THE CLAWS OF SHADOWS (EPISODE 2)

click here for EPISODE 1

 TAG:  Fiction, Historical, Mystery.

Tasha had come to spend a month holiday with her parents, from the U.S where she was residing. She happened to meet Tunde and immediately fell for him. Tunde’s first observation was this:

 Chief Lawrence asked him to give Tasha a glass of wine at the balcony. Then she was busy staring at him until she spilled the content all over her dress. Tunde was indeed a fine boy, just like our dad. His tallness, fair skin, well-built physique, cute face,  red parted lips, gripping eyes made him look like those American boys I used to see on TV. And Tasha, too, was a tall girl, with a bronze skin, a typical afro American beauty. After that day, Tasha would sit beside him whenever he was reading. She would insist on reading with him and sometimes snatch the book from him and run to her room.  She did that often, in expectation that Tunde would run after her. Tunde would not. And she would later return the book to him, and like that they became close friends. She applied some other tricks, like asking him to help her kill a non-existent rat in her room, and in the process seduced him.

“Come on! Am I not beautiful enough?” she would whine, “You don’t seem to like me!”

“No. I can’t do this.” Tunde would object, “See, I really like you, but your Dad is my helper and he likes me a lot. This might lead to something else.”

“Come on, dude!” Tasha would say in her sweet, sexy, American-accented voice, while holding his shoulders, “I know how to prevent that. Please, Just once. I can’t help it…My Pop aint gonna find out. And if he does, trust me.  I know how to handle that old man.”

Still Tunde would resist her, until a particular day she threatened, “Fuck! I will ask dad to get another help. Just bet it!”

 Knowing full well that she had the key to her father’s heart, Tunde surrendered to her. It was the day her parents went for a party.

After then, Tunde confided to Tasha that our Dad was also wealthy before our present situation. Tasha felt so sorry. She pleaded with her Dad to get another help and let Tunde finish his education abroad. Chief Lawrence protested and scolded her. But when Tasha refused to eat for days, he was compelled to prepare Tunde’s travelling passport. To satisfy his daughter’s whim. Tunde was very excited. He decided not to inform any of us, neither me nor Mum or Rachael, until it ever happened.

Mrs. Lawrence, Tasha’s Mum, decided to become the pharaoh, and Tunde, the Moses. She wanted to be an obstacle to the Promised Land. “A gold digger!” She would call him. After the failure to poison her husband’s mind, one day she asked Tunde to tidy up his room, after which Chief Lawrence said ‘Ten U.S dollars and N25/3kobo’ was missing in his room.

“Aunty Grace. I never stole that money,” Tunde had concluded the narration to me, tearfully, “That woman must have taken it. She hates me!”  

Afterwards, Tasha would come to our house to check on him. Before travelling back to U.S, Tasha bought some designer wears for me and Rachael. We never let Mum know that Tasha was Chief Lawrence’s daughter. “She is Tunde’s friend in school.” Rachael would lie to Mum, since I had also narrated the truth to her. All these happened about four months ago.

As for me, I’m still working as a server at a restaurant, from Thursday to Saturday. My colleague, Bukola, would take the shift from Monday to Wednesday. And we’d resume by 4: pm till late in the night.

Now I just finished changing into a white blouse and blue skirt. As I took my mirror to rub a powder, Tunde called me from behind.

“Yes!” I responded, without looking back.

“I was struck by one idea.” He said.

“What idea is that, aburo?” I said, clapping off the excess powder from my palms.

“Our science teacher hasn’t been coming for about a month now, and I leant that the school is looking for a new teacher. What if Mum applies for it? You know she is good at science.”

“Don’t bother,” I said. “I have suggested the plan to her before. As you know, she will be 52 next month. She said she no longer has the strength to shout.”

“Anyway,” Tunde sighed, “I think she is now used to that fish. It’s not that profitable, and it doesn’t just befit her…for her qualification.”

“You are right, but what do we do….” I said, not in a questioning tone. With that, Tunde left the room with a football.

Actually, there were older teachers in my school. Mum had lost most of her vigour, probably because of her worries. She hadn’t lost her beauty, but that agility was no longer much—not even because she was a little bit fat. Rachael and I took after Mum with our shiny mud-coloured skin. Our similar dominating statures, pretty oblong faces, curvy figures, round breasts, and bubble-like backsides made us look like twins. I was a little taller than her, and despite our age difference, her boyfriends in school would confuse me with her, until I started wearing skirt and blouse.

***

On the following day, I arrived at the restaurant at 4:30pm, and my boss scolded me for a few minutes before I set to work. The restaurant was on Oladipo Street, facing a highway linking to Mushin. It was just like a regular shop, but there was a ten feet verandah where deck chairs were arranged in circles. There was no customer as at the time I resumed, but now three old men were approaching, each with a tummy like a pregnant goat, and in their hands were daily times.

“Mama Eko, se Arewa mi ti de?” shouted one of them.  (Lagos Mama, has my beauty arrived?)

I was behind the counter, preparing a pepper soup. My boss was always addressed as Mama Eko. The man was actually referring to me. To retain customers at a pub, one had to be very smart and jovial. Many customers, old men and young boys, would ask me on a date and I’d cunningly turn them down. A man had spanked me on my behind before, and I scolded him and smiled shortly after. It was among the rules my boss had given me before I started the work.

 I walked to the men outside and curtsied. They flattered me, and I exchanged pleasantries with them for a while. “Bring me three bottles of Harp Lager and a bush meat,” The man said in Yoruba. He held out his hands to hear from his friends, and they requested for five Foreign extra stouts and a plateful of pepper soup each.

As I made to serve their orders, I heard them arguing over the content in the PUNCH newspaper. It was about our new president. “Look at what I’m talking about!” One of them said and read out the headline, “GENERAL MURTALA MUHAMMAD HAS INITIATED A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF THE THIRD NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN.”

If I were to study socialism in the university, I would probably be the best student. The update on politics from our customers surpassed that of any radio station.

About an hour later, my boss asked me to get some ingredients at Oshodi market, and one of the customers, a young man on glasses, offered to drop me off, since he was heading the same way. He pointed at his car across the road. It was the latest Peugeot. I wonder what a rich guy like him had come to do at our local pub. Likes of him would rather go to places like The Londoners, La koreana, Benson Moore and others. To crown it all, he was extremely handsome—with his shiny dark figure, afro haircut, goliath frame, smart white shirt, flaring black trousers and brown shoes. He should be in his late twenties, probably a university student or graduate.

“Thanks,” I said shyly, intending to walk away, “I will get a taxi.”

“Do you realize you’re insulting me?” His said calmly. I turned back to him. On his face was that gracious embarrassment which befitted a gentle man.

“How…how is that an offense?” I said, watching out for my boss.

“Do you mean I’m a kidnapper or something?” His voice was still relaxed, a smile creeping on his adorable lips.

I was finally defeated by his persuasive words. I walked after him to the car. I was examining my wears (a shabby pink blouse and black shirt) as if to confirm whether it would befit such a luxurious car. I quickly adjusted my ‘shuku’ hairstyle. Finally, I sat awkwardly beside him at the front seat, and he wound down the glass.

“Thanks for the gesture.” I said timidly, as he was about to start the engine.

“Never mind….Miss Grace…Am I right?”  

“Yes.” I said with a slight nod. He must have heard my name when Mama Eko was calling me.

For over two minutes of setting on the road, he didn’t utter a single word again. And his face was not what I saw earlier on. It was as if he was now wearing a horror mask, for the way his face was stiff and harsh. At that moment, I felt obliged to interrupt the silence, maybe ask him about his mission in that area or about his educational status. But a voice at the corner of my mind scolded me: “Don’t ask him any question. Let him do. You are a woman. Where is your pride? Show your dignity, even though you like him!” I obeyed the thought. Just then, he wound up the glasses….under this tense atmosphere? I wondered. I wanted to protest, but I heard a ruffled sound behind me, then a rough, menacing voice.

 “Don’t bother to look back at all. Just cooperate with us!” My heart flew away immediately I felt a cold metal against my skull. It was a gun, I guessed. Then a wicked grin erupted from the throat of my Good Samaritan. 


                                         click here for Episode 3

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