A NIGHT LIKE OTHER NIGHTS

Chapter 11: Never take it for granted

Later that evening, Jacy and Harry sat by the fire. A pile of firewood smoldered and flamed in turns, warding off mosquitoes and the evening chill. They sat side by side on a rough wooden bench, while Grandma occupied another one across from them. Lola the girl who lived with Grandma was sprawled across the last bench, half listening, half dozing.

Jacy had changed into a pair of red boxers sprinkled with blue dots, pulled over her underwear, and a plain white singlet that clung to her fair skin. Harry matched her in simplicity, wearing brown boxers dotted faintly with blue, and a white singlet that gleamed in the firelight. Both of them waved scraps of cloth in their hands, fending off the mosquitoes that darted toward the heat. The smoke curled and drifted, making the small gathering visible under the dark sky. It was about seven in the evening.

Grandma, seated opposite them, wore a brown hittaget wrapper patterned with black stars and a light polo shirt tucked into it. Her feet, like everyone else’s, were slipped into white bathroom slippers to shield against the soft, muddy soil that always clung to the village after rainfall.

Their talk began lightly. Jacy pressed Harry about his business agreement with Etiosa. Harry deflected, saying only that she would know in time. Grandma steered the conversation to their stay in Yorubaland. Jacy and Harry replied that Ota was a dream for anyone. Grandma smiled and accepted their answer, though her eyes studied them with quiet weight. They chatted a while longer before Jacy, restless, decided to unburden herself.

She told Grandma everything since the day she had graduated. The shootout at her party. The poisoning at her wedding. The man who almost strangled her in her room. Each word seemed to scrape out of her chest.

Grandma stiffened.

“You mean you’ve been going through all this and never called to tell me? Jacy, how could you?”

Tears pricked Jacy’s eyes. Her voice cracked.

“I didn’t realize… no, at first I thought it wasn’t anything. And later, I never had the time.”

Grandma hissed sharply.

“Silly excuses! Do you want to die, Jacy? Is that what you want? Look at the excuses you’re making.” She turned her fierce eyes on Harry. “And you, what have you done about this?”

Harry shifted uneasily. “I’ve been doing my best, Mama.”

“Your best?” Grandma’s voice rose. She slammed her palm against her thigh. “Listen to me, all of you. Especially you, Jacy.” She glared, and Jacy dared to glare back. Harry kept his gaze low, trapped between them. Even Lola rose from the bench to hear better, wide-eyed.

“What kills people quickly is taking things for granted. Never! do you hear me? never take things for granted. Not even the smallest thing. When action is required, take it!”

She paused, her breathing heavy, then fixed her eyes on Jacy again.

“Have they told you about Agbasi Obinze your great grandfather?”

Harry turned to Jacy, who frowned and shook her head.

“No,” she admitted softly.

Grandma’s nostrils flared. “So they haven’t even done the sacred bathing for you?”

Jacy remembered faintly. “My mother once mentioned it. But she said since we became Christians, it no longer mattered. She told me there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. My father, when I was fifteen, also told me I would undergo it when I turned eighteen. But… we stopped talking about it. I forgot. I never even knew what it was.”

Harry leaned forward, curiosity sharpening his tone.

“What is the sacred bathing?”

Grandma exhaled deeply, reached for the woven Palmyra palm fan, and bent over the fire. The flames had dulled, smoldering into smoke that curled like restless spirits. She fanned hard until the fire caught again, light spilling over the mud walls of the hut behind them.

The doorway was draped with a Hausa mat, also woven from palm strands. The reddish mud walls bore a fading drawing of a wrestler beside the door. A massive iron pot sat nearby, blackened from years of cooking akpu. Beside it rested a mortar with a pestle leaning against the wall, waiting for the next pounding.

The kitchen itself was a modest hut, a few meters to the right. Mud and bamboo, propped with mahogany pillars, its roof stretched over with thick black nylon against the rain. The clearing around them was small, no more than five meters across, hemmed in by bushes that choked every space not carved into huts or narrow paths.

The fire flared. Shadows danced. Grandma lifted her chin.

“Okay. Agbasi Obinze.” Her voice carried reverence and rebuke at once. “And you, Jacy you’ve never heard of your own grandfather?”

Her gaze went distant, her tone shifting to a chant as though summoning the past.

“Oh, Agbasi Obinze… Obinze Omagba. Anuobanye Otajie.” She praised him in the old way, words heavy with history.

“When I came for your omugo, after your birth, your mother told me his story. Your grandfather was a stubborn man in his time in Orlu. They used to say men from Imo are warriors, your grandfather father was among them. He killed anyone who opposed him by bow, by bare hands, even by charms.”

Her voice hardened.

“One day, he quarreled with a native doctor over land. The land belonged to the doctor, but he had borrowed twenty cowries from Agbasi, pledging it as collateral. When the time came, he begged your grandfather to extend the loan because it was his only land. But Agbasi refused. He claimed the land as his own and began to farm it.

A year passed. The next, the native doctor gathered the money and brought village elders to plead with Agbasi, even offering more. But your grandfather would not yield. The elders returned to the people, anger spreading like fire. The youths stormed the land and uprooted every cassava Agbasi had planted.

When he saw this, Agbasi ran home in fury. He sharpened his machete, smeared his body with charms, and stormed toward the village square…”