The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Madeline Berah

  • Madeline Berah, the African DETECTIVE in ’Tis every bit like murder (1)

    At once, he scraped back his chair and made for her, fist ready. In an instant, she was also up, chair thrown back, both fists balled in readiness. I quickly stepped in.

    ‘This is preposterous, absolutely preposterous’, burst out Aunt Deline, the well known African detective, one Tuesday evening from behind the previous day’s newspaper. She had this habit of never letting go a newspaper until she had digested every bit of its content. It was as if she needed to bore holes in the papers.

    We had just dined on the dish of vegetable and eba that I had concocted together with very few ingredients  pepper, salt, maggi cubes and vegetable mixed in red oil. Even I felt it could be better but my aunt declared it was perfect.

    ‘It needed a generous dash of fresh or dried shrimps, to be sure, but who can hold that against you?’

    That was her, always attentive to people’s feelings.

    Suddenly, Aunt Deline sprang up from her chair as if she had been stung her. She had a habit of doing that when something irked her or stung her sense of justice.

    ‘Where are you going at this time, Aunt?’ I asked her, a little warily. It was a little past seven o’clock in the evening. The last time she got up like that, she had ended up fighting with a passing pedestrian, physically, even throwing punches. It’s a long story, one I’ll tell you sometime. For now, I poked around for my shoes.

    ‘To see this… this… so-called inspector and ask him what the police are doing about these kidnappings.’ I quickly got up and searched for the keys to the little flat that we shared. I exaggerate when I say we shared; it was her flat and I was her guest. The trouble was that I enjoyed staying with her so much I always seemed to be there, particularly when she was on a ‘case’.

    ‘What if he’s already asleep?’

    ‘He’ll wake up’, she said peremptorily. I found the keys.

    Sometimes I wondered what she would do without me because she just never remembered things like keys. I suppose I secretly believed I was indispensable to her. The truth is…

    Gbam! Gbam! Gbam! She was banging on the door of our neighbour. I was alarmed.

    ‘Auntie, this is not the inspector’s flat,’ I whispered in consternation.

    ‘Nonsense. Does he not live on this side of the building?’ she asked, looking at me like I was an idiot. Spatially, I was beginning to think my aunt was an idiot.

    ‘Yes, but one floor above us. And he has since changed flats, remember, to the one directly above us?’

    The occupant of the flat she was banging on was a tall, aristocratic looking, elderly, cavalier bachelor called Mr. Ponle, who had slightly loose ways and hated being disturbed by his neighbours. I suspect he didn’t want anyone prying into his randy affairs with young girls. He had made one or two passes at me before but I guess my put downs had sufficiently put him down where I was concerned. Aunt Deline was anathema to him  no-go area. Today, I really hoped he was too deeply asleep, or too deeply dead, to hear the commotion.

    Too late. The door opened and he framed the doorway.

    ‘Yes?’, looking down at my diminutive aunt like she was a centipede that fetched up at his doorstep.

    ‘Yes what?’, asked the unrepentant knocker.

    ‘What do you want?’

    ‘Nothing. I wanted…’ She got no farther.

    ‘You knocked on my door to ask for nothing?’, he exploded, about to burst. I quickly stepped in.

    ‘I’m so sorry, but we knocked on your door in error. We really were going to another flat…’

    He narrowed his eyes and gave the shot from the hip.

    ‘And you had no eyes on your head to read the name on my door before pounding it with your puny fist?’

    Now, the fat was in the fire. There was no word my aunt hated more than that word puny. Perhaps, she hated it because it adequately described her, I don’t know. What I know is that if she gave me an allowance or food or bed or anything and I made the mistake of describing it as puny, I never heard the last of it. She would let me know in a thousand ways that the word altogether irritated her entire head by making sure it also irritated my entire head. In short she found ways of knocking my head with the word.

    So, no one, absolutely no one, called her puny unless they were ready with their fisticuffs. Obviously, Mr. Ponle knew nothing of this. He was propelled only by his own irritation.

    ‘You… You… You dare call me puny?’I swear I could see her physically extending her height as she stood on the tip of her toes, arms balanced on her waist. In that posture, she was ready to take on the world.

    Seeing her explode, the man retreated, nonplussed. I was disappointed. He was obviously better at starting fights than at sustaining them.

    ‘No, Miss Deline,’ he spat out, ‘you’re a giant’ before shutting the door most rudely in our faces.

    My aunt looked long and hard at the door, honoured it with a most hearty hiss before turning to go up the only staircase that serviced the building. Still infuriated, she marched irreverently on everything that got in her way  ants, cockroaches, flies, people… I trotted after her, apologising to them all.

    At the door of Inspector Gogo’s flat, Aunt Deline knocked more softly this time. The door was opened at once by the inspector’s nephew who was staying with the family over the holidays. His wife was nowhere to be seen.

    Aunt Deline charged in. ‘What in the name of all that is decent is going on in this country that everyone is being kidnapped left, right and centre and you and your ilk are just looking on?’ She delivered that last bit with a sweep of her newspaper-holding arm that took him in, along with his colleagues shown in a photograph displayed on the side-board behind where he sat at table. He was at his meal.

    ‘Oh,’ exclaimed Aunt Deline, ‘stock fish! I am partial to stockfish’. With that she drew out a chair, planted herself directly opposite him and drew the plate loaded with succulent, steaming cuts of stockfish in red pepper sauce towards her. The inspector sighed in great exasperation.

    ‘Eni,’ he intoned to me in his deep voice, ‘you’re a nice girl. But I can never understand why you allow yourself to be seen with puny, fake academics like this who…’ He got no further with his supposed joke.

    I had seen Aunt Deline’s hand suspended in the air as she tried to take another bite of stockfish and look at him straight in the eyes. No, she wouldn’t. Yes, she did. Quietly, she laid down the stockfish cut in her right hand … and I don’t know what happened next. I only saw that her hand flashed out and the inspector was holding his lip and moaning.

    ‘That’s it; no more stockfish for you,’ and she changed her seat far from the moaner, taking the plate with her. I was too shocked.

    ‘Auntie!!! Sir, are you hurt?’ One tends to ask irrelevant questions when in shock.

    ‘She punched me!’ he managed to get out. Aunt Deline munched on in silent relish.

    At once, he scraped back his chair and made for her, fist ready. In an instant, she was also up, chair thrown back, both fists balled in readiness. I quickly stepped in.

    ‘Inspector no, remember you are a policeman! Auntie no, remember you’re a lady!’

    Both of them stopped in their tracks, looked at me and burst out laughing real hard, holding their sides. I didn’t understand.

  • Madeline Berah, the African Detective in the missing government papers (9)

    Unfortunately, my sister blamed me. She said I used juju to take her son’s star and distribute it among my children; that’s why they are now doing fine and her son is languishing.

    ‘After trying everything I could, I finally got him a job in another ministry hoping he would build a career and rise on the job. But he got involved with a bad group and started misbehaving, stealing and all that, and he got sacked. I decided to bring him here right under my nose so I could keep an eye on him. So, I came to you sir and you gave him a job, and now a fine job I seem to have done. What am I going to do? If he goes to prison, what am I going to tell the mother?’ She started to cry again.

    Aunt Deline was grieved. She hated to see a woman cry.

    ‘Don’t worry, the permanent secretary will be magnanimous. He will not press charges.’

    The permanent secretary sighed and agreed that he would not; he wanted to keep the matter quiet anyway. But the young man must recount how he got hold of the papers because he, the permanent secretary, thought he guarded it jealously enough.

    After a lot of coaxing, the cleaner opened his mouth and explained.

    ‘I had been present when the paper was brought to the office by the boy sent to deliver it. The secretary, my aunt, had not seen the contents of the envelope before she went to the restroom. While she was away, I quickly looked in the envelope and decided that the papers were very important so I just bid my time.

    ‘Whenever I cleaned the office, I noticed that Oga would make sure his briefcase was near his feet just behind his desk. So, I just watched for the times he went to the toilet and how long he spent there. One day, I saw him go to the toilet because the door was slightly open and my aunt was not around, and since I knew the shape, size and colour of the envelope, it was not difficult for me to get it within half a minute. Before he came out, I had done what I wanted to do and was already back on my seat pretending to sleep when he came to see if anyone was waiting for him here.’

    ‘But why did you take it?’ his aunt asked in exasperation.

    ‘I saw the gambling receipts. They were more important than the other papers. I was going to sell them back to the owner.’

    The inspector spoke. ‘Do you know that blackmail is a criminal offence?’

    ‘And supposing the man killed you instead of paying you? What then?’ his aunt asked again.

    Aunt Deline stood up. It was our cue. ‘I think our job here is done. We should allow the good permanent secretary to get on with his job.’

    The permanent secretary stood up too. ‘I know that if I asked you how you knew that the envelope was on the young man, you would not tell me. But at least let me pay you.’

    ‘Oh, I don’t mind telling you’, replied Aunt Deline. ‘I was not expecting anyone to be ‘wearing’ the papers; I was expecting to have to lift up every carpet in the place or go through the toilets, but I was prepared to be surprised anyhow so I paid attention to everything.

    ‘When the cleaner came in, I noticed that the left side of the front of his jacket was infinitesimally more swollen than the other side.

    ‘And I was prepared to find it with someone else, not him. It was when you mentioned the cleaner that it hit me, fool that I was. I don’t mind confessing that I very nearly missed that. Thanks. It just shows that we all live and learn.

    ‘As for payment, I must tell you that while I do not accept money as a rule, I am not above accepting favours, which I will mention when my niece and the good inspector and your secretary leave us alone. By the way, (turning to the secretary) what your nephew requires is the service of a good psychoanalyst. I will give you a recommendation to a good friend of mine.’

    With that, the inspector and I left the office. I cannot report what favour Aunt Deline asked the permanent secretary but I certainly hoped it would concern her job. The next week, however, a large crate containing an inverter with a two and a half KvH capacity was delivered to our flat. This meant not only did we have a power source for me to do my reading, the fridge and the fans in the flat could be powered without the accompanying stress or noise that generators give.

    More importantly, Aunt Deline received a personal call that day from the manager of the electricity company apologising for the ‘crazy bill his boys’ had forwarded to her flat, and that she should discountenance them. I think she did not need a second invitation.

    When I asked Aunt Deline just how she had arm-twisted the poor permanent secretary, she only said that the man was very lucky, he could have lost his job. In that case, someone needed to be providentially placed to receive his gratitude. Who better than us?, she asked.

    When I also asked her why she had not asked him to connect her for a job at the proposed university, however, she brushed me off. ‘Let us live one day at a time, right?’ I marvelled at her. Once again, she had put my need to study ahead of her even more important need for a job!

    In the evening, when the inspector came to visit, he informed us that the permanent secretary never did find out the person that sent the papers to him; maybe a disgruntled fellow gambler, who knows? Most importantly, the permanent secretary had been able to tell the governor that the press reports were not true, and nothing was missing from his office. Also, the senior director concerned in the story had been dismissed from service on the basis of the incriminating evidence.

    ‘Now,’ said Aunt Deline, ‘he can become a full-time gambler. People who do not know the worth of their job do not deserve to keep it.’

    ‘Yes,’ agreed the inspector, ‘work is sacred. The work you do is a huge responsibility that you owe the country, your fellowmen and your maker. Through your effective work, you send a message to nature that the human society should continue. This is why nature hates the disruptions that come through ineffective work. Talking of effectiveness, how were you able to deduce so that the envelope was in the vicinity?

    ‘I paid attention. I told you that you must think cyclically. Let me tell you, in cases of this sort, it’s often the little things that count the most. While everyone was looking up at the most important things about the case  where the permanent secretary had been that day, what he did or did not do, the strength of the briefcase, etc., — I was more interested in the little things and one visit to this place assured me of all I wanted to know.’

    ‘And what was that?’

    ‘The psychological state of the secretary. If I had found her inscrutable, it would have deepened my suspicion of her further. But I found her rude, but sad and in pain. So, I knew that one, she probably did not take the papers, and two, she had her suspicion of who did. When I found her at her filing cabinet, I believed she thought the thief had hidden it there and she was hoping to surprise him. Poor lady; how was she to know the extent to which her nephew had degenerated?

    ‘So, if she did not take it, then who did?, I asked myself. I did notice an extra desk in her office on which there was no computer or anything. The table was small, dark brown, glossy from being so dirty and used, and wobbly. There were other chairs around it but the accompanying chair was even more wobbly and its leather well worn in the seat. Also, the carpentry seemed to have weakened so that the chair sagged down and the packing under it gaped. I believe that gaping hole made a perfect initial hiding place for the thief. This meant that whoever took it shared the office with the secretary.

    ‘I did not have time to find out who that person was, that first time. I thought however that if the envelope had not been moved, I would likely find it under that chair when we would come back based on one principle.’

    ‘What principle is that?’

    ‘The principle that says the best place to hide anything is in plain sight. How was I to know that providence had an even better illustration of that dogma for us? Child, is that bottle of wine in the fridge cold yet? Please bring it and let us all ‘wash’ this new source of electricity that the country is forcing me to live with.’

    On the veranda, under the watchful eyes of the stars, we three sat and drank the California wine. When I say drank, I exaggerate. Aunt Deline poured me a generous amount that could not even satiate an ant while the two adults proceeded to get to the bottom of why the electricity situation of the country was so bad. This discourse also led them to the bottom of the bottle; but I was content to listen, as always.

  • Madeline Berah, the African Detective in the missing government papers (8)

    To everyone’s surprise, when she reached him, she put her arms around him, as if giving him a tight hug. The man was more surprised that we were but that was for a few seconds. Suddenly, however, she began to pull at something in his clothing. When he seemed to realise what she was about, he began to try to pull himself out of her embrace.

    Have I told you that once Aunt Deline gets hold of something, she is worse than a hungry tiger holding on to its prey to make sure its lunch does not escape? No? Well, you must know now that Aunt Deline would as soon wrestle with a lion over his prey if she felt he had no right to it as she would punch a man in the nose for insulting her.

    When she gets like that, I usually look for the nearest exit because her punches have had previous habits of falling irreverently on anyone who gets between her and her target. I have been an unwary recipient before. Before our very eyes today, however, her embrace transmuted to a struggle to hold on; but the more she struggled, the more the cleaner tried to pull out.

    Nearing exhaustion, Aunt Deline cried out, ‘Don’t just sit there all of you, help me hold this man down. He has the papers!’

    Hearing that, the two men rushed upon them just as the secretary came in and within minutes the man was on the carpet. While the men had the man pinned down, Aunt Deline was stripping him of his French suit. She started with the trousers. I tried to look away because I thought she was going to be taking off his briefs next. When I looked again though, she had removed his short-sleeved jacket and was feeling all over it. There, from right inside the front lining, she pulled out a long brown envelope. Everyone gasped as they left off holding the struggling man.

    The permanent secretary held out his hands for the envelope. Trembling all over, he brought out the contents and checked them one after the other. The look he gave us was both exultant and triumphant.

    ‘Everything is intact,’ he said in wonderment. Then he sat down heavily on his chair again and looked at Aunt Deline with reverence. ‘Madam, you have saved me and my career today!’

    By now, the cleaner, who had been full of valiant struggles a minute before, was sitting hunched up on the carpet, face down and refusing to look at anyone. The secretary, who had come in while the struggle was on, took a seat near him and draped his shoulders with his jacket.

    When all was calm again, the permanent secretary had a look of awe on his face but he spoke quietly.

    ‘How did you know?’

    Aunt Deline answered. ‘I didn’t. I was sure that the papers were in the office, but I at first thought that the secretary had them. However, when I spoke with her, I did not see a woman hardened by crime but I saw a face in pain. When I surprised her in the office the first time I was here, I thought she was either deeply unfriendly or deeply troubled. Even now, I am not sure what the source of her pain is as it cannot be just the papers.’

    The secretary sighed. ‘Ma, it is the papers. I was also worried about them.’

    ‘Then you should be happy like the rest of us’, shouted the permanent secretary.

    ‘Yes sir’, the woman replied wearily, ‘but I am not happy about the place where we found them.’ Then she burst into tears.

    We all sat in perplexity.

    Pulling herself together and wiping her eyes, she explained.

    ‘Fifteen years ago, my sister who lives in Zunguru asked me to take her young boy to live with me since I was in the city and could give him a better chance in life. I took the boy and tried my best for him. I sent him to the same school as my children. I fed him the same meals as I did my children. In fact they did everything together, including studying. For some reason, however, my children came out of school with good grades, went on to university, graduated and took good jobs and are now living fine, independent lives.

    ‘Somehow though, my nephew just could not do well in the same academics despite being exposed to the same conditions. I did all I could to help him, including taking private teachers for him, but nothing helped.

    ‘Unfortunately, my sister blamed me. She said I used juju to take her son’s star and distribute it among my children; that’s why they are now doing fine now and her son is languishing.

    ‘After trying everything I could, I finally got him a job in another ministry hoping he would build a career and rise on the job. But he got involved with a bad group and started misbehaving, stealing and all that, and he got sacked. I decided to bring him here right under me so I could keep an eye on him. So, I came to you sir and you gave him a job, and now a fine job I seem to have done. What am I going to do? If he goes to prison, what am I going to tell the mother?’ She started to cry again.

    Aunt Deline was grieved. She hated to see a woman cry.

    ‘Don’t worry, the permanent secretary will be magnanimous. He will not press charges.’

    The permanent secretary sighed and agreed that he would not, but the young man should just tell us how he got hold of the papers because he thought he guarded it jealously enough.

    After a lot of coaxing, the cleaner opened his mouth and explained.

    ‘I had been present when the paper was brought to the office by the boy sent to deliver it. The secretary my aunt had not seen the contents of the envelope before she went to the restroom. While she was away, I quickly looked in the envelope and decided that the papers were very important so I just bid my time.

    ‘Whenever I cleaned the office, I noticed that Oga would make sure his briefcase was near his feet just behind his desk. So, I just watched for the times he went to the toilet and how long he spent there. One day, I saw him go to the toilet because the door was slightly open and my aunt was not around, and since I knew the shape, size and colour of the envelope, it was not difficult for me to get it within half a minute. Before he came out, I had done what I wanted to do and was already back on my seat pretending to sleep when he came to see if anyone was waiting for him here.’

    ‘But why did you take it?’ his aunt asked in exasperation.

    ‘I saw the gambling receipts. They were more important than the other papers. I was going to sell them back to the owner.’

    The inspector spoke. ‘Do you know that blackmail is a criminal offence?’

    ‘And supposing the man killed you instead of paying you? What then?’ his aunt asked again.

    Aunt Deline stood up. It was our cue. ‘I think our job here is done. We should allow the good permanent secretary to get on with his job.’

    The permanent secretary stood up too. ‘I know that if I asked you how you knew that the envelope was on the young man, you would not tell me. But at least let me pay you.’

    ‘Oh, I don’t mind telling you. I was not expecting anyone to be ‘wearing’ the papers; I was expecting to have to lift up every carpet in the place or go through the toilets, but I was prepared to be surprised anyhow so I paid attention to everything.

  • Madeline Berah, the African DETECTIVE In The Missing Government Papers (6)

    The inspector leaned back. ‘And what did your observing eye tell you in this matter?’ I thought I detected sarcasm.

    If Aunt Deline heard it too, she ignored it. ‘First, I observed many lapses in the news report. Our journalists are getting lazier and lazier. In my days, the report would have included all the details concerning the matter rather than the hazy sketches we were given. I determined therefore to fill in the gaps myself. I got to the secretariat at half past eight, early enough to find workers on their seats. You know yourself most of them don’t get to their work places on time, especially those higher up.

    ‘The block itself, one of several similar ones, was about five stories tall, once-upon-a-time cream coloured but now somewhere in between rain-washed grey and dust-inspired brown. Did you know that the buildings that make up the secretariat are lined up, one after the other, in a slanting fashion like people slanting sideways to take a photograph?’

    ‘Everyone knows that. Tell me something I don’t know because I have been there myself on this matter,’ replied the inspector testily.

    ‘Well,’ replied Aunt Deline equally testily, ‘if you’re patient, you will eat the fat of the land. When I climbed to the fourth floor, I came out of the staircase and found myself on a balcony looking directly down on the street below. The first office I turned to was quite wide, bare-floored with many spaces where the flooring had given way to the sand used for the construction. Ugh! Come and see sand everywhere! Imagine, in a government building. No standards anymore.

    ‘Anyway, about four tables were placed in the room, not arranged in any particular order, if you don’t count someone’s whim not to face the sun or to back an incoming visitor. The tables were all occupied by some buxom ladies in various stages of weight wear, plying their figures with more food from plastic food flasks. I give you all these details so that you can have an idea of what I observed.

    ‘They all said I should come and eat. I told them no thanks, I did not really like what they were eating. I preferred something lighter.’

    ‘What were they eating?’ I asked.

    ‘Rice, beans and dodo; so early in the morning too. Strangely though, when I asked to be directed to the office of the permanent secretary of the education ministry, they looked at each other before one of them replied. “It’s the last office on the top floor.”

    ‘But I heard them laughing as I went out of earshot. I distinctly heard one of them say: “Did she think we were really asking her to come and eat, when it’s not government food? Some people think everything in the government building is for the general public to eat.” I said nothing to them however.

    ‘When I entered the office I had been directed to, I found the room empty. It was furnished rather sparingly, even though it was a large room. There was a large desk looking directly at the door from the right corner adjacent to a door that obviously opened to another room inside. I decided that that must be the permanent secretary’s office.

    ‘There was a smaller table at the far corner of the room, with several chairs arranged in front and behind it. I took the chair nearest the door, and sat down to wait.

    ‘Five minutes later, a big, dark-complexioned woman came in hurriedly. Running behind the large desk, she quickly removed a large, brown envelop from her bag, pushed it to the back of the top drawer, before she made to stow the bag inside a drawer.

    ‘That was when I spoke. I said ‘Excuse me …

    ‘The way she jumped had me suspecting something. She had not known anyone was in the room with her. Her face looked cross as she looked first at the door before finding the source of the sound. As a matter of fact, the face seemed to be hiding some pain. Her eyes were a slit, even though the entire face and mouth were wide, yet you could see sadness and hopelessness lurking around the eyes that she vainly tried to hide in haughtiness… She looked at me and spoke roughly.

    ‘ “What do you want early this morning?”, she snapped. “Are you here to beg for a contract?”

    ‘I thought this was rather rude but I did not say so.

    ‘No’, I replied instead. ‘I’m here to see the permanent secretary’.

    “For money?” she asked.

    ‘No’, I coolly replied. I decided to try a shocker of my own. ‘I woke up this morning and found I had no husband, so I’ve come to see if he will fit into the role.’

    ‘Auntie!’, I exclaimed. She was not contrite. ‘It’s true; you have to really give Nigerians what they deserve before you can get anything out of them.’

    ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘the woman relaxed a bit before saying “He’s not here yet, he’s attending a meeting this morning at the government house.”

    ‘When can I meet with him then?’, I asked her. “Maybe you can come back in the afternoon. Maybe he would have come back by then” she replied.

    ‘When I got up to leave, I said to her: ‘Maybe I don’t want to see your boss yet. Maybe by afternoon, I will feel like it. In the meantime, when he wakes up and calls you in, tell him that Dr. Berah was here to see him and will return at two o’clock. By the way, I told her, you also need to get some sleep.

    ‘As I went out of the door, I had the satisfaction of seeing her wide mouth open wider. As I left, I heard the bell ring from inside the room and I saw her jump again before she went in.’

    The inspector was impatient. I was too. ‘So, where are the papers?’

    ‘There, in the office. I intend to go back first thing in the morning to retrieve them.’

    ‘Oh yes, the one the secretary was holding. I’m coming with you,’ the inspector declared.

    ‘So am I,’ I said.

    ‘Suit yourselves, although I’m not sure it’s that envelope exactly. But we can find out tomorrow’, Aunt Deline said. Then she leaned back in her chair and began to talk about other things.

    Next morning, which was a Friday, we were shown into the office of the permanent secretary by his secretary. Aunt Deline was right; the woman’s face was a little long and the mouth was firmly shut. Her eyes looked sad and it was clear that she was harbouring some pain.

    It was also clear that the man himself had had a rough night. Much as his office was comfortable, I didn’t think it had been designed for sleeping in. The couch looked big all right, black, fully upholstered, leather-clothed and all (false leather yes, but comfortable). Judging by his uncombed hair, half-closed eyes, tightly held lips, it was obvious the rough night was spent on the couch. I could swear his print was still visible on it.

    He welcomed us solemnly and shook hands with the inspector languidly. We took our seats on the same couch. He paid us a distracted attention, constantly flipping over papers on his desk, obviously still searching for his papers. But Aunt Deline jolted him into paying us full attention.

    ‘We have come about the missing papers.’

    You could almost hear him snap to. I really pitied him. ‘Do you know where they are?’, he asked suddenly and quietly.

    ‘I do, but first, you have to tell us the whole story.’