The red wetness made Richard feel faint. “Harrison! Good God. What happened to you?”
“Good afternoon, master.”
“Were you attacked?” Richard asked.
Harrison came inside and placed his tattered bag down and began to laugh. Richard stared at him. When Harrison raised his hands to untie the bloody bandage on his head, Richard said, “No, no, there’s no need to do that. No need at all. I’ll call the driver right away. We’ll take you to the hospital.”
Harrison yanked the bandage off. His head was smooth; there was no gash, no mark to show where the blood had come from.
“It is beets, sah,” Harrison said, and laughed again.
“Beets?”
“Yes, sah.”
“It isn’t blood then, you mean?”
“No, sah.” Harrison moved farther into the living room and made to stand at the corner, but Richard asked him to sit. He perched on the edge of the chair. The smile left his face as he began to speak.
“I am coming from my hometown, sah. I am not telling anybody that our hometown is falling soon so that they are not saying I am saboteur. But everybody is knowing that the vandals are close. Even two days ago we are hearing shelling, but the town council say it is our troops practicing. So I’m taking my family and our goats to the inside-inside farm. Then I begin coming Port Harcourt because I am not knowing what happened to Master. Even I am sending message with the driver of Professor Blyden since many weeks ago.”
“I didn’t get any message.”
“Foolish man,” Harrison muttered, before he continued. “I am soaking cloth in fresh beet water and tying them in bandage and I am saying I am survivor of air raid. It is only how the militia people are allowing me to enter lorry. Only men with wounds is following the women and children.”
“So what happened in Nsukka? How did you leave?”
“It is many months now, sah. When I am hearing shelling I am packing your things and I am burying the manscrit inside box in the garden, near that small flower Jomo is planting the last time.”
“You buried the manuscript?”
“Yes, sah, because if not they are taking it from me on the road.”
“Yes, of course,” Richard said. It was unreasonable to hope that Harrison had brought In the Time of Roped Pots with him. “So how have you been getting on?”
Harrison shook his head. “Hunger is bad, sah. My people are watching the goats.”
“Watching the goats?”
“To see what they are eating, and after seeing they are boiling the same leaves and giving their children to drink. It is stopping kwashiorkor.”
“I see,” Richard said. “Now go to the Boys’ Quarters and have a wash.”
“Yes, sah.” Harrison stood up.
“And what are your plans now?”
“Sah?”
“Do you plan to go back to your hometown?”
Harrison fiddled with the arm bandage, thick with false blood. “No, sah. I am waiting until the war is ending so I am cooking for master.”
“Of course,” Richard said. It was a good thing two of Kainene’s stewards had gone off to join the army and only Ikejide was left.
“But, sah, they are saying that Port Harcourt is falling soon. The vandals are coming with many ships from Britain. They are shelling outside Port Harcourt now.”
“Go on and have a bath, Harrison.”