“The only saboteurs we have are the ones Ojukwu invented so he can lock up his opponents and the men whose wives he wants. Did I ever tell you about the Onitsha man who bought up all of the cement we had in the factory shortly after the refugees started coming back? Ojukwu is having an affair with the man’s wife and has just had the man arrested for nothing.”
She was tapping her foot on the car floor. She always sounded like Madu when she spoke about His Excellency. Her disdain did not convince Richard; it began when Madu complained that His Excellency had bypassed him and made his junior a commanding officer. If His Excellency had not bypassed Madu, perhaps she would be less critical.
“Do you know how many officers he’s locked up? He is so suspicious of his officers that he’s using civilians to buy arms. Madu said they just bought some miserable bolt-action rifles in Europe. Really, when Biafra is established, we will have to remove Ojukwu.”
“And replace him with who, Madu?”
Kainene laughed, and it pleased and surprised him that she had enjoyed his sarcasm. His foreboding returned, a rumbling rush in his stomach, as they approached Port Harcourt.
“Stop so that we can buy akara and fried fish,” Kainene said to the driver, and even the driver’s stepping on the brake made Richard nervous.
When they got home, Ikejide said Colonel Madu had called four times.
“I hope nothing is wrong,” Kainene said, opening the oil-smeared newspaper package of fried fish and bean cakes. Richard took a still-hot akara and blew on it and told himself that Port Harcourt was safe. Nothing wa
s wrong. The phone rang and he grabbed it and felt his heart begin to jog when he heard Madu’s voice.
“How are you? Any problems?” Madu asked.
“No. Why?”
“There’s a rumor that Britain supplied five warships to Nigeria, so youths have been burning British shops and houses all over Port Harcourt today. I wanted to be sure you hadn’t been bothered. I can send one or two of my boys down.”
First, Richard was irritated at the thought that he still was a foreigner who could be attacked, and then he felt grateful for Madu’s concern.
“We’re fine,” he said. “We’ve just come back from seeing the house in Orlu.”
“Oh, good. Let me know if anything develops.” Madu paused and spoke to somebody in muffled tones before he came back on the line. “You should write about what the French ambassador said yesterday.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I was told that Biafrans fought like heroes, but now I know that heroes fight like Biafrans,” Madu intoned proudly, as if the compliment was one given him personally and he wanted to make sure Richard knew it.
“Yes, of course,” Richard said again. “Port Harcourt is safe, isn’t it?”
There was a pause on Madu’s end. “Some saboteurs have been arrested and all of them are non-Igbo minorities. I don’t know why these people insist on aiding the enemy. But we will overcome. Is Kainene there?”
Richard handed Kainene the phone. The sacrilege of it, that some people could betray Biafra. He remembered the Ijaw and Efik men he had spoken to at a bank in Owerri, who said the Igbo would dominate them when Biafra was established. Richard had told them that a country born from the ashes of injustice would limit its practice of injustice. When they looked at him doubtfully, he mentioned the army general who was Efik, the director who was Ijaw, the minority soldiers who were fighting so brilliantly for the cause. Still, they looked unconvinced.
Richard stayed at home the following days. He wrote about the forest markets and stood often on the veranda, looking down the stretch of road, half expecting a mob of youths to rush toward the house with flaming torches. Kainene had seen one of the burned houses on her way to work. A mild effort, she had called it; they had only blackened the walls. Richard wanted to see it too, to write about it and perhaps link it to the burning of effigies of Wilson and Kosygin he had seen recently at the government field, but he waited for a week to make sure it was safe to be a British man on the road before he left very early in the morning for a tour of the city.
He was surprised to see a new checkpoint on Aggrey Road and even more surprised that it was guarded by soldiers. Perhaps it was because of the burned houses. The road was empty, all the shouting hawkers with their groundnuts and newspapers and fried fish were gone. A soldier stood in the middle of the road, swinging his gun as they approached, motioning that they go back. The driver stopped and Richard held out his pass. The soldier ignored the pass and kept swinging his gun. “Turn back! Turn back!”
“Good morning,” Richard began. “I am Richard Churchill and I am—”
“Turn back or I shoot! Nobody is leaving Port Harcourt! There is no cause for alarm!”
The man’s fingers were twitchy on the gun. The driver turned around. Richard’s foreboding had become hard pebbles in his nostrils, but he made himself sound casual when he got back home and told Kainene what had happened.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said. “There are so many rumors flying around, the army probably wants to put a stop to the panic.”
“Certainly a fine way to do it,” Kainene said, and there was that wary expression of hers again. She was placing some papers in a file. “We should call Madu and find out what’s going on.”
“Yes,” Richard said. “Well, I’ll go and shave. I didn’t have time to shave before I left.”
He heard the first boom from the bathroom. He kept running the stick over his chin. It came again: boom, boom, boom. The window louvers shattered and the glass shards clinked as they fell to the floor. Some of them landed close to his feet.
Kainene opened the bathroom door. “I’ve asked Harrison and Ikejide to put a few things in the car,” she said. “We’ll leave the Ford and take the Peugeot.”