“You will be a giant anthill,” she said. “No matter how many elephants.”
Then she pulled me upright and brought her hand back into the air behind her. I wondered what she was doing. Could she be stretching?
Grandma suddenly let her hand come flying toward my face. She slapped me. Hard.
“What?” I jumped up to my feet. “Why? What are you doing?”
I held my cheek, which was stinging. Grandma hit me? Grandma slapped my face!
Grandma sat upright. “Now it is time for you to get up. I need your help.”
I looked at Grandma and waited, but no explanation came. No apology. Nothing. She just sat still as if nothing had happened. I held my own cheek.
“Grandma, you just hit me!”
She looked up. “Of course.”
“But why?” The stinging had spread right across my face.
“Do you feel sadness?”
I shook my head. The spinning had stopped. “No, Grandma. I feel pain! I feel angry! Why did you hit me? What have I done?”
Grandma laughed. “Good,” she said. “It is time now for anger. Time for action.”
I stood still for a long time looking at the compound. The sting and shock of Grandma’s slap had made me stand up for the first time that day. I did feel pain. I touched my face.
Pain. I felt pain.
I touched my face again. It hurt.
I was alive. Not half alive. Not sinking. I was living. I would live. I would survive and be a girl once more. I would feel pain and sadness and anger. I would feel.
I looked at Grandma. I touched my face again. Then I smiled.
The walk had taken us nearly two hours, and my flip-flop broke halfway there. I had to go barefoot, and burned the bottom of my feet on the hot ground. A large blister bubbled on my heel, but I did not complain. Feeling pain was much better than feeling nothing. It was better than spinning. Grandma was right. I thought of Dan, hungry and alone in a room with no toilet. I tried to imagine him with a gun against his head, a hood over his face, a man smacking his cheek with the butt of his rifle. His skin was too thin; it would split open easily.
We walked away from the river, and past the forest, until the smell of the water was not in the air, and the river birds’ noise sounded quiet, quiet. Women waved at us on the way, from their roadside huts, where they could see the Western Oil Company buildings in the distance. It was still inside my head. I wanted to ask the women about how it felt to watch the glass buildings from where they lived in shacks and were hungry. I was so angry. It felt good to be angry. I let it grow inside me. The anger burned my throat. I was angry with the Western Oil Company, which gave our government the money with full knowledge that on the other side of the gate, children were hungry, and had no school, no electricity, no future. The Western Oil Company that paid the Kill and Go police to wipe out any village on the other side of the gate that caused problems. The same Kill and Go police who had killed Boneboy’s parents. The Western Oil Company that put the guns into young boys’ hands.
Burned-out engines lined up, with flowers growing from inside them. Beauty found a way to grow in the ugliest of places. The dusty road rose and fell like Ezikiel’s chest. People hawking wares ignored us as we walked along the roadside, and concentrated on waving at cars. We walked past trays and trays of oranges, and a man with a hook in place of his arm selling brightly colored sweets wrapped in plastic. Animals bleated, horns blasted, shouting and laughing, music coming from a large speaker, a man with dreadlocks sitting on top, nodding with every beat. It was impossible to talk, or to hear myself think, and for that I was glad. The man sitting on the speaker nodded at me when we walked past, and I was aware of him watching me as we walked away. My bottom was growing outward and upward. I could feel his eyes on it. I hoped Grandma would not notice.
I will get to grow up, I thought.
As we neared the Western Oil Company compound, the road became smooth and easier to walk on. The rubbish lining the roadside disappeared, and even the air smelled fresher, the smell of burning stopped suddenly, as though the compound enjoyed its very own pollution-free air. The buildings sparkled and shone above the high walls, reflecting the bright blue of the day. Mango trees and palms shaded the road and bursts of bougainvillea and bright red hibiscus attracted butterflies so large they glided instead of fluttering, from one plant to the next. The way they moved made me think of Dan’s birds.
The chatter of the women when we arrived at the Western Oil compound gates was so loud that I wanted to cover my ears. I had never seen so many women in one place, not even at the market. There must have been a hundred standing together at the gates, and dozens more approaching from all directions. Even covered in reddish ground-dirt and fall-out dust from the pipeline fires they had picked up on their way, the women looked like flowers in full bloom, fat and bright. Hopeful.
The security men stood with their rifles raised high, shouting for the women to back away. They raised their rifles with their voices until both things were very loud. I focused on the moons of sweat that had formed underneath their armpits and turned their uniforms a different color.
“We are not doing anything wrong,” shouted Grandma in Izon, and a hush fell onto the group. “This is a peaceful protest.”
One of the security men laughed. “What can a group of women do?” he said. “Foolish women. Go home to your husbands.”
“Dozie,” said Grandma. The man looked across the crowd at her. “Little Dozie. I pulled you from your mother’s womb. Even then you were difficult.”
He was silent after that.
“We want justice! We want justice!”
We chanted at the Western Oil Company building; the mirrored glass showed our reflections multiplied as though we were millions. This gave us courage and we shouted louder, even when the men with guns also multiplied. Then we started singing. I copied the women around me as closely as possible. Grandma had taught me many songs, but I did not know that one. We sang in unison, like a choir that had been practicing all year for that one song. Grandma started it. It was an Ijaw song called “Wo Ekilemo.” Praise him. Her voice was low and quiet, but one by one we joined in. The sound of us women singing was so powerful that the glass moved on the expensive windows, and people inside the building started shutting the windows, even the high-up ones. The slams made us sing even louder. I imagined the white men on the other side of the windows, watching us as they drank their tea. I wondered if they understood why we were protesting. I wondered if they even cared. The security men waving their guns started swaying, as if their bodies were disobeying their commands. They were Ijaw too, you see. They removed their hats and rocked from side to side. I sang loudly until the part that said I have overcome death, poverty, and sickness. I could not sing that part. My mind kept flashing to Ezikiel’s face. But then I joined in again, and our voices rose so high I thought they might reach Allah’s ears.
Then we all took off our clothes.
“There is nothing more powerful than a naked woman,” Grandma said. “Nothing in the world.” The press arrived shortly afterward to find hundreds of naked women. One press van nearly crashed into the security office. The cameras started flashing; it became impossible to see. The sun burned my naked skin. At first I held my arms over my chest and my private parts. There were young men in front of us. But soon I removed my hands. I was swimming in a sea of women.
The cameras flashed at Grandma. “Look at us!” she shouted. “Your sisters and daughters and mothers! Look at our disgrace. You feel shame. Now you all feel shame!” She stood in front of us all, waving her fists and her breasts at the Western Oil Company windows. She looked older naked. And even wiser. The security men surrounding the Western Oil Company had turned their backs away one by one. Their shoulders were shaking. It was the biggest protest we could make. Those men would never recover. Dozie bent down first. He placed his rifle on the ground. Then he stood, slowly. The others followed. One by one the rifles were placed on the
ground. The men walked away in a line, their heads hanging low between their shoulder blades.
Shouting and screaming came from the other side of the gate. No more men with rifles appeared. For the first time, the Western Oil Company was unguarded.
The press did not ask questions until the song was finished and the windows of the building started opening again. White faces looked out and shouted. I tried to hide behind Grandma’s arm, but Grandma pulled me out and said that every woman had a duty to speak sooner or later; it was my duty to speak on behalf of Ezikiel and on behalf of Dan.
“We want Dan freed!”
“We are singing for the deaths that will continue to happen unless we are listened to.”
My eyes opened wide. Grandma spoke as if she had a university degree.
“We want a hospital. A clinic. A school. A future for our sons. Like we are promised.”
A woman with a scarf wrapped so high up she looked as tall as Youseff shouted, “We no want dangerous gas burned in all this pipeline fire, give us cancer, coughing, asthma, like our lungs are less important than any other place. We want our fruits to grow, our animals to be able to eat grass and not drop dead. We want to drink water that has no oil in it. We want you to stop paying people to kill us. To stop funding the military regime. To admit to the blood on your hands!”
“Is it true that your white son-in-law has been kidnapped by a group calling themselves the Sibeye Boys?”
“Yes it is true.”
“Do you support the group then, by leading this protest?”
Grandma paused. She did not know how to answer; her hands were shaking. I did not know what to do or what to say. I thought as quickly as possible. Then Celestine stood next to Grandma and took her hand and held it in the air. Naked, they looked like mother and daughter. Or grandmother and granddaughter.
“Of course we don’t support them. We are against those boys! They are not the true freedom fighters! But they are our sons!” Grandma’s voice was loud. I imagine it would have been heard back at the compound it was so loud. It would have been heard on the river in the mangrove swamps where Dan would be laughing at the soldiers on hearing it. Ezikiel would have heard it, all the way from the spirit world.
“They feel they have no choice! No future! And that is the fault of the Western Oil Company. But we are angry with them. Those boys have blood on their hands! We are sick of the failed promises. Sick of sickness. Sick of our environment filled with pollution and our rivers filled with oil spills. Sick of guns. Sick of no electricity. Sick of our government putting billions of pounds in their own pockets. We are sick of the oil companies giving these men money, knowing it will not go to the people. We are sick of no jobs. We are sick of white men shipped in to do jobs the local men could do if they had the chance. If the government and the oil companies gave local people what is theirs by birth, then this kidnap would not have happened. No kidnaps would happen. Give us back our sons. We are sick of the fighting between Itsekiri, Ijaw, Urhobo, all tribes. The land belongs to all of us! All of us! Not the oil companies! Not the government! Not the bloody Sibeye Boys! When we stop fighting each other we can take back what is ours! Stop raping our land! Stop raping us! Give us back our sons!”
All the women started chanting in English. “Give us back our sons! Give us back our sons! Give us back our sons!” Eventually the chant died down.
The journalist moved his microphone closer to Grandma. “We want those local boys to feel our shame. Look at us, your sisters. Look at us and see how we feel. We are full of shame. Kidnapping. Violence. We are sick of their behavior. We need them to feel shame. Stop the violence. Stop the kidnapping. We want better health care. We want the world to know what is happening in our country. We are living with nothing, nothing. War, fighting. Those people using our oil to make their cars drive fast, do they know we are dying? We are being murdered and our sons are turning into murderers! No chance of future for our sons. Their only choice is kidnapping a white man, using violence. We are ashamed of our sons’ behavior. We want better future for them. Give us our sons. Give them chances at jobs. Health, school. Let our fish live in the river and our trees grow. Give us back our sons!” Grandma closed her mouth. She was breathing quickly and her eyes were shut. When she opened them, she looked straight at Celestine and smiled.
Then Celestine started to dance.
I had never seen Celestine dance like that. Her body was water. She looked small and moved easily. It was a complete surprise. I could hear music despite there being none. I could see, from her movements, the pain of losing Ezikiel, of losing Dan, of becoming the second wife of Alhaji. Her body spoke to everyone that day. She danced so well that I wanted to be her, and it was impossible not to join in. Her dance was infectious. We were all dancing within minutes. It felt good to move freely. I danced out the pain of Ezikiel’s death. I danced out my own pain. I danced away Father. I danced for Dan. Dan who was see-through and loved birds. Mama would never find Dan on top of another woman, of that I was sure. She needed him, and I needed her. I danced for Dan, and danced and danced and danced. It felt like praying, like flying.
Eventually men with guns came out from the Western Oil compound and surrounded and rounded up us women as though we were sheep or cattle. Grandma was forced to shout, “Home, back home.” Everyone put on her clothes and started walking off in different directions. I did not feel at all scared. The very worst things had happened. What could they do?
“We have to go,” Grandma said as we walked away. “That last peaceful protest ended up with the oil companies paying the government men to kill seven women.” We walked past the men who had laid down their guns and were lining the roadside with their heads and eyes lowered to the ground.
“Sometimes words are more powerful than guns. And sometimes silence is more powerful than words. It is the things that are not said that are important.”
Celestine danced on the way home. Something changed in her forever that day, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized she had become a woman. Before that she had been just a girl. A young girl. Celestine had been a silly girl. But she became a powerful woman.
Celestine stood taller. She took Grandma’s hand in hers.
“We danced those guns to silence,” she said.
THIRTY-SIX
The very next day we heard his voice. “Hey, hey, I’m here, I’m safe, I’m safe.” Dan’s voice. It was Dan’s voice.
Mama lifted her head for the first time in weeks. She stood suddenly and ran toward the gate, flicking her sandals off until she was barefoot; a layer of ground-dust rose up behind her. When the dust settled I saw Dan walking through the gate with his arms stretched out as if he knew Mama would be running toward him at that moment. Two oil company security men stood on each side of him with rifles crossing their bodies.
Dan’s body swallowed Mama until they were tightly wrapped into one person. It was not until they separated into themselves that I could see how thin Dan looked, and burned as red as his hair. Swollen mosquito bites covered his face.
“Blessing,” he said and held his arms out again, as if he expected me to run into them too. I stood still in my mind, but my body ran to him. I had no control over my legs. They were running. Dan hugged me tight; it felt as though he might not ever let me go. It was a good feeling. I breathed in the awful stale smell of him and felt glad; he smelled of survival. Mama hugged both of us. The three of us stood there for a very long time, right in front of the roses in the herb garden. In the area where Ezikiel was buried.
Eventually we separated. Mama held Dan’s hands tight, kissing them and holding them to her face. She kept saying, “Thank God, thank God,” over and over.
“I was so frightened,” said Dan. “I was so frightened I’d never see you again. Thank God! Thank God!”
I did not thank anyone. I just felt my heart rise from my stomach to my chest. My lungs opened and I could breathe again. I looked at Dan. He stood straight. His hands were open.
> “Where’s Ezikiel?” Dan looked around the garden and then he looked at Mama’s face. He held her face in his hands and leaned forward. “No,” he whispered. “No! What happened? What happened?” I could see from the tears filling his eyes that he knew. He knew from looking at Mama.
“He joined that gang of boys, the Sibeye Boys. They split open a pipeline. There was a fire,” I said. “An explosion. He could not recover.”
My words sounded clear and strong. I couldn’t believe them, even though I said them out loud. Dan looked at me, and held me, and kissed my head. He said nothing. Which was exactly the right thing to say.
“It was my fault,” said Mama. She began sobbing into Dan’s T-shirt. “I disowned him. He had you kidnapped and I disowned him! It was my fault!” Mama sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Dan held her tight and did not let go. “It’s all my fault! My son!” The first words she had said in so long sounded full of shame.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry for you both.” Then Dan pulled me into his arms and held me together with Mama. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I looked at Mama’s face, pressed close to mine. “It was not your fault,” I whispered.
Dan did not leave Mama’s side for days. His skin peeled off in blisters. It constantly reminded me of Ezikiel. I could barely look at him.
Dan had changed. He watched his birds while he ate large bowls of fresh fish pepper soup, as if it was his favorite dish. He knelt to Alhaji. He knelt even lower to Grandma.
“I’m so very sorry,” he kept saying. “I feel responsible. I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
“It is not your fault,” said Mama. “It is not your fault.” She refused to eat and spent hours sitting in the area where Ezikiel was buried. Her skin hung from her body like a coat that was too big. But she had started to speak. And tears fell from her face. The world started to turn again, more slowly than before, but still, it turned.
Grandma stopped ignoring Dan and served him first. She sat near to him at dinner and sang a celebration song. Celestine could not hug Dan, she was still too ashamed of her behavior before, but she did give him her favorite cup to drink from, and she demonstrated the loud mourning she would have done if he had died. Dan laughed, and we all laughed, and the same feelings spread through us as if we were tied by blood, not just marriage. It felt good to laugh, as if it was waiting there all along, as if Ezikiel was laughing with us. We looked at Dan as one of us. He had earned his Nigerianness by surviving. Ijaw people are survivors. He would never be my father. It did not matter. I was beginning to understand things that had been obvious, that I had kept blocked from my mind. That people could keep secrets from themselves.
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away Page 31