at the graveyard. Vendors sold handkerchiefs and beer to the mourners. The village elders beat their breasts and wailed. Sitting to the right of the coffin were long tables draped in red cloth piled high with offerings of money, food, and liquor. The funeral attendants distributed laminated programs that pictured the deceased Kata. Abeo stared down at the photograph of her grandfather; his black eyes watched her from beneath his furrowed brow. She had been fond of him, but did not feel sadness because her young mind could not comprehend the fact that death was final. Even as he lay stiff and cold in the open casket, she watched him expectantly, anticipating the moment when he would sit up and ask her to fetch his smoking pipe.
The interment of the body marked the end of the mourning period and the beginning of the celebration.
Slowly, people pushed their sadness aside, gathered around the tables, and piled their plates high with red-black, fungee, fried fish, pepper stew, bread, and fresh fruit. Libations were spilled in honor of the deceased, and then consumed.
Soon, the mourners were laughing and dancing to the syncopated rhythms of bola drums and kazoos.
Abeo, fairly satisfied with Ismae’s explanation as to why her grandfather had been placed in a box, joined her cousins in a game of hide-and-seek, while the adults drowned themselves in plum wine and schnapps.
The merriment went on until the darkness seeped from the sky and a new day was upon them.
In the tiny bed Abeo’s parents shared, Wasik turned to his wife and mumbled something.
Ismae giggled. “What did you say?”
Wasik’s eyes rolled drunkenly in his head. He cleared his throat and repeated, “I will bring Mama to stay with us for a little while.” The words dripped like sap from his mouth.
Ismae stroked his forehead. “Of course, Wasik. Whatever you think is best. Now sleep, sweet husband, sleep.”
4
To Grandmother, Port Masi smelled of smoke, steel, and shit. She thought her son’s house was too grand and reminded Wasik that he was not a king or a chief, so the number of rooms was unnecessary, especially for a family with just two children. She had raised eight children in her modest hut.
“And why is the food cooked inside the house?” she barked, turning her nose up in revulsion.
Wasik bought a television and placed it on the small wooden chest in her bedroom. Grandmother eyed it suspiciously. The last time she’d watched television had been a decade earlier when she’d visited her daughter-in-law’s family. Wasik proudly handed her the remote control to the TV. She looked at the little white object and then back at Wasik. “What am I to do with this?”
The next day Wasik bought her a radio.
Grandmother spent her days roaming the house, examining the souvenirs that friends had purchased abroad and given as gifts to the Katas: a white man on a surfboard, a pointed tower, a grand clock. The words stamped on the souvenirs—Hawaii, Paris, London—meant nothing to Grandmother because her language was Wele and her English was limited to hello and goodbye.
In Abeo’s room, Grandmother picked up and then tossed down the stuffed animals that were neatly arranged across her bed. She reached for the snow globe on the nightstand, shook it, and watched the bits of white plastic swirl and settle on a tiny castle. She pressed her fists into her hips and stared at the poster of a galloping pink horse with a large spiral thorn jutting from the center of its forehead. Such frivolity, Grandmother thought to herself, sucking her teeth in disgust.
Another annoyance for Grandmother was the house girl Ismae had hired to cook and clean for the family. Bembe was a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who had gone and gotten herself pregnant at the same time her own mother had conceived. Both mother and daughter were in their second trimesters by the time Bembe confessed her transgressions.
They gave birth within a week of one another. Bembe a cedar-colored boy and her mother twin girls. Within a week their family bloomed from five to eight. Bembe’s parents didn’t make enough money to clothe and feed them all so Bembe had to drop out of school and find work.
Sweet and quiet, Bembe wasn’t the best cook or cleaner, but she was company to Abeo and helpful with Agwe.
For the first few weeks that Grandmother was there, she would not speak to Bembe. Instead, she silently watched, stalking her like a snake in tall grass. Grandmother’s silence and cold, hard gaze raised the fine hairs on the back of Bembe’s neck.
“I don’t trust her,” Grandmother muttered. “She has the fingers of a thief. She cleans like a blind woman . . . You call that jollof? I call it pig slop!”
Ismae and Wasik smiled and listened respectfully to the old woman’s grievances, but did nothing to change the situation, and so one day Grandmother changed it for them.
Wasik was at work, Abeo was at school, and Ismae had taken the baby to visit a friend. When Grandmother heard Bembe set a large metal pot onto the stove, she emerged from her room like a crow and flew into the kitchen squawking demands: “Show me how to work this stove. Fill this pot with water! Chop this . . . cut that . . .”
A flustered Bembe complied without question.
When Ismae returned home, Grandmother was standing over the stove stirring a pot of stew and Bembe was cowering in the corner.
“Mama, what are you doing? We have Bembe to do that,” Ismae said.
“I told you, her food tastes like pig slop,” Grandmother responded without looking up from her task. “Anyway, what am I to do, sit in that room all day listening to the radio and staring at the picture box?”
“Of course we don’t expect that. But you’re here to rest, not work. Take a walk; the streets are safe, very safe. No harm will come to you. There are eyes everywhere. Our neighbors know who you are.”
Grandmother dropped a pinch of salt into the stew and swirled the wooden spoon around a few times before bringing it to her lips for a taste. Satisfied, she nodded her head and then looked at Ismae. “You should have left me in Prama. This place is hell.”
* * *
Later, in the privacy of their bedroom, Ismae gently massaged her husband’s tense back.
“It’ll get better,” she offered softly. “Everything is new to her. It’s just going to take more time than we thought.” She found a knot near his spine and began to work it loose.
Wasik leaned into her kneading fingers. He grunted in agreement, but in truth, his mother was the very least of his worries. What was paramount in his mind was the allegation that had come down from the ministry of finance accusing Wasik’s superior—Ota Weli—of diverting government money into a personal account. As a result, Ota had been suspended from work while the powers that be investigated the theft.
Wasik had been summoned to the minister’s office and questioned about the matter.
I had no idea, Wasik explained to the minister, wringing his hands. He did not understand why he was so nervous, because he was in no way involved and knew nothing of the theft. But still, perspiration gathered in beads across his forehead, and even as he declared his innocence, his tongue turned to sandpaper.
Really?
