Part 73 (1/2)

”Insha'allah, worry not because Allah makes all things right,” the doctor said. ”He is merciful, compa.s.sionate and fair. If you are meant to get this story, it will be so and nothing can stop it from happening. If it is the will of Allah. Worry not, my son. What is meant cannot be stopped.”

The phone went silent. After the call, William reviewed his notes, checked the addresses from his sources, and fell asleep on the bed. It was just a matter of time.

Now at dusk, he remained holed up awaiting word if the righteous would welcome him, an infidel, into the world. While he waited he watched a nude couple through the window on the side of the hotel. He could see everything. The woman knew how to work her magic. Her Arab lover did his part as well, letting her straddle him on the bed, kissing and licking the soft brown skin of his broad chest around and near his erect nipples. At times, she indulged in her love play as if her life depended on the heat of her pa.s.sion. But there were moments when the fervent kisses, frenzied caresses, and demented wails bordered on fake, like something out of a well rehea.r.s.ed strip show, a practiced lie nevertheless. She rode him hard and strong, the man's hairy hands worrying her moist s.e.x underneath the cloth while her fingers encircled his neck. When his nature had been sufficiently aroused and his sap was high, he applied his tongue to the tender skin near her navel and down in the curly cleft between her legs. Her screams of joy echoed in the air to mix with the occasional murmur of gunfire. Her Arab lover then tilted the amber glow of the lamp as he moved to re-enter her, so the watcher could see his thin, craggy face. Once the brown man plunged into her again, he never took his eyes off the stranger across the alley until she trembled violently once or twice underneath him, her sweaty legs locked tightly around his gleaming b.u.t.tocks. The Arab man knew the dark American was watching them.

Watching them brought it all back. Janet and the days before the crack-up. He felt utterly alone now, cut off from the world, from all tenderness, love or redemption. Despair, terror, and gloom landed against his chest like a series of cruel, vicious slaps.

”Sweetheart,” Janet, his wife said the night before she left him.

”What, baby?”

”William, tell me you'll never leave me. Tell me you love me.”

She was toying with him. The marriage was already dead. He never answered her, mumbled something under his breath and rolled away from her, angered that she'd even asked that of him.

When his editor called two hours later from New York, his eyes were swollen from crying. His voice was thick with tears and the words stuck in his throat. None of it was lost on the white man who had hired him when no one else would, especially on a big time city daily.

”How's the story coming?” his editor asked, his tone cheery.

”It's a waiting game but I expect something to break any day now. I've put some feelers out and the fish are circling. I expect a nibble soon.”

”Bill, we believe in you. But we can't foot the bill for you to take a vacation. We expect results. Find the rag heads you need to talk to and get this thing over with. And don't take any unnecessary chances.”

”Yeah, you bet,” he said, then hung up. Outside, police sirens sounded in an annoying chorus.

If it is the will of Allah. What is meant cannot be stopped. If it is the will of Allah.

He looked out of the window toward the hotel across the street, hoping for a distraction from the room where the young Arab couple met every day. But the shade was down and there was nothing to see. Not a d.a.m.n thing to watch. Killing time, he sprawled on the bed, completely nude, smoking cigarette after cigarette. As the ashtrays filled and the black telephone on the nightstand near his bed remained silent, he became more and more anxious. Then his mind wandered back a few years to when he covered a rash of terrorist bombings in Tangiers, committed by a new splinter group determined to shake up the status quo.

Once in Tangiers, he saw a woman, dressed in rather risque Western clothes, being shunned by other Arabs walking along one of the city's narrow side streets. Her head and eyebrows were shaved, much like the French woman collaborators of the n.a.z.is, who were marched through cobbled Parisenne streets after the Second World War. The unforgiving crowd parted for her, this vessel of condemned female flesh, like the stacked waters of the Red Sea under the power of Moses' blessed staff. As he'd neared the scarlet woman, he'd seen alarm and fear in her dark eyes and in the contorted expressions of the others as they went out of their way to move around her, avoiding all contact. His companion, Abu Omar, a writer from a local Arab newspaper, had cautioned him to steer clear of her as well. No talking or touching.

The woman's beauty was in her modern att.i.tude, her courage to be bold, at least that was what he told himself. To her, he was just another American infidel. As she pa.s.sed him her gaze changed from fear to a sharp look of disdain, and she marched past with her head held arrogantly aloft. Each of her proud steps sounded a brutal note of contempt for both him and the crowd.

Eventually, the memories of the woman and Tangiers dissolved into another fit of worry and self-loathing. He was not a weak man but lately all of his feelings were right at the surface. He cried again, the same stale tears. As he reached for a tissue, the telephone rang. The game was on. A man speaking thick Arabic mentioned Al Kubir, his Islamic Jihad story, the doctor's revered name, and said for him to be at the marketplace, at Djemaa El Fna tomorrow at two. The caller concluded with a threat that if he were not there, there would not be a second chance. They would not contact him again. Dr. Mrabet's words came back to him with a fury: If it is the will of Allah.

After hanging up, he sat on the windowsill and smoked a cigarette, watching the soldiers man a barricade down the street from his hotel. Twice he'd tried to go to the open-air market on the edge of the square not four blocks away, but soldiers, carrying machine guns, had turned him back. They told him that it was not safe to be on the streets, to return home because a group of rowdies were shooting at anyone dumb enough to be out walking on the cobbled roads. Which was not true. Something else was going on in the city. Angry, he defied them this day to make a short jog across the road to a turbaned merchant, who sold him a bag of nectarines, mangoes, figs, raisins, and a bottle of fermented palm wine.

Upon his return, the man at the desk told him that he had two international calls while he was out. One from a woman with a husky voice, sounded like a man with a bad head cold and the other from a man with high-pitched nasal voice who asked if he was still alive and whether the hotel had been strafed by bullets during the afternoon ruckus. Neither person left a number to call back. He went upstairs and turned on the radio to listen to the evening program of foreign chatter and music. That night, there was no show across the alleyway, although he did see the woman leave the building dressed in traditional garb with veil with a man in European clothes carrying two gift-wrapped boxes. They drove off in a small dark sedan, which had a jagged line of bullet holes in the door on its pa.s.senger side and a shattered rear window.

With the coming of dawn, he could see how dark and dismal the morning would be. It was not long before a strong wind whipped down the narrow corridors of the town, accompanied by forks of lightning and sheets of driving rain. Still, he heard the sound of military helicopters circling overhead, searching the streets for any odd activity. After breakfast, he decided to go for a walk to see what was happening in the town. To h.e.l.l with the authorities. Maybe his press pa.s.s would carry some weight this time. Soldiers, tanks, and jeeps with mounted machine guns were parked on every corner and checkpoints were set up at all of the key points of the areas where the trouble had broke out for the past four nights. Twice he was stopped by police, questioned, and checked for identification. The fact that he was an American journalist brought scowls from the armed military men, but little else happened and he was allowed to go on his way.

Still, none of it was cool. He looked at his watch. He was screwed. It was well after three. If it wasn't for bad luck, he wouldn't have any luck at all.

The Bulging Bag.

BY UNOMA N. AZUAH.

The harsh Lagos sun came down on the motley crowd of traders, civil servants, market women, mad people, children, hawkers, and beggars. Presently, a rickety bus called a molue appeared, quaking and shuddering in an attempt to stop. People jumped out, others in the same manner jumped in. When the bus eventually came to a stop, the press of people from the inside and the outside created a temporary dam. Seeing this, the driver adroitly jerked the bus a few meters forward; the dam burst, spilling its contents.

Mr. Akpan broke into a run, panting toward the moving molue. He had almost missed the bus while selling some tablets to his customers. There was no sitting s.p.a.ce in the bus when he hopped in, so he stood holding on to a rail above him. Six baskets of chickens were on top of the molue supported by four rails. His raised hand sent the chickens flapping their wings in an attempt to fly out. Their eyes were bright as they croaked, lifting each of their legs, theirs claws clutched.

Mr. Akpan looked down, as they began to calm. His eyes rested on a crying baby. His mother was coaxing him to stop, making a clicking sound with her tongue, shaking her lips, but he yelled the more only pausing to lick his running nose. His mother sucked the mucus, and spat it out of the window. The baby gasped in relief but continued crying. His mother pulled out her left breast and thrust it into his mouth. He stopped crying. Behind the woman, a middle-aged man was snoring, his head swinging to and fro. The woman sitting next to him sighed incessantly because once in a while, his swinging head rested on her shoulder, but only shook him awake when a trail of slimy saliva crept down his faded coat. The coat was green with different b.u.t.tons and threads. The b.u.t.ton in the middle of the coat had slipped off, the b.u.t.tonhole too big for it. The collar of the coat was patched with a red piece of cloth. Waking, he mumbled an apology opened his bloodshot eyes. And he wiped the saliva with a brown handkerchief. His hands were swollen, his fingers coa.r.s.e. His nails were long and dirty. He had deep grooves of wrinkles on his brow, and a few gray hairs were sprinkled on his head. When he coughed, his whole body shook.

The molue swayed. In a bid to make himself comfortable, Akpan stepped on a woman's foot.

”Aaih!” the woman cried with a grimace, soothing her foot. ”Craze man, you no dey see, abi . . .”

”Sorry, madam, na mistake,” Mr. Akpan pleaded.

”Which kin mistake!” she spat out. ”You no get eye for face? You fit mistake for other people leg, no bi ma own, a beg!” she concluded.

Mr. Akpan had hardly heaved a sigh of relief when close to him, another woman yelled out to a chic, well-dressed lady.

”Sidon well now, abi you tin say na your boyfriend car you dey . . .”

All heads turned toward them, but the lady ignored her.

”If you won do sisi, you no for enter molue,” continued the woman.

Mr. Akpan recognized the offender as one of his customers.

”Oh, Rose, na you, wetin happen?”

Rose, who couldn't repress herself anymore, blurted out, ”Can you imagine, the bus swerved and we went along with it. I was only trying to adjust myself when she yelled out like the market woman she is!”

Some market women gave a murmur of protest. One boldly spoke up in her Yoruba accent, ”Oko ri, sisi eko, you no bi market woman, you bi Miss Nigeria!”

”So you even sabi blow gramma,” insisted the first woman. ”I bin think say you dey deaf and dumb, nonsense!”

Mr. Akpan gave Rose a sign to keep calm, and that ended the quarrel.

”Who took my wallet? Who took my wallet?!” a voice rang out. It was a young man sitting behind the driver. ”It was here in my pocket!” he screamed, springing up from his seat and stretching his hands in appeal. When n.o.body responded, he insisted on searching everybody on the bus.

He scrambled up to his neighbor, who stared hard and said, ”If you search me finish an you no see anything, I go so beat you ehh, your people go prepare ya funeral service today!”

The young man looked closely at the man. He had a red piece of cloth tied round his head. His eyes were deep in their sockets. Lumps of pimples concentrated on his cheeks. His lips were swollen and he had gaps in his upper teeth. His red s.h.i.+rt, which had no b.u.t.tons, exposed a hairy chest. He was wearing a dirty pair of jeans and rubber slippers. His feet were clumpy with dust. The young man's eyes settled on his muscles. He changed his mind and sat down with clenched fists, tears glittering in his eyes.

”Ye ye, man!” his neighbor breathed down at him, then sat down.

Eventually, feeling at ease, Mr. Akpan cleared his throat and announced, ”Ladies and gentlemen, I have something very important here. Content Super Tablets, manufactured by W and C Pharmaceutical Industries, Limited, for headache, fever, pain, dysentery, and for any other bodily discomfort. Content Super Tablet go kill am one time. If you buy dis medicine, and no show, arrest me anywhere you see me. Obuda na ma town. I come Lagos for 1977, follow my mates begin business, I start with cleaning, no work. I enter for iron melting no way, I begin sell newspaper, sell newspaper tire, enter for iron bending, so tay all my fingers bend finish.” He displayed his crooked fingers and people roared in laughter. Some started for his tablets, mostly traders and market women. A few did so in appreciation of his sense of humor.

”How much . . . ?” asked one of the buyers.

”Na one naira fifty kobo, but take am for one naira,” Mr. Akpan answered.