A beautiful morning it seemed to be. So she decided to take pictures. This new place reeks of such ghostly serenity she believes she never experienced in Old South from where she had come. Does she being new in this place contribute to this strange but beautiful feeling? She has been here for barely seventy-two hours. On the first morning, she had taken a walk from her apartment to the lake near the police farm quarters. It wasn’t very far from her apartment, yet she couldn’t take in the beautiful views in just a day, let alone in the limited hours she has every morning before official duties. She enjoyed the pure air of this area; it was nothing like what she breathed in as she stopped by the main market to get some things when she entered Fadamu the previous day. As she walked back to her quarters, she took special notice of the various fruit trees that dotted the farms which lay on both sides of the quiet country lane. On the second morning, she left her apartment earlier to afford her more time to sit by the lake. By the third morning, she noticed the look on the faces of the people who had watched her as she took pictures on her way back. She wasn’t perturbed in the least; her reputation always preceded her. So, when she noticed the woman who kept on trailing behind her in the market by the afternoon of that third day, she did not in the least pass her off as a stalker. But a few hours later, the same face was appearing and disappearing behind other faces that crisscrossed as they passed the Fadamu Central Police Station, as though it wished to be noticed. She could see it because for the past two days she had taken to using her last work hour to sit outside the building, under the pine tree close to the main gate of the station, and watch people who went to and fro the main market. It was a habit she acquired in her last month at Old South when depressing thoughts about leaving a place she had spent half of life in weighed her down.

She was already regretting giving that face the attention it sought. ‘I should have ignored her’, she admonished herself. Now, here is someone claiming to have new information that could lead to reopening the case. This isn’t what she had anticipated. There would be cases, of course, that’s typical of Fadamu; but she wouldn’t want these to be already closed ones. How does one even categorize this one as a case? It was open for only two days before being declared ‘closed’. It didn’t make the news; she had only seen it in one of the files for most recent cases. It is no surprise to her why it was so. This is what Fred should be handling, she told herself. She really shouldn’t put her hands into old cases now. But Fred has been off for a while now. It was his last week at the station, and there was a lot he needed to do before his leave. For example, he was supposed to be signing some transfer papers at the police headquarters in the city. Perhaps that was exactly where he was when she let this woman into the station and offered her a seat in the interrogation room. He might as well be doing other things concerning his promotion. Such promotions close to retirement were envied. She had even teased him about it the first day she came to the station. He was not with his badge, so she asked him if the new rank meant no badge for him; everyone recognized him as the boss here. They had laughed about it before he asked her how her journey to Fadamu was. That was two days ago. Now, she has this woman waiting for her and since Fred isn’t here, she might as well need someone else who knew about the case.

‘Excuse me, Zaq. Come over here. You may want to hear this.’ She turns to stare at the haggard-looking woman sitting opposite of her, in clothes one would ordinarily have placed under leaking diesel pipes. She regards the woman’s hair for a moment: long, short, or spongy in different places; chameleon-like – showing colours of pink, brown, purple, then black, as if controlled by the mind of the one who gazes at it; tiny bald patches on the head, if one takes a closer look. What about the cracks on the lips or the dark skin around the swollen eyes? She must be one of them, she thought.‘Could you start over, Mrs…?’

‘Misez’.

‘Sorry, what?’

‘Misez. Mrs. Misez’.

‘Ah. That’s right! So, Mrs. Misez, what did you say you would want us to know about the dead girl?’

‘Mirano. Her name is Mirano. She is from the West. She had come to seek safety…eerm… protection…’.

‘Protection from what?’

Misez looks up from her hand which she had been fiddling with all the while. She stares at Tess for a moment and then at Zaq. She looks up at the camera above, squinting. Then, as if suddenly confident, she straightens her body, removing her hands from the table, and says, ‘from whom, rather’. Then, she relaxes back, watching Tess and Zaq exchange interrogative looks.

***

Two years earlier, Mirano was one of the kids in a state-owned orphanage in the West. The home was initially set up for orphans until the need to accommodate children given up by their parents arose. She does not have the full story of how she ended up there, but she could remember that someone she usually called ‘Grandma’ visited for a few years before she got used to the many other grandmas at the home, and before the premier grandma melted into the same form as every other pair of arms that straddled her tiny body regularly. She was used to seeing many faces, of running into several open arms, of smiling back, of collecting gifts, and at a point in her life, of doing the special chore. It was after her fifth birthday, after she was caught eating a bar of chocolate in a store-room in the basement, that she was ‘introduced’ to the special chore, which she was mandated to tell no one lest she ceased being the special kid. The bar of chocolate in question was a gift that one of the cooks had given her on her birthday which she had put aside while she dropped other things into a basket, as she was told because she loved chocolates.

Mirano realized that the special chore was wrong, not when Baba Khadi made sure that doors were locked before it but when the home’s other officials started discussing in hushed voices the evil that was Mehdi. Mehdi was in the orphanage for barely sixteen weeks and he was already caught putting his pin of a penis into the mouth of a cleaner’s daughter. They said things like that weren’t abnormal, considering that Mehdi was just the product of a criminal union: his parents were said to be courting at the time that the execution squad condemned them to death for the havoc they wreaked on many families through robbery attacks. His fate was discussed behind closed doors: to what kind of families should he be sent? He cannot be sent back into the streets; the government pays for their upkeep. He equally wasn’t the worst they had had to put up with.

If Mehdi was admonished for this, Mirano wondered, why wasn’t Baba Khadi? She never liked the special chore. So she revolted. She revolted with silence and the shaking of the head. She revolted with avoiding the secret store-room in the basement. But that, too, earned her several agonies, including her inability to leave the orphanage with potential, seemingly interested new parents. At eleven, it was almost impossible; many parents desired younger kids. Since it was Baba Khadi who was in charge of striking deals with families or recommending kids in the home, she knew what it meant for her. She did not want to end up like the fair aunty who worked in the kitchen with the cooks. She heard that the aunty was once like her; she had remained in the home since no one wanted to adopt her. That aunty did not like Baba Khadi too. Mirano noticed the way she frowned when he gave orders in the home. There must be a way out, she assured herself. She cried many nights, winked an eye at parents who visited, and clung to receding arms. None worked. But then an angel came, like the ones that priests who visited the home every week, after the imans had talked about. ‘They can even take the human form’, they were told. This angel did.

The face stood out among the faces that came to commiserate with the home on the loss of another kid. Another kid, yes. It was the second time, since she came to the home, that a kid had disappeared with no trace. When it happened the first time, she remembered seeing the police everywhere in the home. She was scared. She was scared because she knew, from the movies they had watched, that the police only came when there was trouble. She was eight then, almost nine, and was sad when she realized that it was Pavix who was missing. Pavix was one of the few she felt happy to be with at the home. He was about four years older than her. Five, maybe. Yes, five; he had fourteen candles on his last birthday cake. That was a few days before his disappearance. He was older, but she liked him because he was very kind. Was it not he who told her that if he ever got a family to move into, he would convince his parents to adopt her too? She had held on to that promise. Such a beautiful hope—being with her brother forever. Aren’t all the children here siblings, as was drummed into their ears at every slightest opportunity? So why would they go to different homes and probably never meet again? Hence, she lived every day with the hope that she would at least be with one of her siblings forever. But when Pavix disappeared, she resorted to being alone, more than ever. She was never a kid of many words, but Pavix’s disappearance took away the few words left. That was when Baba Khadi started giving her special chores to distract her and make her feel better. But two years later, here was a face it feels like she had seen before—a face that might gift her the parents and the brotherhood that Pavix promised.

The face stood out because it kept on winking an eye at her, and smiling mischievously. Some months later, plans were being drawn and redrawn—plans for how Mirano could get ‘protection’. The first thing Mirano experienced first-hand—like she had seen only in movies—as a sign that she was free was the ability to interact with the outside world. As far as she could remember, she had known no other world but that within the four walls of the orphanage. Other worlds came to them but she could not reciprocate the gesture. They had almost all they needed in the home, so there was no need to leave. She heard that people who were up to the age of fifteen were allowed to leave the home once in a while. That was one of the reasons her sadness was immense when Pavix disappeared. He was close to that age. She had hoped to see the other world through his eyes when it was time.

The journey from the West to Fadamu took roughly nine hours. She kept track of time with her watch. Pavix’s rather. It was the only one of his belongings that she held on to. Haje, the angel, had told Mirano that her stay in Fadamu would be temporary until he found a place for her in a neighbouring town. In the meantime, she was to stay with his family. Papa—that was what he said he should be called—had two rooms and a small garden behind the house. Some of his sister’s clothes were in the second room, though she hardly returned at night. Mirano was to stay in this room until a place was found for her. The first night was terrible as she struggled to contain the body pains from hours of squatting with four other kids in one of the non-functional toilets of the train they used for the journey. Even though she did not talk, she listened to the other kids. The space could hardly take in two persons at once, but there they were, the five of them, struggling to maintain calmness, for they would be in a graver situation should they be discovered. She didn’t know the other kids nor with whom they were traveling. It was better not to ask. So she didn’t. About three of them looked so much younger than her while the fourth seemed like an equal.

What was supposed to be a temporary stay degenerated into months upon months of living in Fadamu. But change happened so fast. By the end of the third week, Haje was telling Mirano how important it was if she helped a bit with what they did to provide food for the family. Her duty was simple though: she was to meet certain persons and give them messages from ‘Papa’ and return with their responses. It was that simple until Mirano discovered what these messages in small wraps of paper were. Some of these people looked like those she had seen in movies. Some were always on the street looking unkempt while others were well-dressed and worked in offices. The ones who had no homes scared her to death: the way they walked stealthily, the way they regarded her, and so on. But looking at her the way Baba Khadi did in the secret store-room was not reserved for these ones on the streets only; men in suits also tried to touch her small breasts. Day and night, she prayed that her angel would find a place for her sooner so that she’d have people to call parents.

Haje’s sister was cold to her at first. But with time, she started acknowledging her presence. She, too, was in the same business, it seemed. Mirano had seen her once or twice sniffing the white substance, when they had new deliveries, to ascertain the quality of each package. Her hair looked unkempt most days, but she sometimes took time to sit before the mirror in her room to wear makeup and style her hair. One day, Mirano offered to help her style it. She had only looked at her, shaken her head, and turned to face the mirror again. After standing for some minutes waiting for a reply and getting none, Mirano approached her, took a comb from the small basket on the table in front of the mirror, and proceeded to part the hair. There was no response. Only stillness. She watched Mirano from the mirror. And after about one and a half hours, she looked in the mirror again to see beautiful cornrows lying graciously on her head. Mirano smiled at her in the mirror and she smiled back some seconds later. After a while, she stood up and left, without a word. She looked younger than Mirano had ever known her to be. She was indeed young. Mirano was happy that she could practise plaiting again. She had been taught by the fair cook-aunty, with Adrienne’s full, long hair. This was the least she could do for Papa’s sister, and she was glad that she made her smile. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship, she believed. The relationship became a wonderful friendship with time and she decided to let her in on her little secrets. So she told her about Pavix who disappeared from the orphanage some time ago, but whom she had just bumped into in Fadamu. She also told her about the dealings with ‘Big Man’, who not only made her do the special chore she did for Baba Khadi, but also went into her at lengths she could barely take, every week. She cried on her breasts some days and hid her face from her on other days while she cried. This broke Misez’s heart.

Haje needed Big Man’s collaboration to remain safe in his business. He supplied him with his need while the latter looked away. Big Man had no preference when it came down to gender, only that he had no use for either once they’re above seventeen. Little above ten was his choice bracket. Misez believed Mirano, but she needed some kind of proof. First, she brought Pavix and Mirano together when Haje was away and listened to them. Pavix was still doing Haje’s bidding, but he would be free to have his own life as soon as he turned eighteen in a few months. Second, Mirano brought home Big Man’s badge after one of their encounters. This did not go quite well because it seemed like Big Man knew what really transpired. One evening, Pavix came to call Mirano, saying that she had been summoned. Misez did not return home that night. On her way home the following morning, she met Mirano’s dead body near a shopping mall at the main market. Many people had gathered. Some were saying that she was just ‘one of them’.

***

It was all beginning to make sense. If not, how did they, or anyone else at that, believe Fred when he said that his reason for remaining unmarried in his late sixties was the nature of his profession: the sometimes sudden transfers that would entail a new start at life. How could he have negotiated those with his family? But what about others? Don’t they have families too? Look at Tess. Look at Zaq. Look at Brahmin. And did he not just live in Fadamu for twenty-seven years? Twenty-seven years! If he was able to influence his transfers, as was rumoured, and was, therefore, able to remain in Fadamu this long, why hasn’t he started a family then? It was all beginning to make sense.

‘But what proof have you, Mrs. Misez? This story isn’t enough for us’, Zaq said, looking worried.

‘I have someone who will corroborate my story. He saw it all. He’s seriously shaken’.

‘What’s his name?’ Zaq enquired.

‘Who is he, Mrs. Misez? Tell us’, Tess pleaded.

*****

It is said of this profession that it is difficult to see one in it whose hands are completely without stain and that when very serious matters arose, many would rather maintain the status quo than go down for a past error. Probing Mirano’s case again revealed more than could be swallowed by those involved without a burst of the pharynx.

At the beginning of her career some years ago, Tess made a serious mistake that resulted in the death of an innocent youth. But over the years, she did fantastic jobs that earned her the reputation she now enjoys. However, there are certain persons who knew about that mistake because they helped bury it. Fred was one of them. Suddenly, it seemed so strange how everything was interconnected. Years ago, a child was declared missing from a children’s home in the far West and Tess, during her training, had erroneously arrested a youth who happened to be the kid’s closest visitor. He was put in jail for several other counts where he was murdered in a brawl that broke out among inmates. Not so long after, the missing child was spotted somewhere and truth had to be obfuscated to avoid worse developments.

‘We always do what we have to do’, Fred told Tess.

***

So when, that fateful morning, Misez heard that Pavix’s already bloated body was found near the mouth of a gutter by the slum that was his home, she left Fadamu. She knew it was no longer safe. No, it never was safe. But where is? Many had said that Pavix got drowned during the torrential rainfall of the previous night. Some only glanced at him and tagged him ‘one of them’. A few others said, in whispers, that he must have been strangled by something because of the dark ring-like marks around his neck, wrists, and ankles. Such sights are not uncommon in Fadamu, and this, too, will pass. Mirano became once again a forgotten name, but not in the head of Misez who would later drown in the guilt of killing another child to save a dead one. Voices inhabited her head afterwards and suggested which babies she should take from which parents, until she was shot dead many years later by the police who discovered where a deranged old woman lived with the bones of missing babies she starved to death. She died far from home, clutching Fred’s rusty badge.

Chekwube A. Anyaegbunam is a Goethe Goes Global Scholar at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt where she is completing her Master’s studies in Anglophone Literatures, Cultures and Media. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in English and Literary Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She served the student body of the Department of English and Literary Studies as Vice President (2014\2015) and also emerged the 2015/2016 best-graduating student of the same department. She was equally the General Secretary of Faculty of Arts Students’ Association (2015\2016). Her (research) interests lie in postcolonial studies, identity studies, trauma studies, memory/cultural studies, diaspora studies, and creative writing.