Naked woman, Black woman
I sing your beauty as it passes
And fix your shape forever before jealous
Destiny burns you to ash
To feed the roots of life
"Black Woman" —Leopold S. Senghor
"You are not who you think you are. You are what I made you: a living ghost. You are not captain Paul but the ghost of Captain Paul!" Helen announced grinning ear to ear with satisfaction.
"Prove it! Prove to me that I am dead." Paul shouted.
"So you don't believe me, Paul. Wait, I have something for you."
She brought out a copy of the Herald and read its headline aloud: Ghost Haunts Village: The ghost of a former army captain visited Iropo village yesterday. Sources close to his family said the ghost visited the family compound in broad daylight. The sources confirmed that the captain had died over a year ago. Our reporter Samuel Andrew was taken to the grave for confirmation. Helen stopped reading and handed John the paper. He was speechless.
"How do you think I was able to trace you?" she asked laughing. He refused to answer.
"Who... who... whose body ... did they get to bury in my place?"
"Oh, my friends in the army got a corpse for me; one badly riddled by bullets, the face totally disfigured and already decomposing. Your parents had to hurriedly bury it," Helen replied.
"Didn't the army officially announce my death?" Paul asked.
"They did. Your name was fifth on the list of those who died on a peacekeeping mission. I arranged that too." It was then that Paul understood the great pandemonium at his family house in Iropo village after he had arrived there, released from prison. Rahila was the first to speak, "The devil can't pretend to be my husband, look... look at this paper..." she produced an official letter of condolence and a copy of the Herald from 15 January 1990. A total of twenty names of dead soldiers had been published, some of whom he'd met in prison. His name was fifth on the list.
"Let me see the paper please, Rahila," Paul pleaded. She threw the paper at his feet. He went through the names.
"Let me explain. It's true. All these people are truly dead but I am alive!
"I am your husband, Captain Paul Krubo!" he protested.
"No you are not my Paul. How did he know all these people are dead? If he is not one of them?" Rahila shouted.
"Evil one, you are not my son. Paul my son is dead, you are an imposter!" the old man shouted and fled. Paul Krubo stood in the centre of the compound, not moving. Night came rather fast. Shocking events always seem to hasten the hands of time.
"Let him sleep in the stranger's hut outside the compound. If he doesn't disappear by tomorrow morning, then we will have to summon the chief Priest," his father announced. The women were too scared to serve him food. His mother didn't even want to look at him. "God help me banish this devil; my Paul is dead," she cried. No one slept in the neighborhood that day. Word had gone round, that Baba Krubo, Paul's father, was harboring a ghost in his house. All the neighbors left for safer neighborhoods to spend the night.
Paul lay on the ground; he hadn't eaten anything since his release and was too dizzy even to just sit for a while. It was silent, no children playing in the moonlight, no singing from the traditional-liquor seller's house, not even the voice of Boyi, the poet, who, when the muse seizes him, chants in praise of his ancestors even at midnight.
"I can't live like this. They will never agree that I am alive. I must leave immediately. No use providing any proof. After all, where is the proof that I am as human as they are, my father, my wife, Rahila, and even my mother? Everyone thinks I am dead."
Just before dawn Paul took to the bush. People returned the next morning, led by his parents, to check on him, and found the door wide open.
"I told you. That was a ghost, not Paul. We must praise our ancestors. The moment I poured the he-goat's blood on his feet, I saw him shiver," Paul's father announced.
Everyone returned to their huts relieved.
Paul wandered through the bush eating wild fruits and stealing from people's orchards. He managed to partly regain his strength. He was used to living under difficult conditions; his military training had conditioned him. He sneaked into homes stealing pots, knives, dishes, yams, and sorghum beer. While wandering in the bush one morning he came across an abandoned caravan once owned by a British research team. It had the bold inscription: "Institute of Terrestrial Ecology Bangor." The owners had dragged it up the hill and abandoned it there. Thieves had vandalized everything they could find in it, except for the mattress, which had been taken over by longhaired black rats. Bushes had grown around it. All he needed was a shelter. He accepted his fate. He was ready to accept any shelter.
"Paul, you are a ghost in human flesh, live your life and stop bothering about what people think," he consoled himself.
The animals in his new home didn't frighten him. They lived their lives and he lived his. Nothing shocked him anymore; not even the struggle he had just witnessed, that of a rat fleeing across his room, and a big snake charging after it to make it lunch. His home reminded him of Noah's ark. Did Noah experience rats eating his boots and almost transforming them to a pair of slippers? Did he share his bed with rats? He pondered.
He nicknamed his new home "the Ark" but 13 September 1994 was the day his home was turned to a true ark. A dam nearby had burst its banks; the entire area around his home was flooded. Many rodents formerly living underground turned his home into a refugee camp. In broad daylight, monitor lizards, bushy-tailed squirrels, rats, snakes, and more snakes came in through the door, none bothered about the other, survival everybody's aim. He was the intruder. They were here before him. They showed him it was their terrain. He vowed not to fear anything again. After all, he had been declared a ghost. No one could intimidate him again, man or animal. It seemed all the animals were used to the place as their hideout. The caravan was their own, a gift from those funny white people. He'd learned the British love animals more than humans. Who knows? Maybe they deliberately left this place for their cats and dogs. He'd met several big cats in the caravan too. They came for mice and left after the meal.
Sometimes he would lie down and close his eyes to recall when tragedy first struck. Everything started with a harmless question that Helen, Colonel Bello's wife asked him one morning, "Captain Paul, what would you do if you fell in love with a married woman?"
"Me, fall for a married woman? Oh no! That can't happen." Helen stood up without saying anything. A mischievous smile spread across her face. There was something strange about Helen. She had a kind of magnetism whose field one can hardly describe. Though not pretty she had carriage and poise.
Helen's husband, Bello, was one of those missing in action, but had not yet been confirmed as dead. Many soldiers presumed dead had been found. Helen had carried on as if unmarried, openly throwing all marital decorum to the winds. She even joined the Peacock Social Club, for women whose husbands had died. To join the club a woman's husband must be certified dead and buried and his well-marked grave inspected. Further, members must testify they attended his funeral. As far as Helen was concerned, Bello had died a long time ago and she didn't want him to come back .She was having fun and enjoying everything to the hilt. All that she wanted was provided by men of power, both in and outside the barracks. Helen had long taken control of her husband's assets and did what she liked with them. She had everything except for one thing — love from Captain Paul Krubo, which was what she wanted more than everything, though she didn't know why. Paul didn't care. Women were the least of his worries. He loved hunting more than anything.
