Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree

by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

  My eyes resume their wandering.

  Maybe I missed him. Maybe he came in late. Maybe he is standing at the back of the long hall as he sometimes does.

  Maybe Pastor Moses’s son, Success, is home from university. Maybe this is one of the weekends when he travels all the way from Maiduguri to visit his father and mother.

  Maybe the powder and eyeliner I borrowed from Mama will not be a waste. Maybe the white shoes Sarah lent me will not be in vain.

  On Our Way to School

  “SUCCESS HASN’T VISITED IN quite a while,” I say. “I hope he’s well.”

  Sarah giggles, and shoves me sideways with her waist.

  “The loving doe and the graceful deer!”

  “Shush,” I whisper, clapping my hand to her mouth.

  But I also giggle. I know that my secret is safe with her.

  Tales by Moonlight

  HARDLY ANYONE HAS TIME for fun and games when the farm is uppermost on our minds.

  No time to climb the surrounding hills and play hide-and-seek among the rocks.

  But, after the months of preparing and planting, after the year’s yield has been gathered and stored, then the entertainment galore can begin. Until then, life remains routine.

  But there is always time for a folktale by moonlight.

  Together with my brothers and the neighbors’ children, I sit on a mat spread out in front of our house.

  “Story, story,” Papa says.

  “Story!” we reply.

  “There was a king who had three children,” Papa begins. “One day, he decided to test which was the most skilled among them, to know who would take over after he died.”

  The king asked his sons to mount their horses and follow him to a baobab tree. There, they would display their different skills and then he would decide.

  The first son galloped at top speed and thrust his spear into the baobab tree. It pierced right through, from one side to the other.

  “The hole was so large that he rode through it with his horse,” Papa says. “And then, it was the turn of the second son.”

  Like his brother before him, he galloped toward the baobab tree at top speed, then jumped right over it with his horse.

  As for the third son, he rode toward the baobab tree and uprooted it with his bare hands while still sitting on the back of his horse, then waved the tree at his father.

  “Now, which of these three do you think is the greatest?” Papa asks.

  On and on, all of us boys and girls debate this for the rest of the night.

  Almost One Month

  NEWS OF OUR EXAM results will most likely come soon.

  Blood

  THROUGH THE WINDOWS OF the classroom, our eyes follow the pink van as it drives into the school premises and parks in front of Principal’s office. We titter in excitement.

  A pink van, blue van, red van, green van, or van of any color driving into our school usually means something new and free.

  One time, people in a blue van gave each child a mosquito net. Inscribed on the packet were the words “Kick Malaria Out of Africa, One Mosquito at a Time—courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” Another time, a green van brought exercise books and pens, “courtesy of the Rotary Club of Maiduguri.” Yet another time, a brown van brought cholera medication from the federal ministry of health.

  What might the van have brought this time?

  The mystery thickens when the boys are instructed to hurry home after school. Reluctantly, they pack their books and gaze longingly at the pink van as they shuffle out, while the girls happily wait behind.

  My anticipation swells.

  Even Principal is nowhere in sight as a tall, thin woman with long braids gathers us around her van and starts speaking.

  It is the first time I have heard anyone discuss menstruation in a loud voice. And she looks us straight in the eye while she speaks!

  Shrinking with shame, I search for somewhere to hide my face.

  This is a conversation for hushed tones.

  This is a topic reserved for mothers and daughters.

  Apart from Mama—and Sarah—nobody else knows my secret. My fresh rags are well hidden in a plastic bag stuffed deep inside Mama’s bag of blouses and wrappers. My soaked rags go straight into a bucket of soapy water. I hang them out to dry only after Papa and my brothers have gone to sleep. Before they awake, I grab the damp rags from the clothesline.

  “As growing girls, your bodies are changing,” the woman says. “That should not make you afraid. It should also not make you feel ashamed. It’s normal. Every woman goes through the same changes. Most especially, it should not mean you have to miss school. You don’t have to miss classes because of the changes in your body.”

  Another one of my secrets. But how does this woman know?

  From inside her pink van, she extracts a pink packet and gives one to each of us. “Courtesy of Operation Keep a Girl in School,” the inscription reads. Then she unseals one of the pink packets and tells us what to do with the contents.

  Can her words be true?

  It is difficult to believe that these spotless white pads, pristine and fragrant as the pages of a new book, are for something so disgraceful and dirty.

  Hunger

  ONCE AGAIN, I STEP out onto the veranda and peer into the horizon. No sign of Mama.

  My hunger twists and turns and bites and barks. Why is she late returning home from the market?

  And then her vast raffia basket comes into view!

  It is balanced on her head with her two hands stretched upward to keep it straight. Mama’s pace is long and brisk, almost a sprint. I run to meet her.

  No matter how much or how little Papa gives for the midweek shopping, there is always something extra in Mama’s basket—dabino or kuli kuli—to temporarily silence my hunger while she sets about preparing the evening meal.

  Teacher

  “WHAT DAY IS TODAY?” Jacob asks.

  “Today is Thursday,” I reply.

  “What day is tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow is Friday.”

  “Is tomorrow always Friday?”

  “No.”

  I mark off each day of the week, finger after finger.

  “Thursday’s tomorrow is Friday,” I say. “Friday’s tomorrow is Saturday, then Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Wednesday’s tomorrow is Thursday.”

  “But you just said today is Thursday,” he says. “If today is Thursday, then how come Thursday is tomorrow?”

  Ha ha.

  Jacob.

  He will make a clever pupil someday if God provides Papa with enough to allow him to start school.

  For now, all he wants to know is which particular tomorrow I intend to continue from where I stopped and teach him how to write the English alphabet from M to Z.

  Pepper Soup

  THE STRONG SCENT OF boiled goat meat brings warm saliva to my mouth as we approach Aisha’s house. She always alerts Sarah and me a day in advance, whenever her husband decides to slaughter one of his goats.

  No one in the world makes goat-meat pepper soup as scrumptious as Aisha’s—not even Mama, I’m sorry to say. Malam Isa’s friends probably know this as well, which must be why they never turn down the invitation from him.

  “Good evening,” Sarah and I say.

  “Good evening,” they reply.

  Seated with Malam Isa on the veranda are Malam Emmanuel, who sometimes handles the Bible study lessons in our church when Pastor Moses is away, and Malam Shettima, who teaches Islamiya classes to Muslim boys and girls on Sunday afternoons.

  A bowl of pepper soup is set on a stool in their midst, chunks of goat meat protruding on the surface. One after the other, they dip their spoons into the steaming delicacy, then make long hissing noises as they swallow the hot fluid with care before beginning to chew.

  “Tell Aisha to bring some more drinking water for me,” Malam Emmanuel says as Sarah and I walk past them and into the house.

  “Okay,”
we reply.

  “Or would you prefer zobo?” Malam Isa asks. “It’s fresh.”

  Malam Emmanuel nods.

  “I think that will be better,” he says.

  “Tell Aisha to bring the keg of zobo in my room,” Malam Isa says. “The one my sister sent today.”

  Sarah and I hurry along, eager for our own share of the soup. And, if we are lucky, there may be some zobo left over for us as well.

  The Voice on Papa’s Radio

  “US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA has vowed to make 2014 ‘a year of action’ in his annual State of the Union address to Congress. He pledged to bypass Congress if necessary to tackle economic inequality and raise the minimum wage. On foreign policy, Mr. Obama urged Congress to close Guantanamo Bay prison in the next twelve months and threatened to veto any sanctions bill on Iran.

  “A car bomb has exploded in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing at least seventeen people. The Islamist group Boko Haram said it carried out the attack. A suspect has been arrested, the military says. The bomb went off near a market, sending up a large plume of smoke. People were seen fleeing the scene covered in blood. The immediate aftermath of the blast was described as chaotic, with bodies on the ground and troops firing automatic weapons.”

  Maiduguri.

  I pray that Success is safe.

  I pray that Principal’s family is safe.

  I pray that the special school for girls, and all the teachers, students, and buildings are safe.

  I pray that I will soon find security for my future within the school’s four walls.

  Success

  AS SOON AS PASTOR Moses concludes the closing prayer, a commotion ensues.

  Like fowls in a farm when the grain chaff is scattered, out we all come rushing toward the back of the hall, bewitched by the bright colors leaping up and down on Success’s laptop screen.

  Whenever he travels from Maiduguri to visit his parents, Success brings his laptop along with him to church. As soon as the Sunday morning service is over, he leaves it open for us on a wooden bench at the back of the hall.

  Sometimes we watch Jesus in cartoons; sometimes we watch Pharaoh drowning in the Red Sea or Jonah being swallowed by a fish; sometimes we watch a pitch-black screen with an orange triangle in the middle, while a deep, strong voice that sounds like God’s renders different chapters of the Bible.

  Success told me that there is nothing you cannot do with a laptop.

  You can use it to send messages to people in other parts of the world. You can use it as both your TV and your telephone. You can write page after page of social studies and science notes on it, without your parents worrying about you being sent out of class halfway through the school day because they did not have enough money to buy you new exercise books.

  Apart from telling me about his laptop, he has told me all I wanted to know about his university. And about his law degree. He has told me about his journey from Maiduguri to Kano, and about his plans to visit the megacity of Lagos one of these days. He has told me that the Bible is not only written in English; there are Hausa and Igbo and Yoruba versions, and even Arabic, which is the same language in which Malam Isa’s Quran is written.

  What else is there to ask him about?

  What other question will keep him by my side until his father is done with the long queue of church members waiting to see their pastor?

  What other excuse will let me stand alone with him while the other children remain with the laptop?

  Next thing I know, Success is standing by my side. He is the one who has a question for me!

  “Have you read any new books recently?” he asks.

  I jitter.

  I am about to fall to the ground and faint.

  “Books? Yes, I’m already in chapter ten of my social studies textbook.”

  “No, no. I mean storybooks. Have you read any books other than your textbooks?”

  “Oh.”

  Papa and Mama can barely afford school fees and textbooks. Apart from Eze Goes to School and Drummer Boy, which we read as part of our English class, the only storybook I own is The Pied Piper of Hamelin. When I made the highest overall score after last year’s exams, Principal gave it to me.

  I must have read it from cover to cover two hundred times before I finally lent it to Aisha, who then lent it to her sister-in-law, who had also dropped out of school.

  The girl’s husband saw her reading it, engrossed while the dinner was burning in the pot. He lost his temper and flung my book straight into the cooking fire.

  “I read a book called Pied Piper of Hamelin,” I reply. “It’s about a town that was invaded by rats. So the people hired a man who could play mysterious songs. The rats heard him playing one of his songs and came running out of their holes, and followed him until he led them to the river and they all jumped inside and drowned.”

  “That sounds very interesting,” Success says. “I haven’t read it before.”

  My balloon bursts. Now, we will have nothing else to talk about.

  “But I have lots of other interesting storybooks,” he continues. “I’ll bring some for you when I visit next,” he says. “There’s this series about a girl, a girl just like you, who goes about solving mysteries. Her name is Nancy Drew. I’ll bring some for you and after you finish reading them you can tell me what you think.”

  This is most certainly the best day of my life. Could this really be happening to me?

  “Thank you.”

  I smile.

  Bewitched

  THE SOUND OF HIS name to my ears is like the smell of fried chicken to my nose.

  Like a baobab tree among the trees of the forest, so is he among all the young men in the world. I delight to sit in his shade, and his alone, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

  Sweet, soft, smart, charming, tall, handsome, neat, strong, kind, reliable.

  He is like a medical doctor, a school principal, an expert farmer, and a champion wrestler rolled into one.

  His eyes are bright as the full moon in the sky. They shine with intelligence. They sparkle with mirth.

  They bewitch me each time I am under their gaze.

  Marriage

  IT IS MY TURN to crouch on the sand while Sarah plants her feet on my back and reaches into the branches of the baobab tree. As the first of the hard green fruits drops from her hand to the ground, I scream.

  “Be careful!”

  “Sorry!” she says. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry, it didn’t hit me. It just fell too close to my head.”

  “Ah. I’d better be more careful. What will I tell Success if I crack his wife’s head open?”

  “Shhhhhhhhh!”

  Her laughter causes me to wobble. My wobbling forces my palms deeper into the soil. I’m in a tizzy at the thought of being married to Success.

  Although marriage is the last thing on my mind for now.

  Marriage means a husband who will want his breakfast at dawn and his feet massaged at dusk. Marriage means babies who will need breast milk and bathing and beatings to teach them how to behave as they grow. Marriage means little time left over to stay awake and study books at the end of each day.

  But would Success want to marry me?

  Chatting in the church hall is one thing. Walking down the aisle and saying “I do” is another altogether.

  Would Success be interested in marrying a girl with no university degree? For the billionth time, I say a silent prayer for that Borno State government scholarship.

  I want to attend the special boarding school for girls in Maiduguri. I want to go to university and get a degree. I want to be a teacher and impart everything I know to other children like Jacob. I want to travel to the places I hear about from Malam Zwindila and from Papa’s radio, countries in faraway corners of the world.

  When six large baobab fruits are lying on the ground around me, Sarah hops down and gathers them in her arms, while I stand and dust my knees.

  News from
Izghe

  ABRAHAM RUSHES THROUGH THE raffia gate that leads into our backyard, panting, as if a police officer is chasing him.

  Excitement shines through every pore and pimple on his face.

  “It rained in Izghe two days ago!” he announces in the veranda. “It rained in Izghe at night!”

  “Really?” Papa shouts from behind the corrugated iron partition that hides our toilet and bathroom from the rest of the backyard.

  “It’s true,” Abraham replies. “I just heard from my friend who came in from there this morning. It looks as if the rains will be early this year.”

  “Thank God!”

  “Wonderful!”

  “Great news!”

  Rejoicing, Mama, my brothers, and I jump up and clap our hands. In his haste to join us, Papa forgets to replace the iron sheet on his way out of the enclosure.

  He must also have forgotten to replace the plastic cover for the deep hole in the ground. The faint scent of feces floats from our pit toilet into the veranda.

  “This is very good news!” Papa says. “Very good news indeed!”

  Izghe is just about 190 kilometers from our village. Like us, they suffered late rains last year, so the planting had to be postponed from April to July.

  The corn and groundnut seeds ended up in the mounds at a time when we should have been planting beans. The beans went into the ridges at a time when we should have been harvesting corn. The harvest extended into a season when we should all have been resting at home or attending wrestling matches and Bible quiz competitions.

  In the meantime, each new morning brought terrifying thoughts of starving or borrowing or begging, as the previous year’s harvest depleted day by day.

  Papa considered going to Maiduguri to find work as a cleaner or a laborer.

  Mama knelt down and prayed for an hour before bed night after night.