Did we fail you, Beautiful Son, because we did not fight long enough, there where you were born? Did not love strongly enough? Did not die from bullets and bombs, broken hearts, depression and soul wounds sufficiently enough? —Alice Walker*
“You will tell the story of where you have been when you arrive home.” The words tell the story of the kola nut in any ceremony in which we break the kola nut. I know the story of the kola nut is your story too. You took your time, but we waited. Dupe arrived first, with Daddy’s gratitude expressed in the meaning of her name. Grateful. Mother named her Ekanem, or Sweet Mother, to honor her own mother. I came next. As if to conjure you, I was the girl with a boy’s name—Olubanji. Daddy added Iyabode, as if I were the reincarnation of his mother, though she was alive at the time of my birth. Omotayo came next. She was born in the evening, so Mother called her Arit. Her name held hope because, for the third time, we waited. Daddy consoled himself with the thought no matter the sex, a child brings joy. Then, just when Daddy had given up hope, when mother, pregnant with you two years later, ended their marriage suddenly, you sauntered into the story of our family and ended our waiting.
The kola-nut eaters bear witness in the morning, gathering outside Uncle Christopher’s house in Yaba. They do not see you circumcised, but they would transform into storytellers, replete with rice, meat, palm wine, and gin, when they celebrate your naming. The eighth day of life, after all, signals the beginning. I imagine Uncle Christopher offering the plate of reddish-purple kola nuts to the men. They pass the plate from one man to the other until it gets to our oldest relative. As the oldest relative in the gathering, he must say the prayers before they eat the kola nut. He takes one of the kola nuts in his right hand, and as he prays, the witnesses say amen. The guests say amen. The neighbors and the children eager for the food say amen. My mother, who looks tired under the heavy cloth of her head scarf, says amen. Grandma Ekaika, who cradles you in her arms where you sleep, says amen. Auntie Grace, who carries Tayo on her back in a makeshift baby sling, says amen. Daddy, waiting to finish his studies in London, isn’t there, but his emissaries who bring your name say amen. Dupe and I wonder why it’s taking so long to get to the fun part.
Uncle Christopher separates the four-lobed kola nuts with ease. The plate travels around again. The men chomp on the nuts as if they are something reserved for the privileged. A few men pocket theirs. As if on cue, servers with platters of garden eggs—eggplants the size and color of real chickens’ eggs—bitter kola, alligator pepper, and peanut paste move through the guests.
“They didn’t give us any,” I complain to Dupe.
“Because it’s not for children,” she replies. I don’t believe her until I sneak a piece off a tray piled high with an assortment of the garden eggs and kola nuts. I crunch on one lobe and gag on the pungent juice. Dupe’s eyebrows say, I told you so, as I spit out the nutty crumbs.
By the time Dupe and I each get a bottle of Fanta, you’re no longer Baby. You are the Child Who Arrives Home. Omodele.
But Dupe, Tayo, and I call you Dele. Home.
. . . . . .
You are three and Tayo is five when we arrive in Vom. I don’t remember much of the journey except that it feels like I woke up beside Dupe the next morning in a strange house with you and Tayo jumping up and down on the bed wet with our urine. Our mother used to wake us up in the night to go to the toilet. No one did last night. Dupe and I pull off the sheet and flip the mattress over so no one will know. On our way to the bathroom with the sheet, we hear a baby crying and voices—Daddy’s and someone else’s.
“Come in and say good morning to your new mummy,” Daddy announces in his happy voice. The woman who will be our new mummy is tall in a solid sort of way that makes you instantly aware of her presence. Much taller than our mother, she holds a baby against her shoulder, patting him on the back. Remembering my promise to Daddy to be good, I hide the soiled sheet behind me.
“Good morning, Mummy,” we sing in unison. Quite sure the woman’s sadness is because of the sheet, I worry about you and Tayo. Our mother taught Dupe and me to wash clothes, so the sheet will not be a problem for us, all you and Tayo know how to do is play and fight. Shortly after the introduction, you will squeeze six of her baby guinea pigs to death because you want to hear the sounds they make. I will worry even more when, excited about swimming for the first time, you will jump into an empty pool, fall off bicycles, break the neighbor’s window playing football, run away from school, and in a couple of years, run away from home.
Our new mummy does not say good morning.
. . . . . .
Our house sits on a patch of green with fruit trees on either side. In front of the house is a driveway with a small roundabout where you and Tayo ride your bicycles. The backyard opens into a garden, beyond which lie the boys’ quarters, where servants live. A small hill rises in the distance beyond the boys’ quarters, like something out of a fairy tale. This is no small improvement on the cramped room we shared in Lagos with our real mother, playing on Ajibade Street, or wandering around the rooms in Hotel Majestic. A part of me wants to keep things this way even if it means being with a different mother whom we now call Mummy.
Mummy’s long-limbed shape under the covers on the bed she shares with Daddy does not invite friendliness. Freckles bloom across her cheeks and nose, though part of her face remains half hidden on the pillow. She sleeps in when Daddy leaves for the office at the veterinary research institute where he works as an accountant. On my haunches, I gather up newspapers thick with the black juice she spits out after putting tobacco powder between her inner cheek and gums. Cleaning the floor tiles with a damp rag, I lay down fresh newspapers, to prevent stains. Next to her on the bed, my baby brother Remi sleeps peacefully. At age seven, I know that keeping our new mummy happy is the key to our happiness: speak with extra layers of honorifics in English and Yoruba; bend the knee in curtsy to get what I want; inform on others to escape punishment. As an adult, I know that intuition and an instinct for survival informed my actions as a child. But the mask of pretense that I love Mummy is a shield for me, not for Dupe, not for Tayo, not for you.
The body on the bed stirs.
“Olu, tell Kacholom to boil the water for my bath.”
“Yes, Ma.” I scrunch the tobacco-stained newspaper. “Do you want another book?” The question carries more eagerness than I feel. Mummy has a bookcase of Denise Robins and James Hadley Chase novels, and she is never without one. I know all the titles. My system for organizing and locating the books confuses Dupe, who turns to me for help anytime Mummy sends her to get a book. You and Tayo are too young for these kinds of errands. At first I read only the blurbs, but later on, the books, because they are different from my schoolbooks. It is a world Mummy escapes into, a world of revenge, espionage, murder, and love. In the world of Denise Robins’s Etta Hughes and Mark Trender, I push you to the margins.
You avoid Mummy. She has been harsh with you ever since the guinea pig incident, but I want to be with her. I buckle her sandals when her pregnancy gets in the way. She trusts me to fetch earrings from her jewelry box. Her babies sleep on my back. Though I steal the baby shoes and hats she knits, she never finds out. My teachers give me excellent grades for them in arts and crafts. She beats me, and sometimes gets Daddy to beat me. The same as Dupe, Tayo, and you. Within two years, I would fall two flights of steps with Baby Ronke and would keep her safe. Her children would suffer from blood poisoning from the can of sardines I feed them. Mummy reserves sardines for them.
Make breakfast for the children.
Mix the sardines with butter.
Spread it on the slices of bread.
Make their chocolate beverage and feed the children.
Don’t steal their food.
Although Mummy hits me for trying to “kill” her children, I remain her mouthpiece and her handbag. She visits her mother in Zaria, a four-hour journey, and I go with her. The holidays with Mummy’s family and her children become routine until Daddy puts his foot down and insists that Tayo go along one day. It turns out to be my last trip: Tayo calls Mummy’s mother a witch to her face, and we are banished from ever visiting her again.
Mummy comes home a different person.
. . . . . .
We sprawl in front of the TV, which occupies a central position in our living room when we move to Bukuru. The TV is the family’s most prized possession, second only to our Peugeot station wagon. A black box in a wooden cabinet, the television sits between the two speakers of a stereo with shelves for the record-cassette-player-radio-stereo and Daddy’s record collection. The buildings with more progressive tenants sprout television antennas, which look like wind vanes in a contest for who can receive the best signal. On the days of a big show like Nigeria’s Independence Day or Children’s Day, when children march in the stadium, Daddy would go up to the roof to turn the antenna around until the TV gave clearer images.
“Is it OK now?” Daddy would call from the roof to you, and you would relay the question to Dupe, who would stand in front of the TV, wondering when the animated black, graphite, and gray dots would change.
“No. Keep turning!” Dupe would shout to you, and you would shout to Daddy, who would twist the antenna some more until the grainy TV screen would flash clear black-and-white images that quickly disappeared into a two-toned gradient.
“No, no! Turn it back to where it was before, but slowly,” Dupe would shout to you again, and you would shout the same thing to Daddy.
“Can’t you tell if it is clear or not?” Daddy would bark at you, frustrated by the twisted cables of the antenna. Further rotation would slowly bring the black-and-white images back into focus.
“Yes, it’s much better now!” Dupe, triumphant, would shout the message, and you would echo her joy to Daddy. Daddy would leave the antenna on the roof to find wobbly images on the TV. Dupe connects that memory to her first pair of glasses.
TV time is one of those rare moments we sit together as a family or laugh together while we watch a television series. During The Village Headmaster, Kabiyesi, Chief Eleyinmi, Gorimapa, Sisi Clara, Bassey Okon, and Amebo hold court in the imaginary Yoruba village of Oja, going over the social issues affecting their people. The show airs weekly and ends at nine, when we have to go to bed. Dupe does the best rendition of the characters’ voices. Her one-man shows keep us laughing until the next episode. Gorimapa is the word for our clean-shaven heads when we have an infestation of lice. Amebo is Tayo’s nickname, since she knows how to expose everyone’s secrets, though she refutes this, insisting that I get the award for the best snitch. Watching TV can be a community activity, and Daddy wants us to be nice. Sometimes, the kids of our neighbors who have no TVs of their own will peep through the living room window to catch a glimpse of the show, making demands.
“Move your head.”
“You’re not transparent.”
Other times, their parents show up at our door at eight o’clock with the children in tow. They make our tiny living room feel even smaller when the adults crack up at the cast of New Masquerade’s Chief Zebrudaya, Alias Four-Thirty, Giringory, Clarus, Jegede, and Ramota, who express the foibles of human nature in their brand of broken English. Sometimes the children whisper a running commentary throughout the show for the benefit of their siblings who are unable to speak English, drawing irritated looks from Dupe, Tayo, you, and me. Mostly, we watch TV in silence, on our knees, drawn into the world of Big Bird, Kermit, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch. Lagos and our mother fade slowly into distant memories, until FESTAC.
You are five when the Nigerian Television Authority broadcasts the drama of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, FESTAC ’77, into our living room in Bukuru. It holds little interest for you. Over the course of the previous year, the seven o’clock news has provided a steady stream of updates about the preparations for the international event. On the Saturday of the opening ceremony, after a speech from Daddy on being witnesses to history, we stand at attention to sing the national anthem with the military band on TV as we do on the assembly ground at school.
Nigeria, we hail thee
Our own dear native land
Though tribe and tongue may differ
In brotherhood, we stand,
Nigerians all, and proud to serve
Our sovereign Motherland.
We sit as the green-white-green of the Nigerian flag, the map of Nigeria and its nineteen states, the portraits of Lieutenant General Olusegun Obasanjo decorated with all the insignia of his rank and awards (Head of the Federal Military Government, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and Grand Patron of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, says the TV) and of Commander Ochegomie Promise Fingesi, President of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, and an oval mask of Queen Idia with the words “Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture” beneath it scroll past. Dupe wants to know whom the mask represents.
“She is Queen Idia of Benin, where Mummy is from,” Daddy explains. “She is the symbol of the mother of an African kingdom. Black people all over the world have a connection to the continent of Africa.”
“Queen Idia was a real person who lived a long time ago,” Mummy adds. “She was a beautiful, brave woman who fought against her son’s rivals to ensure Oba Esigie became king.”
“Like Moremi of Ife?” Dupe wants to know. “We read about her in history class.”
“Moremi’s story is different. Moremi made a vow to sacrifice her son to the river deity for helping her defeat the enemies of her kingdom. Moremi fought for her husband and nation,” Mummy, warming to her subject, expounds.
“Idia, on the other hand, made sure her son became oba after the death of her husband. Her son crowned her Queen Mother and ordered craftsmen to make ivory mask pendants to honor her memory.”
I think of you as I write. What was the effect of the absent-distant mother figure on you? Would you be alive today if Mother had made Idia’s choice, not Moremi’s? Are children a means to an end?
* Alice Walker, “This Is Not a Tweet: Nothing to See: Move Along” in “Alice Walker Reviews Heavy. Thank You, Alice Walker,” Kiese Laymon (blog), https://www.kieselaymon.com/blog/2019/12/14/alice-walker-reviews-heavy-thank-you-alice-walker.
