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Chief Judge
of the Supreme Court, Chukwudi Amadiora, was a brilliant student
in his days. He drank with a vengeance, staggered through Law School
and promptly arrived at The Bar in quite a state, his ears wet with
beer. Actually, he was called to The Bar by a retired army General,
who had set up a beer-bar as a political watering-hole. General
Sulaimon Babayaro foresaw huge profit in him. Babiavelli –
as the General was fondly hailed at The Bar for his ruthless Machiavellian
politics – missed the brute excesses of soldier-power, the
glory of the green-cloth, the envy and naked hatred in the eyes
of those on whom he necessarily wrecked his power. General Babayaro
hoped to shoot himself back into the seat of a political influence
– receding now like the hair on his head – through this
‘mop’ of a lawyer.
Amadiora did not however see himself as a mop. He had always suspected
this condescending opinion of himself in the General’s superior
drinking airs, which sat on him arrogantly like the army-issue cap
he could not bring himself to stop wearing – even in sleep.
Presently Babiavelli pulled at the flap of the cap with growing
irritation, thrusting his face into a deeper shadow in the dimly
lit room, shaking an unusually large head from side to side in disapproval.
With each new bottle of beer, it seemed, the head got more water-logged
and expanded a bit.
“Why don’t you drink like a man, Chucks? You are ‘chewing’
your beer!” And slapping open palms against his big beer-belly,
“abi you t’ink sey na kolanut?” Unconsciously
the other men in the room reached for their beer bottles. As a rule
no one drank out of a glass. It was taboo at The Bar. Sometimes
Babiavelli broke this rule. But it went without comment from the
others. “Drink like a man!” Babiavelli ordered. What
does he think I am… a recruit soldier to be bullied around…
the imbecile! Amadiora said nothing.
How, he never ceased to wonder, could his very drinking stomach,
notorious in the case-history of The Bar, for weighing down heavily
upon both plaintiff and defendant alike, be so maliciously dragged
across the floor alongside a sodden mop? It was true, according
to the department of statistics, the army consumed more beer –
especially in idle peace-time – than the entire population
of the country during a forty-day long burial ceremony of his royal
highness, who himself probably died of a most royal high. But that
was not enough reason for the General to kick at the judicial tankard
with both feet. Amadiora saw himself as an honest drinking man,
who took in his bitters without any bitterness. But Babiavelli’s
whole bearing seemed to shout ‘my beer-belly is bigger than
yours. To correct this slight upon the reputation of his learned
friends across the country on his own account and as a matter of
honour to the judiciary, he picked up his bottle, raised it to his
angry lips, drained the golden precious froths without effort and
gave a supreme hiccup.
A hush fell on the room. All background conversation ceased. The
music from a hi-fi standing by The Bar became unusually loud. They
had been at it the whole night and nobody expected such a singly
deft-handed execution like this. Especially not when each member
of The Bar knew he had to perform the salute at the end of the night
anyway and, surreptitiously reserved such a feat for the exit like
any good soldier.
“Oh, my bottle!,” Babiavelli exclaimed. “Very
goot, goo’.” Babiavelli was tipsy already, Amadiora
noted from the unclear words. But he had not yet gone near the dangerous
edge. Then he demurred and revealed the philosopher in himself,
the ghosts of Thomas Hobbes and of Ogun in his drunk-destroyer aspect
sitting on his left and right shoulders respectively.
They were assembled in that section of his home on the fifth floor,
which Babiavelli liked to refer to as the ‘reception area’
of a fifty-room mansion. The reception area was a home within a
home in itself, with a cluster of guest-rooms forming a half-circle
on each side of a main sitting room, around which five men were
now seated. Each guest-room was installed with all manner of modern
convenience, from water-beds to huge high-definition television
screens on the walls, where the guest could enjoy pornographic films
whenever it suited him.
Babiavelli loved the army colour green and the sitting-room was
rugged in a muted green in agreement with leaf-coloured walls. Couches
in various shades of green were arranged on the perimeters of the
floor to form a rectangle, with smaller rectangles – glass-topped
low tables of burnished silver for drinks – in front of them.
The Bar stood at tangents to the seated men in the usual dining
area. Here the floor was much higher, such that the huge structure
of smoked transparent glass, shaped like a palm-wine keg, dwarfed
the men in the room. The ceiling, wood-panelled and high-arched
as in a cathedral, swung up away from them as if a giant’s
hand had angrily flung it skywards, dropping the men in the room
into a Lilliputian depression, which made of them insignificant
little bundles of straw. The Bar rose up from a round base to balloon
out and sheer inwards again, narrowing into its thin and long upper
stem. It terminated in a small rim topped out by a sculptured longing
arm, with its glass fingers caressing the outer bulge of the rim,
missing actually grasping the object. Inside the hollow of the arm
a neon sign in calligraphic green spelled out: ‘The Fountain
of Wisdom’. The whole thing was symbolic Babiavelli liked
to explain whenever roused from the depths of his inebriation by
any careless look in that direction. His voice usually trembled
with emotion at such moments, the veins stood in his neck and his
muscle-bound arms grabbed the arm rest of his seat as he expounded
The Vapour Theory.
“Power is a vapour”. It was the voice of an oracle and
no one dared contradict it. “Just as the palm-wine keg preserves
the essence of burukutu from escaping, those who wield power must
preserve it by being worthy receptacles for this rage which takes
hold of us like the virulence of strong juju. You must be able to
contain your drink without letting it go to your head”. Amadiora
never failed to note at such times that the drinks did climb up
to the head. He would usually wait till late in the drinking session
to corroborate this fact because at such points in time even Babiavelli’s
speech would become slurred, his sentences and thoughts disconnected
and truncated. Amadiora knew for example that a bee buzzed in his
own head for days afterwards and his pronouncements at the court
were never entirely his own, only a staccato response to the antics
of the bees in his head. And suddenly throwing his body forward
as if in telepathic response to Amadiora’s disagreement or
as if aiming at an enemy position during the civil war, Babiavelli
would continue, “and why do you think the brandy was named
after Napoleon; drink, gentlemen!”
Inside the bar a young man of about twenty-five presided over the
thin glass shelves, which held row upon row of makes of beer from
every brewery in the country. A battleship of a refrigerator stood
in a corner. It was always three-quarters filled with Star beer.
This was Babiavelli’s favourite brand and by tacit agreement,
only he drank them. The bar-man could be seen bustling with empty
activity behind his glass prison.
He had to overwhelm his powerful clientele with his efficiency.
Jobs were hard to come by, degree or no degree. All his years at
the university ended here. He did not mind. He was paid well. And
sometimes Lady Macbeth – that was the General’s wife
– even threw him a coquettish smile whenever she came down
late in the night to serve the men a round or two of pepper-soup
or passed by early in the day in those thin see-through house-wears.
Little wonder. The General could not be much use to her after these
heavy nightly binges. But he was careful. He pretended not to note.
From time to time he observed the men and gauged the mood in the
air. But right now he could not decide how far gone they really
were. He could never rely on the General. That one was as hard a
drinker as the bottles in which the beer came. His prodigious belly
attested to his prowess. Besides he could not see clearly through
the gloom. Their faces were permanently in a shadow just as their
lives, for him, were permanently in a shadow. He knew nothing about
them except their names, their public profiles and the apparent
fact that a dangerous plot was been hatched here.
The room was lit only by a faint low-wattage lamp standing in a
corner and by the neon glow from the bar, such that the figures
reclining on the couches appeared like human ghouls just arisen
from the floor in a mist of colours. Somewhere in the background,
an air-conditioner hummed. The air was one of hushed conspiracy,
with Babiavelli’s voice riding it lightly.
“Now, about this sorry business at the high court...”
Babiavelli paused. Amadiora smiled. Here he was on sure ground.
He knew his law books too well, knew them so well he could read
them upside-down when it suited his purposes. And this was what
the General asked him to do from time to time.
A young man, an undergraduate, murders another in a gang war on
one of the university campuses. The university senate begins to
investigate. The blood trails leads to his rooms where the insignia
of The Black Axe is found, apart from two guns and a sword skilfully
fashioned to look like a harmless umbrella. He is rusticated and
handed over to the police. At the courts, where Amadiora presides
it is clear that he would get the death sentence or life in jail.
He is a northerner and moreover a cousin to the sultanate. The Sultan
himself personally summons Babiavelli and has a secret night rendezvous
with him to avoid the prying eyes of the press. A week before the
pronouncement of judgement Babiavelli summons Amadiora to The Bar
and orders him to reverse the case and set the man free.
“It is all in order. I ‘ll set him free of course”.
Amadiora watched Babiavelli closely. The other men leaned forward
with interest. They all knew about the muscle-fights between Babiavelli
and the Sultan. Babiavelli’s political fate depended somehow
on the support of the Northern Mafia, at the head of which was the
towering bearded image of the Sultan himself. And their fates were
in turn allied to that of the General. If he lost in his campaign
for the highest office in the country they would all be out of their
jobs.
“No, you don’t do anything of the sort. Danburauba!”
Amadiora’s instincts were right. He smiled and bided his time.
The General had changed his mind. The boy had to die – if
only to prove to the sultanate that Babiavelli still had his fingers
on the pulse of things in the country.
“But my hands are tied...”
“Untie them, untie them!” Babiavelli picked up a Havana
cigar from a box on the table, lit it with trembling fingers, dragged
on it and blew rich smoke at Amadiora as if in challenge. “So
how are you going to do it, eh? Just do it, kai!”
Amadiora paused wistfully and picked up his bottle. As if that were
a cue of some sort, all eyes beamed on him. His reaction was equally
important to the others. The keen eyes in the gloom of the room
had that strange wild translucence of a cat’s irises dilating
in the dark. The crazed glaze induced by alcohol only aided the
feeling that he was amongst enemies. He turned around to look at
the bar-man behind his glass prison. The same weird look was in
his eyes. He turned once more to the gathering. Chief Nebucadnezza
Adejo was directly opposite him, a journalist and a liar, sly as
a serpent and as quick and dangerous with the pen, his gross corrupt
weight notwithstanding. He was in charge of propaganda. And rightly
so; his sworn motto was, the pen is mightier than the people. He
liked to keep a low marxist profile and was dressed in the usual
T-shirt, jeans and rubber sandals. On either side of him were a
state security chief and a police commissioner, the ear and mouth-piece
of his boss, the Inspector-General. Both were in their forties,
thin rake-like figures, predictable in off-duty safari suits.
Seyi Alajobi – that was the police-man’s name –
had once broken the morale of a proud student union leader by snuffing
his nose with tear-gas powder, forcing him to sniff in deeply while
gassing his eyes directly with the canister variety at the same
time. The naive and idealistic young man quickly confessed that
the police was indeed a friend of the people. He had had the effrontery
to write an article titled the police as an enemy of the people
in a major daily newspaper. Salliyu Gokobiri, the secret service
man read political history at the university and had since been
a devoted student of the Nazi officers of the Jewish holocaust.
He never smiled. This was in keeping with his reputation as the
dreaded head of a Gestapo-style terror squad, murdering journalist,
erring newspaper editors, trade union leaders and any open critic
of Babiavelli’s campaign. Under his iron rule the threat of
sudden death plagued the land.
Amadiora’s eyes sought relief in the other empty seats and
without looking directly at Babiavelli, who was seated away from
him on the same couch, said:
“Well, General…As I said before... You know the case
has reached the judgement stage...” His eyes roved and settled
at a point on the high ceiling. The air was charged. Babiavelli
picked up his bottle of star slowly and took a long pull, eyes thoughtful.
He returned the bottle unto the table, dipped a hand into his flowing
babanriga and began to caress his paunch like a pregnant woman responding
to the stirrings of life inside her. He did not seem to have heard
Amadiora; he simply stared at him. Amadiora felt hot in the air-conditioned
room. Gokobiri regarded him with stony eyes. He recognised the danger
and quickly made a detour.
“Bar-man”, he raised his voice sharply, unloading his
nervous perplexity at a ready scape-goat, “one star for the
General!”
The tension was diffused. They all burst out laughing for no clear
reason, except for Gokobiri and Babiavelli. The Bar-man trotted
over with a cold bottle of star, opened and placed it before the
General and retreated quietly to his post. Relaxed in the prevailing
atmosphere of restored camaraderie, Amadiora leaned back and sighed.
“Yes! Well the boy was arrested without a warrant in the first
place...”
“So..?”, Babiavelli interrupted. Amadiora smiled knowingly.
“So we can use that small technical detail to throw the case
out and start all over again.” Babiavelli hit the armrest
of the couch in excitement. Gokobiri frowned.
“Why wasn’t the issue of a lack of warrant raised by
the defendant’s lawyer during the first trial?”, he
asked.
“He did”, Amadiora chuckled, “that was why we
could twist the case in the boy’s favour in the first place.”
“Nice! So the press cannot fault any sudden turns on the lack
of a good defence....”
“The press is here,” Nebucadnezzar interjected, “we
are with you all the way.”
“We simply have a re-trial”, continued Amadiora, “and
find him guilty after admitting the police’ sworn evidence
of a wrong warrant or no warrant at all.”
Alajobi warmed up to this opportunity of proving his own usefulness
in the scheme of things: “I’ll personally brief those
of my men involved.”
Babiavelli chuckled and whispered to himself. He was now at that
stage of alcoholic nirvana possible for him alone. With his brain
swathed in the fumes of wisdom, he rode on charged electric airs,
which made of his large eye-balls lightening conductors for self-illumination.
Of course they were blood-shot by this time and glowed like live
coals. He chuckled once more and spoke loudly into the gloom: “What
an Oliver Twist of a case!”
Amadiora could not see the relevance of the comparison and expected
much worse. The bees were at work in his head already. Nebucadnezza,
his expression puzzled asked:
“Has your excellency read that great classic?”
Babiavelli did not seem to have heard the question. He began to
ramble.
“You know I was going to – hic – make you –
hic – Minister ...
“...for Justice,” Amadiora completed, in an effort to
take Babiavelli off the subject, and his own person.
“Mini - star. For – hic – INJUSTICE.” Babiavelli
roared and diminished into the couch in chuckles. “And Anthony
General... Yes a General- even if you nefer fight war for your life
before... That boy gets the death sentence!”
Amadiora looked sharply in the direction of the bar-man. In his
anxiety he kept forgetting that only by really raising the voice
to the roofs could any sound penetrate those glass barriers. He
was reassured by the glass bar. It was lightly sound-proved ‘for
security reasons’ on the insistence of Gokobiri.
He realised that the General was at that point of inspired drunkenness
when he spoke a little too freely, even for this gathering. He surveyed
the room furtively. But the others were hard at the serious business
of drinking. He really should not bother, he decided, because they
were all bound by a common greed. And the General picked carefully.
You had to be a hard drinker to get in – that was apart from
having that kind of political ambition likely to break your neck
at the end of the day if you failed. Gokobiri noted Amadiora’s
discomfiture and tried to come to his aid.
“Are you all right, General?” He was the only one who
dared talk to Babiavelli with such freedom. Babiavelli’s mood
swung dangerously.
“Shut your rubber! Danbarauba. Are you. Suggesting that I
– that... Drunk.” In his inarticulacy he waxed lyrical.
“What’s your corn with my beer somebody should clean
out their rotten mouth with a dash of sea water what’s your
corn with my beer? He repeated for emphasis. Gokobiri only picked
up his bottle of Harp and drank.
One never really knew how far gone the General was, Amadiora thought.
Just when you assumed he had burnt out his fuse, he confounded the
company with the renewed vigour of his drinking. He seemed to have
a circuit-breaker in his head; so that he functioned in fits and
starts because when he spoke again he rambled, his speech was broken
and slurred.
“They ‘ll nefer un’erstand... You know, the vapour
– the fapour – of power. You ‘ve tu – to
haf a s’rong head tu hol’ it – to be able to hold
it. Like that thing there...” At which point he stood up.
All of his muscled six feet was ram-rod. He circled the centre-table
littered with cigarette ash and filled with empty beer-bottles,
took the three flight of steps up to the bar level and walked up
to The Fountain of Wisdom. Amadiora knew they would once more have
to seat through a lecture on The Vapour Theory. Babiavelli reached
out a steady hand and caressed the glass structure. It was about
his height and he had to bend in sliding his fingers down the stem.
“This reminds me of the waist of one of my mistresses –
Aisha.” He straightened himself again, reaching up to touch
the neon arm. “And tha’s de hand grabbing for pow’r.
But as you can see, it’s missed. The fumes ‘re escaping...
Can you see it. Tha’ hand shu’ld really hol’ –
hold de glass ‘ere.” And he grasped the concave bulge
just below the stem. “And this reminds me of her breasts…
You hol’ the glass an’ drink in the fumes. It gives
strength – pow’r ... because then – no senti –
sentiments.” He turned towards the seated men, and catching
his foot in his flowing babanriga, lurched. His cap fell unto the
floor. It was the bar-man’s job to leave his glass cage and
pick it up whenever this happened. He regained his balance and strolled
towards the men, continuing his monologue without a break. “We
are the receptacles of power...Must keep the fumes inside.”
He dropped into his seat and his head fell forward in a sudden doze.
The bar-man left his post and retrieved Babiavelli’s cap from
the floor. He moved forward with caution as if the seated men embodied
one dangerous and unpredictable animal likely to attack him without
warning. Amadiora received the cap as Babiavelli was still slouched,
eyes closed. He put the cap beside him and asked the bar-man to
replenish the table, unnecessarily reminding him to include a star
for the General. In a few minutes Babiavelli’s eyes flew open.
The bar man brought five sweaty bottles on a tray. He began to whistle
as he set the drinks on the table.
“What makes you so happy whistling like a canary?” It
was Babiavelli in a querulous mood.
“Let him alone, General.” Alcohol loosened Gokobiri’s
tongue. “Why shouldn’t he whistle. If being a canary
lessens his boredom... In fact, bar-man, have a beer on the house.”
“Which house? My own abi your own?” And to the bar-man:
“If I by mistake smell even water for your mouth... No salary.
Six months. Se you dey hear me so?” The bar-man hemmed and
hawed and left hurriedly while Gokobiri protested the unfairness
of it and Amadiora tried to calm Babiavelli, who insisted it was
the bar-man’s fault for being a bar-man and not a colonel
in the army. Was this the type of job he should be doing? And for
the next few days whenever Babiavelli was in the mood the bar-man
became canary or the whistler.
Babiavelli picked up the fresh bottle of star between thumb and
index finger. It was a trick with him. Pausing and looking meaningfully
at his lieutenants he took a long pull from the bottle. The others
followed suit. This was called a half salute – half because
they were still in their seats. It was useful in re-invigorating
the company and at the same time in wishing the General a long healthy
drink throughout his life. The spirit of competition was abroad
and Amadiora simply drained his bottle before putting it back empty
on the table. He belched richly and gave a supreme hiccup. Babiavelli
nodded at him in satisfaction.
“That was a pleasant surprise, Chucks. Than’ you for
de honour. I only hope. Hope you can still take the salute b’fore
we leave. To answer your question Nebu, no - have not read Oliver
twist... No such civilian past-time.” He turned to Amadiora
earnestly. “So the boy dies, yes?”
“yes!”
“It’s a pity”, Gokobiri put in, “we had
to pay off the deceased’s family so much for nothing.”
“Perhaps it was a good thing, we can make journalistic capital
out of it”, Nebucadnezzar quipped.
“And how.” This was Alajobi.
“We hushed it up at the time; we could publicise it now and
give credit to the Gen. for caring about the misfortune of Nigerians.
In fact, I would suggest, General, that you call a press conference
protesting the possible judgement of ‘not guilty’, insisting
that justice be carried out. We would then make sure the fact that
you gave financial compensation to the family of the deceased is
insinuated in the newspaper story.”
“Exce-llent! Brilliant idea,” Babiavelli chuckled.
“I am not so sure,” Amadiora interposed. There is no
time for such rigmarole. The judgement will be passed tomorrow.”
Babiavelli glared at him with blood-shot eyes.
“Are you with me or against?”
“That is not the point...”
Gokobiri turned to Amadiora in irritation.
“Can’t you stall! Adjourn the case for a few weeks!”
A light dawned suddenly on Babiavelli. Swaying slightly from side
to side in his seat, he looked levelly at Amadiora.
“Okay, say it Chucks, out wid it. Wetin be de wahalla?”
Amadiora hesitated. He had not meant to be so obvious.
“Don’t worry, talk my frien’!”
“Well...” Amadiora stopped and shifted in his seat.
Alajobi and Nebucadnezzar began to laugh at him. It was a dry drunken
cackle and it pained Amadiora. Gokobiri got impatient and took control
of the situation.
“General, if I know this lawyers well, I think Chucks wants
some Kola.”
“So what’s de problem then, eh , Lawyer...sege!”
“Yes”, Amadiora was forced to admit, “the prosecution
might contest the adjournment.”
“But that one na small thing! Come, how much... Okay. I ‘ll
give you one million Naira; if you need more let me know; God punish
Naira!” He swore more for emphasis, “Danburauba!”
“No, no; quite enough!” Amadiora frowned. In the gloom
no one noticed. Deep inside his alcoholic torpor, some nebulous
thought swirled darkly. Babiavelli dropped off again. Still possessed
by his grand journalistic vision, Nebucadnezzar saw reel upon reel
of newspaper editorials extolling the General’s magnanimity
rolling off the printing machine, softening the hearts of a disillusioned
citizenry, appealing to the goodwill of a large section of the country,
peasant, professional or intellectual.
“Wasn’t it a trade union leader’s son that got
killed,” he said more to himself, “the working class
should be happy with the way this case ends.”
“Yes,” answered Gokobiri, “and a trouble-shooting
union leader at that.” In the lassitude of the moment he betrayed
a secret between himself and Babiavelli. “We had to cool him
down a bit; he was causing labour unrest in one the General’s
manufacturing plants.” The clouds in Amadiora’s head
cleared. He started, opened his mouth to say something but simply
fell back into his seat. He suddenly understood what had bothered
him. Babiavelli had taken it upon himself to pay off the bereaved
family; which meant he had been privy to the boy’s death before
it happened. It was conscience money. He realised he did not know
as much as he thought he did. He stared at Gokobiri.
“How much did the family receive.”
Gokobiri’s mind was already somewhere else.
“what family,” he answered, yawning. “Oh –
you mean... Well, half a million Naira, I think.” He yawned
again. “Why?”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Amadiora reassured hurriedly,
“I just wondered.”
Babiavelli’s eyes flew open suddenly.
“Where is my cap?,” he barked.
“Here, General.” Amadiora picked it up from the couch
and handed it to Babiavelli.
“The fumes, the vapour was escaping through ma skull.”
They all looked at him in incomprehension. Babiavelli watched their
blank faces and was annoyed.
“Nobody saw it? Nobody! A true member of – who ‘d
been tru’ly called. To The Bar woul’ have. Seen it.”
There was silence. Amadiora looked at the General’s bare balding
head.
“I saw it!” He exclaimed, surprised at his own shrill
voice. He looked at Babiavelli’s head again. In the diffused
lighting it was suddenly fringed by a band of thin yellow light
only so barely perceptible. It palpitated and moved in a whorl towards
the crown of the head, thinning up leisurely towards the ceiling.
It was the aura around the head of a sage or a Brahman. One saw
it in Michelangelo’s paintings of Jesus Christ. Amadiora was
overwhelmed by a rush of fanaticism. His voice rose a notch higher
in a disciple’s fervour. “I see it!” The others
exchanged bleary-eyed glances and shrugged it all off as a joke.
“I know you are truly called, Chucks.” Babiavelli felt
gratified. “A true member. Of The Bar – in many ways.”
Amadiora was dumb-stricken like Moses before the burning bush .
He raised his face and looked starry-eyed at the other men with
a certain feeling of triumph. Then his doting acolyte’s eyes
fell on Babiavelli’s bottle. It was empty. Amadiora signalled
the ever watchful bar-man, raising his voice high:
“one star for the General!”
“At this rate,” Babiavelli chuckled, “I should
soon be a Field-Marshal.” He put on his cap meaningfully.
“...This was why I dozed; I was depressed by the vaporisation.”
He took a long pull from the freshly supplied bottle and began to
caress his paunch with slow circular movements of the open palm.
Babiavelli was going to suggest that they take the salute and call
it a day when Lady Macbeth came in , trailed by an eighteen year-old
woman servant bearing a large tray of fish pepper-soup served in
the traditional black earthenware-pots, the size of large tea-saucers.
Babiavelli paused, looked with drunken irritation at his wife. He
frowned and said, “You can trust a woman to come in at the
wrong moment.”
Lady Macbeth berthed just outside the circle of men and switched
on her most charming smile, her lips smeared with blood. She noted
that the men where at various stages of drunkenness. The air reeked
of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Her smile became a painful red wound.
Playing the magnanimous host, she greeted them warmly, not without
some exaggeration and urged the woman servant, who waited all the
time in the wings, to begin serving the pepper-soup. While she served
the men, Babiavelli commented loudly on the roundness of her buttocks.
As if moving to a cue Lady Macbeth swept up away to The Bar, her
ankle length satin dress trailing the rich rug. Gokobiri argued
that it might just be padded up for their benefit. Alajobi suggested
that they put it to the test and Babiavelli responded automatically.
The woman servant, who had put down this sexual banter to harmless
drunkenness, was not fast enough to escape Babiavelli’s gorilla
paw. He had the roundness of her buttocks imprisoned in his huge
palm. Too shocked to move, she looked pleadingly towards Lady Macbeth,
who was busy flirting with the helpless bar-man, while he squeezed,
patted and bounced her bottom in his cupped palm. Lady Macbeth seemed
oblivious to the goings-on. Releasing her Babiavelli announced,
again loudly, that hers’ was as real as the best of them.
His blood-shot eyes lighted on the young woman’s pliant body,
on the contours of her breast and he imagined his hands caressing
them instead of the Fountain of Wisdom a while ago. Like a he-goat
smelling the female he became randy. Must touch her wound again
sometime again where it hurts between the legs. Hot. Hot pepper-soup.
Who touches my wife’s ? She looks so saintly. Could bite it
to death. Though.
Released, the woman servant stood far away on the
fringes of the men arguing over the hot bowls of pepper-soup. Lady
Macbeth swept back to the men, her voice preceding her, asking if
they enjoyed the special fish caught by the best fisherman on the
river Ethiope in Delta State and flown in fresh to Lagos from Sapele,
the moment it was landed. Drunkenly Amadiora reminded her there
was no Airport in Sapele. Nebucadnezzar retorted that it did not
matter if they were flown in or if the fishes swam straight from
the ocean right into the soup pot. Babiavelli felt hurt in his family
pride and insisted that they were indeed flown in. “Where
are the fishes, anyway,” exclaimed Gokobiri, looking into
his empty soup pot. Lady Macbeth, already distraught at this testing
of her generosity, replied tartly: “they are all in the sea,”
and swept angrily away from the garrulous men, her woman servant
hot on her heels, grateful to get away from the hypnotic eyes of
the General.
In the wake of the women’s sudden heated exit Babiavelli stood
up slowly touched by the insult, and by alcohol. Enraged by the
women and beer-befuddled, he found it hard to maintain his balance
but somehow managed to keep on his feet. He turned to The Bar and
nodded at the bar-man. The table rose in a body.
“Let’s take the salute, gentlemen.” Fresh bottles
of beer were supplied by the bar-man. Each man had one brand or
the other. The General was entitled to a star – especially
for the salute. With each Member of The Bar clutching a sweaty bottle
at the ready, Babiavelli looked around the circle of faces. In various
stages of alcoholic exhaustion they looked as prepared as they ever
would be.
“Attention!,” Babiavelli called. Feet wobbled, staggered
and dragged themselves together in a mock drill, with week knees
trembling to keep old men straight and their chicken chests upright.
“Fire!” And all the guns in the Nigerian armoury crackled,
aimed at the strong-holds of all manner of enemies as the bottles
cracked burst open and sent liquid shots gurgling down the throats
of those who wanted to die like kings. Head thrown back like a maniac
laughing and Adam apple working up and down rapidly like a piston
Babiavelli proved his legend and emptied his bottle in the time
it would take to cork an AK 47 or uncork a bottle. In one crack
flat! He belched loudly and stood back to watch the others, patting
his stomach. Amadiora brought down his hand, clutching a half-full
bottle. He left it on the table, looking unhappy. Like him Nebucadnezza
and Alajobi did not quite succeed. Only Gokobiri equalled Babiavelli’s
performance. In disapproval Babiavelli slowly shook his large head
from side to side.
“I hope it is not that you can’t contain the fumes,
gentlemen.” He looked around the faces and shook his head
once more. “ ‘kay, let’s see if we can all. Cross
the bar without fallin’...”
He was referring to the Power Walk, with which the night was usually
concluded. Babiavelli started the walk. It would take him from one
end of the room to the other. Following a narrow strip of cloth
running straight across the length of the rug, which he tried not
to step upon in conforming to the rules of the Power walk, he would
roll and sway like a boat, pulled and tugged along by the cloth-strip
of his own intoxication. But somehow he managed to step on a strip
of his intestine and slipped upon a gallon of star beer. The sea
heaved inside him, smashing a bucketful of beer through his mouth
against the far wall in a jet as he stepped drunkenly over a regulation
wooden bar resting delicately on tripods at the end of his walk.
He stepped back breathing as if he had just done a hundred meter
dash, waving his hands to urge on the others.
Amadiora started out like a ballet dancer, following the cloth-strip
with a studied concentration. Suddenly the bees buzzed wildly in
his head and stung him behind the eyes. Propelled by the force of
his smart, he staggered the rest of the way with his feet caught
in the cloth-strip and was shoved sideways by an energy he could
not comprehend. Trying to straighten his wayward body and regain
his balance, he only zigzagged around, careered down the remaining
way and knocked down the bar from its rest on the tripod, collapsing
against the General. They both went down in a bear-hug, rolling
in Babaivelli’s vomit. Enraged, Babiavelli struggled up, using
the wall for support. Amadiora lay there panting for breath while
Babiavelli rained abuses on his ancestors. Gokobiri moved forward,
straightened the cloth-strip once more and replaced the wooden bar
on the tripod. He moved back to the other end of the room and began
his walk. He moved deliberately, with a roll and a bounce, exuding
the self-confidence of a man accustomed to difficult situations.
He stepped over the wooden bar lightly and stood back, folding his
arms against his barrel chest. He looked down at Amadiora, who was
finally pulling himself up. Amadiora eyed him balefully. Well executed
– like a true killer, he thought. One after the other Alajobi
and Nebucadnezzar managed the walk without much incidence. Amadiora
tried once more and succeeded. To fail twice would have meant having
to take the salute – alone – before another try. Sometimes
the bar-man had to be summoned to act as referee if there was a
general disagreement. At such times someone invariably pointed out
that their collective judgement was ‘externally’ influenced
during the walk and was undemocratic. There were no complaints now
and they began to leave one after the other. Babiavelli suggested
that anyone who felt too tired could take one of the guest rooms.
Amadiora was quick in refusing, suspecting that the idea was meant
especially to denigrate him. It was two o clock in the morning and
the others decided to relieve their chauffeurs the risk of having
to race against armed-robbers’ cars prowling the streets of
Lagos at night in search of victims. Amadiora left.  |
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