The Death of Vivek Oji(40)

They both pulled down the metal protector, closed the inside doors, and sat there in the cramped space near the shelves of sweets and biscuits. Mama Ben looked scared but calm. There had been so many riots recently that it wasn’t much of a surprise to be caught in one.

“I wonder what caused it,” she said.

“Maybe the Muslim thing again,” he suggested. “You know how people can get about the Northerners.”

Mama Ben shook her head. “I don’t know why. They’re just people who came here to work, make small money for their families. Why must they always go and disturb them?”

Ebenezer shot her a look. “Because of what’s been happening in the North. Are we supposed to just fold our hands and watch how they’re treating our brothers and sisters?”

“But it’s not the ones here that are doing it. So why disturb them? If you want to disturb anyone, eh hehn—go to the North and look for their trouble there!”

Ebenezer shook his head. He didn’t feel like arguing with a woman over this matter.

“Besides,” she continued, “it was probably just a thief.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Is it not coming from the direction of the market? He probably stole something, and one of the traders shouted, and you know how it goes from there. Tire. Fuel.”

Ebenezer sat upright. The market, he thought. The noise was coming from the market. Chisom was still at the market.

“Chineke m ee,” he said, inhaling air in a short, shocked burst. “My wife is there.” He jumped up and started unlocking the door. Mama Ben grabbed his arm.

“They’re getting near!” she said. “Don’t open the door, abeg.”

“And what?” he snapped. “I should leave my wife in the middle of it and hide here with you like a woman?”

“You want to go into the riot? Are you mad? They will just finish you one time.”

“Hapu m aka!” He shook off her hand and lifted the protector, ignoring the screeching it made.

Behind him, Mama Ben cursed. “Don’t go oo! It’s better you stay here,” she warned. “I’m sure your wife is fine. Is it now that she will need you?”

Ebenezer stopped, then turned around and stared at Mama Ben. “What did you say?” She folded her arms stubbornly. He slammed the steel gate down behind him, staring at her in shock through the bars. “You are a wicked woman,” he said before he turned away.

“Ebenezer!” she shouted. “Ebenezer!”

He ignored her and stayed on the inside of the crude gutter at the edge of the road as he walked toward the market. In just the few minutes since the first shouts, he could see even from a distance, the scene had deteriorated into chaos. The road was full of cars and okadas with frantic passengers. One man wiped at his head with a handkerchief, stared down at the mess of blood in his hand, then locked eyes with Ebenezer for a moment as the motorcycle whizzed by. Ebenezer swallowed hard and started to jog. He was filled with guilt and shame for having been safely tucked away in Mama Ben’s stand without first thinking of his wife, out there at her stall in the market, with no metal protector to hide behind. He wondered if she had run when the chaos started, if she had hopped on an okada, whether he would see her from the side of the road. But he knew Chisom was stubborn, that she wouldn’t abandon her merchandise in the market, riot or not. It would be like throwing away money—it would make no sense to her. She probably would have delayed while trying to pack it up, and who knows what could have happened to her in that time? A stray bullet from one of the touts, or the police if they showed up. Jesus Christ, he thought, what if someone got hold of her in the middle of all this madness? What if she were raped? His mind jumped from that and landed on, What if someone raped her and she got pregnant? Nausea swirled through him and he started running. As he got closer to the market, he could see thin dark streams of smoke waving up into the sky. “Chineke, the market is on fire,” he whispered to himself, shocked into a halt. Now he was imagining Chisom burned to death, or just burned enough to survive, horribly disfigured, her face peeling off like those women up North who’d been attacked with acid. Ebenezer started running again. He had to save his wife. He couldn’t imagine losing her because he’d been with that woman, who had clearly wished evil on Chisom from the beginning. Who knew what she had put in his food? After all, he would normally never behave like that, going to another woman’s house. She must have done jazz on him. It had to be. But now he felt as if he’d broken her spell; now it would be okay. As long as he found Chisom.

As he was running, he passed a couple arguing on the side of the road. It was the tall girl with long hair. The man with her was holding her arm, shaking her till her hair fell in her eyes.

“We have to go now!” he was shouting. “Do you know what they’ll do to you?”

She pulled away from him so hard that she stumbled backward. Ebenezer saw her skirt flutter in the air, covered in small red flowers, but then he was past them and they were behind him and he couldn’t hear anything over the noise in his head and the air.

When he got closer to the mob, he slowed to a quick walk, trying to keep to the side. People bumped his shoulders and he was pushed a few times, but no one really disturbed him. They were focused on wherever they were going. Later he learned that most of them were heading to the area near the mosque, in the main market on Chief Michael Road, where a group of Hausa people plied their trade as shoemakers in a little market. An altercation there between a Hausa trader and an Igbo customer, a prominent shop owner, had escalated until the Hausa trader slapped the shop owner. In moments a crowd had gathered, coiled and furious, ready to make every other Northerner pay for that one man and his impertinence. This was not their town—they couldn’t talk anyhow here and expect to get away with it.