I noticed Imatum had packed her things into the new bag she had bought.
‘Mama,’ Imatum called. She hunched up on the chair closest to the door, staring at the floor.
‘Yes, Imatum the courageous one.’
‘I want to tell you something.’ Her voice was unsteady.
‘Go on.’
Imatum hesitated.
‘What’s it?’ Mama asked looking at her.
‘I’m pregnant.’ She sat up. Her face was on the door, her eyes darting from side to side.
‘You’re what?’ And Mama began to cough.
I threw a cold look at Imatum. It was a hot Sunday afternoon and all my siblings were out. Only Ajara was in the front of our room, cooking.
Mama flushed and glared at Imatum. ‘Imatum the courageous one.’ Mama’s voice was low, sad.
‘Yes, Mama.’
‘What did I hear you say?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
A frightening silence ensued. I looked from Mama to Imatum. The lousy noise of our ceiling fan filled the room.
‘Whose baby are you carrying?’
‘You don’t know him.’
‘I want to know him.’
‘I won’t tell you.’
‘Then why disclose the pregnancy?’
Imatum was silent. Suddenly, Mama sprang up, but it was too late. Her hand only caught Imatum’s blouse from behind. Imatum was already outside the room, a piece of blouse in Mama’s fist.
Mama burst into hysterics, stamping her foot on the floor and tapping her chest. ‘Imatum! Imatum! So you’ve been going out only to bring pregnancy to me? You’ll never end well. I grew up chaste, from my father’s house to your father’s house. I gave birth to you, as a wife faithful to her husband. If this is my path and you have chosen to take a different path, may it never end well with you! You’ll live to regret it. May my ancestors take vengeance for me! If I gave birth to you through my anus, then you will live to deliver that bastard in your womb in peace. But if you came to the world through my vagina, then you shall never deliver that child in peace!’
Hearing Mama’s raised voice, my siblings had rushed in, with other children following them. I politely sent them out and closed the door.
We begged Mama to be quiet. She wiped the tears from her eyes and sat down. Pulling her face in the ugliest way I had ever seen, Mama cupped her cheek in her right palm. She narrowed her eyes, staring vacantly. We left her alone.
She did not talk again until Baba returned from work. As Baba entered the room, Mama began a fresh outbreak, repeating her earlier words. He walked gently, almost noiselessly, to a seat and sat down, not disturbed by her outpouring.
In one short interval between Mama’s statements, Baba asked me, ‘Murtala, why has your mother lost her senses again?’ Even though I sensed malice in his question, I answered. ‘Imatum told us that she’s pregnant.’
Baba’s countenance was impassive. Then he screwed up his face in a sneer, his eyes roving round the room.
Mama continued, ‘Why wouldn’t she be pregnant when they all live like children without a father? Why wouldn’t…’
Baba coughed and interrupted her. ‘Will you stop disturbing the peace of my house?’
Mama sprang up, pointing her index finger at his forehead. ‘You call yourself a man, a father? Shame on you.’ Mama clapped her hands in his face, her body bobbing angrily. ‘I say shame on you! Look at your daughter; she is now pregnant, because you can’t take care of her. Look around and see if there is any person like you in this compound. Useless man like you…’
‘Like mother like daughter,’ Baba said quietly, as if speaking to himself.
Mama’s outburst became harsher. ‘No, it’s like father like daughter. When you go to Sabon Gari to spend your time with bottles and prostitutes, do you see me there? Is it not because of the cheap pleasure of Sabon Gari that you’ve lost the direction to your homeland? That’s what you’ve taught your daughter. The children are watching you. They take after you. Can’t you see why you’re no longer a man among men?’ She raved on.
Baba absorbed it all, but he did not speak. He only looked askance, his face pained.
Imatum disappeared from home.
I asked Ajara about Imatum’s whereabouts. She said she did not know. I met Fatima, her friend. She looked me up and down and said, ‘I no know where she dey o.’
Like Imatum, Fatima had dropped out of primary school.
‘I expect you to know because you’re her friend.’
‘Wetin you mean? Abeg make you no put me for trouble o.’ So I left her alone.
Mama threw queries up to Jesus, demanding why she was fated to be amidst such senseless people: an alienated husband who preferred his family perishing in the city to living in the village; her first daughter, a symbol of motherhood in the family, whose reckless transformation had earned the family a disgrace; and her first son, that is me, for not standing up altogether to the challenges that faced the family. ‘What could I have done? What could I do?’ she would sigh. She sat alone for hours, resenting the proximity of Emayabo and Oyigwu.
After Baba had beaten her, I had spent some time sitting with Mama at home. She talked of the emptiness of life in the city. She talked about the type of people she saw in the market. Because it was only the poor that ate alubo, they came like stragglers, weatherbeaten and ghostlike. They bought next to nothing, but implored her to give more. ‘The men are often abashed but, Murtala, in their eyes you’ll see how the religious crisis has deformed their lives. The women come with tired smiles. They voice their pain. I always pity them. Why do they all have to live in the city? Why do we have to live in the city?’
Mama often took out her old photos and would stare at them for a long time. She particularly liked the one in which she was sitting on a small stool, wearing atu, platform shoes and a costly odugbo round her neck. She spent a lot of time dwelling in the past.
Even though she had not fully recovered, Mama returned to the market.
‘Mama, you need more strength.’
‘I can’t lie down at home while hunger kills my children.’
One afternoon, after we had gone four days without lunch, Baba came home to find Oyigwu, Emayabo, Anyaosu and me drinking watery pap without sugar. I had returned from school and found my siblings lying down, very hungry and weak. When they should have been in the compound playing, they were lying helplessly on the bed and on the ground. After dropping my school bag, I went straight to the bucket of raw pap. Only a little remained. I prepared it and added water so that it could be enough for us. We drank like hungry dogs long abandoned. As Baba walked in and saw us eating, he stood still, his eyes on Oyigwu. He did not even answer our greetings. ‘My children, this is how life has chosen to treat us,’ he said in a low, shaky voice. I looked up at him. His eyes were teary and he looked deeply gloomy.
When he pulled off his uniform, he did not go to bed as usual. Instead, he got dressed. Then he went to the TV set, unplugged it and brought it down from the old, standing locker. He picked up a rag and dusted it.
‘Baba, where are you taking it?’ Emayabo asked.
‘I’m going to repair it,’ he answered, his attention not really on her.
‘Baba, but it’s working well,’ Anyaosu lent her own voice.
‘Nothing works well in this house, Anyaosu.’
Baba went away with the TV set, returning later without it. He gave me money to buy beans and sweet potatoes.
When Mama returned, we told her he had sold the TV. She only sighed.