The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma

Author:Chigozie Obioma [Chigozie Obioma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Coming of Age, World Literature, Africa, Nigeria, War & Military
ISBN: 9780593596975
Google: MRPmEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0593596978
Publisher: Hogarth
Published: 2024-06-03T23:00:00+00:00

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Kunle can see now that this is a carnival: of testimonies, of the relieving of the burden of the old life, of the reckoning of the dead, of the archiving of the memorable moments of life. There are clusters of these carnivals everywhere in this place—one a thousand meters to the left is full of white people, soldiers from some war in a place called “Vietnam,” arriving in their own shattered forms. And farther, people from Asia Minor, but a force compels him to be here, among the people who have come from the same place as him. He can think of nothing else but to remain here, among this teeming crowd, as the next one, a soldier in a federal green uniform pockmarked with bullet holes as if he were a building somewhere in a frontline town, takes the stand. After this man comes another, a twelve-year-old girl, killed by an air raid in Oguta. Also in line is a white woman from Scotland, the wife of a Biafran architect, killed by artillery fired by an advancing federal unit. And for a long time, the voices meld into an amalgam of stories. Kunle is transfixed by the transcendent eloquence with which they describe the events culminating in their deaths. It occurs to him that the only true thing about mankind can be found in the stories it tells, and some of the truest of these stories cannot be told by the living. Only the dead can tell them.

He listens for a while, but because time here travels on the softest of feet, its footsteps unheard and its distance unmeasured, even he cannot tell how much time has passed. And by the time a man who’d been killed by a speeding Biafran military police car begins speaking, Kunle notices that he’s been wrapped in a white hospital cloth, and he can feel the sensation of his arm being poked with a needle. He sees, too, that the field beyond is now filled with brilliant, colorful transparencies shining like a sea of confetti.

Turning, he finds that he is in a valley with translucent balloons and strangely shaped pennants floating in the air in different directions. From the balloons or someplace he cannot see, soft music rises, so enchanting that Kunle’s ears feel as though they have found their most secret melody. He wants to cry, to stay here forever.

For a moment he sways helplessly to the music, feeling a kind of freedom he’s never known. For there is no sense of time here. Nothing feels exigent. He continues dancing as the sky changes colors—from white to light yellow to purple, then white again, then ocean blue, then red. At one point he stops, his vision obscured by a cloud of steam. He is naked now and hands are running over his body. It seems then as though something external is imposing itself upon the integrity of his being. And for a long time, he is unable to calm himself. For a moment, he stands there, weary of his own feelings.

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