Xifeng is always ending projection with last moment of remembering. Sometimes is soldier crashing or being shot with bullet. Sometimes is person lying on ground who is moaning in pain and who is getting shot with bullet, and sometimes it is someone getting chop with machete. Sometimes person with remembering is not even soldier. Sometimes they are just being person in home or at school and they are being chop with machete or being shot with bullet. Sometimes there is loud boom and suddenly that is being the end of the remembering because there is bombing and person is too near. But many time, because we are finding so many rememberings in desert where battle and war is being fought, we are seeing soldier.
On face of people watching the rememberings is many thing. Sometimes their face is like carving from stone or wood. Sometimes their face is like fast-changing weather. There is meadow, then is rain, then is thundering and lightning and katakata, and sometimes there is earth cracking and groaning and lava is shooting out. Many times in remembering, you are seeing face of someone who is doing the killing. You are seeing person who is shooting you or stabbing you with knife or chopping you with machete. You are seeing person who is walking by after planting bomb. You are seeing someone who is killing, and I am looking at the people in this room and I am thinking that they are seeing someone who is killing them.
And then I am looking to Xifeng and seeing something that is looking like almost-smile on her face. Like this is thing that she is wanting. And it is making me to be feeling not-good.
One time, man is asking us what we are doing when we are coming to his house. It is close to street in Lagos that is never sleeping and there is always thing happening and there is stealing and cooking and laughing and fighting and selling and buying and noise from all these thing come muffled through the walls of this man’s home.
“Ms. Adebayo asked for us,” Xifeng is telling the man. “She reached out to me and my group, she gave us the information we asked for, and when we had gathered what she asked for, we returned.” She is taking a step to the man. “We interviewed her for details. And we spent a lot of time out there learning what happened to her son.” She is patting the sack that is holding her hard drive. “It was very important to her that she have this. Where is she?”
For a long time, the man is saying nothing, just shaking. Then he is saying in quiet voice between teeth that is clenching, “My wife is dead. She has been dead for one year, three months, and eighteen days.” He inhales deeply, bringing so much air into his chest like it is being courage that he is gathering. “Whatever you’ve brought, I don’t want. I don’t want it.” He is shaking more, and I am thinking that he is losing control and soon he will be trying to attack Xifeng. I am readying to be hurting him.
“Sir,” Xifeng says, but I am wanting to tell her that we must be leaving. Something bad is soon happening. I am smelling badness in the air and feeling it on my skin. The air is moving in way that is making me to feel like I will soon be fighting and killing, and I am not liking it.
“She told me nothing of this,” the man says. “She did not speak a word of this! She never would have done this thing. Involve you . . . you Chinese! How dare you come into my house like this! Odoodo! You know nothing about my son!” He is taking table and he is flipping it, and lamp and bowl is falling off and breaking on the floor, and he is taking small thing and throwing it against the wall over and over while he is shouting at us. “She’s dead! And she told me nothing of this! You know nothing of my son! And you never spoke to my wife! You are lying! Odoodo, get out of my house!”
I am moving to protect Xifeng, but even as I am doing this thing, I am seeing that he is not mad at us but he is being mad at his wife who is dying without telling him she is doing this, and maybe he is mad at son too for dying.
“That’s it,” he is saying, and it is looking like he is calming down, but I am seeing his vital signs and heart rate, and I know that he is still dangerous, and I am seeing him reach for his temple as he is saying, “I’m calling the police,” and I am rushing fast fast to him, and I am crossing the whole room in one step, and my fingers are wrapping around his wrist and holding him still, and he is fearing me with his eyes and looking at me like I am monster who is trapping his wrist like this.
Blood is rushing in my ears, then I am hearing Xifeng saying soft soft, “Uzo.” Then, again, “Uzo, it’s okay. We’re leaving.” She looks to the man and says, with firmer voice, “We’re leaving. We’re going. We’re sorry to bother you.”
But I am knowing this man and how he is. I am knowing that as soon as I am letting him go, he is calling police on us. And I know this is being dangerous for us because before we get to Lagos, Xifeng is telling me that nobody is to be knowing what we are doing. It is against the law to be speaking of the war. In fact, it is against the law to even be remembering it. She is telling me of people who are having their rememberings of the war emptied out by the virus the government is feeding into their brains. And it is being our mission to be freeing them. To be helping them to remember what is happening, that war is happening, and that killing and dying is happening, and she is telling me that it is important to be remembering these thing because it is helping it not to happen again. And government is being wrong and we are being right and, like this, I am being soldier but in bigger and better war.
“Uzo,” Xifeng saying to me. “Uzo, let go of the man’s wrist.”
But I am not wanting to. I am wanting him to be quiet. I am wanting to snap his neck so he is not shouting and making much noise. I am wanting to bury his body and be erasing him from the world so no one is even knowing he is existing. But Xifeng is telling me to let go, and she is saying it soft soft like she is speaking to me when I am having epileptic fit and wanting to be held by her.
So I am letting go, and man is falling to the floor and holding his wrist, and he is sadding and telling us, “Please leave me, please, please go away from here,” and Xifeng and I are walking out and we are walking fast, but when we are getting to mouth of alleyway where it is leaking into main street, we are stopping because police are gathering, dressed in all black like beetle walking on two legs.
People are scattering out of street like water as ground mech is stomping through and is turning its head left and right and scanning buildings with red light. Police like beetle is scurrying all over the place. Some people are shouting but most are quiet quiet, like this is thing that happens every day. Like this is weather.
Enyemakas are standing in different places in city center, and I am communicating with them and they are telling me where police is blocking off road and where police is entering building and where police is leaving, and I am seeing map of city in my head and this is how I am figuring out where to go.
I pull Xifeng behind me, and we are running up metal staircase next to building on other side of alley until we are getting to final level, then I am saying to Xifeng, Get on my back, and she is climbing on but is spending too much time fitting hard drive into her bag, but I am carrying her onto rooftop then letting her stand by herself.