in the Valley of New Jerusalem

Christians were being massacred across the country, farmers barely holding on to their farmlands against herders; To Jioke, his friends and the rest of New Jerusalem Academy, it was all just news. And then, it wasn't...

What baffled Jioke the most was not the meaning or the implication of the word; it was not even the unfamiliarity of it, for indeed, that was the very first time he’d heard it. It was the fact that the word came from the lips of Chidi. As far as he was concerned, the four of them had their attributes for which they were known. Jioke was the most athletic of them all, evident in the fact that he was the fastest person in not just primary four, but in the entire New Jerusalem Academy Schools. He was also the only one of them who could still comfortably do backflips and land on his feet without his hands touching the ground. Nonso was the strongest of them all. There was a time they did a tug-of-war against primary five boys and Nonso was the only one standing at the end of the contest. Daalu was the smartest. He was the one who wore those shiny glasses that whenever he took them off, tears would start to stream down his face and he would continue to swear he wasn’t crying. The boys always mocked him for being so fragile, and tease him that he could cry at any point in time. He was also the one whom the headmaster always called into his office and took to competitions. Chidi, on his part, was the finest. He was the one the girls, both junior and senior, flocked around; his parents were the richest too. But one thing was clear, and that was the fact that when it came to matters that had to do with brains and vocabularies, Chidi was no Daalu, he was not even close. So, to hear him use the word islamize like it was a regular occurrence shocked Jioke to the marrows. He was even more surprised that Nonso and Daalu didn’t seem to have noticed. Chidi had put it this way,

“I heard it is part of their new movement. They are doing everything possible to islamize the country.” The statement still stung Jioke’s ears. How bold and free it had come. How on earth did Chidi learn that big word? On a normal, it was Daalu who said things like Global Warming, and Latitudes, and Genocide, and Democracy; and now that he was giving it a proper thought, Jioke saw that this meant that the situation had gone beyond the be careful line. If Chidi of all people now said something like that, there was fire on the mountain, literally, because that was what Nonso was talking about when Chidi made that statement.

“I don’t believe you.” Daalu said, adjusting his glasses. “I don’t believe you; they cannot try that kind of thing in this part of the country.” Jioke nodded his agreement; if there was anyone that their word should be taken, it was Daalu’s. His words were gospel. He represented Wisdom.

“I’m telling you what I saw and heard, you don’t have to believe it for it to be true.” Nonso insisted.

“Please just stop with the jokes already.” Jioke spat. He was tired of it all. There was already enough news about those Fulani people on the television for Nonso to be adding to the tension. He recalled how, just the previous night, he and his siblings had seen on tv where some people who wore masks dragged helpless women and men into a pit, poured fuel on them and set them on fire. That time, his oldest brother had asked them to go inside, but that did nothing to scrape the thoughts that would haunt his mind all through the night. The shrill cries of those women, calling Jesus to their rescue to no ends; the thick black smoke that immediately rose from the pit searching its way to the heavens; the constant shouting of “Allah! Allah!” by those masked people as they laughed excitedly. Chidebe called it something, something that sounded like jihad, Jioke couldn’t stop wondering what jihad meant, but he was too scared to ask anyone. Even now, the air of uncertainty hung above the clouds; it was as though something terrible could happen at any time. That someone could come to the school with news that someone one of the students knew had been… Jioke shuddered at that line of thought.

“If you doubt me, then let’s go and check it out.” Nonso responded.

“Now?” Jioke asked.

“Maybe after school.” Nonso said.

“It can’t be after school because I can’t have my parents looking for me when they come to pick me up.” Chidi said.

“Then let’s go now.” Nonso suggested.

“Now?!” the rest chorused. It was break-time quite alright; but the rest of the students were trooping out of their classes and forming lines to practice their choreographies for the forthcoming school inter-house sports.

“We can’t go missing now; the house masters would be looking for us.” Daalu said. Jioke agreed.

“How would they know? We’ll be back before they realize we’re gone.” Nonso was really persuasive, so they finally agreed.

“I just hope this isn’t one of your pranks.” Chidi said. The rest of the boys shot him a look to kill and he immediately recoiled. “I… I mean, I hope, this better be one of your pranks.” He stammered. As they left, Jioke heard the bands out; someone was screaming through the school megaphone:

Parents listen to your children!

They are the leaders of tomorrow!

And the boys walked away through the fading noise.

  As they climbed the New Jerusalem hill in silence, Jioke’s mind kept replaying the tales he had heard in the buzz of the past few days. So many things had been happening all over the country, but the news of farmers getting killed by Fulani herdsmen was the most talked about. He heard sometime within the week, that there were people saying that the killings were false. So, he wondered, did that mean that those women that were burnt, were not real? They said that even the president agreed; that since he was yet to say anything about the murders, that meant he agreed. So, Jioke wondered again, did that mean that the president was okay with people getting killed in his country? Even if there was a chance that the things he saw, because he was certain he saw those things, were false, why was the president just silent like that?

He'd heard too, that the Fulani herdsmen were powerful, that they had odeshi. The juju that people did so that nothing could penetrate their skin. He heard that that was what gave them the motivation to start coming down to the east and to start invading farmlands with their cattle, destroying people’s crops and, as he heard on the news, killing them. This was a certain answer to his question of, are there no grasslands in ugwuausa? The odeshi thing definitely spoke to motive, the motive that Chidi referred to as islamize. It made sense all of a sudden, why he couldn’t walk through the streets now without seeing cow dungs littered everywhere.

Jioke also heard, from one of the kids in primary six, that the reason why the Fulani herdsmen didn’t bother building shelter in the bush was because they had mysterious powers that enabled them disappear, into the body of the cows, merging with them and spending the night within the cows. Jioke didn’t believe that one; because, there was no way one would have the power to do such thing and not use it to create artificial grasslands in their own place so that they wouldn’t have to trek long distances to get their cattle fed. There was no way someone would have that kind of power and choose to rear cattle, hello?

There were several other things he heard, like the stories of how the herdsmen had sex with their cows when they felt like it; like how the herdsmen used to suck the breasts of the cows to drink their milk directly from them. These ones were easier to believe when he considered the stature and appearance of the herdsmen: they always looked stunted and unhappy. They always looked like they didn’t care about any other human being.

“It’s here. It was here.” Nonso said. They were now at the top of the hill. The rest of the boys looked around inquisitively.

There was nothing.

“There’s nothing here.” Daalu said.

“I swear this was where I saw them.” Nonso touched his index finger on his tongue and raised it to the sky.

“What exactly did you see again?” Chidi queried.

“This morning,” Nonso recounted, “I left assembly because I was having running stomach. I went there to shit,” he pointed towards the foot of the hill, close to the school field, “That was when I saw Mr. Une chasing some cows away from his farm. Then, one aboki came from behind him and attacked him with a cutlass; he started to fight the aboki too, and chased him to this place. I couldn’t see them properly from down there, but I heard Mr. Une screaming, I’m sure. And two other voices. I’m sure. I waited and waited, but Mr.  Une never came down. I stayed there for like two hours, that was why I came back late to class. He didn’t come down,” he repeated, “He didn’t come down, I’m sure.”

Mr. Une was the man who owned the farms behind the school. Just last week, Jioke recalled, he had called the boys as they were playing football on the field and gave them a full head of banana. Mr. Une was jovial. The teachers and the students loved him. Even when he would pass behind the assembly ground to his farm some mornings, they paused the prayers and chanted his name. Jioke couldn’t imagine that something bad may have happened to him.

He just couldn’t.

The boys couldn’t say anything when Nonso was done. There was something, something that felt like inevitability clinging onto their throats. Jioke could tell because it was in his throat too. It was as though there was something they all didn’t want to think about, yet that was all they could think about.

“We should go back.” Daalu said. “Let’s go back, since we can’t find anything.” His voice sounded like it didn’t belong to him; it was obvious that he didn’t make any attempts to hide his fear.

“Wait,” Chidi said as they turned around to leave, “look.” He pointed to blades of grass a few meters from where he stood. “Look.” He said again. The rest of the boys approached, and saw; it was a streak of blood, marking through the grass all the way to the bottom of the hill. Instinctively, they began to follow the marks. They were feint at times, the marks, but the trail remained nonetheless. Suddenly, Nonso jumped up and began to scream. The rest of the boys scampered several ways.

“Wait! It’s a cutlass. It’s a cutlass!” he cried; the boys reassembled, slower than they had dispersed. Jioke’s mind still had not returned to him; not even at the sight and confirmation that the object Nonso had stepped on was indeed a cutlass. Mr. Une’s cutlass! No one said. They could recognize that cutlass even in their sleep. Nonso held it up, from the bottom because of the bloodied blade.

“Look!” Chidi said, and pointed down the valley. There, in a heap, lay a big fat cow. Jioke instantly breathed a sigh of relief and pleaded with Chidi, in his mind, to stop seeing things. They slowly and cautiously approached the dead cow, forming a circle around it. The cow’s left eye was gone. Its side was open; someone had torn into it with rage, and its insides lay there on the grass. Poor animal. Jioke had heard how much the herdsmen loved their cattle. He’d heard they loved them more than themselves. Then, Daalu began to throw up. He ran to the left corner and emptied his stomach there on the grass. The boys didn’t cringe at the sound he made; Jioke wasn’t even sure he heard them. But, Daalu, when he was done vomiting, didn’t walk back to the circle. He stood there, with his glasses in his hand, staring at something in the bush.

“Daalu,” Nonso called. Daalu didn’t answer. “Daalu what is it?” They all turned and walked towards him. “What is it…” a pack of flies violently rose from the corner where Daalu’s eyes refused to rise. Buuuuuuuuummmmm! they buzzed angrily at the unwelcomed visitors. Then Jioke saw the body. It was mutilated beyond description; lines ran across the face. The eyes were gone. The nose butchered off.

Throat slashed.

There was an image of a Christmas goat being roasted hanging behind Jioke’s mind for reasons he couldn’t explain.

“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” Chidi was screaming. The mutilation didn’t work because the kids could still tell without any iota of doubt that that was Mr. Une.

Late, Mr. Une.

Nonso shrieked and turned and held his head with his hands. Jioke shook his head so slowly he may not have known he was shaking them. Daalu still didn’t move. “Jesus! Jesus!” Chidi kept screaming.

“They killed him?” Daalu finally said, as though he wasn’t there. “Did they kill Mr. Une?” No one answered.

In the following days, when the police kept dragging the kids around to narrate over and over again what they had seen, Jioke never bothered about any of it. He didn’t bother, about the fact that the only thing that came to his mind when he saw the body was that it could have been someone closer to him, someone like his Dad or Mom or Chidebe. He didn’t worry about the fact that he couldn’t sleep anymore; that whenever he closed his eyes, all he saw was a cow driving its horns into his stomach, or a dark aboki chasing him with a cutlass or, as it happened once, dragging him by his legs into the body of a very dirty cow. What worried him, was the fact that when he saw Daalu standing there, staring at the bush with his glasses in his hand, he didn’t see any tears in Daalu’s fragile eyes. He would always ask himself why there were no tears in Daalu’s eyes.