12
Tajirika felt humiliated at the manner of his removal from Sikiokuu’s office, but he turned his anger against Machokali and Vinjinia. Why had his friend not allowed him to be part of the delegation to the USA? he asked himself time and again. Machokali had said that he would call him now and then, but since leaving for America Machokali had not done so once. The doubts Sikiokuu had planted in his mind started to fester. Yet he still could not imagine any connection between Machokali and Vinjinia. But the pictures of his Vinjinia and the dancing women had shaken his trust in her. Not that he had much to begin with. Tajirika subscribed to the saying that the word of a woman or a child should be believed only after the hearer had slept on it. Nevertheless, there had been things he would have been prepared to swear that Vinjinia was incapable of, but now he was not so sure.
The reports of his wife’s misdemeanor, in having women dance for her, were what hurt most. Although he believed that a woman was inherently untrustworthy, he took it that a man’s wife should be a paragon of virtue. A good man was judged by the goodness of his wife, and a good wife was known for her discretion and ability to cover for the failings of her husband. Such was the woman he had married. A woman who did not demand much from life! A woman who had long ago stopped asking him questions about where he spent the night. A woman who seemed completely satisfied with life around the kitchen and in the fields. A woman who never raised any questions about politics. That was the woman he thought he knew. Could she have feigned all that?
Maybe Sikiokuu and company were right when they hinted that Nyawlra, whom they supposed to be the mother of all hypocrites, had something to do with the new Vinjinia. Indeed, there was no disputing that everything had started going wrong the day he became ill and Vinjinia started going to the office. If he himself had succumbed to Nyawlra’s slickness, why not Vinjinia? He acknowledged as much, yet he had expected her to have the wherewithal to avoid being so deceived as to end up in the company of shameless primitive dancers.
Wife beating was a privilege if not a right of male power, and now in the cell he had no opportunity to measure his manhood. Grinding his teeth in frustration, he was reduced to imagining slapping his wife around and her screams for mercy and forgiveness. This allowed him to think more soberly about other things that weighed on him.
Like the matter of Silver Sikiokuu.
It was clear that the minister was setting an elaborate trap for Ma-chokali and needed Tajirika to pull it off. But what role was he meant to play? Sikiokuu’s call for him to think about “the real meaning” of if, white, and wish still buzzed in his ears. Was the role hidden in those words? And what was the payback? What was the deal? Sikiokuu had been enigmatic about it. Why?
Sikiokuu was softening him up by having him put back in a cell where a bucket was his toilet. The guards emptied the pail once in three days, and sometimes they would not even keep to the schedule. So there were days when the pail overflowed with shit and urine, the stench becoming his daily and nightly companion. But Sikiokuu was underestimating his will to survive, as well as his business acumen. There was no way that Tajirika was going to accept just any deal without some kind of give-and-take.
Tajirika did not put too much store in friendship. There was nothing he would not do to save his skin provided the price was right, except take part in anything touching the Buler’s life and power. That would mean certain death. So he was not about to accept that he may have heard others talking about a plot against the Buler.
How he wished he knew precisely the hour and the day when the Buler and his entourage were returning! Tajirika concluded that he had no alternative but to wait for Sikiokuu to put a deal on the table or for Machokali to return from America, whichever came first.
Late one night his jailers opened the door to his cell, flung a man inside, and closed the door again. Tajirika kept absolutely still in his corner, listening intensely to the breathing of his fellow prisoner. Unable to bear the silence after a while, Tajirika asked: Who are you?” But the man, whoever he was, did not answer him.
He is perhaps a killer brought here in secrecy at midnight to do you harm, an inner voice told Tajirika. He broke out in a cold sweat and started shaking. The tension getting the better of him, he started screaming:
“Don’t kill me. I beg you, don’t kill me. I have committed no crime. Have mercy on me. I have a wife and children. Please don’t spill innocent blood because of money. Whatever they have given you, I promise to double it.”
“Sshh!” the man responded, but Tajirika was so self-absorbed that he did not hear him.
“How much money have they given you?” Tajirika asked, and this time paused, anticipating a response.
“What for?” the man asked.
“To kill me.”
“Why should I kill you? I don’t know you. I have never met you.”
“That’s exactly what I am trying to impress upon you. I am innocent. I have never harmed a soul.”
“Then you have nothing to fear. I will not kill you,” the man told him.
“What did you say?”
“Keep quiet. I will not kill you.”
“Thank you, my savior. How much do you want?”
“Why would I want your money?”
“For sparing my life. For sparing me.”
“Who told you that I am here to do away with you?”
“Then who are you? And why have they brought you here?”
“Listen,” the man said angrily. “I have no idea who you are. I’m not in the mood to chat. Go to sleep and let me do the same,” the man said, and then kept quiet.
But to Tajirika, the man’s ensuing silence was ominous. He is all pretense. He wants to lull me to sleep, then murder me.
“Don’t think that you can fool me,” Tajirika said.
“Why?” the man asked.
“I know you want me to fall asleep …”
“Are you nuts?”
Despite Tajirika’s provocations, the man refused to respond the rest of the night, serving only to confirm Tajirika’s suspicions that Sikiokuu wanted him dead. He did not close his eyes once. Dawn found him staring at the corner where the man lay.
Neither believed his own eyes.