THE CLAWS OF SHADOWS (EPISODE 1)

 TAG:  Fiction, Historical, Mystery.

In the afternoon, thunder came in steady barks, crashing through my heart, and I was afraid my chests would burst open —pitter, patter, pitter, patter—the gradual beats of rain on our roof was developing into fast and furious drumming. Like a mad man, the wind banged our windows and tugged at our full-length curtain, so it started flapping like a tattered flag. After shutting the windows, I rushed out for my cloths at the balcony.  The wind almost pushed me off my feet—it pushed me, I pushed back, and I finally forced my way to the rail. It was a three story building and, of course, we stayed at the last floor. Above, clouds gathering so thickly like honey bees in the hive, and there was a short-term night.  While packing the cloths across my shoulder, countless times the rain flogged me, nearly soaking my dress.

 To my greatest surprise, across our untarred street, I saw naked children, plenty of them jumping around like excited toads in a swamp, collecting the water with their faces. Could they be stronger than me, I was wondering—as tall as I was, in my early twenties? I sighed. Oh. I must have lost my weight to fever, the fever that had shackled me for over a week, which only freed me some days ago.

Getting back inside, I groped through the dark for matches. I lit the lantern that sat on a stool beside the bed. Then the darkness exploded in my eyes, chunk by chunk, replaced by a glowing orange light. I stared pitifully at Mum who was lying asleep on the bed, a blue ankara wrapper shrouding her body, from her feet to the neck. She had been the one nursing my sickness, and now I had taken her place.

I gathered two iron pails and one basin from under the bed. I joined them with those that’d been lined at the balcony by our neigbours, for the torrent of water from our rust, tattered zinc. It was a kind of building where the balcony was extended far past the roof level. Our landlord was too negligent. The brownish and greenish decays on the cream-painted walls, plus surplus cracks, made the building appear scruffy and weak, just like the muddy ‘bird house’ I used to form with my foot when I was little.

“Baba oshi, you useless and selfish man!” was our neigbours’ blessings for our landlord every morning. Like our regular recitation of hymns in the missionary school.

I had been absent from school since Mum developed this malaria symptom. I volunteered myself to take care of her, as the eldest child. My two younger ones, Rachael and Tunde, were in form 4 and 5, respectively. Rachael was the baby of the house—eighteen-year-old. And right now they were both in school. We all attended CMS Grammar School, Lagos —a few miles from our home. Mum had rented this house five years back, eight months after dad was deployed for civil war and never returned.

He was a soldier. Alive or dead —we heard nothing. We saw no corpse. We all cried and cried until tears denied our eyes.  My Dad’s relatives sent us parking from our mansion. Mr. Ojubanire, the olori ebi or family leader, was the harness on their black horse. He claimed that Mum was a witch, according to his pastor, and so they sold my father’s properties, including cars—a Volkswagen beetle and Volkswagen K70.  Mum wanted to report the case to Dad’s comrades, but couldn’t locate those with whom she was acquainted. We’re helpless. Naked. Pathetic.

Mr. Ojubanire was always on glasses, just in his late fifties. He was a regular visitor in our house when dad was alive. And Mum would do anything to please him, for he would always come with a starving stomach. Pounded yam was his fixed demand.

“You see, your mother and I suffered before acquiring this wealth,” I remembered Dad saying to three of us, the day Tunde was caught with bad gangs. It was after he tortured Tunde with koboko. “Are you getting me? You all have to be serious and face your studies. Your Mum was a teacher in a Methodist school when I met her.  If your mother returned from school, she would sell plantain at Idi oro market. So, little by little, we gathered money to build this house. But you, my children, shall never experience any hard life. And as for you, Tunde,” Dad paused and diverted his attention to him, “I don’t want to ever see you among those smokers in your life! Those rascals have no educational background. So, you want them to corrupt your life!”

That was Dad for us. He would always advise us. “Why did my father’s people treat us this way, after all Mummy had passed through?” was the question I always asked myself. It made Mum weep sometimes, for our present situation. Now, we owed our landlord two years rent.

“Mama Tunde, oni’gbese, mo tun ti’de O!”  (Mama Tunde, the debtor, I have come again!) Landlord would shout at our door, while ringing a bell. Same thing he did to every other debtor in the house, mostly on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

 “Mba! Foolish man,” a woman would gossip, among the Igbo neigbours, “When you die, dem go bury you with that bell. And God go make you the tank keeper for hell fire. Nenu…Ewu!”

 Rachael would hawk fried fish on arriving from school, and I would assist Mum in sales at home. Those were the things my father thought we would never experience.

Mum was awake when I again returned to the room, now lying on her side. I couldn’t breathe freely. The air was still intoxicant with the ointments I used on her in the morning.

 “You will be alright in Jesus name,” I said, sitting close to her by the bed, laying my right palm on her forehead, warm and sweaty, “I have collected the herbal leaves. Oh, I really trekked before getting them. I’m just happy I got them. ” Meanwhile, my eyes wandered to the shabby mattress lying on the wall, where I slept with my siblings, a dusty radio on the stool beside it, and a wooden table in the middle of our bare floor. By the window, an old black shelf which was meant for appliances accommodated our books alone.

“Thank you, my daughter,” She said in a voice so faint, and coughed, “your future children shall repay what you’re doing to me.” I exhaled very deeply. That was her normal statement. Either she was being angry or happy with us.

*

Two days later, Mum became strong and healthy. She woke up before anyone, to wash the trays, bowls, baskets and the pans we used in frying fish. We’re all happy. And I resumed school on the following day which was Wednesday. That very day, we returned from school by 4:45pm because of inter-sport. Rachael rushed upstairs after greeting Mum at her stall (two tables placed by the gutter). Rachael already told me and Tunde that she wanted to watch a soap opera (The village head master) at our neighbour’s room. Unlike radio stations who opened by 5: am, all the TV stations would start by 5pm. Even before any program could start, a grey spectrum would have appeared on the screen from 4:30pm, alongside music, followed by a national anthem and pledge. It was only our landlord that had a coloured TV. The neigbours that owned the normal black-and-white were 17 or so, in a building of 32 apartments.  Mum must not see us near any neigbour’s door except for her friend, Mummy Joseph, whose husband worked at Philip TV stall.

Tunde and I soon followed after Rachael to take off our school uniform. My uniform, as a senior girl in form six, was a stripy, white armless blouse and a green skirt. Over the years, Tunde and I had done petty jobs to assist Mummy in payment of our school fees.  Tunde had been a house boy to one rich man at Olateju Street, two streets away, until recently — Chief Lawrence fired Tunde from his house, and stopped paying his school fees.

”What happened?” Mum had asked Tunde on seeing his luggage inside the room. Tunde sat with his hand supporting his jaw, not responding. “Are you deaf?”

Then Tunde lied to Mum, in annoying manner, “I can’t work with the man again o. I have discovered he is a spiritualist. I caught him with a charm, and I’m afraid. I am just afraid he will descend on me. Maybe someday, he will use me for money ritual.”

On hearing that, Mum slapped her breasts, and snapped her finger over her head, “Ehn! God forbid. A spiritualist! How did you discover that?”  Tunde didn’t reveal how he found out, but insisted he would find another job. Mum didn’t probe the matter any further, because he got the houseboy job himself. Tunde later narrated the truth to me in details. Chief Lawrence’ only daughter, Tasha, was actually the source of the problem. And this was how it all happened…

                                             
                                          click here for EPISODE 2