We traveled to Warri and found the Airport Road television shop, which was freezing with air-conditioning, and I listened to Grandma tell a lie. “She has plenty of sales experience,” Grandma said to the short woman wearing a man’s jacket and a beaded necklace. The beads were the size of marbles. I focused on the woman’s beads so that I would not lift my eyes and give the lie away.
“We have no vacancies,” she said. “And why is this Celestine not here in person?”
“She is very busy. She has just returned from London, where she had an important job in sales.” Grandma smiled. “Electrical sales.”
“London,” the woman said quietly. “And you say she has sales experience? Fine. Fine. Send her in for an interview tomorrow at nine.”
We left the shop quickly. I avoided lifting my head until we were home.
Celestine was back the next day, by lunchtime, shaking her head and sucking her teeth. “I didn’t say anything,” she said. “Only kindness. Just said I would bring her some garments.”
Grandma groaned.
Celestine continued. “That woman is wearing man’s clothing. She would benefit by Lycra.”
“You are a bloody stupid woman. That job was the only job you would get,” said Grandma. “You are not qualified to do anything, cannot even read or write.”
Celestine walked away.
I did not say anything.
“There is no university degree,” said Grandma. “There is only one way she got that certificate.” I waited, but Grandma did not explain. We watched Celestine walk across the compound toward the gate, her bottom squashed into a too-tight wrapper, making a crunching sound as it swayed from side to side, as though the material was about to rip at any moment.
Grandma said that Mama Akpan owned the last of the fattening rooms, as so many girls were worried about heart disease. She was Grandma’s best friend. Mama Akpan was rich, and she was famous for not spending money. She lived in Calabar, in a house with peeling paint, and did not own a car. People had stopped going to her for loans. She had no house girl or woman to wash her clothes. The only jewelry she wore was gold plated, sent by her son, Akpan, in England, who bought all her gifts in the Marks & Spencer sale. Mama Akpan kept them in boxes with the labels still attached, wrapped up in oversized plastic bags. She got them out to show me whenever we visited.
“Look at this beautiful article,” she said in English.
It was the weekend, and Grandma and I had traveled for almost five hours to arrive at her house. I was glad to be away from Ezikiel. Since being suspended from school he had been in a terrible mood. When we arrived, Mama Akpan was waiting at the door with a Marks & Spencer Winter Sale carrier bag. I wondered how long she had been waiting there. She opened the bag and flashed the contents at us before we had even stepped inside. Four or five sets of gold-plated jewelry came out, one by one, like stars on a moonless night.
“It’s all beautiful,” I said, although the jewelry was bright. I could imagine Celestine wearing it.
“What can I get you people?”
“Maltina, please.”
We followed her toward the kitchen area. Giant bowls were bubbling full of stews and porridges and egusi soup. Mama Akpan noticed me looking at the food. “I have to feed these girls every three hours. Garri and rice, beans and fish, ekpan koko and oto. Big bowls. Make them nice and fat.”
I opened my eyes wide.
“Lovely and cold,” said Grandma after Mama Akpan handed her a bottle.
Grandma pressed the bottle of Amstel Malt to her forehead.
“From the new fridge.” Mama Akpan gestured to the large white fridge occupying an entire corner of the kitchen, plugged in next to a generator. It sounded like a giant mosquito.
“You! Spending money!” Grandma teased. “No, tell me it isn’t true.”
“Ha. Well, I am old and I like cold Guinness. The other fridge was not reliable.”
Grandma rubbed her chin, and I knew she was thinking about the other fridge. I missed having a fridge.
“You can take the old fridge,” said Mama Akpan, as if she too could read Grandma’s thoughts.
“Thank you, my friend,” said Grandma.
She flung her arms around Mama Akpan and started performing a dance. Mama Akpan was very fat around the middle and made Grandma appear much thinner. I wondered if she too had been eating the fattening food. If Celestine had been here, there would have been no room for anything else in the kitchen. The two women jigged around as I laughed and danced on my own; there was no room to join in with them. But they grabbed me anyway and squashed me between their bodies.
After dancing, we ate. I had two bowls full but still Mama Akpan poked my middle.
“This one is so thin. What will her husband think?”
“She is skin and bone.”
“Send her to me. For three months before her wedding.”
I looked at Grandma. Grandma laughed. “Don’t mind her,” said Grandma. “It is only Efik girls who do that.”
I was relieved. I did not want to stay in bed for three months getting fat.
The fridge wasn’t the only thing that Grandma received from Mama Akpan. She sent her a mattress when she upgraded to a deluxe orthopedic model, which she told Grandma molded to her shape.
“You are so blow-up that any mattress would mold to your shape,” Grandma said, but she thanked her anyway, accepted the mattress, and laid it in Alhaji’s room. Then Mama Akpan sent over some cooking pots and two knives.
“Maybe she just feels it’s time she spent some of her money,” I said.
Grandma did not reply.
The fridge arrived just in time. Grandma rented a shop with a brick roof, but no door, thirty minutes from Alhaji’s on the road toward Warri. She installed the fridge, which was loud and deep. Mama Akpan gave Grandma money for drinks and rent, and a generator to power the fridge. Grandma filled the fridge with Star beer, and Harp, Malta, Sprite, Lemon Fanta. She did not advertise. There was no sign. She took the fold-up chairs from the makeshift mosque, sat down, and waited until the go-slow arrived. I hovered nearby like a butterfly around the hibiscus, watching the small bamboo and cane houses clinging to the other side of the road, and the women in front of them, washing big-bellied children in plastic bowls. The children cried but let themselves be scrubbed. Oil and rattan palm trees stood next to the mango trees, near the houses. When the women had finished scrubbing, they lifted the children from the bowls high into the air in order that they could reach up and take a fruit. In Lagos we had taken fruit from the fruit bowl, after asking Mama. I wondered what it would feel like to have Mama lift me to a tree.
We did not have to wait long.
“One Star beer and two Lemon Fanta,” a man shouted from his car window, and sent his small son out onto the road with some naira. The traffic was so slow that the drinks were finished and the bottles returned for their deposit before they had traveled ten feet.
The people in the next car noticed the bottles being returned. “Are they cold? If they are cold, I am taking four beers!”
Soon word of mouth had spread down the entire length of the go-slow. Grandma ran out of drinks. She had me write a sign on a piece of cardboard:
BEER FRIDGE. SOLD OUT. OPEN TOMORROW.
Grandma divided the naira into three piles. The medium-sized pile she put into her bag, which had the words “May the Lord Save Your Soul Samuel Dokubo” printed underneath a photo. The photographer had not done a very good job. Either that or the picture had been taken after the man had died.
Grandma kept the largest pile for Alhaji and gave the smallest pile to me. I held it tightly. It was the first money of my own that I had held. I waited for Grandma to shout with joy, to sing, or dance, to talk about how much money we had made. How we could return to school. I imagined Ezikiel’s face when we told him the news. But Grandma was silent as she folded up the chair, then unplugged the fridge.
“Tomorrow we will get more drinks,” she said as we walked along the
road, sidestepping the hawkers.
The next day the fridge was gone. Grandma must have seen, but she did not walk any quicker or say any words. Her feet moved as steady as always and she hummed. “The fridge,” I said. “Grandma, the fridge!”
I ran toward the space where the fridge had been. The empty space. “But we locked it. It was chained. How could it have been taken?”
Grandma stood in the space for a long time. She looked up and down the road. She looked at the sky. She closed her eyes. But she continued humming the same song.
“The fridge, Grandma,” I said. My voice was shaking. “Someone has stolen it! Should I run to the police?”
Grandma stopped humming and shook her head. She smiled. “They will be punished,” she said. “But not by the police.”
“Who then, Grandma? Why are you humming? It’s been stolen. The money we made yesterday.”
“It was a good business,” said Grandma. She sighed again. “I am sorry it has gone.”
I thought of what I would do. I was not attending school and the fridge had made me feel useful. I could help with money. Now there was no school and no fridge. What would I do all day?
Grandma took my hand and led me away.
“Grandma, are you not going to do anything? Tell anyone?”
“I will tell Alhaji.”
“But the police? They might catch them?”
Grandma shook her head. She began to hum again.
“Grandma, how can you sing? You do not seem to care.”
My voice was high, high, high. My eyes were full of tears. Why did Grandma not react?
Grandma smiled and squeezed my arm. “A bird does not change its feathers because the weather is bad,” she said.
We were hungry. All of us. Not just Ezikiel. After Celestine spent the food money on Lycra, and the fridge had been stolen, there was no more money at all. We had not paid school fees, but there was still no money. Despite Mama’s waitressing there was still not enough money to pay our school fees. The car was running out of gas, the kerosene lamps were running out of kerosene, and the food was just running out. We sat down most evenings in darkness, hungry. Giant sacks were only an inch deep of rice, the tops bending and folding down. There were no minerals: no Fanta, Coca-Cola, or ginger beer. When there was meat, it had to be fried, as it was turning bad. Grandma again tried frying some meat in palm oil, but the smoke became so strong she could not see for many hours. That is why, even though it was months from Eid, I watched my first death. Alhaji called Ezikiel, who ran to help, pulling the ram toward him. He held the ram’s head while Youseff held its body. Boneboy ran to help Ezikiel hold the head, as the ram was strong and twisting itself around. Boneboy looked grown up next to Ezikiel, despite being the same age as him. He had muscles at the tops of his arms. The ram seemed to know what was happening. It made a sound like an engine about to start. I felt like shouting “Stop,” but I was too hungry to feel sorry for it.
The knife made a clicking sound against the ram’s throat. Alhaji sliced and pulled as the ram twisted and turned. Its eyes were open wider than I had ever seen eyes open. I wanted to look away, but I could not. The ram’s legs skitted and slid on the ground. I wanted it to be over. Eventually the knife broke open the skin, tissue, bone. A hole appeared at the ram’s neck. Boneboy held its head tightly in his hands.
Grandma looked at me watching the ram. “When we kill a goat, we should be strong enough to kill a leopard,” she said.
I smiled. If I did not think about them too hard, Grandma’s words were beginning to make more sense.
Ezikiel looked away. Alhaji frowned. The blood overflowed from the ram as though it was too full up of its own blood. The ground changed color. I moved backward. The ram’s skin bubbled and popped. I looked at its face. Its eyes stayed open.
Preparing the ram for cooking was not easy. I burned off the skin and hairs with the help of Grandma, who laughed when I looked away from the blood.
“Get used to it,” she said.
Everything was used. Eyes, feet, tail, liver.
Grandma took out the intestines and gave them to me. They were long and thin and folded over so many times they reminded me of Mama’s necklace, which was always getting twisted into knots. I copied Grandma and squeezed them like a tube of toothpaste.
“That’s it, push the shit.”
“Disgusting,” I said.
“Only if you don’t push it all, and eat the shit, eh?”
When we had finished, the empty intestines were boiled, then fried in groundnut oil. They sizzled and a delicious smell filled my nose.
“Call everyone!” shouted Grandma. “Celestine, Celestine.”
The ram was cooking on the fire and Grandma stood behind it, smiling. Alhaji and Mama and I went running to Grandma.
“Where is Celestine? Ezikiel!” Grandma shouted. “I have found a good job for her,” Grandma told Alhaji. “Mama Akpan knows someone.”
“Excellent,” he said.
A job for Celestine! That is why the stolen fridge did not worry Grandma too much. I thought of Ezikiel. School fees.
Alhaji seemed surprised. I wondered if the surprise was from Grandma doing as Alhaji had asked or from Celestine having a job.
“As a mourner,” said Grandma.
Alhaji said nothing for a few more seconds. A mosquito buzzed close to my ear, but I did not flick it away. I wanted to hear all of Alhaji’s reaction.
“A town mourner,” continued Grandma. “Funerals are very big business these days. All this warring and diseases. All these poisons from the oil companies.” She sighed. “Funerals are good business to work in.”
Warring and diseases and funerals!
Alhaji started to nod his head, slowly at first, then faster and faster, flicking his head back and forth until he was making such large nods that his neck must have hurt.
“Yes,” he said. “A Professional Town Mourner. It is an important job, you see? An executive position! It is a suitable job for the junior wife of Alhaji! Celestine, where are you, Celestine?” Alhaji called. She came running from the boys’ quarters. “I have found you a very important position. A very important job. You will be helping people beyond help. Doing good when no more good can be done. It is an extremely important position. You will become a Professional Town Mourner!”
Celestine stood up and held Alhaji’s hands. Her eyes shone. She looked at Grandma and smiled enough to show her rotten back teeth. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you.” Celestine started dancing, wiggling her body in a winding movement. Her body moved easily between Grandma and Alhaji, but they both stepped back anyway. Then she shouted.
At first it was a low cry. Celestine threw her head back and increased the volume until Alhaji put his hand out to stop her. Grandma and I covered our ears. Celestine stopped the shrieking but continued to dance and made a noise, a fast clucking, so high-pitched that the rams ran toward the gate. Even Snap flattened his ears and moved behind the outhouse.
Ezikiel came running out of the house, carrying a textbook. I had not seen him run that fast since Father came home with tickets for a Stationery Stores football game in Lagos. He stopped in front of Celestine. “What’s happening?” he asked, looking at us all. “Who has died?”
“She has a job,” shouted Alhaji above the clucking.
Celestine stopped and took a large breath; her breasts inflated like two balloons. She wiped the sweat from her head and smiled.
“I am Professional Town Mourner,” she said and started dancing again. We all laughed. Alhaji brought out his radio and turned on some highlife music, and we danced around the garden until the meat was cooked. Even Alhaji danced. He moved quickly, shaking his head from side to side, and he did not shout at us when we laughed at him. Celestine wailed to the music, her voice getting higher and higher until Grandma said that she should stop before the glasses smashed.
Mama laughed. It was the first time in so long that Mama had laughed. The sound of Mama laughing made us all laugh.
We ate the ram straight from the fire, with no bowls or spoons, and we drank Fanta that Grandma had kept hidden in her bedroom. Ezikiel closed his eyes as he ate. I could not remember the last time he had eaten meat. He made a small humming sound and filled his stomach until his trouser button popped open. We all laughed again.
Ezikiel could not stop smiling. “School,” he kept saying. “Back to school!”
Alhaji patted his back and laughed. “The best student.”
After dinner Grandma was called away by a boy’s voice coming from the Christian field. “Mama Timi! Mama Timi!” Grandma rushed into the house and came back out carrying the bag. I looked at the bag and felt my cheeks get hot. But Grandma did not notice. She was picking a piece of meat and wrapping it in paper. She cannot have been a butcher. Who ever heard of a butcher taking meat to work?
Grandma walked quickly to the back of the house, toward the river. Where could she be going?
I looked at Ezikiel, but I did not dare ask him about Grandma in case he laughed at me again. And I did not want to spoil his mood. It was the first time in days he had looked happy. Ezikiel and I mixed a paste from the semicongealed blood and ground-dirt. We wanted to make play-dough models of ourselves and Mama; it held together well enough for us to make two figures holding hands, but then it became too gloopy to make any more. I watched the two stick men for a long time until one of them melted to nothing but the hand, which seemed to be reaching up from the earth.
• • •
When Grandma returned late in the night, we were all still awake sitting around the fire. Grandma sat down on the veranda, next to a lamp. Fireflies were flashing in the air around her head.
“Come,” she shouted.
All of us went to Grandma. It was the time of late night when she told her stories, and Ezikiel, Boneboy, and I sat down near her feet. Boneboy wore Snap wrapped around his shoulders like a yellow gold necklace. Youseff’s children sat farther back, in the shadows. “No, no,” said Grandma. “This story is only for Blessing.”
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away Page 10