Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka

Author:Wole Soyinka [Soyinka, Wole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

15.

Badagry

Several weeks had passed since his departure from the yet simmering city of Jos, that city of tin mines, forested hill contours still very much on his mind. His belongings had finally arrived by road haulage, having survived the elephant-trap potholes, unchecked expressway market takeovers, military-assisted police extortion checkpoints, siren-heralded in-your-face motorcades, cattle occupation, and kamikaze drivers drugged to the gills on all brands of affordable hallucinogens, local, smuggled, or traded in. He had traveled ahead and landed gratefully, having opted for the equally unpredictable domestic airline. From pottering among the contents of the advance truck, trying to impose a semblance of order on the contents of a madhouse of ripped boxes, last-minute gift packages, mini-cabinets, and document holders, the eminent surgeon Dr. Kighare Menka silently diagnosed himself weary body and soul, drained beyond bone tissue and marrow, a candidate perhaps for brain surgery at his own hands. Heaving a sigh of regret that such a prospect seemed unlikely—he was not a neurologist, in any case, just muscles, tissues, and organs—he picked his way to the beckoning drinks cabinet, sensibly prescribed and dispensed himself a restorative. His visit to Badetona was perhaps the last straw. He had placed so much hope on that alliance, but the mind of the man he knew was nowhere near accessible. Duyole Pitan-Payne was in the last throes of a looming departure. He felt isolated, alone with the burden of a discovery that, alas, did not permit of a simple surgical act of excision. Administering kicks along the way to stubborn obstacles that refused to yield ground at his approach, the surgeon meandered along a path into a deep-cushioned, enveloping armchair of his temporary lodging, one sole question preying on his mind: How long is temporary? Duyole Pitan-Payne had plucked him from the Jos inferno, replanted him in the sumptuous guest annex, and he knew he was welcome to stay there forever if he chose. He required no mind-reader to warn him, even as he let himself surrender his aches to the velvety comfort, that Pitan-Payne and his wife, Bisoye, were busy confecting every extravagant inducement to throw his way, with the single-minded intent of making him agree to do just that—accept this as his new home sine die. Forget Jos. Forget its parent state, Plateau. Forget the Middle Belt. Forget even Gumchi, his natal village. Or at least relegate them to a marginal, mostly preparatory bearing on his life and new career. Just relocate!

The campaign was anything but hidden, beginning when Duyole’s driver had met him at the airport and driven him straight to the dinner table, no thought of permitting him a fresh-up stop at the guest annex, at which his checked-in baggage would be offloaded. As for dinner, even by Pitan-Payne’s standards it was easily the most lavish impromptu spread Menka had ever survived, and survival was the most fervent prayer any guest silently muttered even for—indeed, especially for—such a modest snack.

The effort, he ruefully admitted, was unnecessary—it was mostly preaching to the converted.

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