Kambi ran down the dark and unfamiliar street. She had never seen the old brick houses that stood on either side. A dog barked in the distance and stopped. They were still running after her; she’d seen half a dozen of them wearing masks and black capes. Her fists clenched as she raced down the block.
The ground became colder as she ran. She could feel the chills creeping up her spine. Further down, the rest of the road was paved with hard, glistening ice. She slowed down, panting.
Suddenly, a large hand pulled her into a well-lit alleyway. She squealed and whipped out her pocketknife.
“Don’t do it!” It was a man’s voice, a familiar voice. A closer look at his face revealed his identity – Beba. He smiled at her and said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Kambi woke up, sweating. It had been a dream. What a dream! Lately, her mind had been playing games. She sat up in bed and tried to clear her head. Only one day to go and she would meet her agent to hear the news. She hoped it’d be good news, but she didn’t want to worry about it.
The ticking clock drew her eyes to the wall: 5.30am. Diana had convinced her that she should visit their parents’ home later that day. It was an intervention to get Kambi to reconcile with their mother. Kambi knew, but didn’t try to fight it.
Anger was eating at her heart and soul: a clear sign that it was time to make peace with her mother.
Her parents used to be a source of comfort and refuge, but things had changed since the events of the failed wedding.
***
She drove through the tree-lined streets of GRA Phase 1, looking out for the repainted orange gate that marked her parents’ house. It used to be a black one with the number 30 glazed over it, but Diana had told her that her parents had decided to change the colour of the gate. Some of the neighbours had changed the colours of theirs too.
Kambi sang along to the song on the sound system. Her mind was plagued with thoughts of the brief romance she’d shared with Beba and the book deal.
She found the orange gate with the bougainvillea hedge and hooted. The security man opened the gate and she realised how much she had missed the company of family.
Pulling up in the driveway, she crooned along to Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry. The coda of the song brought tears to her eyes. The song had soothed her soul, but not as much as she had expected. Her heart still craved the man who was at the other end of the continent, searching for his mother. And here she was, in front of her own mother’s house, wondering what to say to her after ten months of estrangement.
Kambi remembered how she had considered herself as one who had been raised by a single mother even though her father had never left them. And how different things had been lately. For the past few months, she had grown closer to her father.
Her father was a highlife musician, and she saw him as something of a rolling stone. Her earliest memories had involved her father coming and going so often that she imagined he was a concerned uncle whom her mother had been fond of, an uncle who enjoyed teaching her to play the saxophone. Things had changed after her 13th birthday. Her father, too old to keep up with the frequent travelling, returned home to play his music locally and that was when she and her sister had started to build a relationship with him.
Her father greeted her at the door with a hug. Diana yelled from somewhere in the kitchen. The house smelled of boiling meat and chopped onions and green vegetables. Kambi joined her in the kitchen and asked about their mother. “She is stuck in traffic, but she’ll be home soon,” Diana said. She placed a pot of waterleaves on the fire.
Diana’s twin sons ran into the kitchen, holding tin drums and screaming, “Auntie Ambi, Auntie Ambi!”
Kambi hugged them. The tips of their fez caps pressed against Kambi’s legs. She lifted them one after the other and said, “You’re both so big now. What has Mummy been feeding you?”
“Daddy bought us chocolates,” Ayobami said.
“And ice cream!” Ayodeji added. They both giggled and ran off to play.
Kambi laughed and turned to Diana. “You’re doing a good job with them. I see Femi has been spoiling them.”
Diana sighed. “Kambi, I have been wanting to tell you something.”
“I’m all ears,” Kambi replied. She’d had to bite her lips to keep from exclaiming, “I knew there was something.”
“Kambi, don’t judge me, but I am falling in love again.”
“That’s not entirely a bad thing,” Kambi replied.
“It’s my ex. I’m seeing my ex-husband,” she said.
“Who? Femi? Beyond spending time with the boys?” Kambi asked. She cocked her head to the left and asked, “Is that why you’ve been excited lately?”
Diana nodded, and frowned.
“How long has this been going on?” Kambi looked into Diana’s shining face and saw that she was definitely happier than she’d been in a long time. When was the last time she’d ever seen her so radiant?
Kambi poured some palm oil into the pot of boiling waterleaves as Diana’s reply hit her: “Six months. Eight months. Dunno. It’s crazy. Divorced four years and we’re sneaking around. We can’t even remember what we were fighting about.”
Kambi was thinking about their break-up. They’d handled it maturely, had said they were parting due to ‘irreconcilable conflicts’. Diana had thrown herself into her bank work, and Femi spent days and nights at his hospital. They were both cut up about it, but neither had resorted to fighting over the kids or mudslinging or backbiting. Kambi had expected them to fight dirty, but they didn’t. Femi was reasonable and gentle with Diana, even when she was touchy.
“I don’t know, Diana. Are you sure you shouldn’t give it time before announcing it?”
Diana cleared her throat. “Perhaps,” she said, “but he says he wants us to formalise our union again, you know. Kambi, I think he’s changed.”
“People don’t change,” their father’s hoarse voice cut in. His speaking voice was quite different from the velvety baritone with which he sang his highlife music. He stood behind them and continued: “What if he’s the same man you’ve always known him to be? Would you still love him or want to stay married to him? Femi’s just a bit more mature.”
Kambi and Diana exchanged glances: a silent agreement that their father had some shocking – yet interesting – things to say. Diana exhaled. Kambi turned to sprinkle some onions, crayfish and seasoning into the soup.
The twins showed up with their tin drums, old beverage cans recovered from the kitchen bin.
“The Grand ol’ Duke of York!” Ayodeji sang, adeptly wielding his drumsticks.
“He had 10,000 men!” Ayobami beamed, chanting as he watched his brother. He drummed a tin-tyn-tin-tyn with him.
Momentarily waving their sticks they chanted: “And when they were up, they were up; and when they were down, they were down …”
Though their drumming was quite noisy, Kambi giggled at their ingenuity.
“How many times have I warned you not to play in the kitchen?” their mother said. “I’ll report you to Grandma.”
“No. I’m sorry, Mummy,” Ayobami cried.
But Ayodeji said, “You can tell her if you like. She’s not back yet!”
“Don’t speak to your mother like that!” their grandfather said, shooing them away with his hands.
Ayodeji frowned. His eyes welled up with tears. The twins both shuffled out of the kitchen.
***
Thirty minutes later, Kambi sighed and looked at her watch.
Her father rubbed her shoulder and said, “I just got off the phone with your mother, she’ll soon be home. She is so excited.”
Kambi paused, and remembered the gentle way he had said, “You were lucky to get away, Kambi. That Victor had no love in his heart for you.” She’d been surprised to hear those words from him only two days after the aborted wedding.
Now, Kambi watched as his tall figure leaned into the sink. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen, throwing patterns across his back.
“I look forward to seeing her too,” Kambi started to say. The kettle of water began whistling on the gas cooker. “But let’s talk about Diana’s confusion. And love. What if Femi genuinely loves her?”
Diana lifted the kettle and poured the water into a bowl of garri.
“Look, I’m in no position to lecture you about love. Because hey, I was hardly here for your mother, and four of your siblings died, but I chose to be out there on the road. It’s possible that Femi loves her. Remember the famous quote ‘love is what two people have been through?’” He paused and took a deep breath. Kambi sighed and so did Diana. His eyes shone with guilt and shame even though he was too proud to apologise.
“Papa, why does something as beautiful as love have to be complicated?” Diana asked.
Their father nodded his head as though in a moment of introspection. He moved to the fridge, walking across the dappled patches of sunlight on the tiled floor. Kambi poured the ground afang leaves into the pot and stirred. Diana carried a bowl of garri into the dining room. Kambi began to add the boiled meat into the soup.
“I don’t have all the answers.” He stood at the entrance of the dining room. “I feel guilty that you’ve had bad relationships because I didn’t provide an example of how a good man should treat a woman he loves,” he said.
Kambi’s hand froze. She looked at Diana, whose mouth was hanging open.
“I hope it’s not too late. I mean, much damage has been done. And you’re both women. Kambi, 24, almost 25, and Diana, 30. God, time flies.”
They heard their mother’s Peugeot 405 pull into the driveway. Kambi frowned.
“That’s Mrs Emem Obi driving in. Kambi, remember she loves you. She regrets trying to arrange that marriage with Victor,” her father said. His tone was hushed. He walked over to unlock the door. His movements were measured, yet agile. At 65, he had the energy of a twenty-something-year-old.
Mrs Emem Obi was the name their father jocularly called his wife. Kambi looked at him, the rolling stone whose rugged face became more handsome as age touched it. She went into the kitchen and turned off the cooker. She ladled the soup into a ceramic serving dish. Diana came over and hugged her. “Our mother means well, has always meant well. Don’t you know?” Diana whispered.
“I know,” Kambi said. She placed the bowl of soup on the dining table and looked up. Her mother was standing at the doorway, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was mouthing Kambi’s name with quivering lips.
“Momma,” Kambi said as she walked towards her mother.
The older woman was so slender, so fragile-looking that Kambi was careful to hug her gently.
“I’m sorry,” Kambi cried as she patted her mother’s hair. “I didn’t mean to shut you out. I was angry and ashamed.”
“Why? Why, you had nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sorry too. I haven’t been able to forgive myself for agreeing to introduce you to Victor,” their mother said.
Kambi breathed deeply. Nothing mattered now. She felt a weight lifting off her chest.
***
The twins were dozing off on their grandparents’ bed when lunch was served.
Once the adults had settled down to lunch, Kambi looked across the table and smiled. Her mother was biting off a piece of fish and chewing with relish.
“So how was your trip to Obudu?” her mother asked, as she moulded another ball of garri.
“Fine. I rested and completed a project I’ve been working on.”
“How’s your poetry going?”
Kambi nodded. “So-so,” she said.
“And the man you met? Diana said some interesting things about him,” her mother said. She was smiling her wide smile, showing the gap teeth Kambi had always admired.
“The man is an old friend. We’re just friends. But since Diana has more interesting—”
Diana nudged Kambi with her elbow to hush her. Their mother watched them both and shook her head. Their father hummed as he ate; he was lost in a world of his own. The rest of the family was used to it. Her mother waited until she’d emptied her plate of garri and soup before she said, “So what does this friend do for a living?”
“He owns a mining company and a winery.”
“Sounds like an ambitious man. I hope he’s much older?”
Kambi frowned and nodded. “But age is just a number, Ma.”
“I’ve always believed the older the better.” Her mother washed her hands.
Their father cleared his throat. “Your mother has funny ideas about what guarantees a successful relationship.” There was a tone of finality to his voice.
Diana banged on the table and paused as though she regretted the banging. “Stop talking as though our mother knows nothing about love,” she fumed.
“Good God,” Kambi muttered. Very typical of Diana, she thought. Diana was the outrageous one, the party-rocker, with the razor-sharp mouth. Their mother used to say that Diana had inherited the razor-mouth from her Ibibio mother. Kambi was the reader, the poet, the soft-spoken, tender daughter. She sipped from her glass of water and swallowed hard. Everyone hoped the boys wouldn’t awake from their sleep.
“She waited for you, worked hard raising your kids while you were out sowing your wild oats!” Diana yelled.
“Young lady! Do not speak to me in that manner,” their father said, his fist punching the air; his voice wavered somewhere between high and low. It was high enough to shock Diana, to shut her up, and low enough to make Kambi’s “Here we go again” audible.
They stared at him in silence for a while. Then the girls turned to their mother. They were expecting her to smash a glass on the wall, as she would have done when they were much younger. Now, she just stared at her husband, frowning.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Your mother is a strong woman but she has bad taste in men.”
Kambi stabbed a piece of meat with her toothpick. Their mother was obviously not in the mood for a fight.
Their mother lifted her hand and said, “Enough! Diana, don’t talk to your father like that. And Kambi, let’s talk in the garden.”
***
Oyster and periwinkle shells crunched under their feet as they made their way to the swinging chair. They sat down and listened to birdsong from the fruit trees. The mild afternoon sun danced on the leaves of the trees and threw patterns on the chair, the grass and the ixora and hibiscus flowers.
“You like the Obudu man a lot, don’t you?” her mother asked.
“You have to be careful this time around. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Her mother said.
“Now, you’re sounding like our father.”
“There’s some truth in what your father said. You should listen to your heart, but think with your head. Not the other way around. There’s no mathematics or science about matters of the heart.”
“Hmm. ‘The heart has reasons that reason cannot know’ – Blaise Pascal. Now, I’m thinking it explains why you stayed with our father.”
“I don’t try to rationalise these things,” her mother said. “It’s like trying to explain Diana’s sneaking around with Femi.”
“You’ve known all along?” Kambi asked.
“Of course, I knew from day one. She’s my daughter, isn’t she? I know when she’s down and when she’s happy. I know when she’s falling in love and when she’s falling out of love.”
“But how did you know it was him?”
“I didn’t go prying. I just stumbled upon some evidence.” Her mother picked up a flower stalk. “Besides, he’s probably the only one who can understand and put up with her.”
Kambi sighed. “Let’s hope it works out for the good.”
“That’s the thing with love. You can only hope. But you can’t keep running from it. You have to give it a shot.”
Kambi remembered Beba and how she’d resisted him. Had she driven him away? The possibility scared her. Yet, she was angry with herself for needing another person so much. Could she call it love, she wondered.
“But love hurts,” she said, squeezing her mother’s hand. “The uncertainty can be numbing. You know … not knowing how it’ll work out. It makes me wonder, what’s the point of it all?”
“Kambi, fear is a near-useless emotion. Don’t let it rob you of your chance to live.” Her mother pulled her closer. Kambi leaned on her shoulder and sighed.
Diana’s voice reverberated through the house as she shouted: “Don’t play with your food!”
Kambi and her mother looked at each other and knew that the twins were awake.