Tashi & Son Electronics
Commercial Avenue
Thursday, August 5, 1999
The heat in Bamenda was not just temperature; it was a physical oppression. The air hung stagnant, thick with the suspended red dust of the dry season that refused to leave, coating the throats of men and machines alike. It was a silence that screamed.
Inside the shop, the Thermo King compressor beat its rhythmic tattoo against the floorboards thump-thump, thump-thump a mechanical heart pumping ice into the veins of a feverish city.
I sat at my workbench, my hands occupied with a delicate soldering job, but my mind was scanning the street through the reflection in a polished sheet of aluminum.
Tashi stood at the counter. He was wearing his "Manager" uniform the crisp khaki shirt but the man inside the clothes was vibrating. He was polishing the glass case for the tenth time that hour. He was waiting. We were all waiting.
At 4:15 PM, the waiting ended.
A vehicle rolled down Commercial Avenue that made the taxis and hand-pushers scatter like frightened chickens. It was a Land Rover Defender 110, matte black, with tires that stood as high as a man's waist. It didn't drive; it prowled. It carried the specific, terrifying gravity of absolute power.
It mounted the curb in front of our shop, crushing a plastic crate with a sickening crunch. The engine died. The silence that followed was heavier than the noise.
The driver's door opened. A man stepped out. He was a giant, built like a fortress, wearing a black suit that strained against his muscles. He had the distinct, jagged scar of a knife fight running from his ear to his collar.
He entered the shop. The bell chimed ding a pathetic, tinny sound against the menace he brought.
He didn't look at the lights. He didn't look at me. He walked to the counter, placed two massive hands on the glass, and leaned in.
"Pa Tashi," the man rumbled. His voice was raw, deep Bamenda Pidgin, the kind spoken in the dark corners of Nkwen where the police didn't go. "You don hide tey. But man no fit hide for sun." (You have hidden for a long time. But a man cannot hide from the sun.)
Tashi stopped polishing. He gripped the rag. "I no di hide, my brother. I dey for work."
The man laughed. It was a dry, ugly sound. "Work. Na so. The Chairman dey greet you."
The giant reached into his pocket. Tashi flinched, his eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second, expecting the cold steel of a pistol.
Instead, the man pulled out a thick, cream-colored envelope embossed with a gold crest. He slapped it onto the glass.
"The Chairman say make you waka cam for Up Station tonight. Eight o'clock. Yi say na strictly One-Man Waka. If you carry tail, rain go fall." (The Chairman says you must come to Up Station tonight. 8 PM. Come alone. If you bring anyone, there will be trouble.)
Tashi looked at the envelope. "Up Station? For White Villa?"
"You sabi the place," the giant grinned, revealing teeth stained with kola nut. "Yi say make you no fear. Na gentleman talk. But..." The giant leaned closer, his voice dropping to a granite whisper. "If you no cam... The Chairman go vex. And when Chairman vex, Bamenda di hot. You hear me fine?"
"I hear," Tashi whispered.
The giant turned. He looked at me through the wire mesh. He winked. A cold, predatory wink. Then he walked out. The Land Rover roared to life and vanished into the dust.
Tashi stood frozen. The envelope lay on the glass like a death warrant.
He picked it up with trembling fingers. Inside was a single card, printed in elegant typography:
Mr. Tashi Mbua,
Dinner. 8:00 PM.
A Discussion on the Future.
- Ni Thomas.
Tashi dropped the card. He collapsed onto his stool, the strength leaving his legs.
"Ni Thomas," Tashi breathed. "The Bookman. He is the brother to the other Chairman... the Politician. They share the same blood, Nkem. But one wants votes, and the other wants souls."
He looked at me, his face grey.
"He is going to kill me, Nkem. He knows we are killing his kerosene business. He invited me to dinner to show me the knife before he cuts my throat."
I walked out from the back. I needed to be the anchor now.
"He won't kill you, Papa," I said, my voice steady. "He is a UK-educated man. He fancies himself an aristocrat. Killing you is messy. He wants to buy you. Or break you."
"He fit do all two," Tashi whispered in Dialect. "He has a tongue that tastes like honey but swallows like a python."
"Then you must be the stone he cannot swallow," I replied in Dialect.
I dragged a chair over and sat facing him.
"Papa, listen to me. The old Tashi the one who owed him money would have knelt. But you are the Treasurer of the Union. You are the Keeper of the Ice. You control the dead at the Hospital. You are not a victim."
I reached out and touched his hand.
"We will call Uncle Lucas. He will drive you. He will be your shadow. But you must walk through that door alone. You must look him in the eye."
Tashi took a shuddering breath. He looked at the shop. He looked at the ledger. He looked at the life we had clawed out of the dirt.
"I have to shave," Tashi said, standing up slowly. "A man does not go to his execution with a rough face."
The drive to Up Station was a journey through the stratification of our society.
Uncle Lucas drove the Toyota. He was silent, a loaded pistol resting on his thigh. Tashi sat in the back, staring out the window.
We passed the chaotic, noisy streets of the Commercial Avenue, where generators roared and street hawkers shouted in the gloom. This was the Bamenda of the people.
Then, we hit the Station Hill. The road wound upward, cutting through the sheer cliff face. With every hairpin turn, the noise of the city faded. The air grew thinner, cooler. The smell of dust and exhaust was replaced by the scent of eucalyptus and pine.
We reached the summit. Up Station.
Here, the streets were wide and paved. Streetlights actually worked. The houses were set back behind high walls topped with bougainvillea and razor wire. This was where the colonial masters had lived to escape the malaria of the valley. Now, it was where the new masters lived.
Lucas pulled the car over, fifty meters from the massive wrought-iron gates of the White Villa.
"I stay here," Lucas rumbled. "You have one hour, Tashi. If I don't see you at 9:15, I am coming in with the truck. And I am bringing the Thunder Stick."
Tashi nodded. He opened the door.
He stepped out into the cold mountain air. He smoothed his shirt. He checked his pocket for his pen his talisman.
"Go, Tara," I whispered.
Tashi walked toward the gate. He didn't look back.
The gates swung open electronically, silent as a ghost.
Tashi walked up the long driveway. It was lined with imported Royal Palms, their fronds rustling in the wind. The house loomed ahead a sprawling colonial mansion painted a blinding white.
The front door opened before he could knock. A butler in a white jacket stood there.
"Good evening, Mr. Mbua. The Chairman is expecting you in the Library."
Tashi stepped inside. The house was air-conditioned to a chilling degree. It smelled of old leather, beeswax, and pipe tobacco the smell of a British gentleman's club.
He was led through a hallway lined with African masks not the cheap tourist ones, but real, powerful Juju masks from the deep bush. They stared at him with hollow eyes.
The butler opened a heavy mahogany door.
The Library was vast. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace, unnecessary but atmospheric.
Sitting in a wingback leather chair was Ni Thomas. The Bookman.
He was a small, unassuming man. He wore a tweed jacket with suede elbow patches and a turtleneck. He held a pipe in one hand and a book in the other. He looked like a professor from Oxford.
He looked up. His eyes were behind thick glasses, magnified, intelligent, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"Tashi," he said. His voice was soft, cultivated, with the clipped precision of the British upper class. "You made it. Do come in. Close the door against the draft."
Tashi walked in. He stood in the center of the Persian rug. "Good evening, Ni Thomas."
"Sit," the Bookman gestured to the chair opposite him. "Sherry? Or perhaps a single malt? I have a lovely 25-year-old Macallan."
"Water," Tashi said. "Just water."
The Bookman smiled. It was a thin, dry expression. "Water. The source of life. And lately, the source of your newfound confidence. I hear you are selling ice, Tashi. Freezing the very air of Bamenda."
"We are providing a service," Tashi said, sitting on the edge of the chair.
"Service," the Bookman mused, pouring himself a drink. "A noble word. My brother, the politician, loves that word. Service to the people. Power to the people."
He stood up and walked to the window, looking down at the glittering lights of the city below.
"My brother thinks the people need democracy, Tashi. He thinks they need votes. He is a romantic. I am a realist."
He turned.
"Do you know what the people actually need? They need Certainty. They need to know that when the sun sets, the dark will come. And they need to know that for a price, they can push the dark back. They need the transaction. It grounds them."
"We are giving them certainty," Tashi said. "Solar power is certain. The sun always rises."
"The sun is chaos!" The Bookman snapped, his voice suddenly sharp. "It is uncontrolled. It shines on the rich and the poor alike. That is not order, Tashi. That is anarchy. I sell kerosene. I control the tap. I decide who has light and who has darkness. That is Order."
He walked back to the table.
"You are disrupting the Order. You are giving them independence. And independence... independence is a dangerous drug for simple people."
"Simple people are tired of the dark," Tashi said.
The Bookman sighed. He put down his pipe.
"You have grown a spine, Tashi. I admit, I am impressed. Six months ago, you were a worm. A delightful, entertaining worm who owed me three million francs. Now? You are... troublesome."
He reached behind his chair and pulled out a briefcase. It was made of crocodile skin.
He placed it on the low table between them.
"I am a businessman, Tashi. I do not like war. War is expensive. It ruins the carpet."
Click. Click.
He opened the case.
Tashi stopped breathing.
Inside lay stacks of crisp, new banknotes. Purple ten-thousand franc notes. Hundreds of them.
"Ten million francs," the Bookman said softly.
Tashi stared. Ten million. It was a number that didn't make sense. It was a house. It was a fleet of taxis. It was a lifetime of ease.
"I want to buy Tashi & Son," the Bookman said. "I want the solar grid. I want the ice machines. I want the contracts with the villages. You walk away tonight with ten million francs. You go to the village. You marry a second wife. You become a Chief. You never work again."
Tashi looked at the money. The demon in his head woke up. Take it, the demon whispered. Take it and run.
"And Nkem?" Tashi asked. His voice sounded far away.
The Bookman smiled. A slow, seductive smile.
"Ah. The boy."
The Bookman sat down, leaning forward, his eyes magnifying behind the lenses.
"Tashi, let us be honest. We are men of the world. We know what you are. You are a gambler. A survivor. But you are not a visionary."
He pointed a finger at Tashi.
"But the boy? Nkem? He is a supernova. I have seen the reports. The radios. The frequency compression. The thermodynamics of that fridge. He is not just smart. He is... other."
The Bookman lowered his voice to a whisper.
"He is wasted on you, Tashi. You have him fixing sewing machines for market women? You have him making ice cubes? It is like using a diamond to crack palm nuts."
"He is helping his people," Tashi said defensively.
"He should be ruling them!" The Bookman roared, standing up. "He should be in a laboratory in London! Or MIT! Or here, with me! I can give him the world, Tashi. I can give him resources you cannot even imagine. I can make him the Black Einstein. I can make him a god."
The Bookman walked around the table, standing behind Tashi's chair. He put his hands on Tashi's shoulders.
"Give him to me. Not as a slave. As a protégé. I will adopt him. I will educate him. I will unleash him. And you... you take the money. You save him from your own mediocrity, Tashi. That is the greatest act of love a father can do. Admit that you are too small for him."
The words cut deeper than any knife.
Admit you are too small.
Tashi looked at the money. He looked at the reflection of himself in the dark window—a thin man in a cheap shirt.
Was he too small? Nkem was a giant trapped in a child's body. Maybe the Bookman was right. Maybe Tashi was just the cage.
Tears pricked Tashi's eyes.
"He would be... a King?" Tashi whispered.
"He would be the Emperor of the new century," the Bookman confirmed, squeezing Tashi's shoulders. "And you would be the father who sacrificed himself to give him wings."
It was a bewitching proposal. It twisted love into a weapon. It used Tashi's own humility against him.
Tashi reached out. His hand hovered over the money.
Then, he remembered.
He remembered the night in the alley. Nkem standing with the Thunder Stick.
He remembered Nkem's voice: Tara, look at your son.
He remembered the way Nkem looked at him not with pity, but with pride.
Nkem didn't want a laboratory in London. He wanted his father. He wanted the shop. He wanted the ice water and the dusty street.
Tashi pulled his hand back.
He stood up. He shrugged the Bookman's hands off his shoulders.
"You are right, sir," Tashi said. His voice was shaking, but it was clear. "I am small. I am a gambler. I am a man of the mud."
He turned to face the Bookman.
"But he chose me."
The Bookman's face hardened. "What?"
"He chose me," Tashi repeated. "He could have run away. He could have gone to the Colonel. He could have gone to you. But he stayed. He fixed me."
Tashi looked at the money with sudden disgust.
"You talk about him like he is a machine. A diamond. An asset. But he is a boy. He needs a father who loves him, not a master who uses him."
Tashi reached out and slammed the briefcase shut. BANG.
"Keep your money. Keep your kerosene. Keep your darkness."
The Bookman stared at him. The mask of the gentleman fell away. The Oxford professor vanished. The Thug, the Warlord, the Brother of Devils appeared.
"You realize what you are doing?" The Bookman hissed. "You are not just saying no to me. You are signing a suicide note. The Eclipse is coming, Tashi. In six days, the sky will go black. And when it does, I will unleash hell on your little shop. I will turn the people against you. I will burn your reputation to ash. And then I will take the boy anyway."
"Try," Tashi said.
He turned and walked toward the door.
"Tashi!" The Bookman shouted, his voice echoing in the vast library. "You walk out that door, and you are a dead man walking!"
Tashi stopped. He looked back.
"Maybe," Tashi said in raw Pidgin. "But man no di run from yi own shadow again."
He opened the heavy mahogany door and walked out.
He walked past the masks in the hallway. They seemed to bow to him.
He walked out the front door.
He walked down the long driveway, under the rustling palms.
The air was cold, but Tashi felt hot. He felt burning alive with adrenaline.
Uncle Lucas was waiting by the car. I was leaning out the window, scanning the darkness.
Tashi climbed into the back seat. He didn't slam the door. He closed it gently.
He looked at me. His face was wet with tears, but his eyes were shining like stars.
"He offered ten million," Tashi whispered. "He offered to make you a god."
"And what did you say, Tara?" I asked.
Tashi smiled. A broken, beautiful smile.
"I told him I already have a god. And he calls me Papa."
Uncle Lucas put the car in gear. He looked at Tashi in the mirror with deep respect.
"You are a hard man, Tashi Mbua," Lucas said. "Harder than stone."
We drove down the mountain, leaving the silence of the White Villa behind, descending back into the heat and the noise.
The war was no longer cold. The Bookman had been insulted. He had been rejected by a "worm."
The Eclipse was coming. And the Bookman was going to bring the night with a vengeance.