I love you Baby
But sometimes Love
Is not enough to make Lohengrin stay.
Don’t knock on the door
Of the Unknown, if you don’t
Want to be overtaken by the Unknown.
But if you must, you must
Even when the line you have crossed
Is the boundary of trust.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Your love was a noon dance
Abruptly torn out of the startled wind
And then your heart beat
Sorrows are stepping in rhyme with the breathless wind
They say it was an African evening
Moonrays on my yesterday, hush little girl
I can hear your sobs five thousand kilometres away
For night unites what day divides
Dreams reveal what the heart is hiding
I know you miss me still
Those morning strolls underneath the bougainvillea
Golden teardrops bloomed along the empty street
The hibiscus was our only guardian
The day you became a woman and I a man.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE MOURNERS came, with lots of noise and tears, crying their dry eyes out. No one stopped them. They were left to wail and weep, even though they made all that din.
And the merry-makers, theirs was even more dramatic, their lives are simple, they simply make merry. It does not matter the occasion which has brought them together. Their occupation is to sing and be happy, that is their job, their life. In large numbers they came out to lighten up the place, all three categories of them – the clowns, the eaters and the musicians – merrymaking from dawn until everyone else is gone.
And then of course my old friends, drawn out of the distant mists of childhood, reappeared with appropriately long faces. They murmured here and there about a few breaches of tradition but generally they held their peace. Rice and stew were very plenty, palm wine flowed as if the very trees wept, drowning their complaints in their throats; they left everybody alone and except for their ponderous thoughts nobody remembered their presence.
Two T.V. reporters with their camera men, a few newspaper journalists, a couple of ministers and princes, a former president, a galaxy of celebrities, a throng of socialites and a pride of leaders. Soon the whole place was turned from a place of solemn silence to something like the setting for a television talk-show. Who was going to be interviewed? The departed spirit? I chuckled; good that no-one heard me.
The few people who knew me well wondered at all the noise, all the crowd. Could I, who had so dearly nourished simplicity and quiet while still alive, have really wished my departure to trigger this breach of it? They tried to voice their discontent, but my relatives silenced them with the counter-claim that I had always said that everyone was allowed to do as they wished, and so they did not feel it right to disobey my injunction upon my departure.
Clergy of different religions dragged the aura of their history into my home and solemnly spewed prayers into the air, while everyone closed their eyes and kept on chewing their food. And the liars. They were everywhere, telling lies. The gamblers were gambling. The drunkards were drinking. And the lies the liars told were shattering to the core, for the liars had once been my friends.
But, with love, with compassion, my eyes did rest on one or two visitors in whose heart I saw pain at my departure, in whose eyes I saw the glittering pearls of true tears ever and again wiped away with a sigh. I was sad for them, I wished they could feel the touch of my hand on their shoulder, hear my voice as I whispered to them, I’m still alive.
But what can you do? Each person will react in his own wto death, the victor. Each, according to his or her nature, will bring their character to the fore upon your departure and, symphony or cacophony, there is nothing you can do about it, not anymore.
And so I did not stay there long. I had known it would be like this – who doesn’t? And I had made her promise, she who I loved, who I love, promise me, yes I had made her promise me that she would take my body away, far away. And far away, in the heart of the beautiful woods, she and the children we bore, now adults, and our closest closest friends, they stood in a circle around my body. And though they did not see me, they sensed me, sensed that I was there, standing too in the circle with them, our unbroken circle of love. Far away from the noise and noisy thoughts of the world.
One of them played a flute, and the flute was enough, and spoke the language of our hearts; and every thought they thought of me was a thought of love, and my soul was full. And my spirit sang.
And soon the body, old and tired, rested deep in the cool depth of mother earth. There was a prayer my love was praying, and that was when I heard it, the other flute, the heavenly flute, it came from far away, from high high above, gripped my heart, and I saw the way home. At that moment her eyes opened and her love held me one more time, then with a gentle whimsical sigh she let me go.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.y
That blossom
That let go of the tree
And fell to earth
Is forgiveness
That recognition
That pain was the unavoidable teacher
Is forgiveness
That cleansing tear
Is forgiveness.
But I never want to see you again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
That moment
When the bitterness
Isn’t bitter enough to sour
Your forgiveness smile
And yet sad is the smile.
How friends fall away like unmasked leaves
Unable to bear the weight of trust
In all its lightness
Treachery by politeness.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Who will it be
After me?
Who will it be
Baby?
Who could make it
Like it was?
Who could take it
And leave no flaws?
Never forget me
Little tease
Never forget me
Please.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
… continued from Part Nine.
Tony was wide awake now. Faintly on his consciousness registered themselves the peripheral sounds of morning. Over the fence, the neighbour’s pestle was hitting and rolling in the mortar with a quick rhythmic thumping, smooth but noisy, legacy of innumerable generations.
Tony purred like a cat and sighed again into the bright rays of the eager morning sun. Last night’s surprise rain had tinged this morning’s harmattan with the soothing touch of sweet wet bliss.
In the backyard, or from the boys’ quarters, came the voice of the radio. Full of mixed opinions, it jumped from one topic to another like a mad and wise and, above all, delirious mind.
He listened a bit, but his interest soon slipped away from there and reluctantly focused on the issue of Ngozi. It was something he did not want to think about for the simple reason that he did not know what to think about it, how to handle it. So, yet again, like he had done the previous evening when Ada told him of her encounter with Ngozi, he rolled it carefully along the periphery of his thoughts for a few thinking seconds and then pushed it away and began to reflect instead on what 1999, only six days away now, would have to offer.
With this turn of his thoughts, suddenly he heard and perceived the sounds and smells of Yuletide again.
Christmas period in Lagos. No wonder the sun was so bright.
The radio had overcome its indecisiveness and settled down to singing Boney M Christmas songs. Songs that had accompanied him, Christmas after Christmas, from childhood into the harsh forests of adulthood. Songs of which he never tired.
There is no time like Christmas.
A knock on the door and Ada barged in, smelling of a happy, busy kitchen.
“Tah lah!” she called in a sing-song voice, half-skipping in and throwing her arms wide open the way she did almost every morning, as if to say “I’m here!”
And she said: “It’s me again!”
“I perceive that it has not yet come to your notice that my door now swings, and most precariously so indeed, on only one hinge. It would be good to wonder why.”
Ada burst out laughing.
“A mystery for Hercule Poirot,” she replied between laughs.
“Even Hercule couldn’t solve this one. Only you can – with a simple confession; or, rather, admission.”
“Confessions are for convicted felons. As a rule, one should only confess when all the evidence point irrefutably against one. As for admissions, I leave that to presidents and the like.”
“You’ve changed o, you this woman! You now talk like a ring-leader.”
She laughed again.
“Ring-leader of what?”
“Of the things that have ring-leaders. There are many of them. They are always getting caught everyday. Infact, most channels make it a point of duty, as is easy to verify, to show us arrested ring-leaders at least once every week – ”
“And to showcase the unarrested ones at least once everyday,” she added dryly.
“You can’t blame them, when they have nothing else to show.”
“Television is all about advertising –” she began, with the voice of a school-teacher.
“So they’re advertising your fellow-ringleaders. You should be rejoicing. You people have taken over the world.”
“Yes, you should know. Aren’t you the one always watching T.V.?”
Now he growled and jumped out of bed. He found himself laughing although she had just digged him again on a sore spot. He raised his clenched fists and began to bounce. She raised hers too and circled him.
“Ah, do you think it’s all this silly bouncing? It’s not like that, you have to be cool. Approach, let me teach you a painful lesson.”
“I knew today would start with a morale-booster. I just never thought it would be this good – bestowing you with a swollen countenance. But let me apologise in advance –”
As he was talking she rushed forward with jabs.
“Wait wait wait – ” he ran back and began to bounce again. “Hm, I’m warning you o! What! Are you laughing at me?? Ok!”
Now they began to shadow-box in earnest, but made no contact, pulling all punches just before impact, until he began to breathe harder and then leaned against a table.
A worried look immediately came into her eyes.
“How do you feel now? I thought you said –”
“Yes, I’m fine,” he sighed. “I’ve recovered, but I’m still weak physically.”
“You fall ill too often.”
“That’s my destiny.”
They looked at each other without speaking, for a while. Then,
“I’m hungry. Ọkwọ Yuletide bonus is on the culinary way.”
“Hm! Mchm!… ” She made sounds not easy to spell and started to walk out of the room. “When Yuletide comes, you can ask him for your bonus! Me, I’m making my own normal breakfast. If you don’t want to eat it, no problem … But don’t let me catch you near the kitchen!”
He knew she was teasing. Something special was on the way.
“Ah-ah. Am I surprised?” he called after her through the door she’d left customarily ajar. “What else can one truly and honestly expect of a village-apparition…”
Her laughter floated back in, and he smiled too.
… continued in Part 11.
– AKA TERAKA.
If you want to skip the excerpts and read the full story of this delicate, subtle love story, the novella is availaable on
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Available from December 2013.
TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 