* * *
The love I had for my grandfather grew over the months, and soon he could not do certain things without me. He would not eat his nightly meal if I wasn’t by his side. Dinner was his favorite time for dishing out words of wisdom. He would ask Okem to bring an extra plate on which he would place pieces of fish and meat for me to munch on while I watched him eat. At intervals, he would look up from his plate and smile as I wiggled in my seat, giggling and telling stories about my day, stories that Ifedi had told me, or the things that had happened in school. My tales always amused him. One time, he almost choked as he laughed, and my grandmother came in with a horrible scowl on her face and demanded that I go to bed.
My grandfather had swiftly recovered when he heard her command.
“Leave her alone woman,” he’d said, lifting the cup of palm wine in front of him and taking a gulp.
“She has school tomorrow. Look how late it is,” my grandmother had countered.
“A few more minutes won’t push her to the bottom of the class. Will it, Ona?” he’d asked, gently placing the cup on the table and looking at me for confirmation.
My grandfather was suave. I remember thinking that when I grew up, I would marry a man like him. Once, I had told him that. That must have been the happiest I’d ever seen him.
Chapter Two
ONE MONTH AFTER my eleventh birthday, the desiccating north-east harmattan winds blew a flurry of red dust and some dirt as I walked into my grandfather’s compound. I sprinted in the opposite direction as I feared the tornado would carry me away to some unknown land where I could never see my grandparents again. It subsided as quickly as it had started, but it left behind particles of dust and dirt, making it hard for me to see. I managed to observe the blockage caused by cars parked haphazardly on the road facing the compound and extending into our driveway. It then made sense why my school bus driver had asked me to alight a block from my home. I was not happy about the fact that I had to walk. The dust had turned my white stockings a reddish-brown, which meant I wouldn’t receive my usual compliments from my grandfather, who often marveled at how my clothes always remained so clean even after a full day at school. Every day, I removed my stockings during the break period and put them back on after I had played with my friends—that’s how important their cleanliness, and my grandfather’s praise, was to me.
I got closer to the gate and discovered there were more important things to contend with than my stockings. A throng of visitors was inside the compound, some seated on benches, others leaning on their cars, and several more whispering in little circles. No one had noticed when I walked in. I felt invisible and remained so as I crept by the men and women that blocked the entrance to the staircase and every single stair, all the way to the landing.
I pushed and shoved countless times until I finally made it past the hallway that led to my grandmother’s private parlor. Stopping for a moment to catch my breath, I started to hear crying; something had gone seriously wrong. Not crying from just one or two people, but enough people to create an orchestra of moaning and wailing that grew louder as I drew closer. I placed my forehead against the frosted glass partition that separated the room from the hallway and noticed a swarm of people looking down. The door refused to give when I turned the knob, so I banged as hard as I could before someone hurriedly opened it.
“Oh, dear. Look who it is,” one of the visitors said.
The moaning suddenly stopped as everyone, except for my grandmother, turned to look in my direction. She kept her head down.
I was now certain something terrible had happened. My grandmother, my usually composed and immovable Grandma was sitting on her couch, flanked by two women, their hands interlocked as though the whole order of the universe would be disrupted if they let go of one another. Her chest heaved wildly as she took in air in large gasps. Someone whispered something into her ear, causing her head to shoot up. I recoiled in horror when I saw her eyes, startled by the stark red taking over the whites, as red as the harmattan dust I had just left behind. She squinted to look at me and then let out a loud wail as she rested both hands on her head. I ran to her side, and she wrapped her hands so tightly around me, I thought I would suffocate.
“We’re done for,” she sobbed, shaking her head wildly and staring at the ceiling.
“But—”
Before I could form a sentence, the woman on her left tugged at my hand while the one on her right protested and pushed my shoulders, forcing me to sit beside my grandmother.
“Let her be,” the second woman ordered. “Where’re you dragging her to?”
“But we can’t tell her now. It’s too fresh,” the other one countered.
“When do you want to
