‘You know what? I can only see your mouth moving, I can’t hear a single word. Let me tell you, there is only one thing that can get me out of this house, one thing!’
‘I said, get out!’ I slapped my thigh in time with each word.
‘The one thing that will cause me to leave you in peace is for you to lift up your blouse and let me see your stomach. This pregnancy of yours is over a year old now. Let me see what is there, because we have heard the news all over town that it is a calabash you are carrying about under your cloth – yes, you have been exposed.’ She laughed. ‘But you can prove them wrong, prove the evil people wrong. Let me see your stomach for myself and I will leave you in peace. I swear to God.’
I cradled my chin in one hand and wrapped the other across my distended stomach.
‘Won’t you speak?’
What could I have said? That my pregnancy was real? I still had not seen my period and if I had lifted my blouse and opened my wrapper, no calabash would have clattered to the ground; no pillow would have fallen at my feet. She would have seen my taut, distended stomach and the stretch marks crisscrossing the skin. I could have said my pregnancy was not real, that scan upon scan said there was nothing there, even as the baby’s kicking woke me each night. That some of my stylists thought I was crazy and the last doctor I saw had referred me to a psychiatrist.
I could not say any of those things; there was only one thing left to be said. The thing she was not expecting me to say. I shut the door and turned to her. ‘Follow me. Let me show you your room.’
I led her to the playroom.
I was not stupid. I understood that it was a matter of time before Moomi showed up to make sure that Funmi started living in the house. If I fought with Funmi, it would only make things worse. Moomi could ask me to leave and though Akin kept telling me how much he loved me, I no longer believed him. But I wanted to believe him. I had no father, no mother, and no sibling. Akin was the only person in the world who would really notice if I went missing.
These days I tell myself that is why I stretched to accommodate every new level of indignity, so that I could have someone who would look for me if I went missing.
Part II
10
ILESA, DECEMBER 2008
I’m digging my father’s grave. Doing more than I should because my sister’s husband overestimated his abilities when he promised to do it. As my father’s first son, I’m supposed to shovel the first and last clumps of sand out of the grave for safe-keeping. My father’s son-in-law is supposed to do the rest, or pay someone else to. I thought Henry would pay labourers to do this since that’s what most people do these days.
Yejide, you must remember how I told you years ago that this tradition would die out soon. It was after your father died. While your family made arrangements for the funeral, you told them that I should join in the grave-digging even though we were not yet married. Of course, your stepmothers wouldn’t allow it. And you wept until the whites of your eyes turned pink. I tried to comfort you, told you that it didn’t really matter because everyone would be hiring labourers to dig graves in a few years anyway. I’m not sure you heard me or cared. You cried yourself to sleep that night.
I couldn’t tell you at the time, but I was relieved I didn’t have to dig your father’s grave. I believed in ghosts then, was terrified of graveyards. Yet, if your stepmothers had agreed to let me dig, I would have done it to please you. You must know that, no matter what you think of me now, there are few things I wouldn’t do to make you happy. I’m certain now that there are no ghosts, because if there were, I would be haunted already. So here I am, about two feet deep, helping Henry out so that the work will be done by the time we leave for the wake.
Henry’s doing this to prove a point to my parents. For three years my parents insisted they were not giving their only daughter in marriage to Henry because he was not Yoruba. They stood by their word until my sister ended the arguments by getting pregnant by Henry. Then the people who had sworn that they would be dead before he married their daughter invited Henry to pick any date for the wedding so that it could be done before the pregnancy started showing. Henry now speaks Yoruba fluently, knows more about our traditions than I do. And here we are, slaving silently beneath a blazing sun, because Henry is still trying to prove to my parents that he is good enough for their daughter. It’s obvious now from his heavy breathing that he’d stretched the truth to breaking point when he claimed he could do this ‘the way it should be done’.
The sun is so hot, feels like there’s a furnace on my back. My arms ache each time I lift the shovel, but I keep going. I think about Dotun as I shovel, miss him for the first time in all these years. If he were here, he would have broken this silence, found a way to make Henry and me laugh. He called me this morning, around 7. He didn’t introduce himself, he didn’t have to. Once he said, ‘Brother Akin, good morning’, I recognised his voice. He said he was calling from the airport hotel, had received the letter I had sent to him about the funeral arrangements and would be leaving Lagos by noon to get to Ilesa in time for the wake. Our first conversation in over a decade lasted less than one minute. When I got off the phone, I felt none of the anger I’d expected to feel, instead I had a sudden desire to stay in bed and spend the day sleeping. Dotun’s phone call made me ask myself if you’ll honour my invitation. I wonder if you’ll show up at the wake, if you’ll agree to sit beside me and sing hymns.
This ground is getting harder as we dig deeper. It doesn’t look like a grave, just a long hole in the ground. I clear my throat. ‘I think we should call someone to finish this thing.’
Henry smiles and collapses against the grave’s wall. It’s as if he’s been waiting all day for me to say this. He frowns. ‘Arinola –’
I wait for him to finish his sentence, but he says nothing. I watch his furrowed brow; try to understand what his silence means. ‘You don’t want me to tell her we abandoned this?’
‘She was very touched that I’d be digging the grave.’
‘OK, we’ll tell her you dug the grave.’ It’s the truth – stretched, but still true. Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?
Timi tells me Moomi has refused to come downstairs for the wake. As I wonder why, it occurs to me that my mother might be grief-stricken over my father’s death. I almost laugh. I know as I climb the stairs, two steps at a time, that it has to be something else. I don’t think they were ever in love. But they did tolerate each other until my siblings and I left home. Then Moomi stopped bothering with tolerance, and unleashed her long-held anger and resentment. My father didn’t fight back, poor man had little energy left after dealing with his four younger wives. Now that he’s dead, I expect Moomi to feel some sadness, but mixed with a measure of triumph – she has outlasted him. I turn left at the landing and step into Moomi’s sitting room. Her bedroom door is wide open. She sits on her bed, dressed in white like the other widows, arms folded across her chest.
‘Moomi, Timi says you don’t want to come downstairs. Why?’
She sighs. ‘Akinyele.’
It’s never a good sign when she calls my name in full. I walk across the room, sit in a cushioned chair, wait for her to continue.
‘If a lie travels for twenty years, even a hundred years, it will take one day – ’ She raises her right hand, points the index finger at the ceiling. ‘It will take one day for the truth to catch up with a lie. The truth has caught up with you today, Akin. Today is the day I know you have been lying to me about Dotun – didn’t you tell me he called you this morning? You said he would be here by now. Where is he? Akinyele, where is my son?’
I reach into my trouser pocket, bring out my phone, dial the number Dotun called with in the morning, put the phone to my ear.
The number you are calling cannot be reached at the moment. Please try again later.
‘See, I just trie
d to call him, Ma. The number cannot be reached.’
‘You can’t deceive me any more. Do you think I will break down if you tell me the truth? Even if the truth will kill me, am I too young to die?’
‘You need to believe me.’ I’m tired of trying to convince her that I’ve not been lying to her, just want Dotun to show up today and put an end to her anxieties.
‘Although what could kill me is knowing that you and your brother never settled that quarrel and that Dotun went to his grave without forgiving you.’ Moomi sighed. ‘And I could have talked sense into your heads, but no, you two didn’t tell me why you were fighting.’
‘Again, we resolved things long before he went away.’
Dotun needs my forgiveness, not the other way around. But I’m sure he still thinks I need to apologise. Yejide, I’ve realised that it’s your forgiveness that I need. Questions of forgiving Dotun or begging his forgiveness become secondary as Moomi sheds the first tears I’ve seen since her husband died. These tears have nothing to do with my father – they are all for Dotun, her favourite son.
‘How can you tell me my son is alive when he has not come home to see his own father, his own father buried? Akin, you are deceiving me, I’m now sure that you have been deceiving me all this time.’ Moomi’s voice shakes but she doesn’t sob, the tears just come.
‘Please wipe your tears, Moomi. See, let’s go downstairs so the wake can start. Everyone is seated, it’s almost four. I’m sure he will arrive during the service.’
‘If you don’t bring Dotun into this room, I am not attending that wake.’ She removes her scarf, folds it into a square and places it on her bedside table.
‘Moomi, you are just getting upset over nothing. He will soon be here.’
She lies down on the bed, turns to face the wall.
This delay makes me think Dotun is still the same man he was when he left the country without informing anyone in the family; the type who will arrive when the wake is over, offer no apologies, make a joke and expect everyone to laugh.
‘Moomi, please stop crying, Dotun is not dead.’ I glance at my watch. It’s about five minutes to four. ‘Moomi, I hope you can hear me. When it’s five, if Dotun is not here, we will start the wake.’
‘Without me?’
‘I will ask the priest to delay for an hour. I can’t ask for more than that, Ma.’
‘The priest will not start without me.’
‘I’ll ask Timi to come and call you when it’s a few minutes to five.’ I stand up. ‘Please put your mind at rest, Moomi.’
I go downstairs, back into the front yard where the canopies have been set up. I bend over to greet people as I pass through the noisy crowd to the front row; all the while I am looking out for your face.
In the front row, I talk to the priest, then whisper to my stepmothers that the wake will now start at five. I head to the back of the canopy without answering their question about why Moomi has not come downstairs. I need to get away from the noise, call the gravedigger, confirm that my father’s resting place is ready.
I step out from under the canopy as a yellow-and-black Lagos cab pulls up behind it. I can see Dotun in the back seat; he is alone. He gets out of the car, looks up and our eyes meet. He is balding too, his face a sagging version of the one I remember.
I stand with my hands in my trouser pockets, watching him. He stays beside the taxi for a moment, then walks forward, towards me. And for the first time in over a decade, my brother and I are face to face.
I try to think of something to do, something to say. He beats me to it, prostrates himself on the red sand. When he gets up, he says two words, ‘Brother mi.’
I don’t know who reaches out first, but it doesn’t matter; we are hugging, laughing. I think one of us has tears in his eyes.
Yejide, I hope it will be this way between us when you come. If you come.
11
ILESA, 1987 ONWARDS
One day, I came back from a trip to Lagos and found Funmi at the dining table, eating fried rice with a fork. She stopped eating when I came in, walked towards me smiling, wrapped her arms around my neck, kissed my chin. Her breath smelled like garlic.
‘Welcome, my husband.’ She took my briefcase. ‘How was your journey?’
‘Great,’ I said. Didn’t think I had any cause for alarm. Thought she was just visiting for the day.
‘Is Yejide upstairs?’ I asked as Funmi poured me a glass of cold water.
Funmi pursed her lips, sighed, pulled me into the sitting room. ‘The traffic in Lagos must be terrible as usual, abi?’
‘It was OK.’
We sat in silence as I drank the water.
Funmi often tried to chat with me, but we had a problem. We had nothing in common, apart from the fact that we were married. I usually said little when we were together.
‘Should I bring something for you to eat?’ Funmi asked.
‘No, thank you.’
‘I made fried rice, but if you want something else I can cook it. Do you want pounded yam?’
Someone must have convinced her that feeding me at every chance she got would change my feelings about her. She was constantly offering me food or drink.
‘I ate lunch at Dotun’s place before leaving Lagos. I’m not yet hungry.’
‘Oh, OK. Later, abi?’
I nodded, dropped the empty cup on a stool and began to get up. Funmi put a hand on my knee.
‘I want to ask you for something,’ she said.
‘What is that?’
‘Sweetheart, I want you to spend the night with me.’
The word sweetheart always sounded strange on her lips. It was a word she did not mean and I did not believe. But she kept saying it as if she thought repeating it would make it true. I considered telling her not to call me that a number of times, but it would have been a cruel thing to do.
‘Funmi, you know that I can only come to your flat at the weekend.’
‘No, my sweetheart. I live here now.’
‘What did you just say?’
‘I moved in two days ago. Aunty Yejide showed me to my room. She doesn’t mind at all-o; in fact, she welcomed me with open arms.’
My first instinct was to tell Funmi to pack her things immediately and leave. Knew I couldn’t balance things with Yejide and Funmi under the same roof, the pressure would be too much – something was bound to go wrong. But I fought that instinct because I knew Funmi already had her suspicions – if I told her to leave, she could have screamed them at the top of her lungs. I had to wait for the right moment to get her out of the house.
‘My sweetheart,’ Funmi said, holding my chin in her hand. ‘Are you angry with me for not asking for permission before moving in?’ She went down on her knees. ‘Don’t be angry with me.’
‘Of course not. It’s OK; please get up. No need for all that.’
She smiled, putting her head on my knees. I decided then to watch out for the right moment to get her out. Not just out of the house, but out of my life. Marrying her was a terrible miscalculation. I knew as she took off my shoes that I had to fix the equation as soon as I could.
I was sure that a perfect moment would present itself for me to divorce Funmi, just as one had presented itself for me to marry Yejide in ’81. That year, Bukola Arogundade, a student at the University of Ife, was murdered. This was years before some of the protest marches in universities would become compulsory, mandated by so-called union boys who chased freshers out of their rooms. The protest in ’81 to demand justice for Bukola Arogundade was pure, propelled by a collective anger that shivered in bloodstreams, an unspoken assurance that if we just got to the palace and screamed loud enough, someone would pay attention.
I was courting Yejide then, driving to Ife every day after work just to breathe in her scent. I caught the feverish anger from her enchanting words. I’d never seen her act the way she did that day, was enthralled by the veins that stood out in her neck as she spoke. I agreed with everything that came out o
f her mouth; it was as if she was reading my mind. It was new, strange, exciting: the way she mirrored me in those moments, mirrored my passion and dreams for a better country. I was convinced more than before that I had found my soulmate. I took a day off work and joined the protest to demand a thorough and transparent investigation into the murder.
Yejide and I marched side-by-side, singing and chanting. The clouds gathering ahead did not dampen our ardour. We marched with the crowd to the school gate, we were not even tired, nor even breathless. The chants became louder as we marched out of the gates into town. When the rain started, I saw it as a blessing from above, a mark of approval. Believed as I got drenched that the protest would produce results that would propel the rest of the nation forward. I could see the uprising as I blinked against the shower – at first in the universities, students and lecturers trooping into the streets demanding change, an end to corruption, consistent power supply, better roads. I could see it all so clearly. Though the protest was heading in the opposite direction, I imagined it sweeping into Ibadan, carrying the people of that city like a flood, dragging them along with us into Lagos, all the way to the government house. The possibility was as real to me as raindrops on my lips and in my mouth as we sang:
SOOOO-lida-RITY For- EEEE-VER
SOOOO-lida-RITY For- EEEE-VER
SOOOO-lida-RITY For- EEEE-VER
WE SHALL ALWAYS FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS
SOLI SOLI SOLI
SOOOO-lida-RITY For- EEEE-VER!
The policemen were waiting in Mayfair. Gunshots rang out. People started running all around me, screaming as they dashed into the bush, beating paths to unknown destinations. I was confused at first. Ran aimlessly forward like a chicken in its last throes of life after its head has been chopped off. Then I too ran into the bush. It was like diving into hell. Around me people screamed, prayed, cursed, slipped, collapsed. Some pulled themselves up again and continued running. A girl in tight jeans and afro fell in front of me and lay still. I leapt over her, kept running as though she was a gutter in my way. I ran for what felt like years, the bush stretched on forever, teeming with tree branches that poked my eyes and mouth.
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