You Must Set Forth at Dawn Read Free Page A

blast away at anything that stirred the foliage. The Silent Gun was anything but silent, however, as we filed through the bush paths toward the killing fields; indeed, his voice was raised the lustiest as we startled farmers, villagers, and sometimes cattle drovers, all marveling at three—occasionally more—obviously mad, conspicuously
akowe
5 types, belting out their “Aparo 6 Hunting Song,” which I had set to the tune of the spiritual “There’s a Man Going Round Taking Names.” I replenished it with new verses during outings, each addition a giveaway for the result of the day’s hunt. Such a day might begin buoyant and demolition-primed, end with the equivalent of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Sauntering out with it was not uncommon for the day to end in a chastened recessional:
    Till I fill it full of lead

I can hear it simmering gently on the flame
    Â 
    An aparo’s waiting yonder with my name

It goes, quaw-awk, quaw-awk, quaw-awk— it’s my game

It just won’t go to bed
    Â 
    So, don’t invite yourself to dinner chez moi

In this hunting clan, the merrier means fewer

As our forebears’ saying goes

If a hunter counted his woes,

He would never invite a friend to dinner
—
which you are!
    Â 
    THE YEAR 1994 was closing on the brutal reign of Sani Abacha, and the stream of dissidents into exile had begun to increase. As if he had timed it with his annoying, statistical mind, Oje chose the final hours of that year to subsume all other flights into exile under his own irreversible departure, also filling mine with a warning of many frustrations to come. Close by, a mere four- or five-hour drive to his Ibadan home, where he had passed away, and an hour farther north toward Awe, his burial place, I was left to fume that I could not be present at his funeral, could not bid good-bye to an organism that had grown on me over the years. All that was left was to mourn his departure from exile through a surrogate. I was given no time to sink into this new loss and absorb the blow in my own way—no! My farewell words were awaited, and a contact had agreed to pick up the message the following day.
    I looked for solace of sorts in recalling how I would sometimes remind him—whenever he proved difficult—that I should, after all, be credited with having prolonged his life, or, more accurately, with having thwarted an earlier claim on his life. In turn, he rejected my claims, insisting instead that all that the “lifesaving” episode revealed was what a soft underbelly was hidden beneath my public carapace. No sooner had he survived the illness that nearly took him away than he took to regaling any willing listener with details of my “unmanly” conduct at his bedside at the Lagoon Hospital in Apapa, Lagos. For Oje, it was the ultimate demystification, the explosion of the Kongi 7 myth, a reading that he relished and refused to abandon.
    He was being prepared for his departure to Germany in an ambulance plane, a necessary recourse, alas, that was itself a damning commentary on the state of hospitals within the nation and the faith of the rulers in a national health service. That consideration presented no problems for the then dictator, Ibrahim Babangida—nor indeed for any of the heads of state before him. Babangida was not about to lose his top policy adviser; he ordered Oje Aboyade’s immediate evacuation.
    When the moment came to wheel him into the vehicle, however, I balked.
    â€œWell, fly safely. And get yourself back here soon.”
    His eyes opened wide in disbelief. “You’re not coming to the airport with me?”
    â€œNo, thank you. I already feel superfluous.”
    â€œBut that budgetary provision you’re so concerned about—the IMF relief package—we could discuss it some more on the way to the airport.”
    At that point, I came clean. “No way,” I said. “I saw Femi off