Authors: Wole Soyinka
‘What are you doing in this man’s body?’
‘What are you doing in this man’s body?’ Zapara mimicked.
Abraao tightened his grip on Zapara’s neck.
Zapara coughed and Derrick’s eyes grew bigger.
‘OK, Abraao, go easy on the neck. It is not mine but it kinda hurts. If you play nice I will give you all the details. Deal?’
Derrick expected Abraao to decline Zapara’s offer.
‘All right. Speak!’ The bishop held the legion leader by the collar.
‘I sex him every day and night so that he does not desire his wife. That is my assignment and tell you what? I think he likes it as much as I do.’
‘God save us! Holy Father have mercy on us. What is your mission Zapara?’
‘To make sure that slut goes back to her real husband. He has paid a good price for her.’
‘What price?’
‘If I tell you, all the work I have done will be useless.’
‘You, won’t tell me?’
‘No Abraao. Neither will you force me. I know things about you. Demons talk and word is . . .’
‘Church, raise your hands towards this man. We are going to kill Zapara!’ Abraao said at the top of his voice.
Everyone in the church started screaming and Derrick was so frustrated because he could not make out what Zapara was saying. He really wanted to hear the dirt on the bishop.
The ushers were told to abandon the little demons that were kickboxing them and form a ‘circle of fire around me and Zapara’. And like clockwork everyone started screaming, ‘Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire.’
Zapara stopped talking. He convulsed, writhed and fell on the floor limp.
Abraao knelt next to the limp body.
‘Wake up, child of God. You are now free. Resurrect. We have defeated the devil. Rise and see the light.’
The man opened his eyes and sat up. Abraao leaned forwards and blew air into the man’s eyes seven times.
Every time he blew he said: ‘Receive.’
The people followed his lead at the third ‘Receive.’
The Zapara-free man stood and jumped up and down with what looked like joy.
Derrick could not help but think that Zapara had pulled a number on all of them and was somewhere in there, dissociated from one of his possible multiple personalities.
Everyone started clapping and muttering praises to the Lord. Their eyes were now open.
Abraao told them to close their eyes again. Derrick’s refused to shut.
And he saw demons, talk, fight and mock. They puked yellow stuff all over the white thrones. One by one the spirits were subdued and the people they had possessed gave little speeches about how they had suffered under the demons but now that they were free, they would do anything and everything for Father Jesus and Bishop Abraao.
‘This is quite the show,’ Derrick told no one.
Abraao, Agostinho, the pastors and ushers were sweating through their shirts and blouses. They looked so tired with their eyes wide open. Their souls had been placed at risk as much as Derrick’s.
The bishop began sobbing. So did everyone else except the usual suspect.
Mass hysteria, is what one of his lectures had called this fete. The professor told them that it could be very useful to shrewd men who wanted to entertain themselves or an audience.
Derrick felt lucky to be the esteemed audience at the cinema. But he had mouths to feed and long roads to walk. It was time to go. There was nothing for him to give or take at the Church of the People of Damascus. Agostinho would not set him free. Derrick now knew that his two hands and his sweat would deliver him sooner, later or even never. Abraao and Agostinho were using their hands and sweat in there. It worked well for them. They knew precisely what they were doing with their grand performance.
Tomorrow was coming and Derrick knew what worked for him. The road. So he walked.
an extract from the forthcoming novel
Ebamba, Kinshasa-Makambo
Richard Ali A Mutu
A cool breeze. The sky begins to cloud over. The sun wends its way to set behind the majestic Congo. Hovering above the riverbed, the great red sun glitters and glistens like blood. The river is still as glass, the cool wind unfurls. Night draws in and day slips gently away. The skies are filled with birds fluttering swiftly back to their nests. Still the leaves rustle and add to the cool of the evening. It is just possible to make out the tuneful and melodious sound of a wind that heralds rain.
Today is Saturday, the day when Kinshasa shimmers, shakes and struts its stuff.
Kinshasa-makambo
– Kinshasa the troublemaker – Kin the mysterious, Kin-du-Knoy awash with the golden beers Primus, Skol and Turbo. Kinshasa the party animal. This much is true: to live and die without ever seeing, without experiencing Kinshasa is tantamount to never having lived on God’s good earth. See Kinshasa, if only for one night, if only to watch the majestic Congo snaking through the city before you die!
It is coming on for 6.12 p.m. and the bars of Kinshasa are filling up from Nyangwe to Kimbondo, from Tshibangu, Super, Beau-marché and Muguyla-guyla all the way to the last stop on the line which is, as it always has been, the mighty Avenue Oshwé in the district of Matonge. Here, the pleasure, the exhilaration and the excitement is redoubled. Here goat meat and chicken are grilled out in the open air to be snatched up and wolfed down like hot cakes. Beer flows like water. But what matters most is the dancing! Because Kinshasa is also the king of song, the Queen of
ndombolo
!
The evening wears on. Already it is 9.05 p.m. and the
bana nyonka
– the little serpents – begin to slither from their lairs. Their eyes meet yours which instantly well up with tears, they are unutterably beautiful. They glister like gold. Some wear miniskirts, others skin-tight dresses, some are wrapped in a simple
pagne,
others are sporting outfits that defy description. They are vipers seeking some man to devour or some man to devour them. See them lined up along the Avenue du Stade, on the Rue Inzia, in Yolo Nord, along the Boulevard du 30 Juin. Nameless women,
filles de joie
,
banaya-mpunda
, our runaway sisters, our bongolo-sisters. They come in every colour: black, chocolate brown, white, mixed-race, albino. They come in every size: small, slender, neither-small-nor-slender, not to mention the dwarves, the deaf-mutes, the blind and the crippled.
At the Muguyla-guyla bar, Ebamba and his friends are dancing to the diabolical rhythms of Ya’Jossart Nyoka-Longo. Throbbing to the irresistible beat of songs like
Mokongo-ya-Koba
, of
Vimba
, of
Mama-Siska
. The demon drink arrives on cue with intoxication not far behind. Under the influence of alcohol, Ebamba begins to lose control. He very nearly touches the breasts of his best friend’s girlfriend; his best friend brings him down to earth with a slap across the face. Precisely the right reaction since it means Ebamba stops himself in time.
Ebamba, too, had a date, but Eyenga, his fiancée, has gone home early because she wasn’t feeling well. Ebamba had walked her as far as her neighbourhood then raced back to the bar because the party is due to go on into the early hours. It’s a birthday party for his childhood friend, his very best friend, his
masta-ya-kati
!
They party on and the atmosphere just gets hotter.
It has not rained, but the lowering threat of rain has brought with it a balmy night. The cool breeze whipping across the dance floor means they can keep on dancing without too much sweating.
At some point, there are a few raindrops, but no one complains, on the contrary, it whips the dancers at Muguyla-guyla into greater frenzy.
1.05 a.m.
Knock-knock-knock!
Knock-knock-knock!
Ebamba pounds on the gate to the compound, having come home to find it locked. He keeps knocking in the hope that someone will come and open up. Without his mobile phone, he has no way of contacting anyone inside. The aforementioned phone he lost a little while ago at the party – while he was feverishly boogying and boozing, the owner of the bar filched his phone.
No one comes to open the gate. Ebamba is getting impatient. Weak and exhausted, he cannot possibly climb the high wall. The booze has beaten him. Sleep is weighing on his shoulders. He slumps in the gateway of the compound.
1.30 a.m.
Ebamba can just make out the faint footsteps of someone coming. The gate opens. Ebamba struggles to his feet and heads towards the entrance. Maguy has come to open the gate. She is barely dressed, wrapped in only a
pagne
that covers her chest and her hips.
They look at each other. Maguy greets him. Ebamba responds. He reeks of alcohol. Maguy steps aside to let him pass.
The compound is silent. Everyone is asleep, even the dog someone forgot to let off the leash so it could guard the compound. They make no noise and no one wakes.
Ebamba staggers to his tiny studio, fishes out his keys, opens the door and stumbles inside.
Maguy, meanwhile, closes the gate then runs back into the big house.
1.40 a.m.
Soft, cool, tender hands caress Ebamba’s cock and slowly he begins to get hard. These same hands move on, unbuttoning his clothes, stroking his hairy chest. Ebamba feels himself floating.
The hands do not stop. Fast asleep, his cock by now rock-hard, Ebamba is in heaven. He feels a coolness, a gentle, thrilling wetness against his chest. An irresistible caress. He is his cock, his hair stands on end, his skin tingles with goosebumps.
The pleasure reaches its apex and, still half asleep, Ebamba dimly realises that this is not a dream. He forces himself to wake up. He sees a woman and jolts upright. ‘Hey!’
The woman starts back, releases her prey and recoils a little. Now wide awake, the dumbfounded Ebamba shouts:
‘How long, Maguy?! How long have you been doing these things, huh?’
‘What are you scared of?’ Maguy says softly, seductively, clearly in control.
‘What are you scared of, honey?’ she says again. ‘Did I hurt you? You left the door of the studio open so I decided to come in and make you feel good.’
‘Make me feel good?’
‘Shhhh, keep quiet. Don’t say anything.’
She does not give up. She knows how to seduce a man in his condition. She begins to unwrap her
pagne
.
Standing in front of Ebamba, she is suddenly transformed into Eve, in the Garden, in the moment before original sin: pale-skinned, voluptuous, her young, beautiful breasts pointing to the heavens as she considers her prey.
She comes to him. Body against body. Already, the young man has fallen into her trap. He begins to stammer. Electricity trills through his body. He tries to open his mouth but cannot utter a word. Maguy peels off his shirt and kisses him full on the lips.
She eases down his trousers and pulls them off. Ebamba stands, naked as Adam. They tumble onto the bed. The mattress creaks and coughs. In an instant he is stone cold sober. Ebamba is streaming with sweat. Their bodies tangle and writhe like earthworms.
He has never felt like this. Maguy has intoxicated him. His eyes grow red. His body quivers and his heart pounds. He surrenders to Maguy completely, allowing her to do with him as she pleases. Maguy unsheathes the bullets and arrows of a true ‘Mongo’, ‘a worthy Mungala’.
He has never experienced anything like this in his life.
‘Can you bring me a grenadine?’
‘Oh, don’t say that, my friend! Are you really telling me you’ve given up beer?’
‘Like I told you, Tshiamwa, I will never drink beer again.’
‘Don’t give me that, we know each other too well – it’s just a drunk man’s pledge.’
The waitress stands rooted to the spot, saying nothing, doing nothing. She simply stares at them until Tshiamwa gives the order.
‘For me, a nice cool Primus,
maman
!’
The girl scribbles this on a slip of paper before disappearing from sight.
‘So tell me, my good friend, how did this happen? How can you have come to this?’
‘Ah, Tshiamwa, it is a long story, brother.’
Ebamba bows his head.
They sit facing each other with only the café table between them.
The place is a little empty at this hour. It is just after noon. Outside the sun sears and shines, making the most of the cool shade of the tall madamier tree in the gardens of ‘Sous le Madamier, chez-le-Pasteur’ in Bandal-Bisengo.
After a few seconds, Ebamba shakes his head, looks up at the heavens, then stares at his friend and carries on.
‘
Masta
, my friend, I want to tell you my story but I don’t know where to begin . . .’
‘But the reason we met up here was so that you could tell me. Would you rather not talk about it?’
‘No, my friend, that’s not what I said . . . we will talk about it. I just wanted to say that this is not easy for me.’