Uwem Akpan 12 page

It was not long after this that Yusuf was mobbed by some relatives and neighbors and stoned to death, like Saint Stephen, for apostasy. Though Jubril did not join in the killing of his brother, he was close enough to hear him pray in tongues as the stones rained down on him.

* * *

STANDING IN THE BUS, these were some of the thoughts that swamped Jubril’s mind. Losing material things—like the dozens of cows in his care, which his Khamfi attackers would have destroyed or claimed since his flight—did not bother him. And it was beyond him at this point to think about the national consequences of the crisis. He did not want to think about all his former friends who helped rout him out of Khamfi. He did not want to remember his childhood years of racing down the dusty unpaved streets of Meta Nadum, or the afternoons spent planting carrots and cabbage in the wide valley of the seasonal river that bordered one side of the neighborhood. It was best now to forget these things. He did not want to recall their conversations as they poured out of the mosque after Friday Jummat, all in long gowns, babarigas and jhalabias, the epitome of friendship in that celebratory throng, or how they stopped by each other’s houses to eat and drink zobo. He did not want to consider the years spent together in the outskirts of Khamfi tending cows, or the times they fretted together about the health of some calf and one of them had to carry it home on his shoulders, like a good shepherd, or the times they made forays into the Christian areas during riots to firebomb churches.

They had held Jubril as a true Muslim for not allowing family loyalties to come between him and his religion when Yusuf was given his just deserts, and Meta Nadum had rallied around him when he had readily submitted his hand to be chopped off as punishment for stealing someone’s goat. When a few hard-nosed journalists interviewed him later, he had exuded unparalleled confidence in his faith, although he did not allow them to take his picture. He even pleaded with them to tell the human-rights group that had taken his case to the supreme court not to bother. Somehow he had become a hero. A rich man even entrusted him with the care of his cows.

Now, he just wanted to cry for his mother, who had disappeared in this crisis, consoling himself that maybe she had been merely displaced, like him, not killed. He wanted to apologize to her for the enmity between him and Yusuf. For Jubril to begin thinking in depth about his brother’s death now, after his friends betrayed him, would have shattered him. So Jubril tried to think of Yusuf only in relation to his mother’s grief. He could not imagine life without her. He preferred to imagine her back home in the walled compound on the fringe of the neighborhood, where they lived with his maternal uncles. He imagined her moving from room to room, stroking her tasbih, prayer beads, and crying for him until her eyes became as red and dry as the mud walls of the local silos in the square courtyard. He could see her, her tall frame bent by the loss of a son, coming out into the courtyard as if her sorrow had filled the rooms and now overflowed.

Once the riots broke out, he imagined his cousins and uncles standing guard with guns and machetes, to forestall the maddening mob of almajeris—Koranic-school pupils, some of whom had turned wild from years of begging on the streets—from plundering their home. He could see the faces of some of these almajeris. He could see the streets swarming with mobs, and endless clouds of dust rising as high as the minarets that jutted out of many private mosques in the neighborhood. He could not feel anything for these Muslims, nor for the Christians with whom he was fleeing. He could not be sure whether his Khamfi relatives would defend him, nor was he ready to entrust his life to anyone as he had done in the past.

That fateful afternoon, when Khamfi exploded, Jubril was coming back from grazing his cows. He ambled along behind the beasts, which filled the dirt road that connected the fields to his home, and placed his stick on his shoulder. When he heard two sharp shouts coming from the direction of the city, he thought nothing of it.

The blue sky had been bleached by the harmattan dust. The strong desert wind whipped the landscape, filling his babariga and drying the day’s sweat. Being this close to home, he usually would have heard cars and trucks honking their horns on the major highway that passed near the town, but he heard nothing but the sound of the savannah sharpening the endless sough into a whistle.

When Jubril got to the corner, the beasts started trotting, anticipating a drink from the few pools in the valley. He jogged along with them, eager to take off his tire sandals and soak his feet in the pool while the cows drank. But as they turned to descend into the wide valley, the cows were startled by two people. Both carried leaves and were shouting to Jubril to pluck a branch from the bushes, but Jubril could not hear them clearly. Apart from the leaves, one carried a carton, the other a sack—their belongings. They ran as fast as they could into the savannah, as if they had stolen something and the owner was in hot pursuit. Jubril brought down his stick immediately and herded the animals to one side, positioning himself between them and possible danger.

When he got to the pools, it worried him that he did not find other herds and cowherds. Uncharacteristically for that time of day, the remnants of the river trickled into the pools clear and undisturbed. Even the farmers, who would normally be watering and tending their cabbage gardens at that hour, were absent. The place was deserted, and the gardens, green and fresh in the dead of the harmattan, looked like new wreaths in an old cemetery. Scouting around, Jubril discovered that the edges of the hoofprints left on the soft ground by herds that had returned before him were jagged and tilted to the front, and that cow droppings did not stand in little hills but had poured out in crooked lines. He surmised that the animals had galloped past the pools. Quickly, he whipped his cows, and they ran toward home, and he ran after them.

* * *

A CHANTING MOB THAT suddenly swung into Jubril’s path from a side road hesitated for a moment before going in the other direction. Though Jubril was far from the crossroad, the sight was so unusual that the cows panicked and stopped. They huddled together on one side of the road like schoolchildren around an akara seller. The mob kept pouring into the road, kicking up a haze of dust that moved like a low pillar of cloud. The people carried leaves, stones, knives, and sticks, and Jubril thought he recognized a few of them.

“Sanu Jubril, sanu Jubril!” Lukman and Musa called out from the crowd. They were Jubril’s friends. They abandoned the throng and ran toward him, whistling and waving green leaves.

“Sanu Lukman . . . sanu Musa!” Jubril said, and waved back to them.

They were older than Jubril. Musa was a hulking figure, bare-chested, and had carved his beard into what the non-Muslims called “Sharia beard,” which Jubril would have loved to have had if he had been blessed with thick facial hair. Lukman was thin and the taller of the two. Apart from the leaves, Musa was carrying a sword, and Lukman clutched a clear jar of gasoline that had no lid. Running toward Jubril, Lukman used the palm of his hand to stopper the container, and Jubril suspected the bulge in his breast pocket was a box of matches.

“Where your leap?” Lukman said to Jubril, panting and pointing at Musa’s leaves.

“My friend, wetin dey haffen?” Jubril said, moving away from the cows to meet them. “Kai, wetin be de froblem dis time?”

“You no come frotest, huh?” Musa said.

“Which frotest? Gimme time,” Jubril said, and tried to nudge Musa on the rib, but he dodged.

“Leave me alone,” Musa said.

“Make I fark de cows pirst. I dey come.”

“You no come frotest,” Lukman repeated, glaring as Jubril tried to pat him on the shoulder. Jubril stopped dead in his tracks. “You no be good Muslim . . . ,” Lukman said.

“Me?”

“Yes,” Musa said.

Jubril laughed a short laugh. “Haba!”

“Your mama no allow you pollow us to be almajeris in dose days . . . ,” Musa said, and looked at Lukman as if he wanted him to complete the accusation.

“You two dey craze o!” Jubril taunted them.

“She no allow make you join us kill dis Christians,” Lukman said.

“My mama no be like dat,” Jubril argued. “I say I dey come. I go join una now now. Ah ah, no vex now. Come, pollow me go fark dis cows, and I go join.”

Jubril moved back toward his cows, but the two lunged at him menacingly. Lukman put down the jar, and Musa adjusted his sword. The tiny bells that adorned the brown sheath jangled. Jubril stopped laughing, sensing trouble. His friends were not smiling and their eyes bore hatred. He had never seen them like that before.

Remembering the two people who ran past him near the pools, Jubril jumped up and plucked some leaves from a Flame of the Forest, to show solidarity with whatever cause his friends were advancing. But his effort only alarmed them, for they thought he was trying to flee. They held him by his babariga.

“OK now, I be one of you,” Jubril said, waving the leaves before them, dropping his stick.

“One of who?” Musa said.

“Dis no be matter of leap, you hear?” Lukman said.

“Come, wetin I do you?” Jubril asked them.

“Wetin you do us, huh?” Lukman said.

“Yes . . . why you dey harass me like dis?”

“OK, we no go fay you de money we owe you,” Musa said.

“Which money? If you dey talk about de thousand naira you come borrow prom me, na lie o. You go fay me. Ha-ha, dat one no be talk at all.”

“Cancel de debt now or else . . .”

“You must fay me my money. Oderwise I go refort you to de alkali. Dis one we go hear por Sharia court!”

With that, Jubril spun suddenly and freed himself from their grip.

“Also we go hear por court say you be pake Muslim!” Lukman said. “You be Christian . . .”

“Me? Christian?”

“Traitor, traitor!” they charged.

“Por where?” Jubril said. “You no go pit blackmail me por dis one.”

“Yusup, your inpidel brother, better fass you,” Musa said.

“Traitor, traitor,” repeated Lukman.

Two men stopped and wanted to know what was going on.

Jubril still thought there was a chance they were pulling his leg. He felt he had proved that he was a devout believer. He remembered the wild celebration that swept through the north a few months back, when the Manzikan governor launched his total Sharia, arguing that common law was rooted in the Bible and Christianity. He said the Muslims had been cheated by Christians all along and that the time had come for Muslims to enjoy a legal system rooted in the Koran and Islam. He maintained that with Sharia the state would be cleansed of all the vices and immorality that plagued the people.

Jubril had joined the huge crowds chanting and brandishing the picture of their hero, the Manzikan governor. For three days, Jubril had gone out and demonstrated for the Sharia system to be established in Khamfi, though he, like most in the crowd, knew that in Khamfi there were as many Christians as there were Muslims.

It must be said, though, that for Jubril, it was not just a naive celebration—or a political rally, as the southern press had insinuated. Actually, the pro-Sharia rally swelled because people like him were ready to personally testify with their maimed limbs. Their presence had energized the rally. When Manzikan State gave single women in its employ a three-month ultimatum to get married—even if it meant being someone’s third or fourth wife—or lose their job, Jubril and Musa and Lukman had gathered and cheered. They were convinced that Sharia should be extended to the whole country. Brothels and bars were shut down. When Manzikan warned that those who did not wear the Sharia beard could not bid for government contracts, barbers had long lines of devout men waiting to have their beards carved up. Jubril even accompanied Musa to the barber’s shop.

Now, Jubril laughed at his friends’ accusations, brought out a small picture of the hero-governor from his pocket, and held it high for everyone to see. But Lukman and Musa insisted and in fact swore that they would never fight against Christians with Jubril on their side.

“Dis boy na souderner,” Musa said. “Inpidel.”

“Enemy widin,” Lukman said. “How we go pit make war wid dis barbaric Christians when one of us be one of dem?”

This was when it actually dawned on Jubril that the crowd was heading toward Kamdi Lata, the exclusive Christian quarters, and Shedun Sani, the mixed areas, to wage war with the Christians. The accusation his friends made against him became even more painful. He immediately swore by Allah that he was a real Muslim, but that was not enough. With the tension in the land, it was a terrible time to accuse someone of apostasy or of coming from the south. Jubril tried to tell the growing throng that his accusers actually owed him money and had refused to pay, which was true. But Lukman and Musa insisted that Jubril was not one of them, even though he spoke Hausa with the proper accent. Jubril wanted to talk about his brother’s death, but they stopped him. He wanted to show his cut hand, but they threatened to accuse him of stealing another goat and warned him to stop the delaying tactics and to confess. Seeing how things were going, Jubril tried to explain his roots as his mother had told him, a story that he did not know well and did not care about until now.

“Jubril, dem no baftize you as small baby?” Musa asked, a mischievous smile dangling on his lips. “We know you, we know your baftism story.”

“Answer quick quick,” one of the bystanders said.

“We no get time to waste,” another said.

Perhaps in days of peace, he would have had a chance to explain himself before a Sharia court. Perhaps he would have been tried and given a fair hearing, but these were wild days. Now, as he began to explain about the money Musa and Lukman owed him, Musa slapped him and wrestled him to the ground. They removed his babariga and fell upon him with clubs and stones. It was as if Musa was so angry he forgot to take out the sword, for he clubbed him with its sheath. Jubril lay on the ground, bent over, groaning, shielding his head with his hands. He did not react to his many wounds or wipe the blood from his body. He just lay there as his head swelled with dizziness and the earth spun around him.

Soon he did not feel the blows anymore. When he opened an eye, he saw that the circle of people who had beaten him had widened, receding from him. Some of them were beginning to shepherd the cows away. When Jubril saw Lukman going back to get the gas, he summoned all his energy, got up, and ran. They did not expect this, were caught unaware. Jubril ran toward the bushes, toward the pools, and they chased him, chanting, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!”

Jubril remembered running very fast and being surprised that he could move at all, given his wounds. When he looked back, the ranks of his pursuers had swelled; even those who had left the task of burning him to Lukman and Musa had joined in. They pelted him with rocks, but he did not stop or fall. He heard some gunshots, but he kept going. He went past the pools and up the hill into the savannah. The mob spread out and thrashed the cabbage farms. Jubril ran like a dog; he ran until his vision darkened. He remembered falling; he remembered dizziness beclouding him. . . .

Suddenly someone on the Luxurious Bus brushed past his pocketed wrist. This brought Jubril back to the more crucial business of maintaining his disguise. Instinctively, he pushed his arm deeper into his pocket. He cursed himself for dwelling on his flight. He begged Allah for strength.

When Jubril looked toward the front of the bus, he realized that two police officers had come aboard and were standing over the sick man. They were in plain clothes. Like soldiers evacuating a wounded comrade from the front, they held their rifles at the ready. They acted as if the sick man were dead, though he was still babbling. In spite of the pleas from Emeka and Madam Aniema and Tega, the police said it was better for the sick man to leave the bus, to make room for others. Hoisting him into a standing position, they frisked him and relieved him of his ticket. When the passengers murmured, the police assured them that they would put him on the next Luxurious Bus. The murmur turned to jeers as the police dragged him out and deposited him on a veranda.

More passengers came onto the bus, and Jubril had to keep moving back, still preoccupied with the image of the sick man. He left the chief ’s place and jostled from spot to spot in the aisle. But he was becoming more and more conspicuous, because most of the refugees in the aisle were beginning to sit down on the floor. When he looked at the chief, the chief either glared at him or looked away, as if Jubril was trying to rob him of his seat.

“It seems someone is in your seat,” said Emeka, who was still smarting from the eviction of the sick man, when Jubril leaned against his seat.

“Yessa.”

“Well, tell him to get off,” Emeka said. “This is the era of democracy, young man!”

“Ah . . . yessa,” Jubril said, covering his mouth with his left hand.

“Yessa ke? And leave my seat alone. It’s one man, one vote. . . . One man, one seat!”

“Abeg, no halass de boy,” Ijeoma said. “Cally your anger go meet de porice. No be dis boy lemove de sick man from dis bus.”

“Hey, don’t tell me what to do,” Emeka said, folding and refolding his monkey coat on his lap. “Is your husband a soldier?”

“You get wife yourserf?” Ijeoma said.

“Is this place not tense enough already?” Madam Aniema said.

“This is democracy,” Emeka said. “I have a right to shout if I want, OK. . . . Let me tell you something, you women. This is not the military era, when people could not get what they wanted or say what they felt. This is eight months since the generals were bribed with oil-drilling licenses so they could peacefully leave power for us civilians. Remember, you could never disobey a soldier then. Don’t forget that even here in the city of Lupa a soldier shot a bus driver and a bus conductor because they refused to give him twenty naira at an illegal checkpoint—”

“So what?” Ijeoma cut in, scratching her Afro, her big eyes narrow slits. “We civirians better pass soldiers? You dey talk as if you be de onry smart person for dis bus. And, what do you mean by ‘you women’?”

“Yes, Mr. Man, make you no insult us for dis Luxurious Bus o,” Tega said. “Na woman dey cause dis wahala for Khamfi?”

“No mind de man, my sister,” Ijeoma said. “He dey talk rike porygamous man!”

Emeka looked at one and then the other, surprised the two women were now in the same camp. He began to wag his finger at them as he searched for what to say, but Madam Aniema advised him: “Don’t say anything about them. If this gives them peace, so be it. Women are like that.”

“As I was saying, no matter what has happened, you cannot lose hope in democracy!” Emeka said in a friendlier voice, ignoring the two women, his words rising above the commotion. “Be hopeful, be hopeful!”

“Who tell you say we done lose hope?” Tega taunted him. “Na person like you wey escape Khamfi only in socks dey lose hope . . . not we!”

“No mind de yeye man,” Ijeoma said. “We say make you reave dat boy arone, you begin brame woman. No be woman born you?”

Jubril looked at Ijeoma and Tega, his countenance appealing to them not to argue with Emeka. He had been happy that the conversation had moved away from him, but now he was afraid it was coming back. He wished he could have asked the women to shut up, or that they would have known on their own that it was wrong to argue with men in public.

Sensing that more people were standing at the back of the bus, Jubril moved there to make himself less visible. But he had only stood in his new spot for a few minutes when someone asked him whether he was in the toilet line. He shrugged and shook his head no. But when the person in front of him and the one behind him said they were in the toilet line and were not offended that Jubril had cut ahead, he nodded and smiled sheepishly. Jubril craned his neck and was then able to discern the line snaking through the aisle around the passengers sitting on the floor. It seemed like the only stable part of a space fretted by anxiety and movement. The line stopped right in front of the toilet door, with the chest of the person who was next resting against it. Though Jubril had never used a toilet before and had no urge to use one now, he did not quit the line. He appreciated it, because he noticed that people who had bought the aisle spaces were tolerant and considerate. He wished the line would last forever, that refugees would take longer and longer in the restroom.

When he looked up front to see where the chief was, he discovered that he was sitting only three seats away and still eating his Cabin Biscuits, his cheeks plumped out like those of a Hausa-Fulani trumpeter.

* * *

JUBRIL WAS GLANCING PERIODICALLY at the chief, silently irritated with him, when suddenly the TV sets came on. The images hit him like lightning, driving his face in another direction. He shut his eyes. But he had already seen the images, and, as they say, what the eye has seen it cannot unsee. He felt violated. He could not process the pictures right away.

The noise from the TVs replaced the din of the bus, as everybody hushed and turned their attention to the screens. Everyone in the toilet line looked back to catch the action—except Jubril, who had reopened his eyes and was thinking about how to overcome this latest hurdle. He wanted so much to be part of the crowd in every way. It was no longer about whether Allah would punish him for watching TV. It was just that his conservatism stiffened his neck, and he kept his back to the screen. Jubril wanted to relax and let his guard down. But, now, wherever he looked he seemed to be confronted by faces. It was like driving against traffic. He tried to look at the ceiling but could not even manage that. Feeling that his predicament was written all over his face and that it might draw attention to him, Jubril stared at his canvas shoes. He looked so hard that he could have counted each tiny thread, but he did not actually see anything. Fear rose and spread over him like goose bumps. The fingers of his left hand became sweaty and trembled. His cut wrist was numb, and he tried to move his elbow into a more comfortable position.

When he tried to turn around to face the TVs, he could only make it halfway, like a clogged wheel, and found himself looking out a window, a welcome distraction. He poured his gaze into it.

The sun had gone down. The crowd outside the bus was not as restless as before. More refugees had crowded onto the few verandas. Some people sat wherever there was space in the park, clutching their belongings, expecting other buses. Everybody looked tired, and even the chatter was subdued.

Out on the savannah, as if in a dream, some of the evergreen trees seemed to swell as they let out gentle sprays of bats into the twilight. High in the sky the bats mixed and mingled and flew in one direction, toward the park, as if blown by the wind. It looked like a giant shapeless figure with many legs atop the evergreen trees. They gradually filled up the sky. After a while, it was like a big black wave, stretched out, bobbing, shrieking through the dusk.

Someone tapped Jubril on the legs. He looked down, then quickly away. It was the pregnant lady, seated on the floor, breast-feeding her baby. Her name was Monica. She had escaped with just her baby. Her big eyes were red from crying, and her face was swollen with sleeplessness. She held on to her infant with all tenderness. She was wearing a long white dress that someone had given her in the course of her flight. Two sizes too big, it seemed to provide the extra cloth she needed to nurse in.

“Haba, my broder, you no fit even watch TV?” Monica teased Jubril, an uneasy smile washing over her face.

“Me?” Jubril mumbled like the chief, pretending to watch the bats outside.

“You alone dey suffer for dis riot? Or you want tell me say your situation bad pass de sick man wey police comot for dis bus?”

Jubril nodded. “Yes.”

Though he had resigned himself to being in close proximity to women on this journey, the sight of a woman breast-feeding did not settle well with him. He did not like the fact that she was smiling at him or talking to him while doing this. He could not look down, for that would mean seeing her breasts. He did not want to talk with her, return the smile, or do anything to encourage her attention. Yet he tried to be gentle in his response. This woman had to be handled more carefully than the TV, he thought, because she was directing her attention to him and demanding a reply.

He wanted to move away, but where could he go? He looked back, making a conscious effort not to look at the TV, to search for Madam Aniema. He held his left hand like a visor over his eyes, to shield them from the TV’s images. The sight of Madam Aniema’s white hair and the memory of her kindness countered the discomfort that was beginning to build in his heart because of Monica and Tega and Ijeoma.

“Ah ah, which kind shakara be dis now,” Monica continued, and touched his leg again. “You dey cover your face as if sun dey for Luxurious Bus. You too proud. Abi, sadness dey do you like dis? Your situation no bad pass my situation o. Dem done burn my house; and my husband and my two children, I no see dem o. Only dis baby remain. But I no lose hope. But why I no go smile? Why I no go watch TV? Look at you: I dey talk to you, but you no even want look my face? You alone want go toilet?”

“No,” Jubril said, embarrassed, the word escaping from his mouth before he could stop it.

Monica chuckled, happy that at least she could get a rise out of him. “I see, maybe you get dysentery.”

“Mmmh,” Jubril groaned.

“Na wa for you o!”

The passengers seemed relieved to watch TV, and a certain peacefulness and order reigned: almost everybody was looking in the same direction. It was the first sign of unity Jubril had witnessed since he boarded the bus. Now, he could hear Emeka whispering sharply at people to bend or get out of the way so he could see the TV properly.

“No worry, de toilet line dey move like snail,” Monica whispered to Jubril. “At least, make de TV dey entertain you. You dey too serious for dis trip. . . . See, even my baby dey suck breast and dey watch TV. . . . Cheer up.”

“Mmmh.”

“No mind dis chakara boy!” Tega whispered to Monica. “Forget him. See how he dey pose wid one hand for pocket?”

Once the comment about his hand was made, Jubril turned and faced the TV sets, like everybody else—but with eyes closed. His pocketed wrist was hidden from the view of the women, and he pretended that he did not hear the comment about it. He shut his eyes so tight that there were wrinkles on his face. Closing his eyes was a split-second decision, a compromise that gave him peace. He was reassured that no one else would bother him for not looking in the right direction. A bit of his alienation from the others melted, and he felt more connected to his surroundings. The fact that the women did not bug him again was proof enough of that.

“Yes, now you dey act like a human being,” Monica said after a while, thinking that he was watching TV. She moved the baby from one breast to the other.

“Stop whispering over there!” Emeka said.

“Who make you crass plefect for dis bus?” Ijeoma hissed, as if she had been waiting to do so. “Yeye man, you no get TV for house? You be de dliver? Abi, conductor? Abi, you want brame women again?”

If Jubril had opened his eyes, he would have seen the TVs beaming beautiful foreign images. The clips they were watching could have been from one of those huge multinational TV empires. But since the logo had been wiped off—pirated pictures, you would say—by the local or national channels that broadcast them, you could not really tell.

Jubril could hear his fellow passengers laughing and making comments about the pictures. Emeka had been silenced, so people reacted freely. They hummed along with the jingles and were connected to the global village of advertisements, sports, fashion, and news. These images washed away, or washed over, the sadness and tension and anxiety of the refugees. It was like fresh air, and, though Jubril could not see the pictures, he could feel the good mood growing around him, like mushrooms in the dark; he knew people were being entertained, like Monica was saying. Though he forced himself to wear a stock smile, his eyes were still closed. The more relaxed he felt, the greater the temptation to open his eyes became. He did not give in. He closed his eyes so tight that a dizziness swam before them, then a dull pain pressed against them. He was like the blind and used his ears to decipher the situation around him. The voice of Monica stood out, annoying and too close for comfort.

He thanked Allah for the reprieve that closing his eyes had brought him. He had found a way to avoid Monica. There was no limit to what he could endure, he thought. While others found peace in things external, his own came from deep within: the triumph of finding a way to maintain his tradition, his uniqueness, in a strange world. Now, if only he could get the chief to leave his seat, he thought, he could put his forehead on the headrest and pretend to sleep until the bus moved, until the bus reached his father’s village.

Abruptly there was quiet, a deep silence that Jubril instinctively knew could only come from shock. And then four or five people read aloud what was written on the screen:

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 672