Your mother is dead now. It is a good
thing, I tell you. Before she died, it
seemed her blindness affected her
brains because she started behaving
like Suliyat, the mad woman who lived
in the heap of rubbish across our
street. She was feasting on her
defecation, can you imagine? Please
don’t imagine such horrible thing. The
blindness must have made her brains
go to rot. But she was a good woman.
In the name of Allah the Most
Beneficent, the Most Merciful, I pray
she finds peace. I believe she must
have passed her test of faith in the
grave and should be in Illiyin now.
And the two angels – Munkar and
Nakir – must be proud of such a
righteous person. My worry was why
she went through all that sufferings if
she was a good woman. I know death
is inevitable, the Holy Book says so, it
will visit everyone no matter what. She
should have died quite easily but are
we not just humans?
I cringe in embarrassment now when I
think of how your mother’s eyes
worked; one eye working to provide
for you and your siblings, the other
trained to make sense of the swiftness
of my fists. Thinking of it now, I
marvel at how my heart had been
hardened, like the after effect of water
and clay. But there were many reasons
I made your mother’s eyes swell like
sponge, chief among them was she
talked too much about my
womanizing; about how different my
smiles and cadence were to other
women. Those talks peeled my heart,
especially as I couldn’t defend myself
with anything other than my clenched
fists. And she never for once tried to
steel herself against my precise
punches, nor did she fight back or
tried to leave. Your mother had such
an infinite patience. I really did not
know why I despised her so much, she
was to my eyes what pepper is to the
eyes; we couldn’t see things without
confrontation. There was no love
between us, I am sure. Our house was
smaller than other houses in the
compound, yet kept expanding
between us every morning and night,
like rubber losing its elasticity. I am
not the worst person on earth, after all
my only crime against your mother –
to my knowledge – was adultery, one
she had no proof of too, and I could
even count how many women and
girls I slept with. How many of my
friends can do this? None, I tell you. It
is quite shocking how those things
strike me as frivolous now that I look
back at them.
I remember the day you were a month
old or two, I had hit your mother for
accusing me of infidelity and she was
crying. You had joined her too. I think
it was the first time my heart moved
with pity or something superior to pity
for her, although hesitantly. But it
moved. You were enveloped in both
innocence and oblivion as she clutched
you in her arms trying to quench your
sobs, yet acted like you knew what
violence was. My regret is not making
her feel an ounce of happiness till she
met her death, happiness I had
promised to give her. And even the
days I pretended to show affection
towards her, most of which rang false,
she welcomed it albeit with jaundiced
eyes. You can’t fully trust one who has
shown he can kill you. This regret
clings to me like the little hands of a
child not willing to let a mother go. I
feel like I murdered her and wish I
was stronger and younger to make
things different, but wishes are what
they are; mere wishes. I think my life
has been one long unanswered
question. She did all she could
especially for me; always in the
kitchen, eyes narrowed against the
steam of whatever she was cooking.
She wasn’t even among those women
who did all they could to get this new
clothe or that latest shoe that was the
new craze in the market. She had no
eye sickness for new luxuries. It wasn’t
just her, it wasn’t.
But it used to be your mother. I met
her about thirty years ago at a
restaurant where she sat with friends
gossiping like a sewing circle of old
women over a table of drinks. Her
laughter had caught my attention. I
think they saw something and broke
into laughter, she had clutched her
enormous breasts as if they would fall
off. When I approached her later, she
didn’t even look at my face. I am busy,
she said, walking away in measured
rhythms. Her voice was low, like a sea.
I watched her leave that day like an
unwelcomed thought and felt bad but
one doesn’t give up on good things
easily. And did I tell you your mother
walked with bewitching grace? Prior to
meeting her, I had met with really
beautiful women but her beauty was
just of another magnitude; she
glittered like a jewel. Her gaze
enthralled me, engulfed me. There was
something about her startling eyes that
made you wonder what hid there.
One time you may think it is lust,
another time you think it is anger or
mischief, like that. They were all the
same, Allah bear me witness. See,
when her eyes met mine another day,
they locked. That was when I started
harbouring some hope of a happily-
ever-after, I was good looking too. I
tell you, Ibrahim, during those days, I
was a pebble in your mother’s hands.
She tossed me in the air whenever it
pleased her. I didn’t mind. She finally
decided to see me the way I saw her.
Well, who wouldn’t? I had been
present in her life like air since the
day I saw her, always having this
piercing urge to talk to her and let her
fill me in on her day’s tidbits. I
remember we spoke till the sky
darkened that day she agreed. Our
early days of marriage was all rosy
and suant, it seemed the both of us
were two missing dots that found each
other. There was never a lull in our
conversations, jokes and stories came
pouring out in heavy torrent like
water escape in a basket. You know
the first night together as man and
wife thrilled me, it made me think of a
lush and green lawn, dotted with bed
of flowers I couldn’t exactly name.
Jasmine? Sweetbriar? Geraniums?
Tulips? Roses? Ah, yes Roses. They
must be have been Roses. I almost
forgot to observe my Ghusl Janabat.
I don’t know when but things changed,
discoloured. I weep at how many times
I answered her with belts and closed
fists those times. You know what they
say about someone becoming the
shadow of their old selves, I made your
mother just that. Her once glistening
eyes became a river as they sank into
the precipice of their sockets, eyes that
became permanently sad. I used to
envy how your mother found comfort
and happiness in your weak arms, the
way you both became each other’s
reprieve. But before she died, it was
the hole of bottles that replaced your
arms when bawling on her prayer mat
seemed to fail her. I regret how I made
her feel like a stranger, an aimless
wanderer in a place she should be
calling home, how my screams made
her fret like a scared prey and hushed
her into silence, made her pace
around the house with sweat dribbling
down the tendrils of her hairlines,
tensed with expectancy of what would
happen next. This thing we call heart,
Ibrahim, can be treacherous most
times. How can something be so strong
and elastic to accommodate both love
and hate? This is one question that
has, like my life, remained
unanswered.
Sometimes I came home smelling of
another woman’s body yet she
welcomed me as if her nostrils had
barricades. She deserved better, she
did. I strongly believe that her breaths
became sour with sadness during our
marriage and remained so till she was
no more. See, there was no night I
didn’t find a reason to fill her eyes
with tears. It was that bad. When you
live with someone as a significant
other, at least a moment of peace or
stillness should hang in the air even
when love isn’t present. There was a
time she began to talk like she was
asking questions or making a wish,
like she was so unsure of how I would
receive her words. Oko mi, ekabo?, I
just prepared amala and ewedu?, your
son, Ibrahim, is sick and needs to be
taken to the hospital?….. The marriage
melted too quickly, I think, like ice
cubes set out in the sun. It wasn’t
always like that, something happened
and I don’t know what.
I am an old man now, frail as a
decayed leaf and can die today,
tomorrow or the day after, whenever
Allah wills it, He is the Greatest. I feel
levitated in confusion now and, if I
may add, stripped of my bearings and
something essential because I am torn
between what I think I was and what I
think I was going to be. It is difficult
sometimes to believe our lives are
stories, but the truth is our pasts have
led us to what we can call present and
what we will eventually call future. I
plead you do not treat your partner
this way, irrespective of who you
decide to settle with, I have no
problems with that now as life has
taught me a lot of things and one of
those is to fetch happiness from any
well that do not make attempt to
swallow you. I have also lived enough
in this life to know about people and
what I can tell you is that people can
never be known. People wear secrets
and deceptions as second skins,
carefully threaded into their first and
do not come to us with their true
intentions crested on their chest like a
badge. But make your partner happy
whichever way you can, you will get
peace that way.
You won’t understand totally but I
pray my situation do not find you
because if I would lay a curse on
someone now, it would be: may you
live the life I lived. It is of no use
running from the soft moans of your
mother inside my head. They call me
continuously, like an alarm beep.
Sometimes it is her face I see in other
people as if my eyes are faulty. The
other day, I had called Iya Salimot the
name I called your mother and she
gave me a rueful shake of head as if to
say I was a fool. The way the other
women in the compound looked at me
later that day, like someone whose
brain is missing made me know she
must have gossiped about that
incident, that little mistake. And you
know how women exaggerate things.
But I cannot just forget your mother,
especially when I newly married her;
the shine of her high forehead, her
fine painted toes, the crease of her
body that was tender and cool as the
after effect of Dettol and water, and
even the smell of her soap. Ah, Aishat
was everything good to me.
The doctor said you haven’t opened
your eyes for months now and that
your response to treatment is slow. He
said you could hear people but not
respond, that you needed a relative
and not Bayo who has been visiting
since you got here. I am sorry that this
is my first time here to see you, it is
not my intention to be away from you.
Which sane father would be happy
with the decision you took? I should
probably tell you about your siblings;
Rukayat and Faruq. Well, you know
Faruq decided to drop out of school.
He said his head wasn’t one made for
school, you were there that evening as
we sat to listen to his revelations. You
must have recalled how silence hung
in the room like a dark impenetrable
cloud when he was done talking. I
didn’t allow him drop out because I
felt he was right, no. I only allowed
him because his eyes burned with
purpose, like a steady flame, as he
spoke. I sent him to learn tailoring at
Baba Afeez’s shop but after some
weeks his face lost the glow that had
been present, his demeanour barren
of enthusiasm. He left. The same way
he left Tunde, who sold building
materials and Tope, who was a
carpenter. He simply had other plans.
It will break your heart to know he is
a burnt body now. He started
gambling and stealing. I don’t know
when but when I found out, it really
was late because like moss around a
rock, the habit had encrusted itself
around the walls of his mind. It was
my fault. I wasn’t attentive enough. He
stopped learning a trade and I didn’t
even asked why. He started and
stopped another, I still gave deaf ears.
But I think Allah has punished me
enough. Your sister Kafayat is nowhere
to be found. I heard he fled with one
boy, an Igbo boy and I haven’t heard
from her. It is almost six months now,
I think. Maybe Allah wants to console
me with you, your being alive. So I am
here to seek forgiveness. First, for not
being a good father and husband.
Second, for putting you in this state.
Your sixteenth birthday was supposed
to be a happy one for but when it was
the same day I saw you kissing Bayo,
your classmate like his lips were some
kind of saccharine, I didn’t think you
ought to be happy. I even prayed you
denied it, but the way you held his
hands, dragged him behind you and
looked at me with eyes that resembled
that of an angry lion, made my heart
sink.
Baba mi, I love Bayo. I love him so
much. If you remembered, you’d know
I staggered onto a couch. Those words
of yours felt heavy. You glared at me
with scrutiny as I erupted into gales of
laughter that rose and stayed up for a
little while, as if floating, before
settling down like motes of dust. We
could have talked if such thing had
happened now but those days when
violence was my only means of
communicating, you should have lied
to me about your sexuality. I
remember what followed in the next
relaxed minutes the house was
ventilated with breeze of anxiety: the
slaps to your eyes, the heavy blows to
your head, blows that pushed you to
the wall then to the tiled floor, blood
curling down your head, head I kept
raising and hitting hard on the floor
till I couldn’t hear you breathe. I had
swatted Bayo when he came to your
rescue. See, Ibrahim, you must know it
wasn’t my intention to hurt you and
put you in this state, just that I never
included it in my prayers to see you
marry a fellow man like yourself. But
you can go ahead now and I won’t
give any troubles, I promise. I wish
you knew you had been my favourite
child, the one whose smiles lit my
world. To all the things I wished I said,
I love you. Oh, Bayo is here.
Wa-Alaikum-Salaam, Bayo.
Why are you vibrating? Ibrahim?!
Bayo, go get the doctor now.
Welcome doctor. What? He is
responding fine now? Allahu akbar!
THE END
