Madrid. I had come to know you and your numerous faces. Madrid of "Brother Wolf". Heavy soul sounds crashing through the hazy, smoke-filled basement with its nicotine-yellowed walls. An atmosphere of racial harmony on the dancing floor where blacks and whites dance together and leave to make love far from the car-clogged streets of the city, far from the age-beaten, graffitti-smeared benches of the dirty and stuffy amphitheatres, far from the droning monotony of teachers' voices in the dusty classrooms, far from the disapproving gazes of a scandalised and intolerant society.
Madrid of "Zara" with its variety of social classes; from pipe-puffing African diplomats, to revolutionaries like Jesus Ndongo, to what Jesus took pride in calling revisionist sell-outs like Jean-Marie Mobutu, to young Spanish girls fleeing parental restrictions for amorous adventures with Africans, to much older women, heavy in years, flashing false teeth at you.
Madrid of public fountains and monuments. How often did I stop at Plaza de España to marvel at the gigantic statue of the skinny Don Quijote on his skeletal horse, preparing an assault against some invisible wind-mills which might have appeared to him like devils, while his pot-bellied servant, Sancho, stared on abashed? Behind them, rise magnificent bubbles of water from fountains, so colourful and romantic at night, so graceful and sight-tickling during the day.
Madrid of Cervantes, the creator of Don Quijote. Madrid of the poets: Machado, Lorca, Unamuno. Madrid of the sweet music of Pablo Cassals. Madrid of the painters: Picasso, Dali. Madrid of other numerous masters of poetic love and tenderness and creativity.
Madrid of the rich cloistered in their bullet-proof cars, darting suspicious glances all over the streets. A wave of kidnapping has been making deep inroads into a world in which the rich have more than they need, while the majority loiter around street corners, noses in the air, hands thrust deep into empty pockets, listening to the ominous music of their empty intestines.
Madrid of the poor; the real masters of the streets. Who bothers to kidnap drifters, bohemians, drug-addicts?
Madrid of whores and pimps, owners of the infamous streets of the red light districts.
Madrid of Gypsies whose horse-drawn carts block the smooth-flow of traffic, sending gold-chasing, neatly-suited men behind the steering wheels of multi-million-dollar cars, into paroxysms of fury. By their warm sides, their mistresses with long polished nails and obscenely reddish lips, wonder where the world is heading to with Gypsies daring to hamper the advance of civilisation!
Madrid of faceless, ever-pressing crowds. Men and women in ever-surging crowds. Some with hearts to mend. Others with dreams fading in sorrow-licked fingers. Still others running away from shattered homes, or chasing a rival for a kill, a concealed weapon warm in their breast-pockets or handbags.
Madrid: I had come to know you and your numerous faces. The more I knew you, the more I saw you were not for me. I wasn't for you either, Madrid. In vain did I search through the crowd for a reminder of my home and my people. I did not hear Mama urging me to eat. I missed my sister, Yefon, and her husband, Banka, and their children. I hear her last son can now say a few words, and that he even calls my name, wondering when I will be coming back home!! Can my sister exaggerate when she means to!
My brother Litila wrote to tell me he has been appointed the First Secretary of Cameroon's embassy in Lagos and that he will be leaving in January. Basha, who has been reading computer sciences at the University of Lagos for the past one year, will surely be delighted with Litila's appointment. I long to see all of them; to be with my family again.
I have also been longing to visit my father's grave again. I wish to stand over his grave, bow my head and tell him I'm back home and, this time, for good.
Last, but certainly not least, I have been eager to listen to the herd-boys sing songs which the endlessly twisting, saw-toothed hills of my land echo so well.
So, Madrid, you see why I have to run away from you. Life in exile is not for me, my friend. I am going back to my family, to my people, to my land, the land our forefathers bequeathed to us, unsullied.
Martin Jumbam