DR. JAY
They'd called him a spitting image of their legendary British Navy Commander. All through the night, his mind wrestled with his childhood curiousity, the express order of his boss, and the haunting presence of his colleagues, the breakfast party, all lethal men, trained as he was also trained, to be perfect killing machines that can terminate a life in a thousand natural, unsuspecting ways. Dr. Jay is not afraid to die. Miss Edima in her HRBC lecture, said it is written, he who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword and it's because of spiritual principles like this, that he wants to live. He has to find the answers to the questions that he doesn't know, exist.
Unable to hold the suspense any longer, he books a tour in the castle online. Friday morning meets him parking his Jeep in a public car park just beside the castle's very impressive gates. He adjusts his dark glasses to sit further down the bridge of his nose. His butter blonde hair has grown longer, now touching his shoulders, a front shaggy fringe flapping against the morning's strong winds. You need a hair cut, Jay, he read, when he woke with a start at three a.m, from a little scrap of paper tucked under the side of his pillow. Rodney's chicken scrawl is another way to ask, where's the Codex Jay? Nevermind if the tunnel is a death trap; by all means, crank up the pressure...
He needs a haircut. Western Africa's burning hot weather on anyone keeping long hair, is a sweaty, sticky, and rather itchy experience; but luckily for him, it is also that time of year, when the leaves and the grass turn a deeper, lush green, and the weeds crowd like moss. It is that time of the morning; when the cock crows itself to distraction, and the street lights look like kerosene lamps against the yawning gray-blue of dawn. The day begins with a cold, breezy draft coming in from the sea. His group is the first set of tourists to discover the inner workings of Canaan's castle on Ephraim Hill. There is a lot of history, in the stone walls of Justice Hall. It took one hundred Men to build it. One hundred seasoned, yet, marooned sailors. Its the sort of history that tells the story within another story. Why were the sailors marooned? Their speed boat approaches the side flanks of the rising drawbridge. Edidiong, their tour guide, says their party will enter the castle through the east wing, where the lake extends just beneath the portcullis. Something strange happens when Jay gets closer to the massive stone edifice. He goes into another trance. This time is very different to what befell him in the water, when he was about to enter that tunnel. Tears sting his eyes, intense sorrow grips his chest, his reality becomes hijacked as a rogue memory resurfaces. A black woman dressed in scarlet. Playing with him. In the courtyard; laughing while he chases her around. The scene abruptly changes. A black woman is dressed in pure white. Dead, in a coffin lowered six feet deep into the carved out gray stone floor of the dungeons. The Brothers. Nsimah, angry, defending himself, she didn't want to come back, because of the baby! She felt defiled! I tried to talk to her! Akpan his senior standing resolute, still questioning, then where is the baby? Nsimah, where is Hogan's baby? All seven of them, arguing. His trembling touch upon her lifeless face. A pain too heavy, too severe, too much for him to contain. He howls, dropping to his knees, the tortured sound of it endless in resonating echo. Jay looks at his group with wariness, afraid he'd howled out loud. But they are none the wiser.
He buried her here. In the west wing dungeon.
Burried who?! Blinking, he tries to breathe, finding it easier. It's over. He bends at his waist, briefly letting his head touch his knees, before standing back upright. His mission is the African Codex. That's why he is here. His life is in Birmingham. Not here. Jay blinks away the vision, but his grief lingers. Who is she? Who was she? He then considers the colossal stone structure before them. Are the answers here? It belongs to him, doesn't it? In shock, he realizes that, it does. Can it be the reason why his boss chose him? Then, why did his file pass to the clean up crew? Why does MI6 want him dead? Because he can see the signs. The very minute he gives them the Codex...
Dr. Jay has a long list, which desperately needs to get real short, really quickly. There are people he has to talk to, like Miss Edima McFoy; and there are people he has to interrogate, like Fanny Duke. He has to know what terrible thing was done to the house of Eyam Attah, in the time of the curse, the things she spoke of at the meeting, he has to know more, to see if it connects. Who is the woman in his vision? All roads lead to this castle. The records in public archives don't reveal any secrets. Meanwhile, the governor believes the keys to the seven gold doors do exist, and he wants Dr. Jay to find them. Something entirely different is going on in this mission, besides the retrieval of the African Codex, and he, Jay Hall, seems to be in the center of it. Still shaken by the tragic memory, Jay rubs circles into his chest, vowing to never fall in love. He read up some of his school text books online last night, in a bid to understand what may be happening to him.
The best case scenario, is that he is getting genetic or epigenetic memories of his great great great granddad's life, that is, Admiral (Lord) Justice Benedict Hall, the Navy Commander, the man who built this castle, the family black sheep, the blank canvas portrait adorning the walls going up the stairs of the Birmingham estate. The worst case scenario, is his hotel manager's suspicion of Voodoo manipulation upon his mind. This is Africa. This is where there is real juju...
Oga na dis be ya fust time hia abi? This is twenty nine days, to the night of Fust Rain, Oga! Fust Rain! You sabi wetin I dey talk? This season, na... Dangerous time! Abeg no dey do J.J.C for road, oh! Oya make I tell una dis tory wey happun for hia last year! See dis oyibo dey come from yankee jus mumu as una dey do, come dey yanga for road wit all dis kyn kaya... nah yahoo boys wey catch am put am for hole e siddun gidigba dey wait for gbese and dem take juju kpafuka his head oh!
Another rented apartment is high on his list, since he is in no hurry to give MI6 what they want. Again, Rodney, Salem and Tom can't keep entering his bedroom as they please. He's just not easy to kill, and it's time he let them know it. As his little tourist group advances into the belly of the castle, daylight recedes, to be replaced by the dull golden hue of small lamps hooked onto the walls. Dr. Jay half expects damp odorous air, not a fresh lemon scent. His gaze zeroes in on the other officials strolling about the bailey, wearing the same red and white striped wrapper that Edidiong wears, hanging securely about their loins. Ah! The stripes! The Tattoo. So it's connected. The people maintaining his ancestor's property, are yet the same people who don't want him questioning Candy Cool, the radio woman, or Fanny Duke again, they're all in the same historical society. He notes their bare chests, their oily, muscular arms, supposing it to be part of a cultural effect. It's a big syndicate, for a man as young as Byron Bassey to lead. What is he missing?
Edidiong shares some bits of folklore with them. The Navy Commander came to Canaan in 1891, at a time when the Efik and Ibibio tribes hated each other. It was a time, when Europeans engaged in kidnapping black children for slave trading; so that the people were weary of the Tall Whites. Justice Hall of his own free will, assimilated with the natives, choosing to stay, to build this castle for himself, and for the people, a symbol of unity, of humanity above racial division, one people under God. Till this day, the west wing remains unoccupied, while every part of the other wings are used by various age groups, also by leadership councils in the settlement of all traditional disputes. It evolved to finally become, the city's town hall.
They alight the speed boat, making their way towards the castle keep. They explore it, climbing up to the top to see the rampart and arrow loops in the battlements. The tourists in his group take few pictures in the bell tower. Jay notes that this castle stands about one hundred feet high, having over three hundred rooms, four towers, with two dungeons, a north, east and west wing. It is also fully furnished, according to the preferences of the Victorian era. At the entrance to the grand ballroom, they are greeted with a grunt, by the resident centenarian. Ahh. This is the dignitary Byron spoke of, at the meeting; the one he hopes will kick the bucket soon...
Jay stays back, while other tourists enter the ballroom. He is oblivious to their awed gasps at the wealth, and the glamour they meet inside. This ancient native leader, the resident centenarian, is seated, rather hunchbacked in his chair, looking as if he has actually survived more than one century. He is so old, he belongs in a museum. Above his head, nailed to the wall is a golden plaque that reads: Chief Akanimo Justice Benedict Hall. Jay removes his sunglasses to peer closely at Dr. Nurudeen's maternal grandfather. Its so surreal, what a very negro addition to the lineage! Likely making his professor racist father to turn in his grave, right now. Jay chuckles softly. The old bug's hair and beard are so snow white, his skin is so leathery and wrinkled, his skeletal body half visible in a washed out, blue striped wrapper tied around his loins. His faded smokey eyes half open, considering his Tall White admirer silently, sleepily, before they widen with sharpened focus. Jay finds his honest, startled look somewhat adorable, and he decides to greet him with a nod, "Well seated, 'Nimo!"
The ancient gasps, as if, in a terrible shock. Jay frowns. Is his voice too loud? He wants to put his sunglasses back on, thinking it must be the effect of his ice blue eyes. Maybe some Africans have never seen such a hue. It dawns on him then, like a light bulb in his brain finally switched on. Chief Akanimo might have seen his ice blue eyes... in 1891. Before he can wear his sunglasses again, a loud -whooshing- sound, in a whirlwind motion in front of him, shifts his surprised gaze away from the old man, to an increasingly darkening space by a corner, where a sharp, glinting spear is in mid flight, suddenly materializing out of the thin air, sailing right past his face and narrowly missing his cheek by a hair's breath, darkness following it, spreading out everywhere in his line of vision, like night time in a thick jungle. Dr. Jay doesn't know that, he's in the surge of another memory, as his body swerves left, a split second reaction, his gaze yet locked onto the flying long spear till it embeds half of itself inside the mouth of a huge crocodile, poised to bite at a young black boy's legs, from behind. Nimo.
A woman speaks, her sultry, husky tone sending sweet little shock waves through his bones "-they like to sneak out the river when there's an opportunity to eat."
"Massa Jus?!"
The night is gone, and so is the jungle. Jay's heartbeat is too fast. The ancient one is addressing him. Massa Jus, Master Justice. But the Chief is old, maybe hallucinating. He can't possibly be that Navy Commander. Jay's thoughts continue to race as he begins to worry over the frequency, the intensity of his memories and the unpredictability of them, making him wish for a real quiet corner to just calm down. Calm the blazes down.
A tiny, reverent whisper struggles against age for attention, "M-m-massa Jus?!"
Beside them, to the left, is a much larger gold plaque, an honorary list of names, of other centenarians, titled,
"THE KINGS COUNCIL,"
Chief Ndarake Ekpiken, 110 years (deceased;)
Chief Ekpenyong Okon, 103 years (deceased;)
Chief Timmy Bassey Duke, 108 years (deceased;)
Chief Nsimah Udoh Ephraim, 112 years (deceased;)
Chief Okpo Anniettie Okpo, 105 years (deceased.)
It is a long list. To his right is a glass showcase; displaying a few of lord Justice Hall's personal effects; his cravat, lorgnette, bible, compass and a diary. The diary catches Dr. Jay's eye,
Ignoring the 'do not touch' sign on it, he pushes apart the slides of the showcase to carefully pull out the diary, afraid it will disintegrate in his hands. Its a sheaf of hard cream papers, bound tightly in polished alligator leather. Unable to stop himself, Jay skims through it, moving his head back at the dust rising from the yellowed pages. His three times great granddad, Lord Justice Hall, had good penmanship. His really neat scribbles are artistic, legible. The last page entry is particularly intriguing...
I have to find Idara.
What will she think of me, to have fathered a boy, and then abandoned him to the stifling aristocrats managing my holdings in London? It was a moment of weakness! She must forgive me, and marry me, because I can never marry another. I cannot marry the boy's mother. Mary thinks I'm crazy to come back, but I will find her. I will never stop loving her. I will never stop looking for her until she is with me
Solomon, Mary tells me, is dead. She says he died trying to reverse the terms, so there is no other way to save the Canaan people, from the curse of the secret things, in the year of our Lord, 2001...
Wait.
The what...?
When I took the secret things from his shrine, and hid them in the gold room, I gave her the
The centenarian growls. Jay lifts his head and becomes aware of Edidiong's hostile presence. The tour guide is staring at him with intense disapproval. Jay pushes his sunglasses to sit further up his nose. He's been caught in the act! Smiling, he tries to look harmless, "So what does history say, happened to J. B. Hall, anyway?" He doesn't know. Nobody ever told him. The library archives, family accounts, anywhere he tried to look had nothing written down. It's as though, by royal decree, Britain's queen had ordered Massa Jus' existence to be expunged from public and private records.
Edidiong steps closer, taller than Jay's imposing six feet five package, "Lord Hall," he says, frowning at Jay's overly familiar facial features, "-died of an overdose of barbiturates." The moment stretches. Edidiong looks like he is trying to remember where he has seen this tall white man before. Dr. Jay's intuitive perception goes into overdrive. He whistles his favourite tune, an old battle hymn, even as he carefully puts the diary back in the glass case, so sure of taking it home today.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling ou---
Suddenly, the centenarian gives another startled gasp, his eyes bulging, staring in shock at him. Chief Akanimo coughs violently, clutching at his chest with aged, feeble, trembling hands. Edidiong is frantic, calling out to his colleagues for help. Dr. Jay watches, helplessly, as the ancient's faded pupils roll back into their sockets. Oh, no! Did he do this?
"Is there a doctor here?" He recognizes the signs. Chief 'Nimo is going into cardiac arrest. Another Nsidung staff confirms that, Dr. Nurudeen is in the castle clinic, today. Two other warriors in red and white striped wrappers come to assist Edidiong. Dr. Jay steps out of their way, as the attendants surround the aged Chief, "What spooked him?" Edidiong turns to ask him, suspiciously, but Dr. Jay cannot answer. He watches them deftly lift both the man and his chair between their wide shoulders. Together, they start to run, Edidiong in front, leading the way. Dr. Jay wonders, with a guilty whisper,
"Will he be alright?"
He didn't do anything wrong! Why should he be worried? But Jay worries. The chief is on his list. Nobody else in the city can answer a particular nagging question. He looks to the open ballroom double doors with dread, afraid to finally face the Commander. He moves to stand by the showcase, plunging his hand once more to retrieve Lord Hall's diary. He turns it over in his palm, bouncing it a bit, gaging it's weight. When Jay enters the ballroom, it is full of life size paintings, images of people he can't ever know. All the portraits are dated, commissioned in 1891, and titled, along with the artists signature. He is drawn to the signature. It seems to read, in reverse, Aradi Maye Hatta. It is the sign off on the portrait of seven handsome young men dressed in tailored tail coats and breeches. Ephraim Brothers. Another portrait is of three very distinguished looking captains; McVane, McFoy and Mosey. Another is of a young chief Akanimo, it is surprising to see it titled simply, "Nimo." Dr. Jay feels like leaving. How was he to know the chief was called...? The next huge portrait is perhaps the only rendition not painted by the in reverse, Aradi. Its the black woman in his vision. Dr. Jay feels like leaving. Strong emotions run through his veins, increasing the dread in his heartbeat. She is so beautiful, it is too painful for him to consider. He knows her large, candy brown eyes like the back of his hand. Beyond her buxom, curvy stature, he knows her fierce confidence, her true, enduring loyalty. It is in fact, because he cannot bear to look upon her image, that he quickly steps to the next portrait, a massive, life size work of art. The Lord Justice Benedict Hall. Dr. Jay takes his sunglasses off, and stands before it in absolute, dazed amazement. Considering him also, with keen, ice blue, highly intelligent eyes, is himself. The American girls in his tourist group are the first to notice, flanking him on all sides, making studied comparisons, Dr. Jay quickly puts his shades back on, but by then, the two Canadian boys in his group have joined the gazing party, and Dr. Jay can't cope with it all. The ahhs, oous, and wows...
Wow! This is fantastic!
Excuse me, but you are related, right...?
He makes a swift exit just as another tour guide arrives to replace Edidiong.
†***†***†*****†***†***†
Alone at night, holding the diary in his hands, thinking upon the paintings, and all that he remembers about the castle, the tunnel, and the woman Lord Hall calls Idara in his diary, he wonders if he should call the director. He thinks about the breakfast party; do they know? Did they have security clearance to know the rest?
Dr. Jay pushes his head back against his pillow, searching for a more comfortable position on his hotel bed. He has to talk to Fanny Duke, and the radio woman, without the Nsidung sending their watch dogs to breathe down his neck. He has to know why Fanny tried to kill her friend, Candy Cool, who is also called Idara. He has to find out, because his face is on the walls of Justice Hall, and his memories are staging a coup de tat in his brain. His odd presence in Canaan will have gone viral today, will it be the front page news on Trombone's tabloid?
His director wants him to examine every inch of the castle, until he can retrieve the African Codex. From that last page he read during his tour, it seems Lord Hall kept "secret things," in a golden room. Can it be hidden, then, somewhere behind seven gold doors? Edima McFoy believes an injustice was done against a prominent ruling house, she spoke of a curse nobody wants to talk about, is it, the same curse the Navy Commander refers to on that last page? All these years, the answers to some of these questions, staring at the city of Canaan, through a dusty glass showcase.
The radio woman, like him, is right in the center of this inferno. She is at the scene of yet another heinous crime, a multiple homicide, where the killer's modus operandi matches the profile of a real monster with red hot claws. Who is this woman that the Nsidung protects? Does it mean, that Fanny Duke is not part of the syndicate? Yet he saw it that day; her tattoo... Dr. Jay picks up his phone, turning the radio on, tuning, fastening his earplugs. He dials basement Fm; listens to her captivating voice for about ten minutes. So many men do the same, at this hour. So many men try to call in, to talk to her. It takes him by surprise that his own call gets through on a second attempt.
"Hi there! You are my second caller tonight, so welcome to the show! What do you want for a prize, if, you answer my question right?"
"Drinks for two. You, and me, Mario's."
She laughs loud, "You are so fierce, Tiger! I'll make it easy for you: three options! A box of chocolates, a pair of gloves or, a one size fits all army green raincoat!"
"Gimme the raincoat, love."
She laughs again, "You are a white man, I'm guessing, a Briton! Tell us your name!"
"Big Ben."
"Okay, Big Ben, here's how we play tonight...define love, in one paragraph, and, make everyone listening go wow, can you do this, Tiger?"
"Yeah. Time limit?"
"Thirty seconds, starting just about... Now!"
He clears his throat, "Love is, a long, sharp blade that goes deep into your chest without you knowing, until, the one you love dies," he closes his eyes, seeing his mother's frail form as she expired on the hospital bed, "-then the blade starts to inch it's way out, so slowly, bit by bit, and you can't breathe, and you can feel every tear on its way out, and you begin to think the pain won't ever stop," his eyes open, he remembers his pain, the Navy Commander's tortured howling, at the sight of his heart's throb, stone cold, gone forever, Idara... "-because the blade is still coming out, but finally it leaves this gaping hole, this empty, hollow space, this eternal ache, that makes you know you've changed, you'll never be the same, you'll never again be whole, until the one you love, is reborn. Maybe, that's resurrection morning. Who knows?"
"Wow. I-I-I guess you've been in love. Thirty seconds on the dot, your bell!" She rings it.
Three other callers try their luck. Love is a legal drug that gets you high as a kite. Love is beauty, with a regular make over, even sometimes, emergency plastic surgery. Love is carnal knowledge, and lots of it. Basement Fm night crew voted. Everyone, loved love is a blade.
"Can I, choose my prize?"
She warns him, "No dates!"
"How about, Truth or Dare?"
"How about, a listening ear?"
"Candy Cool, I really want it both ways."
A shocked pause let him know that she understood his play on words. Men most likely flirted with her all the time. Her response let him know that she wasn't easy.
"This is new. One round of--"
"One round won't be enough, sweetheart."
"One round of My Mysterious Dream. You got ten minutes on the clock, Tiger!"
"Okay. Once upon a dream, I'm facing the glass doors of some sort of tavern, in a big ship, like a war ship, but I don't go in. There's a song riding the wind, I know it's lyrics. But the singer brushes my shoulder, on her way in. All I want to do is, follow her. Can you tell me, if I should?"
"Definitely! You should!"
"Alright. Your turn."
"My mysterious dream, is in spookyville, Tiger. Hm. Once upon a dark, cold space, is a room that is a corridor going round and round, with each circle having a door hidden in the wall, connecting you to the next circled corridor, and if you can find it, also... the next door, hidden in the wall. There are seven doors, with seven keys, inside this room, inside this dark cold space. I have the keys, but, I'm afraid of what I'll see, at the seventh door, inside the seventh corridor. Can you tell me, should I proceed?"
"Definitely! You should! With a bodyguard. Take me."
She laughs again. So does he. It feels like a heavy load just rolled off his shoulders, all this while, talking to her, making her laugh effortlessly and hearing the rich, sultry sound. Long after she cut the call to play music, he is still thinking about her. Candy Cool. Idara Maye Hatta. He surfs through the aged diary, browsing the sub headings, a few architectural drawings, remembering, again, that the Navy Commander's lover is also called, Idara. A very odd sketch catches his eye. It seems to be part of the plan for building the castle, some sort of room, the strangest room he's ever seen. Within a square enclave is carved a winding circular tunnel like passage way, just peeling into the center like an onion. Seven passages walled round like corridors, with doors set at alternate positions within the circles, connecting the passages. Seven gold doors.
He sits bolt upright on his bed, her voice whispering very close to his ears. I have the keys, but, I'm afraid of what I'll see, at the seventh door, inside the seventh corridor. Can you tell me, should I proceed? She'd said. It was a real dream. She sees the secret room! But... Is she like him, experiencing these visions and flashes from the past for the first time, or, could she know everything?
Does she... have the keys?
END OF PART ONE