Africa39 by Wole Soyinka Read Free Book Online

stretched out in the grass beneath. It took at least three stone throws before the vendors noticed that someone was trying to command their attention. They stood up one at a time. One of the men, the one with the keloid scars, made as if to come towards us, squinting to peer through the thick layer of fence.
    Naalu and I ran. At the corner of Mama Benja’s block, I fell and scraped my knees bloody. Naalu raced on. She stopped at the large jambula tree. I rose from my fall and darted through Mama Farouk’s fence. When I reached Naalu at the jambula tree, the man with the keloid scars appeared at the corner of Mama Benja’s house. Off we raced again. We never looked back until we stopped at the road that turned into the police barracks. But Naalu was worried that her father would be home, and so we made our way back through the estate houses towards the dead water point.
    At one time this water point had been the main source for our neighbourhood. Age and lack of use had rusted the taps, which looked fit for scrap only. Naalu’s father, who was also the chairman of our residential area – the man charged with settling petty quarrels and taking small bribes for writing letters of introduction and stamping passport applications – had raised funds to renovate the water point and replace the taps. Activity returned. People thought it was good they didn’t have to trek half a kilometre to fetch water in Lugogo, but by six in the morning, jerry cans were lined up as people fought over whose turn it was. Then the jerry cans, even if they were carefully labelled, started to disappear. The next time the taps broke, water flowed all the way to the market. It spewed everywhere and children ran around naked, happy for the artificial rain. After that episode, no one bothered with the water point again.
     
    After our first try at evicting the vendors, the evening of the next day came. We were inside our house. In the kitchen, I fetched a bucket full of water that I had used to clean the fresh fish from the night before. The water was going stale now, the scent of rotting tilapia fermenting and turning the house into a fish brewery.
    Ma was still at work. She would not be home soon. But I was still worried that if we did not hurry, she would return to find the house still smelling of fish. So I repeated to Naalu that we really needed to be quick.
    The men were still in our back yard, basking and anticipating another exciting confrontation with Ma while Naalu helped me carry the bucket of water from the kitchen to the sitting room.
    ‘I think you can carry it from here,’ she said when we reached the back door. I looked at her and frowned, I knew she would not go outside with me even if I threatened witchcraft.
    I descended the stairs by myself, carrying the bucket of water slowly down. On the grass, I pulled the bucket towards the umbrella tree. I wasn’t sure if the men were paying attention, but I knew they had seen me.
    I pulled my bucket farther. As soon as I sensed I was too anxious to go on, I lifted. It was heavy but not as heavy as I had expected it to be. I directed the bucket towards the umbrella tree, then I poured and ran. On the stairs I said to myself, ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise be to God!’ In the house, under the bed in the bedroom where I stayed the whole evening, all I thought was ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise be to God!’
    Ma came home to a riot – men with stones and bricks. She also came home to find Naalu’s father standing on our stairs, trying to make sure everyone understood he’d come as chairman to settle the matter.
     
    Years later, Ma would say that when she came back from work and saw him standing on the stairs trying to calm everyone, she didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed. It was well known among our neighbours that Ma and Naalu’s father did not like each other. Naalu’s father thought northerners were to blame for every single thing that had ever gone wrong in the