Second-Class Citizen
Buchi Emecheta
SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN
George Braziller, New York
First published in the United States of America in 1975 by George Braziller, Inc
Originally published in England by Allison & Busby Limited
Copyright © 1974 by Buchi Emecheta
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the publisher
For information, please address the publisher
George Braziller, Inc
171 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Emecheta, Buchi
Second-class citizen
Reprint Originally published New York G Braziller, 1975, c1974
I Title
PR9387 9 E36S4 1983 823 82-24355
ISBN: 978-0-8076-1066-4
Contents
1. Childhood
2. Escape into Elitism
3. A Cold Welcome
4. The Daily Minders
5. An Expensive Lesson
6. “Sorry, No Coloureds”
7. The Ghetto
8. Role Acceptance
9. Learning the Rules
10. Applying the Rules
11. Population Control
12. The Collapse
13. The Ditch Pull
To my dear children,
Florence, Sylvester, Jake, Christy and Alice,
without whose sweet background noises
this book would not have been written.
1
Childhood
It had all begun like a dream. You know, that sort of dream which seems to have originated from nowhere, yet one was always aware of its existence. One could feel it, one could be directed by it; unconsciously at first, until it became a reality, a Presence.
Adah did not know for sure what gave birth to her dream, when it all started, but the earliest anchor she could pin down in this drift of nothingness was when she was about eight years old. She was not even quite sure that she was exactly eight, because, you see, she was a girl. She was a girl who had arrived when everyone was expecting and predicting a boy. So, since she was such a disappointment to her parents, to her immediate family, to her tribe, nobody thought of recording her birth. She was so insignificant. One thing was certain, though: she was born during the Second World War. She felt eight when she was being directed by her dream, for a younger child would not be capable of so many mischiefs. Thinking back on it all now that she was grown up, she was sorry for her parents. But it was their own fault; they should not have had her in the first place, and that would have saved a lot of people a lot of headaches.
Well, Adah thought she was eight at the time when her mother and all the other society women were busying themselves to welcome the very first lawyer of their town Ibuza. Whenever Adah was told that Ibuza was her town, she found it difficult to understand. Her parents, she was told, came from Ibuza, and so did many of her aunts and uncles. Ibuza, she was told, was a beautiful town. She had been taught at an early age that the people of Ibuza were friendly, that the food there was fresh, the spring water was pure and the air was clean. The virtues of Ibuza were praised so much that Adah came to regard her being born in a God-forsaken place like Lagos as a misfortune. Her parents said that Lagos was a bad place, bad for bringing up children because here they picked up the Yoruba-Ngbati accent. It was bad because it was a town with laws, a town where Law ruled supreme. In Ibuza, they said, you took the law into your own hands. If a woman abused your child, you went straight into her hut, dragged her out, beat her up or got beaten up, as the case might be. So if you didn’t want to be dragged out and beaten up you wouldn’t abuse another woman’s child. Lagos was bad because this type of behaviour was not allowed. You had to learn to control your temper, which Adah was taught was against the law of nature.
The Ibuza women who lived in Lagos were preparing for the arrival of the town’s first lawyer from the United Kingdom. The title “United Kingdom” when pronounced by Adah’s father sounded so heavy, like the type of noise one associated with bombs. It was so deep, so mysterious, that Adah’s father always voiced it in hushed tones, wearing such a respectful expression as if he were speaking of God’s Holiest of Holies. Going to the United Kingdom must surely be like paying God a visit. The United Kingdom, then, must be like heaven.
The women of Ibuza bought identical cotton material from the UAC department store and had it made into lappas and blouses of the same style. They dyed their hair, and straightened it with hot combs to make it look European. Nobody in her right senses would dream of welcoming a lawyer who had been to the United Kingdom with her hair left naturally in curls. They composed songs, weaving the name of the new lawyer into them. These women were so proud of this new lawyer, because to them it meant the arrival of their very own Messiah. A Messiah specially created for the Ibuza people. A Messiah who would go into politics and fight for the rights of the people of Ibuza. A Messiah who would see to it that Ibuza would have electricity, that Ibuza would have a tarred road (which Adah’s mother called “Kol tar”). Oh, yes, Lawyer Nweze was going to do all sorts of things for the people of Ibuza.
Adah’s mother was a seamstress, so she made most of the blouses. Adah was very lucky, because she had some remnants from the material made into a frock for her. She still remembered the frock; it was so big for her that she more or less swam into it. Her mother would never dream of making her a dress that was exactly her size because, you see, she would soon outgrow it. So even though she was a small girl, too skinny for her age, whatever that might be, she always had dresses three or four sizes bigger. That was one of her reasons for liking old dresses, since by the time her dresses were old, they fitted her. She was so happy with this new “Lawyer dress” that she begged her mother to let her go with the women to the Apapa Wharf on the great day. It pained her so much when she realised that she was not going to be allowed to go because it fell on a school day.
School - the Ibos never played with that! They were realising fast that one’s saviour from poverty and disease was education. Every Ibo family saw to it that their children attended school. Boys were usually given preference, though. So even though Adah was about eight, there were still discussions about whether it would be wise to send her to school. Even if she was sent to school, it was very doubtful whether it would be wise to let her stay long. “A year or two would do, as long as she can write her name and count. Then she will learn how to sew.” Adah had heard her mother say this many many times to her friends. Soon, Adah’s younger brother, Boy, started school.
It was at this time that Adah’s dream started to nudge her. Whenever she took Boy to Ladi-Lak Institute, as the school was called, she would stand by the gate and watch all her friends lining up by the school door, in their smart navy-blue pinafores looking clean and orderly. Ladi-Lak was then, and still is, a very small preparatory school. Children were not taught Yoruba or any African language. This was why it was such an expensive school. The proprietress was trained in the United Kingdom. At that time, more than half the children in the school were Ibos, as they were then highly motivated by middle-class values. Adah would stand there, filled with envy. This envy later gave way to frustration, which she showed in many small ways. She would lie, just for the joy of lying; she took secret joy in disobeying her mother. Because, she thought to herself: If not for Ma, Pa would have seen to it that I started school with Boy.
One afternoon, Ma was sitting on the veranda of their house at Akinwunmi Street. With Adah’s help, she had cooked the afternoon meal and they had both
eaten. Ma started to undo her hair, ready to have it re-plaited. Adah had seen her do this a million times and was bored with watching her. There was nothing for her to do, there was nobody to play with; there was not even any mischief to plan. Then the thought suddenly struck her. Yes, she would go to school. She would not go to Ladi-Lak, because Boy was there and they might ask her to pay, it being such an expensive school. She would go to the Methodist School round the corner. It was cheaper, her Ma had said that she liked the uniform, most of her friends attended it, and Mr Cole, the Sierra Leonian neighbour living next door to them, taught there. Yes, she would go there.
Her dress was clean enough, though it was too big, but she thought of something to smarten it up. She went into their room, got an old scarf, twisted it round and round, so much so that it looked like a palm-tree climber’s rope, then tied it round her little waist, pulling her baggy dress up a little. Other children went to school with slates and pencils. She had none. It would look ridiculous for her to march into a classroom without a slate and pencil. Then another thought struck her. She had always watched Pa shave: Pa had a broken slate, on which he usually sharpened a funny sort of curved knife. Adah often watched him do this, fascinated. After sharpening the knife, Pa would rub some carbolic soap lather on his chin and then would shave away. Adah thought of this slate. But the trouble was that it was so small. Just a small piece. It would not take many letters, but a small bit of slate was better than no slate at all. She then slipped it into the top of her dress, knowing full well that her scarf-belt would hold it up. Luck was with her. Before she left the room, one of Ma’s innumerable friends came for a visit, and the two women were so engrossed in their chit-chat that they did not notice when Adah slipped past them.
Thus Adah went to school. She ran as fast as she could before anyone could stop her. She did not see any of Ma’s friends, because it was past midday and very hot; most people were too tired to walk the streets at this time. She got tired running and she started to trot like a lame horse; tired of trotting, she walked. She was soon at the schoolroom. There were two buildings in the compound. One was the church, and she had heard from her friends that the church was never used as a classroom. She knew which was the church because, even though she had not started school, she attended Sunday school in the church. With her head up, in determination, she walked down the centre looking for Mr Cole’s class. This was easy for her because all the classes were separated from each other by low cardboard-like partitions. It was easy to see all the classes by simply walking down the middle.
When she saw Mr Cole, she walked into his class and stood behind him. The other children looked up from their work and stared at Adah in wonder. At first there was a hush, a hush so tangible that one could almost hold and feel it. Then one silly child started to giggle and the others followed suit, until almost every child in the class was giggling in such an uncontrollable way that Mr Cole glared at the children who had all gone crazy, for all he knew. Then it happened. The child who started the giggle covered her mouth with one hand and pointed at Adah with the other.
Mr Cole was a huge African, very young, very handsome. He was a real black man. His blackness shone like polished black leather. He was a very quiet man, but he used to smile at Adah every time he passed her on his way to school. Adah was sure Mr Cole would give her that reassuring smile now, in front of all these giggling idiots. Mr Cole spun round with such alacrity, that Adah took a step backwards. She was not frightened of Mr Cole, it was just that the movement was so quick and so unexpected of Mr Cole, with his great bulk. Only God above knew what he expected to find behind him. A big gorilla or a wandering “masquerade” perhaps. But all he saw was Adah, staring at him.
God bless Mr Cole. He did not laugh, he took in the situation immediately, gave Adah one of those special smiles, held out his hand, and led her to a boy who had craw-craw on his head, and gestured her to sit down. Adah did not know what to make of this gesture. She felt Mr Cole should have asked her why she came, but being reassured by his smile, she said in her little loud voice:
“I came to school - my parents would not send me!”
The class went quiet once more, the boy with the craw-craw on his head (he later became a lecturer in Lagos City Hospital) gave her a bit of his pencil, and Adah scribbled away, enjoying the smell of craw-craw and dried sweat. She never forgot this smell of school.
The day ended too soon for Adah’s liking. But they must go home, Mr Cole assured her. Yes, of course she could come again if she liked, but if her parents would not allow her to come, he would take it upon himself to teach her the alphabet. If only Mr Cole would not bring her parents into it. Pa would be all right: he would probably cane her, you know, just a few strokes - six or so, not much - but Ma would not cane, she would smack and smack, and then nag and nag all day long.
She thought that it was these experiences with Ma so early in life that had given her such a very low opinion of her own sex. Somebody said somewhere that our characters are usually formed early in life. Yes, that somebody was right. Women still made Adah nervous. They had a way of sapping her self-confidence. She did have one or two women friends with whom she discussed the weather, and fashion. But when in real trouble, she would rather look for a man. Men were so solid, so safe.
Mr Cole took her to the stall of a woman selling boli, which is the Yoruba name for roasted plantain. These women usually had open pots in which they made a kind of coal fire. These fires were covered with wire gauze; and on the gauze were placed peeled plantains, ready for roasting. Mr Cole fed her with a big boli and told her not to worry. It was another story when they got home; at home things had got out of hand.
In fact there was a big hullabaloo going on. Pa had been called from work, Ma was with the police being charged with child neglect, and the child that had caused all the fuss was little Adah, staring at all of them, afraid and yet triumphant. They took Ma to the police station and forced her to drink a big bowl of gari with water. Gari is a tasteless sort of flour made from cassava. When cooked and eaten with soup, it is delicious. But when uncooked, the watered type Ma was forced to drink, it became a torture, purgatorial in fact!
Those policemen! Adah still wondered where they got all their unwritten laws from. This happened at the police station near Sabo Market. Ma told them with tears in her eyes that she could swallow the gari no more. She must drink the whole lot, she was told, and told in such language that Adah hid behind Mr Cole. If Ma did not finish the gari, the policemen went on, they would take her to court. How they laughed at their own jokes, those horrid men; and how they scared Adah! Ma went on gulping, her eyes dilating. Adah was scared; she started to howl, and Pa, who had said very little, begged the policemen to stop. They should let Ma go now, he explained, for she had learnt her lesson. She was a great talker, very careless, otherwise Adah would not have been able to slip away as she had. Women were like that. They sat in the house, ate, gossiped and slept. They would not even look after their children properly. But the policemen should forgive her now, because Pa thought she had had enough gari.
The chief policeman considered this plea, then looked once more at Ma, cupping the gari to her mouth with her fingers, and smiled. He took pity on Ma, but warned her that if such a thing should happen again, he personally would take her to the court.
“You know what that means?” he thundered.
Ma nodded. She knew court meant two things: a heavy fine which she would never be able to afford, or prison, which she called “pilizon”. They advised her to sell one of her colourful lappas and send Adah to school, because she looked like a child who was keen to learn. At this point Ma gave Adah a queer look - a look that contained a mixture of fear, love and wonder. Adah shrank back, still clutching Mr Cole.
When they got home from the station, the news had already got round. Adah had nearly sent her mother to “pilizon”. So frequently was this sentence repeated that Adah began to be quite proud of her impulsive move. She felt triumphant, especia
lly when she heard Pa’s friends advising him to make sure he allowed Adah to start school soon. This discussion took place on the veranda, where the visitors were downing two kegs of palm-wine to wet their parched throats. When they departed, Adah was left alone with her parents.
Things were not as bad as she thought they would be. Pa fished out the cane and gave her a few strokes for Ma’s benefit. Adah did not mind that because they were not hard strokes. Maybe Pa had been mellowed by the talks with his friends, because when Adah cried after the caning, he came and talked to her seriously, just as if she were a grown up! He called her by her pet name, “Nne nna”, which means “Father’s mother”, which was not so far from the meaning of Adah’s real name. How she came by that name was a story in itself.
When Pa’s mother was dying, she had promised Pa that she would come again, this time as his daughter. She was sorry she could not live to bring him up. She died when Pa was only five. She would come again, she had promised, to compensate for leaving him so young. Well, Pa grew up and married Ma at the Christ Church in Lagos, which was a Christian church. But Pa did not forget his mother’s promise. The only reservation he had was that he did not want a girl for his first child. Well, his mother was impatient! Ma had a girl. Pa thought Adah was the very picture of his mother, even though Adah was born two months prematurely. He was quite positive that the little, damp monkey-like thing with unformed face was his “come back mother”. So she was loaded with strings of names: “Nne nna”, “Adah nna”, “Adah Eze”! Adah Eze means Princess, daughter of a king. Sometimes they called her Adah Eze, sometimes Adah nna and sometimes Nnenna. But this string of names was too long and too confusing for Adah’s Yoruba friends and playmates and even more so for impatient Ma. So she became just “Adah”. She didn’t mind this. It was short: everybody could pronounce it. When she grew up, and was attending the Methodist Girls’ High School in Lagos, where she came in contact with European missionaries, her name was one of the first ones they learned and pronounced correctly. This usually gave her a start against the other girls with long names like Adebisi Gbamgbose, or Oluwafunmilayo Olorunshogo!
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