My Ex by Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

There is something deceptive about the born-again phenomenon. I think of this every Sunday when I drive down Church Road to the golf course to honour my weekly challenge with a couple of friends. The buildings -some mere batches- of different designs which line the entire length of that Road with their noisy loudspeakers directed at each other told many tales of what cynicism and hopelessness could do to a people. But perhaps more absorbing are the church goers themselves. Clad in their Sunday bests with Bibles and hymn books in hand, waiting for buses, crossing the roads, emerging from or disappearing into those rat-holes of church buildings, they brought to fore one of Karl Marx’s most popular quotes.

But that wasn’t what the deception was all about. Since I caught or rather chanced on my roommate back in the University, a pastor of one of the hip and happening campus fellowships, necking feverishly with one of the “sisters” who supposedly visited for a special Prayer session, I had ceased to take any one who flaunted a born-again status seriously.

I was then just a freshman and before my second year, I had come to appreciate the easiest tactics for acquiring a new girl friend on campus. All you needed to do was to attend a fellowship session and make sure you walked out to the dais when the call for “those worshiping with us for the first time was made”. Sisters were always assigned to follow up the new male members and for so many, I inclusive, the follow up visits of these sisters ended up turning from spiritual to emotional sessions. I have never ceased to marvel at just how creative these “holy” girls could be behind closed doors.

So when I first sensed the born-again thing in her, I knew I was in for some thrilling experience. Stacy was her name. We met at a poetry reading. I wasn’t a big fan of poetry my appreciation of it not going quite beyond Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but on that day I had gone all the way to Wuse II to listen to the shy Jumoke Verissimo read from her new collection; I am Memory. A review of the collection I had seen in a local daily had one of the most respected names in Nigeria’s literary circle remarking that “Miss Verissimo remakes language beyond lyricism”. I wanted to be a witness.

Just as the usually drab Q&A session began with such banal questions as why do you write, what inspires you, who are your favourite writer’s etcetera? beginning to fly around, I felt a soft touch from behind accompanied by a soft voice demanding to have a peep at my copy of the collection. She had just arrived I guessed and still had this look of a pupil arriving late to a mathematics class - cursing herself silently for coming late and wondering just how much she had missed. I felt some pity but I didn’t however fail to notice the radiant beauty, one which had me speechless for a couple of seconds before my hands got to pass the book over to her.

I saw something more to the beauty, brains. Later that evening as we shared a meal at the Wuse II Mr. Biggs outlet and all the way as I drove her to her house in Lugbe. Before that evening was over, I knew we were going to repeat this and indeed we did. We met every day of the coming week talking -arguing really- on a wide range of issues; on why Kongi isn’t the greatest, or why Achebe deserved a Pulitzer, or just what could be done to restore the glory of creative writing in Nigeria. She was passionate and I had often intentionally taken the less popular side in the argument, making very illogical claims just to tease and get her adumbrating to the point of near infuriation.

We took the same stand on an issue for the first time when we made love on one hot Saturday afternoon at my place two weeks after the poetry reading. In a way, it was essentially also an argument, she on top riding, whining, moaning and digging her finger nails deep into my flesh. Me, beneath bearing over 60kg, galloping in the alternate direction with my waist doing the salsa dance. Her sensual vituperations sounded as though she was speaking in tongues like I had heard her do the other day she invited -virtually dragged me- to the mid week fellowship of her church.

I had entered the place feeling like an alien. I was an orthodox Christian by birth but I had not been to a church in a long while. I had found it almost impossible to justify why I should toil so much only to deposit a share of it weekly for a man who does nothing but tell me about what is already written. One day I decided I had had enough of contributing for the Reverends new car or his wives new Adire business, so I stopped going to church. I knew what it entailed to hurt another person and I avoided such. That to me satisfied the primary requirements for living a good life. It wasn’t long before I started feeling that familiar irritation inside Stacy’s church. Without sounding insolent, the place looked more of a social gathering than a church with girls so lewdly dressed, gyrating excitedly, their firm mounds joining in the rhythm, inviting -tempting- any man who decided to take more than just a careless look.

The pastor, one of those returnee Nigerians dished out his American accent-coated sermon like water from a sprinkler. Better came out as ‘berra.’ His hair was curled and a glistering suit, the type with price tags that ran like telephone numbers clung to his shoulders. He was saying something about Psalm 23, a psalm I had memorized at age six, and for some reason his congregation kept jumping up excitedly at the end of his reading of every sentence like they were hearing it for the first time. The high point of the day was however when the prayer started and I heard and watched Stacy reel out phrases, which became sentences which soon turned into pages and pages of incomprehensible jargon's. When I asked later in the car what it was all about, she had told me she had been overtaken by the spirit.

So as we lay backs to the bed and eyes to the ceiling, exhausted after our feverish bout of desire had expired, I imagined that she must have been overtaken by the spirit a while ago. It had all happened in a flash. She had arrived looking edible in a tight jeans and a sky blue blouse which gave more than a generous view of her twin pointer. I remember swallowing hard when I first caught sight of them while opening the door to let her in. Her demeanour betrayed her desires. I didn’t need to demand, she gave. I was afraid that perhaps the spirit might have now left her and she would soon begin to regret every thing. But not so, it soon became a routine, at her place, in my place and once even in the back seat of my car. The sex was good no doubt, but I couldn’t help the feeling of guilt that seemed to seep out along with the sweat as we lay gazing at the ceiling and the circling fan hanging from it after each bout.

I wasn’t a righteous person, I never laid claim to being one. Issues like fornication mattered very little to me but with Stacy, a supposed born-again it felt so wrong. Unrighteous people appreciated the existence of the righteous and wished they remained so, at least to maintain the balance between good and bad while nursing a silent desire that perhaps one day, they too would become righteous. My born-again girl friend was born-again in every other issue but in my bed. Every speech was laced with lines like “My pastor said”, she paid her tithe as at when due, had every tape of all the Sunday sermons in a rack in her house, spoke in tongues and was a worker in the church. Often she rushed off to one church meeting or the other right from my bed still reeking of the Passion play we just acted. It didn’t feel right. It filled me with a dizzying urge to act out on God’s behalf, like it hurt me so much that He was being cheated.

My discomfort which came in the form of a needle-like pricks beneath my feet had every thing to do with my strongly held principles; you are either here or there, no in-betweens. I felt those pricks each time Stacy’s actions had to conflict with her born-again status, like when we met one of her fellowship sisters in Ceddi plaza and she introduced me blankly as Mr. Bode, like I was some stranger she just met, or when I on her invitation attended a Talk their sisters fellowship organized for singles. Stacy had been one of the speakers and had with a lucid oratory spoken on a wide range of issues among which was a reminder that “our Body was the temple of the holy spirit”.

I had felt those needle-like pricks, so strong it felt like I was going to die of them on the day we broke up. It was a Sunday afternoon. We had just exhausted with a wave of desire and she was, her hand mirror in hand, making up to meet up with the Evening Service of her Church. She had spent the night at my place and had a ready excuse for any one who asked why she wasn’t at the morning service; “I was on Night shift”, an excuse I had heard her give on the phone to her co-church workers right from under the covers of my bed on countless occasions. The excuse found justification in the fact that she worked at The Sheraton and sometimes, she was genuinely on Night shift. As I watched her artistically line her eyes with a pencil that evening, the pricks of guilt overwhelming me, I decided to tell her I didn’t think it was right for her to still attend Church that evening.

Initially Stacy thought it was a lure for more. “Common baby, can’t you ever get enough of me?. I mean I was here all night.”

“You seem not to get me”

“I understand baby just that I have to attend church. Ok, I will head back here and go to work from here tomorrow. Is that alright?” She spoke with all her attention at the mirror.

Her reply only served to increase the pricks.

“Must you go?”

“Of course you know I have to”

“why?”

“Because... why all the questions honey?” she dropped the mirror and turned to face me. Her face had that look she always had when we argued. She thought I was in for an argument. She always won the arguments or rather, I always let her win just so as to make her happy. Like some days ago when while watching television together, an advert on the new Information ministers effort at Image laundering was aired and I had made a derogatory remark about it, describing it as another ill fated effort at deodorizing dog poop. Stacy had taken it personal saying every thing good, or she thought was good about it. Essentially she was celebrating the Minister whose efforts at freeing Nigeria of fake drugs is celebrated, not offering any logical justification for the millions to be spent on trying to ‘pancake” our image as a nation. I knew better, that over a billion was expended by a similar effort in the past that yielded no result and that common sense provided that you don’t succeed in riding a room of the foul smell of a decaying rat by spraying an air freshener. You had to take time to find and remove the offending carcass before your air freshener would be of any worthwhile effect, but I just let her talk and talk, at the end, I planted my lips against hers, conceding defeat.

She wasn’t going to win this particular argument however. It wasn’t really an argument; it was me telling her that she was doing a lot of disservice to her self by living a shameful life of deception. The loud bang of my door as she stormed out summed up how she felt at hearing me say all I said, and those I did not have to say. The pity I felt for her was genuine and I thought I needed to apologize but she wouldn’t pick my call and when I called at her place, she refused to let me in.

I saw her again at the next Reading. She was sitting three rows behind me. The Guest writer this time wrote short stories, and while he was busy explaining the complex use of present and past tense in his stories, I turned my neck in an effort to make eye contact with Stacy. I had done that repeatedly all evening without success, but this time, our eyes met and I could see that beyond the chairs and people that separated us in that little hall was a mutual feeling of regret; gallons full of regret flowing from the knowledge of what was and what could now never be. When I turned my neck again, she was gone.

My Ex-girlfriend was written by Sylva Nze Ifedigbo
Copyright Sylva Nze Ifedigbo 2009.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo was born in Abuja Nigeria in November 1984. He attended School for the Gifted Abuja and holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Nigeria. In 2007 Spectrum Books published his debut novel “Whispering Aloud”. His essays and short stories have appeared in Nigerian dailies as well as online.

The Saxophonist by Anengiyefa (Part One)

He was tall and dark. And very handsome. And it was to him that my eyes were instantly drawn the minute the band started playing that sultry night all those years ago at the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti's night club, known as the Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. The attraction was magnetic. I'm not sure that I remember which of his songs Fela sang that night, or how lasciviously Fela's female dancers gyrated their nearly naked bodies, or how amazingly the musicians played Fela's mind-blowing music. It was him, just him for that night.The Shrine would on a normal night have a crowd of revellers something approximating 500, all of whom were dancing, singing, drinking and smoking cigarettes and weed. This place was a haven for smokers of marijuana, which was illegal outside the walls of the club, but perfectly permissible inside. Indeed if you didn't indulge, you were considered freakish. The crowd typically would consist of a large contingent of university students, (I was one at the time), several European embassy types who were exploiting the opportunity to see Fela in his full glory, for a pittance, as compared to what they would have had to pay to see him perform in Bonn or Amsterdam; it was also an opportunity for them to let their hair down and smoke a few joints openly, without fear or shame. Then there would be members of the general public, the atmosphere buzzing with an electric anticipation until Fela started his performance. Then everyone would be drawn in by Fela's magic and the wild party would begin.

This was my first time at the Shrine, but I liked the atmosphere. The energy, the excitement of everyone around me was contagious and I got caught up in it. And so the band started playing and the crowd went wild, but through all of this my eyes fell upon this magnificent specimen of the African male, in the far left corner at the back of the stage. I don't recall how it was that I was able to make my way from the back of the crowd where I had been standing when the music began, to a position beside the left side of the stage, close to where this man was playing his saxophone so beautifully. I guess I just needed to be closer to this man, even if only to take a closer look.

From the moment I saw him I had not moved my eyes from him even for one second. It was as if a spell had been cast upon me and I was in a trance. I did not realise that he too had picked me out from the hundreds of people in the crowd. But just then, our eyes met while he was still on stage. And I knew. I just knew. Typically, Fela's performance at the Shrine would last for several hours and it was normal that halfway through the night there would be a break, as this was a live performance. At break time, the musicians would mingle with members of the crowd, and this was the chance that we had to make first contact. I'm usually a bit shy and reserved, but on occasion I can surprise even myself by how bold I can be. Not that I needed to be too bold this time, because he too seemed keen to meet me. His gaze never left me after the music stopped, as I stood rooted to the spot, being unsure what to do next.

To my great surprise and pleasure, this man put away his saxophone, came off the stage and walked towards me, staring at me. And without flinching I moved towards him too. In no time, we were standing very close to each other, facing each other our chests almost touching, seemingly relying on the pretext that the crowd surrounding us provided us little room to manoeuvre our bodies. He towered above me and I felt his warm breath on my face as he looked down into my eyes. I'm sure he too would have seen in my eyes how totally mesmerised I was. Without saying a word, he put is arm around my shoulders, and with his eyes signalled that we should proceed outside. I was completely overpowered by the raw masculinity and strength of this man and I melted against his body as he shepherded me to the exit and then outside to the street, where several others had made their way, presumably for some respite from all that smoke inside the club.

After the introductions, we were both pretty sure we were on to something. He couldn't keep his hands off my body and we stared and smiled into each other's eyes as we exchanged stories, still standing very close to each other out there in the open. In Africa, it is not unusual for male friends to hold hands or embrace in public. I told him I loved the way he had played with the band; although this was not entirely true since I had been focused on him the man, rather than on the music. As a member of the band, he had been privileged to travel all over the world with Fela and I had just recently returned from a holiday in Brazil, something which I'd had to scrimp and save for, for years. Anyway it gave me something to talk about, and since he too had once been to Brazil with Fela, we had something in common to discuss those few moments that we were together. Our first meeting lasted for less than half an hour, because he had to go back inside to join the band. But for the rest of that night I was on a high. I returned to my position close to the stage and danced and sang to Fela's music, knowing that this wonderful man was watching me and enjoying it too. I was dancing for him, perhaps a bit provocatively when I think back, but as far as I was concerned, he was blowing his saxophone just for me. He was watching me dance and I loved the fact that he was taking it all in.

When the show ended, I could see that he was unable to separate himself from his duties with the band. So I left the Shrine, knowing that I would be back on Friday.


I went back to the Shrine that Friday. And this time I made certain to go alone as on the previous occasion I had accompanied a group of my friends from university. And of course, I was sure to arrive early, in order to enhance the likelihood of meeting Moses before the performance began (let us call him that for the purpose of this story). On arrival, I made my way to the backstage area, feigning the innocuous wide-eyed curiosity of an excited and awe-struck Fela fan, primarily to bamboozle my way past the burly bodybuilder bouncers who were the scourge of any foolish troublemaker at the Shrine, and of these there were many. Anyway, I successfully made it into the inner sanctum of the nightclub, not quite believing how daring I had been at the entrance. As is to be expected, there was a lot of activity going on, Fela's girls darting about, giggling as women are wont to do, while preparing themselves for the night's performance. And as everywhere else inside the Shrine there was the ever present cloud of cannabis smoke hanging in the air. The lighting was low so it was quite an effort moving around the backstage, from darkened room to darkened room trying to locate him. Thinking back now, I can only wonder how easy it would have been had this been happening today when everybody owns a mobile telephone. Back then, the thought of a personal mobile phone was still in the realm of science fiction.

Eventually, out of the corner of my eye I spotted him bending over something on the floor, at the far end of a corridor. It was dark you see, and I wasn't sure if that was him. Yet I was very sure that it was him, Moses, that man because of whom I'd laid awake at night, every night since last Tuesday when I first heard his voice and felt his touch. There could not be another person backstage at the Shrine who looked anything remotely like this man, whom I had been unable to keep out of my mind since I left this place three nights ago. So I moved closer and had almost reached him before he sensed that he was being approached. Then he looked up and recognised me, the expression on his face a combination of shock, surprise and delight. He beamed, flashing that dazzling white toothed smile at me. Oh Lord, I wished this was a private setting, I should have leaped into his arms. But no, I just smiled back, genuinely feeling a bit shy about the fact that I had taken the bold step of coming to find him backstage. He must have noticed too, so he made me relax by rising from what he was doing and walked to meet me. He said "Hi baby" and then he embraced me. I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven. The hug had happened so naturally. I held on tightly to his body, feeling as if I had arrived at my destination after a long and tortuous journey, never wanting to let go of this man who made me feel so special. It was hard to think that I had met Moses only once before, because being with him now at this very moment was as if I had arrived at a place I had always wanted to be.

I felt safe and so secure. This man was strong and he pulled me close and held on too, but we were both mindful of the fact that we were in a space that was accessible to all the members of the troupe of performers. And so reluctantly, we let go of each other. I was a bit shy (or pretended to be), so I turned my face downwards, towards the floor, smiling. We didn't talk much, we just let our facial expressions and our bodies do the talking for us. Moses crooked his finger under my chin and turned my face upwards towards him. I raised my head and looked up into his eyes. I knew he could tell that I was totally infatuated with him and he pulled me close again, this time being careful not to make contact with that part of our anatomy that is below the waist. I put my head against his chest as I hugged him and I could feel his heart pounding. We held on to each other again, tightly. In my head I could hear myself saying, "my love, where have you been all my life? I'm so glad I've finally found you..." But that line of thought was abruptly disrupted when Moses suddenly jerked and let go of me. I looked up at him and followed his gaze down the corridor towards a female figure who was approaching us. She did not seem to have seen us, but Moses had seen her and had reacted in the way that he did for a reason...

The Saxophonist was written by Anengiyefa.


Copyright Anengiyefa 2009.

I grew up in a suburb of the city of Lagos, Nigeria in the 1970s and spent all of my childhood and formative years there. That city more than any other, is my home. I fulfilled my childhood ambition of becoming a lawyer when I was admitted to the Nigerian Bar sometime in the mid 1980s and went straight into law practice. But it was not very long before I became disillusioned with the system in Nigeria. I persevered for as long as I could, but seized the opportunity when it came to relocate to the UK in 1996. I have been living in London, UK since then and have since re qualified and been admitted to the Roll of Solicitors of England and Wales. I enjoy the challenges thrown my way in the work that I do and my profession is a big part of my life.



But then I've also discovered another love, a new found love of creative writing. In February 2009, I surrendered to a long held desire to start a weblog. In writing the blog I gradually drifted towards writing stories, episode by episode, making up the details as I went along. The stories I have written and the ones that are still at the embryonic stage in my mind are all based on real life experiences and situations, of myself personally or of others I have known. But the accounts are fictionalised.



I stumbled upon ST while on one of my web surfing expeditions. I was moved by the fact that several other African people were similarly motivated to write creatively such that I felt a compulsion to join this group of African writers. And I was pleasantly surprised when Ivor Hartmann read one of my scripts and thought it good enough for me to be admitted as a ST author. I have never had anything published previously, save for the odd contribution here and there to Nigerian and British newspapers and magazines, usually one strong opinion or the otherr. ST is the first venue at which my creative writing is published and I cannot say how pleasing this is. I know this is supposed to be an autobiography, but I was not going to let slip the chance of expressing my immense pleasure.

We Shall Be Together by Christopher Mlalazi

MaKhabo walked into the kitchen. Zodwa sat alone at the table, a cup of mahewu in her hand. Another cup was in front of an empty chair on the same table.

‘I don’t want to hear anything about it anymore,’ maKhabo said as she pulled the chair in front of the cup.

The cup was also full of mahewu, and it had been prepared by Zodwa as maKhabo had been on the phone in the sitting room. She heaped two teaspoonfuls of sugar from an enamel sugar basin into the cup and stirred, her brow furrowed.

Zodwa’s face was expressionless. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform. She had just come in from work where she had been on night duty. Outside the kitchen window, which had its curtain pulled, the day sparkled with the morning sun, as if it had been dusted with a cloth by a Godly hand.

MaKhabo sniffed, and drank the mahewu. ‘Surely how can I allow you to do that and call myself your mother?’

‘You do not like him because he is a flea market vendor,’ Zodwa spoke in a clear voice.

‘Yes if you want the truth. And you are a nurse.’

‘He is sitting for his exams at the end of the year. Next year he is going to be an accountant,’

‘What if he fails?’

‘After all self employed people are making better money than the employed these days.’

‘But there is no security. What if people don’t buy?’

MaKhabo sipped from the cup again, and then stirred the contents with a table spoon.

Zodwa was staring at her. A pot of water whistled on the stove, nearing boiling.

Suddenly, maKhabo gripped her stomach, her face twisted in pain. She stood up and staggered out of the room, moaning painfully. There was the sound the bathroom door banging closed. Zodwa stood up. She followed her mother out of the kitchen, and came to the bathroom door. From inside the bathroom came the sound of retching, accompanied by cries of pain. She opened the door a little, reached inside with the right hand, and removed the key from the lock inside. She closed the door and locked it. Inside the bathroom, the sounds of retching continued.

***

Fabulous was a very happy man. He was dressed in a brown new suit, and carried a plastic carrier bag with a live chicken inside, its head peeking from the top. Today business had been good at his flea market stall in town. Tomorrow he was travelling across the border to Botswana to buy more stuff, and he was going to make sure he bought Zodwa a present too, something nice, like earrings, or a blouse. He thought about buying her underwear also, but no, it was embarrassing buying that from a shop with all the women staring

Zodwa had phoned him on his cell to come over and spend the day with her at her home. ‘What about your mother?’ he had asked.

‘She has gone to the rural areas and is coming tomorrow,’ she had said, and he had felt his heart nearly miss a beat, for that meant spending the night over there too, something he relished. They had done it several times over the year whenever Zodwa’s mother visited out. An only child, Zodwa’s father was in self imposed economic exile in Canada.

‘What did she say?’ he had asked her over the phone.

‘Just come and I will tell you,’ Zodwa had said.

He went in through the gate, which was not locked. The house had a wire fence around it. He got to the door and knocked. He waited, and the door opened.

Zodwa stood inside, dressed in all black. Fabulous raised his eyebrows at her, almost shivering. There was something eerie about the dress – black for him was for mourners.

‘Come in,’ she invited him, and moved aside.

He walked into the sitting room, and the door closed behind him as he walked towards the coffee table in the middle of the room, where he wanted to deposit the chicken. He heard the key turning in the lock.

Behind him, Zodwa picked up a small axe that balanced against the wall beside the door, and hid it behind her back with the right hand. She looked at Fabulous. He had reached the coffee table, his back still to her. In a sudden move, she strode swiftly towards him, her bare feet soundless on the carpeted floor. Reaching him, she struck him on the top of the head with the axe, its blade sinking in deep. Fabulous tumbled to the floor.

‘Sorry my love,’ she was crooning as she neatly laid him on the floor facing upwards, and laying his arms over his chest. Blood was soaking into the mat from the ugly gash on his head that showed his brain matter.

There was the sound of a thud on the door. She picked up the axe, and looked at the door, her face expressionless, still kneeling over him. Then the upper body of a policeman in uniform flashed past the window, headed around the house. She stood up, the axe still in her hand, now gripped tightly.

***

Dlodlo had been in the police force for twenty years now. He lived by chimbadzo, and he borrowed from maKhabo, heavily. He had just knocked off from duty, and, still in uniform, was headed for maKhabo’s to borrow more, although he doubted she was going to give him anything, because he still had not paid for last month.

Three houses away, he saw a man in a suit enter through maKhabo’s gate. Another client, he thought. Though he stayed in the neighbourhood, Dlodlo did not know this man. Still walking towards the house, he saw the man knock on the door, and then the door opened and the man walked into the house. The door closed again - he had not seen who had opened it. He got to the gate, went through, and came to the door. He noticed that the curtain over the window to his right was not closed, and he could see into the house. And what he saw filled him with shock.

In a sudden move, he grabbed the door handle, trying to open it - it was locked. He raced around the house to the back, snatching up a log on the way from the ground. The kitchen door was not locked. He ran into the house, past the bathroom door, into the kitchen, and then into the sitting room. Zodwa was standing on a chair, a rope around her neck, and she was pulling the other end around the roof beam.

Dlodlo leapt at her and bowled her to the ground. She did not offer any resistance. He pinned her to the ground with his a knee on her stomach, and quickly handcuffed her hands. He looked at the face of the man on the floor and felt bile rise to his mouth. He raced for the bathroom, turned the door knob, it was locked, but the key was on the lock. He turned the key, opened the door, and stumbled into the bathroom, bile already spraying from his mouth, and had another shock. Through a fog of tears, he saw the body of maKhabo lying on the ground in a pool of vomit spattered with blood.

***

When he came back into the sitting room, Zodwa was no longer there.

***

She was discovered the following morning by women going to the forest to till their fields on the railway track. Dlodlo was one of the police who attended the scene. Her body, her hands still handcuffed, was lying on the rail embankment, and it was headless. A piece of paper was pinned to the front of her dress with a thorn. Dlodlo was the first to read it:

‘We shall be together in heaven, where God does not discriminate between the poor and the rich. Amen.’

We Shall Be Together was written by Christopher Mlalazi.


Copyright Christopher Mlalazi 2009.

Christopher Mlalazi writes prose, poetry, drama (TV and stage), and also children's fiction.



In 2004 he received the HIGHLY RECOMMENDED citation in the Sable Lit Mag/Arvon (UK) Short Story Contest. In 2007 he was shortlisted for the HSBC PEN SOUTH AFRICA SHORT STORY CONTEST, and in 2008 he was awarded the OXFAM NOVIB/PEN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARD.



He has published short stories in Zimbabwe, Europe, as well as on the web, and was also published in the 2005 Cain Prize Anthology (Orbituray Tango),the 2006 Edinburgh Review, and the 2007 AFRICA PENS. In winter of 2009 he is publishing his debut short story in The Literary Review (USA).

Currently he is working on a novel he hopes to finish by mid 2009, if not earlier, and has a stage play under rehearsal.

On the 14th of Feb 2009, Christopher was awarded the NAMA in the Outstanding First Creative Published Work category for his debut book, a collection of short stories called Dancing with Life.

Big Pieces, Little Pieces by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

Father was very particular about his belongings. Take the time when Mama burnt his Che Guevara shirt, the frayed one with a black and white man who looked like somebody called Bob Marley but without his dreadlocks. You had always thought that shirt was a sweaty-smelly thing because Father wore it only when he went to some place called ‘Jim’ which made him sweaty-smelly. But the way he smashed Mama’s Philips iron against the wall and screamed what kind of nincompoop destroyed something so revolutionary, made that shirt as good as new...

This story has been selected for the StoryTime anthology African Roar, please go to the African Roar site for more info on the anthology.

Big Pieces Little Pieces was written by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma.

Copyright Novuyo Rosa Tshuma 2009.

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is currently pursuing her studies at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her short stories have been published in anthologies in Zimbabwe. She also has short stories in forth coming anthologies by Modjaji Books and ‘Story Time African Roar’. She won third prize in the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2008. Her short story ‘You In Paradise’, which won the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009, was published in the eighth issue of African Writing Online. A young writer of lofty literary ambitions, Novuyo continuously searches for those spaces where colourful minds meet through scribbled thoughts to dissect the many fluid perspectives of the world.

Dry Leaves by Eghosa Imasuen

“I sure say na here I keep the money. Look, see the waterproof, now? They tore it.” Mesiri was distraught – his shoe-polish black complexion glistened with sweat in the cool morning. We had a lot of guests left over from Tuesday night. It had been a boys’ night and we had had fun, unbridled since no girls were allowed. Even Roscoe’s girl, Mamode, who had been the immediate reason for the ‘celebration’ – she came back to school in the first week of December – had been escorted to our junction for a bike at ten pm. Our neighbours, Fra, Preppa, and the twins – distant cousins of Roscoe had spent the night. All our doors had been kept open. Everybody moved around freely. Who could have stolen the money? Mesiri said he kept the cash in a black polythene bag in the top half of his wardrobe. He stood on the reading chair as he showed the assemblage of his friends the empty bag. It had been ripped open and was quite empty.

“We have seen the bag,” I said, “Mesiri, come down from there before you fall. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“But why would anyone take my money? I give when asked, don’t I?”

“Them no break the door?” someone asked, I think it was Ejiro.

“No,” Roscoe said. “But no worry, Mesiri. We will catch the thief.”

We searched everyone. We overturned tables and chairs but found nothing. Tambo was very energetic about it. He lead the investigation, remembering who had last entered Mesiri’s room – me, and I almost fought with him when he said it – and remembering who, suspiciously, was not drunk enough after last night’s binge – that was Roscoe, who was the best at holding his liquor, although Tambo was not brave enough to suggest that Roscoe might have stolen the money. After an hour of ticklish pat-downs and upturned pockets amidst giggling caused by the pre-hangover we were all experiencing it was eleven and we still had not found out who stole our friend’s dough. Our guests, convinced of their own innocence, were fidgety and restless, in a hurry to begin the day and get to class. Tuoyo made a suggestion.

“Tambo, what of that juju-man’s place you took us to?”

“Which man?” Oliver Tambo answered.

Yeah, which man?

Tuoyo made Tambo remember, “You haven’t forgotten . . . . Last time when Kayode’s money went missing. Ejiro, remember now? In Yaba’s old flat! Yaba refused to go. Well, we went and this man drew some leaves and found out the thief was that chap Ayo from Delta State University.”

Ejiro said, “I remember. Oboy, that guy jazz dey work o.”

I knew what they were talking about. But was Tuoyo mad? Suggesting something like this. I voiced my reservations, helped in some measure by Oliver Tambo who still said he could not remember exactly the juju-man they were talking about. The others shouted us down and it was decided. We would go to the juju-man’s.

I went to my room to get dressed. I rubbed on some roll-on, there was no time to take a bath, and listened to Tambo.

He stood over me. He had changed into that old pair of jeans, the green ones we always laughed at. He combed his hair and gesticulated with his free left hand. “Yaba, I sure say na Roscoe cousins thief the money. You no see how fidgety them dey?”

“All I know is that this waka is nonsense. How can we, undergraduates, be going to a jazz-man, a juju-man? I can’t believe I am doing this. I don’t even believe in the stuff.” I looked up from my shoes and saw Tuoyo standing at the door. I asked him, “How does this work, anyway?”

Tuoyo was buttoning his shirt and staring at Oliver Tambo’s back when he answered, “The last time we submitted a list of our names, suspects, you know? This guy has some leaves. Dried, they look like mini-papaya leaves. Only they are stronger. He places them, alternating one against the next and draws them, trying to pull them apart. When the name of the real culprit is called, the leaves come apart.”

“Just so you know, if the guy calls my name and any nonsense happens . . . make una no try any rubbish o. I have already said my own,” I complained.

He ignored me and said to Tambo, “How can you say you’ve forgotten the guy?”

“I haven’t forgotten him o. I just think it’s a waste of time. I have already said who I think are the thieves. Na just Roscoe una dey fear, if not una for see say na’im cousins thief the dough.”

“Whatever, Tambo. Whatever. Dress quick, you’re still taking us there.”

Oliver Tambo smiled and said, “We will go. No be juju-man? Although I’m not sure if that exact guy is still in town. But juju-men are plenty in Benin. We will go.”

“Just, make sure you don’t carry us to any charlatan,” I said, “What am I saying? They are all charlatans!”

Fra, Preppa and the twins said goodbye to us, wished us luck and left for their place. I spoke to Ejiro and told him to watch the twins; to make sure that they did not suddenly start spending money. And that if they did to look at the denominations – Mesiri’s money had been in fifty Naira notes. The rest of us, Roscoe, Mesiri, Tuoyo, Oliver Tambo and me hopped on a bus to town. We were going to First-East Circular Road where Tambo said one juju-man lived. He was sure this was the one Tuoyo was trying to remind him about.

In the bus, Mesiri tried to tell me about his misgivings concerning – how did he put it – divination and necromancy. I told him not to worry; that nobody really believed that nonsense; that it was Tuoyo’s way of trying to scare the real thief into confessing.

“But who’s there to scare? Them Fra have already left.”

Roscoe, sitting beside us in the cramped tuke-tuke, spoke, “No worry. Anything the juju-man says, he says. We will go back and tell the person we most suspect that his name was picked. Someone will admit. No worry.”

“But who do we suspect?” Mesiri asked. Nobody spoke. I stared down at my laps and knew that my friends were doing the same. Who could have betrayed the trust? The house was free. It had to be an outsider. But why were we suddenly anxious about whom we each suspected? Was it because it might be Roscoe cousins? Did anyone really not want to hurt his feelings? No. That was not it. Could it be because each of us suspected the other? Suddenly I was jealous of Mesiri. He was in the clear and thus did not know what I was – and I was sure the rest of us were – feeling. A glance from a friend took on a completely new meaning on that bus ride. Was I being suspected? Does he think I am suspecting him? Everyone did the next best thing and just stared at his feet until we heard the conductor shout, “First-East Circular o. Who dey drop?”

We came down two NEPA poles from the junction and legged it to a small brown bungalow that had an inappropriately large signboard announcing the offices of ‘DR SPIRIT AND LAW, THE WHITE WIZARDS’. Dr Law was not around, Oliver Tambo reported after conferring with the gateman in Ibo. I had to admit, he knew his way around. He must come here a lot, I thought, as I saw him give a side hug to Dr Spirit. The doctor was a slight man. He was fair and had a tribal-marked face that broke into a wide grin after Oliver Tambo whispered something in his ear. He turned away from our friend and said, “Welcome, my friends.”

Everyone cleared his throat and shuffled uncomfortably. What was the right response to this welcome from a juju-man? I looked him over. He wore a tassel-filled dashiki and his exposed shoulders bore tattoos, one of a wizened old man on the right and a mammy-water on the left. He had short dreadlocks that shook as he laughed and told us to relax. We were safe here, he said. He showed us inside, conferring with Oliver Tambo all the way. He looked like a jungle reggae musician. I knew that Tambo was telling him about our wahala; about the reason why we were here. We entered a dimly lit room where our shadows danced in time with the single half-painted red, half-painted blue light bulb dangling from a wire in the centre of the ceiling. It was so clichéd that I almost giggled. I tried better than Roscoe; he actually snickered but stopped himself after he caught a look from Tuoyo. Tuoyo seemed uncomfortable and was frowning. I tried to sit next him so I could ask what the matter was but did not get a chance as Dr Spirit motioned us to a pair of goat-skin mats on the floor. I sat beside Tambo on one while Mesiri, Roscoe and Tuoyo shared the other. The placed smelled of mothballs, camphor soaked in piss.

Dr Spirit cleared his throat and said, in an asking tone, “Clement?”

Oliver Tambo seemed as surprised as we that someone had used his given name. He oohed and turned to me, “Yaba, give me the money.”

I asked him how much and, when he replied, handed him Three Hundred Naira for the thief-catching ceremony.

“Ehem! I hear that three of you are future doctors,” Dr Spirit said, “You know even we doctors must eat.” He put the money in a satchel that was tied around his waist and from the same bag produced a handful of what looked in the swinging light like chicken bones. He let loose a barrage of inanities and threw the bones on the ground. One almost touched me and I shifted further into my goatskin seat. He leaned forward, picked up the errant piece and asked, “Are all the people who were in the house when the money got missing here?” He spoke very good English.

Mesiri answered, “No, we left the others in Ugbowo.” I glanced at Mesiri and read the surprise in his face. He was impressed that the juju-man knew that there were others involved.

“I knew it,” Dr Spirit said, “I knew it because the oracle is telling me so. The oracle is telling me that the thief of your money is not in this room right now.”

Haba! I was actually impressed. Oliver Tambo pinched me and whispered, “I no tell you that the guy good. We go catch the thief.”

He had not told me any such thing. All he had been doing before we got on the bus was to complain that the trip was a waste of time; that we already knew who the thieves were. I had agreed with him then but now, I was not so sure. Deep down I knew I was here because of some macabre need to satisfy my curiosity. I felt like those oyibos in Hollywood fare who, after hearing a loud bang or suspicious whisper from inside a dark room, said, “Bob, what’s that noise? Let’s check it out.” They always died, gutted by a chain saw or Freddie Kruger’s fingernails. I saw Tuoyo glance at me and shake his head. He mouthed something at me. Bullshit? I was not sure what he said.

Dr Spirit threw the bones again and shouted, after repeating the inanities, “Aha! See these two bones? These bones pointing at you?” he was looking at Mesiri and had a strange gleam in his eyes.

My friend was hypnotized.

The doctor continued, “It was your money that got stolen, abi?” Mesiri nodded slowly as the juju-man continued, “You see how the two bones resemble? The oracle – insert some more inanities – is saying that two friends, or two brothers who look so much alike that they can be twins, stole your money. The other people who are not here, how many are they?”

“Five,” Tambo answered.

“Are any of them brothers?”

At first nobody answered. All eyes were on Roscoe. His cousins stood accused. I was not going to be the one to answer that question. But Roscoe had a small smile on his face. He stared down the juju-man until the latter was forced to avert his gaze and collect his bones from the floor.

Dr Spirit stammered, “All I am saying is that if any of them are brothers you should ask those about this boy’s money.”

Tuoyo spoke, “Thank you, doctor. We have what we need.”

*

Dr Spirit did not escort us outside. As we walked to the junction to take the bus back to school Tuoyo stopped and said, “No, Tambo. This guy dey talk nonsense…”

“I was afraid you guys believed the fraud,” Roscoe said.

I was ignored when I asked, “What about my Three Hundred Naira?”

Tuoyo continued, “Oliver Tambo, the place you took me and KO was in Second-East Circular, not First. Try and remember the place. Yes! You said then that he worked under your father in the bursary department.”

“I know,” Oliver Tambo replied.

“I don’t trust this Dr Spirit’s system. That guy’s own was out in the open. He drew the leaves in front of everyone and had a list of names. He did not bamboozle us with all that shouting and throwing about of dog-food. Everything was in our hand.” Tuoyo touched Oliver Tambo’s shirt sleeve and continued, “Look, Tambo. We will take a bus to Second. When we get there we will see if you remember the place. It is better than going back to school and trying to accuse people who even you don’t really believe are the thieves.”

Oliver Tambo finally remembered the guy. He operated out of his home in a muddy street off Second. He did the juju thing part time and was actually a middle-aged accounting clerk in the University of Benin’s bursary. Clement ‘Oliver Tambo’ Unegbu gave us a summary of Mr. Okoronkwo after we got to the junction on Second and walked, dodging puddles, to the man’s house. The dwelling was in marked contrast to Drs. Spirit and Law’s. Despite its surroundings which were muddy and brown, this house had a white-washed façade in front of which was a small vegetable patch in the shade of a large ebelebo tree under which three or four tomato shrubs grew. A small dark woman wearing gardening gloves looked up from the roots of one of the tomatoes and shouted, “Clement! You came to visit. How is your father?”

“He is fine, ma. Me and my friends have a little problem. Is Oga at home?” Oliver Tambo seemed distracted, his voice breaking as though his heart was thumping hard against his chest preventing the air from flowing smoothly out of his chest.

Mrs. Okoronkwo answered, “No o. He hasn’t come back.”

“Eeyah,” Oliver Tambo regretted. He turned to us, “That means we have to go back. He won’t close from work until five.”

I thought I saw relief in his face but Tuoyo and Mrs. Okoronkwo broke my concentration. They spoke at the same time.

“We will wait,” said Tuoyo.

“You can wait,” said the madam of the house, “He is on leave. He did not go to work today. He just went for his Umunna meeting. He should be back soon. The meeting is supposed to be ending by three and, look, it’s three-thirty already.”

There was nothing at all mystic about Mr. Okoronkwo’s sitting room. It was a family living room and had the necessary portrait of a smiling father and mother surrounded by their children, three in the case, hanging on the wall behind the TV. There was a large wooden rosary draped around the family photo. We took our seats on the pleather seats and politely refused Mrs. Okoronkwo when she asked what we would drink. She laughed and told us to stuff the politeness; that any friend of Tambo – Clement, she called him – was like a son to her and her husband. We accepted the soft drinks she brought and waited while she went back outside to resume her gardening in the shade of her ebelebo tree.

I turned to Tuoyo, “Is this the guy that does the leaf juju?”

“Surprised, eh? Now you see why I felt the first guy we went to was an idiot. And we wasted so much time there. Look at the clock. It’s almost four.”

*

Mr. Okorokwo was a chubby short man about the same height as his wife. He hugged Oliver Tambo, asked after his father and inquired as to why we had come. We told him. He smiled and left the parlour. When he came back he handed me – I was the closest to him – a piece of paper and asked me to write the names of all those who had spent the night in the house. I did this and by the time I finished I saw that he had changed into a two-piece attire of sackcloth. He sat on the linoleum floor in the middle of the sitting room and arranged the leaves. The famous leaves. They were exactly as Tuoyo had described them. They looked like paw-paw leaves except they were smaller and definitely looked tougher. He took the list from my hand and asked Mesiri, the owner of the lost money, to sit on the floor opposite him. He took Mesiri’s left hand in his and arranged the leaves, fourteen of them, so that Mesiri had seven stalks facing him. Between each of the leaves, whose stalks Mr. Okoronkwo told my friend to hold with his free right hand, were the others, seven too, with their stalks in the juju-man’s right hand. He finished the arrangement by placing a small metal statuette – it looked like a mask – on the leaves balanced jointly on his and Mesiri’s left palms. He explained, “What is going to happen is that . . . where is the list?”

“Beside you,” Roscoe said.

“Yes. I am going to call each name on this list and ask Akamune, our guardian, a question. If the question is correct . . . No need to explain too much. Let’s test it first.” He looked at each of us in the face. Then he looked at Mesiri who was sweating from every orifice in the blue-black body and reassured him, “No fear, my boy. No fear.” Then he started the test, “Akamune! Akamune, if Mesiri stole this money, release! My son, pull as hard as you can.”

Mesiri pulled. I saw his sinews stretching across his forearm and the veins in his neck stood out like matted dreadlocks. But the leaves did not separate. After a while the juju-man laughed and told him to stop pulling before he tore the stalks to pieces. “Abi are you trying to prove that you stole your own money? Oya, let’s try the opposite . . . . If it wasn’t Mesiri that stole the money release . . .” Before he finished, the entire contraption collapsed before our eyes and the statuette landed on the floor with a small clang.

After arranging the entire thing again, Mr. Okoronkwo asked for the list and read off it.

“If it was Roscoe that stole this money, release.” Nothing.

“If it was Fra that stole this money, release.” Nothing.

“If it was Tuoyo that stole this money, release.” Nothing again.

“If it was Yaba that stole this money, release.” My name; I had been busy trying to stop myself from correcting this juju-man’s distracting misuse of the word, ‘that’, noting that this papa had not yet asked for money. My heart actually stopped. I looked at Mesiri. He was pulling so hard that his neck seemed about to burst. Did he want me to be the thief? I wanted to shout at him to take it easy. After all it was my money that we were spending to try to get to the bottom of this. But in spite of Mesiri’s best efforts nothing happened. The leaves seemed held together by a force stronger than anything his muscles could offer. Nothing happened.

“If it was Preppa that stole the money, release.” Again, nothing.

“If it was Ejiro that stole the money, release.” Again.

“If it was Oliver Tambo that stole the money, release.” I expected this. Deep in me I think I always suspected. The leaves came apart and the idol crashed to the linoleum floor. Mr. Okoronkwo looked up, wiped sweat from his brow, and asked, “Who is this Oliver Tambo?”

Tuoyo answered, “It’s Clement’s guy-name.”

“Did you do this?” he asked his boss’s son.

We all saw the disappointment on his face. He went through the motions of rearranging the leaves and asked the oracle if the twins, Peter and Paul, had stolen the money. The leaves did not budge. After he was through with the names he reversed the questions and when he got to Oliver Tambo’s name, asked, “If Oliver Tambo did not steal the money, Akamune, don’t release.” The leaves came apart like a deck of cards shuffled by an inept dealer. He did not pick up the statuette this time. He stood up from his squat, helped Mesiri up and said, “Well my sons, you know who the thief is. It is this Oliver Tambo. This Clement. You can wait outside now. I want to speak to him.” He touched Mesiri on the shoulder as we filed out of his home, “Don’t worry, my boy. He will return your money.”

*

We waited outside the door and tried to ignore the shouting inside. Tambo was getting a thorough washing down. It was mostly in Ibo but I think I heard the juju-man say something about what ‘Clement’s’ father would think if he heard what his son had done. I was too distracted to take part in the small talk Roscoe was making with Mrs. Okoronkwo. Why was Oliver Tambo always fucking up? This was like a replay of what happened in year one when we were robbed. Tambo had been at fault then. Would we forgive him this time?

When Oliver Tambo came out he immediately started talking, “I no tell you say the jazz dey work? Yaba, I no tell you?”

“Tambo, shut up,” I said, “No use my scepticism to hide what you did. You stole the money. Why? If you were broke, you could have asked. You wouldn’t have been refused. You know that.”

“I know. I was owing. I owed dues . . .”

“Dues for what?”

“You know now . . . My confraternity dues . . .”

“When you take the money?” Tuoyo interrupted him. He was smiling at our thief.

“During the night. Just before them Fra came over for the party.”

“And you wanted us to believe the twins took it?” Roscoe had left Mrs. Okoronkwo. I think we were all speaking quietly because she was still within earshot. Maybe not. Maybe we were tired. Tired of the long day. Tired of Oliver Tambo’s games. But we were being pretty civil. Nobody was going to touch Oliver Tambo. All we wanted was for him to return the money. It was good that he had not had a chance to spend it.

“Where is the dough?” Tuoyo asked.

“In the garden. Under the shrubs by Mesiri’s window. I threw it out the window after I took it. See, my guys, I’m sorry. I owed money in my confra. They for beat me. Please, abeg. I go give the cash back.”

Of course, he was forgiven. What were we going to do to him? But his name was tarnished. We would have to tell Fra and his flatmates. We could not just say that Mesiri had been mistaken, could we? Mesiri would not take the fall for Tambo’s stupidity. Oliver Tambo told us that when we got to Dr. Spirit’s place he had begged that juju-man to cover him. That he stole the money but wanted Dr. Spirit to say someone else took it – the twins. He had not expected Tuoyo to be so adamant about coming to see Mr. Okoronkwo. He even admitted that he was planning to return the money and maybe accuse Mesiri of misplacing it deep in his dark wardrobe.

*

On the bus ride home, in the gathering darkness of a precipitate December dusk, Mesiri spoke to me, “I no fit forgive am o. He will have to move out. Eventually, he will have to move out. I don’t want him in my room ever again.” He spoke in urgent whispers. I noticed that this was the first thing he had said since we left the juju-man’s home.

Dry Leaves was written by Eghosa Imasuen and is an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Forget.

Copyright Eghosa Imasuen 2009.

Eghosa Imasuen was born on 19 May 1976. He is a medical doctor and lives in Benin City, Nigeria, with his wife and twin sons.

He has had his short fiction published in online magazines like blackbiro.com, african-writing.com, africanwriter.com, and thenewgong.com; and has written articles for Farafina Magazine. He attended the inaugural Adichie-Wainana-Fidelity Bank Writing Workshop in August 2007.

His first novel, To Saint Patrick, an Alternate History murder mystery about Nigeria’s civil war, was published by Farafina in 2008.