The boy had been running fast and had to take some deep breaths before he could get a sentence out. All the time he was pointing behind him. I floated above myself, looking down. Everything seemed to be happening slowly.
“Ezikiel!” The boy gulped air in and held his stomach, bent forward like an old man. “Ezikiel has been burned.”
As we ran toward the gate, a group of boys came around the corner shouting. They were carrying Ezikiel high above their heads. He was screaming, like Twin One, maybe louder, and his voice sounded bubbly as if he was gargling water at the same time. A pressing at the back of my neck was so severe that my eyes could not see anything except a blurred picture.
As they approached, Grandma held the gate open and waved them quickly in. I wanted to help, but I could not move. My feet froze to the ground. I could not see Ezikiel, as he was held high in the air, but I could smell his burning. Burned skin, like suya that had been barbecued for too long and was beginning to turn black.
I remembered the explosion during the night. It went off in my head a second time.
EZIKIEL!
I closed my eyes and saw the mangrove smoke twisting in the air. I felt a mangrove twist around my head, its claws pushing into me.
The boys lowered Ezikiel under the palm tree. As his body touched the ground, he screamed loudly and they stepped back and almost fell into a heap on top of each other. They ran back to the gate. They did not speak or look at our faces. Then they were gone. I watched them run through the gap in the fence.
At first, I closed my eyes. Then I opened them. I could not recognize anything of my brother, except his tiny shoulder bullet wound that had turned black and burned against the rest of his skin, which had peeled away revealing pink and white underneath. He looked like an overstewed chicken. My heart continued to beat, just.
Ezikiel’s T-shirt was removed, but his trousers were stuck to his legs and were like an extra layer of skin. His face was swollen bigger than any allergy swelling I had ever seen. His skin stretched shiny. The beret was stuck to his head. A loud scream broke through the thick air. It was the loudest scream of all. It came from the sky, the trees, the earth.
Grandma spoke first. “Go and call his mother,” she said to the imam who was hovering by the gate. “Get a message to his father!”
Oh God! Oh Allah!
“Get the birth bag.”
I ran. I wanted to run and run, and never ever see my brother that way again. But I found the birth bag quickly and ran back. When I returned with the bag, Alhaji was also crying and screaming and kneeling next to Ezikiel. He had opened his Marmite and was scooping out large handfuls, trying to rub it onto Ezikiel’s head.
“The pot is not big enough,” shouted Alhaji. “The pot is not big enough.”
Grandma pulled out all the birth pastes and ashes. She handed some to me, and we covered Ezikiel as quickly as possible, making skin where there was none. I told my hands to work. It is not Ezikiel, I told them. It is a woman giving birth. Do the job.
Every time our hands touched the areas of his body with blisters, he screamed, and Celestine screamed. And every time we touched the blackened areas, Ezikiel made no sound at all.
Why did he not scream? Why did it not hurt him when we touched the worst parts?
Alhaji touched a large blister on Ezikiel’s chest. He screamed again.
“No, baby Ezikiel, no!” Celestine’s screams became louder until Ezikiel could no longer be heard.
“The pot is not big enough!” Alhaji scooped Marmite from the pot and rubbed it onto Ezikiel’s screaming body. The Marmite stayed on Alhaji’s fingers and did not stick to Ezikiel’s burned skin. Pieces of skin peeled away and stuck to Alhaji’s fingers instead.
Grandma pushed Alhaji out of the way and picked Ezikiel up in her arms. She was strong, but Ezikiel looked much too easy to pick, like bad fruit. “Start the car!” She ran toward the car and nodded at Youseff, who had already started the engine and opened the back door. They pushed Ezikiel screaming onto the backseat.
After the car drove quickly away, I dropped to my knees against the tree. Celestine wailed. Alhaji just sat in the same spot, holding the empty jar of Marmite in his hands.
THIRTY-TWO
Ezikiel did not come home that night, or the next, or the next. I prayed to everyone I could think of.
Alhaji patted my head as though I were Snap. He was holding his cosmetic case close to his chest, every now and then taking out a pot or packet and swallowing another tablet with no water. “A Sibeye Boy?” he kept asking. “A Sibeye Boy?”
I sat under the palm tree, picking up the red ground-dirt in clumps and rubbing it in my hands until they were raw and pink, like Ezikiel’s body. I closed my eyes for most of the day, and counted, because I did not know how else to measure time. I thought of Dan with a hood over his face, his legs twisted and dragging underneath him. I thought of Ezikiel with his skin peeling off. I was not allowed to visit Ezikiel. He was allowed only one visitor and that was always Mama. I took a breath every five seconds. One two three four breathe. One two three four breathe.
On the third day Mama returned from the hospital. Her hair was even more matted in clumps, her face makeupless. She smelled stale, like a wrapper left out during the rains. Her lips were cracked and blistered, and she had crescent moons of darkness underneath her eyes.
“Blessing,” she said and sat down next to me. Our shoulders touched. “My Ezikiel,” said Mama, and her shoulder shook so much that I could not help but put my arm around it. Then Mama started crying. She looked at me. One of her teardrops was so large that I felt certain I could see my own reflection in it. How much pain could a person suffer?
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Mama nodded and fell toward me. It felt strange holding Mama like she was the child and I was the adult. We stayed for many hours, until the insects began to sting. Darkness covered the garden like a blanket.
Grandma’s story that evening brought us all together. All except Ezikiel. We held the sugarcane in our hands. None of us could be bothered to chew or suck. Only one oil lamp was lit, but I could see Alhaji’s shadow at the other end of the veranda, and Celestine’s outside the boys’ quarters, and even Mama’s under the palm tree. Maybe they thought Grandma’s story would make them feel better.
“This garden is magic,” said Grandma, looking around the darkness. “When I was born with a hole where my nose and mouth should have been, my mother left me out to die. But the sun hid that day, and when night came the palm tree dripped water into my mouth.”
I looked at the palm tree and Mama’s shadow underneath it. I did not imagine it would drip water. But could the garden be magic? I listened carefully to Grandma’s words.
“And the water spirits came dancing around my head and gave me a cry loud enough to break my mother’s heart. I survived the night, and in the morning my mother could not take it anymore. She came out and picked me up and fought the rest of the compound who told her she was a lunatic. She thought she had saved me, but it was the garden. The garden brought the water spirits. Some things are more than we can understand.”
I looked around the garden, and the shadows, and the darkness, and I realized something was missing. Something other than Ezikiel. There were no fireflies. I suddenly knew what I had to do. What I could do.
Grandma opened her eyes and looked at me. One of the shadows moaned. I rocked back and forth. I looked around the garden. “Bring him home,” I whispered.
Grandma looked inside me through my eyes.
“Bring him home,” I said, in a voice that was not mine.
Grandma nodded and looked at the night sky. The rains were coming.
Ezikiel being gone made the house feel as though the roof was missing, or one of the walls had disappeared. Alhaji was sitting at the table, pretending to read the paper, and Grandma pretended to cook. Celestine pretended to read a magazine that Ezikiel had given her. Mama did not pretend. Her face was puffed up and her skin white
and dry. She looked older than Grandma. She went from whispering “Dan” to whispering “Ezikiel,” until they were almost the same person: DanEzikiel.
I sat next to Alhaji and took a deep breath. He was taking so many tablets by then that his words no longer made sense. Nobody mentioned it. It was quiet in the house; the broken clock, which ticked only every few seconds and had no hands, sounded as loud as a gunshot. It came at the end of every question. Could a person survive allergies, a shooting, and a fire? Bang! Could Ezikiel have had Dan kidnapped? Bang! Was it Mama’s fault that Ezikiel ran off with the Sibeye Boys? Bang! Was it my fault?
“What exactly happened?” I asked. “Tell me. What exactly happened?” My questions sounded like they came from another person. I had never asked questions of everyone before. But there was no fear in my voice. I was not afraid.
Boneboy lowered his head. He could not look at me.
“It was a pipeline thing,” Alhaji said quietly. The clock sounded even louder.
He opened his case and took out another painkiller, turned the page of the newspaper, and coughed.
“What caused it?” I asked.
Grandma stopped stirring the soup, Celestine looked up from the magazine, and Alhaji lifted the paper over his face; I could not even see the top of his head. I waited.
“It was Ezikiel,” said Grandma eventually. “Joining that gang of Sibeye Boys. Over twenty boys in hospital now. Breaking a pipeline. An explosion like that. Imagine.”
“If he had joined the proper FFIN, this would not have happened. He could still fight the oil companies and the politicians. We need to stand together as a nation—”
“What happened?” I repeated. “What exactly caused the fire?”
Everyone bowed their heads.
“What happened? Please. I need to know the truth. Why did Ezikiel join those boys? Did he really cause the fire? Ezikiel?”
Nobody spoke.
I looked at Alhaji. “Izon means truth,” I said.
“Ezikiel caused the fire,” said Mama. “But it was an accident. He split the pipeline on purpose but he didn’t expect it would cause the explosion! Really, it is my fault.” Mama was crying. “I disowned him. I disowned him for telling the Sibeye Boys that Dan was here. All he did was give some information and I disowned him. He went off because of me. It’s my fault! But I was so angry. What they do. What they could do to Dan. Is he safe? They will hurt him.” Mama shook. “They will hurt Dan and Ezikiel is in hospital and it’s all my fault.”
“It is not your fault, Mama.” I went over to her and knelt down. She was shaking and crying.
“My own son! I disowned him. And now he’s, he’s …”
“It was not your fault,” said Alhaji. “We are all to blame.” Alhaji’s words were not slurred. He was sitting upright and looking at Mama. “If I had returned him to school more quickly,” he said.
“No!” said Mama. “I was so wrapped up in Dan that I didn’t see it coming.” She paused and I could see Dan’s face written on hers. My stomach twisted. Was Dan alive? Was he safe?
“He’d been acting strangely since the shooting,” said Mama. “It’s all my fault! Dan would be safe if not for me. What have I done? I have been a terrible wife, and I have been a terrible mother. A terrible mother!”
Grandma stood up suddenly. “A child who has no mother will have no scars on his back,” she said. And she walked over to Mama and pulled her into her arms.
• • •
Mama was on the veranda with Grandma and Alhaji. She had been at the hospital all day and returned to speak quietly with the family. None of them had spoken to me. Not even Grandma.
“Bring the boy home,” said Grandma.
“What?” asked Mama, her voice shaky but loud.
“Bring the boy home.”
“You can’t do that,” said Alhaji, laughing slightly. “He’s in the best hospital, he needs the treatment.”
“Bring him home!” Grandma shouted above the rifle fire and the background shouting, which was happening every day. I did not have the energy to care about the fighting. Let them kill each other. Let them kill us.
“He cannot come home,” Alhaji repeated. “The hospital and doctors are what the boy needs. He will get better. He needs medicine. Medicines will cure anything. Prevention is better, but cure is possible. You see?”
“Listen to me,” said Grandma in a clear and loud voice. “I have looked after you my whole life. Cooked, cleaned, given you a daughter and nearly died. I have raised your second wife, and even her children, as my own. I have given you my life at your feet.” I imagined Grandma standing in front of Alhaji, her hands on her hips. “I am asking you this. Bring the boy home.”
There was quiet for a few minutes. I had prayed to God and Allah. I had prayed to the water spirits. I had spoken to our Ancestors, Yoruba and Ijaw. Someone must have heard me. Please, please let Ezikiel come home.
“He cannot come home. Imagine what will happen,” said Alhaji. “It is not safe to move him.”
“Bring the boy home,” shouted Grandma. The rifle fire coming closer to the compound sounded like laughter. The shouting was nearer and nearer.
“Eh! Is that our neighbor?” Grandma’s voice was louder than the rifle fire. It stopped briefly but then started again. “Put your guns down,” Grandma shouted. “Our husband is kidnapped! Our son is dying!”
My heart lifted into my mouth. The words were out. The truth was hanging in the air and I wanted the lie back. The rifle fire was quiet. I could hear only the words that Grandma had spoken.
“Grandma is right,” Mama said. I sat up. “Ezikiel should come home. And Dan needs to come home,” she sobbed. “Bring Ezikiel back. For Blessing. Blessing needs him to come home. She needs to be with him when …”
I closed my ears and my eyes. Mama did love me, after all.
THIRTY-THREE
I was waiting under the palm tree when Ezikiel was carried home. I had made a comfortable bed from a mattress and two large blankets covered with a sheet to prevent the blankets from scratching Ezikiel’s body, where his skin used to be. Alhaji had bought back Ezikiel’s Encyclopaedia of Tropical Medicine from the market bookseller. I thought about bringing it out and reading to him, but there was a danger of him asking about burns or scars or infection. I need not have worried. When Ezikiel was carried over on a stretcher, lowered to the ground under the shade, I could see at once that he was beyond speaking.
He was in the place that women go to, when they are giving birth.
He was stretched, and shiny, and pale pink. Pieces of skin were hanging off his face. He smelled of Robb and antiseptic, mixed with something foul. He had a urine bag hanging down the side of his skinny leg, empty of anything but a tiny layer of bloody urine. His eyes were swollen shut. His chest rattled every time he took a breath, which was only once every five seconds or so. He was too weak to cough, but I tapped his chest anyway. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, to cut myself so the pain outside would numb my pain inside. I felt again like I was above us looking down. That it was unreal. I was hovering in the sky with Ezikiel. We were holding hands. I prayed only to the garden. Please, garden, if you are magic, let him live. I looked at Grandma on the veranda. She looked back at me.
“It’s me,” I whispered into Ezikiel’s ear. It had yellow pus dripping out of it like tree sap. “It’s me, Blessing.” He did not move, or breathe any less slowly, or try to open his stuck-shut eyes. I knew he could hear me. I lay under the palm tree looking up at the sky. I thought of Grandma as a baby lying underneath the same palm tree and being given life. I thought of Ezikiel fighting for his life. I thought of Allah, who gave, and who took.
Sometimes the sky is too blue, I thought.
Grandma ran to and from the herb garden, fetching muddy-colored pastes that she rubbed gently onto his body and face with a T-shirt that had been washed regularly for many years; it was soft. Alhaji crushed all his precious tablets into one bowl and mixed the powder with water. Ever
y so often he came over and put a drop into Ezikiel’s mouth. I stayed sitting by Ezikiel’s head the entire time, cleaning his mouth when the bloodstained spit leaked down his chin, and then rinsing the cloth in a bucket of river water. I did not drink a sip all day for fear that I would need to leave Ezikiel’s side to relieve myself. He might have been waiting for me to leave to save me some pain. He always tried to protect me from pain.
Mama rocked on the veranda, whispering, “Why me, why me, why me.” She could not look at Ezikiel. Her head moved in all directions. Celestine kept the twins away. Alhaji came out of the house and paced the veranda, saying, “The president will hear of this,” over and over again. His hands shook.
In the afternoon, after hours of hearing Ezikiel take his rattling five-second breaths, Mama came to us. She put her hand on my shoulder. Her hand was so cool against my hot skin that I jumped. Then she knelt by Ezikiel’s body and lay down next to him, curling around him like she used to every night before he was moved to Alhaji’s room. Before he became a Sibeye Boy.
I was about to move away and leave Mama to spend time with Ezikiel before she had to tell me to go, but she just pulled my arm and patted the floor on the other side of him. I was still unsure that I might have misread her thoughts until she pulled me down with her. We surrounded Ezikiel. For a short time, there were no holes around any of us. There was nothing missing. Not even Father. Mama held my hand on top of Ezikiel’s chest and squeezed tightly as his chest rose for the last time. She stopped shaking her head and looked straight at me. We counted to five. Then ten, then fifteen and twenty.
He was gone.
THIRTY-FOUR
That night we took it in turns to say good-bye. Grandma sobbed as she held Ezikiel first, kissing his bloody mouth. I could not look at her. She had been wrong about Ezikiel. The garden was not magic. It did not save him.
Celestine kissed the top of Ezikiel’s head. She did not make a single sound. Alhaji sat next to Ezikiel and rubbed some Marmite onto his chest, where his heart lay still and silent. “If you had just stayed away from those boys …” he started, but then he closed his mouth and put his ear to Ezikiel’s chest to check that his heart had not restarted. Alhaji cried and cried and cried and instead of wiping his tears or hiding his face, he let the water drip onto Ezikiel, and he pressed his own chest.
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away Page 29