Free Introduction - The Mysterious Virtures of Paul Abanda

Preview --- Copyright © 2004 Tata T. Agwo All Rights Reserved

It had drizzled through the night and it drizzled still when I awoke. It was a morning as damp, matted, and unseemly as the back of a pampered cocker spaniel left out in the rain. The lack of traffic suggested that most Bostonians slept still, partly because it was a Saturday morning, but had they awoken with ambitious intents, I suspect a swath of them realized how unblinking the rain was, and so they slept still.

But I arose and went to the gym, largely due to personal inertia, for Saturday morning at the gym was my pattern, but I couldn’t savor that morning's achievements, the typically satisfying succession of numbers, imaginary miles covered and real calories consumed, displayed by the treadmill.

I had a mission and so I left the gym and drove to a Barnes and Nobles bookstore in Braintree, Massachusetts. I used one of the store's computers to locate “Virtues of Leadership” by William Bennett. I printed a list of all his books: fourteen.

I was familiar with William Bennett, but not as a writer and certainly not as a writer of fourteen books. I knew William Bennett as the pundit trotted out on Sunday morning talk shows. I disagreed with him about as often as I agreed, but I always enjoyed and respected the engineering of his arguments. However, I felt his reasoning was restricted by his political agenda. I was ready to receive a more reflective aspect of him, as the pages of a book are more patient than the bluster of one's opponent on a Sunday morning talk show.

My editor suggested his book, "Virtues of Leadership,” which the monitor informed would be in the children’s section.

But first, I wanted to walk the mystery section, which I did.

A store attendant approached and asked if she could assist.

“Yeah, I think you can,” I said, but I sought help to matters beyond merely locating a particular book. "Good morning. My Name is Tata. Do you like mystery novels?”

“Yes I do,” she replied. “Is there anything specific that you are looking for?”

“Well, I am looking for "Virtues of Leadership," by William Bennett. He's written many books. He seems a successful writer, but I know that his books are not here,” I volunteered, nodding my head.

I walked closer to her and told her that my editor requested that I write an introduction to my second book, but that I first find Bennett's book. Her eyes widened and narrowed for a second.

“Are you a writer?”

“Yes, but I have published only one novel. If you key in my name, you will see that you carry a copy of my book. My second book, the book needing an introduction, is a true story that's a mystery and so I was walking the aisles of mystery books, both wondering if 'Virtues of Leadership' was there and imagining where my coming book might sit."

The attendant looked a bit off-balance, it being early still and my concerns being atypical.

“I hope my concerns don't bore you,”

I confessed.

“No, oh, no. I'm not bored. It's just that I haven’t met a writer before. You're the first."

"Well, I might be a one time writer if I can’t complete this introduction.”

But my humor seemed surpassed by her interest in my books: “What is the title of your new book?”

“It’s ‘Paul Abanda, the Man Behind the Mystery’. And it’s a true mystery.”

“Nice title. Intriguing. Who’s Paul Abanda?”

“I chose the title because I wanted something that represented the book and I believe the title achieves that. Nobody knows who Paul Abanda is, but he existed, so it both speaks to the actuality of the story and hints at the intrigue.”

“Titles are powerful. And names are powerful. So you like the title?”

“Well, I’ve spent hours staring at the title,” I confessed. “Something seems not quite right about it. It took me a couple of days to figure what I didn’t like about it, but I couldn’t come up with a better name. This second book of mine isn’t a book that’s easy to categorize. It is a book of mysteries, but they are true mysteries, the inexplicable realities of a dwindling culture. So I wanted to title the book, “The Dwindling of Mystery,” but that removed Paul Abanda from the cover and he is central within the stories.”

The attendant nodded, seemingly intrigued by one of the many decisions an author must make.

So I continued: “The story has many important parts to it. The first part is the dwindling of the culture of the African indigenes. Paul Abanda came from that culture and so he talked in tongues that both brought life and killed the evildoers. He had his world, that of my ancestors. And he was a man of Virtues.”

“Virtues?”

“Yes,” I replied.

I wondered if she was starting to connect what I said to William Bennett.

“He taught me things that no one recorded. Even the colonial masters dismissed what they saw as primitive. My story reveals some anomalies about a culture that the West can’t comprehend. When I started writing the book, I talked to Americans on the airplane, at the shopping mall and wherever I had an opportunity. I wanted to understand my audience.”

I paused.

“My editor felt that we should emphasize the lessons of Paul Abanda’s World.”

She nodded her head.

“Last night, I decided to title my book “The Mysterious Virtues of Paul Abanda.”

“So it’s real?” she asked again.

“Yeah, it’s true. A true mystery.”

“Look at all these books,” I said, pointing at the mystery section. “They are all fiction or fiction based on true stories. Anything that is true mystery is classified under true crime, which is not how I want people to consider my book. It’s a story about a culture that existed long ago in Africa. People talked in tongues that killed, that summoned lightning, and that caused women who couldn’t give birth to have babies. The words they used killed evildoers. You can’t call that a crime! It was part of a normal culture that went unnoticed and the indigenes didn’t doubt it or need an explanation. And when the elders died, I was left with the memories. I don’t want the memories to die in me.”

I sat on the carpeted floor and wondered if the assistant could perceive the strength of my bridge to my second book.

I walked to the children’s book section.

I found “Virtues of Leadership,” by William Bennett.

I sat on the floor and read a chapter. William Bennett is a good writer, but he seems to think that religion is the cornerstone of virtues, that one can construct an unswaying edifice on the ethereal notions of spirituality.

I wished it were so easy for me, but I have lived in two different worlds, Paul Abanda’s world and the Western World. The West has established and written laws for everyone to follow. The government is forked into the Judiciary, Executive and the Legislative branches, all housed in fine, solid, imposing structures. There are legions of law enforcement officers and still the crimes that people commit today are far more horrendous than in Paul Abanda’s world. The ancestors did something right, something no one is willing to research or discuss, perhaps because everyone wants to live for the moment; his world seems the best that there is and that there ever was.

Paul Abanda was both old and wise. He was a man of Virtues, different from every human being that I have known. The day he went to church, it was my Mother who convinced him to be baptized. He then received his Christian name of Paul. But he never forsook from the village traditions.

I remember the story of Saul from the Bible. Saul, on his way to Damascus, was struck by lightning because he was prosecuting Christians.

He heard a voice from the sky, “Why thou prosecute me”.

Saul left a converted Christian to become Paul.

Do people have to experience something bad to be good? That’s why I feel, that by linking Virtues with Christianity, we miss the greater reach of goodness. Religion shouldn’t form a foundation of goodness because if you take away religion, you are left with criminals and their evil.

Paul Abanda’s world didn’t center on religion, but on Virtues. He was a man of Virtues and the other elders too. So people respected village laws without the police, the army and jails.

This book is about that mysterious world. I am not going to die with those memories only in me. I can’t revive my ancestor’s world, but I will document it for those to come what was and what seems lost. In this book, I recall the days I spent with Paul Abanda and the lessons he taught me. He gave me life and if I can somehow give something back to the land from where I came, I will keep my ancestor’s world alive, casting light and heat like an eternal flame.

Americans crave mysteries and that’s what this book is - a true mystery without a tidy, tight ending.

“The Mysterious Virtues of Paul Abanda” is not stories that will serve answers so predictably and compactly. They are not the stories that you will solve. They occurred in an ephemeral age and that age is past. What is left to us is wonder and speculation and appreciation.

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