In between

The sad story.

between

Ebube Daniel Ibe.

                                                   Dedicated:

                                                     To our world that needs love.

                                         The sad story, our minds so lifted. 

                                           February 1992.

                                          In Abakpa.

                                          Lead kindly light, amid encircling gloom

                                          Lead thou me on;

                                          The night is dark, and I’m far from home

                                           Lead thou me on

                                           Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see

                                           The distant scene: one step enough for me.      

-        John Henry Newman

                                           CHAPTER 1

“Mama is dead” Papa said as the word rang slowly, continuously, echoing more than St. Joseph’s school bell.  The ceiling fan in the parlour helped in dispersing it bringing it close to his ears, he felt it more than the foamless cushion he sat on, and he didn’t notice the prick of the nail from the plank which picked out in curvy way as J on his laps.

They had an accident on their way to visit Mama Nnukwu. The word “they” means someone was involved someone who his instinct confirmed but he doesn’t want to believe, he never wants to believe. “Kachi died too” Papa read his mind, they died on the accident. Kwado watched the mouth saying they died as if it wasn’t her beloved Nneka. Kachi’s name was loose in his mouth as he didn’t call it with a sacrosanct of a sad moment, he called his name the way he did when he bought a ball for him for having taken the first position. That one was more prestigious for he called him Onyekachi. “Chikwado nwa m” Papa tightened him with a hug, “you have to be strong inugo” he whispered to his ears, “yes be strong.”

Kwado asked for Mama when he returned from midterm break, he called Kachi’s name first while at the door so that he can give him the groundnut he bought for him from Abakpa market, it was when he saw Papa with a bottle of gin that he sensed danger. Papa doesn’t drink beer talk more of gin, he doesn’t encourage it at all for he still remembers how he told them that it doesn’t make a man, that whoever can’t control his emotions and depends on something else is nothing but a half-man. Papa sat on the cushion adjacent the divine mercy and holy family image which hangs on an altar nailed to the wall with its sacramentals almost brushing the ceiling. A small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary with hands spread as in giving blessings lay on the left side of the altar, the statue of St. Michael is at the right side as both flank the crucifix at the centre. St.Theresa’s image at the back of the statues leans acutely against the wall and the artificial rose flower cupped on a plastic vase at both sides of the altar partly shield the image with the flower vases serving as a block which holds it from slipping down, had it been the flower vases weren’t there it would slip down distorting and falling the statues, it was recently that Mama replaced the broken limbed crucifix which fell down after Kachi forgot to fit well the flower vases at its position. Mama usually wash the altar clothe every Saturdays afterwhich she replace it with other ones, last week it was the block rosary altar clothe that was there- a blue imprint of “OUR LADY QUEEN OF NIGERIA’’ circled it and under it was“PRAY FOR US.” Kwado had seen it and knew the altar clothe would be changed tomorrow to divine mercy altar cloth were it would be staying till next week Friday after the nine-day mercy novena must have ended. It was the altar clothe that made him ask of Mama, the block rosary altar clothe wasn’t charcoal ironed as wrinkles were so much on it drawing circles on the center and Italian N at the edges.

Papa sap the gin andwith a heavy thud dropped the bottle it on the table, his face didn’t make a wry as an impact he received from the brand whisky, it was when he told him what happened and how it happened that the scar on his face moved, shifting from side to side on his cheeks.  The gin smelled heavily in his mouth and he felt more of it as Papa circled his hands around his neck while taking him to the room. The starched army uniform shirt he wore together with his big arm pressed on him and it didn’t stop till he sat him on the bed. “Kwado nwa m is okay” he dried his cheek with his hands, “you have to be strong, inugo?” He caressed away the tears on his face while helping him lie on the bed and after tucking him inside the blanket he left for the door, “Iam coming. Let me go and prepare ofe akwu”. Kwado didn’t notice his words again after he said they died, he didn’t notice the tears that runs down his cheek to the nearest entrance, which tastes like the holy water Father Agozie sprinkle on them every Saturday after the rosary procession, when they must have finished reading from the blue book of the Blessed Mary. The tears in his mouth made him feel from his room the ceiling fan which spun in the parlour, he thought of where the ceiling fan fell from its place and struck Mama and Kachi as they were eating in the parlor; a story the vanguard newspaper bore on Thursday of how a fan fell from the ceiling in a government hospital and killed a female nurse and a young boy. Controversial citizens who reacted to it said they wished the Head of State was in that white garment and his child the young patient so that he can feel the impact of hawking drugs instead of focusing on his government. Kwado thought of it still and imagined were the nurse was Mama and the young boy Kachi, he was imagining on how the ceiling fan would have killed both of them at once, his mind returned as the light went off and it was now he noticed the shaking sound of the fan as it jerked, shivered before reducing its rotation. It was Kachi who sarcastically told him how the acronym NEPA which means “Nigeria Electricity Power Authority” had been changed to “Never Expect Power Always”. His tears poured down more when he remembered Kachi for he couldn’t come to think of thinking that they are dead; his long silence was as a result of not deciphering Papa’s words. The word death was so strange and that’s why his eyes formed a cloudy sort and with each blink condenses the tears from his eyes trickling down the path of his cheeks, with more of it drifting into his mouth. 

 Papa’s movement woke him and he rose quickly in fright as the stainless plate used in covering his food slipped off banging repeatedly on the floor. “I made you ofe akwu” he gently placed the water in a stainless cup beside his food.  Kwado wondered on how he processed the palm kernel stew, if he boiled water so that the oil from the thin rinds of the palm fruit can be squeezed out perfectly or if his hands were like Mama as he pressed the akwu tufts against the sieve. She must have pressed it with both hands and I know Kachi was the one holding the lamp for her, he said in his mind while moving to his study desk.  He flashed his eyes on Papa who stood beside the study desk leaning fully on the window.

“Thank you ma, thank you Papa I mean” the words were lout he finally talked. Kwado shifts the cup of water away from his food for Papa brought it so close that it may pour into the rice with any slight shake of the table. “You have to eat so that you won’t starve don’t you see how thin you are.” He drew his fingers from his neck region down to his spine, “eat inugo.” He watched as he scooped the food to his mouth, he was relieved when he saw him eating. “You have to forget them and forge ahead, chefuo ha!!” Kwado dashed for the window and vomit the rice grains. “I can’t papa, I can’t” His sixteen years old voice was high after coughing out the rice grains. “I know or do you think am not feeling the pain, the dead are dead Kw...”

“I can’t…I can’t” He interrupts with a stuttering voice while heading for his bed leaving the scattered rice and ofe akwu on the stainless plate. “I can’t Papa” his voice shook alongside his hands, and though he tuck himself inside the blanket with his head the only part that was left out, he still shivers. Papa saw it alongside with his legs wriggling inside it like an earth worm that was sprayed salt. The cough which led to his malaria wasn’t the mockery cough they make whenever Papa mistakenly breaks the rule of vernacular or when he had done it Mama would teasingly say “oti iwu emebi iwu, the maker and breaker of the law” after which comes the cough, Kachi’s own the longest. Papa mandated Igbo language to be spoken from Monday to Thursday and English language throughout the weekend.  He said he could have considered English to be spoken all throughout the week but he considers tradition, that it would make a fool of him to make another man language a mother tongue because they bettered it by constantly speaking and teaching their young ones, he said that he considers English language because Nigeria made it their mother tongue. Kwado didn’t cough because it was Friday and papa spoke Igbo, he coughed out the rice grains in his mouth because Papa told him to forget them that they are now victims of inevitable death. The impossibility seems as what the stingy odioku refers to as “a future impossible no” whenever he says no, that he’s not giving. For him it’s a future impossible sentence.

His mind still remains askew and when he heard the parlor door creek open he scuttled to his door and peep through the key hole, the disabled hinges made him see everything clearly and he needed no convictions to tell him it was their close neighbor Papa Ike. He wore a wrapper tied to firm knots at the edge of his waist and Kwado sight his bulgy stomach first through the keyhole as the singlet he wore hung on the upper laps of his stomach covering it partly. Kwado’s mind was far away from their discussion although he tried earlier to decipher what they were saying in low tones, he stopped eaves dropping when he can’t hear them and after their discussion he heard his room door creek open, he knew Papa Ike was moving in. The breeze which seeped in through the window ventilated his room. Although the wind rev fiercely it didn’t stop the mango tree outside their window to circulate it into breeze which in turn tilts the flame of the lamp. The window cottons were pushed to the side allowing more breeze and mosquitoes to drift in, they enter through the torn window nettings filled with rags for after coiling their squidgy body and proboscis and with a buzzing sound celebrate a triumphant entry. “Kwado is okay” Papa Ike said after breaking the long silence between them. “I heard what happened to mama and kachi but you have to be strong, you have to be strong and face the reality.” Their eyes met and lock for a while, “yes face the reality Kwado” Papa Ike paused with a pat on his shoulders, his hands remained firm there like the wrapper in his waist. “You know man is a victim of faith and fate. Faith is hope in despaired future for no matter ow fate tosses us we must incline with faith and accept bitter challenges of life.” He stared fixedly at him this time to decode what he actually meant by fate, fate to accept or not to accept the indelible. Kwado noticed everything in the room after he left, his eyes skirt around the room like buzzing mosquitoes which perch from the lamp to his skin. Inter woven spider webs scattered the ceiling, he saw it and guessed it has been long they dieed. Kachi would climb their study desk with a broom and in amusement watch as they ballon for safety. In swift movement the spiders make new webs or hide inside the broken ceiling. The lamp made him see clearly how a spider dragged to his niche a trapped fly. No, Zainab won’t tell me to forget them, he soliloquized.The name Zainab brought a relief, so much relief that he now thinks of writing to her. The benign creatures of breeze drift passionately into the window netting as he balance on his study desk to write on his diary. “Dear Zainab” the tears which goes down to his mouth tastes different, it seems as if the name Zainab made him feel their absence more and he sobs not minding to slap the mosquitoes which clings to the lamp, which will later find its way to his skin.  Dear Zainab, I can’t believe this film happening wild, of all extremes and within this film I can’t understand, even in my dreams the characters are well drawn and in my closed eyes they picture up before me casting in my eyes creamy images of the past. Yes…The film in my mind as death glooms -Is the past. Each moment gracefully held as presence, turns around as a slide projector, casting imagery within my subtle mind----Of sepulcher in moving form, of the past as a presence well grabbed.

Dear Zainab, I don’t know if I’m to live the past or present and no matter how I try facing reality of the presence I still see myself at sky corridors of the past for I can’t believe Kachi and Mama are no more and my heart isn’t ready to accept this labyrinth called presence.”

His taunting agonies  termed as labyrinth of present made him sleep on his study desk, he was surprise the next morning when he saw himself sleeping on the bed and guessed Papa was the one that laid him there. He wanted to serve at mass but didn’t wake up as he wished, for serving at mass means serving during rosary procession. Their parish priest will sprinkle first the altar servers with holy water before turning to spray the congregation. He wants to be the first to receive the first Saturday blessings which our lady promised to anyone that will attend the first Saturday mass, the rosary procession and listens devotedly to the holy reading from the blue book. The early morning sun came with a drizzle and since he’s late for the mass and rosary procession he prepared for legion of Mary which would come after the holy reading from the blue book. He dunked lazily on the bed while watching the weather from the window netting. The sun rose to the extent that its rays penetrate the room, seeping in through the window netting with the drizzle changing to rain. Mama once told him that God was undecided on which to send, that he’s still contemplating whether to send sunlight or rain, but Kachi argued a different thing. He said that the weather is only meant for people going up to heaven, that those who after their death witnessed excess sunlight or rainfall may not make heaven that if there’s too much rainfall the person will catch pneumonia and won’t see God again and, if the sunlight is in excess the person would melt but when there’s sunlight and rain the person neither feels hot or cold and can now see God. Kwado sat on his bed holding in his hand the box which contains the legion standard, he wants to dust each of it beginning from the vexillum but was carried away by the weather which was struggling to reach a decision, God’s decision. The weather made him remember them more and somehow he wondered if Kachi would be going to heaven as he said, he smiled after remembering Kachi with his incessant yaps and blabs, he smiled that he didn’t notice the tears which drips from his cheek to the vexillum he was holding. The president of their Praesidium told them to be carrying the bag because of their consistency in attending legion meetings, it was the Legio Mariae altar cloth that they put on their family altar and they would fold it back to the box when attending legion meeting. It was when parking each legion standard into the box that Mama Ike entered with a crying voice she didn’t knock and had forced the door of the living room open. It banged noisily behind her.

“Papa Kwado I don’t like this thing you and my husband are doing to Kwado, is it not high time you tell him the truth?”

“Which thing? Which truth? Papa hasn’t lied this way since I know him, which truth? This story is too complicated to be a lie,” Kwado said in his mind, he can hear her voice clearly from his room.

“Shh!! woman, Shh!!, don’t you know he is awake” Papa tuned down his voice but Kwado can still hear him, he watched how his lips moved from the broken door hinges and decipher each word. “He can’t bear it and I don’t want him to see Nneka that way, he won’t concentrate in life.”

“What happened to Mama” he probed within, “what has she done that he’s hiding from me.”

“No, he will understand” Mama Ike’s voice more in whispers “just tell him the truth, nothing remains hidden forever or have you forgotten that no matter how covered a fowl’s anus is that a mere wind exposes its meekness. Just tell him the truth Papa Kwado he will understand.”

Of what necessity is the truth when it’s concealed, like a pox it itches till its pus exudes. The truth here brings hope, a hope that Mama and Kachi are not dead. He wanted to shake his head in disagreement of what they were saying but said no, for despair means they are dead. He would rather believe they are alive than believing they are dead, what he couldn’t think to think of believing. This truth remains a vague to him like the way it was to Pilate during the time of Jesus, during his crucifixion when he asked him questions about truth, if he is the one to come, if has come or if he has already come as a messiah.

“Which truth” he said to himself, “which truth Papa.” He dashed out of his room to the living room, “Which truth?”