Taduno's Song Read Free

According to one elderly man, ‘the mystery that unites us will solve itself in due time’. So they let him stay.
    Behind his back they whispered that he was a nice man who had obviously lost his mind – a sick man who deserved their compassion.
    A dash to Lela’s house confirmed his worst fears. He was not who he claimed to be, and Lela had indeed been arrested by government agents.
    Lela’s seven-year-old brother Judah, who he fondly called Lion of Judah, and with whom he sometimes playedstreet football, gave him the distant look of a stranger. He felt pained to the bone.
    â€˜Lion of Judah, it’s me, Taduno. We used to play ball together. Last Christmas I bought you the trainers with red lights. You wear them when we play ball.’
    Judah studied his face with a frown. Then he shook his head slowly as if to say he could not identify it as that of the uncle who bought him the trainers he loved so much.
    Much as Taduno tried to jolt the boy’s memory, his eyes failed to light with recognition.
    Everywhere he went it was the same story. Friends he had known since childhood claimed they didn’t know him. He went round to the houses of relatives scattered across the city. Nobody knew him, but they did all agree on one thing – he was a nice man who had lost his mind. And they smiled at him with pity. As a last resort, he thought of going to the studio where he began his music career, but afraid that the story would be the same, and certain that that would sever his last hold on reality, he decided against it.
    He roamed the city like a man knocked senseless by a vicious blow. Not knowing what to do or who to turn to, he returned to his house, which they said belonged to a dead man. First he checked the safe where he had kept his title deed for many years, but he could not find the documents. ‘Who am I?’ he muttered to himself and began to wander numbly through the house in search of clues.
    His spirit lifted when he remembered his photo albums. It occurred to him that they could be the key to resolving his identity. In the albums were a number of photos he had taken with some of his neighbours – at birthday parties,naming ceremonies and other special occasions; photos of him and Lela, some taken on romantic outings, many more in that house of a dead man. He was ecstatic with delight.
    For hours he searched desperately for the albums. He searched until sweat was running down his entire body, into his shoes, and every living part of him began to ache. Still, he searched; way past midnight. And as the city slept, gripped in one gigantic nightmare, he finally accepted, with crushing resignation, that his precious albums had been swallowed by the same mystery that erased his identity.
    He would not give up. He needed to find something, anything, that connected him to a society that no longer knew him. There had to be something. He remembered the papers; he used to be front-page news before he went into exile. Frantically, he gathered all the old papers in the house and searched through them. But he couldn’t find a single mention of himself in any of them. Somehow, he had been erased from the printed pages.
    Defeated and exhausted, he joined the city in sleep. When he awoke it was seven o’clock. ‘Is it possible that there is some truth in legend?’ he asked himself. For several minutes he tossed and turned in bed, and then he drifted into a state of half sleep, and lingered in that state until early evening when the frenetic noises of the city slowly began to ease.
    *
    Aroli paid him a visit that evening. He knocked on the door in a manner that would have woken the dead.
    â€˜Find a seat, please,’ Taduno said awkwardly, after letting him in. ‘The place is dusty. I haven’t had time to clean.’
    A huge smile remained plastered on Aroli’s face knowing Taduno must still be reeling from his loud knocking.
    â€˜I’m sorry about this