I remember suddenly seeing everything through a film of red; I remember charging at Banke, not caring that she was a girl. In short, Mr. Audu was the one who eventually pulled me off her. I struggled at first, but the sight of blood on her split and puffed lower lip frightened me into calm.
I thought about my mum. And knew; surely, that I was dead.
Sorrow, fear and guilt put heavy arms around my shoulders and walked me home that afternoon, mum’s letter from the class teacher hanging limp in my left hand. Not even Chioma could console me.
I gave the letter to my mum and watched silently as she read through. When she finished she asked what happened and I told her, fear putting uneven pitches in my voice. She did not say anything – she just made food, went out and came back much later.
As usual.
The following day she woke up at the usual time, but instead of sending me off to school early as she usually did, we got ready together. She walked ahead of me to the bus stop; making me have to run to catch up with her. On the danfo to school she balanced me firmly on her laps – an experience I lived for up till that day. The fact that she was going to school because of me did not allow me enjoy myself – I was rigid throughout the journey.
We arrived school and she was ushered in to Mr. Audu’s office. I went to class and ignored everybody. To say I was scared would be an understatement; but I didn’t want anyone to know – so I just sat at my desk and frowned at anyone who ventured close – even Chioma.
Some minutes later, my mum came out with my teacher and they stood at the entrance of the class talking in low tones. After a bit, mum waved at me and left.
My mum waved at me!
I began to breathe a little easier; I started to talk with my classmates. Banke did not come to school I noticed, but Aliu told me she was okay. My fears disappeared – even moreso after Chioma hugged me firmly and called me her hero.
She tried to kiss me too – but that was disgusting – at least back then. She looked at the spoilt-beans face I made and laughed.
I went home that afternoon and met my mum making eba. She asked me to set the table and we ate lunch – and then I cleaned the house while she got ready to go out. She made dinner before she left and told me to do the housework and my homework and sleep. She would be a while out.
That was not unusual, so I wasn’t unduly concerned. I did everything I was supposed to do and skipped out to kick ball around for a bit.
And then I came back home, ate and slept.
And then, the nightmare began.
I doubt I had been asleep for more than a few minutes when something really heavy pushed down on my chest. I tried to get up – I tried to wake up but I couldn’t. I tried to scream – I tried to do something; anything that would keep me alive.
And suddenly release came – release in the form of a 50kmph slap.
My eyes flew open. And there was my mother, sitting on my chest looking as calm as a queen on her throne; dishing out slaps like a bus conductor handing out change. Every time I raised my hands to protect my face she pinched my chest. If I dropped my arms to protect the chest I got slapped.
This went on for a few minutes – and then she stopped. By then my face was a mask of pain, I could feel liquid trickling down my chest underneath my shirt. I knew it was blood.
I wanted to kill my mother at that moment – I think I did murder her with my eyes a couple of times within seconds – but all I could do was lie there and hate her with my whole being as I swallowed sobs threatening to spill from my throat.
No matter what happened, I was determined that she would never see my tears.
Eventually she stood up, pulled me after her and we walked into the corridor where a lantern burned brightly.
“Do you know why I beat you?” She asked, turning to look at me. Even though I hated her, I knew enough of women to know she was very beautiful. She had this – this feline way of looking at you over her shoulder – it made me nervous.
I have seen grown men stammer when she looked at them like that.
She repeated the question, bringing me back to the present. I knew if I opened my mouth at that moment, I would start crying, so I did what most any boy my age would do in the same situation – glued my lips tightly together and shook my head.
She smiled and rubbed my head. “It was good of you to stand up for Chioma. That was a brave thing.”
My mouth dropped open and my eyes must have asked; but why did you beat me?
“Because you hit a woman. Was that the only way you could have defended Chioma?”
That had not occurred to me.
And as I stood there, face stinging, blood slowly dripping down my chest, I thought about it hard. And I realized I had hit Banke – not because she was being mean to Chioma but because I felt small around her.
She made me ashamed of myself.
I looked at my mother and she nodded, smiling at me, something giving her eyes some extra luminance. I tried to hold it back, but I couldn’t. Not anymore.
Tears. Oh Lord, my eyes started raining chickens and cows.
“I’m…I’m sorry mama,” I said amidst sobs. She reached and pulled me to her, cradling my head against her chest. I cried loud and long, and at the end I slept on my mum’s chest.
That was almost twenty years ago.
I watch my mum now, in this moment, old but still strong. Deji, my second boy is screaming at the top of his lungs – testimony to the strength still very much present in my mother’s slaps. She’s ignoring him – but I know; just as she does, she’ll soon carry him and tickle him into laughter – just as he likes.
Banke – yes; same Banke I hit back in JS 3 and never again – moves into the living room. I say ‘moves’ because despite being married to her for eight years I still don’t have the word to describe her movements across the ground.
I mean, when other humans do it it’s called walking.
When Banke does it, it’s something else.
I smile again, thinking about how my mum single-handedly raised me and made sure I had the best of whatever she could get. I remember wondering where she went; night after night, leaving me to my own devices till I was almost twenty.
I got into the university before I understood – but finally; roving with some wild boys into clubs and Ife’s ‘red light district’, I understood.
You see, she was a prostitute.
Yet I dare to call her mother.
What Would You Do? – Me and a Client
I hated my mum; she says to me in a dispassionate voice. I hated her because she killed my brother. Her eyes rise from the table top to meet mine dead on. I didn’t tell you that before, did I?
I tell her she hasn’t and ask her to continue.
She was a very beautiful woman. She was so lovely, almost regal – but it would seem God indeed has a sense of humor, so he gave her the morals of a rodent. She slept with anything that had a third leg.
I watch her fingers play with my stapler; the blue-and-silver one that is a gift from Onye. I tune back in to what she’s saying.
How did she kill my brother? Would you like to know?
I say I would; and then add that I had no idea she had a brother.
She smiles. He died when he was barely a year old.
I start to offer my condolences but she waves them aside like I would smoke trying to get in my face. I’m asthmatic; you see.
She went to see one of her many lovers in our then neighborhood – Kamiru the carpenter. I was too young to care what she did with who then, but I wish she had just left my brother with me at home. But she didn’t like me either – she would look at me and hiss and say I have the eyes of my paternal grandmother who had died when I was six under mysterious circumstances. Two years later, my mum strapped my brother to her back and went to see Kamiru, the carpenter, her lover.
I never saw my brother again.
I ask how he died.
She put him on the floor i
n the workshop, left him to his own devices and went in the backroom for a session. Over an hour later, she came out and the boy was where she’d left him – only now his face was blue. Apparently, he had found and drank a bottle of turpentine.
I say how horrible I think that is.
Yes, I can imagine how horribly he must have died. I hated her for that – but way less than I hated her for cheating on my dad. He wasn’t a great catch; he drank and yelled when he was drunk, but he was kind to her and never beat her. She was a slut.
I start to tell her how she needs to forgive her mum – but she waves that aside also. I start to feeling like this is a woman who is quite free with her hands and shift a little backwards in my seat.
I cannot shout.
She sees my movement and smiles. I loved my husband, you know. Loved him – even though he was worse than my father. He didn’t drink but he beat me – with his belt, fists and once with a broom.
Her voice does not change a bit – she continues to talk in that flat, dead tone. Everybody told me he was going to kill me – my sister; who came to live with us said I was going to end up like that banker girl that died a while ago – did you follow the story via the media?
I say I did, and that I thought it was funny that the man – the husband was singing praise songs when the verdict – death by hanging – was read.
Abi? I was so angry I wanted to slap him. Idiot. She inhales, exhales and smiles at me. Sorry, I get carried away.
I say it doesn’t matter – I say I like seeing her smile.
She smiles again. For a long time I stopped – I couldn’t smile anymore. He would beat me and then disappear for hours – just leave the house. And I would stay up, aching and paining, wincing and cleaning blood from my body while waiting for him.
I knew I could die – but I was determined to have a home. I was so scared I was going to end up like my mum; without a man to call hers and hated by her kids. That wasn’t going to happen to me.
I am startled to see the second display of feeling – the slow tear that starts a downward journey over the once-smooth-now-scarred surface of her right cheek to hang on the upper curve of her lip.
She pays it no attention.
Everything started to crumble when my sister got pregnant. It was strange – because you would assume a man who was beating his wife was most likely cheating on her. But he wasn’t – at least, not at first. He never came home late, all his movements were easily accounted for – I just didn’t see that happening. Which is part of why I put up with it for as long as I did.
But then; my sister started acting funny – she lifts a hand – finally acknowledging the trickle streaming down her face – and brushes the tears away. And she continues to speak without missing a beat – she avoided me throughout the day, and at night she rushed through dinner to escape to her room. I knew something was horribly wrong – but I never thought it could be as bad as that.
Then he travelled.
That night, she didn’t come out of her room at all. After I’d made dinner, I went to call her. I knocked on the door. No response. And then she said she didn’t want dinner – that she was tired.
I didn’t even waste time begging or anything. I just broke the door down – went to the store, got the pounded yam pestle and smashed the lock.
My sister was cowering on her bed, tears streaking down her face. She was afraid of me – she was terrified. She was hiding something – some secret – and was afraid what I would do if I found out. I let go of the pestle, crawled beside her in the bed and hugged her. I played with her hair like I used to when we were younger; then I asked her what the matter was.
And I told her, softly but firmly not to lie to me.
She said, “I’m pregnant. And it’s for Uncle Bode.”
I interrupt, stretching a box of tissues towards her. She waves it away and continues to speak.
I think my heart stopped beating for a bit. Suddenly I heard my sister screaming from a distance – her voice was hurting my ears so I told her to stop. She stopped and looked at me like I was growing horns. I had passed out.
Thank God the neighbors didn’t hear the screaming. It would have been somehow. I hugged my sister and cried too.
When he came home two days later, I think I lost my cool or something. I screamed at him from the door – he was barely inside the house; but I couldn’t wait. I wanted to know why – why he had decided to impregnate my sister in spite of the lengths I went to just to please him. Things I was taught were wrong, humiliating sexual positions –
For the first time since she started speaking; the mask slips and I see something I hope to never see again – a woman slowly losing her mind to pain.
He looked at me and I saw my life end. He hit me – hit me with the flat of his hand so hard my teeth shook in their gums. Somehow I found myself in the kitchen, flat on my back with a knife in my hand.
She pauses, and runs a distracted hand through disturbed hair.
I don’t know – maybe I was trying to warm him off or something – I have no idea. All I know is – he came towards me, looking angry and scary – and stabbed – impaled himself on the knife.
I point out that he had been found with almost twenty stab wounds all over; his face, chest and thighs.
She shrugs. So he stabbed himself almost twenty times with a knife I happened to be holding.
Her eyes meet mine and I swallow the theory I’m about to propound. Instead I ask her what she intends to do next – especially with the baby; the one she is carrying,
Her hands caress her belly softly and her face comes alive for the first time since. I loved him, she says in a voice different from the one I’ve been hearing all evening. I love him and this is a part of him. Even the one my sister’s carrying will be cared for by me – if she wants to keep the baby, fine, if she doesn’t want to I can easily pass them both off as mine.
I ask the question that has been burning my chest all evening. I ask why she came to see me.
She shrugs. I wanted to tell the story to someone who doesn’t know me or have a stake in any of this. A friend suggested you. She stands up. Thank you for listening to me. I might call again – if that’s okay.
I get to my feet and tell her it’s okay; she can call anytime. She nods and smiles – a smile I’m afraid I’m starting to like – and watch as she makes her way out of my office and into the waiting cab.
And then, I sit down and look out the window – at the horizon; at nothing, my thoughts bleaker than the worst of harmattan winds.
Quiet Storm – Seun and a Recharge Card Salesgirl
There’s a girl in front of my office.
No wait. That didn’t quite come out right.
That would make you think she’s there permanently – like a monument or something. She’s anything but. She’s the most alive thing I have ever seen, right next to my kid brother the first time they brought him home.
This girl…the girl I’m talking about is…no; beautiful wouldn’t quite do it. She was pretty in a quiet way. You know how you would stare at Alicia Keys if you didn’t know who she was? How you would admire the soft curve of her lips – the firmness of her jam, the soft lines that molded themselves to whatever she was wearing at the time?
That was kind of like this girl. But she was more…demure; if the word would apply.
She sold credit right in front of my office, beside the Chicken Republic outlet. She sat there quietly under her multi-colored umbrella – each side colored for each of the mobile phone networks – always smiling, always patient. The second thing I noticed about her was how much care she took of her tools. I have never seen the umbrella look dirty before.
Never.
I asked the office boy about her yesterday. “She’s been there for a while, oga Seun. She don tey dia small,” was his response.
Surprise. I’d not noticed her before. What changed that?
I was coming out of the Chicken Republic outlet
after purchasing lunch. I could have sent the office boy, but I’d wanted to walk. So I had just gone there myself.
I was on my way back to the office – standing ready to cross the road when, without any warning, the heavens let loose. It was one of those rains that only fell for about five minutes but would leave you looking like a drowned chicken if you unlucky enough to be caught in it. Stuck between going on into the office or just running back into the Chicken Republic, I was lost in a moment of indecision –
And there she was.
Grabbing my arm non-too gently, she practically dragged me after her underneath the umbrella. I just stumbled along…and suddenly everything was dry. I turned and found myself nose-close with her.
For the first time, I got a good look at her.