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George Okoro took a deep breath and lowered himself into the
bathtub. He had just come back from the office and, as he
relaxed in the tub, the water dissolved his tiredness. He
splashed the water and soap lather over his body, scrubbed
vigorously, and lounged some more in the tub.
George sighed with contentment, as he got out of the tub,
towelled, and slipped into a bathrobe before stepping into his
sitting room, the sweetness of the bath still lingering on his
mind like the fading fragrance of an ageing perfume. He nearly
fell down as he stepped on the arm of a chair turned upside down
on the floor. He caught himself and stopped to see what was
wrong.
It was then that he noticed: his sitting room was in a
complete mess. “Christ have mercy!” George swore aloud as his
heartbeat thumped against his chest. Unconsciously, his face
contorted in a mixture of fear, panic and wonder. His thick
lips hung open, bright red; gone from his checks was the healthy
coffee hue, and they sagged from shock. Little globules of
water sailed unnoticed down his large, hairy arms, like dewdrops
down tree leaves after percolating in the early morning sun.
Quickly, the condition of his living room spread through and
suffused his numbed mind like drops of dettol in water.
Everything was turned upside down. Even his long and heavy
settee. Incredible! His television set and compact disc player
were on the thick, multi-colour Arabian rug. Their remote
control modems lay carelessly near them. This had all happened
within the ten minutes or less he spent in the bathroom. And he
hadn’t heard any sound whatsoever. It had been swallowed up by
his splashing in there, George thought. It occurred to him that
whoever did this might still be around, waiting to upturn him
like another piece of furniture.
George ducked back into the bathroom, instinctively,
noiselessly too, and continued his survey from there. Just then
his eyes caught the white paper on the table. It was a distinct
white against the smooth nut-brown surface of the centre table –
the only thing that was not moved in the room. And it was not
there before. George tip-toed into the sitting-room and picked
up the paper. On it was scribbled in neat cursive writing: I
knew you were in the bathroom. I could have killed you, but I
do not want to yet. Meanwhile, nothing has been destroyed
here. Just rearranged, like I am going to rearrange you when
eventually I decide to get down to the kill. Bye. The note
was signed by Mr. Perters. George felt his blood slowly congeal
in his veins as cold sweat broke out on his face.
George walked to the entrance door to check it. Sure enough
it was open. He cursed his habit of leaving his door unlocked.
He locked the door firmly, and checked again to confirm before
walking back into the room.
“Mr. Perters Odogbolu,” George called quietly. “Mr. Perters
Odogbolu,” he repeated to himself, almost silently. The name
brought to life dead memories. George remembered the day he had
met Mr. Perters. That was about two week ago, shortly before he
employed a secretary. A tall, clean-shaven, soft-spoken man
with glassy eyes had walked into his office and had introduced
himself as Mr. Perters. The man had placed an order for a
personal computer and an electric typewriter. These he had paid
for in cash from an evidently expensive portfolio. George had
given the man a receipt from his own stock of fake receipts, and
had promised delivery 24 hours later. Two days after, Mr.
Perters came back demanding an explanation for the non-delivery
of his order. George denied ever seeing Mr. Perters in all his
life.
“I have a good head for faces and figures, and I am sure you
are the gentleman I paid to,” Mr. Perters had calmly replied,
and explained that he was given a receipt for the money he
paid. When he produced the receipt, George had, even more
calmly, explained to Mr. Perters that it was fake, and,
therefore, couldn’t have been issued by him. He had shown Mr.
Perters some original receipts and, to buttress his point, had
pointed out just a few discrepancies between the originals and
the fake one. Then George had, in and easeful manner, as if
that was the most natural thing to do, proceeded to tear the
fake receipt to shreds.
Mr. Perters had not flown into a rage. He had not thrown
any tantrums. He did not create a scene as George had expected
and was used to seeing others do. Mr. Perters had only looked
George coldly in the eye and said: “You think you are smart, eh?
We’ll see.” And quietly, with an unruffled dignity, he had
walked out of the office.
This being an unprecedented reaction, George could only
stare. Some minutes after Mr. Perters had gone, George was
still staring. Then he dismissed the man and the incident from
his mind, his experience with others he had treated similarly
having taught him that most threats were empty and cheap.
George remembered Mr. Perters’s eyes. Long after he had
pushed the man out of his mind and had ceased to worry because
of the man’s strange reaction, his memory of the man’s eyes
lingered. The eyes shone like long tall glasses washed too
clean with omo and filled with sparkling spring water. But they
had a disturbing effect on George’s soul. Staring into them had
been like drowning in a vortex of fire or losing grip and
sliding smoothly down a cauldron of acid.
And now this. George’s eyes went round the room again. Did
Mr. Perters really think this kind of joke would get him back
his money? He must be a great joker, this Mr. Perters, or
pompously queer. But that was a close brush anyway, must be
more careful next time, George admonished himself.
He crumpled the note, retrieved the waste basket from
somewhere and replaced it at the west end of the room, then
dropped the note into it. George then returned the furniture to
their places, carried his state-of-the-art compact disc player
back to its place. Gingerly, he picked up his notebook computer
and mobile phone handset from the floor and carefully set them
down on the small table beside his favourite armchair. As he
worked, he wondered why most men never realized that life was a
game without rules, that life was all about winning, all about
aggression and calculation. Life was for winners.
George carried his aquarium to its usual place on the glass
table by the big colour television. He stood and stared at the
fishes. He had always been enthralled by the similarities
between life in the sea and life on land: fishes living and
swimming in water, men living and walking in air; big fishes
eating small ones, strong men crushing small men.
Aloud he said, “And from those who do not have, even the
little they have shall be taken away from them. And they talk
about justice and fairness. Is life itself fair? The end always
justifies the means. Always. Mr. Perters, a big joke.” He
found his statement profoundly funny and began to laugh aloud to
himself.
George spent the evening at a drinking parlour nearby. The
bar was almost full when he got there. He shared a table with
two other men he met occasionally. One was balding, short and
thickset. He spoke with the air of a man who had been around
the world. The other was of average height, average
intelligence, average ambition, and –George could tell from the
way the men was always asking for the price of any item before
he ordered – average income. They were talking politics and
current affairs when he came, and because it kept his mind off
the thought of death, he gladly joined them. Together, they
talked about the nation’s unending transition to civil rule
programme, about the latest police effort at curbing crime –
Operation Sweep – how they shot people first and questioned them
afterwards, and about the galloping inflation that was gradually
making all kinds of food items unaffordable. The short man said
the inflation was no longer galloping. It was soaring like an
eagle in flight, but without the grace of an eagle. They drank
beer and stout and ate cow tail and goat head. The average man
expressed his gratitude about still being able to afford beer.
Most other men, he observed, had now resorted to palmwine or
burukutu or even ogogoro, just for a few moments of
forgetfulness.
It was almost midnight when George walked back to his flat.
His ebullient spirit froze immediately he saw a white paper on
the centre table in the sitting room. He was almost afraid to
go into his house. This was no longer his idea of a joke. But
this was his house and he had to go in. With a grimace he
swallowed his fear, like a stale cup of beer. He invoked
courage, went in and picked up the note. On it was written, in
the same cursive writing: I knew you were at Mama Mia’s. I
could have killed you then, but I do not want to kill you yet.
Why hurry? I will get you, whatever you do, wherever you are.
Enjoy yourself while you can. Bye. It was signed by Mr.
Perters.
George stood motionless in the centre of his sitting-room,
shocked. In the octopus-grip of the silence of night. This was
no longer a joke. It meant Mr. Perters now trailed him all over
town. He could be dead any minute. It was a situation George
didn’t like at all. Terror was something he liked giving, not
taking. Which was why he always intimidated into obsequiousness
anybody he duped. George would have preferred it if Mr. Perters
had raved that day for that would have given him the opportunity
to cow him thoroughly with threats and intimidation.
George stealthily headed towards the inner room. He paused
at the door and listened to know if there was a second party
around. Hearing nothing, he went into the room, and from out of
the corner of his eyes, caught a fleeting shadow. George spun
round immediately, but it was only the shadow of the rotating
fan he had left on earlier. He sighed with relief.
George kept seeing shadows, kept imagining Mr. Perters
hidden in every dark corner of the room. George saw terror take
form and breathe down his thick neck and, in his determination
to shake it off and also avoid a bullet visiting him with death,
kept jumping from one corner of the room to another, like a
frenzied pastor of a Pentecostal church. George brought out his
travelling bag and began to pack his things. He took only the
very essentials. It was no longer safe to be in this house – at
least not for now. He could not imagine how Mr. Perters lets
himself into the house. For all he knew, Mr. Perters might even
be in the room now waiting to kill him in his sleep, which would
be terrible: it was better to meet death eyeball to eyeball.
Because it was too late to knock anybody up, or to start looking
for hotel accommodation, George decided to pass the night in his
house and move tomorrow.
The next morning, George strode into his office with a
confidence he really did not feel.
“Good morning, sir,” his secretary cheerfully greeted,
looking petite and antiseptically clean in a tight fitting pink
suit.
“Good morning, Suzzy. How’re you today?”
“I’m fine, sir. And you, sir, I hope you had a good rest?”
“Yes, I did,” George lied. “Any messages for me?”
“None yet, sir.”
“Okay.” George walked past her. Then he stopped and turned.
“Suzzy,” he called.
“Sir?”
“Cancel all appointments for today. I don’t want to see
anybody.”
“Is everything all right, sir?”
“Yes, Suzzy,” George lied again, then added, as an afterthought,
“I just don’t feel up to them.” Which wasn’t really a lie.
“Remember you were supposed to meet with the Patent Council
over the allegation that we are illegally marketing….”
“I know, Suzzy, I do remember, but I don’t want to see
anybody. Cancel all appointments for today.” George stressed as
he turned and walked into his office.
The air-conditioner was already on. The room was chilled
and neat. Everything was in place. Suzzy was undoubtedly
efficient and George reminded himself to commend her about that
later. He walked past the door leading to his private urinal,
past his table, to the sliding glass window behind his executive
black leather chair; there he stood for some minutes staring at
life outside, his mind a hamper of unarranged thoughts. Outside
his window, up above, baleful clouds floating lazily about the
sky prophesied rain, cast a dark gloomy shadow over all life.
In the distance, from what looked like giant incense sticks
stuck on equally giant stands haphazardly scattered across the
city, smoke emanated and traced a course up the sky, a burnt
offering to the sun god for a possible shower of warm sunlight.
Skyscrapers towered above everything else. They always had a
buoying effect on him. It was as if they carted the human
spirit with them to star-heights. They signified the triumph of
man. Mind over matter. Now, as always, the contemplation of
Lagos city-scape had a calming effect on his restless mind, so
he pulled out his chair and sat down to work – or to worry, he
wasn’t sure which.
A little over an
hour later, George felt an urge to urinate and went into the
urinal. When he finished, he took some time to examine himself
in the full-length mirror in there. He looked impeccable in his
dark blue three-piece suit and matching polka dot tie. His
muscular six feet frame accentuated the fit the suit gave. His
chubby cheeks glossed in the light from the fluorescent tube
above. He had a day’s growth of beard, which saddened him. He
always liked to wear a clean shave, as it made him look younger
than his 38 years. But what time did he have to shave when he
had to run out of his house fast? Yet he looked every inch the
successful chief executive he was. Who would believe that he
had only just set out on his own, after a long stretch of
unemployment. And how would he have been here where he was
today but for cutting paths, taking detours, or creating them
where they didn’t exist? Real smart moves! And who said every
short cut was a wrong cut. George chuckled to himself,
contentedly.
Immediately he re-entered his office, he saw it – the
dreaded white paper. This time it was glued to the glass window
behind his chair, now slightly open the window before which he
had stood and surveyed the world outside. The skyscrapers
behind that window lost their buoyancy, and had a whittling
effect on George, instead. Like irokos cast in concrete, they
stood cold, menacing, daunting. George stood staring at that
piece of white terror, transfixed. Even in his office? There’s
no sanity anywhere in the world then, he told himself. George
found himself walking closer to read the paper: You wonder
why I still let you live. It is out of love. The love of
justice. For is justice not really love? What greater love can
a man show his fellow than to give him the opportunity to learn
the wickedness of his action. I could have blown off your head
from this window before you went out. That I opened your window
– slightly – symbolically attests to that. Packing out of your
house will not do either. You see, I am not as close as your
own shadow, for shadows die with darkness. I am your mind, your
conscience. And no matter where you hide, I’ll get you. But,
not to worry, it’ll soon be over. I promise you that.
Again, it was signed by Mr. Perters.
Suddenly, all self control and reason left George, as if
washed out by a strong detergent. Its suddenness can only be
likened to the quick and total collapse of the walls of a
fortification.
“Kill me. Kill me now,” George screamed. “You are already
killing me slowly. Finish it. Kill meeeee…” His palms were
rolled into fist-balls of rage.
Suzzy, George’s cheerful secretary, ran into his office.
George ran to and pressed himself against the wall. He wanted
to squeeze himself into the wall. He thought it was Mr.
Perters.
“Mr. George?” the secretary called, alarm in her voice.
“Go ahead. Kill me now,” George replied.
“Mr. George? What is the matter?” Alarm was now replaced by
shock.
“Leave me alone. Leave me allooonnnne.” George screamed,
his clenched fists stretched out before him.
Whatever was the matter, George needed help, his secretary
decided, and ran out of the office, in search of it.
George brought out the fake receipts and held them with the
tenderness of a mother for her little baby. Before tossing them
out of the window, he caressed them with deep emotion. They
were what had given him the sweet taste of the good life. But
how too soon the taste had gone rancid. He heaved a great sigh
of impotence, and surrender. He had thought that Mr. Perters
was either a great fool or a great joker; but now he could see
that Mr. Perters was a smooth operator. Mr. Perters had style
and finesse. Life was a game all right, but this time, he,
George Okoro, had played one game too many. Somewhere at the
core of his being he had a sense that it was all over. There
was no need to continue. Mr. Perters would get him. That had
already been proved. Mr. Perters had promised him that too.
Just then George’s face lit up. A shy smile played about his
lips as an idea hit him inside the head. Yes, he nodded. He
was going to show Mr. Perters that he was not gamesome for
nothing. He would have the last laugh yet. That overwhelming
satisfaction that comes from having fulfilled a yearning, or
from having won in a game, would elude Mr. Perters Odogbolu. He
would make sure of that.
George ran out of his office and through his secretary’s.
With even more speed he burst out of the office complex. People
were too busy wondering what a well-dressed gentleman could be
chasing so recklessly to stop him. It took two cars a few
minutes of noisy, violent interaction to turn George into a
mélange of bones, fluid, and flesh.
Top
First published in both English and French versions in Revue
Noire (30), September-October, 1998 (www.revuenoire.com/francais/s30.html). |
