Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

by Christie Watson

  “He could die!” said Mama. “If he gets an allergy and does not have his medicine, he could die!” She was shouting. “If he hadn’t had his adrenaline, he would have died! Do you realize how serious this is? Of all the stupid things …”

  Ezikiel started crying. I put my arms around his sharp shoulders.

  “Give me some naira and I’ll go to Radio Street Clinic for a replacement,” Mama continued. She too had started crying. Her face was twisted.

  Alhaji shook his head. “There is no need for that. As I said, the boy can follow a simple regime, like Alhaji. Nigerians do not suffer with nut allergies; I am convinced the diagnosis was wrong. The boy is simply lacking in certain things. B vitamins play an essential role—”

  “Did you not hear me?” Mama was shouting again, pointing her finger at Alhaji’s face. I could not believe it. I hugged Ezikiel so tightly I could feel his shoulder bruising my skin. I would never dare shout anything at Alhaji. I would not even look at him directly. But Mama had no fear of him at all. “He could die! Die! He nearly died. Now give me the money to replace the medicine. I need to get it immediately. It’s not safe for him to be without it even for a day.”

  I could feel the tickle of Ezikiel’s wheeze through my sleeve, becoming stronger. I could feel myself wheezing, even though I did not have asthma.

  “There is no money,” Alhaji whispered. “And anyway,” he said, in a much louder voice, “the matter is not in our hands. Only Allah decides when it is time for Ezikiel’s death.”

  I matched my breathing to Ezikiel’s; his breath coming out was much longer than his breath going in. The back of my head began to float. No money? But with Celestine’s money there was meat and fish. No money!

  “I’ll have to spend the school fees. I’ll have to take on extra work to make the school fees again,” said Mama. “Extra work.”

  Would that be possible? I tried to calculate how many hours we had seen her that week. Only three and it was Saturday already. There were no spare hours left.

  “Who knows what I’ll have to do.” Mama leaned closer to Alhaji. She spat the words into the air in front of him. “Did you think of that? The extra work I’ll have to do? Do you understand what extra work involves? Do you?”

  Alhaji took a giant step backward. He nearly fell over. Mama walked away. Alhaji looked as though he was about to cry; his mouth was wide open and his eyes were dusty. He snapped his head toward me. Ezikiel was shaking and breathing in and ooouuuuttt, his head buried into my shoulder. I thought of the money Celestine brought home being ripped into three: food, school fees, medicine. She had been getting plenty of work as a Professional Town Mourner, but her money was not enough to split into three. And sometimes Grandma was not paid at all, or was paid in fish. We could not exchange fish for school fees or medicine. I felt my head spinning.

  “You should not have used the medicine,” Alhaji shouted. “The boy was fine.”

  Ezikiel was lying on the ground, curled around the bottom of the palm tree. I was curled around Ezikiel. I had my arms wrapped around his chest. I could feel his heartbeat on the palm of my hand. Ezikiel’s heart stuttered like a boy in my old class.

  “It was my fault,” I said.

  “Of course it wasn’t. It’s my allergy.”

  “I could have stopped you eating it. I should have stopped you.”

  “I knew I was unlikely to be cured. Allergies rarely go away or are grown out of. I knew it. But I wanted to believe Alhaji. And that meat tasted so good. But now Mama will use the school fees. I’ve missed so much already. And I’ve got my exams this year.”

  “Mama was so mad. The medicine is more important than school. Anyway, Mama said she will make the school fees back. I am so sorry, Ezikiel. It is my fault for not stopping you.”

  “It’s my own fault. I’m always getting sick.”

  “You cannot help getting sick. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose. Anyway, sometimes Mama shouts for no reason at all. It is not your fault.”

  Ezikiel was silent. His heart stuttered.

  “I wish I could have the allergy instead,” I whispered. “Let me get sick instead.”

  TWELVE

  I watched Grandma as she drew curved shapes in the dirt with a long stick. The ground was dry and powdery and Grandma did not have to press hard to create patterns. There were four semicircles, two on each side, the outside shapes larger than the inside. Grandma shut one eye and finished the picture with a tiny line on the top and a small round circle immediately underneath it. We were sitting on the side of the veranda with our legs swinging over the edge. Alhaji had left for the Executive Club after morning prayers, carrying a bottle of Rémy Martin. He always seemed to be carrying Rémy Martin. I wondered where Alhaji got the money to buy expensive brandy. I wondered why Alhaji did not spend the money on Ezikiel’s medicines, or on school fees. It did not make any sense that Alhaji could have money for brandy but not for Ezikiel’s medicine. Whenever I asked Grandma about it she said it was important that Alhaji carried on as normal, even during such difficult times. I wondered why the times were so difficult, but Grandma’s face stopped me asking.

  Celestine was at market. Mama was at work at the Highlife Bar, and Ezikiel was asleep in Alhaji’s room. He had not spoken to me much since Grandma told me about attending births, and when I told Ezikiel that I was to be Grandma’s assistant, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “So what?” I did not know what was wrong with him. He did not seem interested in birth attending at all. I knew that he was upset at being suspended from school. But I was too excited to worry about it. Me. An assistant birth attendant! My stomach was dancing.

  “This is not common,” Grandma said. “Easy birth, no cutting.”

  She drew another shape in the dirt with the long stick. It was similar to the first shape, but with no tiny line at the top.

  “This is very mild cutting, the hood just taken,” said Grandma. “This is becoming popular, like boys. Childbirth is usually not a problem.”

  Next to it she drew the same shape as before but with two vertical semicircles instead of four. The inside semicircles were missing. “This is most normal type, eight of every ten girls in those creek villages. The birth is good most of the time.”

  Eight out of ten village girls with missing semicircles!

  “Which type did you have, Grandma?”

  The words poured out of my mouth like water. We had been living at Alhaji’s long enough to know that Grandma could be asked anything. My words to Mama were less water and more sand. I rehearsed them in my head so many times that sometimes I was certain I had spoken to Mama and would continue a conversation I had only imagined, and Mama would slap the back of my head and say, “Stupid child.” Sometimes even my dreams seemed more real than real life. I kept having the same dream: Mama had her hands covering her face, and when she lowered them her eye was swollen and cut, surrounded by a purple bruise. It must have been a dream, but it seemed so real.

  “Fourth type,” said Grandma.

  She wiped all the lines away, raised the stick high in the air, and stabbed the ground, leaving a singular, tiny, round hole. There were no lines at all. “Birth is a problem always. The baby gets stuck, then the mother pushes a hole between urine and womb, and then the husband leaves. Many girls die. One from every ten.”

  One from ten girls die! Oh!

  I looked at Grandma and tried not to imagine her with a baby stuck, or a hole between her bladder and her womb, or even Alhaji leaving. I looked at the hole. A tiny circle. I did not see how a baby could come out, or even monthly blood, or urine. The hole was impossibly tiny. Grandma’s eyes were wet; she was blinking quickly. I tried not to react, to keep my voice steady.

  “Why do people want this done, Grandma?” I asked, looking at the drawings in the dirt, focusing on the tiny hole. “Why would anyone do this to a girl?”

  “Women have always done it,” said Grandma.

  “People still do it? Even when one from ten girls die?
People still do it?”

  “Many people. The main reason is tradition and holding on to culture, but there are many other reasons. Some say this part …” Grandma drew four semicircles and a tiny line on top again. She stabbed the stick at the circle with the line above it. “This part is dangerous and sends a woman into madness. Or can hurt the husband’s penis or baby coming out. But those are the same people who used to throw twin babies in the evil forest. Backward people. It is mainly the village girls having this now, not town girls. The village girls still have the first and second type.”

  “I still do not understand, Grandma. Why people would do this.”

  “The women of the villages would say that the world may have changed but to ignore traditions and customs would be to live like a reed in a tide.” Grandma raised the stick in the air. “But this type”—she stabbed the stick at the small hole with nothing else around it—“is no good.”

  My training came slowly. Grandma would tell me tiny pieces of information that sometimes did not make sense until the next piece arrived. Some days she felt like talking. They were the best days. Other days she was quiet, and I waited. There was so much to learn. As well as women’s parts, and how different cutting would give different problems, she taught me to recognize the types, and the problems that came with each type. I learned the meaning of secret women’s words: “fistula,” “rupture,” “prolapse.” Then Grandma told me about babies. She would lean down during breakfast, or after prayers, or as she gave me a kiss good night, and whisper another piece of information: “If baby is back to back, mother should sleep forward, or painful birth. If mother is tired, she needs meat stew and spinach greens. If mother dreams of river, there is too much water, the baby is small.”

  I memorized Grandma’s words by repeating them over and over, like times tables at school. Since we had stopped attending school, I had hoped to spend more time with Ezikiel, but he was always with Alhaji at one important meeting or another, or sitting in Alhaji’s bedroom studying his medical textbooks. He studied all the time. He told me he did not want to hear anything about birth attending. I missed him. But training to be Grandma’s apprentice did not allow me much time to get sad. I did not have time for keeping up my schoolwork like Mama wanted me to. Instead of one times five is five, two times five is ten, I chanted, “River dream means baby is small, river dream means baby is small,” until I saw Mama looking at me with a frown between her eyebrows.

  “Mama, may I ask you something?”

  “What is it now? I’m too tired for talking. Is it important?”

  I nodded and kept my eyes facing the ground. “Yes, Mama.” Even though Mama had a frown, I could not wait to ask her. When Mama and Grandma were together, they smiled and hugged to greet each other, but they did not sit close. At dinner they sat close enough for their arms to touch, but they did not; there was always a slice of light cutting a gap between them:

  Grandma Mama

  “Well?”

  “Why did Grandma not come and see us? I mean when we lived in Lagos?”

  Mama sighed. “I’ve told you before. She did not want me to marry your father. Ha! She was so right. Anyway, why don’t you ask her?”

  I closed my ears. I hated Mama talking about Father that way.

  “And anyway, it’s sorted out now, isn’t it? Grandma and I get along fine. We are one big happy family now?”

  The way Mama said “happy” changed the meaning of it. The word “happy” sounded sad. Even angry.

  “Is that it? Or are you full of questions today?”

  Mama did not look angry at all. She looked directly at my eyes. I had wanted to ask her so many things for so long. It seemed like a good time to ask just one more question. Her face was not twisted. “Sorry, Mama, but please could you tell me about when I was born? My birth?”

  Mama sighed and turned away. A question suddenly popped into my head: Was Mama cut? I pushed the question away. Surely, a woman as strong as Mama had no parts missing. She looked at me with a deeper frown line than usual. I thought that she would tell me to be quiet. But after a few seconds she started talking again. I opened my ears and eyes wide.

  “You were born at the University Hospital in Lagos,” Mama said. “I had pethidine. An obstetrician strapped my legs into stirrups and out you came. That was it. Nothing spectacular.”

  I wanted to know so much more, but Mama did not like personal questions. “Was it a difficult birth?”

  “No. You were number two. Easy. It was Ezikiel who gave me a fistula, before he nearly died. You just fell out of me.” Mama laughed. “Then the midwife put you in a tiny cot and wheeled you to a room with all the other babies. She gave you a bottle of Cow and Gate so I could rest. Your father watched you through the glass.”

  I imagined a row of fathers, their daughters looking even more impossibly beautiful through the smudged glass, like a camera picture taken in soft focus. I imagined Father thinking I was far superior to all the others, with a prettier face, a softer cry, smoother skin.

  I wondered if too-loud Father was truly quiet for the first time, if he had nothing to say, and no noise to make, and was still like the river at dawn.

  “He got so drunk on palm wine,” continued Mama, “that he fell and smashed the glass screen. He was barred from the hospital until he paid the fifty-thousand-naira fine.”

  It was early evening when a boy pounded on the compound gate so hard that one of the hinges came loose.

  “Mama Timi, Mama Timi,” he shouted. There was always someone calling for Grandma.

  She came out of the kitchen room, carrying her birth bag and one from Celestine’s collection, which had a picture of a couple printed on the front and the words, “Congratulations on the Occasion of Your Marriage Mr. and Mrs. Adaye from Your Beloved Parents.” The picture of the couple was faint, but you could tell they were happy, with their heads resting against each other. Grandma took my hand.

  “You’re not going,” said Mama, who had returned from work and was resting on the veranda chair with her feet balanced on Snap.

  “Mama,” I said, but then I started coughing. The insects were so thick that every time I opened my mouth to speak another one flew in.

  “She will just watch,” said Grandma.

  “No way. I know what’s been going on. All these questions about births and sudden interest in midwifery. She is way too young. There is no way.”

  “She needs training.”

  “She’s not going.” Mama stood up, making Snap squeak, then bark. “I knew this would happen.” Mama looked at Grandma so fiercely I could see the anger in the air in front of her. It was sharp and red.

  “I need help. She needs a trade. There is no school. She cannot sit around and learn nothing. It makes sense.”

  Alhaji came out of the house scratching his head. Nobody knelt. “What is going on here?” he asked, looking straight at me as though I was the cause of all problems.

  “Grandma intends to train her as a birth attendant,” said Mama, also looking at me as if I was the cause of all problems. She was so angry that her eyes became bloodshot in seconds. “You must think I’m stupid. I know what’s going on. She is twelve years old. She should be studying. Reading books instead of all this nonsense. All these questions. Did you think I wouldn’t realize? How will she get to university if she falls behind now? She will be back at school as soon as there is money. It won’t take long. It is payday next week.”

  University? It was the first time I had heard that Mama wanted me to go to university.

  Nobody spoke. I looked around the garden. A few of Youseff’s swollen-bellied children had come out of the boys’ quarters to watch Mama shouting.

  “I don’t want her exposed to that life. She’s too young to be going to those backward creek villages, and it’s not safe.” Mama stood up. “I heard gunfire again last night.”

  Gunfire? I looked at Mama’s face. Maybe I had not heard the words properly. Why would there be gunfire? The fighting had stop
ped.

  Alhaji took a large breath and looked at me, then at Grandma. He shook his head. “No, no. The fighting has stopped now.” His eyes opened slightly as he looked at Mama.

  Mama flicked her head toward me. “Well, maybe. But I don’t want her exposed to that life.”

  Grandma said nothing, but she bowed her head toward the ground.

  Alhaji stood taller. He looked at the skinny legs of Youseff’s children. He looked at my skinny legs. He looked at Grandma’s face. “She can go with Grandma,” he said. “But only if her homework does not suffer. She should carry on learning even when there is no school. Even if it is only for one more week. It is good for her to learn a trade.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, kneeling down. Even though I only said “sir,” I felt as if I had said the wrong thing. It was always that way with Alhaji. My voice sounded young, and unsure, and shaky.

  Alhaji turned his nose up and pressed his lips together before returning to the house.

  I did not look at Mama as I rushed to the gate with Grandma. We walked past Ezikiel. He looked at me strangely. His head flicked from mine to Mama’s, then back again. His mouth remained shut.

  “There will be money for school soon. There will be money for school,” shouted Mama. Her voice sounded higher than usual. When I did not turn my head back around,

  Mama’s voice lowered. “You are your father’s daughter!” she shouted.

  I smiled.

  Nimi’s room was big enough to contain only me and Grandma, despite an elderly woman who tried to squeeze me out of the way and follow us in.

  “She is my assistant,” said Grandma to the woman. “Wait outside.” She waved to the other side of the material door, where the elderly woman stood all evening, a strange hunched shadow, getting darker and larger as the light changed.

  I kept quiet and tried to remember everything that Grandma had told me. I sat by Nimi’s feet and opened the birth bag onto the ground. I pulled out a piece of cloth (wash between women), on which I laid the knife (not used for household purposes, clean on the fire between women), the scissors (keep sharp and completely dry), and the pot of paste that looked like pounded yam and smelled of sweat (we will come to that). I placed the handles and blade toward Grandma, who was pulling up Nimi’s wrapper, after washing her hands in bucket water with a small piece of soap. It was a relief to see Nimi’s curved lines like the first drawing. Easy birth.