Novacula

By this time, everybody had heard about the abduction of Victor Chikulo.

In the middle of the night, masked men had broken into his apartment and grabbed him from his bed, where he slept next to his wife and their two-month-old daughter. The men put a sack over his head and carted him away in just his boxers. One of the rubber slippers that the men had hastily told him to put on had been left behind on the concrete in the compound. When his friends came to visit his terrified wife the following day, the solo slipper in the morning sun looked like a type of omen.

What had Victor Chikulo done? He leaked a message from a high-ranking civil servant about what the money allocated to build a general hospital in Saboj-Giri had actually been used for (it had gone to planning and executing a lavish wedding in Gloucestershire, England, amongst other things – there were also receipts from Hermès and Relais Christine). For years the people had been tired and hungry and the water had now, finally, boiled. As soon as Victor Chikulo’s leak broke, the people of Saboj-Giri took to the streets and demanded for the resignation of the civil servant. The dissatisfaction spread throughout the country quickly and, within days, hundreds of thousands of protesters had set up camp at the gates of government offices – ministries, state houses, parliament, and even the president’s villa – demanding accountability for the reckless spending of public funds.

Victor Chikulo’s life changed overnight. From an obscure private school teacher who taught History and Civics, he was now the voice of a nation-wide movement. And the government knew that they had to do something quickly.

*

By this time, everybody had heard about the abduction of Victor Chikulo, including Father Sammy, a sixty-something year old priest who was as disenfranchised and as tired as the average citizen. He had come to the courthouse to see Victor Chikulo with his own eyes, as had thousands, who were now being held off from entering the premises by police with batons, teargas, and canines. Father Sammy had travelled overnight from Saboj-Giri, the impoverished northern town where he served at Christ our Lord Chapel for over three decades now. Father Sammy knew and loved nowhere else like he knew and loved that church and the flock.

Father Sammy managed to enter the courthouse premises because he had begged and pleaded with the policemen at the gate. He told them he had arthritis and that his knees were hurting and he just needed to sit down to rest. They let him in, warning him sternly not to cause any trouble. With his warm, half-empty bottle of water and a small, worn bag that contained his bible and his wallet, Father Sammy sat on the curb under the sun, opposite the marble steps that led to the massive doors of the courthouse. He waited and waited.

The protesters outside the gate were getting rowdier as the hours dragged on. Everybody was waiting for the charges that would be brought against Victor Chikulo. Some people speculated that the state would throw the book at him – breach of national peace, subversion, treason. News reaching the people was that they had been torturing him and were denying him visits from a doctor, even though they knew that he had sickle cell anemia. By this time, everybody knew what was happening to Victor Chikulo in the custody of the state.

*

When Father Sammy finally saw Victor Chikulo, his heart sank. Father Sammy bit his bottom lip to stop it from trembling. Victor Chikulo had never been a big man – even as a child and adolescent, he was lanky and boney. But now he looked like a skeleton. His eyes poked out through their sockets and his cheeks were sunken. The shirt he wore looked like it was dangling from a hanger. Only a week in detention and he looked like a ghost. Father Sammy was glad that Victor Chikulo’s mother, who had been a member of his church, had long died; if the hypertension had not killed her, this sight of her son would have.

Father Sammy stood up and walked towards Victor Chikulo, as a dozen masked, armed men surrounded and led him down the steps. 

“Victor,” Father Sammy said, and then he called louder, “Victor!”

Victor Chikulo lifted up his head and saw Father Sammy. He smiled. His face was ashy and his lips dry and cracked.

Father Sammy was met with the firm, gloved hand of one of the masked men. 

“Stand back, Father,” the man said.

“At least permit him prayer,” Father Sammy pleaded. “Please.”

The men seemed to hesitate, and then they stepped aside and created an opening for Father Sammy to step into.

“Father Sammy,” Victor Chikulo whispered.

Father Sammy rested a palm on Victor Chikulo’s shoulder, right next to his neck, and with the other hand he made the sign of the cross and whispered, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Novacula in collo tuo est.” He squeezed Victor Chikulo’s shoulder and then the men moved him out of their way and bundled Victor Chikulo into a van.

As the van zoomed out through the courthouse gates and down the street, protesters chased after it and pelted stones at it. Father Sammy returned to his position on the curb and prayed that Victor Chikulo had heard what he had said. 

And then he waited and waited.

*

Father Sammy was on the way back to Saboj-Giri when news broke that Victor Chikulo had been taken to hospital. Victor Chikulo had slit his wrists and collapsed in custody. The bus erupted in cheers. Victor Chikulo was in a stable condition and was still under arrest, but he was now receiving treatment and medication for his painful joints. 

Father Sammy closed his eyes as the bus swarmed with the theories that passengers were weaving, mixing in what they were reading from news outlets and from Victor’s friends; Victor Chikulo had a knife or a nail or a razor or a pair of scissors or a nailcutter that he had found or had been given or had sneaked into custody. As Father Sammy drifted to sleep, he began to dream of a young, stubborn Victor Chikulo reciting numerals in Latin and mistaking quattuor for quinque over and over again; getting to sex and laughing, getting to decem, and then stumbling over quattuordecim and quindecim, getting to centum, and starting all over again. 

Victor Chikulo heard what Father Sammy had said.

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