The sun reddened, descending behind the foliage in the far distance. Minutes after, like clockwork, a cacophony of the voices of chattering women was heard. Mama Pelumi, the village gossip, was heard above others as the women slowly came within view of the quaint farmhouse standing atop the hill that was the dividing line between the farms and the homesteads.
“No, they say it’s his daughter’s wayward ways that finally drove him mad. Don’t you know that Jummy is really not his distant relative as some say, but granddaughter? As though his sickness was not enough, the olosho went and dumped a baby on his hands. Hmm….May our children not bring us pain.”
A chorus of “Amin” was heard, interspersed by their clattering farm tools and shuffling feet.
The said Jummy was sitting at the verandah of the house they just went past. She was a thinly built girl of seven, with shortly cropped hair and skin reminiscent of the dark coloured honey that came from those parts. Her light brown eyes were fixed on the space just left by the sun. This was her favourite time of the day. Soon, nocturnal bird calls will be heard. She knew them distinctively and loved the cuckoo the most. Lost in her own world, she didn’t hear her grandfather call her name weakly until a loud wracking sound was heard. She turned sharply and ran into the sitting room towards a bundle of rough-spun blankets laying on a mat. Beneath them was her white haired grandpa, worn thin by his ravaging illness. A thick patch of blood was right by his head on the floor and his entire body was in a violent fit. She ran to get a cup of water from the clay pot. The water there was colder than the one in the fridge as it had been months since the village had any electricity supply. She cradled his head with her left arm and held the water to his lips with her right arm.
All night, he shivered and coughed out blood. She finally dragged out the water pot to the sitting room. It wasn’t the first of such nights. She had lived long enough with granddad to be used to them. But this night, the night was eerily silent. Her beloved cuckoo sounds stopped when the coughing started and were not heard all night. It wasn’t the first of such a night but it was the last of such. When she awoke from her fitful sleep, grandpa was lying peacefully. He wasn’t coughing anymore. Thinking to herself that he needed the rest, she ran out to see the sunrise. “It is such a nice coincidence that our house is so close to the sky,” she thought as she held up her face to receive the sun’s warmth.
Baba Ronke came soon after, panting as he came up the hill. He was a heavy set man and his stomach and arms jiggled as he trudged upward. He sat down with a grunt.
“Ekaro sir,” Jummy greeted, going down on both knees.
“Karo omo mi. Se sun dada?”
“Beeni sir. Eyin nko, sir? Se alaafia leyin wa?”
“Beeni”
“This your house sha. Kilode? I almost gave up and went back to my house.”
She chuckled softly as she led him into the sitting room.
“He coughed all night. I thought it was best to let him rest.”
“Well, he needs to take his medication now. Let’s put some into a smaller bottle.”
“I’ll go get his medicine bottle.”
She had just stepped out from the bedroom, a small bottle in hand, when she saw Baba Ronke’s white face. His bag had fallen on the floor and he kept shaking grandpa violently. He wouldn’t wake up though. There were shakes, screams, fierce hugs, and water was repeatedly splashed on his face. Yet, grandpa wouldn’t wake up.
………Ϫ………
“How do we know she doesn’t have what killed him?”
“Erm… Iya Pelumi, you shouldn’t say such things in the hearing of such a young child.”
“A young child, you say. How sure are you that she is not a witch? Ever since she came to stay in this village, her baba’s health failed. His farm nko? Nothing grows there anymore. An evil woman must have reincarnated in her.”
“Ahn ahn… O ti to! That’s enough. If you wouldn’t take her in, then don’t. Why all the name calling? You should be ashamed of yourself. Is she not your relative?”
“It is you that should be ashamed of yourself,” She said, now on her feet, tying and retying her wrapper, poking Baba Ronke in the face with the forefinger of her right hand, “You oh, and your family and your entire lineage sef. Your ancestors should be ashamed of themselves. She has a mother abi? She should come for her child.”
He gathered the fabric of his woven cloth. “Jumoke omo mi, come let’s go. This woman has obviously eaten so much bitter leaf soup that it has entered her heart. Ja lo.”
Baba Ronke lived alone and did not want any gossip surrounding him taking in a young girl. Several letters were sent to Jummy’s mother who lived in Lagos but no reply was received.
………Ϫ……
December arrived with chilly mornings and hot afternoons, with a stifling heat that stuck one’s clothes to the skin and a dry wind that clothed everything in sight with a film of dust. Jummy’s grandpa had already been dead for about two months.
As Christmas approached and chickens met their doom in pots, pans and plates, one foggy morning, a heavy set man was seen panting and trudging towards the motor park, one hand carrying a Ghana-must-go tote bag and the other hand holding on to a young child’s hand. These odd duo were Baba Ronke and Jumoke. The last bus for the morning was about leaving when they arrived at the bus park. There were just enough vacant seats for them both. After carelessly dumping the traveling bag of his newest passengers atop the jute bags containing plantains in the boot, the driver hopped onto his seat and started the bus. The bus spat out smoke from its exhaust and staggered onto the road. The bad roads and the rickety bus made for a most uncomfortable journey.
In about two hours, Baba Ronke was roused from his fitful sleep by Jumoke’s constant tugging and the voice of the driver shouting, “Any Ojota?”
Jummy’s mum lived in a run-down part of Yaba, notorious for its filthy black waters, which served as refuse dump and toilet and which led to the Atlantic Ocean as well as the fish market that attracted traders all over Lagos. The implication was somehow lost on many. The two travelers were unaware of this reputation and simply tried to find the address in their hands, each looking forward to seeing the evasive mother.
The road from Ojota to Yaba was impressive enough for the two who had never ventured out of the village, at least not since infancy for Jummy. The calls of the hawkers and the littered roadsides were the only put-offs. Arriving Yaba, a tricycle was boarded to Makoko. Makoko seemed to be an entirely different country from the places they had seen thus far. It seemed as though streets were made up of a mix of sand and dirt. The few tarred roads were playing fields for football. Baba Ronke held on to Jummy’s hand tightly, navigating the lane described in one of Mummy Jummy’s letters. The dirt road was bordered by shanties made of wood and tarp and soon gave out to planks on stilts built above still murky waters. Baba Ronke had no choice at this point than to ask around.
He approached two teenage boys in ripped jeans and faded graphic tees who were chatting in front of a shanty home.
“Karo o. Jo, omo mi, I’m looking for Iya Jummy, sorry, Wuraola. She lives on this lane but I’m not sure of the exact house.”
The boys said no word but simply pointed to a two storey building located some houses away.
As Baba Ronke left them, he heard them whisper cautiously but could not pick out their words.
A storey building on stilts was not something Baba Ronke expected to see in the famed Lagos. He gingerly knocked on the door, upon which a shout was heard from the window upstairs asking who he was looking for.
“Iya… sorry, Wuraola.”
“And you are?” The voice was now coming from right before him. A face damaged by years of bleaching appeared before him. The owner of the face had a curly weave on and showed off an ample cleavage. Baba Ronke stuttered, staring at her chest before catching himself.
“Ba.. Baba Ronke from her village. I brought her daughter.”
“Wura o,” she screamed into the house behind her, “Dey don bring your pikin come. Where you?”
It seemed like an eternity before Wuraola appeared. In that space of time the girl at the door had eyed them both up and down for several minutes before leaning into the door frame. A dark skinned slender woman in her early twenties appeared, having bloodshot eyes and untidy hair staggered to the door. Her attire wasn’t much different from the first woman.
“Which pikin? You dey joke abi you dey play?”
“See am nau. She resemble you sef.”
Wura’s eyes flitted to Jummy, to Baba Ronke and back to Jummy.
“No. what… What…”
………Ϫ……
For the first couple of days that Jummy arrived, Wura was in a daze. She had barely read the letters sent to her from the village, had denied the facts there and yet, here was the living proof. Her daughter had been returned to her. She had been finding it hard recently to distinguish between reality and her cocaine-induced fantasies. It was the only relief from the constant pain and shame she felt in this place. How was she to take care of a young child here? How?
Jummy spent her days in her mother’s room. It was small but at least private, except when her mum had her male visitors. Mum called them friends, but they didn’t seem friendly. They only spoke in grunts and displayed a wide variety of expressions upon seeing her — from shock to anger to disgust. Mum would quickly bundle her to the backyard, where she would sit until she was recalled.
This place was such a contrast from home. There were no trees, and the air brought a chill to your bones and a stench to your nostrils. Her only fascination was the boats, usually steered by kids her age or slightly older. She wondered constantly where the waters led to and what kept the boats afloat. Alone in an alcove, looking over the waters and into other houses on stilts in the distance, Jummy felt a bit of relief. She could still see the sunset here.
………Ϫ……
One day, a constant visitor of mum’s came. This was one of the nicer ones. He always brought sweets for her and ruffled her now slightly grown afro. She called him Uncle Jimi. Mum was not around that day. She had gone to get some fish. Uncle Jimi chatted with her that day and nodded to her answers as though conversing with an adult. That day, he fed her with the sweets himself, asking her which she liked most.
“The Bon-a-Bon. Really, anything that has chocolate is fine. But I’m not a baby, uncle. I can feed myself.”
He laughed lightly and let her be.
The next time Uncle Jimi came, he brought only chocolate bars. The bon-a-bon was really a chocolate-covered waffle. These were purely chocolates. Jummy was overjoyed and was about to leave him to call her mum when he stopped her.
“I saw your mum on the road. She said I should wait for her.”
“Okay..” Jummy said, eyes fixed on the chocolates in her hands and anxiously hopping from one foot to another.
“Come and sit nau, and eat your chocolates ehn, baby that is not a baby.”
Jummy sat gingerly and began to unwrap a chocolate bar wrapped in purple.
“You know,” Uncle Jimmy started, “Since I can’t help you with this, maybe you can help me with something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it’s something just for adults and you said you are one.”
“Well, I’m not an adult, but close, I think. Tell me.”
“Not tell but show. Come.”
He unzipped his jeans and placed her hand right in, then slowly let his trousers and boxers fall.
Afterwards, Uncle Jimmy managed to come only when Wura was not around and then stayed alone with Jummy until Wura came in. The touching had become mutual.
One of such days, Wura returned and saw her daughter in a pool of blood. Jimi was in the room a moment ago, she was told. Wura’s scream attracted the entire house to the scene. Every suggestion was made but the obvious one — to take her to the hospital — until a neighbour mentioned it.
Wura sat at the reception of the Red Cross Primary Health Centre moaning softly.
“We’ve informed the police,” a nurse dressed in white informed her, “They can’t find him.”
“If they find him, what will that change? This is all my fault. I’m a terrible mum.”
………Ϫ……
Jummy slowly recovered and was taken home. She had lost a lot of blood and needed to eat and rest well. With every new client of her mum that came, she became even more wary.
“Take this child away from here. This is no place for her,” Rita said to Wura one day when she came in to see them. She placed the back of her hand on Jummy’s forehead as she lay, seemingly asleep. Baba Ronke would have recognized her as the woman who opened the door to him.
“To where? My dad was all the family I had. No one else in that village even likes me.”
“The Baba that brought her nko?”
“You want me to keep Jummy with a grown man like that?”
“What’s the difference between there and here? At least there, the village will have his neck if he tries any rubbish. He doesn’t even seem like that kind of man. Here, these ones are beasts. Don’t you see the way they look at her?”
“Hmm… Let me think about it.”
“Don’t just think o. Do something.”
………Ϫ……
Jummy slowly grew better. She hid the nightmares in her head. One day, sitting in the alcove at the back, she saw a familiar figure in a boat. It was her friend, Amina. An idea popped into her head.
“Where are you going?”
“To the fish market at Oko-Agbon.”
“Let me go with you.”
She deftly jumped into the boat. Upon getting to Oko-Agbon, she went to the Community Health Centre at Iwaya. She hoped to see a nice nurse at the Health centre like the one who treated her at Red Cross.
The reception nurse was entering her closing report for the day when she heard a tiny voice say, “Please, adopt me.” She looked down and saw a young girl.
………Ϫ……
With bare feet buried in the sand, Jummy watched the slowly reddening horizon at her sixteenth birthday party. Her adoptive parents were related to the nurse she had met that day, a middle-aged couple who had unsuccessfully tried to conceive. Wura was only too glad to find a home for her.
“A gift from mum,” her mum said with a smile, giving her a gold-wrapped box, the setting sun behind her giving her grey-streaked hair a glow, “from your other mum.”
“Oh”
This was the first time in nine years that Wura reached out to her.
“I’ll let you open it in private.”
Jummy stood at the beach staring into the dark blue waters and white waves, gift box in hand. She remembered another body of water. Here the waters were a different colour. It was a different time, a different place. A peaceful place. The demons no longer raged in her head. But her mum still managed to find her here. She looked at the gift box, lifted her hand and threw it into the sea.
