Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

by Christie Watson

  Mama sobbed, holding Ezikiel to her as she shouted, “You are my son! You are my son! You are my son!”

  Finally, one by one everyone went into the house, leaving me sitting next to my brother. All my memories were mixed up with Ezikiel. There were none when I was alone. He had always protected me, taught me, and loved me. He was gone, and I was suddenly alone.

  I stayed for a long time. Even though night had fallen, the moon did not rise. The stars had finally appeared and were brighter than any I had ever seen. Even so, I could not find Ezikiel among them. The garden was still. There was no song from insects, no breeze, and no longer any smell. I looked at Ezikiel, already less swollen, more like his old face. His stuck-together eyes were beginning to open. They looked at me in surprise.

  “Good-bye, my brother,” I said. There was nothing else I could say. I did not have long. The water spirits were already dancing around his head, flashing like fireflies, and the ground was holding him down.

  The funeral happened the very next morning. Celestine wailed hard and loud, and the entire area knew within minutes and started organizing food and Tupperware. We walked behind her in a long line, with Alhaji and Youseff carrying Ezikiel’s body, covered by a sheet. We had dressed him in his Chelsea football shirt that said “Drogba” on the back. He had a newer shirt, but Father had given him the Drogba shirt, and Ezikiel said it was the best gift he ever had. Mama and I walked behind them. Grandma walked at the back, wailing as loudly as Celestine and stopping every few minutes to throw her body to the ground.

  People gathered. They also wailed and lowered their heads, following the procession, asking, “Who was it killed him?” loud enough for Mama to hear and bend over, clutching her empty stomach.

  I could not wail. I could not do anything except hold Mama up. She let herself be held up by me. Her arms and shoulders were cool and clammy, she slipped too often. I wished Dan was there to help hold her up. I had been wishing for Dan more and more. Since the explosion I had wanted Dan to be with Mama. I knew she would not survive losing Ezikiel. She would not survive. The only person she would continue to live for would be Dan. If Dan was killed, Mama would find a way to die. I could not lose Mama. I had lost Father, and Ezikiel, and now Mama was the only person left who knew everything about me. If I lost Mama I would lose myself, and I knew that the only person who could save her was Dan. I realized how much I needed her, loved her. I needed Dan to help her live.

  I wished for someone to hold me up. Suddenly someone was there. Boneboy had seen Mama slipping on my arm and had moved himself between us. We leaned on him. I let myself fall into him. He carried me. He carried us both.

  By the time we returned to the compound we had collected dozens of people, all of them quiet, as Celestine asked questions of Ezikiel.

  “Why did you die?” she shouted. “Why did you leave us behind?”

  We listened, each hearing our own answer. I had always believed that interrogating the dead seemed silly. Surely the dead could not answer any questions. But I found myself listening for Ezikiel’s voice. I listened harder than I had ever listened for anything.

  “What was the cause of your death?” She shouted so close to Ezikiel’s face, and so loudly that I was sure that he must have heard her.

  I closed my eyes. “Who killed you?” shouted Celestine. I opened my eyes and found that I was looking directly at Ezikiel’s hand. It looked shiny, like it was covered with oil.

  • • •

  Ezikiel was lowered into the ground next to Grandma’s herb garden, where he and I had found the old snakeskin so delicate we had to use twigs to touch it, or the heat from our fingertips would melt it to nothing.

  Alhaji got into the grave and turned Ezikiel’s head to the right to face Mecca. He lay on top of Ezikiel’s body. We waited a long time before he climbed out. We covered Ezikiel with ground-dirt and recited the Koran. I felt glad. Ezikiel liked the chanting, said it took him away from this world. And he looked happier in Alhaji’s makeshift mosque than he ever had in church. Before Ezikiel was covered in dirt, I leaned over the side of the grave and put his Encyclopaedia of Tropical Medicine underneath his hands. I leaned my body as far as I could to Ezikiel’s head, and I whispered something only he would be able to hear.

  Then it was quiet. The only noise I could hear came from inside my own body. My heart that beat and beat and beat.

  I looked at the ground, and at the dust next to Ezikiel. I did not want to see my brother inside the ground. I did not want the ground to hold him. My eyes ran. They ran across the compound to the gate. And suddenly, just like that, as if my eyes knew before I did, Father’s feet were there. Father’s feet.

  Father!

  The moment I had waited so long for had arrived. His shining office shoes. I did not dare lift my eyes in case they had it wrong. But Father’s were the only shoes I had ever seen that stayed black and shiny and clean of dust. The shoes were clean. Father’s shoes! My eyes moved upward. Father’s legs were walking in all directions. His shirt was hanging over his trousers.

  My eyes found Father’s face unshaven. His eyes were red and moving quickly around the compound. I looked at the ground, which held Ezikiel. Oh!

  “Father!” My voice jumped through the air. “Father!”

  I ran. I ran away from Mama, from Ezikiel inside the ground. My heart moved upward, into my neck, and crashed in my ears. I ran toward Father so quickly the dust rose up even before my feet.

  But as I ran, I could hear a voice. It sounded like Ezikiel’s voice. “Stop! Blessing, stop!”

  Father was not running toward me. His legs were wobbling underneath him. His back was bent low. Father was curled, like Snap.

  “Father,” I said, standing before him.

  It did not take me long to really see. In the time it took for the dust to settle back to the ground, I had seen that Father was so drunk that he could barely stand. I had seen the way his face was twisted and his mouth was curled and his fist was clenched.

  I had seen the woman at the gate. The other woman, whom Mama found Father lying on top of.

  She was holding her hands near her face, which was more beautiful than Mama’s, and ugly at the same time. The other woman had a round and soft body, with a long neck and smooth skin. But her face was sharp, and her small mouth looked like it had been held tightly shut for too long. Maybe she had just eaten agbalumo, Father’s favorite fruit. Ezikiel and I played stations with the seeds that Father saved for us.

  There will be no more Father saving seeds for us, I thought. Or playing stations.

  There will be no more Ezikiel and me.

  I prayed that Mama would notice the woman’s ugliness too.

  “My son! What have you done?”

  I let the ground come up and meet my knees. Father did not look at me at all. “Father,” I said. “Daddy. Baba.”

  He walked away from me and then lurched forward like he was reaching for a banknote on the ground. His hand found my face. Then my throat.

  Father’s skin remained cool even during the road-melting afternoon heat. I kept thinking of his skin, which was still cool, even as he squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and I felt air being pushed from my mouth until there was no more air. Until I could no longer feel Father’s cool skin.

  “Where is my son?” Father’s breath was full of palm wine. His eyes were looking but not seeing.

  He does not see me here, I thought; he thinks I am somebody else.

  “Blessing,” he spat.

  And all at once I remembered. Everything. Father was a loud man. When Father drank, Father hit Mama. Father hit Mama so hard he broke her nose, making her less beautiful than his other woman. He cut her skin with a broken bottle, giving her a train-track scar across her back. He held her by the throat.

  And now he held me by the throat.

  “Get off her!” Mama was screaming. “Get off her! Our son is in the ground! Our son is dead.” Mama fell to her knees and leaned toward Father’s shoes. “Please, plea
se, leave her, let her go.” Mama’s voice was far away. Or underwater. “You want to kill our daughter?” Mama’s voice was quieter and soft. I felt my eyes close. I was sinking.

  “Move away!” That voice was not soft. Grandma? No. It was a deep voice. A roar. A Big Man’s voice.

  “Move away and get out! You are not welcome here! Move away from our daughter!” The voice was louder than the loudspeaker and clear and sure. It made me open my eyes. Alhaji. Grandfather!

  Father’s hand loosened around me and the air went in. But I did not want to breathe it. I wished for his hand to remain and kill me. Kill me, and let me go with Ezikiel. I leaned my throat toward Father’s hand.

  Father snapped his hand away. I fell to the ground and tried to be held by it. But the ground did not have arms for me. My eyes were open.

  Alhaji stepped forward and pulled me back in a single move. His hands felt hot. He held my chin and moved my eyes upward to his, before moving my bottom lip downward with his thumb. Grandma and Celestine sat down beside me, and held me and rocked me as though they were one person. I could not tell whose arm was whose.

  “Our son is being buried. Our son. Our son. Your son!” Mama was screaming. She was pulling Father’s legs, grabbing him and the earth and the air. “I hate you!” Mama was shouting. “I hate you!”

  “Let’s go.” A voice came from the gate. A small-mouth voice. I could not look. I turned my head back to Ezikiel in the ground. “Let’s go home.”

  “What? You, what? My son is dead and you bring her?” Mama knelt up then, took a breath, and screamed. She beat Father’s chest with her fists. It sounded like somebody running. Alhaji put his hand on Mama’s shoulder, moved her backward.

  Father fell. His legs could no longer stay up.

  He began to laugh. His clothes smelled sour and I could see the stains on his trousers. My eyes were finally open. I looked again at Father’s shoes.

  Father’s shoes were not clean at all.

  I stayed underneath the palm tree for three days after the funeral, picking up clumps of ground-dirt, rubbing my hands together. Grandma and Celestine watched me from the veranda. Celestine was worried. I could hear her. But I could not respond. My head was full of oil. I felt like I was underwater. Like Father had his hand wrapped around my neck. I had to force my body to breathe.

  “If she does not improve we need to send her to the head doctor.”

  “She will be fine,” said Grandma.

  Celestine opened her mouth to say something, but then she shut it again.

  “The garden is magic,” said Grandma. “It will save her.”

  I suddenly looked up and dropped the ground-dirt. I looked at Grandma looking at me.

  The garden is magic.

  Grandma had not been talking about Ezikiel at all.

  On the fourth day Grandma picked me up from where I was sitting. My legs were numb from staying in the same position for so long. Grandma walked me over to the outhouse fence next to the herb garden, where Ezikiel was buried. She held me underneath my arms; I was a baby learning to walk.

  “Look.” She pointed to the ground.

  A dozen plants were standing, green and tall, with tiny buds of petals at the tops.

  “Roses,” I said. My voice sounded shaky and unsure.

  “Roses.”

  The roses were growing exactly where Ezikiel’s head would have been. They were not there at all five days ago. They had grown red and tall and proud and delicate all at the same time.

  I looked at them for a very long time. I held Grandma’s hand, leaned my head on her arm, and let my eyes cry.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “Sometimes, things fall apart,” said Grandma, “so we can put them together in a new way. It is time to make things right.” It was light, and the police, security forces, and press were arriving again, this time in cars with blacked-out, bulletproof windows. They had agreed to stay away for Ezikiel’s funeral, and the days afterward, but then, as they returned, there seemed to be more of them. I wanted to hide in the bedroom but it was much too hot. Dan had been gone for nearly two weeks. At first I had not cared. But after Ezikiel died, after Father had arrived at the funeral, Mama became less and less every day until she was like a shadow, or a gap where Mama had once been. I knew that Dan would save Mama. After Father had left, someone had to save her. I knew that Dan could. Somehow, I just knew. Dan was my last hope.

  Later, the whole compound was full of tall men wearing sunglasses that covered most of their faces. They drank tea made by Celestine, who wound her way in and out of the men and reminded me of a brightly colored bird that Dan had once pointed to. I had never noticed a bird so bright before.

  The men asked questions over and over and over to the gap where Mama had been:

  “Did Dan give any indication that he was concerned?”

  “Did he mention seeing or meeting anyone acting strangely?”

  “Did he mention being followed?”

  “How many guests attended?”

  “Is there involvement with the Sibeye Boys from anyone who attended the wedding?”

  Mama had no words anymore. She looked far away, like the crazy women Ezikiel and I used to watch gathering on Bar Beach and praying to the sea.

  I kept thinking of Father’s shoes.

  Grandma watched Mama and held me close. “Hide your face,” she said. “I do not want them asking you anything.” I pushed my face into Grandma’s arm. I could have stayed there forever. I felt nothing. Empty.

  Ezikiel, I thought. Ezikiel.

  “Those militia scum, behaving like barbarians!” Grandma ran over to Alhaji and whispered something in his ear that caused his face to turn pale. “I did not mean our son, Ezikiel. He was just a boy. A lost boy! He may have told those Sibeye Boys, but that is hardly kidnap, you see?”

  He was, I thought. Was.

  The press camped outside in large vans with satellite dishes attached to the roofs. The British and American vans were shiny and new. The Nigerian press van looked old. Even the equipment was different. Large fluffy gray microphones were held by the Nigerian journalists. The British journalists had tiny earpieces and small microphones attached to their clothing.

  We watched the vans and the equipment and security and police forces in the compound, which we knew so well. I wanted them all to leave. I wanted to see the empty field and wide-open spaces, and Youseff’s wives back and forth from the village tap, and Dan looking at the sky, and Snap jumping up for a bone.

  I wanted to see Ezikiel, sitting underneath the palm tree, reading a textbook. I wanted that most of all.

  But the area under the palm tree was where the journalists filmed their reports. They wanted the shade. I could hear them speak the same words in different ways.

  “WearefromDeltaRainbowTelevisionCompany,” the local journalist said. After asking his questions they sped off in their van, which made a terrible screeching sound. Like the sirens of the white men’s vans. The television questions stayed in the compound long after they were asked, more direct than the security men’s questions. They filled the air. We breathed them into our ears.

  “Was your son Ezikiel involved with the kidnap?”

  “Was Ezikiel part of the Sibeye Boys?”

  “No news.” Grandma was no longer asking a question. “How can we even mourn Ezikiel when there is no news?”

  “They need to grieve.” Alhaji pointed to Mama and me. “Quickly, before the grieving period is over. It is not good to keep the tears in.” He put a tablet into my mouth. My mouth was dry. I could not swallow it, so I let it melt slowly. A bitter taste spread over my tongue.

  “How can they cry for one when another is missing?” Grandma did not bother to lower her voice. They spoke as if Mama and I were not even there. As if I was a gap like Mama, a Blessing gap.

  “We must use up all our attention for Dan. Your Mama needs Dan.”

  I looked at Grandma. She did not hate Dan. Maybe she had never hated Dan. She hated Father. It was
Father Grandma hated. Not the fact that he was Yoruba. The truth had been there all along, right in front of me. Sometimes we see only what we want to show ourselves.

  “I cannot even mourn. Imagine not being able to mourn our son. Those boys better return Dan healthy and well,” Celestine joined in, “or I will break them!”

  I only half listened. I was unable to eat. I felt as if I was falling with no ground at the bottom and no one to catch me. With Ezikiel gone, who would I share the memories with? What if I forgot everything? What if any good memories of Father disappeared from my mind altogether? All I could remember was Father’s shoes, which were not clean at all. My head was spinning around until I could not see properly. The world looked different.

  The next morning the security and police numbers were reduced. There were no phone calls, no press vans, and the height of the security guards was decreasing; all we were left with were three men as short as Alhaji and at least sixty years old. Mama rocked silently. With every rock, I pictured Father. I began to watch the gate. Would he return? Would his hand squeeze the air from me again? How could I have been wrong about Father for so many years?

  The house was quiet. I could not speak. Celestine did not wail. Alhaji did not borrow the village telephone to complain to government officials. Even the twins were quiet. Worry was preventing our sadness. We were numb. Grandma came to where I was sitting under the palm tree now that the journalists were not taking the shade. She sat down beside me.

  “An anthill that is destined to become a giant anthill will become one no matter how many times it is destroyed by elephants,” said Grandma.

  I did not look up. Not even for Grandma. I did not have the energy to move my head. I concentrated on the spinning feeling.