Camwood at Crossroads

By Femi Euba

A philosophical novel about exploitation, in particular the evangelical factor. Olumofin, a Nigerian Attorney now living in the US, stands at the intersection of culture-crossings implicating the fate of his African identity within the American world, especially that of his intended intimacy with an African-American Creole. In an attempt to come to terms with the past, initiated by present criminal currents in the news media regarding the depraved religious practices of his estranged father, he unleashes, through shifting thought processes that crosses from Lagos to New Orleans, the demons of exploitation (humorous as well as tragic) that have defined his colonial upbringing and the cross-cultural paths of his future African-American in-laws.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 23, 2007
• ISBN: 9781465320018

Femi Euba

Professor of Theatre and English at Louisiana State University. Practicing playwright, director, actor and a scholar, Femi Euba received an MFA in Playwriting and Dramatic Literature, and an MA in African-American Studies from Yale, and a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Ife in Nigeria. His plays include the award-winning The Gulf, The Eye of Gabriel and several radio plays for the BBC Radio. Although he began writing short stories at an early age, Camwood at Crossroads as his first novel unreservedly adds fiction to his literary output as a creative artist.

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Copyright © 1996, 2007 by Femi Euba.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

GLOSSARY

Dedication

to

Addie Dawson, my better half and camwood inspiration, and

Wole Alakija, my high school best friend

CHAPTER ONE

Rains

Contexts of Exploitation

"Barefaced kernels of words on the oracle board, my friend! There. Do you

see nothing?" His father’s favorite hoodwinking adage had continued to counterpoint his thoughts, no end—ever since he bought one of the morning newspapers, the Daily Service. Momentarily halting at the street corner of his childhood neighborhood in Lagos, he couldn’t resist the impulse to look at the front page again. And all he could think of, looking at the headlines, hoisting his father as it were with his own petard, all that kept chanting across his more analytic thoughts was Barefaced kernels of words on the oracle board, my friend! The divination string of palm kernels thus cast and fate-patterned on the divining powder, trapping the bemused eyes of the client into an acknowledged ignorance, his father would continue, self-assured, Do you see nothing? Ah, only a trained eye can see and decode these configurations of fate on my oracle board. Look, look, Ifa deity says it will rain in half hour, and do you doubt him because there is no wind or cloud? It will come, my friend. Rain will certainly come. A thunderstorm!

And as if Ifa, the oracle of divination, had spoken, Olumofin cast an instinctive eye at the sky. Strange, but sure enough, just that minute he noticed a cloud was forming—which was curious since it was supposed to be dry weather this time of the year in Lagos. But he quickly remembered that it was also a period of sudden rains, just before the setting of the harmattan season.

He flashed his eyes back at the Daily Service and connected his father’s adage with the bare facts of the front page headlines: "Stormy Weather Brewing over Evangelical Priesthood: The Panshaga of Jesus of the Well." There, the onomatopoeic word of his Yoruba culture summed it all up, the totality of his father’s iniquities. What could be more barefaced than that? He had always feared it, that one gracious day this sort of thing would happen—when his father would get his overdue share of exposition of his depravity from newsmongers. He had hoped it would not surface while he was around, especially during short visits such as this. But, contrary to his wishes, which he had almost forgotten these many years he had been abroad, contrary to his hopes, it had happened. And as fate would have it, it happened just as he was anticipating his return to the United States! I don’t want to be involved in any of this. I certainly do not want to be involved, he kept reassuring his nerves.

He had come back home on a short business trip, his second in fifteen years since he left to study in England, then in the United States, where he now lived. But then his first trip back had been only three years ago, when he had stayed for four whole weeks. He had come primarily to consider the possibility of resettling. With his auntie getting old, he had come to take the Nigerian Bar examination that would allow him to practice, an exam for which he had sat and passed. Then his auntie had suddenly taken ill and died. That, along with something else, had made him change his mind about resettling, something not unconnected with his father and his religious practices, something he had always seen as dark clouds that would one day burst, something he had sworn not to get involved with. Now it has happened. It seemed the clouds had deliberately taken three years to gather, along with all the dirt and filth and acid, three years till this moment. He had sensed the brewing storm but had hoped it would not burst during this trip. But for the importance of the CIA business that required his physical presence in Lagos, he would not have made the trip at all. Since the death of his auntie, he had felt no strong ties to draw him back home, unlike some of his other friends who had resettled since Independence. Certainly not ties that should exist between father and son.

Not that he wished to relinquish these ties or those that linked him to his culture, he just felt indifferent about these things; that was all. To his way of thinking, one didn’t have to have physical ties with one’s roots to function as a cultural human being—which came before anything else as far as he was concerned. He could equally be effective, if not more, as a Nigerian living abroad in the New World, where rebels and reprobates like him had gone to make a new life and to follow their dreams. He smiled at the thought, knowing that the decision to live abroad wasn’t as simple as it appeared to be—or rather as he made it out to be.

As he stood at the street corner overlooking the old neighborhood square at the center of crossroads, he pondered what to do regarding his father. He had just that morning finished the business he came for, and perhaps now, he should go straight to the Nigerian Airlines office to try to make reservations to depart the following day. But why had he come to this street corner in the first place? Why had he come this direction, heard the newspaper boy’s call, then hailed him and bought a copy? But the fact was no matter where he went or what he did. He would sooner or later have heard the news and bought the newspaper just the same.

Yes, the neighborhood had changed a little, he noted. Some houses, including his childhood auntie’s house, had been pulled down to widen the streets at the crossroads that described the Itakose, the city square. The name was apt—it literally meant the ritual space of confrontation. The streets were now secured with traffic lights, which, however, were not working at this time. But curiously the center square seemed to have remained the same in size, which seemed to be odd—very odd.

At this corner, he and two or three of his friends had gathered to witness one thing or the other. For something had always happened across the street in the neighborhood square, often involving the two notorious neighborhoods divided by the crossroads—a fight, a game, a celebration, a festival, or, simply, a gathering—always something that never failed to catch an eye. There, also at that corner, they had told wild stories about women they had sex with—although most likely in their dreams. What was true, however, was that at that corner in the dark of the evening, they had stood and tried to pinch the nipples or to grab the behinds of passing girls and then immediately took to their heels for the love of their faces that might get clawed. He smiled again at the memory.

More than just to recollect these childhood pranks in the neighborhood, he had come for something else. Finishing his court business earlier than he had thought he would, he had exited the courthouse, walked one block round to the back of the building, then decided to walk the distance of about two miles to this neighborhood. He had done so partly to see whether he still remembered the shortcuts of his high school days—through alleys, corners, narrow foot passages, and backyards, many of which he suspected had already disappeared through the face-lift of progress given by the present military regime. Just before he went abroad, he had moved with his auntie several miles from the neighborhood, in fact moved from the island to the mainland, for much of the area was surveyed and earmarked for the construction of a new highway that was now cut over and across. The expressway led in one direction to the bridge connecting the island to the mainland and, in the other direction, to Marina Drive on the island, which continued along the lagoon to the Victoria Beach. He saw this and the now-difficult access to what was left of the neighborhood, which he eventually came upon after some detours.

Yet all this wasn’t what he had tried to retrace his steps to see. He had come back to the neighborhood for something else, something less complex and more human. Ah yes, he recalled, it was to see whether Iya Itakose (Iya ’Takose for short) was still there, outside that square, selling akara, fried bean balls. The previous time he had come home, the thought of the woman had occurred to him, but then it was submerged by family matters. Those four weeks were spent, especially after the bar exams, visiting relatives young and old, distant and near, neighbors and acquaintances. At times, he had wondered whether those weren’t all that bother, those rather tiresome activities that finally took its toll on his auntie—for she wasn’t in the best of health when he arrived. Adding to the list of activities were, of course, those of his father’s congregation: the visits, the church ceremonies of welcoming, the events planned and waiting for him months before he arrived—events that marked the return of the prodigal, although successful, son of the master, as some of them would have it. All these were so demanding and exhausting, consuming the precious personal time to which he thought he was entitled. His spare moments he would have wished to spend with old friends, to reflect on and recapture the past, especially the fabus, the so-called embellished stories of his high school days; rather, all was taken away by family trivia. Since it was his first time home in years, he had allowed himself to be swept away by the emotions, even though all that fussing didn’t agree with his constitution. He had decided it was best to indulge and let himself be sucked in that first-time prodigal son that he was. However, after that matter of the monthly tithe was raised, contributions demanded of him, and in arrears, by his father’s church, he had quickly braced himself. He had put his Falashe foot down on that one. And then his auntie had died, so he had to spend two weeks more than he had planned.

Iya ’Takose, the akara seller, is still there. Or is she?

This time home, he had not told anybody in his family of his coming. He had written his friend Lakija to tell him he would be home on a business trip and staying at the Eko Hotel at Victoria Beach. Then he just appeared and didn’t even visit his father and some relatives until a few days after. They were surprised, all right, but what could they do other than drop their jaws in complete confoundment? His father didn’t show much reaction, for he was a great one for concealing his true feelings. When he was asked why he had come home and told nobody, he replied, with his father’s impenetrable calmness, that it was a short unexpected business visit. This time he was determined to have more time to reflect on the heartwarming activities of his youth, to at least visit with Lakija, now a physician. He could have chosen to stay with him, and Lakija expected that, but Olumofin had to remind himself that he was not really home for a vacation. For it took too long to get anywhere in Lagos, and with Lakija living on the mainland rather than the island, it would have been an unnecessary inconvenience every morning getting to the Supreme Court on the island. At any rate, the hotel accommodation came with the business trip.

Yes, it’s Iya ’Takose all right, now older and with more gray, frying the same akara that he loved so much.

Her location had changed somewhat, for obvious reasons. He recalled that her shed used to be situated at a convenient corner of the square, well away from the access roads and with enough space around the square for people to stand and chitchat while purchasing akara. Now the location seemed to have been eaten up by a roundabout for motor vehicles. Indeed, it was difficult to remember where anything had been. The demolition of some houses around the square, to give way to the widening of the roads and the construction of office buildings, had changed the layout. Yes, the whole neighborhood, Olumofin thought, had taken on a new look, although much of the adjacent neighborhood had suffered more from the recklessness of the military power. Come to think of it, part of the square had disappeared along with the houses, which would explain its seeming insignificance. One of the houses that had vanished, he now realized, was one of those whose architecture gave Lagos its remarkable Brazilian connection. Why they had obliterated such a historic building—a structure that should have been the pride of the Lagos Creole culture—he would never know. And that was not the only historic building that had been leveled; others around the city, he was told, had also been destroyed, ravaged up by the thoughtless face-lift commanded by the military regime.

A few old houses remained around the square, their facades repainted or renovated over the years. As for the streets, they had been simply widened and resurfaced to accommodate the roundabout, except for an access that was reconstructed to be a major road leading to the ramp that went on to the expressway. And there were now narrow shoulders along the sides of the streets for pedestrians. On one of these was Iya ’Takose, wedged to a tight corner between the front of a shanty house (probably hers) and an open gutter from a broken slab, a space too small really to accommodate her small business. But this position somehow made a statement to Olumofin. For it was clear that the woman, although pushed into a corner, could not be moved from her neighborhood. Not by any politician nor by the city council nor by the police or the army. That would make sense, considering the way everybody regarded her in the old days. They’d probably given her a wide berth because of her curses—curses that had been reported to leave permanent scars on bodies. She could not be moved. Anybody could see that unlike her previous space, the location she now carved for herself was dangerous with the heavy traffic moving along the streets. Because she defiantly fit her shed and girth in that corner, every passerby was forced to compete with the moving traffic. The whole place had become so congested with motion, sound and dirt that it was a wonder how pedestrians had survived such an accident-prone, unhealthy corner. Perhaps many hadn’t survived, what with the numerous road accidents and health epidemics that, Olumofin heard, had beleaguered the city in recent years. Yes, Iya ’Takose’s position was a provocative statement to the powers that be, showing up the terrible ironies of their face-lift.

Iya ’Takose had survived. There she sat as she used to, behind her wood-burning iron stove, with a large basin between her enormous thighs, with her right hand whisking the batter, probably not as fast as before, whisking and scooping the batter with cupped adroit fingers into the sizzling oil. There she sat behind the stove, the wide arms of her buba-blouse rolled up on the right side and tied at the shoulder, revealing her fat arms and part of her large bra covering her enormous breasts. She had survived the accidents, the political climate and problems of health, survived all these years—a wonder! But she appeared now to have an apprentice, a maid who perhaps did most of the preliminary work. Most unlikely the assistant was a daughter, a granddaughter, or a niece, any of whom should be at school at this time of the day. However, one couldn’t be too certain of anything in these days of economic strife.

A wind rose and fell. Olumofin looked at the sky again. Perhaps it would rain, but hardly a storm—a sprinkle or two maybe, and it would be sudden. He wondered whether he should go to a travel agent to change the date of his flight back to the United States. He looked again at the headlines and the picture of his father on the front page of the Daily Service. He then briefly scanned the news story.

Just what kind of shit is this? he found himself muttering. If his father was entertaining the thought of involving him, he’d better think again. At any rate, it wouldn’t be possible, for he had to go back. Even if he didn’t have to, it wasn’t possible. With absolute certainty, it just wasn’t the kind of case that he would consider, not for anything in the world, not even for the sake of family.

He knew his father inside out. He knew all about his practices, of which he had strong disapproval. Yet, something had always fascinated him about the old man’s prophetic pontifications, especially compared to those of his American peers, like Billy Braggs of Olumofin’s resident state of Louisiana—Billy Evangelico Braggart, as he would prefer to call him. His father, Jesus of the Well, was no different, except that Olumofin had always thought there was a special African touch to his father’s religious approach, a peculiar flavor that secretly amused him. But to get involved with evangelism at all, let alone his father’s brand of it, was quite another matter. There he must draw the line—if only for the sake of his mother, who had died when he was seven. Died perhaps of a broken heart, Olumofin thought, because of all the goings-on in the name of religion, practices that now became exposed in the newspapers. He considered for a moment how his father would have reacted to the news and pictures when confronted, for he knew him only too well. Even as the crisis teased Olumofin’s temper to the quick, the thought of his father’s calm, emotionless reaction drew a short-lived smile to his face.

He sighed and shook his head as he mused over some of his father’s self-styled accolades: Jesus of the Well, oracle priest, apostolic prophet, mystic, philosopher, herbalist, miracle healer, minister of faith… sexual pervert, Olumofin added.

* * *

In the dark recesses of the vestry of his church, the Apostolic Celestial Tabernacle, dimly lit to create the desired effect of mystery, Jeremiah (Difala) Falashe, alias the Prophet, alias Jesus of the Well, was in consultation with a sheep from his flock—a woman, of course.

"Barefaced kernels of words on the oracle board, my sister. Will you blame me for holding up my ears to the tidal winds of prophecy that chafe them? Ifa oracle says this child, your child, is unnatural, do you then turn to the oracle priest and accuse him of casting blemish on your child? Do you accuse him of ‘disfathering’ your sex digression? What does he care about who mated with whom or whether you were a wife or a concubine or just a victim of Ogun’s licentious celebrants? Who says an unnatural child is a bastard and can come to no good? A child is a child! Except that Obatala has created this one a special case, for consequences best known to him—and the consequences may favor you or him or both. For what got the creative fingers of the creation god to create hunchbacks, cripples, and albino, you may well ask. I say a child is a child. Deadbeat fathers who throw up their hands and voice, refusing present responsibilities for their past pleasures, must beware. A child is a child. What happens hereafter is a mystery of growth, of upbringing, of life! Those whose patient ears are tuned to the vibrating waves of the earth must sooner or later gain knowledge of the mysteries of their childhood and then make the most of their fate. There, you have it, even as it is written in the Apostles, the one with ten talents rejoices and multiplies; that with one talent grumbles and loses all. Actually, it could happen the other way around. Our forefathers believe it does happen the other way around—an irony of life? Let us pray, sister, let us pray for more wisdom on this matter. I am the light and the connection between the Word and the oracle of our ancestors. Believe in me. I am the interpreter of the total Word, the combination of the Testament and the Ifa oracle. Believe in it. I am the healer of divergent faiths. Believe in me. I am he…"

Last time Olumofin came home, when he got into an argument with his father regarding his doctrine (actually the argument emanated from the tithe demand), the Prophet, in his nonchalant expressionless posture, simply moved the ball from his church court to the world court.

Look around you, son, the world is in chaos. The world needs a connection with all the forces of the universe, a new interpreter who could make that connection, a messiah. I’m surprised at you, coming from America, questioning the validity of my mission. But then, you children of nowadays question anything. Look around you. Look at your America, your Oscar ‘Word’ Roberts, your Dr. ‘Crystal’ Moons, Billy Buddy Braggs, the whole lot of them. Or are you going to tell me you are ignorant of these things?

I didn’t say I approved of those evangelists.

I think not. But then will you allow such people to come here instead, come to our very own, and tell us about religion? Do we not have ours to hold on to, hold and explore even with their Christian doctrine, indeed, their questionable doctrine?

Olumofin couldn’t argue long with his father. He was as usual indefatigably tiresome. For he would never see eye to eye with any but those who believed his convictions. At any rate, what does one do with a crook who knows he is a crook, though he won’t confess it, and is convinced that he’s doing it for a good cause, a cause beneficial to mankind?

And look at you, a lawyer, his father had continued. This is not the way I expect a son of mine to think, you, my son, a born lawyer! I hope you don’t think I’ve given you your name for nothing. He creased a meaningful smile, in reference to the pun on the name, Olumofin, a god who knows the law.

As always, his father had veered away, with deliberate twist, from the subject of his practice. But as Olumofin had always said, his father’s days were numbered.

Barefaced kernels of words on the oracle board, sister. Do you see nothing? The sky is immense but grows no grass. The eye that looks down shall for certain cast at the nose. So I cast my oracle nuts again, there! Now, do you see nothing? Do you hear nothing? A patter of rain on an empty gourd; but water builds inside it, soon fills it, and overflows. And then, will you see nothing? God inhabits and moves in mysterious ways, even as I, his apostolic messenger, inhabit and move in you. And do you feel nothing? There, there, your child will be a special child, a miracle child, sanctified, by my holy intervention… Ah! Set your thoughts on my mystery. Set your thoughts only on my seminal mystery. So be it. So be it… I am he!

Thus, his client set her thoughts, and she felt the power descend and move in her. She did so, and thereafter, her doubts evaporated like vapor in the heat of the liminal experience. There, the light, the heat, the generator, the ecstasy, the spiritual father, the intercessor for sinners, Prophet Jeremiah Falashe, once Difala by name—a coffin maker, Olumofin added, in case we forgot.

* * *

In the whispering of the wind, in the moaning phrases of rustling reeds, a storm. By the thumping in his heart, the hammering on a common nail, Difala heard, there would be a deluge. He heard. What else could have told him to abandon the chisel and the hammer—the coffin was not yet ready? What else could have turned his head to the disused dry well at the center of the market? What took possession of him to invade the market shrine of Esu, the fate god?

That was the story everybody knew—how his father, son of a respectable oracle priest in a village town, rose from pauperism as a carpenter to becoming the evangelical Holy Head of his Celestial Apostles. The story of the miracle that earned him the title Jesus of the Well. How it happened, who witnessed it and spread the news, nobody of Olumofin’s generation knew, except that it happened a long time ago for certain, before Olumofin, could begin to figure things out. It happened, and nobody had stopped to question it. Apparently there were first disciples—whoever they were—witnesses who had seen and spread the word far and wide like a forest fire.

Olumofin’s mother must have known, for it was from her mouth that he first heard it. But beyond the general story, she would say nothing, except that his father was a special man, sent by God and our ancestors to redeem mankind. This was remarkable, coming from a woman who was not formally known as his wife, according to Olumofin’s auntie. Anything further could not be coaxed from his mother’s mouth. Perhaps these were secrets that wives (or concubines) were sworn to. And then she died when Olumofin was just beginning to raise questions about life and death, God and mankind. That was the end of that, at least till he was more comfortable with his auntie who took him to rear thereafter. She was his mother’s sister and she had no children of her own. She knew the story and seemed to disagree with some things regarding his father; but she said nothing, until later, when Olumofin had taken to her, and she to him, like mother and child. Even then, some matters were better left unquestioned in that household; matters about God and existence were nothing to be discussed with children. One should accept things the way they were and had been put down in the scriptures from time immemorial. Then at twenty-one, Olumofin by chance received a government scholarship and went to England to study law.

Yet, for as long as he could remember, long before he crossed the seas, it was those stories in the Bible, those and their relation to the present situation. It was those ambiguous contrasts that had often raised questions—the loopholes and the mysteries that Olumofin often found within them. All those stories had troubled the querulous mind of his youth. Later, when he was more educated and gained more knowledge, he had come to certain conclusions about religion, evangelism, and his father. As far as he was concerned, the matter about his father would be blocked from his mind thereafter; it somewhat was blocked, until now that things came to a head. The matter had resurfaced and, along with it, the stories and the mysteries.

For days, he had disappeared from the neighborhood, Difala, the coffin maker—according to the story. Nobody seemed to know where he had gone, not even his half brother, a bookie who sometimes came from the city to this village suburb just to visit him. Difala had disappeared, raising some concern in the neighborhood, in particular about his leaving unfinished coffins in his work shed. Some people had come to pick up their orders and had left in anger, confused, helpless, and in tears. Sorrow upon sorrow. Where would they start looking for another coffin at such a late hour? In fact, that was the first time the neighbors knew of his disappearance. One neighbor then remembered Difala’s door had been locked since the day before and, come to think of it, there had been no hammering or chiseling for a day or so.

Another neighbor thought Difala had behaved weirdly for the past two weeks, irritable and distant. She never questioned him, but she knew something had bothered him. The matter would come out in due time, the neighbor was certain; still, she was dying to know. His disappearance confirmed her suspicion. But what the matter was or why Difala took action, she was at a loss to say. In hindsight she thought she should have been more aggressive; but he should have had more faith in his neighbors, enough to voice out whatever was worrying him.

Another neighbor noted she had never seen Difala confide in anybody, not even in her husband with whom, she could say, among the men in the village, he had more often spoken.

Perhaps he traveled?

True, he sometimes had, though not often. He had gone on occasion to visit his brother in