Sterile sky, p.1
Sterile Sky, page 1
About Apollo Africa
The original Heinemann African Writers Series was launched in 1962 with the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Cyprian Ekwensi’s Burning Grass and Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambia Shall Be Free, with Achebe himself acting as an editorial advisor. Over the next 40 years, the series continued to publish the best writing from across the African continent.
One of the founding aims of the Heinemann series was to make books by African writers available to as wide a readership as possible. Apollo Africa – a collaboration between Black Star Books and Head of Zeus – is proud to continue this work, ensuring novels, essays, poetry and plays from the original series are once again made available to readers all over the world.
STERILE SKY
E. E. Sule
Black Star Books and Head of Zeus would like to thank the following organisations: The Miles Morland Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and Africa No Filter. This publication was made possible through their support.
First published in the Heinemann African Writers Series in 2012 by Pearson Education Limited.
This edition first published in 2023 by Black Star Books and Head of Zeus, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Copyright © E. E. Sule, 2012
The moral right of E.E Sule to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This reprint is published by arrangement with Pearson Education Limited.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (PB): 9781035900725
ISBN (E): 9781803288765
Head of Zeus Ltd
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For my DAD and MUM, whose lives intersect with this story
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: The Tarred Street is Hot
Chapter 2: The Horn is Blown
Chapter 3: We Reach Sabon Gari Police Station
Chapter 4: Mama Gets Her Way
Chapter 5: I Reach Our Village
Chapter 6: Baba Tells Me His Life Story
Chapter 7: Father is Christian, Mother Muslim
Chapter 8: Imatum Tells Us Her Story
Chapter 9: I Freeze, Gaping at Her
Chapter 10: Ola Insists I Visit
Chapter 11: Grandmama Intends to Return
Chapter 12: Baba Changes
Chapter 13: Somebody Knocks at Our Door
Chapter 14: Baba Does Not Return
Chapter 15: I Go to See Baba
Chapter 16: I Behold Her Standing
Chapter 17: Imatum has been Packing Her Things
Chapter 18: Martha Jumps Up Happily
Chapter 19: I Start Extramural Lessons
Chapter 20: A Hulking Man with Blazing Eyes
Chapter 21: Who Whites these Things?
Chapter 22: Mama Returns, Agitated
Chapter 23: I Cannot Sleep
Chapter 24: We Visit Our Pastor
Chapter 25: I Rush from the Room
Chapter 26: We Wake Up in Ola's House
Chapter 27: A Whirlwind Descends
Acknowledgements
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
1
The Tarred Street is Hot
The tarred street was hot and I could feel it through my rubber sandals. I had passed Sabon Gari Divisional Police Station where Baba worked and had just crossed Airport Road when I saw people suddenly running helter-skelter.
I saw an old Fulani woman, a cock in each hand, trying to run while looking back. Her right leg hit the jerrycan of a motorist whose car had broken down. She stumbled and fell. The motorist rushed to her aid. The two cocks hopped around, squawking. A frightened runner hit one of the birds. The helpless bird collapsed on its side, one wing down, the other up. Its neck stretched out as it fell limply to the ground, its beak agape in terror. The legs kicked weakly.
The old woman, now up, sputtered, ‘May Allah strike you for stepping on my cock! May Allah strike you hard!’
I sighted the chanting mob. Some had their fists in the air. Others wielded swords, spears and cutlasses. They were drawing closer. I turned and headed towards the station, looking back now and then. A clashing sound made me trot. At the station, I turned and saw thick smoke surging upwards behind the mob. A kiosk with Reinhard Bonnke’s posters pasted on it caught aflame.
‘God Almighty! God Almighty! Jesus Christ! Help! Help! My body o!’ A female voice was shrieking in the burning kiosk. Loud and piercing. It pitched above the mob’s chants and died down gradually. Nobody went near the kiosk as the fire razed it. Only a few policemen were around, standing in front of the station.
‘They are burning houses!’
‘They are killing people!’
Two terrified women stood by me near the station entrance. They carried on their heads trays of the fruits they hawked. One of them said, ‘Dent say dey no wan Bonnke to come Kano. I no know why de man come by all means sef.’
‘But e don leave na,’ the other replied.
‘Which time im leave?’
‘Na now now. No be him dem dey follow go airport so?’
It dawned on me. For a week now, Baba’s radio had been blaring adverts about the coming of a great man of God from Germany. He would perform unprecedented miracles like Jesus had. Blind people would see. Lame people would walk. The deaf would hear and the mute would speak.
I peeped into the offices through the windows to see if Baba was inside the station. He was not. After a while the chanting of the mob petered out. The chanters moved towards the airport. Thick smoke rose behind them as they went.
A Hausa man, across the street from the station, was trying to convince a group of people who crowded around him that the white man had gone to the emir’s palace and had astounded him. What did the strange white man do? He simply said a kind word to one of the blind beggars in front of the palace, whereupon the beggar jumped up with a shout of joy, his sight restored. The white man would have been stoned to death right there by furious unbelievers who claimed he had brought an evil ring from India to hoodwink all of Kano City. But the emir begged passionately that, for political and diplomatic reasons, the miracle maker should not be killed. While the emir placated the raging mob, his men whisked the frightened white man to the airport.
I didn’t know if the Hausa man was telling the truth. As I hurried home, I saw people in groups, defying the late afternoon heat, talking with mixed feelings about events. Why was this happening on the day I had started secondary school?
Baba confirmed the Hausa man’s story when he returned home. ‘Before boarding his plane, the white man pulled off his shoes and left them behind,’ Baba told Mama.
‘Isn’t that what Christ said?’ Mama replied. ‘Shake off the dust of your footwear when they refuse to listen to you.’
‘But he should have stayed in his land and preached to his people.’
The argument started all over again. Baba hated the endless noise about the coming of the white man. Mama thought it was heathen of Baba to dislike a man sent by God to perform miracles.
*
The previous night before falling asleep, I had consulted Baba’s dog-eared dictionary, searching for words with which to intimidate SMG, the biggest boy in my class, who bullied me. I found scallywag and megalomaniac.
In my sleep, a big monster with the face of SMG chases me with a long sword. I scream for help. He has almost caught me when Helen suddenly appears with an even longer sword. She stands between me and the monster, stoops and shouts, ‘Climb on my back!’ So I do. With me on her back, her body begins to enlarge, growing bigger than the monster. The monster, frightened, turns and takes to his heels. She gives chase with me still on her back, increasingly frightened, holding tight to her neck. Incredibly, she acquires huge wings and I feel myself lifted from the ground. She flies high on a strong wind at an amazing speed. When we are far above the ground, I feel my palms loosen. I lose hold of her! I land on my back in a pool of blood. Scrambling to my feet, I see swollen bodies floating in the blood. I scream, waking up.
Ukpo, my immediate younger brother, held me tight. ‘Stop screaming. Stop screaming! ’
‘Okay, okay. Am I screaming?’ I gasped, sweating. I wriggled out of Ukpo’s hold and leant my back against the wall.
‘What did you dream?’ Ukpo asked, moving closer to me.
‘I’ll tell you when it’s daybreak. I can’t talk now.’ I looked round the room. Yakubu and Oyigwu, our younger brothers, were sleeping soundly on a mat.
‘Ukpo, there’s this big boy in my class…’
‘Speak on. What about him?’
‘Well, never mind. Please, let’s sleep. And… and… there’s this girl whose bandy legs remind me of…’
‘Helen?’
‘Oh well, I think we should sleep.’
Ukpo grabbed my wrist, looking into my eye
‘I saw Helen yesterday. She’s sad that her father won’t send her to secondary school. But does your nightmare have anything to do with her?’
‘Let’s not talk about it, please. Let’s sleep.’
I stretched myself on the bed. Ukpo did the same beside me. Before we slept, Ukpo told me that he too had had a nightmare, in which he saw himself carried away by a monstrous whirlwind.
*
Next morning I was set for school a few minutes after six. I interrupted Baba as he shaved his beard and listened to the news, telling him that I was on my way.
‘Good that you’re an early bird. How was your first day in school?’
‘Fine. I like the school, our teachers are good.’
‘I’m glad I’ve finally got you back into school. Hope you understand the sacrifices. A hard time for us.’
‘Thank you, Baba.’
Our schooling was irregular, because Baba could not afford to pay our school fees all at once. I looked too big for Form One. But not as big as the bully SMG.
The day before, after I had returned from school, my younger ones had crowded around me. Imatum, the eldest of my younger sisters, had just returned from hawking chin chin. She took one look at me and burst into laughter. ‘Eze goes to school,’ she said.
‘Wrong,’ I retorted. ‘Murtala goes to college. Past the level of Eze.’
Anyaosu, next to Ajara by age, drew closer to me. Touching my uniform, she said, ‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s fine, kwo Anyaosu. But will we ever wear such a uniform?’ asked Ajara.
Imatum turned to Ukpo. ‘See, Ukpo, we must tell Baba to put us in this school too. And he must tell Mama to stop sending us to hawk.’
‘Not when you have a coconut brain,’ Ukpo snapped.
Ajara, Anyaosu and Yakubu burst into laughter.
‘What about yours?’ Imatum retorted.
‘Better than yours.’
Yakubu, following Anyaosu in age, raised his voice and said, ‘Mama said all of you girls will be taken to the village and married off soon. Only Ukpo and I will go to school.’
Imatum barked, ‘Shut your mouth up! Mumu! Isn’t it poverty that makes Mama say that? I’ll look for money and take myself to school!’
*
When I stepped out of our house, the morning was bereft of its freshness. The smell of gutter was in the air. Two swollen mice lay near the gutter running in front of our house, stinking liquid seeping out of them. I saw Aminu, my primary schoolmate, on the main road and greeted him. Instead of responding, he gave me a withering look and muttered something to a boy standing close to him.
I went a bit farther and saw an old woman wailing ‘Laa a ila! Why did they set the mosque ablaze? They have poked fingers in your eyes, my sons.’
I instinctively turned and began to hurry home. I came upon a fat, dark-skinned man sharpening a sword. Then I sprinted.
At home, although Mama and Ajara were ready for Yarkura Market where Mama sold alubo, they could not leave because of the tension. I told them what I had seen and heard. Baba had not dressed for work. We were all outside in our small, rectangular compound. Our house had three rooms on a single block. The first, running from the wall that separated Helen’s house from ours, was for Mama and Baba, the second for my sisters and the third for my brothers and me. Near the main entrance was our bathroom combined with latrine. A long wall, across the front of the rooms, separated our house from another.
Voices drifted over the wall of the adjoining compound. ‘Hhm, the kafiris have burnt the Sabon Gari main mosque.’ It was Umar’s mother.
Umar said, ‘We’ll burn all their churches! We’ll kill them!’ Mama froze, her arms across her breasts.
Umar was Ukpo’s age-mate and he was talking of killing people. How did people kill people? I tried to imagine it.
‘Who will lead you?’ Umar’s mother asked.
‘Baba Sani,’ Umar replied. ‘They say he has a strong talisman. Inna, I’m hungry; anything for me?’
‘Umar, real men set for war don’t complain of hunger.’
‘I’m still a boy. Will be a man someday. Don Allah, warm the leftover tuwo for me.’
‘In that case, go make the fire. But they’ll leave you behind because of food, my son.’
‘They will blow a horn before we all move out.’
2
The Horn is Blown
The horn was blown minutes later. It was so loud that its sound filled our house and when it died down, fear sprang in its place, gripping us. We came out of our rooms and looked at one another.
Mama broke the silence. ‘Jehovah our Lord, we’re in your hands. You’ve saved us from riots before. Save us from this.’
Oyigwu and Emayabo, the youngest ones, leant on her, their palms clutching at her wrapper. Baba stood near her, hands across his chest, his head bowed. Almost to himself he said, ‘It’s started again.’
Imatum, Ajara and Anyaosu stood in front of their room, staring at Mama. Ukpo was close to me, blinking his eyes, his left palm seeking my right. Yakubu leant on the door frame of our room, fingering the buttons of his shirt.
I heard Umar hurrying away. ‘I can’t wait for the food, Inna. Insha’Allah, I’ll not be left behind because of tuwo. I’m a man.’
The atmosphere was still and calm, as if the world awaited something. Baba went to our main door and locked it. With heavy steps, he walked into his and Mama’s room. I wondered what was going on in his mind. Baba was tall and had the brave appearance of a man who could withstand danger.
I looked up at the sky. Its blue brightness gave me strength. I thought I sensed the wind in the air and thought of Grandmama. I tried to stem the tide of my thoughts.
A woman’s voice burst into a wailing pitch. I had never before heard such wailing. I felt a watery disorder in my stomach. I felt my body growing cold. I disengaged my hand from Ukpo’s, walked to the wall, sat on the ground and drew up my knees. Mama pulled Oyigwu and Emayabo along as she also moved towards the wall and sat down. Her eyeballs rolled and her tears pooled. ‘They’re killing a woman,’ she said, her voice shaky. I looked away from her.
I looked at the sky again and was shocked to find it clouded with smoke. The glare of the sun was dimming.
Suddenly, screaming garbled voices seized the air.
‘Na dem! Na dem! Na dem!’
‘My own don finish o! Papa! Mama! Paaaapaaa!’
‘Wetin I do you? Wetin I do you? I beg…’
‘Iya mi o! Iya mi o! I don die! I don die! I don…’
Tears streamed from Mama’s eyes. My sisters, frightened, huddled beside her.
Other voices, really male, were chanting ‘La ila a ila laa! La ila a ila laa! La ila a ila laa!’
It was an odd mix: the terrifying screams and the chanting. I could no longer see the sun; the sky had gone totally dark. The wateriness in my stomach intensified. I felt an opening tug in my anus.
The chanting became louder, swallowing the screams, drawing closer to our house. Mama got to her knees, her palms stretched skyward as she muttered fearfully. Beads of sweat dribbled down her face. Apart from Baba, who had come out of their room and was staring towards our main entrance, we all joined Mama on the floor and did as she did.
The chanters moved away from our house. I sighed loudly. We all stood up slowly, but Mama did not. Baba cast a glance at her. He did not talk. None of us did. Our silence seemed to shield us. Baba returned to their room. In whispers, her tearful eyes tightly closed, Mama continued speaking. ‘God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, do not let them eat our flesh. Send your angels to be on…’ We froze in terror as a nearby scream stabbed the air. It diminished with each hacking blow. Still kneeling, Mama shivered and began to weep quietly. Oyigwu and Emayabo wept along with her. Imatum stared, her face contorted and her lips in a pout. Anyaosu held her hand, leant on her, her face sketched for crying. Ajara put her two arms across her head, looking bereaved.
‘It’s Helen’s house,’ Ukpo whispered.
Helen’s parents occupied two rooms in a large compound beside our house.
Unsteady, I leant against the wall, my wet palms clutching at the block.
