A Minister in a Box Read online

  A Minister in a Box

  Aaron Ben-Shahar

  Copyright © 2018 Aaron Ben-Shahar

  All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

  Translation from The Hebrew: Guri Arad

  Contact: [email protected]

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART TWO

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  PART THREE

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  About the Author

  Message from the Author

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Same as every day, Bwana Biko took his morning constitutional, leaving his house on No. 14 Walton St. and walking all the way to the end, at which point he planned to return via the next street. His walk was always the same: he relished looking at the gates of the lavish mansions, often telling his secretary, Edie, his most trusted confidant in London, that the gates of a house are the gateway to one’s soul, offering a great deal of insight about the persons residing there, as well as what they do.

  Biko referred to No. 16, the house adjacent to his own, as “Tea House”. It had three levels, resembled a pagoda of sorts and was a combination of stone and lumber. The front of the house featured a small stone fence with two gates, one for vehicles and the other for persons entering on foot. Both gates were painted green and had copper panels shaped like tea leaves.

  He called house No. 18 “Rose House”. A hedge with two wooden gates lay between the house and the street. The house itself was relatively modest compared with the others. It spans the width of its grounds, with the front boasting a particularly lovely rose garden.

  No. 20 was “Fortress House”, complete with a gray wall a little over eight feet tall and an electric iron gate. On rare occasions, Biko spotted a black Bentley driven by a chauffeur leaving the house. The car’s dark windows completely obscured its interior.

  That morning, as he was walking along, Biko noticed a different car next to Fortress House: a gray van moving very slowly. Before he could get a chance to take one more step, the van beat him to it and stopped right in front of him. The back door opened and two burly men in masks leaped out. Before he knew it, Biko’s hands were cuffed behind his back, his mouth was gagged and his eyes were covered by this dark piece of cloth. He tried to cry out through his gag, but the strangers quickly lifted him up and threw him inside the back of the van, face down.

  Biko tried to protest, but then he felt a sharp instrument cutting into one of his coat sleeves.

  A sharp stab cut through his bare flesh.

  Everything around him went dark.

  Chapter 2

  That was to be the happiest day in Bwana Biko’s life, but he realized it only at the end of that day.

  When he was a second grade student, the teacher always called him “Bwana Biko”, but all his fellow students called him “Biko”. His mother had told him his father too used to call him by his nickname, “Biko”. His father had died when he was two. Biko had no memory of him, except for some dim recollection. In his village, death was not an issue. People were born, they lived and then they died. Their entire lives centered on their struggle to subsist. Having to survive kept them from thinking about their own deaths.

  Biko’s mother too had very little time to grieve for her husband. At daybreak, the very next day after she buried him, she reported for duty at the corn field, where she picked the cobs clean and gathered them into these large burlap sacks. The fifty naira she was paid for each working day allowed her to buy some flour, sunflower oil and a few other basic groceries to sustain her family.

  That day, perhaps later that evening, Biko had planned to play soccer with Osho, his best friend, in a field the village kids used as a playground. As Osho was already running late, Biko went over to his friend’s family cabin. Biko was already feeling a sense of foreboding on his way over, having seen Anona, the wailing woman, making her way towards the same cabin he was heading for. That mud hut was no different than any other Biko had been to. It was made of mud bricks complete with straw mats woven from the reed that flourished in the nearby lake. Outside the low, makeshift doorway stood a large clay pot for storing rainwater. The center of the hut’s roof had a small hole for letting out the smoke.

  The center of the hut’s floor usually sported a cooking area, but when Biko arrived, he saw that it was moved to make room for the body of Oubinna, Osho’s father. Two palm oil lamps were burning right over the body. Biko could see the mourners by the light they emitted.

  Oubinna’s two widows lay on either side of his body, wailing and weeping. The first was Osho’s mother and the other was Oubinna’s first wife, who resided at a nearby hut along with her own children. The family hut was packed full the late Oubinna’s numerous children, along with a few of the neighbors, among whom Biko spotted his own mother, who had stopped to pay her respects to the mourners on her way back from the corn field after work.

  Upon raising his head to look at the late Oubinna, two things caught Biko’s attention: the death mask that was placed over the dead man’s face, on which was conferred a sense of peace and resignation. The other was the dead man’s bare feet.

  Biko was very envious of Osho and his father, as were all the village children, for having their own pair of shoes. Made of deerskin, their shoes sported leather straps they used to firmly fasten the shoes to their ankles. Every now and then, Biko had fashioned himself soles out of palm leaves so as to protect his feet from the dry, burning ground, as well as the jungle thorns, but he knew all too well this hardly came close to constituting proper shoes. On one of his visits to the market at the county town of Benioni, Biko snuck into the cobbler’s shop, pointed to a pair of shoes akin to the ones Osho was wearing and asked how much they were.

  - One thousand naira.

  The cobbler replied dismissively, convinced he wasn’t going to make a sale.

  ‘A thousand naira…’ Biko thought to himself as he was leaving the shoe maker’s shop. ‘That would be enough for a whole year’s supply of yams for the entire family’. He walked on frustrated and jealous.

  There was a time when Osho and his father did not have any shoes. They used to walk barefoot just like everyone else, at least everyone Biko knew. One day, the person Oubinna was working for fell ill, so Oubinna took it upon himself to have Anona, the wailing woman, come sooner than scheduled and honor his employer at his sickbed. He meant it as a parting gesture. The patient was very moved by the visit of the wailing woman, and in this air of grief and illness, took an oath, pledging that should he survive and get better, he would make Oubinna a present of his small plot of palm trees by the lake, which he used to produce oil. Neither the oath taker no
r his grateful employee believed he would actually have to live up to his promise, but a miracle nevertheless occurred, and Oubinna’s employer did make a complete recovery.

  Oubinna and his household were Muslim, whereas his employer was a devout Christian, so when the miracle did transpire, and Oubinna was awarded the plantation as promised, he did not know to whom to give thanks, Jesus or the Prophet Muhammad, or indeed to any of the hoodoo idols so many of the villagers worshiped.

  Oubinna stayed on and continued working, doing his manual labor of old at the palm plantation. During the season, when it was time to pick the fruit at his own plot, he picked up a large machete to cut the produce with. He would take Osho and Biko with him to assist in gathering the palms and collecting them into large sacks. He used the palm to make oil, which he then sold to his neighbors. When the crops turned well, he would even have enough to sell at the Benioni market. After a few good seasons, Oubinna had managed to amass enough cash to take Osho with him, where he handed the cobbler a whole two thousand naira as payment for two pairs of shoes, one for himself and one for his son.

  Biko was gazing in amazement at the late Oubinna’s bare feet when he felt this tug on his arm, pulling him out of the hut. Standing by the huge water jug was Osho. He handed Biko a pair of shoes.

  - Here, these are yours. A present from my dad.

  Biko was moved to tears. ‘Dreams do come true!’ For him, shoes were not merely a means of protection from the street or the forest; they were all he had ever dreamed of ever since he came to his senses. Shoes stood for the transition from poverty, hardship, disheveled schoolbooks, open sewers and monotonous food, to another world, of which he had learned from the old newspapers that he occasionally found at the Sunday market, from stories by passers-by and from his teachers, who told him, much to his astonishment, about places referred to as “libraries”, frequented by people wearing shoes, who select any book they wish to read.

  Back at Biko’s family cabin, a book was never to be seen. This was the same in all the other village huts, as well as the surrounding villages. The only books Biko had ever seen were the tattered schoolbooks available at his school, having already been used by several students before him. You were not allowed to take them off the school premises, so they were kept in a special cabinet at the teachers’ lounge.

  Biko was studious and hard working. His teachers always said he would go far. Once, they even called his mother to the school and told her, “You have a really gifted son there. You need to let him go to the big city, where he can further apply himself and study more.”

  Biko’s mother was proud of her son, but she did not have the first clue how to move to the big city. Besides, she was at a loss as to where she might find the money to send Biko there.

  *

  The day after he received his first ever pair of shoes, Biko was absentminded. He waited for school to be over for the day so he could rush over to Mumadi and show him his new pair of shoes. Mumadi was the person Biko admired the most. A sculptor, a wood statue maker, Mumadi lived in a mud hut just like any other villager, yet what set him apart was his sculpting, which was his entire world. He never let go of his chisel, always carving the most striking and outstanding busts. Biko believed that these figures would open their mouths at any time and speak as though they were human. Mumadi also sculpted forest and jungle animals, which Biko often feared could simply wake up, pounce and devour him, or, at the very least, run away back into the jungle.

  Every day after school was out, Biko would hurry himself to Mumadi’s hut and marvel, excited, at the man’s work. Every few weeks, Mumadi would take Biko along with him to the nearby forest, where they would pick a tree for Mumadi’s next project. Mumadi preferred to work with ebony, a tree famous for its outer dark bark and white flesh. The villagers referred to ebony as “the baboons’ tree” for these monkeys loved to hang from its top branches.

  One day, while Mumadi was sitting and carving with Biko watching, a baboon joined them, sitting beside Biko, also looking inquisitively, albeit sadly, at the sculptor’s work. Neither Biko nor Mumadi could tell whether the monkey was sad over the ebony that had been taken from him and his congress, or whether he too followed the sculptor’s handywork with admiration.

  Once a month, Mumadi would pack two large burlap sacks and take the matatu all the way to the market day at the county’s main town. The matatu is an old, rundown minibus that circled the nearby lake twice a day. Its route spans through the villages around the lake over this circular dirt road, so the matatu has been the villagers’ lifeline. Its busiest day was Sunday, the great market day at the county town of Benioni, so named after the lake. Market day attracted thousands of villagers who all flocked to sell their wares and purchase essential supplies. The market day also attracted many visitors who came from far and wide to soak in the atmosphere. Most of the villagers had arrived on foot the day before, carrying their hard-won crops and picked fruits, for the bus fare, no less than two hundred naira in each direction, was beyond their means. Biko’s mother would spend that much on a weekly supply of maize flour. Mumadi, however, could not carry his heavy statues on his back and make the journey on foot. He had to take the matatu. When he took Biko with him, he would pay for his fare as well.

  Each day, Biko went to school barefoot, walking about ninety minutes in each direction as he watched the matatu passing him by. For Biko, taking the minibus along with Mumadi was a source of pride and a real experience. He hadn’t realized how essential he was to Mumadi: apart from his assistance in carrying the statues and placing them on the wooden stalls, Biko was a natural salesman. He always knew how to captivate the visitors who gathered to watch the ebony figures, spot potential buyers and sell them the artist’s works.

  Apart from covering his matatu fare, Mumadi paid Biko no wages, except when he made good sales, in which case he would hand the boy two hundred naira, which Biko would then give his mother immediately upon their return to their village.

  *

  It was about noon at one of those Sunday markets, when a very well-dressed man sporting fine leather shoes stood near Mumadi’s stall. He wore a white shirt and black pants, held tightly by a belt made of genuine alligator skin. The man was just standing there in silence for a few moments, until he finally instructed Biko to pack up five statues, for which he paid Mumadi the full asking price without even attempting to haggle. He then loaded them very carefully into an elegant car parked nearby and drove off.

  Thrilled, Mumadi and Biko decided the occasion merits a feast in celebration, so they gathered the remaining statues and went over to the nearby stall to have jollof, a yam and goat stew rich in coconut oil, to their hearts’ content, along with some rice tea. That was Biko’s first taste of this dish, which he always imagined as “rich people’s food”. He relished the taste for many days after that.

  After their meal, Mumadi and Biko took the matatu back to their village, whereupon Mumadi produced the bundle of notes he had received from the mysterious buyer and handed Biko one thousand naira. Biko never held so much money in his entire life. He thanked Mumadi and ran to his family hut, where, in a place known only to himself, he hid two hundred naira. When his mother returned from work, he handed her the remaining eight hundred. This was Biko’s very first step to immense fortune.

  Next market day, the mysterious buyer appeared yet again as Biko and Mumadi were standing by their stall. He turned to Mumadi:

  - I really like your statues. I have this proposition for you: come to Golasa, the capital city, to work for me there. I will find you a place to live and house your statues, for which I shall pay you handsomely. I know this offer is something of a surprise. Think about it. I expect your answer come next market day.

  On their next meeting, Mumadi told this mysterious person this:

  - I accept your offer, but only on two terms. First, you will be in charge of providing me with the ebony I require. Second, Bi
ko is to come with me.

  - I accept both your terms, but this requires both his parents’ consent. Let’s drive to meet them.

  On their way to the car, Biko explained his father could no longer give his consent, so it was really only up to his mother. At the edge of the market, the man invited Biko into the most beautiful car he had ever seen. He sat in the plush car’s zebra-leather backseat and guided the driver towards the village of mud huts where he dwelled.

  On regular days, Biko would run or power-walk the way from the market back to his village, which took about two hours. The journey by car took half an hour by matatu, whereas this magnificent car covered it in barely ten minutes. ‘Oh, the world is certainly full of mystery,’ he thought to himself.

  Biko saw his mother doing the washing by the hut. She in turn was astonished to see her son and Mumadi coming out of a fancy car the likes of which she had never seen. Biko went silent, fearful of her reaction to the request the stranger was about to put to her.

  - Mom, my name is Buani Robni. I am a merchant from Golasa. I offered Mumadi and Biko to move in with me to the big city. I have gotten to know Biko, and I find him a highly capable boy. I assure you I will take care of him, send him to a good school and see to his every need.

  - Since my daughter also moved there four years ago, I have only seen her once.

  - I promise you will see Biko at least once a year. Besides, I shall also reimburse you handsomely for the help he would have given you here.

  Biko’s mother loved him dearly. Besides, in her heart of hearts, she knew her son needed that big break in life.

  Packing up Biko’s stuff was quick: his entire belongings went into one small burlap bag. Mumadi’s possessions did not amount to much either, consisting primarily of his tools, which were secured in the trunk of Buani’s car. Before leaving his village, Biko insisted they stop by Osho’s hut, where the two friends parted in a tearful embrace.