapet. He was smoking a cigarette and, from the packet that he kept on the ground beside him, I could see that the brand was Rothmans’. He was also studying the water carefully and in his left hand was a small book with a finger marking the place.

“Hello,” he said to me in Yoruba language. “It’s a wonderful night, isn’t it?”

The smell of firewood smoke and some delicious meal floated to me from the house.

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

“Your Yoruba ascent sounds foreign,” he said. “Let me guess: your family lives abroad,  London perhaps?”

“You were close,” I said. “My name is Jideofor Okorie and I am Ibo, but I do understand a little bit of Yoruba language. And yes, my parents lived abroad, but not in London. They lived in America.”  Then I asked, pointing at the solitary house: “Is that place a guest house?”

“I’m at your service, sir,” he said politely in Yoruba language. “I am the owner of the Village Breeze Guest House, sir. My name is Akin and I will be honored if you will stay the night. The truth is, I haven’t had any customer for almost a week now.”

I pulled myself up on the parapet of the wooden bridge and lit my Benson and Hedges cigarette. This is a good luck that just fell on my lap, I thought. I felt that I could trust him.

“You are too young to be the owner of a guest house,” I said. “What’s your story?”

“It was an inheritance from my dad,” he said. “He died a year ago  and I live there with my grandmother. I know it sounds strange to have a guest house in this lonely place that is far from our village, but you will be surprised when I tell you the caliber of guests that comes here sometimes:  bank managers, local politicians, doctors and lawyers who sometimes just want  get away from their wives, you know. I know it sounds immoral, but then what can you do? It’s an exciting job for a young man, but it really wasn’t my choice of profession.”

“So, what was your original career choice?” I asked.

“I wanted to be a journalist and a writer,” he replied.

“Well, there you go then,” I said. “Believe me, nobody would make a better story-teller in the world than a guest house owner. I’m sure you must have had the kind of guests who are willing to tell you their lives’ stories.”

“Not here,” he said eagerly. “Maybe in the city where guest houses and hotels have lots of customers that comes every day. Here it is different. This place we sometimes stay days without any customer as you can see. Apart from some married bank managers, local politicians, doctors and lawyers who comes here sometimes once in a month, we occasionally have cars full of students and their girlfriends who stop for lunch and to do birthday parties. There is not much materials to be got out of those few customer visits. I want to see life, to travel the world and write books like Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, you know. But the most I’ve done yet is to get one of my poems printed in the Daily Times.”

I looked at the guest house standing golden in the sunset and concluded that it wasn’t bad at all.

“I haven’t been around the world that much myself,” I said. “Apart from my coming to Nigeria, I was almost a hermit. But I like it here though.”

“Really?” he said, looking surprised. “Maybe it’s because I’m from this area  that I don’t feel excited about it.”

“That happens,” I said. “But, do you think excitement and adventure is found only in Europe or America or in any of the developed countries? I doubt it.”

“You may be right, but  I do believe in the wisdom of Chinua Achebe on the importance of travelling and writing,” he said, his eyes brightening, and he quoted some verse from one of Achebe’s books: “The world is like Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.”

“Well,” I said. “Maybe I can help you here with my personal life story. I’m sure that when you hear it you can make a novel out of it a month from now.”

Sitting on the wooden bridge that December evening I pitched him an interesting story. The story I gave him was true in essentials too, though I changed some minor details. I made out that I was a travelling scientist from America who had had a lot of trouble with a secret society whose members live in Lagos. They had pursued me around the country , and had killed my best friend in Lagos, and were now on my tracks. I made the story to sound very exciting, and I even made a really horrid affair of the Victoria Island murder. “My good friend,” I said. “You are looking for adventure and excitement, correct? Well, I found it here in Nigeria. The devils are after me, and the Lagos police are after them. Believe me, I am going to win this race.”

“My God!” he exclaimed, drawing his breath sharply, “your story is a true Sherlock Holmes story.”

“Well, what can I say,” I replied. “You do believe my story, correct?”

“Sure,” he said and held out his hand. “I am actually wondering why you don’t want to write a book about it?”

I smiled, and then said, “Unlike you I’m not that gifted when it come to writing. Anyway, my enemies are off my track for the moment, but I need to lie low for a couple of days. Can you offer me a hideout in your place?”

“You got it my good friend,” he replied. “You can lie as low as you can in my guest house. No worries! I’ll make sure that nobody blabs too. And you will give me more tales about your situation, right?”

As he said that, he caught my elbow and drew me towards the guest house.

“Sure,” I replied. “No problem.”

 As we entered the porch I heard from a distance the sound of an engine. There silhouetted against the evening sky was my friend, the airplane which looked exactly like the Supermarine Spitfire model.

The room he gave me was located at the back of the guest house. I liked it that way, especially given that the room has a fine outlook over the village hills. He also told me I can use his study if I want. It was a small room stacked with cheap editions of his favorite authors, including Charles Dickens, Chinua Achebe, Flora Nwapa, Oliver Goldsmith and Emily Bronte, among others. I never saw his grandmother, so naturally I concluded that either she was away with friends or that she was bedridden. An old woman called Mrs. Bunmi brought me my meals, which usually consist of fufu and soup. Now I  am used to that kind of meal because, like I stated earlier, my ex-girlfriend was a Yoruba and she taught me a lot about their language, foods and stuffs like that.  

Mr. Akin was around me at all hours and I wanted some privacy. So what I did was to invent some jobs for him. He had a Suzuki motorcycle, and I sent him off the next morning to buy the Daily Times newspaper for me. I told him not to buy any other paper except the Daily Times.  I knew fully well that it will take him a shorter time to return back if I tell him to buy any type of newspaper he sees, whether it’s a Daily Times or not. I told him to watch out for me, to keep his ears to the ground and to take note of any strange people or things he saw. I also told him to watch out especially for things like cars and small airplanes, for  I was almost paranoid at this point. Then I sat down in real earnest to study Mr. Reddington’s  diary.

He came back at about an hour or so with the Daily Times. There wasn’t much news in it, except some further evidence of  Adeyemi and the newspaper vendor, and a repetition of yesterday’s statement that the true criminal was believed to have got away from Lagos by one of the western going trains. However, there was a long article about the prime minister Tafewa Balewa and the state of politics in Nigeria, though there was no mention of his planned visit to Dodan Barracks on the 15^th day of January. I politely told Mr. Akin that I needed some privacy to do some work, for I was getting very close to finding the meaning of Mr. Reddington’s cypher.

Like I had said before, it was the simple substitution cypher where every plaintext character of the English alphabet is substituted for a different cipher text character. And after some trials and errors I was able to figure out  the  key word that provided me the sequence of the letters. So, at around 3 o’clock I was able to break the code and I sat down to read  Mr. Reddington’s pages. I continued reading for almost an hour, with a goose-pimpled face and fingers that drummed on the table.

I glanced out of the window and saw a blue Peugeot 404 saloon car coming up the road leading towards the guest house. It stopped as soon as it reached the guest house and there was the sound of people alighting. There were two of them. The first one was wearing a black suit while the other one was wearing a military camouflage jacket. Both of them were wearing black shoes . About ten minutes later, Akin slipped into the room, his eyes bright with excitement.

“There are two men here looking for you,” he whispered. “They are in the dinning room drinking Premier beer. They were very anxious to see you  and said they had hoped to meet you here. And they described you real good, down to your shoe and shirt. Well, I lied to them. I told them that you had been here last night and had gone off early with your Suzuki motorcycle. After I said that one of them swore with his children’s life. Can you believe that?”

 

 

END OF EPISODE 6

P.S. Stay tuned for Episode 7, which  will be published here next Sunday.