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Civil Peace 2
'Who is knocking?' whispered his wife lying beside him on
the floor.
'I don't know,' he whispered back breathlessly.
The second time the knocking came it was so loud and
imperious that the rickety old door could have fallen down.
'Who is knocking?' he asked them, his voice parched and
trembling.
'Na tief-man and him people,' came the cool reply. 'Make
you hopen de door.' This was followed by the heaviest knocking of all.
Maria was the first to raise the alarm, then he followed and
all their children.
'Police-o! Thieves-o! Neighbours-o! Police-o! We are lost! We are
dead! Neighbours, are you asleep? Wake up! Police-o!'
This went on for a long time and then stopped suddenly.
Perhaps they had scared the thief away. There was total
silence. But only for a short while.
'You done finish?' asked the voice outside. 'Make we help
you small. Oya, everybody!'
'Police-o! Tief-man-so! Neighbours-o! we done loss-o! Police-
o!...'
There were at least five other voices besides the leader's.
Jonathan and his family were now completely paralysed by
terror. Maria and the children sobbed inaudibly like lost souls.
Jonathan groaned continuously.
The silence that followed the thieves' alarm vibrated hor-
ribly. Jonathan all but begged their leader to speak again and
be done with it.
'My frien,' said he at long last, 'we don try our best for call
dem but I tink say dem all done sleep-o ... So wetin we go do
now? Sometaim you wan call soja? Or you wan make we call
dem for you? Soja better pass police. No be so?'
'Na so!' replied his men. Jonathan thought he heard even
more voices now than before and groaned heavily. His legs
were sagging under him and his throat felt like sandpaper.
'My frien, why you no de talk again. I de ask you say you
wan make we call soja?'
'No'.
'Awrighto. Now make we talk business. We no be bad fief.
We no like for make trouble. Trouble done finish. War done finish and all the katakata wey de for inside. No Civil War
again. This time na Civil Peace. No be so?'
'Na so!' answered the horrible chorus.
'What do you want from me? I am a poor man. Everything I
had went with this war. Why do you come to me? You know
people who have money. We. ..'
'Awright! We know say you no get plenty money. But we sef
no get even anini. So derefore make you open dis window and
give us one hundred pound and we go commot. Orderwise we
de come for inside now to show you guitar-boy like dis ...'
A volley of automatic fire rang through the sky. Maria and
the children began to weep aloud again.
'Ah, missisi de cry again. No need for dat. We done talk say
we na good tief. We just take our small money and go nwayor-
ly. No molest. Abi we de molest?'
'At all!' sang the chorus.
'My friends,' began Jonathan hoarsely. 'I hear what you say
and I thank you. If I had one hundred pounds ...'
'Lookia my frien, no be play we come play for your house. If
we make mistake and step for inside you no go like am-o. So
derefore . . .
'To God who made me; if you come inside and find one
hundred pounds, take it and shoot me and shoot my wife and
children. I swear to God. The only money I have in this life is
this twenty-pounds egg-rasher they gave me today ...'
'Ok. Time de go. Make you open dis window and bring the
twenty pound. We go manage am like dat.'
There were now loud murmurs of dissent among the chor-
us: 'Na lie de man de lie; e get plenty money ... Make we
go inside and search properly well ... Wetin be twenty
pound? ...'
'Shurrup!' rang the leader's voice like a lone shot in the sky
and silenced the murmuring at once. 'Are you dere? Bring the
money quick!'
'I am coming,' said Jonathan fumbling in the darkness with
the key of the small wooden box he kept by his side on the mat.
At the first sign of light as neighbours and others assembled to
commiserate with him he was already strapping his five-gallon
demijohn to his bicycle carrier and his wife, sweating in the open fire, was turning over akara balls in a wide clay bowl of
boiling oil. In the corner his eldest son was rinsing out dregs of
yesterday's palm-wine from old beer bottles.
'I count it as nothing,' he told his sympathizers, his eyes on
the rope he was tying. 'What is egg-rasher? Did I depend on it
last week? Or is it greater than other things that went with the
war? I say, let egg-rasher perish in the flames! Let it go where
everything else has gone. Nothing puzzles God.'
End |
