The Spider King's Daughter

by Onuzo, Chibundu

  As I embark on this journey, I feel someone else should know what I am about to do. I can’t tell my wife yet. I don’t want her to worry until it is necessary. I can’t tell my colleagues. I can’t tell Mr Olukọya. It’s only you, Dọtun. I don’t think they will kill me. I am not being naive this time. It’s true. There are many people that have died for knowing less than I do now. But increasingly, I can list those that have taken on men like my client and won. Remember Charles Nnaji and how with one phone call to the right newspaper, he brought down Senator Ike. Things are changing. Anyway, Dọtun, if I don’t fight back, they will keep growing bolder. They may target my family. I have to act now before it is too late.

  My telling you is only a precaution. Just in case. You know I was always the most cautious in our group. You have read this far. You can still turn back and not find out my client’s name.

  I flipped to the next page.

  I knew you would turn over. The multinational is Centreno Oil. The Minister is Tajudeen Danladi, Minister of Petroleum. My client is Olumide Johnson. The name is common but you will know him by a spider-shaped birthmark on his temple.

  Ema

  Chapter 29

  I walked into my mother’s room and switched on the light. She was in bed but her eyes were open, staring at the door.

  ‘Did you read this and hide it?’

  ‘I knew you would come. I heard the bags.’

  ‘Answer me.’

  I was shouting. Not caring if Jọkẹ woke, or the neighbours heard, or my mother was afraid of me.

  ‘I am still your mother. Grown as you are, you were not there when I gave birth to you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this letter?’

  ‘Your father’s firm used to have an annual Christmas party. I met Olumide there. He didn’t tell me he was a client and I didn’t ask. All I knew was that he was more interesting than the people I saw every year. We started talking. He took my number. I didn’t tell your father. I thought nothing of it.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then, I – then your father started keeping late nights. He would go to work and not come back till midnight, sometimes 1 a.m., 2 a.m. Where have you been? Why so late? He would brush my questions aside. I didn’t have anyone to talk to and Olumide kept calling me. He had a way of drawing things out from you. I told him about how your father was always coming back late. One night when your father was sleeping, he said just once, “Report”. I told Olumide about it. I made a joke. Maybe your father was going to come clean about his mistress. Something like that. I didn’t know he was listening.’

  ‘How did you get a letter addressed to Uncle Dotun?’

  ‘He brought it to me just before he went to America. He said he was not the man your father thought he was. He could not risk his family but he could not destroy the letter. When he tried to tear it up, it felt like he was killing your father again so he brought it to me so it could kill me. Please don’t go.’

  ‘I need to thi—’

  ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘They would have gotten to him anyway. It wasn’t anything you said.’

  I did not want to comfort her. I wanted to shake her and ask how she could have been so foolish. But I had grown used to speaking to her as though she was a child. Instinctively, the soothing words fell out.

  ‘Don’t cry. It’s OK.’

  ‘I killed him. They staged the accident but I killed him.’

  Chapter 30

  ‘I would rather die than wear this.’

  That could be arranged.

  ‘Of course it looks great on you, Abikẹ.’

  I nodded, wishing for once the girl would show a little resentment. We were in one of my wardrobes and Cynthia was looking for something to wear to the party.

  ‘How about this?’

  I looked up from my phone.

  ‘Not that one.’

  ‘Why? I think it would fit me.’

  She was standing nearly naked, overworked pants struggling to keep her bottom decent. In her hand was the miniskirt I wore on my first date with the hawker.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t even wear it.’

  ‘You are borrowing my clothes so I tell you which ones you can and cannot take. Besides, you’d never be able to squeeze yourself into it.’

  Without realising, I had snatched the skirt from her and my knuckles were closed round it. I flung it back at her.

  ‘You can wear it. In fact, keep it.’

  She bent to pick the skirt. When she stood there was a smile on her face.

  ‘Thanks, Abikẹ.’

  I suddenly felt ashamed.

  ‘Come with me.’

  I took her into the room where I kept my real wardrobe.

  ‘Take anything you want. Just make sure you tell me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Her hands were already fingering gowns that could bear no relation to a party that started at noon.

  ‘Of course. Wait here for me. I have to call Oritse. He wants to sing something he’s written for me at the party. That boy just doesn’t understand no.’

  In his own understated way, my father was a braver man than I will ever be. Growing up, it was always my mother I ran to whenever someone at school tried to bully me. I was surprised by how easily she crumbled after he died. I am even more surprised that she let Olumide go. She had the letter. She had everything she needed to bring him down. Why did she do nothing?

  ‘I was afraid.’

  ‘I wanted him to leave us alone.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to become orphans.’

  This last was ironic. I have not had a parent since we moved to Mile 12. All she needed to do was make one phone call. Now there’s a new minister with new scandals. Even if someone listened, who would believe a hawker? At least then she was the widow of a promising lawyer who had just been murdered. Now we are nobodies.

  He tried to make provision. The will mentioned a life insurance policy. When my mother went to the insurance company, she was told my father had missed his last payment. His colleagues and friends gave her money in the months following his death. As they soon grew tired of reminding her, they had their own families to look after. She tried to get in touch with her relatives. Sixteen years had passed, her parents were long dead. Some cousins sent a few thousands, none came for the funeral.

  ‘We were in debt. School fees were expensive and so were the holidays. You had to have them because all your classmates had them. Then there were his relatives, always coming to the house with one problem or the other. If not school fees, then somebody was getting married. If not a wedding then a funeral.’

  What did my father feel in those last few minutes? Was he tied down or did they kill him before they set the car on fire? I hope it was the second. I ran my hand through the gas flame today but still I cannot imagine.

  Chapter 31

  The garden in Forest House was the only good thing about having a white principal. The Nigerian before him had not cared for flowers. Instead he wanted discipline and results, things that could never be as en vogue as a white man. Mr Okon, a capable principal, was replaced by Mr Roberts, an Oxford graduate who knew nothing about running a Nigerian private school. He did however know about grass. Cynthia and I often skipped lessons to come to his garden. Today, we missed Chemistry.

  ‘Abikẹ, what if someone catches us?’

  ‘Just be quiet and let me talk.’

  I stretched out on the grass and soon Cynthia was beside me, looking up at a sky covered in leaves.

  At some point I turned my head and my eyes caught sight of her profile. She was perhaps the most beautiful girl in Forest House and a question that had never occurred to me suddenly entered my mind.

  ‘Cynthia, why don’t you have a boyfriend?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you and Oritse would go really well together.’

  She didn’t answer. I prodded her in the side. ‘Don’t t
ell me you’ve never thought about it. He’s a handsome boy. I give my blessing.’

  ‘You know how much he likes you. He spends so much time writing those songs for you. Sometimes—’

  ‘Sometimes what?’

  ‘Sometimes he even plays them for me first so I can tell him if you’ll like them.’

  ‘You’re the one that’s been encouraging him.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  From afar, I saw Mr Roberts approaching. We’d been caught before. Never by the principal.

  ‘Should we run?’

  I shook my head. ‘Just let me talk.’

  I motioned for her to lie down. For a moment I thought he would pass. His hands were dug into his trouser pockets and his head was as bowed as his slouch. He had gone past us when his eyes landed on my pair of non-regulation patent leather shoes, kicked off while I was lying down and as unnatural as a plastic gnome in that garden.

  ‘What is this?’ He traced the shoe to my foot, then to me, then Cynthia. His oily cheeks, already red from the sun, turned a darker shade.

  ‘What are you girls doing here?’

  Cynthia shrank as I sat up.

  ‘Teacher’s orders, Mr Roberts.’

  ‘Do I look like an idiot to you girls?’

  ‘We finished our work and so the teacher allowed us an early lunch.’

  ‘Which teacher?’

  ‘Mr Akingbọla.’

  He peered at us. ‘What are your names?’

  He had only been here two months and he still had trouble placing Nigerian names to their black faces, even when the name was Johnson.

  ‘Funkẹ Owoyẹmi and Nneka Okoye.’

  ‘How do you spell that?’

  He snapped his notebook shut and walked off.

  When he had gone Cynthia buried her face in her hands and laughed. ‘Abikẹ, you’re horrible,’ she repeated as she rolled in the grass.

  I stretched again and crossed my hands behind my head. ‘I told you to let me handle it.’

  ‘Poor Funkẹ,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  A silence followed and I thought she had fallen asleep when she asked, ‘What about you, Abikẹ? Why don’t you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What about your friend that comes to your house sometimes?’

  ‘We haven’t seen each other in a while.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Things didn’t work out.’

  ‘Why? You guys looked really good together.’

  ‘They just didn’t.’

  In the distance, the lunch bell rang.

  I stood and dusted my skirt, clods of dirt showering to the ground.

  ‘We should go.’

  Ever obedient, she stretched out her hand to be pulled up.

  One week has passed since I read the letter and Jọkẹ cannot understand why I’ve stopped leaving the house.

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘Why aren’t you going to work?’

  ‘Have you lost your job?’ she asked this morning as she stood over our mattress.

  ‘No, Jọkẹ, I haven’t lost my job. Go to school, you’ll be late.’

  ‘Why aren’t you coming with me?’

  ‘Would you go if I wasn’t here to take you?’

  ‘Of course but—’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Make sure you look three times before you cross the road.’

  I rolled off the bed. Friday afternoon and I was just getting up. It felt strange to be in the flat on a weekday. On Monday I had moved around restlessly, leaning against the sink, sitting in the parlour, pacing to my bed. I emptied all the bags, strewing their contents on the room’s floor. I found old school reports. I found my basketball medals, Jọkẹ’s old school uniform, old passports, framed photographs, loose pictures, an empty bottle of Chanel No. 5. No letter for me.

  I have spent many hours trying to reconcile this new brave image of my father with the other one. I sleep with his certificates under my pillow now. They are the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. Between his Masters and his death, a lot could have happened if not for Olumide. There might even have been a piece of paper with the words ‘Senior Advocate of Nigeria’.

  I went to the kitchen and took a quarter yam from under the sink, not realising my mother was behind me until she spoke.

  ‘What are you cooking?’

  ‘Yam pottage.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  I handed her the knife and she hesitated. She had grown used to us refusing her.

  ‘It’s simple.’ I offered the knife again, hilt first.

  Her first stroke was too deep.

  ‘No, not like that.’

  She handed the knife back to me. ‘I’m sorry. The maid always did the preparation.’

  ‘Wait, let me show you.’ I scraped off the bark. ‘See, only the skin.’

  When she was done, six disks of yam lay in the metal pot.

  ‘Isn’t that too many?’ She had unwrapped five stock cubes.

  ‘I was cooking yam pottage before you were born. Please light the stove for me.’

  ‘You put the kerosene in the burner—’

  ‘Where’s the stove from the old house?’

  ‘The gas was too expensive. I sold it and used the money for some things we needed at home.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I did.’

  After four wasted matches, the yam was boiling and we went to the living room.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the letter.’

  ‘Let me just go and check the yam.’

  ‘No. We need to talk. What would you say if I were to go after Olumide?’

  ‘I don’t want you to do that but . . .’

  ‘But what?’ A minute had passed and her sentence remained unfinished.

  ‘But I would have been ashamed if the thought hadn’t crossed your mind.’

  ‘And how would you cope if I were to . . .’

  ‘If you were to what?’

  Now it was I who could not complete my sentences.

  ‘Before you were born I used to be a teacher . . . But I have already lost my husband to this man. I don’t want to lose my—’

  ‘I only said what if. ’

  ‘So how do you want to do it?’

  ‘Not in the same way as Daddy.’

  ‘I should know. Maybe if your father had told me, he would still be alive. I would never have mentioned it to Olumide. I swear.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, standing to get her some tissue.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said after blowing her nose. ‘You don’t understand how much it helps to have told somebody.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy. Will you try and draft a CV before I come home? I’m going to start looking for a teaching job.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  If she didn’t know, she couldn’t tell anyone. Not even by accident.

  ‘Don’t forget the CV. I’ll be back in the evening.’

  * * *

  I knocked at the entrance of the store and startled Aunty Precious out of sleep.

  ‘Can I help you?’ She jumped upright and smoothed her clothes. ‘Oh, it’s you. Where have you been? Were you ill?’

  ‘Aunty Precious, how did the lawyer that helped you die?’

  ‘He died in a car accident. Why?’

  ‘My father also died in a car accident.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’ve told me before.’

  ‘My father was a lawyer as well. He worked with an Olumide Johnson.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘The same man that tricked you into Italy killed my father.’

  Aunty Precious took off her scarf and began running her fingernails down the creases.

  ‘I hear what you are saying but you are a hawker. How could your father have worked with Mr Johnson?’

  ‘We used to be rich. I have travelled before, I went to a priva
te school, we had two maids working in the house.’

  ‘How—’

  ‘After he killed him, Mr Johnson made sure we lost everything.’

  ‘I am sorry, but I don’t see what you want me to do.’

  ‘You said it yourself. You want your justice. I want my justice.’

  ‘I am too old to be disappointed again.’

  ‘Who says you will be disappointed?’

  ‘Perhaps we could find the others.’

  ‘How many were you?’

  ‘Twenty at the start, three dead, six dropped out so eleven now if the rest are still alive. I have everything in my flat: sworn testimonies, signed, fingerprinted. We will get a more experienced lawyer this time. We’ll send our story to the newspapers.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No one wants to listen to our stories in court.’

  ‘There is no other way. For people like us, we can only hope that justice will work.’

  ‘I’ve met him. That girl is his daughter. I’ve been to his house. I’ve seen him.’

  Her struggle with this new revelation was clear. Surprise passed into excitement into a stern resignation that I had come to call her religious face.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Aunty Precious, I said—’

  ‘It does not matter if you know him so well you have the key to his safe. I know which way is right for me. When you are ready, I will show you the written testimonies.’

  Chapter 32

  ‘How much for half an hour?’

  The girl behind the counter looked up from her novel. ‘We charge per hour.’

  ‘I only need thirty minutes.’

  ‘I’m sorry. We charge per hour.’

  ‘A fine girl like you is not meant to be wicked. Please help me.’

  ‘Oya, bring the money but don’t tell anybody.’