learned about the ogre and even suggested the best way of defeating the big ogre, for by now she knew all about the evil creature. She would taunt him to distract him while the husband came out of his hiding place to attack. And that was exactly what happened.
They spent the day spinning tales, songs, and riddles, and the scene was the same the next day. To Gaciru and Gaclgua, this was the perfect midterm break, and they hoped all of life would be like that: an endless festival of storytelling with Nyawlra as the sole narrator, for she could change her voice to sound like a bird, a lion, an old woman, a man, a child, anything. They liked stories of the trickster hare the best, though they were fascinated by the scary ones of the ogre.
Indeed, a couple of days later, Gaciru revisited the issue of ogres and the second mouth concealed under a thick mass of long hair. This time Gaciru had Nyawlra all to herself and sat on her lap. Vin-jinia and Gaclgua were looking through the window at the never-ending queue outside.
“You know, I have been thinking about the story of the ogre, and I don’t think that it was their hair alone that hid the mouth at the back. Both the mouth and the hair were hidden under the hats the ogres wore. Don’t you think so? Hats can also hide the mouth, can’t they? Like those worn by those policemen outside? Tell me, are policemen ogres?”
“Sssh!” Vinjinia said from where she sat by the window.
“That’s clever,” Nyawlra said. “I mean about the hats. How did you work it out?”
“It is simple. My mother has long hair but she does not wear a hat. Therefore, Mummy” she now called out, “you are not an ogre.”
“Thank you,” Vinjinia said. “Is that what has been waking you up at night, making you turn my hair over?”
“You see, Mummy, ogres are bad and cunning and they can make themselves look like somebody else. In school the teacher read to us the story of Red Riding Hood and how she went to see her sick grandmother, and you know what, Mummy? The girl found a big bad wolf hiding in the bed, pretending to be the grandmother. And you know what? The wolf had already eaten the grandmother…”
Gaclgua, who had seemed not to be following the conversation, now shouted a question.
“Do ogres ride motorcycles?”
“Why?” asked Nyawlra.
“A stranger on a motorbike is riding this way…”
7
The rider returned after seven days and, to some, he sounded like a madman. There was continuity to his narrative, all right, but he kept rolling his eyes as if to show that even he found it difficult to believe the story he was telling his debriefers.
Those privy to his report tell of his amazing claim that for seven days, he, the rider, one hand holding a bullhorn, the other steering the motorcycle, had done nothing but follow the queue; he did not even get off his vehicle but actually slept on it while still in motion, for, aware of his duty as a loyal police officer, he wanted to reach the end of the queue as soon as possible so as to give a report both prompt and thorough. But whenever he thought that he was nearing the end, he found that more job seekers had already gotten in line.
During the first two days he had raced along the queue, only to discover on the third day that others were feeding it. He was uncertain as to which direction to go, not wanting to be like the hyena who once tried to travel more than one path at the same time, with tragic results. So he decided to stick to the main branch, or what he assumed was the main queue.
At the beginning of his mission he had proudly announced the message to the people standing in line:
He became the subject of heated discussions among the queuers, who concluded that he must be possessed of the daemons that usually force politicians to spew out words for the sake of hearing themselves talk, whether or not they made any sense. They nicknamed him Motorized Madman, soon the name of choice for all traffic police officers.
After roaming for seven days through towns near and around Eldares in pursuit of the end of the queue, he eventually found himself back in Santamaria. The tail of the queue had somehow joined the head to make a huge circle, and that, in the view of analysts, was the real problem that faced the rider. He had been moving in circles, and only when he spotted the Mars Cafe did he realize that he had traveled back to the beginning. How many times he had circled the city without his knowing will forever remain a mystery, even to him. All the rider could now say was that had it not been for the Mars Cafe, he might have spent the rest of his life searching for the end of the queue.
Actually, this rider could talk only about the one queue that he had attended to; countless others appeared in every corner of Eldares. For a time it was as if everybody in Eldares was possessed. If a person happened to be window shopping, he would suddenly find that a queue had formed behind him. People did not even bother to ask what the queue was about; they simply assumed that there was good reason for it and wanted their share of whatever was being dispersed. Rumors that Marching to Heaven was already underway and that the financial missionaries from the Global Bank were doling out cash served only to intensify the fever. Sometimes a person would start a queue without being aware that he had done so, go home, and on the following day join the same queue, still ignorant that he had been its innocent first cause. Lines simply assumed lives of their own.
At the conclusion of his oral report, the police officer fell asleep from utter exhaustion at police headquarters. For seven days and nights, he tossed and turned in his own filth, as one gripped by a nightmare. When, after seven days of sleep, he awoke screaming for his Yamaha to continue with the unfinished task of following all the queues to their origins, he was committed to a psychiatric ward for observation and later given indefinite leave without pay to recuperate.
When his report reached the ears of the Ruler, he immediately summoned his ministers to an emergency cabinet meeting to figure out ways of preventing the daemonic queues from spreading to the other cities.
8
It became obvious, at the emergency session at the State House, that what most concerned the Ruler was the crazed rider’s observation that the queues seemed to have no beginning and no end. That sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? he asked the cabinet, without a trace of humor.
Sikiokuu, the first to respond, said that since it was illegal, in all Aburlria, for more than five people to gather without a police permit, the unlicensed queuing was a clear violation of the law and suggested to the whole world not only that unemployment had reached a crisis but that there were shortages of goods in shops. This was terrible for the image of the country. But why was all this happening now, during the Global Bank mission? To frighten investors? Were there some in their midst who were subtly inciting citizens to queue as the first step of a revolt of the masses? Perhaps those who had arranged the Bank’s visit had something else up their political sleeves. Ban the queues. Yes, let them go the way of the Movement for the Voice of the People, Sikiokuu added, tugging at his earlobes for emphasis.
Machokali, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who spoke next, started by pointing at his eyes to show that he was
