The Fishermen Read online

  We began going to the river every day after school in the company of other children of the street in a procession led by Solomon, Ikenna and Boja. These three often concealed hooked fishing lines in rags or old wrappas. The rest of us—Kayode, Igbafe, Tobi, Obembe and I—carried things that ranged from rucksacks with fishing clothes in them to nylon bags containing earthworms and dead roaches we used as baits, and empty beverage cans in which we kept the fish and tadpoles we caught. Together we trod to the river, wading through bushy tracks that were populated with schools of prickly dead nettles that flogged our bare legs and left white welts on our skin. The flogging the nettles inflicted on us matched the strange botanical name for the predominant grass in the area, esan, the Yoruba word for retribution or vengeance. We’d walk this trail single file and once we’d passed these grasses, we’d rush off to the river like madmen. The older ones among us, Solomon, Ikenna and Boja, would change into their dirty fishing clothes. They would then stand close to the river, and hold their lines up above the water so the baited hooks would disappear down into it. But although they fished like men of yore who’d known the river from its cradle, they mostly only harvested a few palm-sized smelts, or some brown cods that were much more difficult to catch, and, rarely, some tilapias. The rest of us just scooped tadpoles with beverage cans. I loved the tadpoles, their slick bodies, exaggerated heads and how they appeared nearly shapeless as if they were the miniature version of whales. So I would watch with awe as they hung suspended below the water and my fingers would blacken from rubbing off the grey glop that glossed their skins. Sometimes we picked up coral shells or empty shells of long dead arthropods. We caught rounded snails the shape of primal whorls, the teeth of some beast—which we came to believe belonged to a bygone era because Boja argued vehemently that it was that of a dinosaur and took it home with him—pieces of the moulted skin of a cobra shed just by the bank of the river, and anything of interest we could find.

  Only once did we catch a fish that was big enough to sell, and I often think of that day. Solomon had pulled this humongous fish that was bigger than anything we’d ever seen in Omi-Ala. Then Ikenna and Solomon went off to the nearby food market, and returned to the river after a little more than half an hour with fifteen naira. My brothers and I went home with the six naira that was our share of the sale, our joy boundless. We began to fish more in earnest from then on, staying awake long into the nights to discuss the experience.

  Our fishing was carried out with great zeal, as though a faithful audience gathered daily by the bank of the river to watch and cheer us. We did not mind the smell of the bracken waters, the winged insects that gathered in blobs around the banks every evening and the nauseating sight of algae and leaves that formed the shape of a map of troubled nations at the far end of the river bank where varicose trees dipped into the waters. We went every single day with corroding tins, dead insects, melting worms, dressed mostly in rags and old clothing. For we derived great joy from this fishing, despite the difficulties and meagre returns.

  When I look back today, as I find myself doing more often now that I have sons of my own, I realize that it was during one of these trips to the river that our lives and our world changed. For it was here that time began to matter, at that river where we became fishermen.

  THE RIVER

  Omi-Ala was a dreadful river:

  Long forsaken by the inhabitants of Akure town like a mother abandoned by her children. But it was once a pure river that supplied the earliest settlers with fish and clean drinking water. It surrounded Akure and snaked through its length and breadth. Like many such rivers in Africa, Omi-Ala was once believed to be a god; people worshipped it. They erected shrines in its name, and courted the intercession and guidance of Iyemoja, Osha, mermaids, and other spirits and gods that dwelt in water bodies. This changed when the colonialists came from Europe, and introduced the Bible, which then prized Omi-Ala’s adherents from it, and the people, now largely Christians, began to see it as an evil place. A cradle besmeared.

  It became the source of dark rumours. One such rumour was that people committed all sorts of fetish rituals at its banks. This was supported by accounts of corpses, animal carcasses and other ritualistic materials floating on the surface of the river or lying on its banks. Then early in 1995, the mutilated body of a woman was found in the river, her vital body parts dismembered. When her remains were discovered, the town council placed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the river from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and the river was abandoned. Incident after incident accumulated over many years, tainting the history of the river and corrupting its name so much so that—in time—the mere mention of it triggered disdain. It did not help that a religious sect with a bad reputation in the country was located close to it. Known as the Celestial Church or the white garment church, its believers worshipped water spirits and walked about barefoot. We knew our parents would severely punish us if they ever found out we were going to the river. Yet we did not give it a thought until one of our neighbours—a petty trader who walked the town hawking fried groundnuts on a tray she carried on her head—caught us on the path to the river and reported us to Mother. This was in late February and we had been fishing for nearly six weeks. On that day, Solomon had angled a big fish. We jumped up at the sight of it wriggling against the dripping hook, and burst into the fishermen song, which Solomon had invented. We always sang it at peak moments, such as the fish’s death spiral.

  The song was a variation of the well-known ditty performed by the adulterous wife of Pastor Ishawuru, the main character of the most popular Christian soap in Akure at the time, The Ultimate Power, during her recall to church after she was banished for her sin. Although Solomon came up with the idea, most of the suggestions that eventually made up the lyrics came from nearly every one of us. It was Boja’s suggestion, for instance, that we put “the fishermen have caught you” in place of “we have caught you.” We replaced her testimony to God’s ability to hold her up against the power of Satan’s temptations with our ability to hold the fish firm once caught and not let it escape. We so greatly delighted in this song that we sometimes hummed it at home or in school.

  Bi otiwu o ki o Jo, ki o ja, Dance all you want, fight all you will,

  Ati mu o, o male lo mo. We’ve caught you, you cannot escape.

  She bi ati mu o? O male le lo mo o. Haven’t we caught you? You certainly can’t escape.

  Awa, Apeja, ti mu o. We, the fishermen, have caught you.

  Awa, Apeja, ti mu o, o ma le lo mo o We, the fishermen, have caught you, you can’t escape!

  We sang the song so loudly after Solomon’s catch that evening that an elderly man, a priest of the Celestial Church, came to the river barefoot, his feet as noiseless as a phantom’s. When we began visiting the river and found this church within our ambit, we immediately included it in our adventures. We’d peek at the worshippers through the open mahogany windows of the small church hall with peeling blue paint, and mimic their frenzied actions and dances. Only Ikenna deemed it insensitive to the sacred practice of a religious body. I was closest to the path from which the old man came, and was the first to see him. Boja was on the other side of the river, and when he spotted the man, he dropped his line and hurried ashore. The part of the river where we fished was hidden from the rest of the street by long stretches of bushes on both sides and you could not see the waters until you took the rutted path carved out of the bush from the adjoining street. After the old man had entered the path and drawn near, he stopped, having noticed two of our beverage cans sitting in shallow holes we’d dug with our hands. He peered down to see the contents of the cans, around which flies were hovering, and turned away, shaking his head.

  “What is this?” he asked in a Yoruba whose accent was foreign to me. “Why were you shouting like a pack of drunks? Don’t you know that the house of God is just on the other side?” He pointed in the direction of the church, turning his body fully to the pathway. “Don’t you have any respect for God, eh?”

&n
bsp; We’d all been taught that it was rude to answer an older person’s question meant to indict us, even if we could readily provide an answer. So instead of replying, Solomon apologized.

  “We are sorry, baba,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “We will refrain from shouting.”

  “What are you fishing from these waters?” asked the old man, ignoring Solomon and pointing to the river whose waters had now become a bed of darkening grey. “Tadpoles, smelts, what? Why don’t you all go home?” He blinked his eyes, his gaze roving from one person to the other. Igbafe stifled laughter, but Ikenna chewed him out by mumbling “Idiot” under his breath; too late.

  “You think it’s funny?” the man said, staring at Igbafe. “Well, it’s your parents I pity. I’m sure they do not know you come here and will be sorry if they ever find out. Haven’t you heard the government has banned people from coming here? Oh, kids of this generation.” He glanced around again with a look of astonishment and then said: “Whether you leave or not, do not raise your voices like that again. You hear?”

  With a long-drawn sigh and shaking of the head, the priest turned and walked away. We burst into laughter, mocking the white robe flapping against his thin frame, which had given him the appearance of a child in an oversized coat. We laughed at the fearful man who could not stand the sight of fish and tadpoles (because he peered at the fish with terror in his eyes), and at the imagined odour of his mouth (even though none of us had been close enough to smell his breath).

  “This man is just like Iya Olode, the madwoman who people say is even worse,” Kayode said. He’d carried a tin of fish and tadpoles and it tilted in his hand now, so he covered its top to prevent it from spilling over. His nose was running but he seemed not to be conscious of it, so that the milky white secretion hung just beneath his nostrils. “She is always dancing around the town—mostly dancing Makosa. The other day, she was chased out of the big open-market bazaar at Oja-Oba because they said she crouched at the very centre of the market, just beside a meat seller’s shed and shat.”

  We laughed at this. Boja quivered as he laughed, and then as if the laughter had drained him of all energy, he dropped his hands on both knees, panting. We were still laughing when we noticed that Ikenna, who had not uttered a single word since the priest interrupted our fishing, had emerged from the water on the far side of the banks where wilted esan grass prostrated into the river. He’d started to unbuckle his wet shorts when our attention was drawn to him. We watched as he removed his dripping fishing clothes, too, and began drying himself.

  “Ike, what are you doing?” Solomon said.

  “I’m going home,” Ikenna replied curtly as if he’d been impatiently waiting to be asked. “I want to go and study. I’m a student, not a fisherman.”

  “Now?” said Solomon. “Isn’t it too early and we have—”

  Solomon did not complete his sentence; he’d understood. For the seed of what Ikenna had now begun to act out—a lack of interest in fishing—was sown the previous week. He’d had to be persuaded to come with us to the river that day. So, when he said: “I want to go and study. I’m a student, not a fisherman,” no one questioned him any further. Boja, Obembe and I—left with no choice but to follow him since we never did anything Ikenna did not approve of—began dressing for home, too. Obembe was packing up the lines into the worn-out wrappas we had stolen from one of Mother’s old boxes. I picked up the cans and small polythene bag in which the rest of the unused worms wriggled, struggled and slowly died.

  “Are you all really leaving?” Kayode asked as we followed Ikenna, who did not seem keen on waiting for us, his brothers.

  “Why are you all going now?” Solomon said. “Is it because of the priest or because of that day you met Abulu? Did I not ask you not to wait? Did I not tell you not to listen to him? Did I not tell you that he was just an evil, crazy, madman?”

  But none of us said a word in reply, nor did we turn to him. We simply walked on, Ikenna ahead, holding only the black polythene bag in which he kept his fishing shorts. He had left his hooked fishing line at the bank, but Boja had picked it up and carried it in his own wrappa.

  “Let them go,” I heard Igbafe say behind us. “We don’t need them; we can fish by ourselves.”

  They started to mock us, but the distance soon cut them off, and we began to walk through the tracks in silence. As we went I wondered what had come over Ikenna. There were times when I could not understand his actions, or his decisions. I depended mostly on Obembe to help me clarify things. After the encounter with Abulu the previous week, which Solomon had just referred to, Obembe had told me a story he said was responsible for Ikenna’s sudden change. I was pondering this story when Boja cried: “My God, Ikenna, look, Mama Iyabo!” He’d seen one of our neighbours, who hawked groundnuts about on foot, seated on the bench in front of the church with the priest who’d come to the river earlier. By the time Boja raised the alarm, it was already too late; the woman had seen us.

  “Ah, ah, Ike,” she called out at us as we passed, calm as prisoners. “What have you come to do here?”

  “Nothing!” Ikenna answered, quickening his pace.

  She’d risen to her feet, a tiger of a woman, arms raised as if about to pounce on us.

  “And the thing in your hand? Ikenna, Ikenna! I’m talking to you.”

  In defiance, Ikenna hurried down the path, and we followed suit. We took the short turn behind a compound where the branch of a banana tree, snapped in a storm, bowed like the blunt snout of a porpoise. Once there, Ikenna faced us and said: “Have you all seen it? Have you seen what your folly has caused? Didn’t I say we should stop going to this stupid river, but none of you listened?” He piled both hands on his head: “You will see that she will certainly blow the whistle to Mama. You want to bet it?” He slapped his forehead. “You want to?”

  No one replied. “You see?” he said. “Your eyes have now opened, right? You will see.”

  These words throbbed in my ears as we went, driving home the fear that she would definitely report us to Mother. The woman was Mother’s friend, a widow whose husband had died in Sierra Leone while fighting for the African Union forces. He left her with only a gratuity that was sawn in half by her husband’s family members, two malnourished sons Ikenna’s age, and a sea of endless wants that prompted Mother to step in to help from time to time. Mama Iyabo would definitely sound the alarm to Mother as payback that she’d found us playing at the dangerous river. We were very afraid.

  We did not go to the river after school the following day. We sat in our rooms instead, waiting for Mother to return. Solomon and the others had gone there hoping we’d come, but after waiting a while and suspecting we were not coming, they came to check on us. Ikenna advised them, especially Solomon, that it was best they stopped fishing, too. But when Solomon rejected his advice, Ikenna offered him his hooked fishing line. Solomon laughed at him and left with the air of one immune to all the dangers Ikenna had enumerated as lurking like shadows around Omi-Ala. Ikenna watched as they went, shaking his head with pity for these boys who seemed determined to continue down this doomed path.

  When Mother came home that afternoon, much earlier than her usual closing time, we saw at once that the neighbour had reported us. Mother was deeply shaken by the weight of her ignorance despite living with us in the same house. True, we’d concealed our trade for so long, hiding the fish and tadpoles under the bunk bed in Ikenna and Boja’s shared room because we knew about the mysteries that surrounded Omi-Ala. We’d covered up the smell of the bracken water, even the nauseating smell of the fish when they died, for the fish we caught were usually insignificant, weak, and barely ever survived beyond the day of their catch. Even though we kept them in the water we fetched from the river, they soon died in the beverage cans. We’d return from school every day to find Ikenna and Boja’s room filled with the smell of dead fish and tadpoles. We’d throw them with the tin into the dump behind our compound’s fence, sad because empty tins were hard to get
.

  We’d kept the many wounds and injuries we sustained during those trips secret, too. Ikenna and Boja had ensured Mother did not find out. She once accosted Ikenna for beating Obembe after he heard him singing the fishermen’s song in the bathroom, and Obembe swiftly covered for him by saying that Ikenna had hit him because he’d called Ikenna a pig-head, therefore deserving Ikenna’s wrath. But Ikenna had hit him because he thought it foolish for Obembe to be singing that song at home when Mother was in the house, at the risk of blowing our cover. Then Ikenna had warned that if he ever made that same mistake, Obembe would never see the river again. It was this threat, and not the slight blow, that had caused Obembe to weep. Even when, in the second week of our adventure, Boja popped his toe into the blade of a crab’s claw near the bank of the river and his sandal became awash in his own blood, we lied to Mother that he was injured in a football match. But in truth, Solomon had had to pull the crab’s claw out of his flesh while every one of us, except Ikenna, was asked to look away. And Ikenna, enraged at the sight of Boja’s profuse bleeding and the fear that he might bleed to death despite Solomon’s solid assurances that he would not, had smashed the crab to pieces, cursing it a thousand times for causing such grievous harm to Boja. It pained Mother that we had succeeded in keeping it secret for such a long time—over six weeks, although we lied that it was only three—within which she did not even suspect that we were fishermen.

  Mother paced about that night with heavy footsteps, wounded. She did not give us dinner.

  “You don’t deserve to eat anything in this house,” she said as she moved around, from the kitchen to her room and back, her hands unsteady, her spirit broken. “Go and eat the fish you caught from that dangerous river and be stuffed by it.”