One cold evening Captain Paul had hardly retired to bed after two cold beers when he heard a knock. He got up and went to open the front door. He opened the door and there was Helen. "Come in! What can I do for you at 11p.m.?" Paul asked abruptly. Helen knew he didn't want to see her. She composed herself. "Won't you ask me to sit down first?" she asked.
"Okay, sit down." Helen, a confident woman, clearly knew what she wanted and how to go about getting it. She had an uncommon sense of timing, which gave her power over many things, even men. But Captain Paul Krubo remained the only man she had not conquered. He seemed most slippery.
"Paul is a challenge, like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro without food, oxygen, even without shoes. I will catch him. He will walk into my trap with his eyes wide open," she had boasted to her colleagues in the barracks.
"Helen, you are married!" he replied.
"And so what?" she asked.
He wanted to insult her but held back his tongue. She felt like provoking him the more. "Won't you show me 'round your house?" she asked.
Before he could say anything she began moving around the house like a tenant inspecting a new flat. She entered the bedroom. Books were strewn over the rug, and badly kept mattress. "Get out of that place!" he shouted.
She composed herself and pretended not to hear.
"Paul, I am a risk you must take or else..."
"Or else what Helen?" he asked
"Or the risk takes you," she spat out.
He mellowed a bit. Some ladies can be very dangerous when things don't go their way. He must be careful, he said to himself.
"Helen, please. I can't do whatever it is you want me to do."
"You can do it, Paul, and I command you to do it! That's an order."
A senior officer's wife is an officer too! She looked drowsy. Her breath reeked of alcohol. She had apparently taken several bottles of beer to shore up her courage.
"And where do you hang your rank, my dear officer's wife?" Paul asked in an incredulously tone.
"That's what I want you to find out here and now!" she ordered.
"God forbid! You are a total disgrace to your husband and womanhood. You are Jezebel, Satan and Potiphar's wife rolled into one," he shouted.
"Paul, you are a prophet, believe me you are. I can see you have read a lot of religious literature, which in any case can never save you. I agree I am Potiphar's wife, and you are holy Joseph. Remember how holy Joseph paid a price for his stupidity?"
"I can't do what you want. Get out of my house now!"
"In that case, Paul, you would be court-martialed and appropriately sentenced for desertion in the face of battle." Paul began to laugh, but his laughter was cut short. "Paul, what is the penalty for desertion in face of battle?" Helen asked.
In spite of his anger Captain Paul chuckled at her sense of humor and wit.
"Helen, you are a clown. You said you are an officer. Every officer knows that desertion in the face of battle is the surest way to death," he replied between chuckles.
"In that case, Captain Paul Krubo, I hereby today sentence you to death for humiliating a lady!" She turned and left the house leaving behind her blue handbag.
He took it and flung it at her. She stopped and made a pronouncement, "Paul Krubo, I shall put a noose around your neck like a goat, and I will be pulling the rope bit by bit till you are dead. Dead with your eyes open." She delivered this chilling warning slowly and deliberately. "You will have no opportunity to learn politeness again, dead man." She turned and left, and for the first time in Paul's life, fear overcame him.
Colonel James Bello returned from the peacekeeping assignment. Missing in action didn't translate to death this time around. He came back alive. He had been captured by rebels and was a prisoner of war. Helen chose to lay low. Paul married Rahila, a girl he'd been with and broken up with seventeen years ago. Their marriage was a union between "a big boy and a big girl." Both had seen better days and were running out of time.
Captain Paul had made himself a cup of tea after returning from a hunting expedition, his new wife ensconced beside him. She closed her eyes and held him as though something was about to snatch him from her. A deafening knock at the door jolted him. "Who is it?" he barked. "Open the door quick or we will break it!" came the terse reply. "Break it if you dare," Paul shouted back. Machine gun fire replied rat-ta-tat, scattering the lock. The door caved in to a heavy boot kick. "You are under arrest Captain Paul Krubo," a voice called out. Paul sat, still holding his wife tight as she shivered as if she had malaria. Six heavily-armed soldiers came into the room. He didn't struggle with them. "What have I done?" he asked.
"You have been undermining national security," the officer in charge replied. They were all in mufti. Paul was handcuffed and marched to the Land Rover outside. His wife screamed and tried to prevent them from taking him away. One of them knocked her out cold with his gun butt. They put him in the back of the Land Rover with other handcuffed soldiers, some looking confused, others frightened. Two were sobbing softly. "What did they say we did?" Paul asked again. No one answered him. "Where are they taking us to?" Paul asked again. This time he got a reply from the officer in charge. "You are all going to the Ijele Maximum Security Prison. For now no one has the time to try any of you. We have confirmed the involvement of all of you in the coup plot." They were too shocked to say anything. They were driven straight to the Maximum Security Prison and hurriedly documented. "Take all of them to the Condemned Prison Block," a senior prison warder, who, to Paul, stood out as the most vocal, instructed. The rest were like garlanded sheep on the altar of some unknown gods. "This is violation of Articles Five and Nine of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Paul shouted. The warder burst into a loud guffaw, "Wetin be woman rights? Who go give you woman to sleep with here, you day craze?" The prisoners were fed cassava bean powder once a day for the first month.
"I was told that a pole has been erected and a drum of sand placed behind it in preparation for an execution," Captain Iro said. "Who told you?" Paul Krubo asked. "The prisoners who participated in the work," he replied. No one in the condemned cell block works; once you are condemned no one bothers you.
It was midnight on November 10. Most of the prisoners except Captain Paul and Captain Makaila were asleep. They were the first to hear the crunching of military boots. The sound increased as the men came within visible distance.
"Captain Makaila, get up make we go," the warder ordered. Captain Makaila felt a single iced-cold dribble down his spine. The other prisoners woke up but were too numbed to say anything. They all stood watching. "Pray for me, Captain Krubo," he said battling back a tear. About twenty minutes later Captain Makaila was taken away. The sound of several gunshots shattered the midnight serenity.
Every month's end the executioners came for one accused person; it became more like a ritual. Several of them stopped eating, but were forcibly fed, Paul included. He took to waiting for his turn. He hardly slept at night. One day, after the afternoon meal, he lay down and began looking at the floor of his cell, when a voice jolted him: "Captain Paul, today you join your ancestors. The gates of hell are wide open waiting for you."
The guards had come for him like for all the others, but the strange thing was that they came in the afternoon. This was no time for executions in Ijele Prison. All executions were usually at early dawn, 4 or 5 a.m. "You are coming with us; it's your turn to taste hot lead today. You look like a dead man already, but that can't stop us from shooting you, even if you turn to a ghost. Let's go," the Major barked. Captain Paul didn't care anymore. He walked quietly and briskly. The guards were surprised at his composure. He really didn't care anymore; he gave up the morning Captain Mikaila was shot. Life had become real torture. Living in the shadow of death was worse than death itself. He wanted to end it all.
The Land Rover went through the gates. He had lost a lot of weight from the hunger strike. His hair had turned white. His beard, moustache and sideburns were overgrown. He looked scraggy and gaunt like a malnourished cat. The Land Rover stopped in the bush after traveling for over two hours, and the officer in charge spoke, "Captain Paul we were ordered to take you and expose you to the shadows of death and we have done our assignment. Now jump down and go home to your people." The Land Rover had pulled over in the bush, a few kilometers on the outskirts of town. He jumped down and walked to the nearest house. He was surprised the environment looked very familiar — the rocks, clean clear stream, and the farms. But that was not Iropo but Iwu village. He went to the motor park and began to beg the drivers. "Please take me to Iropo. That is my village," he pleaded. "My lorry will be transporting goats to Iropo. Go and sit among the goats," one of the drivers offered. Captain Paul gladly jumped at the opportunity. The lorry arrived in Iropo at midnight. He slept at the motor park before trekking to his family compound the next morning. A lot had changed in the village, he observed. Now there was electricity, a new hospital and a primary school. The village had become noisier. He arrived home to find his father sitting outside smoking his pipe and drinking. The old man couldn't recognize him. "Good day sir," he greeted. "Who are you?" he asked. "I am your son, Paul Krubo." The old man's pipe dropped from his lips. He went silent for a time, too confused to speak, "No! No! I have buried my son, Paul Krubo. Paul died last year. Wait for me, wait here." The old man took to his heels.
Helen learned of the incident and began searching for him until she found him living in the abandoned caravan within a game reserve.
"Paul, you are dead. You can't convince anybody that you are alive now. Only I know the truth." Let me rehabilitate you somewhere else. You know I have the money and contacts. I love you."
"No, you loved me unto death. I am dead now and you can't have me," Paul said.
"No, listen, you are not dead. You are alive and I love you." He looked at her in a strange way; she felt uneasy.
"Paul, what is wrong with me?"
"Nothing."
"Why can't you reciprocate my love?" Tears accumulating in her lower eyelids gathered like a dam about to burst.
"I can't love you, that's all. I don't even trust you. It's no mechanical thing, a thousand death threats; tortures like I have gone through won't change anything. Helen, I don't love you, and will never be yours. Go home to your family!" he shouted.
"Paul-P-aul," she inched forward, "I will do anything for you."
"Do one thing for me, keep off!"
His words hit her like huge hammers crushing a victim.
"Paul, my love for you led me to do all I did to you. If I wanted to kill you I would have done that long ago. You were like a fly on my palm. I could have slapped my palm against the wall and killed you instantly. Let's go together, Paul!"
"Where? I am not going anywhere with you, and I am not even sleeping here tonight, since you have discovered this hideout."
"Fine, Paul! We are going together." She inched forward drawing very close to him. He pushed her forcefully. She almost fell.
"Keep off, woman!" he warned.
She looked at him: thoughts flooded her mind. She did not know what had come over her. What is this thing called love? Handsome men, men of power, influence and stature, have all tried to woo her. She snubbed them all after taking advantage of them. But here she was, in the midst of nowhere pleading with a man not fit to polish the shoes of some of them; this must be insanity. Could someone go to the psychiatrist and declare himself mad? She asked herself. Helen had everything but yet felt that without Paul she had nothing. What is this thing called love?
"Helen, please go back home and don't tell anybody you saw me. If you do they will think you have gone mad and take you to an asylum. I am a ghost. I intend to remain one for the sake of my privacy. It feels better than being a human being. I am now a ghost and I have no business with humans. Please leave!"
An awareness that he was being too hard on Helen suddenly overcame him. He mellowed down a bit. One must always treat a person who loves him or her with full respect. The respect must be more if that love cannot be reciprocated. He remembered saying this to his younger sister, Titi, who loved maltreating men who openly showed her love. The advice didn't change her; she still maltreated them all the same.
"Paul, only I, Helen, know you are alive. These passports, new cloths and toiletries are for you and me. Look, I have given you another name. She opened the passport and showed him. We can move out to a small quiet country together."
"Helen I have heard you. Do you have any money here?"
"Yes, I have enough for flight tickets to any country in the world, look!" She brought out a bundle of dollars from her handbag. Paul looked at her. It had never occurred to him that a woman could be this dangerous, nor that love could be this deep. "It is a great privilege to be loved by anybody at all," Paul used to say. He remembered this saying now and felt sorry for Helen. He didn't want to harm her in anyway, though killing her would have been the only way to a lasting cover. After all, one can't take a ghost to court for murder. He had to start a new life. He opened the new passport she brought him and read his new name aloud: "Kim James! I like my new name, Helen."
"Thank you!" she felt better. "Let's get out of here. It's getting dark."
"No, Helen!" His blunt response shocked her. She knew there was no hope.
"Helen, please go. Go. Please go".
She turned and left without a word as if sleepwalking. He called after her. She didn't answer.
"Come back and pick up your things. Helen, a ghost does not need a passport. I am no person," he shouted at her.
"She will come back. Women are funny," he told himself. He closed his eyes and tried to relax.
"Pah!" The sound of a distant gunshot jolted him. He ran after Helen. The gunshot could not have come from a hunter's gun, since part of this area belonged to the Mankari Game Reserve, and hunting was banned.
He crossed the small stream, and behind a shrub he found Helen, face down in a pool of blood, an officer's service pistol by her head.
Samdi Lazarus Musai was born in 1965 and occasionally writes. He gatecrashed while writers were having a party and was mistakenly let in. He is a Medical Research Fellow by profession and lives in Maiduguri in far Northeastern Nigeria. He has had his short fiction published in several anthologies , online journals like Serendipity (U.K.), MagicalRealism.com, Blackbiro Online, and newspapers like New Nigeria and The Standard. He has read on the BBC World service—one of his old works can still be found on the BBC True Lives website. He won the Alliance Française Lire en Fête prize for short stories in 2008.
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Osaigbovo Donald
2010-12-18 23:02:58
Hello Doc, I was the Youth Corper attached to Imbreed Farms when you were the farm manager. I thought of you this morning when I remembered the novel I borrowed and read from you while in Kirinowa. I decided to google your name and was lucky to find you. How are you and the family? I'm in Benin with University of Benin as a lecturer (Snr Lecturer)in the Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture.I wish you the best of the season. Pls let keep in touch. It nice knowing you and thank you sincerely for all the support during my service year. Best regards!
Donald.