Kyakkyawa she was called. I knew why she got that name. I was there when the morning sun glinted mildly in her innocent eyes; I carried her in her birth shawl. Yes, I was there at the beginning as every father should be. And I was there, too, at the end...

His forebears believed in reincarnation so much they named their newborns after deceased relatives.  But certainly this mysterious girl could not be the reincarnation of his mother, he thought. She might have been born probably around the period of his mother’s death but did that mean anything? How did she come about intimate details about him – things only his mother had known?

Some people had formed the notion that in a few years Shehu would stage his own coup and become the Head of State. Coups d’etat were obviously seen as a sort of dancing chair at which soldiers took turns. And so each time Shehu breezed into town, even the kola nut-stained-toothed old men would hail “Sai ka yi!”

“Go ahead, superman, beat me up.” And she broke down and wept. She wept so much that it touched my heart. Her tears, like rain, set upon the wild fire of anger raging in my heart and extinguished it. I felt guilty and ashamed of myself...