We had been living at Alhaji’s for six days when Ezikiel dressed in a uniform of khaki-colored shorts and white shirt, and I in a khaki dress and a small tight hat, which only just stretched over my cornrows and made elephants dance inside my head until I removed it. There was no mirror to look at so I studied Ezikiel instead. “Do I look smart enough?” I asked him.
“You look very smart,” said Ezikiel.
Youseff was waiting in the car with the engine running. His long legs were sticking out from the driver’s seat. We could not wave to Mama; she was out looking for work. Instead, we said good-bye to Grandma and Alhaji who were standing on the veranda and waving, and climbed in the back. It took thirty minutes to drive over the bumpy roads. I tried to imagine what the school would look like. I wondered if I would find new friends. Youseff was silent all the way. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror. His eyes watched us as much as the road ahead. Ezikiel found it funny to poke my side, causing me to jump, until Youseff flicked his head right around and stared straight at us, even though the car was going very fast. He nearly hit a man crossing the road pushing a wheelbarrow full of yams.
Youseff parked the car outside an area of wasteland next to a village. The rusty sign outside the school said HOLY GHOST SECONDARY SCHOOL. STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE. Dozens of children were running past the sign, all dressed the same, all with wide eyes and no smiles, all with swollen bellies and skinny legs. A line of boys were marching in with upside-down tables balanced on their heads. A few girls walked past carrying larger desks on their heads. My own head banged and tapped and hurt as though there were an upside-down desk on it. It felt like all the children had jumped in and were running around inside me.
There was no marble floor or fountain. There was no air-conditioning or running field or smiling teachers.
The school was a flat, dark building with no door. We sat still in the car until Youseff threw his eyes at us, and then we climbed out and began slowly walking. The car moved away quickly. I could see into a classroom as we walked nearer. The children all had their hands raised in the air. I could hear the smack of a ruler on a table and the screech of chalk on a blackboard. My hand found Ezikiel’s. I moved closer to his body. His arm was shaking.
When we walked into the classroom, the teacher pointed to a space on the ground near the front. “You sit there,” she said in English, looking at me. “You”—she pointed to Ezikiel—“in class three.” I sat down quickly and watched Ezikiel follow the teacher’s arm out the door to the other classroom. I could feel the eyes of all the children lay on top of my head like a scarf. The boy I was sitting next to looked more like a grown man. The class was full of boys. Only four girls. Where were all the girls? Why did Youseff’s daughters not come with us? The teacher, Mrs. Tuyowe, chanted the names of our government ministers and the kings and queens of England, and the children repeated whatever she said. Everyone spoke English. I had no idea which children were Ijaw or not. English was spoken by all the children and all the teachers. Still, I felt glad to know my language and happy that Zafi had taught us Izon well. At break time, the children poured from the classroom like water and went to the yard, where they all played hopscotch or ludo or football.
All except me and Ezikiel. I found him under a tree. We sat with our backs pressed together and let the morning wash over us, like rocks at the water’s edge.
The toilets at school made the toilets at Alhaji’s place seem luxurious. They were divided into two rooms, one for boys, one for girls, but the boys’ toilets were always empty, even though most of the pupils were boys. When I first entered the girls’ toilets at the beginning of lunchtime, I could not help running straight back out. A carpet of flies shone blue. There was no window. Seven holes were side by side, girls squatting over them doing their business, their private parts in full view. There was no sink. No tap. No soap. No toilet tissue. I opened my mouth outside and felt burning in my throat. I did not turn around to see if any of the girls had seen me running. I walked quickly down the corridor, which was dusty and dirty and had pieces of rubbish screwed up and thrown around. I thought of the International School for Future Leaders, which had floors so polished that you could see your reflection in them. I thought of the toilets, which were clean and had flushing water, and sinks with soap and windows with air. I held in the urine as long as possible, until I saw Ezikiel, his back pressed against a tree.
“Where do the boys use the toilet?” I asked. “Their toilet was empty. They must be going some other place.”
He laughed. “Hello to you too. How was the rest of the morning?”
“I am serious. I cannot hold it any longer. Please, please, just tell me.”
Ezikiel laughed again. I bent forward and held my lower stomach. Eventually, Ezikiel pointed to the bushes at the back fence, where I could see the shadows of boys doing their business.
“Where do the girls go?”
“Not outside, silly. You will have to use the inside toilet. Is it locked?”
“Have you been in there?” I asked. By then, I could feel wetness on my underwear. It had turned from urgency to pain.
“You are being silly.” Ezikiel stood from the tree. He put his arm through mine. “Come on, I’ll take you there.”
“I cannot use it. It is the worst place I have ever smelled.” Ezikiel laughed again.
“I will catch something,” I said. I paused. “That place must be full of parasites.”
“You have to use it. Just be careful not to touch anything. Come on. We are lucky to be at school. We are lucky that Alhaji agreed to pay our fees.”
Even through the pain of holding my urine, I realized that I had not considered who would be paying our school fees, or how. It did not occur to me that a school with toilets as bad as that would still require fees. How did Alhaji pay when he had no job? I knew that Mama had arrived with a small amount of money, but she had told me that she had enough to last us only a short time. And even though he was a qualified petroleum engineer, Alhaji was looking for work. How did he pay for our school fees?
We walked back into the building and I ran into the toilet, pulling up my skirt and down my underwear. As I squatted over a hole, I felt the flies rise up and move over my skin. They felt soft against the back of my legs. I held my breath. The girls in the line next to me looked bored. They did not seem to notice the flies. Or even the smell. One girl was moaning. She was vomiting from one end and had irritated stools the other end. It all fell around and about and over the hole. There was no way of cleaning herself up.
I held in my breath, and my tears, and my stomach.
Afterward Ezikiel was waiting outside. I opened my mouth in the schoolyard and took in air, biting it as if it were hard food. I held Ezikiel’s hand tightly. “I will surely get sick,” I said.
“You are being dramatic,” said Ezikiel. But he dropped my hand and wiped his on the back of his shorts.
Lunch for us was bread, and Blue Band margarine that Grandma had scooped out from the tin and put into a small pot. Most of the children were sitting near us eating bread. Some of the other children went to the gates and haggled with the vendors and the kiosk outside, which was called Close to God Snacks, and sold Gala sausage rolls and meat pies. I looked at the Coca-Cola and Fanta bottles on display and felt the dust settle near my mouth. I wondered how those village children could afford to buy lunch. Maybe they had fathers who had jobs.
“Who is in your class?” I asked Ezikiel. He leaned closer to me. Some boys were playing football nearby. He pointed to the group.
“All of them. The lessons were good. There’s one teacher who has a degree in physics. His lesson was the most interesting. There are only three girls. But then, I guess when you get to fourteen …”
“Where do the girls go?” I asked. I looked around the playground. There were some girls, mainly younger, or girls my age. But there were far more boys. And grown men. That did not make any sense. “Why do they not separate the ages?”
“P
eople join at different times,” said Ezikiel. “There is a man in my class who is older than the teacher. He had to repeat the year twice and he did not start school until he was fifteen.”
“The teachers all look young.”
“They are mainly youth corpers doing national service. An older boy in my class told me. They did not get the job they wanted so the government makes them teach. That is why they hate the children.”
“Why don’t they just leave?”
“They have to do a year of national service. Everyone does. Well, everyone who does a university degree. And you have to do what the government tells you to do. Fight or teach.”
“Well, if I get sent to teach I will be a lot nicer to the children,” I said. “They are always caning here. One girl was caned this morning for talking in class, but all she did was ask her friend to borrow a pen.”
Ezikiel did not say anything but raised his mouth into a too-stretched smile.
After school I helped Grandma with the cooking. She showed me how to raise the fire by fanning the flames with a wrapper, how to rub the meat with pepper, how to slice the fish open and pull out the bones in one quick movement. “You cannot have too many Maggi cubes,” she said, crumbling them in one by one. “They add good flavor. And plenty of salt.” She opened another tiny stock cube. Then, suddenly, she put the cube into her mouth. I had read the packet, which said dissolve in at least one pan of water. Grandma crunched the cube. Her face did not change at all. “Mmm,” she said. “De-li-cious.” Then she laughed and laughed. And I found that laughter came from my mouth too.
As we laughed, we heard shouting from the other side of the compound gate. I did not hear the words, but they came in a hurry. Grandma rushed up from where we were sitting and handed me her spoon. “You finish the soup.”
I tried to open my mouth to tell her that I could not, that I did not know how to make soup, or even how long it needed on the fire. But my mouth stayed closed. And when Grandma ran past me toward the gate carrying a large bag, my mouth stayed shut even though it was full of questions.
I stirred and stirred and stirred. I popped in Maggi cube after Maggi cube. I added palm oil so frequently the fish came to the surface of the stew and opened their mouths as though they were gasping for air. The compound was empty. I could hear movement in the boys’ quarters but I did not dare ask Youseff’s wives for help; they giggled whenever they saw me. I did not want to give them something else to laugh about.
I looked at the food in front of me. The air smelled of groundnuts. I added three Maggi cubes, some pepper, tomatoes, and salt to a clean pan. Then I poured palm oil over it.
I was careful not to confuse the spoons. I watched the soups bubble and get gradually smaller. I watched the white part of the fish from the larger pan coming away from the head, and the eyes glaze over and become filmy, like Alhaji’s. Then I took the pans from the fire and set them on the ground. Everyone was waiting on the veranda when I walked through the house with the fish pan. They were sitting with empty bowls already in their hands. I must have been cooking for hours.
I ladled the fish soup into each bowl.
“Where’s Grandma?” asked Mama, who looked at her bowl with her nose wrinkled up. “Who cooked this?”
“She got called away,” I said. “I did not ask where.”
Alhaji sniffed his bowl. “She had to work,” he said.
I turned around suddenly, nearly dropping the pan. I did not know that Grandma had a job. I looked at Alhaji’s face to see if it was open to questions, but he had scooped out some fish and was moving it toward his mouth. “Alhaji, sir. What job does Grandma have?”
Alhaji rolled his eyes and returned the spoonful of fish to the bowl. “A busy job. So make sure you help her around the house.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alhaji did not notice as I put Ezikiel’s soup into a different colored bowl and handed it to him. He smiled.
“Did you cook?” Mama looked at the soup, pushing it around with a spoon.
I nodded. “I hope it does not taste bad.”
Ezikiel smiled again. He was tired of eating nothing but fruit. He dipped his spoon in the soup. It came out covered in streaks of red, like the sky when the sun was setting.
I looked at Mama. My mouth opened to ask about Grandma’s job, but then shut. Mama was coughing and choking. She clutched her own throat. She leaned forward and began retching.
I looked at Alhaji, who was doing the same. He pointed to the soup.
“This soup,” said Mama, between retches, “what have you put in the soup?”
Alhaji coughed for several minutes. “Silly girl. Can you not cook?”
Mama stopped coughing. “Of course she cannot cook. We always had a cook to do it for us!” She turned to me. “How many Maggi cubes did you put in? It tastes like pure Maggi cube!”
I smiled slightly. “You cannot have too many Maggi cubes,” I said. But the words were too quiet and not funny. “What are you talking?”
“Let me call a Youseff wife,” said Alhaji. “They can all cook.”
Ezikiel put his spoon into his mouth. His eyes watered, but he did not cough or retch. He just stayed still and ate the entire contents of the bowl.
Later, Ezikiel found me sitting by the mosque in darkness. I was watching the gate, waiting for Grandma so I could ask her where she had been and tell her about the soup. I did not realize that I was crying until Ezikiel wiped my cheek of tears. He pulled me toward him and kissed the top of my head. “I liked it,” he said. “It was the first soup I’ve had in ages. Thank you for making me one with no fish. It tasted really good to me.”
I did not need to look at Ezikiel’s face to know that he was lying. His voice was higher than usual, and his words were pushed out too quickly.
Suddenly I heard screeching. It sounded like an alarm but louder. It hurt the back of my head and made me half close my eyes. “What is that? I heard that before, but not so loudly.”
“Sirens,” said Ezikiel. “Mama told me about them. It’s the white men on their way from work at the oil companies. They get taken to work in armored vans with police escorts. Then the armored vans take them back to their locked-down compounds. Like prisoners.”
I listened to the sirens until they had gone. “You were right about coming here,” I whispered. “It is not safe. It cannot be safe if people need to go to work in armored vans.”
Ezikiel turned his face away from me. He did not say anything. Maybe he did not hear me?
“It is not safe here,” I repeated. “And this place is full of germs. What if you get sick? We are so far from Warri.”
“I won’t get sick,” said Ezikiel. His words came out quickly. He pulled me toward him and turned his face back to mine. “I will stick to your special soup, and fruits. And I will take Alhaji’s vitamins and minerals. He is an expert.”
I leaned against Ezikiel’s arm. His shoulder was sharp. His skin looked dull, almost gray. I had not even smiled. My shoulders fell forward toward the ground. “I want to go home,” I said.
Ezikiel did not say anything at all. He put his arm around me and held me so close I could smell the Maggi cubes on his breath. “And if the tablets do not work,” he said, giggling, “there is always the Marmite.”
He laughed, and I laughed. Ezikiel laughed so hard, his head was thrown back. His head looked too big for his shoulders.
FIVE
I became so used to Youseff’s children going in and out of the boys’ quarters, a bowl of food or a pail of water in their hands, that I did not notice them much. They were always there in the background. The only time I noticed Youseff’s children was when they were not there. One day I tried to count all seventeen of them, but they were never in the same place at the same time. It was difficult to learn any of their names, as not only were there too many of them, but they all had at least three different names. They were called by each of their different names, depending on who was calling, and why. Fatima and Yasmina were also c
alled Eneni and Layefa, and sometimes Kindness and Beauty. When I asked Grandma about all the different names, she laughed.
“We all have two names, an Ijaw name and a Muslim name, and that is enough for most people, but that man likes to feel important. He gives them all extra names. Eh! Imagine, so many kids and so many names!”
“But how do you remember them?”
“You will get used to it.”
Ezikiel tried to make friends with Youseff’s oldest son, Prince, also called Mohammed and Ebike, but whenever Ezikiel called him over to play football, Prince said, “Sorry, sorry,” and shuffled away. I wondered if they were not allowed to be our friends. They always seemed to be too busy, sweeping the floors, washing the car, washing the clothes in the river, fetching water from the village tap, which I still had not seen. Grandma said the first week we would be guests, and after that we would have chores the same as everyone else. At first I dreaded the chores. But as the days went on, I could not wait to have chores. I did not like sitting on the veranda chair while Youseff’s children cleaned and swept and cooked around me. But I did get used to them.
One morning after prayers, Alhaji sent Fatima and Yasmina to me. I had learned their Muslim names and decided those were the ones I would stick with.
“I want them to teach you how to cook.”
The girls giggled. I wondered how old they were. They spoke to me in Izon and giggled again. “You cannot cook?”
I shook my head. I thought of the Maggi cubes and felt hotness wipe my cheeks.
“We will teach you to make pepper soup.” Fatima stopped giggling and took my hand. She led me to the fire outside the back of the house. Yasmina followed.
We squatted down. In front of us were plastic bags full of ingredients. Fatima got them out one by one to show me.
“First fry the meat, then put it into the pot with water and onion. Add some red pepper.” She held up every ingredient to the day. I nodded and tried to concentrate hard.
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away Page 5