Butterfly Fish (28 page)

Omotole and her baby survived the incident with Oba Odion. She was too strong to allow an inept king to finish her, husband or not. It was bottomless will that allowed her to crawl her way out of there; while he sat rocking himself into the bleak, dark enclave he had built for himself. She had not sighted him since, so when her water broke, the blue tinged liquid splashing between her feet in the yard outside her chamber, she did not ask for the Oba to be told. Instead, she grabbed the hand of a servant girl tightly and a wince flashed over the girl's face before she lifted her up, shouting out for more help.

One of the other wives came. Omotole recognised the eldest wife before they gripped her arms, one on each side as they moved her back inside her chamber. There, a musty scent was clinging to her clothes and her headdress. They laid her down on her newly made grape coloured mat with its thin, slightly rough edges. The pains of childbirth came thick and fast and her screams pierced through the rooftops. Later, other details would come back to her; taking short sharp breaths, the feel of a small wet cloth on her forehead, advice that rained, a jumble of words that fell all over her body and her legs propped up. And a hazy feeling of confusion that continued to grow throughout. Both the servant girl and the first wife were alarmed at what was happening, though they tried to keep it from their voices.
When the baby finally came some hours later, the servant girl was unable to stop shocked words flying through her lips. “Oh the Gods help us!”

“What is it?” Omotole said, limp and tired she struggled to raise her head up. They handed the baby over to her wrapped in a sucking, gloomy silence. The first thing she noticed was a soft looking, small exposed chest and it was a boy. He was wriggling in the way that newborns do, covered in an unusual blue gunk. As her eyes wandered up, a horror gripped her by the throat. He was alive, but her baby had no face.

Bad news like good news travels fast, and before they knew it, residents in the palace found themselves making excuses to visit Omotole, just to get a look at the baby. Some even made bets on how deformed the baby would be, but nothing prepared them for it. From the neck down, the baby was perfectly healthy. Its arms, legs and body were just as they expected. But it was his face… It was such a shame and they had never seen anything like it. It was completely flattened, as though what lay under the skin wasn't bones but mush. It looked as if he had been filed down; there were no angles or planes, just an insult of a face stuck there. An ugly, terrible face not even a mother could pretend to love.

Even with the eyes, tiny slits of flecked brown and the gash of a mouth, you couldn't tell anything about the child. Whether it was happy, sad, and hungry or tired because you just couldn't see it. It was all Omotole could do to interpret his thin, high cries as the instincts of motherhood abandoned her, frightened away by the sight before them. And she was inconsolable those first few days afterwards. Her eyes wet with tears, carrying him as if he were a mistake, labouring over why it had happened, how it had happened. Shame, heavy and scorching burned her, so much so that she felt hot even when it was cooler in the evenings, and you could smell the dry earth and relief of the suffocated air that darkness was coming.

She thought of the bluish excretions from her body that had suddenly stopped, and the petals under her tongue no longer appeared.
How deceptive it had been and she almost felt she had imagined it all, only she knew she hadn't. A hard blame began to form in her stomach, as she thought of Oba Odion up there sheltered away from it. No, this was not her doing, but the disgrace would never leave her. And she would sit there, on the cusp of night, staring at her son dumbfounded, beads of resentment popping on her brow, she and that wailing baby; attempting to talk expressions into his face.

While Omotole's baby sent tremors through the place, something else was bubbling beneath the surface like simmering soup. Councilman Ewe could never keep a secret, particularly if it was of no benefit to him to do so. If you knew you wanted to keep a secret protected, they should never pass your lips in his presence. That night after he had seen them, he was almost drunk with this knowledge, coming back to the apartment he shared with his wife. How those fools could be so brazen right under their noses! Oba Odion's appointed guard and his youngest bride laughing at them all. The council had warned the Oba about her, they had all seen that she would not make a good wife but bring shame on the palace. No amount of undoing could change what had happened.

He arrived home to see their small, apartment had been swept, and the terracotta walls darkened by night made his eyes swim a little. He was a success, a member of the Oba's council, residing in the palace with a wife and two children. He had truly arrived, and he imagined the tiny village he came from just shy of Onisha hailing him. The dancing and music leading a trail all the way back to his family's hut. So engrossed was he in that image he nearly tripped over a chipped dark wooden chair they usually left in the corner of the back room. The apartment smelled of the homely mixture of cooked goat meat and Ewe's ambition. As he stopped to listen to them he could hear the reassuring breathing of his children caught in sleep, their young chests rhythmically rising and falling. Finally, he took off his beaded adornment and crept in to sleep beside the broad, fleshy frame of his wife who murmured a little in response. He tried to sleep but found himself tossing and turning, till his wife
frustrated by it said, “
Ah, ah
what is it?” So the secret entered her ears.

“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.