Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

by Christie Watson

  “Don’t mind him, he will be fine,” she said. “He knows what a bloody stupid woman she is …”

  “No, Grandma, not Alhaji. I was hoping to talk to you about the birth. And the woman who asked you to cut the baby girl. About cutting.”

  Grandma stopped talking and lay down next to me on the mattress. She turned her face to mine and turned my face to her. “I have told you plenty about cutting,” she said. “That part of your training is finished.”

  “I know, Grandma.” I lifted my stomach as high as it would go and pressed hard. “But I wanted to ask if you did cut her. The baby, I mean.”

  Surely Grandma would say no and I could start letting myself think again. My head would stop spinning around and around.

  Grandma kept her face perfectly still. Even her eyebrows stayed level. “I cannot lie to you,” she said. “It is the old way. All the girls used to have it, but now it is only a few. And I am an old traditional birth attendant. These choices are hard to understand, why women make these choices. Why we must also make choices as birth attendants. But I make my own choices, and I have my own reasons. It is not done much now. But, yes, I did perform cutting.”

  My hand flew to my mouth so quickly it caused a smacking sound. “But you told me it is most of the village girls, Grandma. You said eight girls out of ten would still have it done.” I paused and tried to keep my face as still as Grandma’s. I could feel my eyebrows moving all over the place. “Why would you do that? Cutting girls?”

  “I did perform cutting,” said Grandma. “And now only sometimes mild cutting. And some of my friends do it, other birth attendants. Only the type-one or mainly type-two. Just a scratch to show it has been done. Many years ago it was normal. Everyone did it. Anyway, type-three is the real problem and nobody does that here.”

  “What about the infections and the problems they have? The problems we see, that you have shown me? The girls with type-one and type-two cutting still have problems.”

  “People still do it. And they know the problems. Sometimes problems can seem so terrible until you hear about other problems. And type-one is like boys.”

  “What do you mean, Grandma? You told me that cutting is not like boys!” I could feel my cheeks getting hotter and hotter and hotter. “You said cutting girls was not like taking the spare skin from the end of a penis. You said it was more like cutting the penis off itself!”

  Grandma sighed. I had never heard her sigh that loudly before. “I understand why you feel angry. But it is complicated. If the problem is risk of death and trouble with childbirth, that is bad. But sometimes problems for those people will be worse if the girls are left. The girls and their families can be thrown from a village. I have seen it. They will not marry. They will starve to death.”

  “Why do they throw the girls out?”

  “It is complicated,” she said again. “And you will have to make decisions of your own, for your own reasons. This is the job.” Her eyebrows stayed exactly still.

  I did not understand Grandma’s words. I watched her face closely. There was no decision waiting to be made in my head. I would never cut a girl.

  “I will never cut a girl,” I said.

  One of Grandma’s eyebrows moved all the way up her forehead. “Sometimes even if you think something is wrong, it must be done. A scratch from me is better than being butchered by another attendant. Some things you cannot stop happening.”

  I heard Grandma’s words but I still did not understand. Some things you cannot stop happening? The words did not make sense. Of course you can stop your own hands.

  I looked at Grandma’s tiny hands.

  Then I looked at Grandma’s face, closely. She looked different. Her face had changed.

  “Grandma—”

  “No more questions,” she said. “An owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees the less it talks.”

  That evening Grandma called us around the fire. Youseff’s children sat in the dark on the outside of the circle. “Why do they always sit there?” I asked Grandma, who was on a stool.

  “They always sit on the outside,” she said.

  I sat next to Celestine, who had started coming to listen to Grandma’s stories with the twins on her lap. The twins did not listen at all, but Celestine was listening to every word. I had stopped saving a space next to me for Ezikiel. He never came to listen to Grandma’s stories anymore.

  Grandma passed around a piece of sugarcane to each of us. We began to tear and chew and suck. When the noises from each mouth became quieter, Grandma began speaking in Izon. I had heard Grandma tell Alhaji she did not mind speaking in English, but only Izon would do for her stories.

  “Grasshopper and Toad appeared to be good friends. People always saw them together.”

  Grandma looked at me. Celestine flicked her head from me to Grandma and back to me.

  “But they had never eaten a meal together,” continued Grandma. “One day Toad said to Grasshopper, ‘Dear friend, tomorrow come and dine at my house. My wife will cook and we will eat together.’ The next day Grasshopper arrived at Toad’s house. Before sitting down to eat, Toad washed his forelegs and asked Grasshopper to wash his. Grasshopper made a very loud noise.”

  Grandma also made a very loud noise. We all jumped. I nearly fell into the lap of one of Youseff’s daughters.

  “ ‘Friend grasshopper, can you leave your chirping behind? I cannot eat with such a noise,’ said Toad. Grasshopper tried to eat without rubbing his forelegs together, but it was impossible. Every time he chirped, Toad complained and told him to be quiet. Grasshopper was so angry he could not eat. Finally he said to Toad, ‘I’ll invite you to my house to eat tomorrow.’ ”

  Celestine leaned forward. She smiled at me. “This better than a DVD,” she said.

  “The next day Toad arrived at Grasshopper’s house. As soon as the meal was ready, Grasshopper washed his forelegs and invited Toad to do the same. Toad washed his forelegs and hopped over to the food.

  “ ‘You need to wash again,’ said Grasshopper. ‘All the hopping in the dirt has made you dirty again.’ Toad hopped back to the jar and washed again. But the same thing happened. When Toad reached for the food, Grasshopper stopped him. ‘Don’t put your dirty hands in the food.’ ”

  We all started laughing. Grandma had the funniest grasshopper voice. When we stopped laughing she continued. The moon had sunk low down and was behind Grandma’s head, lighting her up like a lamp. “Toad was furious. ‘You don’t want me to eat with you. You know I use my forelegs for hopping around. I cannot help it if they get dirty.’

  “Grasshopper also shouted. ‘You started it. You know I cannot rub my forelegs together without making any noise.’ ” Grandma lifted her face as high as the moon. “From that day on they could no longer be friends.”

  Everyone began to talk, but I could see from Grandma’s face that she had not finished yet. We all fell silent again.

  “But they missed each other too much,” she continued. “So they accepted each other and lived side by side. Grasshopper never tried to make Toad understand why his legs made noise. And Toad never tried to make Grasshopper know why he hopped. Sometimes things were the way they were. They lived happily ever after.”

  Everyone was surprised to hear the end of Grandma’s story. Her stories hardly ever had a happy ending.

  Everyone was surprised except me. I smiled. Sometimes Grandma explained things so that I really understood. I knew that I would never cut a girl. And I knew that Grandma knew it too.

  The day Alhaji started his new job he could not eat his breakfast. Every time the spoon of egg went toward his mouth it was pushed away with his words.

  “This management position at the Western Oil Company, it is an essential role, you see?” He was wearing a gray suit and a blue-and-purple-striped tie. His buttons were done up tightly and his loose neck skin was hanging over the top.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. Alhaji looked different. Shiny.

  “I might be home
late. Very late. And you will have to be a good girl and wait for me. You see?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And even though you will miss Alhaji, just remember when payday comes, Alhaji will buy you some sweeties from the market, and even a jewelry. Maybe a watch. Imagine that, a watch of your own.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I looked at my wrist and tried to imagine it covered by a watch. I wondered what it would feel like to know the time again.

  Alhaji paused long enough to put the spoon near his mouth but swallowed the egg in one gulp. “And there will be fuel for the generator. So that we can have light. And with the second paycheck I will buy a television.” He paused. I thought of the generator, which Dan had left for us. I wondered if Dan would bring us more fuel. Alhaji straightened his back and straightened his tie. “But money is not the most important thing, you see?” I nodded.

  “I will be preserving the environment by teaching my less polluting methods of oil refining. No more gases burned into our air. The crops will grow. And the black bark of the avocado pear tree, which is very worrying indeed, will disappear!”

  Alhaji swelled in size like a ball of pounded yam in sauce. He made a tiny clicking noise at the back of his throat. He touched my hand.

  A week later it was all over. Dan paced the veranda. Alhaji had shrunk back to his usual size and was sitting in the rocker with his head in his hands. I was cooking on the fire outside, stirring the stew pot with a long ladle, adding palm oil and salt and Maggi cube, tasting, then adding palm oil and salt and Maggi cube.

  “I didn’t know, sir. I’m so sorry!”

  “It is an outrage, you see? A bloody outrage!” Alhaji stood, knocking over the rocker so that it lay on the floor with its legs sticking up.

  “Honestly, I’m as disgusted as you, sir. I can’t believe that this kind of thing actually goes on.”

  “Ghost worker! Alhaji! What do they think, that they can put me at a desk and give me bloody biscuits! Say you are free to play the computer games, surf the Internet, like I am a boy. I am nearly sixty years old and a Petroleum Engineer. A specialist …”

  “I really can’t believe it goes on, sir.” Dan was walking up and down quickly. It was difficult to see his face. He did not slow his walk at all, even when Mama came out of the house wearing only a wrapper tied underneath her armpits.

  “It’s disgusting,” said Mama. “This country. Treating local men as children, patronizing them with imaginary jobs. What an insult.”

  Alhaji looked at Mama. “What are you wearing? You think you can wear this thing in my house, behave like town prostitute?” He walked toward her. His hand was high in the air. I dropped the ladle into the stew, causing splashes of sauce to jump out and burn my arm.

  “Don’t raise your hand to me!” Mama moved backward. “I didn’t cause this problem. I’m on your side, in case you’d forgotten.”

  Alhaji lowered his hand. He turned around and looked at Dan. “You found me the position,” he said. “You had a good laugh at Alhaji. Get him a false job, let them pay him off. Ha! I imagine what you say to your friends. Sleep with his daughter, then take his pride. Even try and sleep with his junior wife. All that bridewealth wasted and now no employment!”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I really had no idea, I can assure you.”

  “Assure me. Assure me. You could not afford to assure me. I am worth more than your money!”

  Dan stopped pacing. “Um, sir, I really don’t think—”

  “You do not think. You even admit it yourself, you do not think. Well, Alhaji is not a ghost worker. Alhaji is alive! A living worker. They can keep their ghost-worker job.”

  Alhaji sat down on the rocker and put his head back into his hands. “You see?”

  Grandma called me over to where she was sitting on the veranda. Mama Akpan had given Grandma her old gold-plated Marks & Spencer jewelry, which Grandma wore all at the same time in case anyone decided to steal it. She sparkled and shone and lit up as I walked nearer, as if she herself were gold plated.

  “There are two births,” said Grandma, breaking my thoughts. “You do one, I do one.”

  “What do you mean?” My heart was running fast on hot ground.

  “There are two different village births.” Grandma opened her birth bag and separated the contents. “Only one Grandma.” She laughed. “You have to go on your own.” She put some of the contents into my own birth bag.

  I felt my skin shine.

  I found Mama frying plantains on the outside fire. She had a pile of plantains by her feet. They were almost completely black, which is when Mama always said they tasted the sweetest. “Mama, can I ask you something?”

  Mama did not look up from the frying pan. “Yes, Blessing. What is it?”

  “I wanted to ask your permission.” I paused, listening to the sounds of bubbling oil. “To attend a birth.”

  Mama looked up suddenly. Her eyes looked at mine, flicking from one to the other. The frown between her eyebrows became deeper. “Uh, um, I …”

  Mama could not speak. She did not know how to answer me. I felt something, a taste in my mouth that had never been there before. Mama did not know what to say, and I did.

  “I want to train, Mama. More than anything. And I will not go without your permission.”

  “Um, I … maybe, but um, you should be careful, I, uh …”

  “Thank you, Mama.” I stood up and walked near to her, and suddenly found a courage that I never realized I had. I reached my arm and touched her shoulder. It was sharp. “Thank you, Mama.” As I walked away, I felt Mama watching my back. It felt good.

  The village was far into the mangrove creeks. I climbed into the waiting dugout canoe and closed my eyes. I did not want to see any boats full of boys carrying rifles and wearing necklaces of bullets.

  The tiny village had only four huts, but dozens of small children were playing football outside them. “Sweet pen,” they shouted as I arrived, “sweet pen,” as if I were a white girl or they somehow knew about Dan.

  I entered a mud-and-thatch hut, dark and smoky inside. The girl, Nyengiebi, was alone and on her knees, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the ground. She smiled at me, but still, fear entered my belly. What if the baby’s shoulder got stuck?

  “Sister,” she said. I was relieved. I was shaking as I opened my bag and tried to hide it from the eyes of Nyengiebi by turning my back to her. When the knife, scalpel, clamp, herbs, and pastes were out of the bag and set out on the newly washed blanket, I stopped shaking and began an examination. First I rubbed my hands with the alcohol gel, which the hospital had given to Grandma. I pulled Nyengiebi’s wrapper up and pushed my fingers inside, as Grandma had shown me many times. I tried to imagine that Grandma was in the room, hear her voice. Do not be gentle. This woman is giving birth.

  “You are nearly ten centimeters,” I said, and tried to make my hand still in case I shook inside her. “Nearly time to push.” Nyengiebi nodded. Her other children were in the doorway, three, all girls. I thanked God and Allah and the Ancestors that the woman had given birth before and her body knew what to do.

  The next contraction came suddenly with no buildup. Nyengiebi grabbed me and dug her nails into my flesh.

  “Push now,” I said and held her tightly. I felt the baby’s head crowning, pushing against my hand. “The head is there. Now stop pushing and pant. Like this.” The words came easily from my mouth. I knew exactly what to say. I knew exactly what to do. I showed her, by breathing quickly until my head felt light. I slipped my fingers around the baby’s neck and pressed softly. No cord. “Good, the baby is nearly ready to come. On the next contraction I want you to push hard and hold the push as long as you can.” Nyengiebi nodded and took some long breaths. The contraction came quickly, her stomach turned as hard as bone. She pushed, gritting her teeth. The veins in her neck bulged and her eyes popped outward. A scraping noise came from her mouth. I prayed. Don’t let the shoulder get stuck, don’t let the shoulder get stuck. The baby came out qu
ickly, and I had to catch it like a football. I put the baby straight onto Nyengiebi’s chest and wiped the white stickiness from his face.

  “A boy,” I said. The children at the doorway jumped into the air and ran out. Nyengiebi lifted her head to look at her son, as I cut the cord and started the next stage, tugging the placenta. It took a long time, but it eventually fell out. I examined it carefully for tears, to check none had been left inside. I put it in a small bag and left it at the side of the room. Then I took the baby and wrapped him in a piece of cloth, before attaching him to Nyengiebi’s breast. I stayed with her for many hours, until we had all stopped shaking. She had lost the front of one of her teeth. It had chipped off when she pushed him out.

  “It always happens,” she said, opening her mouth. Four of her teeth were chipped in a similar way.

  She looked closely at her son, examining his toes and fingers. “Did you ever see such a beautiful boy?” she asked.

  “No,” I lied. The boy’s head was a strange shape and his eyes were close together. But I could see how beautiful he was to his mother, who kept smiling and making tiny sounds in the back of her nose. I stayed for longer than I had to. Eventually I stood and smiled at Nyengiebi before leaving. The husband was waiting outside with a bag full of river fish and a bottle of freshly tapped palm wine. I took my gifts and stood a little bit taller. It was almost as if I had grown a few inches in a few hours. But that was impossible. I looked at my hands for a long time. My own hands. I smiled.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Ezikiel, Grandma, Alhaji, Celestine, Blessing! Are you there? Gather up, everyone! There’s some news. Quick!” Mama shouted as she came out of the house with Dan, pulling his hand and making it appear as though she was dragging him like a small child. It was the afternoon and we were full of river fish, relaxing with swollen bellies in the heat. We all looked up, except Ezikiel, who looked toward the gate. “We have some great news.” Tiny crinkles had appeared at the corner of Mama’s eyes. “Ezikiel,” she said. He looked at her and tutted. Dan came out from behind Mama and stood next to her, pushing his arm into hers. He was smiling, but he smiled all the time, so I could not tell whether he was happy or not. They stood smiling for some time, while I held my breath. A bitter taste settled on my tongue. I tried to swallow, but the spit in my mouth did not want to travel.