—
Church meant my mother dressing me in frills too young for my years, sweating the starch out of said frills in the un-air-conditioned building, and seeing the woman my father left us for. She came every few Sundays, when the weighty sin of fornicating with a married man became too heavy to bear. My mother didn’t know that I knew who she was and understood why my mother never clapped when the woman gave a testimony of God’s goodness. She always wore yellow, and she looked pretty in it. Not abandon-your-only-legitimate-child pretty, but you could see what a man would see in her. I imagined throwing something at her house, something hard, something that would hurt a man kissing her a distracted good-bye, his back turned so he doesn’t see the rock sailing his way.
Brother Benni was the youth minister this week, and when they announced that the children should leave for Sunday school, I faked stomach pains to stay with my mother. She was annoyed and didn’t hide it.
“You will stop with this Benni nonsense soon, he is a nice man.”
And he was. After church, Brother Benni would mingle, bearing candies and biscuits, and the boys would mob him and snatch him bare in seconds. He’d lift the boys who could be lifted, roll them like barrels under his arms, and mock-stagger under their mock weight to the delight of almost all who watched. But the girls had learned to keep their distance.
Years ago, before my father left, when my mother was a different person, I told her what Brother Benni had done to me. She went to my father, who went to the pastor, who went to Brother Benni, who called me a liar. That was the beginning of the end for us. The stink that was raised was what must have driven my father away, my mother occasionally reminded me. The humiliating stench of a daughter who bore false tales.
—
My mother was preening. Every third Sunday, a special offering was taken to support the Widows and Orphans Fund. And once in a while the pastor would give the week’s donations, secured in a red velour bag with gold tassels, to a church member to take home and return the next week. It was a gesture of faith on the church’s part and a testament to the trustworthiness of its members. This was the second time in a row my mother had gotten it and her sixth time overall. She was the most trusted woman in our church. She made sure everyone knew it.
“Six times, oh. Evelyn, you are the only one to beat me in this. Ah-ah, you’ve only had it four times? I forgot.”
When she brought the bag home, she put it where she always put it, on the shelf in the nice sitting room. If anyone stopped by during the week, they would see it on full display.
She made Grace dust around it and reminded her that “men want a trustworthy and godly woman. It is not just looks, you have to be honest and good.” Grace, who had been on the receiving end of a few too many of my mother’s corrective thrashings, pursed her lips and said nothing.
The next day, when my mother and Grace were at the market, Mayowa stopped by.
“Madam wants to know if your mummy has any lime.”
My mother would have said no, even if we had, but I invited Mayowa inside while I checked. She hesitated at the back door, then stepped inside. She looked around the kitchen and I imagined her comparing it to the Ajayis’. It was larger but in poorer condition. Two cabinets were missing their doors, broken during one of my mother’s rages. The door leading to the pantry was missing the handle. Bare concrete was visible in sections of the floor where the tiles were broken. It was a room that hadn’t seen a man’s handiwork in an age.
Wanting to impress Mayowa, I asked if she wanted to see the rest of the house. She raised her brow, a gesture so like my mother’s the hair on my arms prickled. My mother would have fainted with shame if she saw me treating a house girl like a guest, so I rushed her through the house, pointing to this and that. In the nice sitting room Mayowa stopped by the offering bag and, already more comfortable in my own house than I was, picked it up. Her eyes bulged at the roll of money inside.
“It’s from the church,” I explained, oddly proud for the first time. “They gave it to us to keep.”
Mayowa put the bag down and I led her to the next room.
When we got to my bedroom, I pulled out the stack of old magazines I reread every few weeks. The covers were wrinkled and on the verge of losing their gloss. After my father left, we stopped buying magazines, the once-commonplace purchase now a luxury. I picked out my favorite one, a fashion magazine with pages and pages of women dressed in custom aseobi, and Mayowa and I fell into a silence as we envied the styles we were too young to wear. If she felt the sheet of protective plastic crinkle when she shifted on the bed, she chose to say nothing. I tried to even my breathing and silence the rapid thudding in my chest. When I took a breath, I smelled the soap she used to wash her hair (disproving my mother’s assertion that all village girls are dirty) and the muddy scent of yams she must have chopped earlier in the day. I wanted to know what she was thinking, if she found me as interesting as I found her, if she was as drawn to me as I was to her. If she wanted to be my friend.
I flipped the page and Mayowa pointed at a woman wearing a red-and-orange dress with too many frills and a train that belonged on a different dress. The image was circled with a pen and the page dog-eared.
“I like this one,” she said.
I didn’t. It was one my mother had circled a million years ago for our seamstress to make, back when she regularly had dresses made. It was ugly, something Grace and I agreed on, and my mother had overheard. The tongue-lashing Grace received had not been pretty. But Mayowa didn’t know that. I hoped she thought I had circled it and said she liked it because she thought I liked it. I found myself wanting to tell her everything that had happened to me, why I started wetting the bed and why my father left. How Brother Benni had fisted my hair so tightly braids popped off my temple, leaving a bald spot that gleamed in certain lights.
The familiar sound of my mother’s car horn honked at the gate. I jumped up and scrambled to put the magazines away. Mayowa got up unhurriedly, still holding the magazine with the dress.
“You can keep it,” I said, part kindness, part wanting to hustle her outside before my mother found her in the house. She nodded, unaffected by my mother’s now-insistent honking.
I opened the gate and after my mother drove in, Mayowa snuck out, the magazine rolled in her fist.
The next day when I heard the Ajayis’ gate squeak, I peered through our gate to see Mayowa holding a plastic bag that looked to be filled with empty bottles of Mr. Ajayi’s prescriptions. She was going to the pharmacy, about a ten-minute walk within the estate. I must have made a noise, or she must have sensed me, because she stopped and stared in my direction, waiting. I lifted the metal lever that secured our gate and stepped out. She smiled the careful smile of one who hasn’t much cause to. We matched gaits toward the pharmacy, neither of us speaking. While I tried to think of what to say, Mayowa quickened her steps and I sped to keep up. When she moved even faster, I kept pace. One of us giggled and we broke into a run at the same time, gasping and laughing. I made it to the store first. I liked to think she let me win.
I imagined how we would become good friends, how our secret friendship would come to define us over the years. We could run away and become Nollywood stars and live in an exclusive apartment on Victoria Island, like sisters, or something more, something I didn’t yet have words for. I wanted her to teach me to throw things.
—
Mayowa and Grace were planning something. I could tell by the way they avoided each other’s gaze and how whenever anyone called their names, they stilled like deer. My mother remained oblivious, except to note that Grace was getting clumsy and didn’t she know that nobody wants a clumsy wife. “You would know,” Grace muttered out of her hearing, and dared me with her gaze to tell. I tried to catch Mayowa’s eye and whenever I did, I smiled tentatively, and she’d smile tentatively in return. But she didn’t let me in on it, though I could have gu
essed.
I didn’t say a word when I saw Grace eyeing the red velour bag. I didn’t say a word when Mayowa, who was rarely at our house, invented reasons to stop by. Mother was not as kind to her as Mrs. Ajayi was to me, making her wait outside by the kitchen door for whatever it was she wanted. That’s where she and Grace were talking when I heard “offering mutter mutter we can take transport mutter mutter.” I knew I should say something, but I didn’t.
They were caught anyway. Grace’s fault, I can imagine. They’d gotten as far as the bus station one town away, where they had planned to split up. Grace was returned to my mother in tears. Mayowa had melted into the crowd. The money disappeared, probably pocketed by the men who apprehended them. Grace’s mother came up from the village to beg on her daughter’s behalf. My mother wanted the full story, but every time Grace began with “Mayowa told me to—” my mother cut her off.
“How can some little girl tell you what to do? You will tell me the truth now. If you do not tell the truth, I will take you to the police. Do you want to go to the police?” Everybody knew what happened to pretty young girls in police stations.
The new truth made Grace the mastermind. She’d planned the robbery from beginning to end and roped Mayowa in because she was young and followed orders. That didn’t sound right to me and couldn’t have sounded right to my mother, but there was something between the two women my mother had finally won.
—
Mayowa showed up three days later, dirty and hungry but unharmed. Mrs. Ajayi, who didn’t believe her innocent any more than I did, hesitated to let her in but didn’t have it in her to turn away a child at her gate. A strange mood permeated our corner of the estate.
Mayowa ambushed me the next day, as I walked past the Ajayis’ gate to our own.
“You told.”
“No, I—”
“You told.” She sneered and spat on the ground.
I wanted to tell her I would never, and that she even thought I would stung me. I wanted to tell her that the next time she wanted to run, I would run with her. The weight of all I wanted to tell her sat in my mouth and stilled my tongue.
She ignored me from then on. When I stopped by the Ajayis’ she found ways to not be around, and when it was unavoidable she kept her attention on Mrs. Ajayi and never looked my way.
I felt jilted, and in that sly way infatuation can flip, the turning over of a mattress to hide an embarrassing stain, I began to despise her. I thought of Grace and her beating, the many ways a girl can be broken. And I began to lie.
“Mrs. Ajayi, Mayowa told me she kept some of the change when she went to the market.”
“Mrs. Ajayi, Mayowa complained you haven’t been feeding her, is that true?”
“Mrs. Ajayi, Mayowa said she preferred feeding the dogs living outside to the ones living inside, whatever did she mean?”
I wanted the Ajayis to beat her, to open her up and scoop out the thing that made her brave. To leave her like the rest of us, like me.
They sent her to Brother Benni. For deliverance, Mrs. Ajayi told my mother. He was so good with children and Mayowa was a troubled child in need of prayer. Mrs. Ajayi was shocked at what followed.
What followed: Brother Benni was praying with the girl in his office when he began to howl and howl. It was a Wednesday night and the people attending Bible study rushed to see the fuss.
What followed: Brother Benni crouched on the floor, gripping his upper thigh around a flowing wound. Several someones called on the name of Jesus. Someone called for a car so they could take him to the hospital. Someone grabbed Mayowa and squeezed her wrist till she dropped the razor blade. Someone asked what they were to do with this mad girl. It was Mrs. Ajayi who got the story from her, about how Brother Benni pulled out his oko and tried to make her taste it. It was Mrs. Ajayi who overrode the protests of the crowd by pointing out that Brother Benni’s belt was unbuckled and asking why, if Mayowa cut his leg for no reason, was there no matching tear on his trouser. Someone called the police despite Brother Benni’s claim that the devil made him do it. Someone said it’s not like he did anything, the girl stopped him, no need to call the authorities for a crime that never happened. Nobody bothered calling off the police, who would arrive long after the church was vacant.
It was settled. Brother Benni would go to the hospital and Mayowa would go away. For her own protection, Mrs. Ajayi said. You know how people can be about these things.
What followed: my mother, fist strangling the arm of the settee, face like a stone.
I ran from the house to the Ajayis’ gate, grateful to find it unlatched. The man who watched the dogs waved a lazy hand my way as I zoomed past him. I knew I was breaking some rule by being there without Mrs. Ajayi to watch or welcome me, but I had to see Mayowa.
I found her in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor so spitefully it might have been punishment in addition to chore. She spat on the tile and ground it into the grout like she was laying a curse on the foundation of the house. She hadn’t yet noticed me and I stepped back to watch her for a while. After a few minutes of angry, frantic scrubbing, her arms began to falter and she leaned back on her haunches, swiping the sweat off her face with the hem of her dress. No, not sweat. She continued to clean, sucking the tears into her mouth when she tasted salt. I backed away even further, knowing this wasn’t something she’d want me to see.
She wasn’t my friend. She wasn’t here to fight for me. Or love me. She was just as powerless, another daughter being sent back to her mother in disgrace. My thanks felt foolish under the glare of this truth. Girls with fire in their bellies will be forced to drink from a well of correction till the flames die out.
But my tongue stirred anyway. I stepped into view and threw something of my own.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am greatly indebted to:
My parents, Chris and Ify Arimah, for surviving my teen years and producing such a lovely young(ish) woman.
My siblings, Stanley, Shirley, Ronald, and Roland—co-conspirators, enablers of my better parts.
My writing group, Jen, Jason, Ruby, and Romelle. This book would not have come together as it did without you—a toast to accountability.
My Minneapolis crew, Shevvi, Erin, Adeya, Mawusi, and Bianca. You have no idea how many times you saved me.
My Vona ’13 “Bakers Dozen”—Christine, Glendaliz, Junot, Kai, Kiran, Leslye, Leticia, Miguel, Rois, Sepeyeonkqua, Sharline, and Yalitza. I can point to this moment in time as when I learned what it means to write fearlessly. Thank you for helping me grow.
Brandy Colbert, who knows the journey it took to get here. How lovely it is to still know you after all this time.
Diana Joseph, whose mentee I somehow (probably through nefarious means) became. Thank you for your sage, and unsage, advice.
Rebecca and Mary, for the unwavering friendship; the many nights writing around your dining table; the vodka.
My wonderful, wonderful agent, Samantha Shea, at Georges Borchardt, Inc.
My editor, Becky Saletan, and the Riverhead army. I am happy to be in your ranks.
Thank you all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lesley Nneka Arimah was born in the UK and grew up wherever her father was stationed for work, which was sometimes Nigeria, sometimes not. Her work has received numerous grants and awards, including the 2015 African Commonwealth Prize. She lives in Minneapolis.
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What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky Page 14