The Bata Dancer

A Novel By

Rotimi Ogunjobi

CONTENTS

The Bata Dancer

DEDICATIONS

CONTENTS

Prologue - The Coming of the Drummer

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

Epilogue – The Return of the Drummer.

Prologue - The Coming of the Drummer

The hunter heard an approaching. He needed to get neither spear nor sword ready. The footfalls on the carpet of rotten leaves, was not of a beast - the gait was too resolute. The hunter could not see what was approaching. The thickets, the overhanging tree branches of the dense jungle quite effectively blocked even the faint rays of the sun as dawn approached. The hunter felt the presence even more than he heard it. He also felt fear.

The creature eventually came into view, and by some mystery was before the hunter even before he knew that it was coming near. Whether it was a man or a woman, he could not immediately tell, but for simplicity he would assume that it was a man, even though swathed from head to toe in a dark cloth, his strikingly white eyes peering out of the dark hole which shrouded the face.

Irunmole. The hunter would think that before him was one of those benevolent entities of wisdom and enlightenment. But an alternative thought advised the hunter that he may be in the presence of a mischievous demon pretending to be one of those, of which there were thousands roaming the forest. He felt fear, but he knew in the alternative case, the primary strategy for surviving such a perilous encounter was never to show fear.

The leaves on the ground were wet with dew, and the smell of advanced decay, mixed with the mouldy smell on the stranger’s robe, roughly woven like that of the Ibariba people, further confused his senses. Yet he knew that his heart must not fail; to show fear might be to die.

“What do you want of me?” the hunter asked the creature.

“Is there a place, not too far away from this place where human beings live?” he heard the creature reply, even though he could not see the lips more. The hunter knew that he needed to be careful. You must never tell a demon where you live.

“No, I do not know such a place”, the hunter lied. The creature was for a long moment silent, seeming to search the mind of the hunter, seeming determined to intimidate him with his mysterious presence.

“Where did you come from?” the creature spoke as if into the hunter’s head.

“My village is far away; but nonetheless, I perceive that another must be near, for I saw foot tracks on the banks of a stream not too distant from this place”, the hunter again lied , as he pointed in the direction from which he came.

“May peace be with you”, the creature said. He proceeded away, taking long and purposeful strides, crushing dry twigs and bramble underfoot, yet not a branch or leaf of the trees and bushes along the way was disturbed.

“What is your name?” the hunter inquired after the creature, without any hope of a response. The creature for a fraction of a minute paused in his progress.

“My name is Ayangalu”, he replied. He again hastened forward, his steps more purposeful, more resolute.

The hunter stood watching him walk away, looking neither to the back nor to the side; the sound of his footfalls progressively fading away, until, he could neither see nor hear the creature anymore. All that was left of the encounter were the stamped patches in the carpet of compost, where the creature had placed his feet, in his passage.

If you ever meet a strange being in the forest, it is a sign that you must return home at once, because danger lurks beyond. Of this, the hunter had been warned since he was a child. Obeying his heart therefore, he abandoned his current expedition and began to return home; playfully placing his feet in the footmarks of the creature, until he got to the stream, which was a mile away. And from this place he could no more decide which footmarks to follow, because several, led to disparate destinations.

Ayangalu arrived at noon in a large town. He had washed himself at the river, and his robe was now wrapped around him, only up to the shoulder. He walked resolutely, he walked with purpose.

This day, was coronation day at the town. A new king was being crowned and everywhere there was singing and dancing. The musician played on simple instruments hewn from dried huge gourds. They played melodies on the hard, dry back of their igba - huge bowls cut from the gourds, which they beat with little dry sticks. . Some played accompaniments on their sekere: whole gourds, hollowed, dried and wrapped in netting strung with beads and corral shell for percussion. It was a joyous event, and as it is said, the sekere does not attend a gathering of mourners. The musicians played skilfully and joyfully.

The music was good, but not fit for majesty, Ayangalu would pensively observe. He sat and watched, for long. He shared of the abundance of food, and drank of the abundance of wine from the palm tree; and at dusk he retired to the edge of the town, into a bed of gathered leaves. Ayangalu could no more remember where he came from nor how far he had travelled; these were no more important. He knew he had reached his place of destiny. He slept happily

The next day, Ayangalu rose to a pressing purpose. He discovered not too far away from his night bed, a mature tree. He cut it down, cut a piece of the soft trunk, and hollowed out a cylinder. One of the open ends, he covered with the flayed skin of a wild boar. Satisfied with his handiwork, he set it in the sun to dry.

At evening, when the musicians again gathered with the congregation to make merry and to rejoice with the king, Ayangalu picked up his handiwork and joined with them. And as the king stood to dance, Ayangalu straddled his own instrument and with his palms beat an accompaniment to the regular orchestra of igba and sekere. The hollow throb of the beat mellowed down the high-pitched chatter of the other instruments. Together, they produced a more pleasant music, kinder to the ear, friendlier to the dancing legs. The king was joyful; he showered Ayangalu with praise and with money. The folks were also filled with amazement at the skill of the stranger who came with the strange instrument of which he clearly was a master.

“Stranger, what is the name of this thing?” the king was curious enough to ask.

“Ilu “, Ayangalu answered. “The name is ilu – the thing which is beaten. I also call it drum”

The coronation was a seven day event. Every evening, Ayangalu came with his drum, and played for the pleasure of the king. And in appreciation, the folks of the town daily fed him till he could eat no more and gave him wine to drink till he every night stumbled away to his bed.

The hunter saw Ayangalu playing his drum in the midst of the merrymakers. He saw Ayangalu where he slept every night uncovered under the moon and the stars. The hunter recognised Ayangalu, not because of his ageless face which he never previously saw, but because of the coarse robe, the musty smell of which refused to be dismissed from memory.

“Come sleep in my house.” the hunter suggested. But Ayangalu would not. He built a hut at the edge of the town and from there crafted more drums of several shapes and timbre. And whenever and wherever there was celebration, Ayangalu would pick up his drum, any of his many drums which had the right voice for each occasion. And all would come from near and far to dance to the merry beat of Ayangalu’s drum.

“Come teach me this wonderful craft”, the hunter came to him, and also did many other of the young men. And they daily gathered at the front of Ayangalu’s hut; and he taught them the mysteries of the drum. Again, the hunter came to Ayangalu and said:

“I shall present you a wife; a beautiful maiden of your choice. And of her you shall have children, many of them, so that your wisdom should remain forever amongst us in these lands”. But Ayangalu, smiled, slowly shook his head and replied:

“I have no child. I do not want a child. You shall all be my children, and Ayan shall be your names”

And so took the hunter the name of Ayantunji and another man, the name of Ayandele, and yet another took the name of Ayanniyi, and so it became that each of the disciples of the drum were named in such a fashion. Day after day, the heart-rousing sounds of drumming came to be heard from all over the town, as the followers of Ayangalu with child-like glee and abandon celebrated their new proficiency. One morning, the disciples of the drum came as before to gather before their master, but in vain they called and searched, for Ayangalu was nowhere again to be found.

Time passed. Drummers for generations thereafter made drums of their own and each after their own names. The drummer, whose name was Dundun, made himself drums, shaped like an hourglass. Around the rims of the skin-covered ends he fixed little brass bells which jingled merrily while he played his instrument. His drums were made for merrymaking of all and sundry. The drummer whose name was Gbedu made himself a drum, to which all else but kings, lieutenants and kingmakers were forbidden to dance. Bata made his drums from trees cut from the edge of the well-travelled roads, and which had therefore heard much of conversation and thus were consequently wiser. The voice of the drum of Bata came out shrill and harsh, demanding, commanding to be matched in zest and spirit by the able-bodied dancer. Some made drums for merrymaking, some made drums for ceremonies, and some made drums for the pleasure of the deities.

And there came a time when the Immortals, the Orisa were gathered to be entertained. And the drummer and their drums congregated also and came each after another to display their dexterity and their voices before the keepers of the sacred shrines. They brought drums in their different shapes, in their different sizes, in the different voices. They knew nevertheless that the Orisa were selective, each discerning of the instruments to be brought before them. The drummers knew that even though the deities loved to dance, each danced with a regal individuality. And of their dances there were four hundred and one variations, as many as there were of the Orisa.

They knew nevertheless that not one Orisa rejected or was ever displeased by the several drums of Dundun, from the gudugudu to the kerikeri. The ensemble of Dundun came always with happy instruments. They were fashioned after the pleasure of the entire pantheon of Orisa. But the Orisa, also of the many drums each selected favourites. Obatala, in whose hands were all the wisdoms of the entire world, favoured the deep-throated throb of the Igbin drum. Osun, custodian of the mysteries of procreation was ever thrilled by the seductive serenading of the Bembe drum. And whenever Sango , the violent one heard the frenetic beat of Bata, his delight came so great that the earth trembled with thunder and lighting criss-crossed the sky like jagged javelins hurled by clouds at one another in fierce battles of pleasure.

CHAPTER 1

Yomi Bello walked slowly and carefully as if he feared that he would stumble and fall. His limp from a childhood injury, normally slight and barely noticeable, this afternoon appeared like a major impediment even on this flat concrete roadway. His mind was occupied by an incongruous mixture of emotions; he felt sadness, relief, excitement and even a bit of fear. Most important was that, as the warm rays of the sun stung his face, for the first time in more than seven years, he felt delightfully free.

Yomi walked away from the building that housed the Ministry of Culture at the government secretariat and towards the car park where he left his car. Saying goodbye was never one of the things he knew how to do well. He had just left the office of his friend, Debola Adebayo who was Director in this government department, and also in charge of the Heritage Theater, a cultural project where Yomi had been for eight years employed as a scriptwriter.

His friend, Debola, was even sadder when Yomi came to his office to say goodbye.

“Never mind Yomi; I am sure the Theater will be back in a few more months”, Debola assured.

“It’s been down for more than two years”, Yomi reminded.

“I know. Government does not have the money to support it anymore, but I”ve been talking to some other sponsors and I am very hopeful”, Debola told him.

But life is not about having hopes, but rather about heeding reality. For nearly two years now there had been little to do at the office. The pay was not regular either, and he only survived by offering private home tutoring for parents who could afford such for their children. On the positive side however, he used the opportunity to complete his Masters degree at the University of Ibadan. Today, he was on his way to Ijebu-Jesa, where a private secondary school had given him a contract job as English tutor. It would be a better job situation than what he presently had; at least he would be regularly paid.

“You know I will be back as soon as you give me a call”, Yomi assured his friend .He surely would miss Debola, but he consoled himself that driving from Ijebu-Jesa to Ibadan would take him less than three hours, if a meeting became urgently needed.

Debola had been more than helpful. Debola procured for him a study leave albeit without pay and which the administrators were pleased to accept for Yomi: they had no money to pay anyway. The Heritage Theater project had been for nearly three years unfinanced. The project had not been formally closed down, only shunted off the tracks of government fiscal duties. The dozen or so regular employees were not formally asked to go away; each only left to make common sense decisions on the basis of their individual personal challenges. That was usually how things worked in Government.

But Yomi wasn’t leaving Ibadan just because the new job had better prospects. There were deeper persuasions. One of them was his recently retired marriage. This particular episode of his life always filled him with conflicting emotions – relief, happiness and sadness. He would feel relief that a very bad relationship was finally over; he would feel happiness that he was now completely free of it; he would feel sadness for his young son Damilola, only four years old, and caught in the middle of bitterness between the two people he loved most in the world and would possibly in future, wonder whether he had been the cause of it all.

Nearly anywhere he went in the city, he is confronted with the rubbles of his collapsed relationship. He would remember those places he went with Elizabeth when the marriage subsisted; he would remember those places he took his son when the going was still good; he would remember the smiles, the hugs, the strident demands of the little tot crying “daddy, carry me!” even when he had just moments before demanded to be permitted to walk by himself. All these memories, echoed from the landscape all around, regularly reawakening the sadness of his loss.

Not that there was any regret that it all ended so badly; indeed his surprise was how it took so long to end. How his marriage with Elizabeth lasted as long as seven years? Looking back, he would be surprised at how little they had in common as interests, he and Elizabeth. The facts were that nothing he did ever interested her; neither was he able to discover what it was that interested her apart from the fact that she definitely enjoyed scolding him. It had been for him quite a hellish marriage.

Crashed and beyond repair. If their relationship was a vehicle, that would be the description of its present condition. : crashed and beyond repair. His most desirable aim was to immediately put some distance between himself and the twisted carcass; as much distance as possible. He needed healing for his bleeding heart. He needed closure from that part of his life that had been so much a disaster, and given him the greatest feeling of failure, ever. He needed a place of quietness, to start reconstructing the ruins of his life from an entirely new set of plans. This job at Ijebu-Jesa was therefore a marvellous godsend.

Running away. Running away from your challenges; his much younger self would have sneered. But what do young people know, Yomi thought? A dead marriage and a sad child, who would probably become traumatised by it all for life, had taught him great lessons. He was a lot wiser now than his cocky younger self.

Yomi opened the door of his car, a grey 1990 Honda Accord and slipped into the driver”s seat. The clock on the dashboard told him the time was a quarter after three. It was a fine day in August. The weather was good and it was a nice sunny day, even though he could see some dark cloud looming in the far distance. He reckoned that it would take him a maximum of three hours to get to his destination despite the densely cratered highway he must travel through. His luggage was in the boot – a large suitcase and two smaller ones. The large suitcase contained his clothes; the others contained books, shoes and other knick-knack. He started the car, eased it out of the park and into the road. He took another parting look at the Ministry of Culture building, his office for the last eight years. He hoped he would be back, and he hoped that he would return stronger in vision and in spirit.

An Old School music programme was playing Michael Jackson from the FM stereo. It was a dolorous ballad, Never Can Say Goodbye.

“Even though the pain and heartache seems to follow me wherever I go….” Michael Jackson sang. Yomi loved Old School music from the Seventies. He thought they were the only popular music that had a future. He also loved Michael Jackson”s music, but this afternoon, the song that was playing only made him sad. He found a compilation from his car CD rack, and fed it into the player. McFadden & Whitehead rumbled out from his car speakers. . He turned up the volume and sang along. He loved this particular song, and it gave him the courage he desperately needed this day.

“And if you’ve ever been down before

I know that you refuse to be held down anymore

Don’t you let nothing, nothing

Stand in your way…….”

It took him more than thirty minutes to escape the city traffic and to get on the inter-city highway leading to the town of Ile Ife. His final destination would be about twenty or thirty kilometres away from Ife, which he felt should be no more than one hour away considering all normal obstacles.

Fifteen minutes or so into the highway, he discovered where those dark clouds he had before seen in the distance, were massed. The rain came down in a huge torrent and he drove very slowly because of low visibility. The rain lasted more than an hour and terminated suddenly in one of those baffling wonders of nature. Suddenly he looked before him and the road was clear even though a bit wet, and he looked behind from his rear mirror to see that the rain still poured down like the end of the world was nigh. But an even bigger disaster soon happened to his travel. He drove over a water-filled crater in the road, and as soon as he passed through, the front wheel of his car came suddenly apart. Yomi examined the damage and was distressed to find that there was no way the journey could continue without getting it repaired. The drive shaft was definitely finished. He had frequently seen this happen to many Honda vehicles but this was his first personal experience. He didn’t imagine that it could have happened to him at a worse time and place.

Bad omen. Normally, he would have considered this a bad omen, a sign that his mission was destined for failure. But omens were meant to be believed by people with alternative choices. In his present fighting frame of mind, he shrugged the incident off as just a nuisance, just another hurdle to cross on his way to claim a prize. The rain had slowed him down immensely, and the time was now nearly five. Nevertheless, he reckoned he was about fifteen kilometres to Ife. He had two choices; one was to wait for a tow truck to come by, the other was to travel to Ife to fetch a mechanic. He considered that the first choice would be about being merely hopeful, because it was not certain that a tow truck would come along. He therefore decided on the other; locked up the car, and travelled with a passing taxi to Ife.

Luck was with him, he imagined. Yomi found a Honda mechanic workshop near the edge of town, and which was really not any kind of miracle because nearly every mechanic repaired Honda cars, or claimed they could. He found the owner, and thirty minutes later they were both on their way back to the place where he had left his car along with the parts he needed to repair his Honda.

Nevertheless, the repair took much longer than previously imagined.

“We forgot to buy the lubrication grease”, the mechanic wailed. And so the mechanic needed to phone an apprentice to bring some. It was around seven and nearly totally dark before the car was once again fit to travel. Yomi dropped the mechanic and his apprentice off at Ife. It was not until nearly eight that he was finally able to continue his journey.

He was tired; he should have found a hotel in Ife, in which to spend the night, he thought. But, he was determined to get to his destination for the fear that the resolve, with which he started out, might be harmed by his failure to conclude his journey tonight. He travelled carefully, once again driving slowly, not quite trusting what the mechanic had done and considering the possibility that the wheel could once again come loose on this inhospitable road and at such a bad time of the night.

CHAPTER 2

The rest of the journey was thankfully concluded without further incident.

“Where can I find a hotel in this town?” Yomi asked someone along the wide highway which bisected the small town. He indeed knew he had left two hotels behind, both less than five kilometres from town; both with rates higher than what he could afford to pay. And so he wisely moved on. The helpful lad finally directed him to a place called Jolly Guest House which was further up, and near the centre of the town.