On Thursday it will be two months since the day Adede, unarmed civilian, father, husband and hardworking bus driver, with no history of mental illness, single-handedly decimated a checkpoint of policemen. Eight policemen, seven rusty AK47s, and sixteen pockets bulging with squeezed naira notes.
He wasted them, massacred all eight policemen with his own hands. Why he did what he did will forever be a matter of conjecture for many people. He will not be able to resolve their puzzlement, not ever, since he perished with his victims. And with his twelve-year-old son, Alim. In one extraordinary act, he halved the Aboma police post, halved his own family – and halved everyone in the town into portions of anger and of sorrow.
But no one guessed that a more puzzling incident lay ahead. Simbi’s husband and first son were dead, but she didn’t cry for them. Grief evaded her eyes, her heart, disguised past the checkpoints of her soul. It didn’t take very long for the news to spread around town. That there existed a widow who hadn’t cried since the moment her husband and only son passed away.
No one remembered that this wasn’t the first time Simbi was refusing to cry – when it was something expected of her. If she were a man, perhaps it wouldn’t be so strange. In this town, many men would rather be caught dead than with tears in their eyes. That is why they are men.
* * *
At first people thought it was the grief that accounted for Simbi’s strange behaviour. Not only of losing a husband and an only son, but also of having to live with the thought that her husband died a mass murderer, and created, without being God – or even working in concert with Him – eight innocent widows and tens of fatherless children.
But soon the news began to float around that Simbi had “lost it”. Her mind had crashed under the burden of grief and guilt. Some sneered at the theory of madness, and chose instead to invest their beliefs in the certainty that Simbi was a witch. That she had a hand in all that had happened.
The fact of her not crying made the list of sympathizers and repeat-sympathizers grow. People flocked to see the woman whose eyes were dry. If you didn’t know anything about why they came, you would have thought she was a much-loved woman, or that her husband was very popular in his lifetime. People trooped in all day long. They left, and returned days later. And, as you would expect, they talked.
“She still hasn’t cried.”
“It’s a lie!”
“I swear to God. I’ve been there everyday since last Thursday, not one drop”
“Maybe she cries at night. When she’s alone”
“No! She doesn’t. There is no single redness in her eyes, not even the smallest bags under them.”
“That doesn’t matter”
“Listen! Iya Bode spent the whole of last week with her. They slept in the same room. Not one sob. She sleeps like a baby. Doesn’t even wake in the middle of the night”.
“Are you sure?”
“I swear by my grandfather’s testicles…”
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