You Don't Like the Sea

By Aimua Edosomwan

Book Description: This remorseless collection of short stories and two novellas comes up against a background of arbitrary arrests and summary executions carried out at the behest of the strongman. but rather than being a profile on the abuses of power it is the individuals who are caught in the despoiling tyranny that enliven these stories. Thus we have the old pensioner in 'You May Hang Me Now'who in seeking to impress a starry-eyed cub reporter finds himself the target of a survivalist group and deadly agents of state. While 'The temptation to forgive Jacob' examines a boy's reaction to a doting father implicated in mass murder. 'Roach's demise captures a boy's grief and transformation following the death of his only surviving sibling, the ruthless leader of a street gang.

Though set in a failing state, these stories where the emotions and arbitrariness of the human character play a much larger part than one would ordinarily imagine, might well have been framed in any urban jungle of the 21st century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456783723

Aimua Edosomwan

I am a Nigerian writer who is quickly establishing himself as a new voice in the literary scene. My reviews, short srories and poems have been featured in various anthologies, and a European magazine.

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You Don’t Like The Sea

Aimua Edosomwan

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© 2011 by Aimua Edosomwan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 08/01/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-8371-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-8372-3 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Temptation To Forgive Jacob

Why The Sky Didn’t Turn Red Over The Poppyfield

You May Hang Me Now (After The Libation)

The Big Loan

Stroll Away

Roach’s Demise

for da hard labour:

Margaret Alice Edosomwan

(1936 – 2002)

&

Monisola Otiti & the prophet’s crew

Temptation To Forgive Jacob

It was clear to Iton, and as he supposed the other villagers, that pa had changed unrecognizably for the worse since his mother died eight months ago. But he couldn’t have known to what extent his pa changed until that night half a dozen or so hooded men carried him home covered in blood. Apparently thinking he wouldn’t last the night, pa confessed to being a member of Akimakpa, the survivalist cult sworn to restoring the glory days of the Uhoncha kingdom. If pa hadn’t confessed Iton would never have guessed for he didn’t suspect it of pa despite the ruinous turn he’d taken and the hood the men wore that night, though expectedly striking and fearsome was of a different design from the one generally favoured by Akimakpa. In truth Iton didn’t suspect it of pa because he really didn’t have any clue what to look out for. All the villagers he suspected it of gave off indications themselves that they belonged. The word’s out they belong.

As legend would have it, Akimakpa started off with the loosely defined mission, more or less taking it upon themselves to protest the government’s utter neglect of Uhoncha. Since the government offered nothing in return for levies exacted – no paved roads, potable water or electricity – a few men at first saw no reason to keep forking over good money. They soon convinced a few others. One market-day soon after had them lying in wait for the tax collectors. They seized them, stripped them of their hated uniforms, and with horsewhips flogged them on their backsides until the blood ran, then they ran them out of town like the asses they were. Their thinking was that the government would soon notice the revenue from Uhoncha had dried up and dispatch its agents to find out why. And that was all the opportunity the ringleaders assured them they needed to air their grievances to officials with real power and influence not those mealy-mouthed petty officials they disdained as farmers moonlighting as tax collectors for the district council in between harvests. Back then Akimakpa was constituted solely of roustabouts who saw themselves superior to those who live off the ground and rely on toil rather than contrivances bringing forth a product that sparks its own chain of end products; and this very complexity being an intrinsic part of all development it was that assured them a greater relevance in the dawning age. In a word their livelihood was a progression over peasant farming in the march of time. But no response came from the government. No representative came bearing the telltale red dust of Jabundo, the provincial capital. They soon learnt the tax collectors who were from the district council at Bilama, just further upstream, simply pocketed the money Uhoncha paid as taxes without remitting any to Jabundo.

‘The register of tax payers is the register of dupes!’ someone quipped. ‘The names on that record are the government-recognised morons! We are the officially-approved idiots, rigorously screened, duly stamped and certificated!’ He might have been aiming to draw a few laughs but the bitterness of the sentiment and the ugly mood of those gathered didn’t give the intended humour any chance. In the event it struck too close to home for those nursing an acute sense of victimisation to have anything but an aggravating effect.

‘For the greedy fat-guts in Jabundo not to care if we pay taxes or not means they are not even aware we exist!’ another villager pointed out, shouting at the top of his voice for the world to hear. ‘And the reason is not farfetched. We are not in any map! Nobody knows of us except those that know us by face! Only the two of us know we exist!’ He pointed to the gathering and himself. ‘The tribal marks on our faces are the outlines of our map, our world… !’

‘Dry up!’ an angry voice retorted. ‘Use your head for once! If they didn’t know us the white men will not be here!’ And he pointed to the distance across the water where Tombraco, the giant corporation, ablaze with lights, was drilling for oil.

‘It doesn’t matter one bit!’ came an excited cry like one inspired. ‘If our face is the only map we have let us put that face on the only map they have!’

Thinking it’d get them all the attention they needed, the villagers led by men of Akimakpa stormed the flow station and set it on fire. Their naivety was to prove costly. They were to find the insensitive government swift to react when anything affected the oil industry for that was what the economy was all about. The dreaded Inland Security troops invaded the village in speedboats and helicopters. They left no building standing and carted off every adult male none of whom was ever seen again.

This tragic event marked a turning point in Akimakpa. Their helplessness was beaten into them in the in the most humiliating manner. Having had a taste of federal might they didn’t want to dare the mailed fist again at least not until they grew much stronger. So they bided their time. But no group that celebrates machismo knows how to wait with good grace for long. To them patience means the same as weakness or a period of convalescence from a good hiding! Biding time or waiting for an opportune moment to strike shouldn’t take too long or it might become necessary to force the matter. There were mass defections amongst the rank and file. To lick its wounds away from public gloating and so non-members would not be any wiser in the event the moribund organisation finally ceased to exist altogether, Akimakpa went underground and the spirit of adventure which led to its formation undertook a bitter twist. In this makeover its mission altered to avenging every slight or injury, past, present or imminent done to the Uhoncha tribe. Whoever takes it upon himself to search for injuries done him never go unrewarded, diligence being superfluous in this task. Having found its raison d’être Akimakpa began launching attack after attack on tribe after neighbouring tribe. To be sure there were reprisals by these tribes which resulted in a great toll in lives and property to Uhoncha, but this was never to deter Akimakpa. No sooner had one bout of bloodletting simmered down that they flagged off another.

Strangely these internecine conflicts with the huge costs it exacted on the people rather than make the Akimakpa cause unpopular strengthened their claim of being the last-standing ultra-loyalist defender of the tribe. Although voices urging caution strove to make themselves heard, every bloody counterattack by avenging tribes weakened the pacifists’ position because every new victim simply wanted to hit back. Extremism appearing so much as the natural culmination of the very reasons trumpeted for moderation can in the hands of the adroit often make the latter seem a poor cousin by comparison. The extremist holding nothing back would always sound more convinced, more passionate, more committed, more ready to pay the supreme sacrifice for his beliefs. While the moderate whose position can never be entirely shorn of the mistrust of accommodating a certain compromise with the present injustice is driven to offer reason, the extremist offers just himself. My life against their sea of words! Take your choice! There is never any iota of doubt about where he stands. His position is as clear as day. The moderate requires time and words to make his point which the extremist derides as he preaches immediate deliverance only if enough bravehearts would pitch headlong with him into the thick of battle. ‘Your destiny in your own hand! your fate at the tip of your sword!’ would as always remain the resounding clarion-call in troubled times. Inaction or controlled engagement, even when it is the better course oftentimes only appear better articulated owing more to eloquence and sophisticated rhetoric than hard truth; it can never fully shake off the suspicion of being no more than a veiled apology for the continuation of the evil day. And while the moderate is deploying reason, the extremist is harping on sacrifice and victory. To steal the thunder of his opponent and establish his own bona fides the moderate might have to resort to laying on the pain and persecution he too has personally suffered under the present unjust system but here again he comes up short. Unlike unrequited love, unrequited loss never draws a fond glance. Vengeance will always hold more appeal to the downtrodden in a sunbaked backwater. The best gift to offer a man is his enemy. How the enemy arose is immaterial for as the locals themselves say: more often than not the eye sees the stone that blinds it whether or not it sees the hand that hurled it. Thus Akimakpa carried the day.

Thus Akimakpa grew in stature, and it was its leaders who set the public agenda. They chose the next village to attack and when. In starting off the bloodletting, Akimakpa acted alone, neither seeking the opinions nor assistance of non-members. It struck alone famous red hood in place. However by the time this newly-made enemy retaliated, Akimakpa was well aware it could count on the larger Uhoncha people, and indeed played a large part in rousing them to battle; and when fighting alongside them they did so without their hoods on. This strategy effectively fostered the accretions of legends around them. That their attacks were timed when the enemy was off-guard, and executed with monstrous savagery led to all kinds of speculations which could only boost Akimakpa’s fearsome reputation. They were rumoured to be shape-shifters who transform into ferocious beasts of prey as they swoop. Some others said they were under the special patronage of the bloodthirsty seven-eyed god of war, Opikosu, The Unnamable, whose fabled pasture is the killing field. Even survivors of Akimakpa killing sprees oftentimes gave garbled accounts that contradicted each other. Those who fled instead of staying behind to defend kith and kin for fear of being ridiculed as cowards corroborated the shape-shifter tale or equally as likely came up with fabrications even more frightening. On the other hand those bent on rallying their fighting men for vengeance often needed to deprecate such stories, labeling Akimakpa no more than cowardly brigands stonyhearted though they may be who target women and children. However to fire their men up they could not help but embellish the carnage wreaked by Akimakpa which ultimately fed its notoriety, and for a violent cult notoriety is strength.

But in their lightning strike on Esikoko, a bordering riverine community Akimakpa outdid itself. They sneaked in when the men of the town had sailed out for the day in their canoes and dugouts for they were fisher-folk, overran the tiny settlement and hacked down everybody they could seize sparing none. The scale of the slaughter was staggering but beyond the body count what made it even more mind-boggling was that it was perpetrated upon a community with whom Uhoncha had hitherto enjoyed the closest of ties. They spoke the same dialect, had identical customs, intermarried greatly, and more significantly the consensual sentiment on the street was that they were one. And history bore this out.

The father of the tribe, Koko Koko, was a headstrong character, who following a bitter war of succession to the stool of Uhoncha led his ragtag army to settle across the river. It was clear he could no longer live in Uhoncha since the other clans openly supported his enemy, his half-brother Edim, whom he slew with a dagger hidden in the folds of his robes while pretending to embrace him in a false display of amity at a peace meeting arranged by the elders to resolve the feud, and which predictably was going badly for him forcing him to take matters into his own hand. But time had healed all wounds, and the Uhonchas now regarded the Esikokos – literally sons of Koko – with the indulgent fondness one might regard a wayward beloved as their errant kin. And this feeling takes on an added poignancy when it is recalled that the ‘wayward one’, soon amply demonstrated his remorse proving beyond doubt he was not able to cope for long outside the bosom of the ancestors – in the sense of Uhoncha being the hearth of the kin – for not many moons after his bloody deed and headlong flight, a wild-eyed Koko koko stormed back to Uhoncha, and at that same village square, the locale of his infamy, in the gathering of the clans had given a rambling speech, then bared his chest, and even as those that would restrain him sprang forward had driven that same dagger with which he slew his half-brother into his own heart with maniacal force burying it deep to its hilt. In the heartbreaking finale the parricide had fallen to his knees, and turning an anguished look toward Edim’s widow had with his last breath pleaded for forgiveness. But that mortal wound identical in all respects to the one he inflicted on Edim absolved him of all charges of malice, and in popular sentiment he was thought of as impulsive, which seldom attracts illwill in the memory. Indeed he became a byword for folly, the likely consequence for those who would flout the mores of the land.

‘Listen to your elders or…’

In the event the prodigal returned home. All was well, and there were no hard feelings imaginable between Uhoncha and Esikoko or so everybody thought until Akimakpa with one ruthless stroke drove a wedge between the two communities. It was hard to explain why Akimakpa chose to deal such a hand on a people, which ironically bore the brunt of Akuragha’s vengeance when Akimakpa attacked that tribe famous for the skill of its hunters during the last New Yam festival. Strange as it sounded the only explanation was that the attack with all the methodical savagery exhibited was calculated to sever all ties between the two communities, to render any chance of reconciliation impossible. Anything less could have been settled before nightfall at the elders’ conclave. As it was made clear once more in the Akuragha war, the other outlying tribes saw no difference between Uhoncha and Esikoko when baying for vengeance. Attacking one was tantamount to attacking the other, and there’s no gainsaying that when a full-scale war breaks out from this cycle of attacks and counterattacks, the men of Esikoko took their place amongst the ranks of their kinsmen from Uhoncha, and indeed they had no choice because if anything Esikoko was often the flashpoint where simmering resentment of Uhoncha boiled over; often cited as evidence of the expansionist leanings of the tribe, the frontier of a people who from time immemorial had nursed the ambition of pushing beyond its ancestral homeland. Others simply said Esikoko was a military outpost of Uhoncha. In any event it was often targeted for its actual or symbolic significance.

This inextricable bond between the two communities has made it so difficult for Iton to fathom Akimakpa’s motive and in particular to account for pa’s personal involvement in the massacre. Pa owned up that he volunteered of his own freewill for the attack on Esikoko, his wife’s hometown of all places, and just a mere few months after she died, and to make matters even more complicated her death had from all indications devastated him. Pa had mourned as one lost as he could very well have been for his late wife had led him by the nose, taken all decisions trivial and major and bossed him so thoroughly without needing to nag. Ma simply gave the order and he complied without demur. She didn’t need to raise her voice and when she occasionally had to repeat herself it was for clarity. This total domination profoundly affected Iton’s relationship with pa. Though the boy loved him, loved his quiet smile – gentle unto sadness – even temper and unquestioning submissiveness that turned every act of obedience into obeisance and every gesture an act of faith, the emotion he felt toward pa was in reality conflicted probably because his mother so dominated the life of the household they assimilated every issue, observation and sentiment from her perspective. Her opinion was their belief. That she didn’t seem to have much regard for pa was not at all lost on Iton, the eldest child. So while he was never rude or disrespectful to pa he didn’t think his opinions mattered very much, and for a growing boy, still a mere stripling, this disregard would trump love any day.

Iton was dead certain pa had been initiated into Akimakpa sometime after ma’s death for she would never have permitted it. The possibility that he might have been a member and somehow kept the secret from ma Iton thought improbable for pa of his own accord appeared to grow fidgety whenever he did something he guessed would displease her, and with one charge from her black fiery eyes the big secret would come tumbling out. Besides pa rarely left the house once he returned at sundown much less run around with pals all of whom without exception ma found intolerable. It was hard to imagine the loud boastful fellow who staggered home every night reeking of cheap gin and puke was the same mild-mannered, henpecked husband of a few months ago. If pa had resented ma’s domination, grumbled behind her back or now that she was dead, done violence to her memory in any way, it all would have made more sense. But pa had insisted she be interred at home and for that very purpose dug up the floor of his bedroom. He might have chosen to bury her in the local cemetery or sent her remains back to her folks at Esikoko and no eyebrows would have been raised for it was not an unusual practice. In such matters, indeed in nearly all matters, the prerogative lay with the husband. Even those opting to bury loved ones at home usually did it in the grounds. To make one’s bedroom the place of interment generally is taken to mean one intends to maintain the closest communion possible in the circumstance and furthermore one didn’t plan to remarry which on its own was quite agreeable to Iton. The possibility that pa might have been pretending all these years suggested itself but again Iton found it hard to accept. To have pretended so consummately these long years would entail such prodigious resourcefulness that it must be directed at an ulterior objective. And pray, what other objective could pa possibly have had when in all circumstances he showed such singular pursuit of ma’s happiness and of domestic harmony without a hint of histrionics? without anguish of any sort, as if it was what was expected. And it needn’t be because he was aware of Akimakpa’s plan to invade Esikoko all this while since there’s absolutely no reason to wait for ma to pass on before executing it. In any case he wouldn’t have been able to delay the plan if it was already made. Akimakpa was not made of men who’d dawdle over any matter for long; its own decisions sufficed as omen. Besides why would pa harbour such a plan in the first place? What monstrous grudge could there be when there wasn’t any clash of wills or lingering undercurrent of resentment? What grudge could there be that never showed its face even once? The boy was positive he’d have noticed because he had watched for it. Ever since he had noted what passed for normal relations between adult sexes he had watched pa keenly, watched assiduously for the mask to slip, and he was confident he’d have caught on if pa had lapsed even briefly because he was good at spotting such things. As far as Iton could tell pa had always behaved the same way and to every person he came across, or more correctly, every person the boy saw him come across in ma’s presence. On the other hand, it must be said, ma too was quite conciliatory when the matter didn’t impinge on the good of the family which she took to mean the same as moral wholesomeness. So could pa have done what he did to win the respect of his cult members, to assure them of his unflinching commitment while in his deepest bosom he still nourished fond thoughts for ma? Pa barred the wearing of any form of footwear in his bedroom because he didn’t want anybody stomping over her head. Could there be any more tender feeling than that? Is it possible pa had been able to separate ma from her antecedents? Considered soberly, this was but arrant nonsense. If ma was still alive and happened to have traveled home to see her folks at the time of the attack would she have been spared? Not a chance! Her fate would have been no different from the other enemies. She would not be seen as the mother of Uhoncha sons but the Trojan coming to relay vital information to base. Wars gone by confirmed this as the likelier possibility. In fact to demonstrate his loyalty to the cause pa might have stepped up to butcher her just as he was probably motivated to volunteer for the attack in the first place.

Hate might be a stark emotion but it wasn’t at all uncomplicated. In fear we tend to simplify the fearful. Is this deliberate? Is this the only way to manage it? to prevent paralysis? The most horrifying aspect of evil was that it didn’t have to appear hideous – so it was turning out for Iton. It is far easier to condemn if it seen as the ultimate manifestation of perverted tendencies rather than a sequence of ordinary steps by trauchled individuals ensnared by their innate diligence and self-sacrifice. Judging evil requires a fundamental outlook. Rather than lose one’s way in its multidimensionality trash the whole elaborate structure and the undergirding whys and wherefores as the willful designs of archfiends obsessed with installing a system purpose-built for torture, murder and mayhem. Everything about it including its workaday aspects should be savaged as the extent of desperation and the size of their grudge against humanity, and treated as subterfuge athwart our basic trusting natures. However such a mindset regrettably is more readily found amongst sworn enemies who in actual fact despise the perpetrators far more than their deeds. Their mutual belligerence precedes and colours the latest outrage. For the neutrals their usual preoccupation with how best to rationalise the atrocity tends to prescind the horror of it all.

Thus though Iton would rather not be distracted by the commonplace preoccupations of hateful men kin or otherwise he couldn’t help noting pa still bonded deeply with his late wife as well as them the children. He hadn’t changed much at all in that aspect except he was a little bit more assertive than he used to be. But even at that he still let them get their way an awful lot, a lot more than other fathers with their kids, still appeared disinclined to tell them what to do. The only difference was he appeared somewhat quick to attribute a position to them, perhaps his way of showing more interest in what they were up to even if he was never going to object or scold. It was plain he was trying to be the more caring parent, trying to play a larger role in their lives although he was too often sloshed these days to be in control. When he wasn’t completely past it, pa liked to disguise his inebriation by a certain gruff affectation which fooled nobody except probably Aseyuwi, the youngest of them all who’d clamber to his laps and would not let him go until she ruffled his hair the exact same way she felt he had ruffled hers. Iton though already feeling much easier with him than when ma was around and anticipating an improved relationship disapproved of the drinking binges primarily because he felt that’s the way ma would have reacted, but also because it made pa spend far too much time with no-good boors whom the boy sensed were dangerous in that they could menace him to do their will for if the truth be told, the boy saw his pa as being rather a weak sort. Hence he was dumbstruck to learn pa had anything to do with mass murder, and of ma’s folks at that! It overturned all he had come to know and expect of pa and, was discovering – against the teeth of long-held impressions – he actually found quite endearing.

On a deeper level the attack on ma’s people shocking enough as it was went further to devastate all that ma represents, her overwhelming role in their lives which they all willingly conceded her predicated upon nothing else save her self-conviction she could do no wrong, do nothing that ran against the interest of the family having been appointed by destiny to safeguard it. This belief running through her from her tongue to her gait was neither open to compromise nor discussion, yet she acted on it as if she had secured a prior agreement with them to do so. Lulled by the unstinting service of such an eager sentinel, the other family members could afford to relax, and by disposition were all rather laidback or perhaps they were laidback because that was the best way to get along with ma, what gave her the greatest latitude for relevance. Her ardent spirit and inflexible will formed the pillar upon which they were coerced to lounge. Pa’s new buddies, binges and cult membership were anathema to this familial custom. Without a doubt, at least in Iton’s mind, it diminished ma for not having foreseen pa’s deviant development. Coming a mere matter of months after her passage it made her seem a mere mortal, mocked her best efforts, and thus shorn of her preternatural awe ma appeared intrusive and overbearing rather than protective and prescient. And what made this feeling trouble Iton more than it should ordinarily have, after all most people are known to love parents possessing manifest negative traits, was that the emotional underlay which could have served to damp down the onset of such unflattering sentiment was largely absent. Ma acted from strength in all things and compelled obedience rather than affection, dependence rather than loyalty. She made herself into a bulwark from which one took refuge from a hostile fate. That she could offer her life for any and all members of the family was not in doubt; that she expected any of them to do the same for her never even crossed her mind, she being the one upon whom the burden of motherhood fell which she took up as no less than a cause to glorify by self-immolation if need be. Thus it wasn’t any particular member of the family that evoked such astounding devotion but rather this was the only way she deemed worthy of relating with anybody that belonged in the class of her family. But it is also true that it was this singular disposition of depersonalized devotion that enabled her achieve her total domination of them all without causing rancor because for all her ramrodding there was no trace of self-aggrandisement, and furthermore was harder on herself than others. Her single-mindedness transcended such mundane things as sowing seeds of affection to foisting a worldview based upon reading the prevalent forces in life as essentially malevolent; but then again, the greater and more ubiquitous the enemy the more ma’s strenuous efforts seemed justified which opened up ever more scope for her intervention. They adopted this worldview but largely in reaction to her continual prodding. In between they lapsed back to a carefree attitude which provided all the motivation she needed to redouble her vigilance. This scheme of events by which they ordered their lives and told good from evil had begun unraveling from pa’s dissoluteness and culminating in the bloodbath at Esikoko had all but melted away altogether for when a people are massacred their god is inevitably one of the casualties.

Iton found himself facing this void.

Pa made his shattering confession on the night his drinking buddies – as Iton merely thought them at the time – carried him home. They had roughly woken Iton up, handed him his pa who was drifting in and out of consciousness and bleeding all over and departed without so much as an explanation. Iton dismayed by pa’s grievous wounds was struck cold by this brazen act of callousness seeing it as a confirmation of his fears that pa was always likely to end up being shortchanged by his new choice of friends who true to form had promptly dumped him at his hour of need. It was plain they didn’t want pa to die on them which simply meant they didn’t care a hoot what happened to him as long as it didn’t cause them any trouble. The hideous injury and casual cruelty complemented each other and symbolized for him the savagery of the commonplace which ma never lagged in warning them to beware.

Fighting the urge to collapse in despair Iton gritted his teeth and set to attend to pa with the barely serviceable skills he learnt from watching and sometime helping out his late grandpa, the village herbalist at work back in his day when called upon. His budding ‘apprenticeship’ never established was cut short one morning when grandpa stubbed his left toe on the doorstop, lost balance and crashed his head against the wall sprawling to his death. Ma who harboured higher expectations for her firstborn and was fishing for ways to dissuade him from grandpa’s bait seized on the calamity which surfeited with ill-omens to declare that phase of his life over. Being the one who came across grandpa’s body that fateful dawn twitching in its death throes gave her all the fillip she needed to make pronouncements on the ghastly incident. Never one for dithering she ruled that grandpa must have had a preterminal encounter with a malevolent spirit – as evidenced by his eyes that remained wide open in death – who came expressly to prevent grandpa from going into the bush to pick the herbs the gods breathed on overnight as was his practice every morning. Striking down grandpa on the threshold of his home as he was about setting out for his sacred duty and not deep in the bush where it’d have been far more convenient could only mean the calling has passed from his bloodline. Anyone else who chose to dare the gods by ignoring this warning will surely meet with a worse fate. The mantle has been taken away. The gods have decided. Who’ll stand to question them? No one.

Iton quickly found pa’s friends had made a somewhat perfunctory attempt to treat him before calling it quits probably when pa lost consciousness. Iton thinking along similar lines would perhaps have thrown up his hands and ran for trained help if he had not been deterred by the very nature of the wounds. He couldn’t for the life of him imagine where pa got hacked so badly, and thus he wanted to avoid calling any attention in case, as he strongly feared, pa’s friends had lured him into something criminal in the course of which he got so horribly worsted. Why else would the men choose to wear masks and not speak to him if not to hide their identities in case suspicion arose about pa’s wounds? As it turned out Iton wasn’t too far wrong for as soon as pa regained consciousness, he gathered himself and launched into his story breaking off only when strength failed him. He clearly wasn’t up to it but his newfound infernal determination sustained him. Over the course of his convalescence, without any sense of shame, pa went into every gory detail of the bloody night time and again amplifying his role to improbable proportions the more with each retelling. All he offered as justification was that the people of Esikoko were cockroaches who deserve to be stamped out. There was no trace of remorse. In fact he made Iton vow that if he dies – as was likely – he should as vengeance slaughter no less than a dozen sons of Esikoko otherwise his blood would be upon the boy’s head and he’d continually heap curses on him from the grave blighting all the days of his life and that of his offsprings. So pa could get some rest for he was still mortally weak even though the bleeding had reduced considerably Iton had on that grey dawn placed his right hand on pa’s groin, the agency that sired him, and swore by the gods of his ancestors.

Callousness aside he’d come to understand the men who brought pa home were merely complying with their practice of allowing dying members have some private moments with their firstborn sons so they could confide in them their secret membership with a view to preparing them to enlist because whether they liked it or not they’d be made to join Akimakpa. They termed it perpetuation by blood. The firstborn sons of all members automatically replaced their fathers when they died or as soon as they, the sons, were of age – the latter being an arbitrary condition at best varying from case to case or more often than not when the concerned parent so determined. Rejection eventuates in a gruesome execution.

The nightmarish events of that night gave rise to contrasting consequences that made the child’s head spin. Pa began to see Iton as some kind of comrade, even if because of his miraculous survival or some other reason the boy’s initiation into Akimakpa was being somewhat deferred. Pa clearly regarded this as a mere formality to be sorted out as soon as an auspicious occasion arose after all the boy had already completed his traditional rites of manhood, and more importantly, he the father, a stalwart was sponsoring him. Pa’s stock had risen dramatically in the group because of the key role he played in the sack of Esikoko which was deemed an overwhelming success. In Akimakpa degree of success was judged by the scale of slaughter. All our grudge threshed in one glorious dawn. Our past has been delivered into our hands and all tomorrows have come to a head, let’s seize this historic moment. It was the rare gift of Akimakpa to frame every event with this context and make believers