The blind old beggar

By George O. Obikoya

He did not look like all the others. Everybody called him Baba, in deference to his age, the stigmata of which his long graying beards and wrinkled face evidently bore. Baba was of a slight frame. He stooped on a crooked cane, which made him shorter than he really was. He wore a large, dome-shaped, straw hat, apparently an indispensable component of a life-long vocation.

On the streets of Lagos every day, leading the others in a serenade whose rhythm rivaled the refined voices of sequestered monks singing the hallelujah chorus, anyone could easily make out his deep baritone from the rest. It was often in synchrony with the motion of an orchestra conductor he made with his stumpy left hand, which bore the stigmata of chronic leprosy; deformed fingers of various shapes, lengths, and sizes. It was also with the large goiter that sat below his thin neck, hanging over his clavicle, which moved up and down depending on how hard he sang.

Nevertheless, his other hand looked okay. This was perhaps why he held the cane deftly as he maneuvered his way round the market whenever he had other matters to attend to, including the one hour or so he always spent with Nike, his only daughter. Nike sold grated cassava a few stalls away from where Baba and his company performed.

Baba's feet were massive. Some claimed he had elephantiasis, but others believed someone put a curse on him, the same curse that had claimed the life of his only son before his very eyes a few years earlier, knocked down in a freak accident by a bicycle! Moreover, his somewhat exuberant nature in spite of his litany of woes intrigued even the most stoic, his story having even appeared in one of the national dailies not long after the tragedy.

Since he started to wear a multi-colored flowing gown over a white pair of loose trousers, Baba had changed in many ways. His voice had become weaker and he prayed for his patrons less than he used to. Among his folks, it was rumored that he was about to retire, which was understandable considering his age. Yet, no one probably ever thought he would. They all seemed to love him. When they had a recess, usually to have lunch, he went round the group chatting and cracking jokes. He seemed to have the knack for making everyone around him laugh. They seemed to be one large happy family.

On one occasion, when a reporter asked him why he and his folks always seemed so happy despite their handicaps, Baba said that they had found hope in a hopeless world, one in which they had been condemned to oblivion. Smiling, he continued that although people saw them as the wretched of the earth, the refuse dump for the charities of those for whom they sang, whose inequities, their songs atoned, they were happy to be alive. Baba often claimed that they could see life with their inner eyes, with lenses more powerful than any other lens, and that they were able to see through the veneer of cold reason their mentors proclaimed, giving them pleasures, which defied the intellect, those that their lost outer eyes could never behold.

They all knew he had new clothes on. He told them so, but not that he was soon leaving them. He was steadfast, ready to bear his pain all alone. He did not want to go, but he knew he had no choice. Long before he got the message, he had everything all wrapped up. The shack was for Nike, his clothes for his partners, and everything else. He knew they would find his hat, his cane, his rubber slippers, and his aluminum bowl more useful. When he told his compatriots that he was going to ease himself one rainy morning, none of them could have guessed he was going for good. They had started out at the usual spot they congregated every morning, ready to pray before the business of the day began. The drizzle, which, propelled by ferocious winds hit Baba in the face like pebbles, was fast turning into a heavy downpour. Claps of thunder deafened him, drowning his missive in a frightening cacophony. Yet, he was evidently in good spirits, more talkative than he lately was, even seemingly elated.

This time the experience was not fleeting; the flashes of light, the tunnel that seemed to start from nowhere and to be going nowhere, a continuous humming that occasionally inflected.

There were more people, smiles on their faces, dressed in white-colored soutane, with a gold-rimmed cape, beckoning, at first slowly, deliberately. They seemed to be saying something, which Baba could not tell from the motion of their lips. As they beckoned quicker, he felt a gentle tug from within, then the sound, louder. Baba did not know whether to call it music or not but it soothed his frail nerves. He stood still, listening, watching himself walk away, towards them. As he got closer to them, the tunnel seemed to get brighter, almost blinding him.

He looked back and saw his partners waving to him, from far away at the edge of the market. He waved back and disappeared into the crowd. His associates must have heard the thud as Baba suddenly stopped talking and slumped. One of them called out his name as if to make sure he was fine. Another groped around as if trying to hold on to him, to stop him from leaving them. However, the blind old beggar was gone, gone for good.

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