A Village Orphan: My Early Childhood

Just after My Father’s Death

Returning from the spring with a calabash of water on my head, tears were streaming down my cheeks simply because I had hurt my right toe against a stone. That’s how it was with me those days: Any little incidence triggered off a stream of tears.

Two weeks ago, it would have been different, but he died a week ago and was buried two days later. He was the only person I really had, and I was contented with that because he was very popular: a renowned herbal doctor and a hunter. He was very powerful. Everybody feared and revered him. I couldn’t have asked for more than being a son to such a great man. Anywhere I went people pointed at me saying, Look at him! He is a true image of the father who has cut into his breast some of his own talisman. Can anyone believe that at his age he can invoke dangerous snakes and fearlessly carry them in his hands without being bitten? No one, old and young, dares find him trouble. He is really lucky! I was actually bragging about—raising my little shoulders—as the son, the only legitimate son of this great man who could not conquer death even though I thought he would.

After his death, I finally realized that I was now alone in this mysterious world. Yes, I was alone, so to speak, because my mother had died before him and I hardly knew her since I was still very small—about four years old I was told—when she was gone. I say was gone because she took ill and her relatives from Ihechiowa where she came from came and took her home because the story of how she was being treated in her marital home had reached them. But it was too late. She never recovered and died there a few months after, leaving behind my one-and-a-half-year-old little sister and me.

It was not until eighteen years later that it was revealed to me that my father’s mistress, Nwocha or Nne O, was responsible for whatever happened to my mother. Nwocha was an arrogant, domineering woman very much older than my mother. She hated my mother and never wanted to share this great man, my father, with any woman, let alone the small girl from Ihe (as she often referred to my mother I was told). So she literally destroyed my mother. It was only after this revelation that I came to decipher that Nne O’s inexplicable hatred of me was a transfer of the hatred she had for my mother, and knowing what I know now, I’m thankful to God I didn’t go the same way of my mother in the hands of this woman. Though many years have passed, the scars of growing up without the love of a mother still mark my life. I cannot effectively talk about her in my present volume. I would rather make her the subject of my next book. What’s more is I suddenly realize that I cannot still write about her without regenerating the old excruciating emotions. When will this end?

After her youthful death, I now understand that her elder sister made several efforts to get in touch with us—my sister and me—but was rebuffed each time by my father who was afraid she might take us away. She gave up after several unsuccessful attempts, and of course, she knew it was no use competing with this man whom everybody feared and revered. Also having to carry back—on her head—the food and other gifts she brought for me and my little sister who was getting two years old at the time was becoming too much for her. She hoped and prayed that Almighty God would bring us to her one day. Who would know? I believe He knows everything. He knew the difficult road an orphan would travel in a world such as ours. He knew it would only be by His grace, watchful eyes, and guidance that we would survive. But how could this be when the architect of my mother’s demise was still alive just around the corner? Yes, it could be possible if I were to be raised far from this woman, if my grandmother would try again to connect with us now that our father was no more and take us away with her. I would have loved to go looking for my mother’s kindred, but I was still too small and knew neither the name nor the way to her particular village. I gave up the idea hoping that she or any of her grown-up sons or daughter would one day remember that their deceased sister left two vulnerable little things behind and come for us.

So after my father’s death, I was left to the care of his second wife who had no child for him: He had quickly remarried after my mother was gone. The question many people were asking was whether she would stay—as the custom was and still is—and bear children for her late husband. Even though those children would be fathered by another man or men as the case might be, the society would still regard them legal children of my father—a man who had since gone the way all mortal things do go at last. What a funny custom! She stayed on, wearing the traditional black wrapper and blouse to mourn her husband as the custom demanded. These she was supposed to wear for twelve months from the day of his burial without going to a man (as our people say of sleeping with another man). But could, and would, this young woman abstain sexually for a year for the sake of a man she probably had started to forget soon after his death? I ask this question because of the ease with which our predecessors were marrying and divorcing. Looking back one wonders these days whether the love that binds husband and wife today existed those days.

Well, soon after, just about three months, I felt a pinch one night, or early morning—I can’t be sure of the exact time—which woke me up from sleep, screaming and crying out for help. I was frightened to my stomach since evil spirits and the dead or rather those from the other world ndi mmuo roamed about in the dark of night just as the living moved about in the day. Three months ago it would have been different: That powerful and fearless father of mine would have bounced out of his bed and room shouting, Tell them I’m here! Tell them that the ‘indomitable man’ is here to protect you and that I will break their necks if they dare harm you. The reality of his absence, which translated my loneliness and helplessness in this empty big house, dawned on me. In a matter of seconds, my left ear and cheek were submerged in a stream of tears. I was now sobbing for fear that if I cried out loud, I might attract ndi mmuo (the dead) to the house. Then, I heard a soft familiar voice saying, Don’t cry! It’s me. Get up and open the door for me. It was my father’s young widow. What a relief! I must have been deeply asleep when she left to who-knows-where.

This continued for several days: She would come back very early in the morning when it was still dark, but none of the subsequent mornings was like the first. I now knew my duty: when to expect her so that as soon as I heard her trying to remove the stone we used in closing the chicken hole, I would get up and unbolt the door to let her softly in. She had told me to shut my mouth and not let anybody know she was sleeping out. At my age then (about eight), I didn’t know what all that meant till six months after. She had remarried and left. Being too young to live alone—on my own—in my father’s empty house, I was invited to live with the head master (HM) of my school, St. Paul’s Catholic School, who needed a houseboy.

One day, Magi, the wife’s sister, about my age, who was also living with them, told me that her sister (the HM’s wife) one night found my late father’s wife hiding behind the husband’s bedroom door and that her sister started beating her up until she promised never to come back there again. I asked her whether she fought back. No, she answered. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t: I thought she was a strong woman. But why did my father marry her, he who was so powerful and feared by every man?

I kept pondering dreamily over this in my mind when Magi suddenly said, I too can beat you in a fight since my sister was able to beat the hell out of your father’s wife.

No, you can’t, I retorted.

Yes, I can.

No, you can’t.

Yes, I can.

Suddenly this exchange turned into a real fight. We were in the kitchen. She was fatter than I was, but I managed to wrestle her to the ground. We fell, gwo kom! on top of the stew pot her sister (our mistress) had made for the evening meal about an hour ago. I was on top of her. The stew spattered all over my head onto her face. My eyes, my eyes! Oh, oh, pepper has entered my eyes! Oh, oh! she was screaming. I disentangled myself and looked around. There was nobody. I ran away straight to my village, to my compound, and into our empty house, without looking back. The distance from the mission to my village is almost one mile. The house was empty—not that I expected anyone to be there. I fell on the floor and burst into tears. It dawned on me that I had just lost my only chance of three good square meals a day.

Father, come and take your son with you! I know you are hearing me. Come, please come, and take your only son with you! Why did you die and leave me alone here? Now I don’t have any mother; I don’t have you, Father! Who will give me food to eat? Who? Who? Tell me who! Other children have their fathers and mothers; I don’t have any. God, why did You create me. Why? Why? I queried, looking up to heaven.

Whose voice is like that of Nwa Mgbeke? asked a nursing mother passing by. It was about six o’clock, and the compound was still deserted (people were still in their farms; only children, nursing mothers, and sick people were yet at home). Nwa Mgbeke, can’t you hear me? I thought you were now living in the mission with the headmaster! Did your master beat you? Has he sent you away? Tell me! I shook my head in response. Wipe your tears! Don’t cry again! Do you hear me? She left.

Then I fell asleep there on the floor of this empty house. When I opened my eyes, it was already dark. I heard the beating of mortar everywhere in the compound: People were preparing the evening meal; some were already eating. I guessed the time to be about nine or ten o’clock. I got up and shut the door which was still open: I didn’t want anyone to see me. I sat on the edge of my mud bed. My stomach started rumbling, kwururum, kwururum! I knew I was hungry. It was then that I remembered the good food I ran away from following the fight and the spilling of my mistress’s stew. I tried going back to sleep to kill the night. It was impossible! My stomach was biting hard.

I lay down facing up, looking at the roof and listening. The hunger seemed to have killed the usual fear I had of the dark. I didn’t seem to think of anything else than how to find something to eat. But the house was empty: It had been about two months since anybody lived in it. There was nothing like food in the house except drinking water which had been there in the big waterpot. I slowly got up, feeling my way softly to the waterpot. I opened it quietly—I didn’t want it to make any noise. I took a cupful of water and literally poured it down my stomach. Feeling the way back to my bed, I lay down again. In a matter of seconds, I heard a bomb in my stomach, kwum, kwum, kwurum! It was like a thunder before a rainstorm. Such a sound could have startled someone out of bed—but I was alone in the house—or attract someone passing by, but people were all asleep at this time. The compound was quiet. I mean dead silent, except for the gritting sound of millions of tiny night insects. I was afraid. I rolled on my side, turned facedown, and forced my eyes closed, palms under my belly for additional support; this seemed to help: I fell back to sleep.

It was already morning when I opened my eyes. I managed to get up and sit down on the edge of my mud bed. One thing is certain: I can’t go to school today, I said to myself. But my teacher would surely flog me the following day for being absent the previous day. Well, I’ll tell him I was hungry. I argued within myself, No, he won’t accept that. Tell him you were sick and couldn’t even get out of bed. He would more likely accept that… I have lied before of being sick and not able to attend school, and he believed me… But this time you are sick: Haven’t you heard our people say that hunger is also sickness? The debate continued within me for a reasonable length of time. I finally made up my mind: I am going to tell him I was sick. Since I was always the first in my class, he liked me, and what’s more was he knew I no longer had a father or mother.

My immediate dilemma was how to get out and let other people in the compound see me. No, I could not dare show my face outside. I waited until the compound was almost quiet once again: The grown-ups had left for the farm; children of school age—my age group and above—had left for school. Voices of younger children playing father and mother were heard here and there in small groups. Hunger finally forced me out of the house. I looked for a long bamboo—there were many left over by fence makers—took one, and went feebly into our (owo) backyard to pluck some plantain to roast and eat. But how could I manage to eat roasted plantain without salt and palm oil? Well, they say hunger makes good food of everything, I reminded myself. Ah-ha! I can beg Afo (the nursing mother, the only person who knew I had ran away from my master) for a little salt and palm oil to eat my plantain, the monologue continued. It took me a good time to wring two matured plantains from the head: I had little energy left. I came back to the house with them and decided to go to Afo’s house to take some fire and make it in our house to roast the plantains.

You didn’t go back to the mission yesterday? she asked sympathetically.

No. Tears filled my eyes; I turned my back on her to hide them and told her I came to take some fire to roast my plantains.

Do you have some firewood to make fire in your house? she inquired.

No. I shook my head.

Then come and roast them here in my house so that I can put a little oil and salt in a bowl for you to eat them, she went on. It was a big relief. And you can watch the baby for me so that I may run down to the stream to fetch water, since all these other children whose mothers have left their daytime meals here are only good for eating and playing, she added. I nodded my head in acceptance.

She had hardly ended when we heard one of the children playing outside asking nneokemkpu (male lizard that was on top of the roof nodding its head) whether it was time for afternoon meal. "Isiukwu (big head), your mother left for farm not long ago. You took your morning food before she left, and you are already asking nneokemkpu whether it’s time for the daytime meal. Your mother said your soup is small and that your fufu is bigger. If you finish it now, what will you eat in the afternoon? Hmm, tell me, isiukwu. What will you eat?" All the other children including myself burst into laughter because of the way she stressed the isiukwu she nicknamed him. And his head was big indeed. Afo was noted for giving appropriate nicknames to every single child in the compound; and they cherished it.

She left for the spring a quarter of a mile away. By the time she came back, I was already eating one of my plantains, my only food for the past nineteen hours. The other one was still in the fire undone. "Nna dim (fond name she called any male offspring in the compound), why didn’t you wait for me to come back so that I could pour the palm oil and add a little salt for you in a bowl? Or you could have poured some for yourself provided you left some for me to cook tonight since what remains now is small, near the bottom of the bottle," she lamented. I said nothing and continued chipping away at the hard roasted plantain quietly.

Give me a little bit of your roasted plantain, and I’ll give you some of my fufu, one of the kids suddenly said. By this time there were about ten pairs of eyes moping at me as if they had never tasted roasted plantain.

My mother said you are now an orphan, because your father and mother are now dead. If you give me a bit of your plantain, when she comes back from the farm, I’ll tell her to be your mother also, said another child.

Shut up, long throat! All of you, get outside and play! Go and cook children’s food until I tell you to come in! Go! Go! I say go outside and play, Afo yelled and softly chased all the children out.

After eating I drank a full cup of water, thanked Afo, and left. When the other children saw me, they asked me to come and play with them. I declined partly because I wasn’t in the mood and partly because I was at least three years older than the oldest of them. Here, we are very conscious of age groups; even among age groups we are always standing against each other to measure heights when the argument of who is older arises. The taller person claims he is older, and most of the time, the shorter will refuse to concede.

I walked past them and even jumped over some of them. I had regained some of my energy. I went back to our empty house walking and jumping, happy not to be in school. I had started to forget what happened yesterday and the fact that when hunger came again—unlike the other children—I would have no food to eat. I entered the house. In search of what to do, I started ransacking the whole house for something that would remind me of my father who used to be a source of courage and of strength for me.

I can still remember when he was alive; one day I came back from school, and there was nobody in the house—Father had gone to the farm, or gone somewhere to treat some sick persons, and I was hungry and felt lonely. I needed him badly. I started crying, Father, where did you go? Your son needs you. Please come! Come back to him! I looked up and saw one of his work clothes hanging on a rope tied between two adjacent walls. Since my hand couldn’t reach it, I climbed on a kitchen stool and brought it down. I was enveloped by a certain familiar scent, that of my father because this cloth had not been washed since he wore it for farm the other day and sweated on it. I held it tightly against my nostrils. I don’t know what came over me: I was no longer hungry; a tremendous energy penetrated my whole body. I thought I heard my father whispering in to my ears, Here I am. Here I am, in his usual powerful but familiar voice.

So this day, about eight months after his death, I was looking for the same magic: something that would bring him back into my life, something that would bring back to me that confidence and sense of security that used to be mine when he was alive. I started from the parlor and tried to open his room, but it was locked. I found a stone and broke the lock; I remembered having entered this room once before. There was nothing in the room except his empty bed and his medicine box. His elder brother, my uncle, who was living at a plantation, Iheosu, at a distance of approximately ten miles, had taken everything of value that belonged to him. As the custom was, other personal items were either buried with him or burned on his grave. There was nothing that could generate those magical feelings of the past. My eyes were once again overflowing with tears. This time, I didn’t cry out; but inside me, it seemed as if my chest was going to burst. I don’t know how long I stood there; then I forced the door of the opposite room open. This room belonged to his elder brother, where he used to sleep when he came home on important occasions: such as Izu, Ibuo Ogo, Ikeji (new yam festival), and Christmas. My father also died in this particular room because it was more spacious than his, and most importantly, as a native doctor his own room was sacred and restricted to people. For example, women on menses didn’t go near it; that was why I always knew when his second wife, Mgbeke, was on her menses because she would sleep on one of the mud beds in the parlor (ogbiti, sitting room). It’s not that I actually knew what menstruation meant then. Also, women who had ever given birth to twins—no matter if the twins died or were alive—were forbidden to enter the entire house. It was ulenta, a sacred house in traditional religious sense.

Failing to find a thing that could wet my memories of my father in this next room, I came out to the parlor. My tears had given way to the thought of what would happen next when I became hungry again. I also thought about school. My uncle wanted me to go to school; otherwise, I would have been living with him and his wife at the plantation, just like my little sister, and I would never have been hungry at all. But there was no school yet in Iheosu, so he insisted that I must remain in the village to go to school. I wondered if he knew what was happening to me now. The thought of him didn’t bring me any emotional relief: I was never fond of him, at least not as much as I was of my father since I saw very little of him.

I knew he loved us, and he had no grown-up children of his own at that time. He very much loved his only brother, my father. They were both very fond of each other, and he was devastated when he lost him at his prime. At my father’s burial he was holding my hand telling me to stop crying. But as I looked up at his face when the coffin was lowered into the grave, I saw tears in his eyes. He did not cry out like the women and the rest of us children: It is not manly but a sign of weakness for real men to cry no matter the circumstance. The culture had it that he then would be our father, and he was indeed. Even when my father was alive, I remember one time he came home and was told I had refused to go to school. He insisted that my father should never allow this to happen. I didn’t know the benefit of school in my own time, but I am now saying ‘if I had known.’ Is it not our age group that is now ruling this country today, cheating us, imposing taxes on us, and using the money to build their own zinc houses? he lamented. Everyone who enters the government today becomes rich tomorrow. That’s what they learned from the white man, he continued. You vote another person in after all the promises; when he gets there he will be just like those before him. I don’t know if there is something they drink when they get there which makes them lose their sense of honor, sense of shame, because they have no single shame in their eyes. They have spoiled everything in this land. You know those days; my father said that if you are a thief, your family will be so ashamed of you that no one would want to be associated with you. And one day the whole village would go hunting, and you will never come back; you will miss forever. Your family wouldn’t even ask about you because they know what has happened to you, he raged on. As long as I live, this boy, Ogbonnam, must go to school. I will pay his school fees. Leave it for me, he paused.

Despite that I didn’t want to go to school those early days. My father was always chasing me to school with a cane in his hand, but when I got there, I would always escape after the first or second class and come home to play father and mother with other children or hunt for giant grasshoppers to roast and eat.

So thinking of school today, it is amazing to see how much I love it. Is it because I was always the first in my class and everybody was always talking about me or because I didn’t work on Fridays like other pupils because I was so good at drawing that my teachers allowed me to draw on the classroom walls for beautification while others were cutting grass outside? Questions were without answers, but one thing became clear afterward: I became very fond of going to school. The question then was: What am I going to do now that I have run away from my master? I already made up my mind that I would not go back to the mission, dead or alive. But could I continue schooling without any food in my stomach, without anybody to care for me? Well, I believed my ancestors, especially my father, would show me the way.

I took my catapult and entered a nearby bush to shoot birds. I loved shooting at birds and squirrels (and I could shoot straight, as my people say). But that day I came out from the bush empty-handed. The birds and squirrels have learned their lesson well these days, I said to myself. I looked at my shadow. It was already very long—the sun was almost at the end of its journey for the day. It was now very yellow, and one could look at it with eyes wide open. As I watched the sun and marched on aimlessly toward home, my stomach started biting me again, bringing home to me the reality of my situation: I was going home to an empty house; I no longer had a father or mother, and I was hungry despite the wild salad (special kind of leaf) and dudu (wild cherries) I ate in the bush. Don’t forget you are now alone in this world! I kept reminding myself.

At the Mercy of My Father’s Mistress

People were already returning from the farm, and greetings Ndewo! and Inyi ndewo! were heard everywhere. I quietly sneaked into the compound and into our house. I sat down on the edge of my bed looking outside and watching people pass up and down. Our house was at the center of the compound proving that the first man who lived here (my great-grandfather) must have been the head of the compound. Of course that was the reason it was the ulenta (sacred house). There’s no use crying again. I had already made up my mind on what to do: I would wait until people had finished cooking the evening meal. As soon as I knew that they had started or were about to start eating, I would go and greet them. They would certainly ask me to come and eat: That’s the custom. Then I would have the opportunity to take fufu (my favorite and the staple food of my people) for the first time in the last two days.

I would specifically go to the house of my father’s mistress, a woman I called mother, the very person I was later on told responsible for my mother’s demise. Her last two children, a boy and a girl, were fathered by my father. The boy was called Sunday (because he was born on a Sunday). He was my age, and the girl was two years younger. Her house was just around the corner. I did not feel any shame going there because she used to be kind to me when my father was alive, but I could no longer say for sure now that he was gone. People had thought she would take me in to live with her after the death of my father, but it didn’t work out that way, and I do not know why. All I can remember is that she used to allow her son Sunday, fathered by my father, to fight me. He always beat me of course. He was beating all of us in the same age group, and everybody was saying that he would be as strong as my father.

She had four other older children. Her first daughter had married and was living in another city with her husband. Her first son might be only a couple of years younger than my mother. A few years ago he came back from Calabar, now the capital of the Cross River State, where he had been living as boy-boy (houseboy) with I don’t know whom. He now ate from his mother’s pot because he was not yet married. His house was next to his mother’s, and I was listening for when she would call him to come and eat, and then I would make my move. I knew the voice of every single person in the compound.

O! Food is ready. Come and eat, shouted his mother. I waited a few minutes, then quietly opened the door, and came out. I pretended I was coming from the mission. I entered and greeted them. Enyi, come and eat! What are you doing here at this time? Did you come alone in this dark, all the way from the mission without being afraid? Did your master send you on an errand? They queried one after the other without waiting for any answer which was good for me because I didn’t have to answer. I ate with them and was satisfied. That was all that mattered to me at that time.

After the meal I went and begged one of my cousins, KB, a few years older than I was, to come and sleep with me in our house. (It must be noted here that a compound is normally inhabited by brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins, i.e., in a sense everyone in the same compound is related.) He agreed, and we talked far deep into the night. I told him I had left the mission for good and why. He said I did well and that if he were me he would have thrown that girl down in such a way that her buttocks would sit directly on the pot of stew so that the pepper would enter her ikpu (vagina). We laughed and laughed until joyous tears flowed freely down our cheeks. Then he asked me whether I had ever done the thing with the girl. No, never, I was quick to answer as if I actually knew what it meant to do the thing. I did it the other night as we were playing hide-and-seek behind our house under the moonlight… He continued, but I didn’t hear the end of the story: I slept off.

By the time I opened my eyes, it was already morning. Children and their mothers were already heard everywhere in the compound. KB was still sleeping and snoring beside me. I got out and shook him hard to wake him. Hmm, hmmm, have they come? Have they come? he asked. I’m not eating again. There is too much pepper in the soup. Then I burst into laughter remembering how his mother used to say that sleep made nonsense of him. She said that one night he had fallen asleep before the night meal was ready and, when he was woken to come and eat, he washed his hands, cut a handful of fufu, and molded his usual ball but, instead of dipping it into his bowl of soup, he dipped it in the small washbasin containing the water in which he had just washed his hands and swallowed saying, "Nne (mother), this vegetable soup is very delicious." I continued laughing at the thought of it.

He robbed his eyes with the back of his right palm. What time is it? he asked.

I don’t know, but chickens are already running around in the compound. You see it’s a long time I woke up myself. We teachers’ boys don’t sleep much. We wake up very early, sweep, and go to the stream to wash and fetch water, I bragged.

I will never live with any teacher because I don’t want to be flogged as if I have no father and mother. Teachers flog a lot; any little mistake, they lay you down on the floor and give you twelve. If I were you, I wouldn’t go back to the mission, he incited. I told him I had already made up my mind not to provided that he would be coming to sleep with me in this empty big house. That’s fine with me, he accepted. But I wondered how I would manage to feed: to find the food to eat. The memory of the previous day was still fresh. There was brief silence. And KB seemed to have read my thoughts. You can be eating from Nne O’s, your father’s mistress, he consoled suddenly realizing that I was now an orphan. My father said that it was your father who took care of her and her four children for so many years after the death of her husband even before I was born and before you were born too. Hmm, I mean to say even before your father dreamed of going to Ihe to marry your mother. My father said that your father used to give her and her children the bigger portion of the animals he killed, and as a great hunter he used to kill many, he went on. Every year your father gave her the greater portion of his land on which she planted cassava to feed her children. Yes, my father said all of them fed from your father’s farmland. I listened quietly, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. But my father said she hated your mother, that she was always trying to put your mother in her pocket, but that your mother was very stubborn: She was not somebody another woman could pocket. She was too big for Nne O’s pocket. Then, he lowered his voice, talking almost in whisper as if afraid that someone else might hear what next he was going to reveal to me. My father also said that she was responsible for what happened to your mother: She was the person who dragged your mother into the trouble that resulted in her sickness and death. Please, don’t tell anybody that I told you. My father said it was a secret, he whispered close to my right ear. I promised him that I would not tell anyone. He asked me to swear by Nfijoku and by Obasi direlu (God in heaven). I did, and he went on, Even when people heard that you have gone to live with that teacher, they started murmuring that you shouldn’t have been allowed to go somewhere else to live; she should have taken you in to live with her for the sake of your father who took care of her and her children for many years.

But how am I going to tell her that I want to live with her? I asked.

Don’t say anything. Every morning when you go to the stream to bathe for school, fetch water to pour in her pot! Always hang around when they are eating in the morning and at night. They will call you to come and eat. In this compound, and of course the whole community, people don’t take food as anything; and nobody denies anybody food. It is our custom, he assured me.

But what am I to do about food in the afternoons when I come back from school? I sought to know.

You can enter your father’s backyard and pluck some plantains to roast and eat. There are plenty of them now, and nobody will tell you not to; they now belong to you. I nodded my head in agreement and listened to his senior advice, a senior one liked and trusted. He got up from the bed. I am going to prepare and follow my father to the farm; you go and prepare for school! Do as I have said. Don’t go back to that mission! he reiterated and left.

I went down to the spring with my calabash to bathe for school and fetch water for Nne O. By the time I came back, they were already eating. I passed on to the kitchen and poured the water in her waterpot. Everybody but their mother greeted me and invited me to join them. So the strategy has worked, I murmured to myself. It must be noted that their mother never said a word. During the breakfast I constantly watched her face to read her feelings for this unexpected guest, but her face remained expressionless. She was the kind of person whom one could not easily read the inner feelings on her facial expression. Also the situation might have been difficult for her because two of her children loved me very much. They regarded my father as theirs too, and they took me as their little brother. When my father died, we all cried until there were no more tears to shed.

So I continued searching for a sign of acceptance or rejection on her part. I never found any. She only looked my way when one of her sons asked whether I was still going to live in the mission since I was still in the compound at that time. I answered no! He asked me why. I told him that it was my master who told me to go.

What did you do? he probed.

Nothing, I lied.

Nothing happened? He just woke up one morning and told you to pack and go?

I didn’t answer. There was silence except for the moving of jaws and the swallowing of the fufu balls. She launched her eyes on me, and I looked down in fear. I didn’t want to tell them that I fought and threw my master’s sister-in-law onto the pot full of stew which overturned and spilled its content all over the floor. By the look on her face and the way she flashed those torchlight-like pair of eyes of hers on me, I knew she didn’t believe me. In fact I don’t think anybody did. I quickly finished the food I had in my hand and ran out to dress up for school.

So began the few months I lived with Nne O, a few months I would never forget in my life, a few months that almost brought my existence here on earth to an end. Every day after school, I would roast plantain and eat. This turned out to be my only afternoon food almost every day. Since there was usually little food left each morning after breakfast, she would specifically tell her last son, Sunday, who was in the same age group with me that the remaining food was just for him. I didn’t mind that so long as she didn’t ask me not to enter her house again. Sometimes after school, Sunday would invite me to share his food with him when he was in a good mood; he was a child of ever-changing mood and temper. He was always fighting at school and at home. If he did anything wrong and his mother dared flog him, as all parents did, he would run out and start throwing stones at her. She would run into her room or hide behind the door shouting, I am your mother; I am your mother. If I cursed you, it would never go well with you. This never deterred him. This constant stone throwing had scarred their front door.

Watching him throw stones at his mother used to look funny to many people till he actually hit her one day on the forehead. She was cut one inch deep. A string of blood was sipping from the cut, and in a matter of seconds her whole face was bathed in blood. She was crying. Come and help me. Oh, oh, who is there? Come and help me. This evil son has cut my head with a stone. With both eyes shut to prevent blood from blinding her at least momentarily, she spread her arms in front to feel her way into the house because she was standing in the doorway when he attacked. He was not moved by the sight of blood but continued shouting, Ah-ha-ha, I’ve got you. I have really got you. That will teach you not to flog me next time. I was touched. I told myself if I had a mother I would never ever throw stones at her no matter what she did to me.

Suddenly I was burning inside me to revenge for her, to do something to this stubborn child that would teach him that it was wrong to stone his mother. But what could I do? He was very strong. None of us in his age group dared challenge him. An idea came into my head. He was standing a few yards in front of their house, facing the house. I was a few yards behind him. I decided, without actually reflecting about it, to move quietly closer and swept him off his feet: Surprise was the way I could face him. In a flash he fell hard on the ground facedown. I fell on him, holding him fast unto the ground so he could not overturn me.

This time I was the victor because I was on top. Your mouth will eat sand today, I was screaming, trying to push some sand into his mouth.

What’s that? What’s that? shouted one passer-by.

Is that play or fight? yelled another voice further away.

Separate them, Afo. Separate them! a familiar voice—that of his mother—urged Afo who was now standing by laughing and entertaining herself. A small crowd had quickly gathered surprised at what they saw. Nnenti, another nursing woman, yelled at Afo with more urgency in her voice to separate us.

We were finally separated. They held him tight as he struggled to free himself, to come and continue the fight. We were surrounded by women and children (men were hardly attracted to such trivial scenes of children fighting children), surprised that I could beat him this time around. His mother pushed her way through the crowd. The cut on her forehead had stopped bleeding. Why are you two fighting? she yelled breathing heavily. There was a sure indignation in her voice which I mistook for that of the wound on her face caused by her son.

I threw him down to teach him a lesson for the stones he was throwing at you, I proudly explained panting.

She moved those torchlight eyes of hers from me unto her son and yelled, What were you doing when he threw you down? Were you asleep? Tell me. Were you asleep?

He came behind me as I was not looking and swept me off my feet. That’s why I want us to fight now. Leave me! I must fight him now, as he spoke he struggled kicking and biting to free himself from the grip of Nne Azu (Azu’s mother).

His mother turned to me. So you sneaked behind my son like a thief when he wasn’t looking, like the thief your mother was, and swept him off both his feet?

Afo jumped into my defense. She was known not to fear anybody. Nne O, that’s not true. That’s a bad talk. That’s really a bad talk. The other two women in the crowd quietly left, dumbfounded, leaving Afo and Nne O to square it out.

Don’t insult me. Don’t insult me! Nne O warned pointing her finger at Afo.

I am not insulting you. I know you are my senior. But how could you call someone’s mother names over such a trivial matter as children fighting? Tell me. How could you? Our ancestors always said that if an adult has outgrown coconut water, he should go and buy palm wine to drink.

It’s none of your business; it’s none of your business, Nne O protested.

It is my business. It is my business! His mother and I were good friends. How could you say such a terrible thing about someone who is no longer among us? You know very well she cannot come back from the world of the dead to refute your accusation! Have you forgotten that our elders say, ‘We shouldn’t let our lips fly faster than our thoughts, because as soon as we vomit something evil we cannot swallow it back,’ no matter what we do? Tell me. Have you forgotten? For example, in a matter of minutes, these children will be playing together again; but what you’ve said, this falsehood you’ve just vomited against the dead, will never be forgotten.

Nne O realized her folly. She took her son by the hand and entered her house. Afo turned away and came straight to my father’s house where I was already crying. Even though I had a very vague knowledge of my mother and didn’t feel the same way toward her as I felt toward my father, I couldn’t stand anybody saying such a terrible thing about her. That’s enough. That’s enough! Stop crying! Stop telling the whole world that your father and mother are dead, Afo consoled as she wiped my tears with one end of her wrapper. But I wept on uncontrollably, asking my God again why He created me and why He took my father and mother away and left nobody to care for me. Stop crying. Do you hear me? Stop crying! You will make me begin to cry too if you don’t stop, she continued, her voice beginning to crack, patting me on the back. I started to feel something like raindrops on my head. I looked up at her. Tears were already dripping down her cheeks. I stopped crying immediately in sheer surprise. Do you see? You’ve made tears rise in my own eyes too. You’ve made me remember your mother. She and I were very close. Don’t listen to what Nne O said. Your mother was such an honest woman, so honest that she never touched anything that didn’t belong to her. Nwocha was just lying. (This was the first time I heard her call Nne O by her real name because she was angry.) Your mother was not only very pretty and honest but also stubborn. The fact is that she and Nwocha never got along because she was too big for Nwocha’s pocket, so she hated her. And God in heaven will punish her for this falsehood against a dead person who is no longer here to respond. When you grow up, you will know that.

Afo, Afo! someone called from outside. Where are you? Your baby is crying. Come and breastfeed him. He is hungry.

Afo hurriedly left saying, Let me go and feed your cousin. Don’t cry again! Do you hear? When I finish preparing the night meal, I’ll send for you to come and eat. She ran for her baby whose cracking voice was already reaching us.

That night I took the night meal at Afo’s house as she had promised. This was a welcome relief because I wouldn’t have dared to face Nne O. She might not have said anything because of her grown-up children who were absent during our fight; but with those torchlight eyes of hers, she would have flashed them several times on me, x-raying me and following the fufu balls right down my stomach.

Afo was a nice loving mother of four—two boys and two girls—ranging from six months to eight years. She was bold and hated injustice in all its forms. She said she would have taken me in to live with them if she wasn’t nursing a baby, but that as a nursing mother it was already hard for her to provide enough food for six mouths since she no longer went to the farm as often as she used to. I believed her. I loved her as I would my mother. As I was leaving after the meal, she said, Go and sleep now! Don’t go to Nne O’s house tonight! As long as I am alive, I will never allow her ‘bad mouth’ to reach you without answer. I nodded, thanked her for the food, and left to wait outside for KB who now regularly slept in our empty house to keep me company as he had promised. I had looked into their house and saw them at the table. I did not want them to see me because I had eaten and was satisfied: I did not want to overfeed myself. I sat on the sand in our frontage in this warm November night. It was already dry season, a season I loved very much because the streams would soon begin to dry and we would be going to fish after school and on weekends. The sky was clear and full of stars in this moonless November night. I started counting the stars to kill time. If the moon was on, we would stay up late playing with