Today you’re in Australia, in a few days you will be in Nigeria. You have failed your graduate studies courses. A lot of things need to be done. Firstly, you will report to work and resign without having to explain why you have been absent without notice for twenty-one days. Secondly, you need to tell your uncle about the shadow that bears Mmirimma’s physique and a masquerade’s phiz that kept muttering “God did not answer your mother” in fierce whispers into your ears at night. You did none. Instead you bought and booked a flight ticket to Nigeria. You need to see your mother, even if it will be for the last time. Last two days, you went to Denis’ apartment and packed your remaining stuff into a Grebs eggs brown box while he sat on the bed staring, his face weak.
“Please, rethink this decision.”
You said nothing but kept packing frantically. The plastic sunflower vase had gone in first and there was still enough space for your abandoned journals, medium-sized transparent bottled pepper soup dry spice (the one you used whenever you were in high spirit for home meals), set of abandoned lingerie, ancient books that you never survived a paragraph on, the portraits of naked women that you bought at the art exhibition his younger brother hosted in Sydney last month, and your manual blender.
“You’re taking everything,” he sounded small, wounded and you imagined his lithe body slouched. He always slouched.
The box could fit into the back seat of your car, comfortably. You thought as you lifted it into your arms. He stood and retrieved the box, offering to carry it. You let him. In his garage, he shut the car door after dropping the box and held your arm.
“Zara. Say something. You can”t just leave me this way,” you know what he meant but what will you do with this persistent urge to burst things like you would the soft rashes that sprout on your keister after getting periods which you scratch and scratch until they turn sore and sticky, seeping blood.
“Do you have to go?” he held your palms now. You have to go. You had spent twenty one days in this narrow apartment barring calls from work and relatives, listening to his gruff snores after sex, and hiding from the shadows that wouldn’t stop reoccurring. Yes, you have to go. You need to take out this blanket of darkness that silence has woven around your life.
“Mmirimma—Good water” is your grandmother’s moniker. It wasn’t a mere delusion that beauty runs in their bloodline. Beauty is a major characteristic of Ndulue’s lineage but hers is a revelation. When you see Mmirimma, you will understand why her beauty is a revelation. At almost seventy-one, she was a straight built woman with sharp face contours and body curves. But that’s not exactly where her beauty lies.
The beauty you saw was in her phiz, albeit old age but her kind is the beauty that never entirely fades. The outline of her facial features down to her shoulders was a tactful representation of those you saw in the foreign magazines Uncle Jidenna used to send home among other numerous abroad things. “Edibles for Zara–to keep her mouth busy”, the tag on the large Ziploc reads, much to your excitement. Uncle Jidenna is your mother’s younger brother. Mmirimma is your mother’s mother. They were just two: Mmirimma’s children, beautiful and successful. Usonwa, your mother and a pediatrician at Amaku Teaching Hospital, Awka; Uncle Jidenna, her brother and a professor of physics in Australia.
Your mother had you in her teenage years, when, according to your grandmother, “men swarm around her like bees but she picked none”. She said picked with a sneer like men are items of clothing, you know, like the thrift wears the Eke market women heaped on a spread out wide raffia mats before and after sunsets on weekdays for the women who circulate them like termites would sugar, haggling prices, picking and dropping each until they finally made their choice and some eventually never make a choice. Like your mother. It was devastating for you. Your mother had strings of men to settle for and rejected all. Why? Who was your father?
Mmirimma ruled her daughter’s life. You knew from the way their bond had been all these years, clasping tightly, like two surfaces held with glue. After your mother birthed you, she left you with her mother and disappeared to London to study medicine. It was intentional. “A baby should not tie her down when I”m here,” your grandma told you years later albeit near naivety and impossibility of you understanding such words and the impact. You misunderstood her. You are important but not as her studies. Or her career.
Your mother was as beautiful as Mmirimma. Light skinned and elegant. Uncle Jidenna called her “Mammy without water” on the days they made jokes about what should have been, who should have been this or that while they conversed on Facetime. His face–yellow and robust, your mother’s, slender, and cheerful.
“Mmirimma is going to London for a medical check-up,” she told him one midnight after they had discussed the decline of the country’s economy due to mass emigration. They discussed loss of labor and unavailability of professionals, especially in the health sector. You were awake on your mother’s bed peeping into the laptop screen.
“Aunty Chika will take care of her. She owes me that.” Your mother yawned before her brother uttered a comment.
“I will send her some money,” he finally spoke.
“Mba! Don’t do that. Why?”
“Nobody owes you anything, Mammy. Aunty Chika has responsibilities to tend. You remember her eldest daughter tried to commit suicide last month? Chukwu aluka!—God performed miracles— If her teenage son hadn’t gotten back from his dance classes for early lunch, it would have been another story. I will send her some money. She cannot take care of my mother with empty hands.”
“If you say so. She isn’t staying long anyways. Her appointment has been booked.” Your mother threw up her hands in resignation. Her hair extension pooled past her tank top down to her waist. You worried why she never had the discipline of sleeping in nightwear. You propped up on the pillow eavesdropping, then later gave in to sleep, knowing full well that they will go on and on, from one topic to another until 3am or farther.
Mmirimma returned from London with a gait you didn’t quite recognize. Your mother had gone to receive her at Akanu Ibiam airport in Enugu in early March. That was two weeks after she received a call from Aunty Chika. It was midnight when she received that call. Uncle Jidenna did not call her that day. They had fallen out because Jidenna’s wife went to Paris with her friends for a short vacation. According to your mother, he shouldn’t have allowed such extravagance, such freedom. Your uncle was upset because his sister was telling him how to treat his wife.
“You shouldn’t have married her,”your mother said after long moments of fat silence.
“Mammy, should I have married you? Maybe it’s time you accepted that I cannot be here forever. I have a growing family and a woman I love. I cannot have enough yet deny my wife the happiness she deserves. I acknowledge the fact that you and Mmirimma don’t like her much but it’s definitely not your job to choose who I love, Mammy. Stop this madness.”
Your mother fumed. “So, in essence, I depend so much on you…” her tone half asking, half shaky.
“I’m not surprised you’re twisting everything to suit what you want to hear. You are good at it. And, yes, you have a point. Accept any of these men hovering around you and stop this jealousy.”
Your mother was short of words. So, her brother continued.
“I never delay Zara’s tuition. I never delay your allowances. I have paid for every property you demanded. What else do you want? Should I have married you? Zanu mu—answer me. Should I have married you?”
When the call session ended, your mother slammed her laptop shut and stormed out into the night. You knew her destination was the Avocado tree just before her mother’s block. Uncle Jidenna had erected two blocks in the compound; the bigger one for his sister and the smaller one for his mother. But Mmirimma was mostly in her daughter’s block. When she came back inside the room, it was almost dawn. Her eyes, puffy and cheeks red. Two days after the silence, Aunty Chika called. Your mother thought it was her brother calling to apologize as usual but trepidation crept into her nerves when she saw the caller.
“Aunty, don’t tell me that! Mba! Ekwuzikwana ya ozo!—No! Don’t say it again! Don’t tell me that!”
You sat up on the bed, tired of feigning sleep. Your mother’s daily activities usually stretched to the wee hours of the morning, so it often intercepted your sleep. You grew up trying to take part in her daily activities, unconsciously at first, then consciously during pubescence because you admired your mother. You love how she sat legs-crossed,‘sitting pretty”–that was what your grandma called such posture–every evening, reviewing what you didn’t know on her laptop. You love her hair; dense and kinky. You love her slender fingers. You loved her pale skin when she undressed and wished you had such a delicate mold of buttocks, waist-line, clean fold of flesh between her legs. You love her accent when she chatted with her London friends. You knew you cannot speak such grammar. Why? Because you are finding it hard to understand anything in English studies, in all your school subjects generally, and you always never excelled in your exams. Your mother is intelligent. You are dull. Your mother is beautiful and graceful. You are homely and ungraceful. All these caused you insomnia.
“You people have killed my mother!”she screamed again.
Your heart churned. You put your feet down on the tiles. Its chilliness stung. But you walked on, steadily, until you stood behind your mother.
“No! Don’t tell me that Aunty. Oh, God! Oh, God!”she landed the phone on the bed, panting, her left palm on her forehead, the right hand on her hips.
“They have killed my mother”, she told you after seconds of pacing up and down the wide room. “That crazy daughter of hers pushed my mother! How could she? She should have died that day! Odira should have waited until dusk to come back so she could kill herself! Bitch! She dared to push my mother.”
Maybe Aunty Chika called Uncle Jidenna immediately your mother ended the call because he called minutes later. Your mother began crying. He pacified her, told her about the unsteady mental health of Onyinyechi, Aunty Chika’s eldest daughter, and reminded her that Aunty Chika was their father’s last cousin. Mmirimma only sustained head injuries and minor knee fracture. She should calm down. He would pay for Mmirimma’s return tickets immediately. Mmirimma would be fine.
“Anugom“, your mother responded repeatedly, blowing her nose into the tissue she snatched from its box. “I have heard you.”
The day you fell down the staircase in school and passed out, your mother did not panic like this. They phoned her office line and she told them she couldn’t come right away. She would come after 4pm. She sent some money for hospital bills but they kept you in the school clinic until you resuscitated. When she came around 5pm, she scolded you about roughness so much that you wondered why she named you “Chizaram (God answered me)”. Did she really ask in the first place?
You checked yourself for any panic, the type that gripped your mother before her brother called but you couldn’t find any. Maybe…. Noo! Shame on you!
The Mmirimma that left for London was not the one that returned. This Mmirimma was different. She had purple eye bags. She hunched if she managed to stand. She was badly forgetful. She screams into space. She conversed with people she alone could see. She wees and defecates in her dress.
Your mother was heartbroken. You had never seen her so heartbroken.
“She shouldn’t have gone. I made a huge mistake, Zara. How could I be so clueless? Something more than a fall happened to my mother,” she lamented on the drive to the supermarket. Later, she stood at the Diapers section with a phone pressed to her left ear.
“Jidenna, Nigerian diapers are not all that bad. There’s this one Nneka has been getting for her mother-in-law. I will try it.”
You stood beside her, but your eyes never stopped darting across to the Pringles section. A little girl ran ahead of her mother to the onion-flavor row and grabbed two containers. Her mother stroked her face, bent to talk to her or, rather, negotiate with her before she dropped one. Her mother smiled.
“What do you mean you don’t remember Nneka? Nneka the prayer warrior!”
Nneka is your mother’s godmother. Who doesn’t know Nneka? You wondered. Nneka that feeds on prayers like food. The first time your mother took you to her residence at Udoka Estate, her irrational obsession with prayers came as a shock to you. Your mother was away in Abuja for a one-week course while Mmirimma was in London.
On the first morning, when the long awaited breakfast arrived by 10am, you wanted to jump into the food but Nneka reminded you that prayers had to be said first. Her line up of prayer intentions was just too much for food! You began crying. Later that evening, you overheard her on the phone asking your mom why she did not teach you the importance of prayers. You then understood why her children avoided home so much albeit all the luxury and comfort it provided.
“Well…” She laughs shortly. “I will buy it for a start. Whenever we receive your package, I will switch.”
In the weeks that followed, activities changed at home. Activities had to change to accommodate Mmirimma’s new status. Your mother was always busy at the hospital so she suggested you forfeit living in the hostel. You had to school from home so you could take care of your grandmother while she was at work. You had to cook with less or no salt at all so your grandma could be at lesser risk of heart attack.
Your mother had taken her pillow, charger, and hair bonnet into Mmirimma’s block because she was spending most nights with her. She had to wake up as early as 4am every day to wash, clean and change her diapers while her mother muttered incoherent words. She cleaned out her room while you prepared breakfast. Anytime you cleaned her up, the stench clouded your chest and caused you lumps in the throat.
During breakfast while you found it hard to swallow because the lump wouldn’t let you, your mother kept chattering about what to and what not to get for Mmirimma. Your tuition was delayed for a whole semester. Your mother remodeled Mmirimma’s bathroom. She changed a lot of her wears and restocked special food items for her. Mmirimma had to come first. Slowly, your grandmother overshadowed the little existence you enjoyed, squeezing you out entirely from your mother”s schedules. Your mother stopped paying attention to your hair, your school books, your diet and choices. At 16, you are a grown-up, she said. You should take care of yourself.
One Friday morning, after a grudging late sleep, you stretched to full length before heading to your mother’s bathroom to collect the cleaning agents you needed for Mmirimma. Your mother had left early for Ukpo; someone had recommended a strong herbalist who could treat Mmirimma. She will regain her senses. Your mother was assured.
“Ugly child, you again?” her voice halted you at the entrance of the room. She let out a peal of laughter. Shivers spread out on your dry skin. The last time Mmirimma abused you verbally was when you broke her set of porcelain plates and hid them away on the crates packed behind the big blue water tank and forgot entirely about it until she discovered the mess.
She told you how wicked you were from birth; how you almost cost your mother her life because she was hell-bent on bringing you into this world. She concluded with how different you looked (by different you know she meant ugly), it must have been the stupid man who sired you; of course, you don”t resemble her daughter in any way.
You ignored her sneer and headed to the bathroom where you turned on the water heater and fetched cold water from the tap below the shower. Then you came back for her. She let you lead her to the bathroom where you peeled off her wrap dress. The stench from her diaper hit your nose. A bigger lump formed in your throat. You swallowed hard. The bath lasted for five minutes after which you toweled her pale skin. Her body lotion went first before oil and vitamins. Allotted time was running out. You hastened to clean out her bed before you took her into your mother’s block. You had thought it was stressful for her but her daughter insisted. “She needs to move around, my mother is not an invalid”, she often emphasized.
When you returned from school by noon, the air was humid with anxiety. You could feel it in your nerves, spreading to your fingertips. Your mother was not yet back so you checked on Mmirimma and found her in her chair with her head bent sideways. A pool of saliva garnered on the arm of the chair. It was long before she felt your presence.
“Chizaram” her eyes had shrunken over the weeks and fallen back into its sockets. Her lips, thin and red.
“Mamma!” you answered and headed towards her.
“Fix my bath.”
You knew it would come next. She need not remind you. You flung your handbag and disappeared into the bathroom adjacent to her room. That afternoon, you let the water fill to the brim, past the brim and flowed down for long, then you went to get her.
Uncle Jidenna has sent different packages to your mother since Mmirimma’s fall but none contained any Edibles for Zara. None. Your mother doesn’t sleep in her room anymore because she keeps an eye on Mmirimma. Mmirimma has clouded your mother’s vision so sickly that you were beginning to find it really hard to breathe. These days you intentionally fling plates after washing so your mother calls out. Sometimes you end up breaking these plates but it wasn’t enough to distract her from Mmirimma.
Back in her room, you ransack your box just to pick an item of clothing and leave others lying around. The only time she showed up was to take what she needed and head back to Mmirimma’s block. When your cramps came, she wasn’t there to squeeze out lime juice, mix it with little salt and hot water and cajole you to drink up. She was in Mmirimma’s room shearing her hair.
You threw the lukewarm water on her bare back and she moaned. You wetted the grey sponge with little water and so much soap that the lather could be enough for two more baths. Then, you bent to her sitting position and began to scrub her skin, delicately at first and furiously with time.
The soap stung her eyes and she winced. You paused in scrubbing and watched. It was stupid to stand and do nothing but that was what you did. You didn’t know how long you stared before she leaped up and screamed your name. She beat around her arms wildly and you ducked. She launched forward and hit her arm against the shower stand and groaned in pains. You watched like a fisherman waiting on his hook bait to catch a fish like you used to watch the wall clock in your mother’s room, counting down on seconds, waiting for it to strike midnight.
Mmirimma caught your arm and cursed. She soon bent and her knees wobbled.
“Give me some water!”
Water! Your mind raced. It was like the Rich Man pleading on Lazarus in the bible, “…even a drop,” the Rich Man begged Lazarus. Everything was in your hands and you felt like the messiah. You could have just muttered, “Mamma, I am sorry,” immediately or just go ahead to fetch some water to rinse her face so she could at least see. Instead, your mind went aloof. Hate possessed you.
Maybe if Mmirimma dies, your mother will move back into her block with you and you will resume sleeping on her bed, watching her beautiful body while she undresses and nothing will ever change it again. Maybe if she dies, your mother could remember you existed. Maybe uncle Jidenna would realize that there was no other person but you to send goodies forever. Maybe there will be no one to ever remind you how odd you were. Maybe if Mmirimma dies, your mother will remember to tell you how you came about, who your father is. Maybe Mmirimma is old enough to die so she could rest.
Her finger clenched your arms and her nails pierced your skin. Bile rose to your throat. Maybe if Mmirimma dies, you could be able to breathe in your mother’s house. Her arm quivered and disquietude crept up the depth of your tummy. You scooped water and poured on her low hair. She gasped and gently released her hold on you. You helped her sit back on the stool, then poured scoop upon scoop of water on her head, shoulder, and face until the soap lather dissolved into the flowing water and headed to the drain. It was not in your capacity to kill your grandmother, you thought. But you knew it was because your mother would blame you if Mmirimma died in her bath. She will not forgive you. You wore her fresh diapers and clean gown after you have toweled her body and led her out of the bathroom.
It was past 4pm when you heard a thud, whimpering and a shattering crash of something metallic. You were picking on the left-over of the vegetables and yam your mother prepared for Mmirimma in the morning before she left. The thoughts that the thud provoked in your head stilled you. When you got to her she laid face flat before the bathroom on the cold tiled floor. Blood seeped from somewhere on her face and formed a small pool beside her head; the curtain hanger had pulled from the wall and fallen on top of her lower body. The curtain covered her waist down to her slender calves. Her sprawled finger moved as she groaned deeply and then silence.
You dialed your mother and she picked at the third ring. Then you spoke lowly until she screamed “Ekwuzikwana!”—don”t say it again— into your ears and ended the call. It was Aunty Nneka who came and took you away, and throughout the drive to Udoka Estate, she prayed fervently clutching your left palm tightly.
Then, prayed more after she asked if you were okay, if you needed anything, but your head was clouded and that saved you more questions like, “where were you when she fell?” and its kind. Something held your tongue to the roof of your mouth for days and you found Aunty Nneka’s prayers comforting and necessary. After Mmirimma’s body has been confirmed dead and deposited into the morgue and her room cleared out, your mother came for you. She emaciated within the days and her eye bags heavy with grief. Later that night when her brother called, she sat at the left end of the bed with Mmirimma’s photo album on her lap while flipping through it.
“It is a domestic accident. She lost quite a lot of blood…” she mouthed, staring at a raised photo; the one Mmirimma took in a dancing regalia. Her ankles, neck and wrists were covered in fine Ola, her waist heavily rounded in Jigida and her body wrapped adoringly in a twinkle star Ankara. Her teeth shone as she smiled at the camera. She had taken the picture when she was still a member of a dance group in your hometown. Your mother told you sometime in the past. You almost forgot Mmirimma was once a dancer and you have seen her perform some breathtaking steps for her daughter in the past. It was all in the past now.
Mmirimma raised her children single-handedly after the death of her husband in a fire incident at Onitsha in the early 90s. Their marriage was still young and Jidenna was a toddler. She grew famous in Onitsha market where she sold lace, maybe because her beauty could halt a downpour or because she was successful. After her son relocated to Australia, Mmirimma retired from her business. Her children could sustain her as long as life allowed. Mmirimma was everything her children wanted. They loved her. They cherished her. They placed her so high you envisaged her crash.
“It was a domestic accident”she sniffed noisily. “I should have removed all the tiles. I should have had everywhere covered with thick rugs. How could I be so stupid?” she raised the album to her face and sobbed into it.
“I shouldn’t have gone to Ukpo, Jide. I should have stayed home, but I needed to see the man. The man said we would bring her. She would have been fine.”
You thought about how many times she had recounted these explanations to her brother and how long she stayed awake to cry at nights while you pretended to be asleep. She began to stay away from work and spent the long days in Mmirimma’s apartment, packing out her stuff, going through them thoroughly before tying them up in uneven bundles. She barely washed or ate. For relaxation, she watched Mmirimma’s photo album. The loss sat so deep in the air and you feared your mother may never love you as much as she loved Mmirimma.
During lectures in school, your mind drifts. You did not tell your mother that you sat on that verandah counting seconds into long minutes before you went in to see Mmirimma. You did not tell her that you stood and watched her groan in pain until she gave in to death. Then, you dialed her. You marveled at how much you hated Mmirimma. No. ‘Hate’ is such a strong word to use but what other word could qualify the disdain you felt for Mmirimma? Which even made you want to kill her? But no. You did not kill her. You reaffirmed yourself but there was a swivet;it was in your capacity to kill your grandmother.
Her burial date was fixed before you wrote your exams. The priest sprinkled holy water on her casket heavily and on everyone at the graveside like shower before she was lowered. The water prickled your skin and you remembered how her nails dug your arm and you shivered.
You left home afterwards and stayed at the hostel with a friend until school was over. At home, the insomnia you thought you could manage worsened. Every night when you try to sleep, you see Mmirimma. Mmirimma was everywhere–in the restroom, in your cup of tea, in your plate of soup, in the eyes of your mother, in your school books, in the face of everyone at the market, everywhere.
The next year, your mother broke the news of her marriage. A neurosurgeon in Enugu, average height, chocolate-brown complexioned and spoke through his nose. Your mother was going to Enugu. Your mother was leaving you. You wrote to your uncle and he directed you to apply for graduate studies. The day your mother drove you to the airport, she held you in a long embrace. Your braids squeezed under the crush of her arm.
“Remember, Australia is not your home,” she said before she released you. Where was home? You asked yourself many days later. Her big mansion in Enugu where the little one in her womb would soon occupy? Where do you even belong? Where was home?
You had thought the nightmares you suffered would not follow you to Australia. You were wrong. They boarded the plane with you and accompanied you to your uncle’s house. Mmirimma was also in her son’s face. She was everywhere–in everything you touched, saw or ate. She was dwelling in your head. Sometimes, you stared at the little scar on your arm where her nails had torn your skin and it reminded you of her curses, especially on the day you sustained that scar.
How could you have known so little? Mmirimma had seen the look in your eyes. She nurtured you until you turned six. She taught you how to wash your hands and wash your “flower” (that was what Mmirimma called the vagina). Mmirimma was aware her grandchild wanted her dead.
But why was it so? How could you sell your soul to the devil? She would never forgive you. She haunted you until you could not concentrate on anything. She haunted you until you quit your studies. She haunted you until your uncle began suggesting you see a therapist. She haunted you until you left the only man who has truly loved you. She haunted you until you decided to go home and tell your mother how you watched Mmirimma groan in pain and die before you dialed her. Maybe you will have a home after all, if your mother would forgive you.
Chizitere Madeleine Nwaemesi is a Nigerian writer whose works have been published by Isele Magazine, African Writer Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, Efiko and elsewhere. You can find her on_https://substack.com/@cmnwaemesi