by E. C. Osondu
“What one does not eat one must not use one’s teeth to share for one’s children to eat,” she said and turned her back to them.
The question that everyone in the village continued to ask was—where was the old Bukwu? Where had she gone? Where was she hiding? Who took her away and brought us this faded, fake, inauthentic replacement? Who took her away? Who took her away we are asking a second time? Who is this person that you have given to us that tastes bland like unsalted soup?
Bukwu was the only woman in the village that whistled. Not that whistling by women was forbidden, but it was frowned at. A woman whistling was viewed as somewhat wanton. Bukwu was famous for her ability with a kind of song known as ikpe. Ikpe was a song composed in the moment to mock your enemies. The only unwritten rule about ikpe was that you must never mention your enemy’s name in the song. Bukwu’s ikpe was usually hilarious and entertaining as she switched from singing it to whistling. People would often gather to listen to her even as they tried to decode which of her many enemies she was now mocking. But as soon as she saw the light, her singing and whistling stopped.
When she was asked she said it was better to have lots of friends than to have lots of enemies. And that was all she was going to say about the matter.
For the longest time, speculation had been rife about Bukwu’s relationship with Lucky, the chief baker of the village bakery. Lucky was a bachelor. He was muscular, always smiling. He had a radio which he carried around on his shoulder all the time. Bukwu worked the night shift at the bakery. She was one of those who cleaned up the bread when it came out of the bakery and put them in a plastic wrap with a label and deposited the bread in dozens on a palette. It was considered a stroke of good fortune to have an alternative means of income in the village. On many occasions Bukwu had been seen emerging from Lucky’s room with a cup of tea. When asked, she said that she had gone there to get herself a cup of tea to go with the free loaf of bread every bakery worker received when the bread was baked.
On another occasion she said she had gone to rest her feet after working through the night. When Lucky was asked, he laughed out loud the way he always did and said he had an open door policy and that everyone was welcome to come to his room.
After Bukwu saw the light, she resigned from her job at the bakery. Not that she put in a resignation formally; she simply stopped showing up at the bakery. She also stopped seeing Lucky.
Now that Bukwu had become a different person, what about Lucky?
Was Lucky going to stop laughing out loud as was his habit?
Was Lucky going to start closing his door?
Was the number of female slippers in front of Lucky’s door going to be fewer in number?
Was Lucky going to stop cradling his radio on his chest with its volume cranked up high?
Lucky laughed out loud when he heard these questions. He said that he was not the one who had seen something and that he was happy with his life the way it was and did not see the need to change.
What about Bukwu’s long-suffering husband who was used to eating his dinner late at night?
Did he miss their frequent quarrels when Bukwu would curse him out and tell him to try and be a real man instead of an imitation?
Did he miss the old Bukwu whom he once described as a vehicle driving through a thicket pulling at shrubs and ropes and grasses?
When he was asked, he responded in the riddles and parables which also made everyone in the village remember the saying that a piece of soap wrapped in a leaf soon becomes one with the leaf.
He had said to those who asked that it was a difficult thing to adjust to having one’s bath with cold water after years of using hot water, but that it was also interesting to discover that having a bath with cold water was not such an unpleasant experience after all.
He also said that it was a totally different experience for someone who once had a pet tiger to adjusting to living with a cat, but that one soon discovered that the tiger and the cat are both animals and had their uses.
For anyone familiar or unfamiliar with village life, the question now was what did Bukwu do with herself now that she was no longer the Bukwu we all used to know?
There is of course no need to ask what the old Bukwu did with herself. Or do we need to be reminded about all that the old Bukwu did. In that case here goes.
The old Bukwu cursed.
The old Bukwu fought.
The old Bukwu cursed her enemies in song and whistling.
The old Bukwu quarreled with her husband, cooked late dinners, and called him a poor excuse of a man.
The old Bukwu cursed her Maker every day and wondered why she had been brought into this miserable world only to suffer and to die without knowing what it was like to enjoy life.
The old Bukwu went to her farm to work. She tilled. She planted. She weeded. She harvested.
She told stories about other people and spread gossip around the village, which was why behind her back she was nicknamed Radio Without Battery.
The old Bukwu danced with men in her dancing group.
The old Bukwu was always seen going in and out of the room of the chief baker Lucky.
The old Bukwu talked even when she had nothing to say.
The old Bukwu moved around like a bolt of lightning. Never pausing except to strike.
What can we say about the new Bukwu?
She was everything that the Old Bukwu was not. You could hardly hear her footsteps when she walked.
She barely spoke above a whisper.
But she was still the worker that she was. If a woman’s work is never done, a village woman’s work was often never even started. Life in the village was difficult, and farming required labor and patience even though in return one got just enough to sustain oneself. She still went to the farm to plant and weed and hoe and harvest. The same kind of crops that had left her ancestors poor was still the same thing she planted. Corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, and yams. Crops that yielded little, but wrung a lot of sweat from the brows of those who planted them.
It would have been good to say that things around Bukwu’s life began to change thereafter. For instance, that she became rich or found great fame and that her life began to shine in new ways. None of those things happened.
One day Bukwu woke up as if startled awake and began to murmur to herself.
It was her husband who was sleeping on a separate bed in the same room who first heard her. It must be mentioned that they had ceased to sleep as man and wife a long time ago and shared the same room as siblings would.
Bukwu was restless and quickly began to get ready in a hurry like someone who must get to somewhere fast.
“What is the matter?” her husband asked.
“I must go to the farm fast. My light is fading,” Bukwu said.
Her husband who was already getting used to her strange ways tried to decode what she meant by this. It was not yet fully morning but he was sure the sun would soon be out.
“The light that touched me. Yes, that light. It is beginning to fade and I must not let it fade out. I must return to where it first touched me so that it can touch me again,” Bukwu said.
From that day onwards Bukwu would wake up early to leave for the farm. To those who asked she would say that she was going to wait for the light to touch her once again.
She would usually leave for the farm at the same time every day and just as people had been able to tell that it was time to go to bed by way of her late dinners they could now tell that it was time to begin their day whenever Bukwu set out for the farm to wait for the light to fall on her, again.
Traveler
Mine wasn’t the only empty seat on the train, so I wondered why he came to sit beside me. I was getting used to sitting alone on the train on this trip. Not that I minded. During a past trip a beautiful young female college student with a dazzling set of teeth once sat beside me. The train was full. We traveled in silence. Shortly thereafter at the next stop someone got down and I stood up to go and t
ake the vacant seat. As I asked her to excuse me while I passed, she smiled at me with her dazzling teeth and asked if I was leaving because of something that she did. Her question caught me unawares. I apologized, but still, I changed seats because I wanted to sit alone.
This guy who came to sit beside me was a little older, though it is quite difficult for me to tell people’s age here in America. A simple rule of thumb that has worked for me is what I call by their hats you shall know them. Older gentlemen tend to wear hats no matter the weather.
He sat beside me and sighed the way the old tend to do as if the mere act of living and breathing exhausted them.
I noticed he was struggling with putting his box in the overhead compartment, so I took it from him and helped him put it up there. The box felt quite light.
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” he said.
“Not a problem, at all,” I said.
He extended his hand.
I shook his outstretched hand. He winced and muttered easy and smiled.
“Such a strong grip you’ve got there. I am not a spring chicken anymore. My entire body is now fragile.”
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“There is no need to be sorry. I once had a grip like yours,” he said.
I sensed that he was going to engage me in a lot of talking and I began to worry a little bit. The reason why I didn’t mind sitting alone was because I liked the company of my thoughts when on the train.
“I can tell you are not from here,” he said.
I groaned internally, but I smiled at him.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Your accent, to begin with,” he said.
In this country you could walk into the train on your head and sit on your ears without a second glance from most people, but open your mouth and speak with an accent and get ready for comments, compliments, or sometimes being thought a fool.
I admitted that I was an alien, and that immediately put him at ease—or did I only imagine seeing his shoulders unclench.
“I knew it from the way you helped me with my stuff and the way you are dressed that you are not from here,” he said.
I ran my eyes over myself and wondered what it was about my clothing that said the word alien.
“Forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is William. Remember it is William always, never Bill.”
I told him mine.
“That is quite an unusual name,” he said.
“It means that it is an honorable thing to work with iron,” I said to him.
“Wow. That’s amazing. I wonder why we can’t have names like that. Only the Indians, oh sorry, Native Americans have such names. They used to be called stuff like Big Wind, Dancing Bear, Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee, but nowadays even they have started taking our kind of names, like John Smith.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my own name was not different from Smith’s. We are both descended from people who work with iron. I could have told him about other names that denoted a profession too, like Baker, Wood, Milner, Chamberlain, and Cole, but I didn’t.
He brought out a refillable water bottle and took a little sip like a bird. He looked at me, replaced the cap of the bottle, and put it on the tray in front of him.
“You’ll discover that when you get to my age you have to be careful what you take in. No sooner do you take a sip than you have to rush to the bathroom to evacuate. Sometimes you get to the bathroom and you have to coax and persuade the damn thing to come out and oftentimes all you get for your effort are a few little drops.”
I nodded and smiled. Too much information, I said to myself.
“But you know one thing about you guys that I like, you never age. No never, you just remain the same from year to year. You are lucky to have the kind of genes you have. Now if only we could have your kind of genes. Look at me, how old am I and I am already falling apart?”
Just then the conductor lumbered in. He was a big, burly, beefy-faced man who looked like an ogre in an illustrated children’s book.
“Tickets, please. Tickets, Ladiiieees and geeeentlemen,” he bellowed.
He checked the old man’s ticket, perforated it, and handed it back to him.
I handed him mine. He looked at it, puffed out his cheeks, and said my name out aloud.
“I need to see your ID,” he said to me.
I had not heard him ask anyone for an ID before me. He simply took their tickets, perforated it, handed it back, and thanked them.
Did I just imagine it or did the old man sitting beside me just wink at the conductor?
I handed him my ID. He looked at it suspiciously and skeptically. He turned it from side to side. He made as if to put it under his nose and sniff it. He then handed it back to me without any thank you.
I sighed. I started to feel a little hot and sweaty all of a sudden.
The old man was smiling at me. I did not smile back.
“One thing I like about you guys is that you obey the law. It must be an alien thing. See how you were very polite to that guy. You didn’t argue. You did what you were told. I wish we could do more of that in this country, you know, follow the rules and do what we are told,” he said.
What politeness was he talking about? The conductor had picked me out for special treatment simply because I had an alien sounding name. But, again, I did not want to argue with the old guy.
I brought out my wrapped lunch and was about to dig in and then I remembered my manners.
“Join me,” I said.
It was customary in my culture to invite someone who met you while eating to join you. It was typically a theatrical performance in fake politeness. It was expected of you to make the invitation and the invited was expected to decline and say they were already full and then in turn you had to tell them to take just a little and they were expected to thank you and insist that they were not really hungry after which you went back to eating your meal in peace.
“You mean you are ready to share your lunch with me? Isn’t that the most amazing thing?”
I extended it to him since I could see he didn’t quite know how to act in this theatre of politeness.
He brought out his own lunch.
“I have my own lunch. See, this is what I keep saying, some people think aliens are bad, but I disagree. There are things we can learn from each other. See, how you were willing to share your lunch with me? That is something we could all learn to practice. We are taught to share in kindergarten, but no one actually shares in real life.”
I watched him eat his lunch with no apparent pleasure. He was still eyeing my own lunch.
“You know what the problem is these days, right? We have to watch everything we eat. My parents didn’t watch everything they ate, yet they lived longer,” he said.
I bet if I told him that I grew my own potatoes in my backyard and made my own fries in my kitchen he would believe me and it would make him happy. I wondered if he knew that cultures that showed hospitality to strangers tended to be conquered and overrun by those same strangers with time.
We were both done with our lunch and the train was lurching forward, if ever so slowly. He turned to me and smiled and began speaking.
“You know one thing I like about you guys who come to this country from out there? You have such interesting lives. Your life stories, ah, they are something else. Look at my own life; there is nothing remarkable about it. I lived in the same Cape house like all the other kids I grew up with. We all went to the same elementary school and were taught by good old Miss Hassett. Same middle school, same high school. I was on the track team in high school and that was where I met my wife. We were both outcasts as it were. We were the unpopular kids, so we gravitated towards each other inevitably. I tried going to the community college for a day, but had to leave when on the first day of class the teacher told us to gather around in a circle just like I had done in the first grade and play a little game he called Icebreaker. I left and got hired as a trainee machin
ist in a factory less than two miles from where I was born. I worked in that factory all my life. I never missed work for one day. It was hard work, but it paid alright. See what I mean? What a boring life I have lived.”
I did not see what he meant. Boring life? What boring life? The outline of his life that he just drew for me was interesting and spoke to everything that made his country different—stability and the fact that hard work pays a decent wage—but he didn’t know this. Maybe he knew but took it for granted like the more fortunate tend to do.
Turning to me, he touched me.
“So there’s this little Thai Food restaurant where I go to eat sometimes. I like eating foreign foods when the weather is cold. The way I see it if I can’t travel to those warm places my tongue can take me there! So the little guy who owns the place likes to sit with me and talk. Every sentence he makes, he punctuates with God bless America or America is a great country.
“So I was talking to this guy, this owner of this Thai restaurant, and one day he began to tell me his life story. He was born in Laos. So technically he is not Thai. But he says it confuses people, so he sticks to Thai. So he was telling about his life. He said he was seventeen when the communists took over in his country and he was conscripted into the army. They took him to another part of the country, the northern part I think it was, to work in the building of a dam. He was not an engineer or anything so he was doing manual labor, felling trees and all that. But he didn’t like the communists and was angry about the fact that he could not continue his education or earn good money to marry the girl he was in love with. So what did he do? One day he fled and went AWOL. He left the army and that part of the country and came back to the capital where he was born. He went into hiding and the only person aside from his parents who knew he had run away from the army was this girl he was in love with. One of the reasons why he had left the army was because he wanted to leave the country so he could earn enough money to marry her. So he was in his parents’ house in hiding and this girl he was in love with came to visit him. He was so happy to see her. So he told her he had left the army and that he was planning to leave the country and that when he had made enough money he would come for her.”