Читать книгу The Bata Dancer - Rotimi Ogunjobi - Страница 8

On Monday morning, Yomi drove to Maven Private School, the school which employed him to teach English. The school was accommodated in three storey high buildings arranged around about a five thousand square yard quadrangle of lush green field. .The principal, Mrs Adele Obembe, a pleasant woman of about fifty was very pleased to see him.

“I hope you don’t have to travel from Ibadan every morning”, she jested.

“Not at all. I arrived on Friday and I am presently staying in a hotel”, Yomi laughed.

“Good gracious! That must be very expensive “, Mrs Obembe was genuinely horrified.

“I really don’t have an alternative yet. I asked an estate agent to find me a flat but he is yet to do that. He promised to call “, Yomi also regretted.

The principal took Yomi around the school and introduced him to the rest of the staff. Yomi asked to take two days off to resolve his accommodation issue and Mrs Obembe was pleased to oblige.

Falana had not called him on Sunday, nor this morning. Yomi phoned him to ask how he was getting on.

“I have not yet found a place which fits your requirement. Please have a little more patience”, Falana explained with what Yomi suspected was contrived sadness. Yomi was dismayed. He often heard a lot about this sort of swindle but never thought it could ever happen to him. This morning his heart told him that he had thrown away three thousand Naira.

Not sure of what to do next, he went looking again for Baba Lamidi. He remembered that the lady he’d previously met told him Baba Lamidi was expected back on Sunday, which was the previous day. Baba Lamidi was about to leave home when Yomi arrived.

“Alakowe, you have come again?” Baba Lamidi was surprised to see him. Yomi was delighted that this old man whom he hadn’t seen in eight years still remembered him. Alakowe was a generic reference to a young scholar, and depending on how much mischief the speaker had in mind, it could be spoken in endearment or as a cloaked insult.

“I am pleased that you still remember me Baba. I am not Alakowe, I am your son” Yomi laughed.

“Okay, my son, what is your mission this time?” Baba asked.

“Nothing specific, Baba. I have just come to say hello. I was here two days ago, but a young lady I met here told me you’d gone away on a journey”, Yomi told him.

“Oh, it was you that came looking for me. My daughter told me about it. . What is so important that has kept you here for three days then? Don’t tell me you came all the way from Ibadan just to say hello”

“I have been given a job in this town as a teacher. I will be here for a while; I don’t know for how long”

“Is that so? That is wonderful. I will see you later then, because I am now on my way to my farm. We old people need to get out of the house as often as possible , otherwise Death will soon come calling while you are lying down and doing nothing”, Baba told him .

“Can I come along with you?” he asked, seizing an excellent opportunity to relate more closely with Baba Lamidi.

“You think you are able to do that? You people from the city can barely stay thirty minutes on your feet” Baba chuckled.

“In that case, will you kindly permit me to surprise you?” Yomi promised.

“As you wish then”, Baba replied, shrugging frail shoulders.

“How will you get to farm? How do you usually go there?” Yomi asked

“Usually, Atanda drives me in my car .But today the car has a problem starting, so we aim to just take a bus to the highway and then walk the rest of the way. It is good exercise”, Baba said. A young fellow standing behind him nodded. He had the eager look of a school child on his way to a fun excursion.

“Let me take you there in my car”, Yomi offered.

“That is very generous of you. You are so kind”, Baba thanked him.

The journey was short. It took less than ten minutes to arrive at the footpath leading from the highway, to Baba Lamidi’s farm. From there, they began the long walk. Yomi and Baba Lamidi conversed as they walked. While Atanda quietly followed behind.

Yomi spoke enthusiastically of his experience at the Heritage Theater Project .Baba listened attentively, humming and nodding his head. He also spoke of his future project plans now that the Heritage Theater was in trouble; principal of which was to have his own stage and film production enterprise. The chat broke the monotony of their journey. Yomi reckoned they must have walked about a quarter of a mile through semi-forest before they arrived at Baba Lamidi’s farm,

Yomi did not fail to notice that even though Baba Lamidi walked steadily and with determination, he made progress with more than a bit of difficulty. By the time they arrived at the farm, Baba Lamidi had become very sweaty and breathed with more difficulty than Yomi thought he should. Nevertheless, considering that Baba was in his seventies, Yomi thought that long walks should naturally be a challenge. Atanda, a young lad who came along with Baba however showed no sign of strain at all; neither did Yomi. The sun was yet mild.

“What do you think Baba?” Yomi asked, when they finally arrived at the farm

“I think you have a lot of good ideas. God will make it possible for you. I will certainly like to see one of your plays when you put it on stage”, Baba encouraged.

“I’d rather you see one of them, as it progresses to the stage, Baba”, Yomi was more optimistic.

“If that is what you wish, then God will make it possible”, Baba agreed.

“There is one play that is actually written for dance; or may I say instead a dance performance that is to be done as a play. I want it to become the most spectacular stage play anyone in the world has ever seen.” .Yomi persisted.

“When is it going to be acted? I will definitely want to see that one”, Baba Lamidi was hopeful

“I have not yet completed writing it. That is one of the reasons I have come here”, Yomi told him. Baba Lamidi looked disappointed.

“Young man, I will do what I am able to help; but as you can see, I am no more young. I no more have the strength that I used to have”, he warned.

The farm was really not really as big as Yomi imagined it would be. It contained a score or so, bays of yams and vegetables and perhaps a hundred cocoa and citrus trees. Baba was glad to take a rest at last. He sat on bench that constructed under an orange tree, and from whole trunks of small trees, tied together with vine.

“This fever again. I must remember to get myself some herbs on the way home”, Baba Lamidi wheezed.

Atanda, the young assistant Baba brought with him, knew what he was required to do. He harvested okra and pepper into the basket he brought. He also dug up some yams. One of the animal traps on the farm had caught a young duiker which Atanda slaughtered, gutted, and then splayed on a wooden cross-frame. He made a fire of dry twigs and leaves and roasted a yam in it. On another fire he roasted the dressed animal.

“You are here alone? Do you not yet have a wife and children?” Baba asked. Yomi was for a moment flustered. This was not a part of his life he enjoyed talking about.

“I had a wife, but we could not live together. She left me and went away”. He decided to bare all. Baba Lamidi shook his head, regrettably.

“Women of nowadays are so foolish and impatient”, Baba said.

“I agree with you Baba”,

“I would say though I was very lucky with my first wife who is now departed. She was the gentlest woman and took great care to cover my inadequacies, while most women delight in taking to the street to tell the entire world where their husband has failed”, Baba shook his head some more.

“You said she is dead? What happened?” Yomi inquired.

“Oh, well we must always foolishly say one disease or the other killed a person; sometimes we would even say that it was the witches. I say it was her time to return to God that is all. Death took her away. It was a sad thing for me, but what can we do? The same will eventually happen to all of us whether we like it or not”, Baba grieved.

“That is so sad. Didn’t she have any children for you?”

“She gave me six wonderful children. All of them are grown up and working far away. Three are even overseas. Ajoke is the youngest of them, and she is the one you met the other day”

“So you do not also have a wife living in your house?” Yomi wanted to know.

“I do have a wife. It will be unthinkable that a man should not have a woman with him in his house. Bejide is nearly as patient with me as the one who passed on, but she is young; nearly forty years younger than me. She was previously widowed; my wife was also dead. She was suggested to me by friends who thought I was lonely and depressed. We have four children together; the youngest of them was born four years ago”

. Yomi wondered bemused why some men still fathered children in their old age.

“My estranged wife took away our only child and forbade me to see him. I decided not to go to court to challenge this. I didn’t want to confuse the poor child even more” Yomi told Baba.

“That was a wise decision. Get on with your life and with your work. When your son is of age, he will come looking for his father. Be sure to make yourself a father that your child will be pleased and proud to find”, Baba advised.

Time passed quickly on the farm. Four hours or so after they arrived, they started back from the farm. Again Baba walked with so much effort and by the time they got to the road where the car was parked, he was again gasping for breath. On the way back home, they visited the home shop of a herbalist to purchase a remedy for Baba’s fever.

This was the first time Yomi had ever visited a traditional medicine pharmacy and he was struck with wonder at the great array of articles assembled on the grimy tables and shelves. There were herbs, tree barks, strange seeds, and the dried skull of various animals - rodents, lizard, apes, goats and some other animals which looked like goats. There were dried whole animals, dried insects, leaves, stems, roots. He could also see what appeared like the flayed skin of a leopard, or was it a hyena? He wasn’t sure. The herbalist’s shop was indeed a horrendous store of items, many of them so revolting in their appearance and smell. Yomi was fascinated.

“I want to buy agbo iba “, Baba told the woman - thin, blank faced but with predatory aquiline features. She fetched a bundle of leaves and tree barks, wrapped it in brown paper and gave to Atanda. Quietly watching, Yomi, who had never in his life taken herbal remedies for any illness felt sure that those leaves when cooked together and drunk by the sufferer, would certainly make the person’s illness worse than if he had not take any of the stuff at all.

Yomi dropped Baba off at this home, and promised to return next day to see how he is faring. He thought he saw Ajoke looking into the engine of Baba Lamidi’s Peugeot Station Wagon which was parked at the side of the house. He couldn’t be sure it was her though.

The day was not yet done with. He decided to pay the estate agent a surprise visit, if only to express his disappointment. Again, he only found the clerk there, and as usual she was completely unhelpful. Yomi left a written message for Falana asking the estate agent to please call him back before the day ran out. What exactly he wanted Falana to call him about, he wasn’t quite sure, other than to be assured that he had not been swindled. But in truth, his heart told him, quite confidently that neither the promised accommodation nor his money he would see. He wondered what other options there were for finding a house.