Stay With Me

by AYÒ. BÁMI ADÉBÁYÒ.

  As we drove home, I thought about the best way to tell Yejide our son was dead. I knew before we drove out of the hospital it would be harder than anything I’d ever done.

  Yejide put a hand on my knee when I parked in front of our house. ‘You haven’t said anything since we left the hospital. What is wrong? What did that doctor say?’

  It must have been something in my eyes, in the way I looked at her while I tried to come up with something plausible to say.

  ‘It’s Sesan, abi? That ewedu thing is a lie – you just wanted me out of the hospital. What happened?’ She gripped my knee. ‘Abi, my son is dead?’

  I couldn’t lie, couldn’t tell the truth, didn’t have the energy to say a word. I just stared at her.

  ‘Akin? Sesan is dead. Abi?’

  I couldn’t even nod. I was weak, exhausted. I didn’t even try to hold her when she put her forehead against the dashboard and began to cry.

  Moomi came to ask for permission the next day. She offered her condolences briskly and sat beside Yejide on our bed. ‘Just a few marks on his body,’ she lowered her voice, ‘and a little whipping.’

  ‘Moomi, I said no, there is no need.’ I couldn’t believe what she was saying, was within an inch of telling her to leave my house.

  ‘Next time we will be sure, we will know for sure when Yejide has another baby.’

  ‘I said no. Can’t you hear me?’ I knew the tradition. There was no need for her to explain it to me. You whip the Abiku’s body so that the next time he is reborn, the marks on the newborn would tell you that the dead child had returned to torment its mother. I didn’t want my son ritually scarred, because I didn’t believe he was some malicious spirit-child. I’d never believed in Abikus at all.

  ‘Abiku. Abiku. I said it and said it until my mouth was bleeding. But you said, what does an old woman know? You are a man, Akin. Just a man. What do you know? Tell me. Have you been pregnant? Have you held a child to your breasts and watched it die? All you know is stupid English. What do you know? Yejide, talk to me, o jare. It is your permission that I need. Can they do it? Just a few marks so we will know for sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ Yejide said, covering herself with a blanket.

  ‘Yejide? What rubbish, you can’t let them do this.’

  ‘Please, I want to sleep,’ she said. ‘Go away, all of you. Please go away.’

  30

  There were no incisions on my daughter’s body, no lacerations, no scars, not one single lash mark from a previous life. Still they named her Rotimi, a name that implied that she was an Abiku child who had come into the world intending to die as soon as she could. Rotimi – stay with me. It was the name my mother-in-law had chosen, a name that until then I had thought was given to boys alone. I wondered if Moomi had picked Rotimi because it was mutable. If the right prefix was added later on, it would sound normal, stripped of the tortured history that Abiku names announced. Rotimi could easily become Olarotimi – Wealth stays with me. There was no getting around other alternatives like Maku – Don’t die, or Kukoyi – Death, reject this one. I checked every inch of her body, even her palms and the soles of her feet. Nothing. I stared at her smooth unscarred cheeks and thought of Sesan, his body beaten, marked forever. I wished I could rub the marks off with my fingertips the way I had once rubbed his tears into his skin until they disappeared. First, I would have had to find out where they had buried him – if they had buried him – if his body had not simply been left in a bush far away from the city, far away from any place where human beings lived.

  There was no way for me to ever know. Moomi did not answer my questions. She refused to say a word about Sesan at all. It was as though, to her, he was a bad dream that should quickly be forgotten and definitely not spoken about. Like me, Akin was not allowed around Sesan’s dead body or funeral, and since my husband had not agreed to the marks in the first place, he did not go to Ayeso the day the marks were put on Sesan’s body.

  The day Rotimi was named, in a quiet ceremony that included only ten people, I took off my gold necklace just before the ceremony began and twisted it around her neck three times to form a multilayered necklace. The pendant, a crucifix, lay hidden beneath her white dress. This was the only thing I did for my daughter that day. My mother-in-law took care of bathing and dressing Rotimi, she even held her neck while I breastfed her. Moomi made an effort to be kind, but I could sense her irritated impatience with me, even though I was far away, nursing my Sesan, still trying to keep him alive, battling the blurry pictures that kept blocking my view of him. Moomi was another blurry picture, an awkward image that held my face in her hands and dragged her hands across my cheeks to catch tears – only I was not crying. I was just sleepy, eager to curl up in bed and dream of Olamide and Sesan.

  ‘You must be strong for this child,’ she said over and over until I covered my ears with my hands. She left our house the same day, even though there was no other grandchild for her to help look after. ‘She is your daughter. You take care of her, you are not dead,’ she said before walking out to meet Akin at the car. There was more she had to say; it was there in the anger and contempt in her eyes. The eyes that condemned me for grieving for too long, for being too weak to be a mother to my newborn child, for dwelling with the dead. I did not care what she thought or what her rheumy eyes were screaming at me; after all, she was just another blurry photo blocking my view. I was glad to see her go, until Rotimi began to scream and I had to get up from the bed to pick her up from the cot. Moomi would have done that if she had waited. She would have rocked the baby to silence while I dreamt.

  I did not know what to do with the screaming girl whom we were already pleading with, every day, every moment we called her name – Rotimi – stay with me. I closed my eyes when she suckled at my breast, careful not to make eye contact with her. I had the washerwoman come in every other day to wash the baby things. I was not strong enough to love when I could lose again, so I held her loosely, with little hope, sure that somehow she too would manage to slip from my grasp. I let her have the gold necklace I’d put on her for her naming ceremony, and whenever we left the house I wrapped it around her neck, placing the crucifix beneath her cloth, next to her skin like a talisman.

  It happened on a Monday morning while Rotimi was sleeping. She did that a lot, she hardly ever moved an inch in her sleep.

  On that Monday morning, she was not too hot or too cold. Her breathing was faint but sure and sometimes she chortled in her sleep. Was it because of her that things happened the way they did? Because I wanted to stay in the room with her and could not be downstairs in Dotun’s room? Sometimes I think that if I had been in Dotun’s room downstairs, I would have heard the car pull up in front of the house. I might have dressed up hurriedly and left his room. But I always wanted it to happen the way it did. Somewhere inside me, I wanted Akin to walk in on us. I wanted to look into his eyes when he did; I wanted to see him explode in some kind of passion and, that Monday, I got exactly what I wanted.

  When Akin walked in on Dotun and me, I was at once fulfilled and disappointed. I was disappointed because, in spite of myself, I still cared about the pain in his eyes. I shut my eyes to gather strength and raised my knees to accommodate Dotun and the only thing in focus was my husband and what he was seeing – the arch of Dotun’s back, the feverish thrust of the hips, the shudder and the collapse.

  Akin stood by the door, silent and unmoving until Dotun rolled off me and yelped when he noticed his brother in the room. Then Akin turned round, locked the door and slipped the key into his pocket.

  He removed his jacket, folded it and laid it on the bed.

  Then the fires of hell overflowed their banks and spilled into our bedroom.

  Part III

  31

  ILESA, DECEMBER 2008

  I arrive in Ilesa just before midnight. My driver and I go from hotels to motels, and it seems as if the whole country is in Ilesa this Friday. We do not find any space until we get to Ayeso, the last part of town I wou
ld have chosen to stay because it is so close to your father’s house. But I have to sleep somewhere and I take the only vacant room at Beautiful Gate Guest House. I beg the attendant to allow Musa to sleep on the couch in what appears to have been a sitting room before, but now serves as a reception.

  I am tired, but I cannot sleep. I step out of my room on to the adjoining balcony and I can see your father’s house from here; right across the street, just after the point where the tarred road dips into a valley. It is easy to pick out because, apart from this guest house, it is the only house where the lights are on, thanks to a generator. There are several cars parked outside, double-parked on the main street. There are people eating on the balcony; there are people everywhere. Although I cannot see the backyard from where I stand, I can see smoke rising from there. I should be there now, keeping vigil over boiling stew and telling the hired cooks to turn over the sizzling meat before it gets burnt, making sure they start cooking the Jollof rice by 5 a.m., yam and stew by 6 a.m., so that everyone can eat before they go to church for the funeral service. It is what wives do; I did it many times, do you remember? Did you even notice how hard I tried?

  Why did you invite me for this funeral? How did you even know where I was? I thought you had wiped me off the way a teacher wipes off old notes from a chalkboard with a duster. Then I got that card in the mail and the printed words asked me to be the guest of Akinyele Ajayi. I watch the family house, hoping to recognise somebody, at least one of the people that I used to think of as family in this place that I once called home. But it is too far away. I can see people, but not their faces, and any of the men could be you. There are still canopies outside; I assume they are from the wake that was held this evening. I had no plans to attend that, to listen to you and your siblings tell carefully crafted lies about your dead father in between hymns.

  I can imagine the measured words you must have spoken tonight, the platitudes expected from a first son. You would have delivered them well, made some people want to weep. Those who did not know your father would have been tempted to cry their hearts out that the world had lost such a gem at the tender age of ninety. Your mother would have, as always, been proud. Since you would have spoken first, none of your siblings would have matched your oratory skills, none of them could, even if they had a year to prepare. I am on the balcony until the lights go off in your father’s house, then I go back into my room and fall asleep at once.

  I am awake before 6 a.m. The floor feels cold and chills snake up my legs as I walk to the balcony. It is as though nobody went to bed at your family house. Maybe you closed up the house in Imo and slept here last night. I settle in a plastic chair and watch. I’m in no hurry to get ready because I will not be attending the church service.

  The praise singer arrives around 7 with his mini megaphone. He stays on the street and chants, praising first of all Ijesa people, to whom your father belongs. I learned the verses of this oriki just before I married you. Your mother taught me every line she knew and I memorised them eagerly. She told me to wake you up in the morning on my knees, chanting the lines of your lineage’s praise. I chose instead to cling to your body and whisper the words into your ears, but you did not like to listen to poetry in the mornings or at any time, and it was Sesan who would enjoy my renditions. The chanter is praising your paternal grandmother’s family now. They still make my head swell, these words about people who were dead long before we were born.

  There are tears in my eyes by the time the chanting finally gets to your father’s oriki. I do not know if I am crying for myself, you, your father, all the years that have passed or because the praise singer renders the verses so beautifully. There is a woman standing beside the praise chanter – her hands are up in the air. I can see she is weeping, shaking her body until her wrapper slips to the floor. She does not pick it up. My hands are cold on my cheeks as I wipe away my tears.

  There is such loud wailing when your father’s coffin, white from where I sit, is brought out of the house. The wails reach a crescendo as the pall-bearers hoist the coffin to their shoulders. People stand in twos or threes, holding on to each other as though they might collapse under the weight of grief if they do not hold on to somebody. A female voice pierces through the din and reaches me. ‘My father, is it really over? Are you really leaving us? Won’t you wake up? Won’t you wave goodbye? My father? My father?’

  The pall-bearers begin a march towards the hearse; a lone trumpeter leads the way, playing ‘Shall We Gather at the River’. The praise singer, too, continues his chant.

  Ma j’okun ma j’ekolo

  Ohun ti won ba n je l’orun ni o maa ba won je

  The little crowd that is gathered in front of your house disperses. Many climb into the parked cars. The cars begin to move slowly, forming a convoy behind the hearse. A pick-up van that has a man hanging out of the window with a video camera on his shoulder is the first to gather speed. The hearse follows, its siren announcing your father’s final departure from the neighbourhood where he spent most of his adult life. He will not be back here again; after the service, he will be interred in the church cemetery at Ijofi. Several cars follow the hearse, shiny jeeps and SUVs owned by his children and close relatives. I wait until the last car is gone before going back into my room.

  I put on my clothes about the time you will be standing by your father’s freshly dug grave, surrounded by family and clergy. You will be the first among the children to throw a clump of earth into your father’s grave. The wailing will start again and as you all watch the grave-diggers begin to fill up the grave with earth, even the men will become tearful. Couples who have not spoken to each other in weeks will hold hands. I was too shocked to cry at my father’s funeral, but you had tears in your eyes even though you did not let one of them fall. I held your hand while you sniffed and blinked rapidly.

  Akin, who will hold your hand today if you cry silently?

  32

  1992 ONWARDS

  The first time Dotun had sex with my wife, I stood in front of the bedroom door and wept. It happened on a Saturday. Funmi was visiting relatives or something. I was supposed to be at the sports club. I thought then that I had the capacity to play tennis or drink beer while my brother tried to get Yejide pregnant. I had it all planned so that by the time I got back home, Dotun would have left our room, Yejide would have put on her clothes, and I could act as if I didn’t know what was going on.

  But halfway to the club, I turned the car around and drove back home. Hoping I would find them in the sitting room, watching something on the television, sitting on opposite sides of the room. Thinking it was possible that Yejide wasn’t as vulnerable as I’d imagined, that Dotun wasn’t as persuasive as I’d believed and I would have a chance to tell my brother that I’d changed my mind. I wasn’t sure about the plan any more, could no longer bear the thought of his hands on my wife.

  There was nobody in the sitting room.

  Could have turned back when I stood in front of our bedroom door, when it became obvious that it was too late to stop what I’d set into motion. I should have gone downstairs, left the house again. But I found that I couldn’t move. I felt like my body was suddenly without bones, about to collapse. So I clung to the stainless-steel door handle with both hands, pressing my forehead against the doorframe. Tears began to slide down my cheeks as I imagined what was happening on the other side of the door.

  Until that day, the tears I’d shed as an adult had all been because of Yejide. The first time was when she asked me if I thought she was responsible for her mother’s death. I’m sure my mother would still be alive if she had never conceived me, she’d said, twisting a braid around her forefinger. I didn’t know what to say, but my body responded to the utter despair in her eyes with the sting of tears in mine. She blinked and the despair was gone, just like that. Then she smiled and asked me to forget what she’d just said. Of course it’s not my fault; I didn’t create my own head, she said, letting the braid go. She moved on to another topic
while I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. She didn’t acknowledge my tears and I felt as if I’d just witnessed an argument she was having with herself. I realised that she hadn’t looked into my eyes because she thought I would give her answers – she had looked in my direction only because I happened to be there.

  Two weeks later, her father was dead. At his graveside, I was shocked by how her stepmothers went out of their way to make sure that Yejide stood without any family member by her side. They all moved from one side of the grave to another so that Yejide and I stood alone like outcasts. When I nudged Yejide and asked that we both follow her siblings and stepmothers, she smiled and told me that they’d moved because of her and if we went to their side, they would all simply move again.

  Yejide had mentioned before then that her stepmothers made a sport out of ostracising her. But until that day at the burial, I hadn’t thought much about what it must have been like for her to grow up in a family where her only ally was her father. Her father, the man who had told her more than once that the love of his life could have lived forever if only Yejide’s head had been smaller when she was an infant, small enough for her mother to push into the world without losing too much blood. The tears I managed to hold back at the funeral were not for Yejide’s father – I met the old man just once before he passed on. Tears blurred my vision because of the lonely little girl who had become the woman whose hand I held as she bent over to throw a handful of sand on her father’s coffin.

  Long before I discussed it with him, I knew Dotun would agree to have sex with my wife. Steeled myself ahead of time and assumed that, when it eventually happened, the only emotion I’d have left would be pity for Yejide. She tried to act the part of a good in-law around my brother, but I knew she despised him and thought his wife was unfortunate to have married him. Once, she’d let it slip that she could hardly believe that we were brothers. She didn’t explain what she meant, but I knew she was trying to say she believed I was Jekyll and he was Hyde. I thought I’d pity her for the guilt she’d carry; feel sorry that she had to find comfort in a man she despised. Didn’t imagine that Dotun’s touch would ever become something she enjoyed. But that Saturday, instead of feeling any emotion for my wife, I wept because I felt humiliated, hopeless, angry. My tears had nothing to do with Yejide. I didn’t give a damn about how she felt that day. Rage coiled itself around my throat like a constrictor, made my eyes water, gave me a sharp pain in my chest each time I took a breath.