INSIDE THE KITCHEN.
24TH DEC, 1988
CHAPTER ONE
She was beautiful, extremely gorgeous, her beauty could make a cad
stop a bullet, 'her man was so happy he had married her, I heard him
scream.... 'after all education minus beauty is a ricochet of cataclysm
‘me wondered aloud 'who thought him this big 'oyibo'?
But 'she
and 'her' man both had a problem. Everybody knew he was a gentle man of
the road and his wife the sweetest lady of very easy virtue: but that is
the story for the gods, he remembered the story for the gods, a popular
tune from a junkie in1988, his name Olamide, for now,he need his food. "That’s why he married that fine ass" he spoke softly to himself.
Mr. Briar was my dad, he told me he waited for six years, six god forsaken years before I was born, he visited Brahma Pradash in Hamdallah all to avail. Then, i was born when all hope was lost; the doctor even told him his sperm has lost the complete count.
Suddenly i was born." his sun began to shine “he said.
"She" was my mother, I mean the woman whom every one called lady easy- they said she gave willingly to everyone who wanted a taste of paradise.
She was once very beautiful, so she told me, biting her lower lips in nostalgia.
I believed her with all my heart, but looking at her today, craggy looking and with a sunken chin, I wept.....
Then almost immediately i heard ia sound: I listened some more then it became clear, livid clear, she was talking. no, she was grumbling. Perhaps she was thinking aloud.....
But to who?
Has she gone mad?
I thought on my inside.
I thought she was talking to "him "in there but hell, she was still talking when I came left, she did not even know that I have left her and was back again. She was so lost in thought.
"Mama, who re you talking to"?I asked
"nwam, (boy), dunno you worry yaself" she said.
I walked away dejected, I knew there was something disturbing that woman as her silhouette was as shrunken as my grandmother in her death bed.
I decied to let sleeping dog lie, with the corner of my eye i saw her grin as i left, then i heard her say again to whomever she was talking to before i came in
"poor him....poor son"
I smiled.
Then the bull-dog came in almost immediately, and screamed
"Ewu, nye mu nni mu"?
For a minute or two the clock stop ticking, the world ended, I froze for the scream he made was like thunder.
Then it all turn back to the way things were before, as if there was no cog in our family wheel, as if there was no pain at all..... As if we were living happy ever after.
CHAPTER TWO
25TH, DEC, 1988- CHRISTMAS
Bells at the background ring in very meritorious jingle as i write, screams and shouts of joy pervades the entire ozone, every one was happy except 'she' and 'he' for reasons best known to them.I thought she was asleep, so I decided me would go and drink a cup of water,but she was there sleeping in the kitchen.
“Mammy, why don’t you go to the bed and sleep? I asked deeply concerned.
She stretched like a cat in heat, at first i thought she wasn’t going to respond to my question. Then she said in a very husky low tone
“Son he who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child; teach him, I will teach you"
With that she gave me a stinging slap that brought the name "Jesus" to my lipa... I was still screaming that name when “he" came in, he looked at me , looked at her and back at me again, then he said "Bia"
My dad was a shrewd, disciplined man, I stayed the early stageof my life in Andalusia, i know very little about his younger days, people say "he" and my "mama" are bad , bad people.
"They are right, I think my mama is a bad,bad mama"i mused
then he said to me just like he could read what i was thinking" she is a woman of easy virtue".
Although,i did not understand what he meant, I remember saying -okaySir, i like virtues too. My ‘Engrish’ Sunday-school teachers say virtues is necessary for human beings to go to heaven."
His face changed color; did I annoy him with my response? I wouldn’t know, then he too slapped me on the head, as lethal as what mum has loaded me ab-initio,"oh" i cried.
No one consoled me, today was Christmas, else where, people were singing and merry, but i cried, i cried a little more , i was crying till i went to my bed.
She was still in that kitchen, and she has not changed that smelly gown on her body when i awoke, she has not even taken a wash"
i thought aloud then i thought in my mind
“Who are this people that i 'm living with?
Why did 'she' and 'he' slap me?
My young mind could comprehend the dog behavior between this two?
Then i slept for the second time: i dreamt.
I saw "she" sitting hand akimbo, head and knee shrunken with legs crossed mopping at a point near the sink. Then i saw the kitchen too.
The kitchen was not pale looking like the one I knew all my life. but bright, very spick and span.
"She" was clad in a very fine white apron.
The kitchen had a "mouth" for it could talk
Under the formica, two rats were mating, a cockroach was making a journey from an iron spoon to a tray, i dreamt, she didn’t leave the kitchen all through the duration. She stood, sat, knelt …
I woke with a start and it dawned on me that the kitchen were she stays was her kitchen, her life, her world.
CHAPTER THREE
31ST DECEMBER 1988/1ST JAN 1989
Today is another interesting day of my life."she" came in to my room and told me many things...
Many things she told me look like what i saw in my dream some days before. But she told me something "me" cannot forget, she told "me" that she gave birth to "me" in that dirty kitchen....
"She shit me out there"
Then she told me my dad.
“He is not your dad" she said with a shaky voice
I was flummoxed, all my life I have come to see and look up to this man as my dad.
Mr. briva not my "dada" no more. i could only weep.
"Your real dada" she said use to stay very-long outside.Very long like say 2pm and one man, very fine man, she say come to the kitchen when she was preparing sweet rice and plantain for "my dada", and he pushed her down,and he.... he ...
he mated her.
Mammy, what is mated? I asked ,with innocent eyes fixed on her tears reddened face.
He... entered me! Inside my body
“Inside the kitchen”
Then, did i understand what that kitchen meant to her, she was mated in that pale kitchen"
she also shit me out there " she said.
Too many thoughts reeling in my mind, i ran out to meet Mr briva, he was reading a news magazine, i call him names, bad,bad names.... I said to him
“why you treat "she" in an ungentle man way"
Mr. briva heard all she told me, none of us knew when he was eavesdropping, visibly misted with anger at both the names I was calling him and the words fed me by my mother.
He brought out one black thing, very black with a shiny nuzzle, it has a hole too, it was like a metal and it was very lethal.
I heard a loud "gbam" sound and mama was asleep peacefully just as i met her asleep there some days ago, her face was plain white this time.
Some distance away, me saw two dead rats probably those one i saw in my dream mating again. They looked at me expectantly- like expecting me to say Hi. I rubbed my eye to remind myself I’m not dreaming.
Outside some people came in screaming 'happy new year', my dada or no, she says he not my "dada" no more was playing with that black thing that made mama sleep, I heard suddenly another similar sound "gbam " and "dada" too fell asleep.
I called a bystander, who phoned the police when i saw mama and dada sleep
Only that day...... never to wake everyday, and since five years today, i am still incarcerated and i still remember that livid night.
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