Magba meets a fake fake Sheikh
Extract from The man who slept with the devil
Kam Salem House, Lagos, stands behind latticed perimeter walls within earshot of Eko Bridge. Magba waited outside its gunmetal gates, prodding the bridge of his bogus spectacles, stealing glances at his expensive watch and fondling the fifty dollar notes in his pocket. At twenty seven seconds past seven thirty eight, with the sun beginning to prick at his shaved head, a man in a shiny suit led him and a passel of other anxious petitioners up to the third floor.
The steamy corridor, dim bulb, mazy cracks in the walls and the men grouped outside each officer’s door put Magba in mind of a brothel. His pelvis began to tingle. By evening its clamour for placation would have swelled to unbearable. He distracted himself by counting the cracks in the ceiling and re-running that Sarowami girl’s story in his head. Presently, at eight minutes to eight o’clock, a woman in a red top came down the stairs to announce that Commissioner Mr Soki Sheki had been delayed, news which produced in Magba a delicious frisson, that perhaps the man had had a stroke, not a huge one, but enough to wipe his memory and speech. He chided himself for the awful thought and whispered a passage from the Koran in penitence.
Soon the queue of supplicants grew down the stairwells. Magba had just counted the fifteenth crack in the far corner of the ceiling when Mr Sheki’s deep voice rumbled up the stairwell. Moments later Mr Sheki heaved into sight, towering over his entourage in a white open-necked shirt riding over a low paunch the size of a basketball. He looked relaxed, unhurried as if he had come in after a good meal. ‘Ah, Julius, wait,’ he said, tossing Magba a key. To envious glances from the others, Magba let himself in to Mr Sheki’s office.
The size of two average family cars, the room felt heavy with the smell of stale pepper soup and mouldy leather. A portrait of the State Governor hung above the desk, which had been pulled into the middle of the room to make room for the corpulent incumbent. To the right of the entrance sat a red leather sofa. Another, brown and tattered, sprawled under the opposing window through which Magba could see the yellow molue buses shuffling along the flyover. Minutes later Mr Sheki strolled in and shut the door behind him.
‘If not for despatch rider, this go-slow can kill,’ he said, puffing his podgy cheeks, like a celebrity who had just torn himself from his adoring public.
Mr Sheki had a first class degree in Finance or something like that, funded by sleeping rough and by doing odd jobs on the Lagos University campus. He had a greasy face, with thick brown hair that came down to his eyebrows and three rolls of fat each a finger wide across his forehead, putting Magba in mind of those padded out mock-ups of prototype cars. At least a fist taller than the five foot nine Magba, he had skin the colour of laterite, cunning, deep-set eyes with a larger left pupil, or smaller right, Magba could not tell. ‘Sit down my friend. Can I get you Coke, Fanta? What of my GDP?’ A practised hand fell on to the rusty bronze bell on his desk as he flopped into his chair.
Magba remained standing. ‘I don’t want to take too much of your time…’
‘Good,’ said Mr Sheki in a voice so deep it made Magba’s stomach rumble. ‘I will never give anyone too much time,’ said the commissioner, dragging the last syllable, sounding like a church organ. He laughed. His teeth looked like milk teeth, but yellow, as if some of the colour had run off his face. ‘If I give you money, I know what remains in my pocket. If I give you this shirt, I know what is left in my wardrobe, but time…how do I know how much I have left?’ said Mr Sheki. He chuckled at his own joke, wobbling the fat tyres around his neck. ‘You are sure you don’t want anything?’ he said, dragging out the “ng”.
Though he sought and prayed for, it, not an ounce of kindness could Magba find in the man’s countenance. He shook his head. ‘I had breakfast.’
Mr Sheki shrugged. ‘Life is too short to argue over refusals,’ he said. He barked through the shut door and clapped his hands. ‘Where is food?’ Then he went quiet and seemed to spin several evil ideas in his head.
A woman scurried in to lay a bowl of fried chicken, Scotch eggs and a spicy stew before Mr Sheki. ‘The best way to silence this rebellious stomach is with assortments,’ he said. He washed his hands in a blue plastic bowl and started to devour, licking and cracking chicken bones like a carnivore showing off for a wildlife show. For five minutes Magba might as well not have been there. Why doesn’t he just take his money and let me go? Magba sat, fondling the notes in his pocket and wondering how he would get through danger week at home with Temi.
‘Ah man must wack or discontent will burst. Julius, we can now talk business,’ said Mr Sheki at last, combing his lips with his teeth. ‘I am full up to here.’ He tapped the top of his throat and beamed, like a man at a new beau. ‘Remind me. Where are you from?’ he said, prolonging the “m” again. His voice now deeper by another octave, like two articulated lorries rumbling over a wooden bridge.
‘KIYO, Kirikiri Youth Detention Centre,’ said Magba.
Mr Sheki dropped his head in mock exasperation. ‘No, I mean are you from the island or mainland, your local government area?’
Magba had not expected that. He shook his hands down by his waist like he used to before a 400m hurdles race. ‘I am from Olowo, beyond that I am not sure. I am not that good on family history.’ That much was almost true.
‘Julius. Why did you choose that name Julius? You must like women.’ Mr Sheki rumbled into a ditty. ‘Julius sees her, hooks, likes and sinks her,’ he said with a belly laugh.
Magba shifted his bottom off a sharp spring and went to sit on the sofa by the window to get some air.
‘Julius, how old do you think I am?’
‘Oh, I think, maybe about forty…?’ said Magba, taking ten years off his first guess.
The commissioner smiled and rocked back in his chair. ‘The river of flattery never runs dry.’ He turned serious. ‘I am well beyond forty but why should I die in service and leave my children to drown in the gutter of dirt and poverty?’
Magba shook his head. ‘Allah…God forbid sir,’ stammering over his futile religious subterfuge. ‘I brought this month’s GDP money,’ he said, stifling a nervous yawn.
Mr Sheki made a sad face. ‘Oligarchous Dangote sells everything…biro, cement to generator, from paperclip to detergent but what have I to show for my toil but scratchings from the wilful and unfortunate?’ He bit into another Scotch egg and while he chewed with noisy relish, produced the brown file from a drawer. ‘Enough of the circumbendibus,’ he said, wiping a dribble from the corner of his mouth. A prickly fear gripped Magba’s throat. What does he want this time?
‘Julius of Lekki, as you know government sometimes does not pay salaries for months. And pensions…they are even stranger than fiction. The man who stole our pension did not have the shame to commit suicide when they caught him Yen-handed.’ He weighed the file in his hand. ‘So I said to myself last week…this thing that God has put in my hand…this is an asset with which I must turn my deficits into surplus,’ he said.
A feeling of impending doom slashed at Magba’s tonsils. He knew what was coming. Allah please stop him. ‘But I am only a civil servant…like you…’
Mr Sheki spat a piece of bone or meat off the tip of his tongue and put the file back in the drawer. ‘A board meeting that took place in my head this morning while my wife gently snored by my side resolved that you should up your contributions to my GDP.’ He stretched out his greasy little palm. ‘If not for…circumstances, vicissitudes, I should be a white cap chief by now. Do you know what a white cap chief is?’
Magba had heard of them from Iya. He shook his head.
‘I didn’t think so. The autochthonous collude with colonists to grind the mud into their own history then grind the history into the dust. White cap chiefs ruled this place before…all the mago mago in the 19th century. So to say to me that you have no cash is an insult…to my pedigree.’
‘I’ve got…500…’
‘Pounds or dollars?’said Mr Sheki. The glow of caprice in his eyes turned happily into the glint of greed.
‘Dollars…sir, consider my position…I have been paying to your GDP every month for over one year. I don’t know how…’
‘What of your wife, or you are still too proud?’said Mr Sheki.
Me…proud…of what? ‘Her assets are tied up in estate.’
‘We are like little girls arguing over trinkets.’ Mr Sheki broke the ash off the end of his cigarette with three quick taps over a saucer. ‘Maybe you want me to latch on to your madam?’
Magba gripped his knees against a sinking feeling. ‘I don’t think her brother will be too happy,’ he said. He did not know what made him say that.
‘Let us leave the woman out of our business,’ said Mr Sheki, who seemed less aggressive on the mention of Bola’s name. Magba thought of telling Bola about Commissioner but decided against. He did not like to ask for help, least of all from his brother in law.
Mr Sheki rolled the notes into a cigar and kissed them. Then he turned his mouth down in sardonic self depredation. ‘Dribs and drabs for me, floods of it for Dangote. Your monthly quota will be revised upwards; as you know inflation is running into double figures…Sanusi may raise interest rates. I worked in one of the novice banks, before it crashed…then fell in love with the Police Force on the rebound. Why “force” why don’t they call it the Police Cajole. You see why all over the world people fear us. Because it is our job to force. Even in America and Europe they use force, they are even allowed to shoot to kill, but here if something happens…anyway, when you get to heaven if God asks you why you did something wrong you can say…police forced?’
An urgent prodding started in Magba’s chest ‘If you need help with certain issues, promotion for example, I can ask Bola, Chief’s son…’
Mr Sheki laughed, baring those little teeth. A gold filling flashed from the back of his mouth. ‘No. I have commitments. A house to complete, children, nieces and nephews from my late brother and other attachments. And from a white cap chief much is expected. So I say if you can manage hundred thousand dollars, it will allow me to mobilise. I think you will agree with me that it is a small price to pay…in the circumstances. You get to keep your Lekki house, your cars, that watch you hide under your long sleeve shirt…you think because I am some Isale-Eko boy I don’t appreciate quality? Is it Rolex or Cartier or the other one…Piaget…Tag…’
To argue was pointless. Magba did not know how he would get the money.
‘By when?’ He had to ask. As if he had any idea how to get the money, other than through prayer. Certainly, filching the foreign currency Temi left lying about after her business trips would no longer do. He raised a nervous hand to knead his wide nostrils, an old habit he was trying to abandon. He stopped himself and pulled on a prickly eyelash instead.
Mr Sheki squinted at the calendar. ‘We are now end of May,’ he said, counting the months out on his fingers. ‘I give you till end of October. Then we can talk.’
‘If I find the money you will release the file?’ said Magba.
Mr Sheki blinked and gave a slanting nod.
Magba got up. ‘Have a good day,’ he said, but in truth he wished Mr Sheki only strokes of hard luck. Full stop.
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