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Praises for Licensed Crime & Chizi Ezugwu…

Licensed Crime… Utterly heartbreaking and full of twists that keep you in the dark until the very end. Told in the first person narrative, the novel showcases the raw talent of Chizi Ezugwu as a storyteller with a distinct African (Nigerian) vibe.
You can’t help but love this book. Highly recommended.
~ Dr. Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam

Licensed Crime is a rhapsody of dark and complex realities. It breaks gradually into the crust of societal ills with the cutting sledge of pleasurable creativity. The intensity of styles and techniques in the novel has bought the writer a ticket to the hall of evolving contemporary African writers.
-Michael N. Eze (PhD)
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Intro

If all women are as brave and determined as Grandma, then men need not lead us to war; women can successfully do that. Men don’t even need to bother about handling any brave-related task; women can do all that for us.
But men should be ready to always bow the knee and pay obeisance because Grandma would not take any nonsense.


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PART I



PIECES OF LIVES
 
CHAPTER ONE
Lagos frightened the hell out of me. That was the same way, according to Kosi, every place that seemed overcrowded frightened me. His opinion though had sounded like a suggestion and that was because it was the only way he could explain my extreme aloofness. How could I not walk into the lecture theatre with him because of my excuse of not being a student; as if there were marks on the foreheads of students that distinguished them? How could I not follow him into the school library for the excuse of not having a library card? Kosi had tried convincing me that this was the period everybody was allowed in to the library with or without library card because of freshers. How could I prefer to sit back in his room all night when there was a dinner party going on in Biological Science lecture theatre to welcome the freshers? How could anybody do that?
"You are anthrophobic." he had simply said, feeling disappointed "That is what people who are afraid of people are called."
"But I'm not really afraid of people. I just hate crowds." I tried to defend myself. We were sitting on a pavement alongside others at the quadrangle of Jimbazz building in the Biological Science faculty, looking at the girls and boys milling up and down the staircase, some in twos, some in threes or more. There were the single ones too, some who walked sluggishly and dragged their feet as though their feet could not carry them. And some who walked too fast, almost ready to break into a run, the kind of students Kosi said they were always too busy even to talk to other people.
An Iroko tree stood looking at us, its height a bit above the last block of Jimbazz’s three storeys. Beautiful pigeons sat on it singing in melodious voices. I know the pigeons must be happy with the Iroko for giving them a shelter just as the students would acknowledge that it provided a shade for them when the sun becomes too angry. Some of the pigeons had empty okpa wraps in their mouths and I knew they had gone both far and near to pick them, then afterwards came to sing and keep the environment lively
Perhaps, if they are privileged to feed very well; their voices could rise louder than the voices of lecturers who stood in different classes shouting about organic chemistry and pathways as though they were quarrelling. It could also drown the voices of students who never got tired of chattering and making lousy noises. But now, they only sang above our heads.
Wizkid’s “Superstar” was playing at a nearby shop and Kosi was tapping his feet and nodding his head to the song and saying that his friend Starface would soon blow in music like Wizkid. Starface was going to perform in the freshers’ dinner night and Kosi wanted me to attend since I would not be going back to my house. He was going to introduce me to his friends and his girl, Jenny. He was going to tell Jidechi about my JAMB that was seized since Jidechi’s father worked in JAMB office. Even though Jidechi may not be able to do anything, according to him, it is good that the people related to it know before I write the next one. I had imagined him talking to Jidechi the same way he used to talk to me about it stating the obvious, “Do you know that if this useless JAMB did not seize your result, you will be among the first years that this dinner is hosted for?”
It sounded great the way he said all those. And I had wanted to see Jidechi, to see his friends and his girl but I declined his invitation just as I had turned down other activities during the day, this time with the reason that I hate crowds.
“Fear of the crowd is called Enochlophobia” Kosi snapped. I had wanted to protest; to tell him that there was a difference between “hate” and “fear” but I instead seized the moment to wonder how he managed to do it; how he managed to know every word for everything. He bent to dust his shoes for the twentieth time in one hour and asked me why a reasonable human being should be afraid of a crowd. “Why should you ever be afraid of any human being on earth? Do they have more than one head? Is any human being more important than another?"
I watched Kosi with admiration, not just because he knew the right words to use per time but because he had the nice features most people admired: straight legs, finely curved face and long slender arms, soft and smooth like a mannequin’s and I wondered how many sleepless nights it had taken God to conceive him in his thoughts and how long it finally took to create him. I wondered too how many girls spent sleepless nights imagining fantasies about Kosi. There was also an attractive flagrance about the way he dressed, the way only people who had lived in well-developed cities and attended popular universities dressed; sometimes always with a starched shirt too big to match the slender, fitted trousers and the tiny shoes, other times with a long sleeved shirt folded to the elbow as though to show the designer that he had made a mistake originally for making it long. There was an aura in his composure which I envied that just made me think I should have grown up somewhere else other than Nsukka, somewhere like Port Harcourt where Kosi grew up. I watched Kosi while he tapped his feet as we waited for his lodge mates, Joel and Ugonna, so that we would go back to his lodge for them to get ready for the dinner party. And I wondered again if Kosi could read my thoughts and if he did, what he would think about them.
* * *
The fear about Lagos though had been with me since years ago, years before I even met Kosi and before Kosi related my fear to crowds. And I know it had not been because of crowds. It was not even because of all the stories I had heard about Lagos; of the way people jumped into and out of moving vehicles like jungle monkeys, nor of how it was the easiest way for people to get lost because everywhere looked the same way; nor because of the stories of how everybody including children carried guns up and down and could shoot you straightaway if they did not like the shape of your face or the way you smiled. Lagos frightened me because Grandma lived in Lagos and the sight of Grandma was a terror to me.
It was however this story of people jumping in and out of moving vehicles that intrigued my mind on my first visit to Lagos with my Uncle, Fredrick as I watched him and wondered how fat people like him would survive in Lagos. Uncle Fredrick was short and robust, with a very bulky stomach and large buttocks which would better suit a maiden with the way he shook them while walking. As I watched him pack clothes into the big Ecollac bag we were taking along, I imagined him falling down from a moving vehicle in Lagos and imagined every other fat man or woman falling because Lagos buses would never stop to either allow them to enter or alight.
“Lagos had always been a very big city with good weather, good geography and natural resources,” Uncle Fredrick was saying. He was arranging some books into the bag; books nobody was going to read.
“It had always been this rich long before the Whiteman came and made it a British colony and gave it a Whiteman’s name, Lagos, and did they not say they want to revert the name to Eko? Does Eko not sound more African than Lagos?” He asked
“Yes sir”, I answered absentmindedly shifting my imagination now from where he fell from a Lagos bus to Grandma’s house and imagining how many times I would jump because I normally jumped in fear whenever Grandma talked.
“But Lagos was bushy before and I am just imagining how it looked like in those early years before the Whiteman came” Uncle Fredrick continued. “It will actually behove the mind of any modern man.” He laughed, a brief boyish laughter, then stopped and continued “But every place was also bushy before. Even the almighty America was still a bush before Christopher Columbus discovered it; formless before Amerigo Vespucci named it and crude before Abraham Lincoln reformed it and gave it democracy.” There was an air of pride with the way he made this last statement and as he tilted out his neck and made a funny face; I wondered how much it pained him that he did not go to school – to the University– and how often he spoke big words and made strong points among peers to compensate for his shortcomings.

“Kasarachi!” he called suddenly, seeming to notice for the first time that I had just been standing, watching him. “Won’t you shake your body at all? Won’t you get things ready and let us leave this place on time? Why are you watching me that way like a lost soul?” He silently continued to pack.
I watched his small white hairs which made him look like a young old man and wondered the bizarre thing that should happen to those hairs or even the head that carried them for shouting on me. The silence in the room was too loud and I wondered if anything could suddenly happen to break it. I wondered maybe, if anything was going to fall off the bookshelf any moment and distort the silence. The bookshelf was the most prominent property in the room. It contained all kinds of books, most of them university books. It also housed so many other items on the top of it that one or two times in a day, one or two things fell from it to either break a long silence, which was not supposed to be in our house or to remind us that things were not supposed to be kept that way in the living room. Very close to the book shelf hung a calendar with the inscription: “God formed the world, sin deformed the world, Education informs the world, Religion reforms the world but Christ transforms a life”
It was the gift from the pastor’s wife during Uncle Fredrick’s wedding which we all had been made to believe was the most important gift they received. I had wondered though how true that could be and how a piece of paper could be more valuable than the three-inch mattresses and even the refrigerator. I also could not believe that it was more valuable than the dusty television positioned in the centre of the living room which had never displayed any colour and had never played any music except the unpleasant rattling noise by the rodents it housed.

Some years back, one or two of those rats had eaten Uncle Fredrick’s WAEC certificate, just the side that had the seal and the signature and the upper part which contained his surname. Uncle Fredrick had brought it out cursing under his breath, asking whether “Everybody here does not notice that the rats that did this were two experienced wizards from the village. How on earth could it be otherwise?” He had simply spread them on the dwarf table in the living room and was calling all our neighbours to come and see what the wizards from the village had done. I wondered why he did not think that they could be witches. Mama Gloria, our next-door neighbour had come out; examined the rats and nodded in affirmation meaning she knew they were indeed wizards from the village. I instantly felt the urge to ask her whether she knew who they were in real life but I had learnt to be wary of her. I was dead shocked the following day to see Uncle Fredrick enter the house with a Dane gun happily saying that since the wizards were coming in physical form, he would fight them physically. The next time he heard the noise of rats, he had rushed out and with vigour exploded his gun which only ended up exploding the television. There was silence after that even from the rats. We ransacked everywhere but could not find nor hear any sound of rats. Uncle Fredrick sorrowfully went and disposed the gun, and the rats, happy that they have won, found a home inside the damaged television. Sometimes in the day time, you could see them tiptoeing to different rooms, showing off in a way that indicates that they really want to be noticed.
Mama Gloria stood before our door as we were about to leave for Lagos and nodded in agreement, as she was used to doing and then began to follow us out. Gloria her daughter was trailing behind her and I quickly ran a glance through her body and noticed she did same with me too but quickly diverted her eyes when our eyes wanted to meet. Gloria was a year older than me, but she had suddenly started growing very big immediately her breasts began to form and now that they were almost completing the formation, she was looking so big as though she was five years older than me. She stopped some metres away and waited for her mother who had stopped too and was having a last-minute conversation with Uncle Fredrick. So, while two of them talked in low tones discussing adult matters, we both stood at a distance playing our eyes avoidance game
The previous night, Mama Gloria had been in our house telling Uncle Fredrick about things to tell Grandma. “Tell her that a man whose house is on fire does not go about chasing rats and lizards. Persuade her to come and settle all these issues once and for all. If possible, I think it is high time she planned to settle down with us here permanently because after all, I don’t see what she is still doing in Lagos.” And because she had a high-pitched voice, I could hear her very well from my room. Uncle Fredrick had promised her that he would try his best and do that and added that
“I also want to discover by myself the other thing we talked about. It sounds so ridiculous you know.”
“Ehee, I have even forgotten that one. Thank you for having such a sharp brain”, she replied and reduced her voice to the point I could no longer hear anything until I caught Uncle Fred’s voice again. “I can’t simply believe that Mama is doing all those things but since everything is possible in this generation, I will simply believe until at least I have observed and discovered everything myself.”
“The person that told me said that she had even seen her in night clubs, but I would not have believed it if not that it was someone I didn’t believe would ever say anything false. And what are we even saying? Do they use lantern to view daylight? Who in this village doesn’t know what Lagos does to people? You have to wake up and shine your eyes because she is your mother. She is not a young woman for God’s sake, and I find it disgusting imagining such an old woman going to bed with other men. It is aching to the ears especially when our people had begun to talk about it. You know that whatever our people hear is like what a masquerade hears. That is even why I believe that she should think of settling down here in Nsukka. Hoo-haa” That was how Mama Gloria always ended her statements.
Today as she whispered again to Uncle Fredrick and he nodded his head in response, I wondered whether he was going to tell Grandma that it was Mama Gloria that told her what to say. Mama Gloria was a very important neighbour because she is also from the same village as we are. And because of that, she was the most dreaded neighbour, because she knew every secret and would always kiss and tell. True to our fears, she was always related to any major gossip or rumour in town. In my own resolution, Mama Gloria looked like someone you told something you want the entire public to know and beg her to keep it a secret.
Immediately our bus took off for Lagos, a petite woman at the back with a dark powdered face began to lead in songs. After that, she began to pray for the journey. She prayed for the safety of the journey, for the driver, for the road, for the people we will pass on the way and for the people we will meet in Lagos. At a point, she said “I cover the road with the blood of Jesus”, and I imagined a very long tarred road that would possibly not have any visible end being covered all along with blood and I wondered if the driver was not going to be affected by the sight. Again, she “soaked all the passengers and the driver in the blood of Jesus”, and I imagined a very big drum-like container full of blood and the woman picking each of the passengers and the driver and soaking them into the blood-filled container so that blood dripped from each passenger as they are being lifted up from the container. I imagined myself objecting when it was my turn but later agreed when she explained the potency of such ritual to me and almost immediately, I began to feel very powerful for having been soaked in blood.

CONTINUATION OF CHAPTER ONE

It was almost becoming a full trance before I was jerked back to the present by her loud preaching that “Fornicators will go to hellfire. Leave your boyfriends and girlfriends and come to Jesus.” At that moment, I looked back and saw two young people at the back of the vehicle; a boy and a girl hugging each other and laughing in a mocking tone. She shouted it even louder facing the two love birds, this time in a tone that suggested anger. Then, she turned to her side as though she had found another culprit and shouted “Some of you have wives but you still leave your wives to have affairs with other women. Some of you are still unfaithful to your husbands. Leave those things now and come to Jesus so that you will not suffer the eternal damnation of hellfire.” I saw some people shift uneasily on their seats and Uncle Fredrick nodding in approval and betting a hand at an invisible person. It seemed as though that part of the preaching turned him on, and he began to respond fully to the woman while shouting a loud “Amen” whenever she said
“Hallelujah” so that people’s attention was drawn to him.
As the preaching started to become long however, his interest began to wane, and his voice suddenly lost its enthusiasm and high pitch. But I understood at once what was distracting him when I saw him putting his hand into his pocket and removing it several times. It was therefore a good thing when the woman finally ended. Hardly had she said her final “Amen” had Uncle Fredrick picked out his phone from his pocket and darting his eyes around with smiles on his face, began to dial a number. I was sure he was very conscious of all the eyes that looked around to watch him make calls and he was satisfied he was making a show. Of course, to own a phone with a number at that time was luxury and everyone acknowledged it. I could still remember Uncle Fredrick asking me to be patient with him while he saves up some other money for my school fees because he had to save his salary for seven months in order to purchase the phone and the number
The person on the other end picked up and I heard him shout “Please take the phone to Elizabeth fast” and ended the call even before I could assume that the person had heard him well. I figured that it was a business call centre but the person lived near
Elizabeth, his fiancée’s house and also had Fredrick’s number. Uncle Fredrick had this manner of raising his voice loudly whenever he answered calls. The way he shouted on the phone this morning trying to let his fiancée know that we have boarded a bus for Lagos; I was very convinced that passengers on board other moving buses could hear him clearly. I imagined the call centre attendant, who must be a lady sitting very close to Elizabeth and grimacing at the thought of Uncle Fredrick shouting at her customer. In less than thirty seconds, he was through with the call and with an unusual air of pride, clasped shut the open and close Bird phone, making sure the sound was heard. He looked around several times to make certain that everyone noticed him. Actually, everybody did notice him.
Uncle Fredrick was lost in thoughts when we arrived Lagos that he forgot to pay the taxi man that took us to Grandma’s residence in Oshodi. We had moved a reasonable distance before we realized that the driver was shouting and raining curses on us. He had begun to start his engine to come after us when we noticed him. His disposition only reminded me of what Uncle had said most of the time about impatient and money hungry Lagos drivers who could break your head in a flash because of money. I wondered what it would look like if he had decided to attack us with a weapon instead of shouting at us. As we walked towards the gate of Grandma’s compound, I kept having a mental picture of the driver suddenly rushing at us and hitting us in the head and blood gushing out. Somehow, I still felt it would be tolerable than the sight of Grandma, her demeanour, her military strides and the way her voice sounded like a raging thunder and shook the ground and all the people standing whenever she shouted. I can’t remember ever hearing her talk calmly; she always shouted. No, she thundered!
I was therefore surprised to see Grandma smiling today and my heart missed a beat when she came and hugged us closely and said “Welcome, my children. It is good to have you here.” Grandma was tall and dark and wore an afro which she dyed grey and with her eyeglasses, she looked like some of those famous women we saw on calendars or watched on television. Save for her dark complexion, she looked like Oby Ezekwesili. Her Afro and deep voice even made her look more like her.
The first time I remembered seeing Grandma, she was sitting on the couch in our living room as I returned from school.
“Come and greet your Mama Nnukwu” Uncle Fredrick had said, grinning and added “Mama, your son Kasarachi is really doing well in school. He had never come second to anyone since he started and now at just Primary three, they had made him the class prefect and the school’s general assistant head prefect. Can you imagine? Just Primary three o” Grandma did not smile back; did not even show any expression.
I walked over to her and mumbled “Welcome Mama Nnukwu.”
She looked at me feigning surprise and looked at Uncle Fredrick then back at me and said “I want you to be calling me Grandma instead of Mama Nnukwu. It is not because I prefer the Whiteman’s tongue to ours but because that is the only way I can know that you are referring to me. You know I live in Lagos and that is the way grandmothers are addressed in Lagos. It is only village grandmothers that answer Mama Nnukwu both from their home-based and abroad based children and they don’t complain about it. Is that clear?” The closing question was so thunderous that my reply of “Yes, Grandma” was in total trepidation and so became the norm on her subsequent visits.
Now, as we finally visited her Lagos residence, I expected everything in full dosage; the thundering, her military strides and my trepidations.
“How was your journey?” she asked, running her fingers on my hair which sent shivers through my spines and made my body shake as though I was having fever.
“Fine” I muttered, and Uncle Fred murmured something incomprehensible. Afterwards, he got very quiet and I sensed that he was nursing a very dangerous feeling in him.
A young man was sitting at Grandma’s dining table, close to the sitting room and scribbling down something on a cardboard paper. It looked as if he was painting. He greeted us absentmindedly and continued what he was doing and Uncle Fredrick stood there, staring at him. Grandma joined us from the kitchen with two plates of jollof rice.
“What are you watching, Fred? Sit down and eat before you rest,” she said but Uncle did not answer him. She repeated exactly what she said as though it was necessary that way. There was still no response
“Nna m,” she called out to me, “please, come and sit down and eat what your grandmother prepared. It seems they have cast a spell on your uncle from somewhere I don’t know.” The young man at the table gave out a silly laughter and I watched him, angry. Uncle was still standing, and I wondered too what was wrong with him. Grandma felt indifferent however and went inside her room. There were three pairs of settees rounded by a centre table and I sat down on one of them.
I heard a loud thud when I wanted to put the first spoonful in my mouth. It was Uncle that fell heavily on one of the settees. He actually threw himself down on it but it sounded as though he fell. The young man had now raised his head from whatever he was busy with. I noticed he had a very young face, but he wore thick eyeglasses, the very type that Awolowo wore on the Calendars which always reflected his smiling teeth. He stood up and said he was leaving. He was at the door when Uncle grabbed his arm and pulled him back roughly. He fell with a loud thud on the floor of the living room and bit his fingers, looking up at him with red, angry eyes. At that moment, my stomach tightened, and I felt a lurch in my throat, a lump in the heart and temporal limpness. It was a sign for something sinister and I knew at once that whatever Mama Gloria had suggested at home was going to put us into trouble.
“What is the problem with you kwanu!” the young man blurted, and I noticed goose pimples all over his body. “Did agwu catch you on the way before you entered your mother’s house?” he was trying to wriggle out of Uncle’s firm grip.
“You are my problem, you gigolo. I am going to teach you a good lesson today.” He had mentioned “gigolo” with a special emphasis to indicate that it was a very “high grammar” for someone of his level to speak. Grandma rushed out from one of the rooms just after he said that. She first stood for a while as though she temporarily forgot what to say. Then, slowly, I heard her say, “Did anybody cast any spell on this man just before he entered here?” “Hey, will you quickly leave somebody’s child alone before you cause me trouble here?” That sudden shout from Grandma was as though it was induced and having shouted that way, she reached out into the midst of the two struggling men. Uncle lifted his leg, trying to wedge Grandma from letting the young man free and his leg landed on my plate of food. The content of the plate including the pieces of the plate shattered on my face. My body began to shake feverishly, my teeth chattering and my eyes reeling off torrents of tears. Once free, the young man grabbed the door, flung it open, ran out and banged the door against us. His calculation I guessed was to rush at least to the gate before anyone could open the door. From the transparent glass of the front window, I saw him flying towards the gate like someone being pursued by a mad dog. With Uncle Fredrick and Grandma left alone, Grandma speedily tore herself away from him and shouted, panting “Did anybody cast any spell on you Fredrick I ask again?”
“It is you I should be asking, Mama. Did anybody cast a spell on you that the only business you have is running after young men like this?”
The old woman’s eyes dilated as she darted her eyes about from me to Uncle Fred many times “So, is this where your silly mind had gone to? Tell me, who is gossiping to your Uncle, Kasarachi?”
I jumped to my feet. She approached me and made as though to grab me, then placed her hands on my head and in a louder voice asked “Who is gossiping to your Uncle? Who is putting all this poisonous information into his head?” I was frightened. I wondered whether I should tell her it was Mama
Gloria or whether I should tell her I do not know. Uncle Fred salvaged the situation at once by shouting back, “There is no gossiping anywhere and no one is putting any poisonous idea into anybody’s head. It is simply what you do that they are saying. I simply feel ashamed of that.”
Grandma looked at him for another moment; a somewhat shocking look. Slowly, she lifted her hand and said, “Fredrick, look at how you injured your mother simply because of some unruly thoughts. Your kind is adjudged to be cursed.” I looked at the hand she lifted and noticed blood trickling from it from the direction of her armpit. Uncle Fredrick also felt touched and landed himself on the seat with another sound. Everywhere was calm once again except for the chattering of my teeth which had increased, this time the result of fever, not tears.
Grandma stayed inside for a long time while Uncle sat fixated on the settee darting his eyes about at any slightest noise like someone expecting a sudden attack. The wall clock in the living room chimed eight and Grandma finally came out with another plate of food which she handed over to me and said “sorry for your uncle’s madness. I hope you were not hurt by those pieces of plate.”
I nodded. She had a broom on the other hand with which she bent and started sweeping while Uncle kept looking around. Suddenly she stopped and raising the broom spoke in a soft tone: “Fredrick, what is the reason for all this sudden madness that came over you today?”
He did not respond.
“That boy you nearly killed is our neighbour's son who comes here to help me with minor errands and you must give me tangible reasons why you wanted to strangle him. I should know whether you saw him in the dream pursuing you with a knife. I should know what to tell his parents because they would soon be here in respect to what just happened once they are back from work”. She sat down after she said this.
“Which of your neighbour’s sons?” I heard Uncle Fred’s voice. It sounded childish and fear-stricken.
Grandma laughed stylishly, “Ukochukwu's son, of course. I know you do not know that Ukochukwu’s last son had grown like this. That boy you just almost strangled is Udoka, the son of the priest.”
I saw Uncle Fred’s mouth open and close.
“Don’t worry; I know you don’t know him. He doesn’t know you either and his case should not be our headache now. Let us talk about why you came now that your head is a bit cool.” Grandma replied with ease.
“Mama, it is not like that. Any person who heard things the way I heard it will even react more than I had reacted.”
“I have always known you to be a woman; always listening to gossips of silly women like Mama Gloria who advises you to come and cause commotion in your mother’s life. Yes, Mama Gloria, that husband killer who has nothing else to do than to kill all the men who come her way and come around to gossip with other people’s husbands and wives. That is the woman my son is taking advice from.”
Both Uncle Fred and I looked at her at the same time. How on earth did she know that Mama Gloria said anything? More than the fear I had about her before now, I was now convinced that Grandma must be a witch. Otherwise, how did she learn that Mama Gloria was the culprit? She must have turned to a bird last night to come and listen to the talk between Uncle Fred and Mama Gloria. I became very afraid as I wondered how often she was coming to eavesdrop into our conversations. My fever increased as I feared that she could soon turn and tell me of all the secret things I had ever done in the house, or tell me that she even saw the things I did in school, how I used my opportunity as the prefect to cane those girls that did not notice me in school while I favoured those that did; that she would see my fantasies about marrying Gloria and my thoughts about how we would chase Uncle Fredrick from the house because he did not have a child and take over the house. If Grandma could be in Lagos and know that Mama Gloria talked to Uncle Fredrick, then she must have superpowers and could do anything. I began to create the mental image of yester night and I could see clearly the kind of bird she turned to. I could hear the shrill sound on our roof and I wondered how Grandma could simply reduce herself to that.
As I ate my food silently after Grandma had gone inside again, I kept looking around expecting to see Udoka return with his parents to the house or for Grandma to come out and finally thunder like she normally does. But when Grandma came back, she sat down beside her son and in a soft tone persuaded him to forget his worries and eat. By now, I became afraid that there must be a conspiracy somewhere. There was something Grandma was not telling us!
Grandma went ahead to persuade him to eat and with a soft tone still, told him that those things they told him were lies. He began to eat and began to laugh too and soon, they were discussing like mother and son until late into the night. Just before I closed my eyes to sleep, I still heard Grandma‟s voice as she said “We need to be fast. Time is no longer on our side. If the whole marriage can be conducted in two weeks, I would be glad” and I knew immediately that she was talking about Uncle Fred’s marriage to Elizabeth.
Later, when she visited the village from Lagos a week after, the smile remained intact. Again, I overheard her telling Uncle Fred over dinner, “We just need to be fast because a stitch in time saves nine. And you know what? God being on our side and if things work out well, once you pay her bride price, both the boy and the girl will be yours.”
I felt Uncle smile. I did not see him, but I felt him smiling and I imagined his white hairs rising and his cheeks expanding while he did that.