“Tell the council Ewe,” she humphed.
“You know what the punishment is for such a thing?”
“Tell them.”
And he ran his excited tongue over his dry mouth.
Amidst these events in the palace, Filo remained surprisingly calm. As if the shrieking Harmattan-like wind inside her that had pulled her furiously back and forth suddenly stopped. She thought it funny that the slow destruction happening around her created an opposite effect within her. And she began to run towards her thoughts instead of away from them. Just outside her narrow chamber doorway, if you stood on your toes you could see the Oba’s back room window staring the horizon down. Every time she looked, somehow it seemed further and further away. She had allowed a thought so delicious to leave her head and sit in her mouth that she no longer felt guilty carrying it with her. And it was this: she was glad Oba Odion was suffering. Through her hair falling out, the blood from the main palace roof and the stream of bad luck that had plagued the palace it was clear that he knew. He knew why these terrible things were happening but couldn’t show his face. The Gods would disapprove but she was happy the Oba was being handed the fate she believed he deserved.
It was a clear, slow-burning day when it happened. Filo’s skin felt sticky and no amount of water wetting her dry throat was enough. She was tentatively tending to the group of fowl that hung outside their back yard, throwing grains of corn to them and watching them pick at it. At the same time thinking of the street vendors that lined the roads on market day, whistling through their teeth and shoving handfuls of material, native jewellery and spicy food wrapped in broad green leaves your way. But then a curious thing happened, a seminal occurrence. Filo softened, her body had stopped turning to stone. She dropped the corn, haphazard yellow mouthfuls scattered as if to be replanted.
The fowl, her only interested audience, sensing the importance of the moment began to cluck, as she started a sure, confident retreat. She took nothing; she turned to do the walk towards the main palace where the gates were waiting. People were milling about within pockets of the grounds and she passed some guards laughing at words hanging between them. They nodded at her and she did not stop. She walked out of the palace gates and didn’t look back. She threw the spare gate key she had stolen from a guard into the river, imagining water creatures using it to unlock a town beneath their tremors. And she kept going because beyond her, that body and that life, the rivers and the land, another world beckoned. Winking just behind the edges of broken clouds, she imagined people filled with so much light, it would be blinding, and a place where the shame of this life was not smothering the next.
Applique for Beginners
Reading my grandfather’s diary felt like I was on a canoe, in the sea. I didn’t even know if I liked who I think he was, or if I knew enough about him to patchwork quilt his personality together. He was just fragments colouring white paper. When someone does a terrible thing, a thing that continues to have repercussions, it’s hard not to judge. It is difficult not to stick a label on their box that says damaged, carry this side up. It is hard not to be reminded that you are alone and that maybe, a puppet master made these strings for you long before you were born.
Tomorrow, in households across the city, door hinges will creak emphatically as the air sweeps failures and successes of the day. Fathers will tuck their children into bed and smile knowing that one day this moment too will change, mutate into a different version because you can’t protect your children forever. And somewhere, a moth begins its day by laughing at me.
Peter Lowon, Journal Entry May 1961
My daughter Queen is now five years old; she is like her mother in the sense that she is all-seeing. I have heard people say this and it is true for me too; the day she was born was the happiest day of my life. Everything else paled in comparison to her toothless grin, her pointed nose that is a replica of mine and her first attempts at walking. I named her Queen because the first time I held her perfect little body, she opened her bow shaped mouth and crooked her tiny finger at me as though she were a royal and smiled. So I call her Queenie and her mother calls her Queeeeeenie! Because most of the time she is shouting her name.
Queenie is a fearless child. She sticks her hands inside holes in the ground, touches everything, attempts to catch lizards with her bare hands and talks to the flea ridden stray dog down our street that begs for food. Sometimes, she angles her head to the side when you are talking to her, as if she’s questioning the validity of what you’re saying. On my trips home, after the gate has squeaked and announced my arrival, she runs as fast as her feet can carry her, clutching my uniform clad legs. “Daddy you’re home! What did you bring for me?” Queenie does not stop asking questions, in fact Felicia has joked that she is considering taping Queenie’s mouth for at least two hours a day. Daddy what is rainbow? Why do people call you Lieutenant Colonel? Is fried dodo banana? Why do they put pepper in suya? Doesn’t the man selling corn on the road with no shoes have a daddy to buy him shoes? Daddy why? Daddy, daddy, daddy.
Yesterday she told me she drew an eye on a tree. When I asked her why she looked at me as if I was an imbecile and said “so the tree can see, shhh don’t tell mummy!” Now the mango tree with one eye is our secret.
Life is good, the General kept his word and I have advanced to a higher rank. We moved to a bigger house in Lagos. It is white and Queenie thinks it is made of sugar cubes. We have a mayguard at the front named Nosa but Queenie calls him No sir No sah! When I carry her on my shoulders and she giggles, I forget who I am, what I’ve done.
Now, the brass head sits in a glass cabinet, right on the top shelf, looking down on everyone who enters the parlour. It is safe from Queenie’s hands. It used to be on the first shelf, but once Queenie picked it up and played with it, tossing it around carelessly. Felicia was furious; she smacked Queenie’s hand and warned her it wasn’t a toy. I couldn’t help thinking that it had began to weave its pattern of trouble. I wanted to get rid of it then. But if I disposed of it I knew I would have to tell Felicia the real reason why, and I couldn’t do that, not yet, not after all this time. So I let it be, and I say nothing when Felicia polishes it as if it is made from the finest gold. I swallow my irritation when guests point at it curiously. I look the other way when my mother requests I get her something similar.
When I am away, Felicia tells me she spends her days keeping our household ticking over and running after Queenie. We have several people in our employment including Nosa the mayguard, a houseboy and housegirl, the driver and one of Felicia’s girl cousins Eunice who also helps around the house. She loves her daughter but I know she is bored, unfulfilled. Sometimes when I ask how her day is she says what do you want me to tell you when I have nothing of substance to say? She wants to get a job, maybe working in a bank or something along those lines. I refuse to allow her to do this. Deep down I know she still wants to go to university, even now, perhaps to study law or medicine. We fight over this, arguments that shake our bedroom and leave the door shuddering. If I allow her to follow her whims people will say my wife is the master in my house, that my trousers fit her nicely. This resentment festers between us, gathering in mass till I worry one day it will push me out of our bed. I know my wife has grown to love me over the years but sometimes, unguarded, I catch a scheming expression on her face. I tell her I will give her money to run her own store selling bobas, shoes and handbags. I tell her this as if it isn’t a consolation prize.