SHE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE ROSE

THE BLOSSOMING.

It was the dawn of May 17th, 1954, an immediate year after the Kano riot in Nigeria, which brushed and painted the stark sky of Ikeja, the capital of Lagos, with a gentle orange glow. Ali stood quietly in solitude and silent retrospection and showered by the sunlight and its youthful rays, but the air, still reluctant, whispered a disturbing sound of unrest.

The evening and night that went away before it was extremely pluvial, thundering and storming that all the households had to retreat back to their rooms and summon a tranquil sleep like surviving warriors on a retreat to their fortress after a lost war. The breeze that blew also contributed to the aesthetic beauty, and the chirping of birds, the buzzing of flies and the transient clanking of metals from the southern cities of Lagos brought a mixture of natural and choral display of musical symphony, subconsciously.

Ali stood deeply in his thoughts, and in such a pensive state, suddenly, he saw a sprouting rose in tenderness. Ali was marveled by it as he was struck by the memories of Basma and their childhood days while they used to go around to pick flowers from the nearby leaves. He went forward to the rose and out of growing nostalgia, self-pity, longing, innocence and loss, he said poetically:

"Oh sweet maturing rose,

Oh Basma, my repose!"

Ali, as a child who grew up with a silver spoon and found himself a royal son of Oba Musendiku Adeniji Adele II, the then Oba of Lagos who reigned from 1949 to 1964 had to hold to the strings of aristocracy, but spending his childhood years with his grandparents in Ikeja tilted the strings earlier, coupled with the fact that they were philanthropists, humanitarians and succor to the poor; revered and loved by all, they were known as 'The Altruistic Adeles'. So, as a result of this, Ali grew up with a lot of middle and low-class children whose parents were northerners(mainly Fulani and Hausans) who came from Kano to Lagos and later became prosperous traders and successful business people.

Basma was one of the middle class children who grew up together with Ali. Her parents were Hausa traders who came to Lagos and later became well off. One could easily observe her tribal identity whenever she strived to speak English with the other Yoruba children in a good accent, which always resulted in futile trials due to her native language or first language interference. However, she was beautiful, a kind of extreme beauty, with silky hair, tender, soft, and charming in her red dress, attractively reserved in her actions. In fact, she was a rose as a little girl, and that was what Ali called her as his playmate.

Ali was still standing in the garden. By this time, having started an intent interaction with the rose, he then touched, smelled, bent over it and caressed its soft petals with his fingers as if trying to remember a thing that had long been forgotten. The rose's fluorescence and scent returned him to the affective thoughts of Basma and, for days, every up and down of them began to change.

The rosy sight of its tender florals sparked in him a similar warmth he had once felt that day. Basma affectionately smiled at him beneath the mango tree, her serene smiles chiding away the morning dews. Yet that same dazzling rose, now alone in the morning breeze, reminded him of how fragile and despairing their affectionate bond became when the world around them hardened.

As he looked and stared closer, he saw one fateful petal already bruised and drenched by that thundering rain—just as their friendship had been hindered and marred by the cruel winds of time, by class, by pride and by the unspoken and silent boundaries their families had drawn and entrenched.

And as he stood there, astounded, the memories unfolded before him—the last day he met Basma, the desirous words they never said, and the stranded promise that was innate between them, like the succulent scent of that rose after the rain.

It was in early April 1952 when Ali first knew that Basma was no longer just the ordinary playmate of his childhood.

The intimate story of these two loving souls—Ali and Basma did not begin in 1952, rather that memorable year merely gave an ignition, touch and shape to the long-harboured and quiet stirrings of naive fondness and affection that had been fatefully sown many seasons before. They had known and met each other since their earliest childhood—through toddling days, running barefooted across the neighborhood and sprawling compound of the respected and revered Adele household, where Ali’s grandparents would often host the neighborhood children's tails during the cold harmattan evenings. One of those stories is the story of a tortoise, how he fell from the skies and broke his back which left marks on it and became hereditary to his offspring. Mrs Adele would begin by saying:

“Who would like to know why the tortoise has a mark on its back?”

By this time, there would be many delicate fingers raised for courage but without utterances. However, Basma would break the silence with her enthusiasm mixed with the apparent happiness of sitting close and together with Ali.

“Me, me, me, mama, mama Adele, I want to know, please tell us.”

She would speak in ungrammatical ways like her usual habits, which brought an irresistible force of fondness, pity, empathy and compassion from Ali towards her, yet to be intimate, but a casual and childish one.

“Okay, I will tell you all.”

Mrs Adele would begin with a lot of enthusiasm too, not Basma’s, but a kind of enthusiasm jeered by humanitarian creeds.

“One day, the birds planned to attend their friend’s birthday party up in the sky. The tortoise overheard that there will be a feast to be served to all attendants. He came and pleaded to be taken along, but there was a problem! Who can tell me what the problem is?”

Mrs Adele would ask cleverly.

“The tortoise cannot fly”

One of the children answered quickly, not wanting to be overtaken, as the question leaned towards its answer.

“Yes, that's the problem.”

Mrs Adele would continue joyously.

“For it to be solved, the birds had to find a solution. They agreed that all of them would donate a feather to the tortoise which would enable him to fly up to the sky and attend the party together with them”.

“Thank you mama, we are enjoying the story.”

Ali said, having remembered his grandma’s words, to always be thankful while playing with Basma's fingers, but his face turned away from her, facing Mrs Adele’s.

“So on that day, the tortoise wittingly demanded that he be called ‘ALL OF YOU’ as his name, as everyone was introducing himself”.

“Mama, but why?”

Basma asked with her beautiful eyes in dire curiosity, and by this time, she had already struggled to escape her fingers from Ali’s captivity, but gazed at him dearly.

“You will soon know my child."

Mama answered, trying to be reserved as much as possible.

“After the introduction, the feast was eventually brought and was said by the birds who brought it:

“It's for all of you.”

“You heard that, the tortoise said. It's for me and my name has just been called. So he devoured the feast, while the birds watched with agony, pain and resentment.”

“It's alright. We are getting to the end of it.”

Mama said, having noticed one of the children sleeping .

“After the tortoise was done with his feast, the bird angrily requested their feathers back from him. It was then reality came with clear appearance to the tortoise, and after the birds fled, the tortoise had no choice than to jump from a cliff. After he landed, he broke his back. This is how he had the broken marks and passed such traits hereditarily to his offspring.”

“Thank you mama, mama. We enjoyed the story very much.

They all said and went away except Basma, wanting to see Ali go along with Mrs Adele. Ali waved her goodnight, not wanting his grandma to see him, but Basma, unrelenting at this time, echoed out a goodnight to Ali that Mrs Adele had to look back and said, “Goodnight too."

In those days of the 1950s, Ikeja still carried and possessed the treasured softness of a town in slow transition— not yet urban, not wholly rural. The natural scent and unprepared incense of firewood mixed with the lively hum of the newly installed electric poles, and the canonical calls of the muezzin from the neighborly northern quarters interwove seamlessly and gently with the rich Yoruba folk songs from the renowned western courtyards. It was nothing but a land where laughter was still innocent, serene, unrefined and boundaries, though in existence, were blurred by the simplicity and naivety of childhood.

Ali and Basma were inseparable like interwoven threads of a cloth. They would tirelessly run after colorful dragonflies along the huge mango grove that firmly bordered the Adele's compound or sit on one of the stony edges of the quiet well, tossing many pebbles into the water and counting the countless ripples. Ali, vibrant, curious and bright, often read with a loud voice from his grandfather's meritorious English primers which he would boast in the presence of other children, a habit which Mrs and Mr Adele would always frown at. Basma then would listen with wholehearted joy, wide-eyed admiration, and her charming fingers decorated with arresting henna, would draw visible but meaningless shapes on the dusty floor.

As a usual trait, she would converse with Ali in English with an effort, the kind of effort that always made her sound extremely tuneful and musical, her lingering Hausa accent blending the words in sort of ways which Ali found humorous and enchanting. Earnestly, he would laugh and correct her but just to hear her repeat it again.

“Hey Hausa girl, say beautiful!”

He would comfortably tease her, and she’d answer innocently:

“Beauti-fool”

She would subconsciously coin it to a portmanteau word before finally bursting into a kind of laughter that lit her attractive face.

Their friendship grew like a fresh leaf under the careful watch of the sun, but eventually, somewhere between their bond, shared moments blessed with affinity, laughter and the seemingly endless days of innocence and naivety, things began to change. By early 1951, when they were fourteen years of age, Ali, in awe, started noticing things which he hadn't before — the way Basma’s tribal scarf swarmed in the morning light, how her eyes glimmered then glittered when she smiled and the lurking warmth of her soft and alluring palm whenever their hands brushed, sometimes by deliberate accident.

It was also the dreadful year the world around them began to inform and remind them who they really were. Ali eavesdropped on his grandma speak of class for the first time with great spirit and vigor, as if she was trying to metamorphose from her altruistic nature to a tyrannical form. She also spoke of the glaring and fragile boundaries that exist between the mighty aristocrats and the ordinary commoners. And when he inquired woefully:

“Is Basma one of those commoners?”

The old woman smiled faintly as if harboring seductive evils in her mind and replied:

“No, she is my good girl, but you have to remember that human blood flows by God's creation in definite veins, and veins are not meant to cross carelessly."

Those metaphorical words sank deep into his heart, though as a maturing adult, he did not fully digest their meanings. But, as the months quickly drifted into the beginning of 1952, the meanings of those words began to unfold and manifest.