Tombra was surrounded by women. It was difficult to get through. Grandma clapped her hands and said “Out,” and they moved to the sides of the house. I could see at once that Tombra was ready to push; her arms and legs were shaking. She vomited. A bowl of soapy water and a rag appeared. Grandma stood at the back of the room with another woman. “She is training,” she said in Izon. “I am just here to watch.”
I picked up the rag and mopped up the vomit. “Hello, Tombra.” My voice sounded so young. Surely Tombra could see that I was only twelve years old. Surely she could see my child’s body. How could she accept me as a midwife?
“I need to push.”
“That is good. Let me examine you.” I looked over at Grandma, who nodded her head and smiled. I washed my hands in the bowl and picked out a clean cloth. I washed Tombra. She had shaved off her hair; all that remained were tiny scratchy hairs that reminded me of Father’s chin. I pushed my fingers inside her. The baby’s head pressed on my hand straightaway. I could feel the baby’s thick curls. “He or she has lots of hair,” I said. Tombra smiled. Then as quickly as she smiled she screamed. “Now get ready,” I said. “Get ready to push.” I gently held the baby’s head. “Now push.”
Tombra screamed again and moved her head down onto her chest. She gritted her teeth. As the baby’s head came toward the world I swept my hands around the neck. “No cord, good.” Grandma was watching me and smiling. Her eyes lay on my head like a scarf. “Now pant, stop pushing. Now gently give a small push.”
Tombra pushed. The veins in her neck swelled into shapes. A fish, a circle, a knife.
She screamed the noise that I heard only at that time, when a woman was pushing a baby’s head out. It was a noise from another, older world.
The head arrived. The baby was deep blue. Its lips were white. It had a tiny nose and puffy cheeks. Beautiful. I could hardly stop myself from crying. I looked over at Grandma.
She had stopped smiling. She nodded. “Good, Blessing. Now quickly.”
“I need you to do a last big push,” I said. Tombra balanced on her elbows. She took a large breath. She pushed so hard her private parts swelled up and out, spilling over my hands. Shit fell out of her. I cleaned it up quickly. The baby did not come. I put my hand around the baby’s neck and head. “Another,” I said. She pushed again. Still, the baby’s body did not come. Sweat or tears fell down my face. I looked at Grandma. She was standing still watching. “I need help,” I whispered.
“I am here to watch,” she said.
“Push again. Push as hard as you can.”
Tombra pushed and pushed. Everything fell out of her but the baby. The baby’s face was changing. The blue was getting paler and paler. I pushed my fingers inside Tombra, as far as they would reach. “The shoulder is behind her pelvis,” I said. “Grandma, I need help.” The heat of the room was making my head light. “Please, Grandma.”
“I am just here to watch,” said Grandma. “This is how it is done. How will you learn?”
I squeezed my hand around the baby’s back. “Now push. Push as hard as possible!”
I pulled and pulled. Tombra pushed and pushed. Still the baby remained.
“I can’t go on,” said Tombra. She vomited again. The sick fell between her breasts, which were oozing. The smell of the sick and milk and the heat of the room made me want to run. I felt tears drip from my eyes onto my arms. Grandma was beside me.
“Stop.” She wiped my face of tears. “Now I am here. I am just watching. Not helping. You know what to do.”
“The baby’s shoulder is stuck,” I said. “I remember. But I cannot do it.” I had sick in my mouth.
“Look at the baby’s color. This baby needs to come out.”
Tombra moaned. Her head moved backward. Her eyes rolled upward until they looked completely white.
“Let me try cutting her,” I said.
“It is not the opening where the problem is,” said Grandma. “It is inside. The baby’s shoulder.”
“I cannot do it.”
“You have to. This is the job.”
“Is there nothing else?” I looked at Grandma. She was moving backward toward the wall.
“You can cut the mother’s pelvis or the baby’s shoulder. But quickly choose.”
The baby’s head between Tombra’s legs was turning paler and paler. I looked at Tombra’s pelvis. I could not cut through a woman. I looked at the baby. I could not cut through a baby. “I cannot choose.”
“I am not choosing for you. You are attending this birth. You are in charge. This is the job. These choices are the job. Can you do the job, Blessing? Are you strong enough?”
I pushed my fear deep into my belly. I held it there, clenching my muscles. I can do it, I told myself. I can do this.
“Tombra, I need to break the baby’s collarbone. If I don’t do this then the baby will die.”
Tombra screamed. “No! No! Cut me open! Cut me open instead! Cut me!”
I looked at Grandma. “Quickly,” she said.
I lay Tombra flat on the ground. I pushed her knees to her chest one last time. I pulled and pulled, but still the baby did not move. I put Tombra’s knees back down.
“I will break the baby’s bone,” I said, “and you will both be fine. I promise.” My voice sounded calm, but my blood was so hot in my veins that I felt like exploding. Grandma had taught me what to do if the shoulder was stuck. She told me how a pair of small sharp scissors was enough to cut through a baby’s bone. I knew what to do, but it did not stop the feeling of sickness in my stomach and the pain in my head behind my eyes. I pushed all the feelings away and picked up the scissors.
I carefully moved them inside Tombra, holding the ends. I felt for the baby’s bone. The baby was turning paler and paler. I placed the scissors over the baby’s collarbone and pressed the flesh around it away with my fingers. I closed my eyes and took large breaths. Then I closed the scissors hard and as quickly as possible.
The bone snapped in my hand.
I pulled my hand out and put the scissors on the floor.
“Push!”
Tombra pushed. I pulled. The baby fell into my arms. Blood covered its body. Its arms and body were twisted around.
My lungs opened and I could breathe again. “A girl,” I said. “She is alive.”
I looked at the alive girl and the alive mother. I looked at my own hands. I felt something grow in my stomach that had never been there before. Something warm.
Grandma stood up, a smile completely covering her face. I stood by Grandma’s side and slipped my bloodied hand into hers.
TWENTY-FOUR
The next time Dan visited, Alhaji was ready for him. A pile of textbooks was balanced near his feet, and as the car pulled up to the gate, he picked up Quality Issues in Modern Petroleum Engineering and opened it. The edges of the book were curled like Celestine’s university certificate. “Alhaji, sir.” Dan walked toward us carrying a rucksack and wearing a baseball cap, which he did not remove, even when he bowed slightly.
Alhaji jumped up. He held the textbook firmly; his hands did not shake.
Dan turned to us. “Hello, Blessing and Grandma. How are you?”
Mama was in the bedroom applying more makeup in a natural way that she had said made her look as though she was not wearing any. When she heard Dan’s voice, she suddenly appeared and was wearing red lipstick after all. Some of it had escaped from her lips and coated her teeth. I made a small movement pointing to my own teeth and pretended to rub. But Mama scowled at me until I stopped. She had not been working that day, but she still wore her pencil skirt and blouse, with the front buttons loosened enough to show the strap of red underwear that matched her lipstick inching out. She kissed Dan on each cheek, leaving a large stain of red that made him look embarrassed. He smiled widely, showing his neat white slightly see-through teeth.
Dan put the rucksack down and opened the front compartment. He took out a small box and handed it to Mama. Their fingers touched for longer than
they needed to. The box was wrapped up with flowery paper and so much tape that it took Mama several minutes before she could open it. She looked more excited than I had seen her for a long time. Finally she managed to lift the top of the box for me to see two small diamond earrings. Mama loved diamonds, but she had never owned any before. Not real ones. I knew, just by looking at her face, that the diamonds were real. Her face lit up until it also sparkled. She turned the box slowly from one side to the other until more light from the earrings danced on her face.
She laughed. “Oh, Dan, you’ve spent too much,” she said but took them straight out, removed the large gold-plated hoops from her ears, and put the diamond studs in instead. She gave me the hoops, big enough to put my hands through, like bracelets. Then she touched the diamond earrings one at a time.
Dan reached into his rucksack and pulled out a chocolate bar for me, a makeup set for Celestine and Grandma, and a small book for Alhaji.
“New Practises in the Petroleum Industry.” Alhaji smiled. “Thank you. It will prove very useful.” He put the other textbook down.
“Where’s Ezikiel?” asked Dan, looking toward the house. “I’m beginning to think he’s avoiding me.”
Mama touched her earrings. She laughed too loudly, and for too long.
Ezikiel returned by lunchtime. “I’m hungry,” he said. His voice was quiet. My stomach relaxed. Then Dan gave Ezikiel his chocolate bar.
“What’s this?” Ezikiel asked, looking at the chocolate bar, which was clearly a chocolate bar. He turned it over and over in his hand.
“Just a small gift,” said Dan, smiling. “It’s nothing, really, just thought you might fancy a bit of chocolate. And I hope you don’t mind, but your mother told me about the problems with school. I think I might be able to help. You know, get you in another school.”
Ezikiel turned the bar around again in his hands and slapped it on the table. Grandma was holding a pan of stew. She carefully put the pan on the ground.
“How dare you act that way?” Mama said. “Did I raise you to be ungrateful?”
Ezikiel looked at her for a long time. “You give me a chocolate bar? A chocolate bar? Offer to help me find a school. Well, instead of that, I’d prefer my country back, please.”
The words hung in the air long after they were said, like the smell of fish long after it was eaten. They moved back and forth in our ears.
Mama stood from her chair and leaned close to Ezikiel’s face. “How dare you,” she said. Her neck swelled as she spoke.
Dan pulled her back to sit in the chair, and smiled, but with his mouth closed, his lips stretching over his teeth, making them look even paler than usual. “Don’t worry,” he said. He raised his hands in front of him, stepped back. “I understand.”
Ezikiel laughed from deep inside his belly. I watched him to guess what he would do next, but I did not know. I could not read him anymore. There were no little clues. No scratching his cheek when he was about to ask something stupid, no leaning back in his chair when he was going to laugh, or hanging his head down when he was about to cry. There was no twitching of his right eye when he was lying, or sighing when he was thinking about Mama. There was no grinding his back teeth when he was worried, or swaying his shoulders when he was happy. He was perfectly still. I did not know my brother at all.
“What do you understand?” he asked, and before Mama could raise her hand to hit him, he stood.
Alhaji also stood and moved from leg to leg. He laughed quietly.
“You people come here”—Ezikiel slammed his fist onto the tabletop, making us all jump—“and take our women”—he looked at Mama—“and our money. And our jobs.” He looked at Alhaji. Nobody moved. “You pay people to kill us, and you rape our land, then our women! And you give me a chocolate bar?”
I held my breath until the back of my head fell. I had never heard Ezikiel speak that way to an adult. Mama would surely kill him. The words did not sound like Ezikiel’s. Where had they come from?
He stared at Dan’s face for what seemed like a long time until Dan’s skin became red and patchy and crisscrossed, then Ezikiel walked out, banging his arm on the door frame.
It was quiet for a long time. The kind of quiet where everyone was hoping for some noise.
“Well,” said Dan, still smiling. His skin was patterned.
“He’s angry.”
Mama could not speak, but she looked like she would explode at any time. She was holding her mouth closed tightly; her lips also appeared thin and colorless.
Alhaji burst into apology. “Sorry, sir. Ah! Speaking to you like this! I am most sorry, sir. Teenager, you see? Teenager.”
Celestine was wide-mouthed but with nothing to say. The quiet filled the air. Boneboy slipped away into the house. Eventually Grandma picked up the pot of stew, we all sat down one by one, and she spooned equal measures into our bowls. As she walked around us she had her eyebrows raised, and she said, “Hmm,” repeatedly until Mama stood up and left the veranda.
During the next days, I prayed five times a day for electricity to work the fan, but Allah did not hear me. Or he thought it was a stupid thing to pray for. Either way, it was too hot. Now that Dan was giving Mama money, we had plenty enough to buy electricity, if only NEPA was reliable. When the electricity did come on, I could never enjoy it, as I did not know how long it would last. Mama complained all the time. “This place is so backward,” she said. “It’s ridiculous to live for days without electricity—it’s like going back in time a hundred years.” She seemed very angry about the electricity. I thought she must have been used to it by then. I wondered if Dan would buy us a generator, and fuel. Maybe then Mama would smile again. I knew he must have given Mama money, as we had meat and fish almost every day, and not just the gristle bits. But Dan had not visited the compound since Ezikiel’s outburst, and Mama had not spoken to Ezikiel at all, even after Alhaji whipped him with the buckle of his belt and he called out to her. Even after he said he was sorry.
I spent most of my time rubbing Celestine’s shoulders as she made whimpering noises. She suffered the most. Her ankles puffed up, making her appear barefoot despite her flip-flops, her face and neck became one, and her back ached, which was caused by the size of her breasts. They had grown so impossibly large that the rest of her seemed smaller. She was clearly pregnant, at least six months, but nobody had mentioned it to me. Not even Grandma.
“Let me take a mineral,” she said between moans.
I ran to fetch a Fanta. The area under the table where Grandma kept the minerals was bare. I looked around but there were no drinks except the barrel of water.
“It has run out,” I said. I handed Celestine a cup of water.
“There are no more minerals. I do not have any left. Only beer. I need to go to market.” Grandma was frying unripe and ripe plantain on a small kerosene stove. The smoke made my eyes water. Mama did not say anything. She twirled her diamond earrings around and around.
Celestine looked at the water and sucked her teeth. “I can’t drink this.” She tipped the water onto the ground. It left a multicolored pattern. “This water will kill us,” she said, putting her hand over her enormous belly, “quicker than thirst.”
She turned her head and noticed Mama twirling her earrings. “In London,” she said in English, “them get restaurant McDonald for every street.” She rubbed her belly, making it wobble. “Better meat and french fries. Yum.”
Mama ignored Celestine. She looked down at her plantain and started to eat.
“When you go there, you go chop plenty hamburger. Then you can get better shape. No more skinny branch! No more lenge lenge!”
“Who is going there?” asked Grandma, rushing over, the plantain pan still in her hand.
“Not me,” said Mama. “I’ve no plans to go to London.” She continued to eat but smiled at Celestine, even though Celestine had called her a skinny branch.
“No be now,” said Celestine, jumping up and down and stretching her arms in the ai
r, “but if you marry Dam, you go do am.”
I switched my head to the side. Marry Dan! Surely Mama was only his girlfriend?
“Eh!” said Grandma. She looked at Celestine with wide-open eyes. “Who is marrying Dam?”
“That woman is crazy,” said Mama. She stood up and walked out of the kitchen with her plate of egg and plantain balanced on her arm. “Who’d want to leave here?”
After we had finished eating, Dan’s shining silver car arrived. It did not make much noise, but Mama heard it. She smiled suddenly and ran to the gate and opened his car door. He jumped out. He was wearing khaki shorts like a schoolboy. He waved at me. My hand lifted up and waved back at him before I could stop it.
“Hello, Blessing.”
As they walked toward the veranda, Mama let go of one of her earrings. She took Dan’s hand in hers. They held each other’s hands all the way to the veranda steps where I was sitting. I did not know what to do with my own hands. I folded them on my lap.
“Where is Alhaji? And the others?” Dan asked.
“They are in the house.” Mama pointed to the door with her face.
“Let me go and say hi.” Dan kissed Mama’s hand, then walked into the house.
I sat on the veranda next to Mama and looked at the car. I wondered if Dan would feel how hot and dark it was, and realize that we needed a generator. I wondered if Mama had told Dan that the generator for Grandma’s fridge was only hired and had to go back, as the fridge had been stolen. I wondered if Mama had mentioned Grandma’s fridge at all. Mama did not move away as I sat next to her and I was thinking about resting my head on her shoulder when the gate swung open again and Ezikiel walked toward us. Mama was smiling until he walked closer. “What’s wrong with you?” She looked at Ezikiel as he approached the veranda, twirling, spinning, laughing.
“Mama, my mama,” he said. He reached his arms out and rushed toward her. As he neared the veranda, he tripped and fell, banging his jaw. Instead of screaming in pain and complaining that his jaw might be broken and getting an asthma attack, he laughed. I looked at him. I felt Mama’s arm next to me become thinner and tighter. Her hair shrank again.
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away Page 21