The Pandemonium: a short story.

 THE PANDEMONIUM

Standing at the doorway of our house, I knew the temperature was rather cold but my armpits were sweating continuously. My left hand was somewhere resting somewhere in my white jumper pocket. The other one was hanging at the other side squeezing itself.  I was trying to figure out how to avenge. That was the thought that came to my mind when we had just heard the news of my father’s death.  When the news struck my mother’s ears, she let go of the knife she was slicing okra with. She tried to control herself but to no avail. Okra was father’s favorite.  ‘Arna, the infidels, have killed him’ was the statement of the person who brought the sad news. I came out shortly after the man had left.  ‘Wallahi I must avenge,’ I soliloquized,  even though I knew father would not have wished me to avenge his death. I knew, too, that it was impossible to control myself against it. ‘Revenge has never pleased the soul and so I will never,’ my father once said. ‘Revenge never brings back what is lost’

Gunshots were heard from afar. I heard some clamor coming towards me. I did not pay much attention to it. The noise kept on coming as if it wanted me to acknowledge its presence.  Now I was forced to look in the direction of the noise because it came much closer. I suddenly saw Patience, my classmate in the university, being chased by a group of angry young Muslim youths.  She came out of the bamboo enclosure behind our house. She came closer to me asking for help. 

‘Hel…! Hel….!’ she panted. Her eyes were red and watery. She wore a red T-shirt where her breasts were loosely and visibly dangling. Her trousers were dirty at the knees -she must have fallen in it. 

I knew she was requesting for help.  She could not know whom to meet until she saw me.  Before the angry warriors came, I took her in.  My mother was still where I had left her. I seated Patience in my mother’s room. She was trying to hold me but I hushed her. I did not talk to her but I made her understand that she should at least calm down. 

I went out only to meet the youths brandishing.  There were five of them. Some were trying to barge in to search for arniya, the infidel. I recognized some of them.  Kamal, the unschooled hoodlum, too was with them. 

‘What is the matter’? I enquired. 

‘Have you seen one arniya here?’ The intruder chose to question back rather.

‘No, I didn’t see her,’ I blocked the entrance. They tried to push me aside but I refused to back away. 

‘Musa,’ one of them called me.  

I turned in his direction to answer, only to see my father coming hurriedly as though he was hounded. I gasped. 

‘What is the matter, Kamal?’ my father questioned while approaching. 

‘Wallahi, Malam’, one of the boys volunteered to respond, ‘one arniya whom we just finished with her parents, came here and we think your son wants to hide her and wallahi we must do Jihadi on her ’. 

‘Okay, calm down. Let me pass’, my father requested reaching out his hand in their midst to find way in. As he made his way towards me, I backed away to give him way. He passed me and went in. I followed him. The gang too followed. I knew my father would not be involved in killing the girl but I did not know how he could protect her from attack. The narrow passage that led to the main building seemed longer than it was.  ‘Why could that man say my father was killed? Who could that man be?’ I thought.  

Seven of us were in the house now. The gang began searching. I was relieved that my mother was not in the courtyard.  My mother sniffed from the inside of her room. We all heard. I wondered where Patience could be. My father was already on his way to my mother’s room. The gang rushed and thrust themselves into the room with my father. They almost pushed him down. The old man did not say anything or complain.  I waited outside because the boys were angry indeed. They came out after a while and left. 

I darted to my mother’s room.  I found the old man on the sofa head down. My mother sat on the floor looking at him. He sighed and raised his head. 

‘Where is the girl’, he asked with a dry throat.  

‘I put her under the bed,’ my mother answered. 

‘Let her come out’. 

Patience refused to come out of her hideout until much pleading from all of us. My father smiled at her and that smile made me happy. ‘There is no great problem’, I thought. 

‘Do you know her’, my father asked looking straight into my ears. 

‘Yes, I do. She is my classmate’, I explained, so as to free him from next question like “how?”

‘Where does she live?’

‘She lives at the house just after the Effective private school: there is one green house there, there she lives. ‘ 

‘Subhanallahi! Mr. Wale’s house? He gasped. ‘Is she Mr. Wale’s daughter?’

‘Yes, she is his daughter. 

‘Hmm. The man was killed. I almost got killed a short while ago trying to protect the house.’ My father mourned.

‘We just got the news that you were killed,’ my mother explained.

My father was well-learned man.  He was the Imam of the Angwan Rimi Mosque. He went to lead the dawn prayer the next day. He found the Na’ibi, his assistant, leading the prayer.  Though he knew that it was not yet time, he just joined the congregation.  After the conclusion of the prayer, the Na’ibi turned and announced ‘After the prayer, there is a meeting with the mosque committee.’

After a while, everybody left the mosque except the mosque committee. The meeting began with a short opening prayer and it was concluded, by the consensus of the committee members, that the Imam was freed from his post for helping the infidels during Jihad.  

‘People are illiterate. They lack knowledge. They should learn before they act. An unripe fruit is not suitable for consumption,’ my father lamented after he came back home.   

 Patience could not eat. She slept in my mother’s room, in thesame bed with my mother.  She woke up earlier than my mother did. My mother prayed in my father’s room in order not to startle her with saying “Allahu akbar”. It was the phrase chanted when her folks were killed. 

After some days, Patience was still in my mother’s custody. People in the neighborhood noticed the presence of Patience in the house. Words were spreading that the ousted Imam was hosting an infidel in his house. That made it imperative forPatience to begin wearing Hijab; if not, she would not go out. 

We stated going to school together. We would go together and come back together. Patience had no knowledge of where her father’s place of birth was. The only people she knew were her immediate family-her parents and siblings. Her mother hd been brought from her father’s village by some unknown folk. Ever since, her mother never wished to go back to the village. The only thing Patience knew about her parents was that they came from Lagos state. She had no idea of the community they cam from.  

One day my father called me into his inner room ‘Musa’, he called with the kind of voice that told me that that morning’s meeting was an important one. ‘Can you marry Patience?’

‘Eh?’, I gasped. My mouth was agape. I never thought I would be hit with such a question. I never expected such a blow. Even though that I loved her, I never expected my father would reason with me, on behalf of love, to marry a Christian girl. 

‘I mean what you just heard. It was your mother’s decision. Besides, you love her. I am going out’. He put on his white Zanna Bukar cap and left. 

I remained in this position until his car sound whispered. I was very happy. I came out of the room via the back door in order to avoid my mother. I met Patience busy washing plates. She looked up and her eyes met mine.

‘Malam,’ she called me. She had started calling me Malam when we first met in the university.  I could remember the first day she met me. It was after she asked our lecturer about religious extremism. The lecturer’s reply was ‘It is wrong to be extremist in anything,’. 

It sounded illogical to me. I put my hand in the air. I was sitting somewhere at the back seat. ‘Sir,’ I added in order to be noticed. 

‘Yes?’ he said pointing at me. ‘What do you have?’

I rose up and cleared my throat. ‘I think sir, there is nothing wrong for being extremist,’ I said putting more emphasis on the word extremist.  

‘Oh, really?’ the lecturer said.

‘Yes, ah! Ah!’ I began but got lost for lack of facts. I suddenly clawed back on it. ‘I think there is no problem with being extremely kind, extremely merciful, extremely gentle, and extremely good. You can meet a beautiful girl and tell her that she is EXTREMELY beautiful. Therefore, she is extremist to you.  I think there is nothing wrong with extremism,’ I concluded.  Patience was not convinced.  She met me after the class was over.  From then we have been friends until now that she was busy washing plates. 

‘Malam,’ she called again. 

I was startled. ‘What?’ I tried to behave like a man as if nothing had happened. She kept on smiling. ‘Should I help?’

She nodded. 

‘You didn’t go to church today?’ I asked. 

She looked at me in surprise. ‘Today is not Sunday. I think you should go to Masalashi: today is Friday’. 

‘I know. It is not yet time. But it is Masallaci not Masalashi,’  I said. She was trying to talk but I hushed her with my hands on her mouth. An act that might be worth punishment if the real Malam of the house were to see me, my father.  By God! I have never seen such beauty. Real African color: dark and shiny. Real African eyes: the sclera perfectly white and the iris beautifully black.  

Shortly after we graduated from the university, we got married. We were posted for one year compulsory NYSC scheme. Patience was posted to Ibadan while I was posted to Lagos. We visited each other very often.  

We concluded the scheme at the same time. Our hopedfor issue protruded from Patience belly. We went to Jos together. We reached Jos at the time another politico-religious crisis erupted in the city. We were fortunate; the taxi took us straight to the house. We arrived home when the sun was about to set.  Kamal, the son of our neighbor, along with his friends, were about to go out for destruction and killing. The taxi stopped right in front of our house. Kamal and his friends at the opposite. They stopped when we arrived so I couldn’t go out of the car at once. The driver looked at the inner mirror. 

‘Here, sir?’ the driver asked.  

‘Yes,’ I replied almost silently like a ghost. 

Kamal peeped into the taxi and our eyes met. He was trying to see whom I was with. I leaned forward to block his sight. ‘Arniya’, Kamal bellowed and darted to the car. His clique followed him.  

‘Patience, go in’ We opened the doors together. I was trying to block Kamal and his friends. I blocked two of them but the remaining four pursued Patience, who was about to enter the house.  She met my father immediately she entered and hid behind him. They dragged him away. Now Patience was face to face with Kamal. He had already lost grasp of his weapon to my father. He gave a manly punch at Patience’s belly. She screamed and the sound went directly to my heart. I let go of the two I held. Kamal continued hitting her protruding belly until blood began gushing out from her.  I pounced at him with a machete that I confiscated from one of them.  I smashed part of his head. There he collapsed beside the dying Patience. I chased the other attackers. I came back to Patience.  She and Kamal were rushed to hospital.

My father asked my mother to leave the house immediately. She took all the valuable handy things and left while we headed for hospital.  While in the hospital we got the news that, our house had been burnt down.  After many efforts from the doctors at Plateau Specialist Hospital, Jos, my wife, the beloved Patience, answered the call of God right in front of my eyes. Right behind me was the room where Kamal was hospitalized peacefully breathing. He was the killer of my wife and unborn child. 

At time of her death, my father went out to buy drinking water for Kamal as requested by the doctor.  The city was under curfew and there was no drinking water in the hospital. My father went out only to be shot by the military, who had been given orders to shoot whoever went out during the curfew hour.  

I had lost father, unborn child and wife to one whose illiteracy helped him to  do whatever he wished.  I only have my mother.