BECAUSE I LOVE PAPA by Kambie

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I am thirteen years old when Papa dies in a car accident. Barely seven months after we bury him, I am dressed in an oversized black suit and seated in the front pew of a small church down the street, in a town I have never been to. Oluchi, my elder sister, is seated two rows beside me, her face miry with makeup, her lips red and shiny. It is our mother’s wedding ceremony, and like the other flower girls around her, Oluchi is wearing a red gown that makes her breasts look full. She smiles at me when I turn around and our eyes meet, but I don’t smile back. There is nothing to smile about. We’d be moving from this town soon, Mama said, from Enugu, where Papa’s house stands—although now claimed by our uncles and aunts, who have one and all, accused Mama of killing Papa and wanting to take his properties. They have asked us, not very nicely, to relinquish our rights to Papa’s companies and to evacuate the house. In a few days, we would be doing so. We would move to Imo permanently, to live with this man whom mama now exchanges vows with whilst everyone in church cheers. That’s not something to smile about, I wish I can tell Oluchi. She must have heard stories. Must know what stepfathers do to their step-kids, and should know it’s not something one smiles about. It’s something that should make one cringe.

Some days after the wedding, days we spent in a dirty guest house because Mama didn’t want us to stay in Kelechi’s house until all our things have been moved down there, Kelechi is sitting in the front seat of the rickety, shaky bus that carries our load from Enugu to his house in Imo, one hand on the window, his tummy bulging from his white shirt. He’s here with us because Mama begged him to come. She said that when Papa’s people see him they would comport themselves and desist from calling her a witch. That they would respect her more because of him. True to Mama’s words, at Papa’s house, they do respect Mama because of Kelechi. Uncle Nwoke, Papa’s younger brother, calls her, ‘Our wife’ for the first time since Papa’s death. Uncle Uchenna calls her a strong woman, a strong neck who can carry the weight upon any head. And Aunt Ifeoma, a wrapper swung around this one’s waist, she comes and says a prayer for Mama. A prayer which ends with, ‘Stay well o. Our wife! May God bless your new home.’ She then follows us to the bus into which we have loaded our bags, and waves us goodbye. I do not let her touch me, but Oluchi does. Aunt Ifeoma rubs Oluchi’s face and tells Oluchi a brittle, ‘God bless you,’ which I scoff at and climb into the bus, beads of tears hanging out of my eyes.

Again, for the umpteenth time, Kelechi, choking, scrapes his throat and spits outside the window.

‘Oh. Ndo. Sorry my husband.’ Mama, as if a reflex action, immediately echoes from behind him, her tone as though it was the first time the man coughed whilst in this bus. It’s still like that of a slave who is apologizing to her master for being incompetent at a certain task.

Silence.

Kelechi doesn’t answer Mama. He doesn’t swivel around to look at her face, like Papa would have, and doesn’t say, ‘Thank you, Nne. It’s nothing. I’m fine.’ He says nothing, and his silence is not at all surprising. Kelechi barely says anything to Mama, nor to anyone, in fact. His words are like an army general’s, more instruction than conversation. Short, clipped phrases that make one’s mind skip: come here, do this, do that, yes, no, etc.

I tap Oluchi awake when the bus makes the turn into Kelechi’s house, a duplex, like Papa’s, painted white. Kelechi doesn’t help with pulling stuff out of the bus. He moves to stand paces away from all of us, and lights himself a cigarette, which he pulls out from his pocket and starts to smoke. When we finish offloading our bags, he comes and opens the front door and shows us to our rooms.

Mine is a small room with a neatly dressed bed in the center. I place my bags at a corner and then rush to go see Oluchi’s room. It’s bigger than mine, with a nice painting on the wall. We sit on her bed and talk for a while and then she asks me to leave because she wants to undress. She doesn’t seem as bothered or as scared and confused and upset as I am. She seems normal. She even wears a smile when she comes to my room after changing into a yellow gown. I don’t change my clothes. Mama comes to meet us and says food has been served. We follow her to the dining and sit, together for the first time as a new family. As I lower into my seat, Kelechi looks at my face, and then he takes his eyes to his food and begins to eat. The silence here is tense and frightening, memories riding the wind. I soon begin to sob.

‘Chima!’ Mama drawls, exasperated. ‘Not again na!?’

She follows me when I rush out of the dining and into the corridor. Tries to get into my room, but I lock the door. I hate Mama and am tired of all her nonsensical explanations that are to me like baskets and hold no water. I hate Mama because she never loved Papa. If she did, she wouldn’t have moved on so quick. She can deny it all she wants, but she’s moved on. She’s forgotten all about my father, and has taken to being a loving wife to this Kelechi man. I see the way she looks at him. How she makes herself his slave. Her excuse for marrying him is that she doesn’t want to be killed by Papa’s people or to be left homeless and broke and hungry—like many widows in the village are. But I know it’s all a lie. Even if it isn’t, I don’t and never want to believe anything less.

Mama spends the next minutes knocking the door. I don’t open up. I lie on my bed and cry myself to sleep. When the morning opens, it’s a loud thump at the door that wakes me.

‘Open this door!’ It’s Kelechi’s voice.

I don’t open up, even though I am shaking with fear.

A minute later, I hear the clanking of keys. Spare keys. The door is thrown open and Kelechi surges in and takes a hold of me. He hauls me into the parlor and whips me with a black leather belt, ignoring my screams and pleas for help. Mama watches all of this, but doesn’t say or do anything. The lashing continues for a while and then Kelechi lets go of me. He makes me sit in front of him in the dining room and mutters the longest chain of words I’ve ever heard him speak. He first tells me to hush my crying then says: ‘You don’t live like an animal here. You behave yourself like a human being or get beaten like an animal. Am I clear?’

I nod.

‘Get lost. Go and bathe!’

The wounds across my back tingle as soapy water trickles down my body, and the bathroom doesn’t stop echoing with my crying. I would keep crying even when back inside my room Oluchi comes and holds my shoulders.

‘I am sorry,’ She says. ‘I am sorry, Chima.’

I look into her eyes and she wipes my tears. She stands up and leaves but returns after a moment to tell me breakfast has been served. I don’t look at Mama’s face as I eat the fried plantain too soft for my liking. I don’t look at anyone but Oluchi. When I am done eating, I stand up and try to leave, but Kelechi barks at me.

‘Come here!’

I turn around and walk back to the table.

‘Do you not know how to say thank you!?’

‘Thank you, Sir.’ I say drily, and move away, feeling his eyes like a rope tied to by back and then pulled taut.

When Oluchi comes to my room, she sits at the edge of my bed. I take my shirt off and she rubs Vaseline on the welts on my back. The Vaseline makes my shirt stick to the wounds when I put it back on . She says sorry. We talk about Mom and Kelechi and make a promise to each other that we’d always stick together in this new house which we have found ourselves. Life has been unfair to us both, yes, but we can at least be fair to each other. I tell Oluchi that we are all we’ve got. We ought to forget about Mama; she wouldn’t be there for us anymore. She’s like a loyal slave now, to this new husband of hers. She’d rather always be there for him, taking his side even when he’s clearly wrong. I know he’d hit her someday too, and I don’t care. He seems like the kind of man who would beat a woman like a parent beats his child. He can hit Mama if he wants to. I really don’t care.

The day Kelechi hits Mama, I am surprised to find myself upset about it. I can’t even believe I care this much. He hits Mama because she doesn’t serve him food as soon as he returns from where he works at some construction site far away from home. He is smelling of Indian Hemp and alcohol. Mama folds herself atop the couch and just cries as he struts into the narrow corridor. For the first time in a long time, I touch Mama.

‘I am sorry, Mama.’ I say.

Squeezing my hand in hers, she looks up at me with her tear-streaked face. She doesn’t say a word.

She apologizes to Kelechi when we sit to eat the next day, and I am so disgusted about it that I want to throw up. Mama lowers to her knees, lowers her head and says. ‘Forgive me, my husband,’ with streched hands. This woman is irredeemable, I tell myself. Where did she learn this!? Jesus Christ!

As usual, Mama makes an excuse for her foolishness when Oluchi asks her what that was for. Kelechi is out now, but the smell of his cigarettes remains in the house; in the air, glued to the walls, over furniture. His tense aura roams all around the house like a ghost. I am at a corner of the room, listening in on the conversation but pretending not to be doing so.

‘Ada.’ Mama says. ‘Sometimes a woman is unlucky and marries a man who is neither loving nor understanding. But what does she do with a man like this? She prays for him and hopes that he gets better.’

Oluchi laughs about this when we are alone. She scoffs and says, ‘The day a man hits me, I would go mad for him.’

‘Me, too.’ I shrug. ‘If a man hits you, Oluchi, I would bring down this world. I would fight for you, and I would fight like I never have.’

‘Fight for who?’ Oluchi drags my left ear, laughing. ‘See this small boy o. Small boy like you? Fight for me?’

Oluchi likes to see me as a small boy. She’s sixteen now, barely three years older than I am, but sometimes sees me like a toddler who is just learning to walk. She is surprised the day Kelechi threatens to hit her. We’re all seated in the dining room that evening. Oluchi mistakenly spills water from a bowl on his shirt, and he flares up. He calls her an idiot and threatens to detach her head from her neck with one slap.

‘Leave my sister alone.’ I bark, slapping the table as I jump to my feet.

Silence floats in the air as his eyes turn to me, and a grin spreads his face. He beats me this evening, and goes on to throw me outside the house, even though Mama and Oluchi fall on their knees and beg him not to. He is bent on teaching me a lesson. I pass tonight and the following two nights sleeping on the ground, underneath the moon’s light because he doesn’t let me enter the house when he is around. I only enter after he has left for work; to go eat and have my bath and change my clothes, and leave about thirty minutes before the time he usually returns. On these nights that I sleep outside the house, my hate for Mama grows, warming me in the cold, and I miss Papa so much I can almost visualize him in the shadow cast by the long pole which our clothesline is tied.

The day Oluchi first calls Kelechi, ‘Papa,’ I feel so betrayed tears fills my eyes. It’s on Mama and Kelechi’s first marriage anniversary. Mama is dressed in her blue Ankara long skirt and blouse, standing beside Kelechi in the sitting room. Kelechi is also putting on a blue material. Mama’s face is round and swollen, her tummy bulging. She’s a couple of months pregnant, and I’m more than sure that I would hate whatever she births. The wound from the last hit she received from Kelechi hasn’t yet healed, but here she is, about to cut an anniversary cake with this abuser. And there is Oluchi, spelling out the letters in the name of Jesus.

‘Jesus!’ Oluchi shouts.

Mama and Kelechi pull down the knife, cutting the cake, and Oluchi begins to clap. My sister walks over and hugs Mama. ‘Happy one year anniversary, Mama.’ And then walks around to hug Kelechi.

I hear her mutter, ‘Happy one year anniversary, Papa,’ and my ears tingle. I run to my room and begin to cry in there. I cry too much for a teenager, I know, but I never do so without a reason. We made a little promise to each other about a year ago; that we’d never take Mama nor Kelechi’s sides. But by giving in to Mama’s unreasonable demand to accept Kelechi as our father; by calling him the pet name we used to call Papa, she has betrayed me. I find it inexcusable. After all, I , too, have been pressured by Mama into accepting Kelechi as a father figure. Wasn’t it a couple of days ago that Mama came to my room and handed me a small phone, saying Kelechi had bought it for me? She said it was Kelechi’s little apology for being mean to us, and that he claimed to be ready to take us as his children, if only we give him the chance. Did I give in to that pressure? No. I rejected the phone. I am the reasonable one. I later found out that Kelechi had never made such promises. It was all Mama; she bought the gift herself, making up lies in a bid to get me to accept Kelechi. I am the smart one, too. Smart people don’t betray others. I do not.

I do not speak to Oluchi for the next two weeks. Even when she sneaks more pieces of meat than is allowed into my plate. I know it’s her apology. But I do not speak to her. I ignore her glances, and pretend not to hear when she calls my name. Once, she touches my shoulder and tries to pull me into one of those hugs she gives me when I’m in a mood. But I would shift away, and call her betrayer.

‘Betrayer.’ I say the word like it’s the name of a god, stressing every syllable.

Oluchi lets go of me, walking into her room.

In a couple of weeks, there is a confrontation between us. And it is because I reject her apologies for the tenth time today. She surges into my room and falls to her knees, like Mama usually does whenever Kelechi refuses to speak to her. Oluchi begs for my forgiveness, but I look the other way and tell her to leave me alone. I cannot forgive a betrayer. Never.

‘What kind of person are you!?’ Oluchi screams as she stands up, her voice trailing into loud crying. ‘Why are you so selfish, Chima!? You think only about yourself. It’s always about you. You act like it’s only you who misses him. Be humane. I’m your sister!’

I look at her and smile.

I want to tell her that I am no longer her brother. I want to tell her that I am now alone in this world and have finally accepted that fate. But I don’t. I turn around, ignoring her, fighting back the tears trying to burst my eyes.

I have to be strong. Like a man. As planned, tonight is the night I take my bags and run away. I would run away from Mama and that baby in her stomach. I would run away from Oluchi and the man she now calls father. I would never call him father. My father is with me. He’s been in my thoughts since his death. I run away to whatever the world has for me. Papa would be proud of me. I’m the only one who’ll love him until the end comes.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kambie writes when he isn’t panicking or crying. He is called Faceless by his Facebook audience.


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