My Son, Your Son

Along Inyang Street, she decided to sit on the lawn of the primary school and reminisce on the day she heard she was to leave home for Calabar. Calabar! Ekam could not believe her ears then. Calabar, the city of contrasts. The city famous for matters of the heart and matters of the stomach. The town where tons of things happened every second, yet on the surface, nothing seemed to happen. Life was so relaxed, so unhurried. Even cars moved at the speed of the buxom maidens, despite the fact that the roads were almost never congested. The city that cleaned itself and its inhabitants. The city of peace and the good life! Ekam had read and heard so much about this lovely city. Her colleagues and friends had woven dozens of tales around it, some tall tale, some true. The elders who spent their early lives at Calabar either as pupils or apprentices or househelps also told many tales, some seamy, some inspirational, from the fantastic to the ludicrous. Of course, the transistor radio her father owned started and ended every news broadcast with the word “Calabar.” Newspaper articles also idolized the town. Ekam had dreamed of the moment she would step into the city. A real life city! What she thought of were the bright lights, the water from the pipes flowing right inside the house which would eliminate the boredom and tedium of going to the stream, the nightclubs and cinema houses her colleagues talked about, the fanciful dresses, the flashy cars, the amorous and blunt men with their myriad methods of approaching the opposite sex, the perfumed air, the big beds with linen sheets, the inexhaustible flow of hard cash, drinks, and food, and of course, the opportunities to become something. Name it and the city held it as she was told. Face-to-face with reality, Ekam now knew that only very few citizens can dream of perfumed air while the majority must develop special apparatuses to strain pure oxygen from the stench and staleness of the city. Fewer still slept on big beds. The majority sleeps on mats on the hard cold floor with heat and stale air from several nostrils that share one room. Yet fewer are those that own great things, such as cars and surplus cash. Ekam got back to reality when a car stopped forcefully close to the lawn. She got up and continued her walk. As she walked through Inyang Street, through the narrow Ephraim Street, then left through Abua Street, she burst into the wider Edgerly Road and thereafter into Chamley Street where nightlife was very thick. She quickened her pace as if she wanted to provide herself with an ultimate test somewhere ahead. But then she became quite agitated as she tried to explain to herself why her life had gone sour. And she started talking loudly despite the fact that she was aware people might think she had gone mad or the process was beginning. “I believe this is how the Creator planned it all. Yes. The Creator wanted me to live this kind of life. If not, why was I not born into a rich family? I should have attended a secondary school, finished, got a job, married a rich young man, and everything would be perfect. Which kind of Creator is this that would give me so much brain but no means to develop it? Which Creator is this that would give me so much beauty without placing me where it can be used outside making idle men happy? Why would the world blame me, eh? “Ekaete was like me—a girl from a poor family. Her parents sent her to Lagos, not just Calabar, for one year to learn more about life and return home to start secondary school. It was as if it was planned. She has even finished from Calabar Polytechnic, is married, and has three children. Why was my case different? Why did Ekaete’s madam be a mother to her? Till today, Ekaete still visits that family at Lagos. But Ekam? She was beaten black and blue as my English teacher said, except that my skin color did not change after Mrs. Nduke beat me up. She shed hot tears even as she walked down the busy road. Few things in life are as frustrating as not being able to come up with answers to questions that are tearing an individual to pieces. “Maybe I should run home to my uncle? But I have nothing to show for all these years away from home. And my story has already reached home. Would my uncle embrace me or smoke his pipe while looking at something else even while I stood before him? Sometimes, I am afraid to go home because I cannot say how he will receive me. I now understand why Ededem has not seen his mother for twenty years. He has been living in Lagos. “Why would the world blame me,” she said to an elderly man who was passing by. The man looked at her with surprise, but with pity on his face. She moved on and continued to speak to herself. “Why would a loving Father in heaven send me to Ekebo? He has the power to stop everything. He could even have made Ekobo to be a perfect gentleman, a good Christian. Why was my only friend allowed to drive me into a merciless world? Where was my auntie when things were slowly but surely going wrong? Why would people not invite the rainmaker before rain begins to fall? “I reject any suggestion that I can fight the battles in my life. How can a man with ordinary hands fight a hungry Biafran soldier who has a loaded riffle with a sharp knife at the end of the gun? I have nothing, yet the enemies lined up to fight me are so well armed with the worst weapons. She sat down at the entrance of Manila Hotel, pulled up her knees high, and tucked her head in between. “God, I am not behaving like an ostrich that hides its head in the sand while the big body is left for the enemy to feed on. I am ashamed of what I have been saying about you. Well, I am sure you are used to it anyway. When the human beings you created fail, they blame you. When things go as planned, they may not even remember to thank you. For me, I would like to pay tithe, but your Holy Book says people should not pay tithe with the kind of money I make and money from sale of dog meat. Can you imagine that? Sellers of dog meat don’t mind that anyway. Me, I mind, it is just that I have no alternative—no certificate, no godfather, nothing other than a fine face and fine shape, which you know what those ones can be used for. “I have since stopped going to church because I am afraid you will not accept my money even as offering. But is that why you have abandoned me? I am not even a woman, for women may not have muscle but they can fight battles using their experiences. Which is why I failed in business—lack of expi, as it is called. I am but a weak sex, in fact, the weakest sex, young, no education, no experience, and no elder to lead me. Rather, the older ones I know are out to finish me by showing me the way to hell. My teacher would call them twats!