Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

by Christie Watson

  I looked at Ezikiel’s eyes. They had changed color.

  The white people from Dan’s workplace turned up early in large cars and vans, surrounded by MoPol, the mobile police, security men carrying guns. We heard the screeching sirens carry them through the next village and down our bumpy road. “Is that really necessary?” Dan asked. They had an armored vehicle and a security guard for each guest. I did not know if it was necessary; it was what always happened. The sirens blaring, armored vehicles carried the white people through our villages, and we watched them, blurring and blaring past us. I had not questioned if it was necessary before. The security men waited by the gate, I could see the tips of their rifles over the top. I wondered if they could smell the suya. I wondered if the white men would save them some food. I wondered what they thought about us.

  Local people had traveled from as far as Port Harcourt. It felt like Lagos, having such a mixture of people together. I counted five different tribes and seven different languages. “Where is the white man?” they said, ignoring Mama in her wedding dress. They pointed at Dan, the whitest of all the white men. His face was shiny from the sun cream, which he kept spraying on throughout the day; tiny beads of sweat were white from the cream. From a distance it looked as though he had very bad acne.

  The local guests wore colors so bright it hurt my eyes to look at them. The men carried briefcases, and their wives and girlfriends held small handbags that matched their shoes perfectly. The women had beautiful jewelry sets, the earrings matching the bracelets, matching the necklace. And each family matched each other. The women had styled the materials on their heads in different, difficult patterns. The tops of their heads looked like jagged mountains against the blue sky. They all arrived with gifts and gave Alhaji bottles of Rémy Martin and expensive aftershave, as if it was his day instead of Dan’s. They patted Alhaji on the back so hard, and so often, that he stood with his back against the house wall for much of the day. When his back was not against the wall, Alhaji walked around waving his arms in the air and greeting his friends, making sure they had a drink immediately by sending Ezikiel to the bar area with their orders. “Get them a fresh glass,” he said. Or, “Fill their glass. I do not want to see people with empty glasses.”

  “We are gathered here today …” The minister Dan had brought with him from the Western Oil Company compound was wearing a robe that dragged on the floor and picked up ground-dirt until it became a similar pattern to Mama’s wedding dress. He was a white man with a red nose. Around his neck was a large silver cross. He wore an earring. He looked nothing like the pastors I was used to seeing at our old church in Lagos. The pastors I had known were good-looking, with smart tailored clothes and neat, well-oiled hair. Even Pastor King Junior, who was seventy years old, wore a three-piece suit lined with purple silk. It surprised me to see Dan’s minister wearing women’s sandals. Surely a man of God should be wearing polished shoes that clicked on the ground and tapped in time to the choir. I worried about what Alhaji would say when he noticed the minister’s earring, but Alhaji was at the back with the imam, who was reciting the Koran loudly. He did not have the loudspeaker, so he was shouting.

  The minister shouted in English, and the imam in Arabic, mixed with a bit of Izon. Alhaji had expected that most of the guests would attend his section, his Muslim section, but the guests all stood watching the minister, and Mama and Dan, who were like two teenagers, giggling and holding hands. Ezikiel took my hand during the ceremony. We went and sat down by Alhaji’s feet, with Grandma and Celestine and the twins, listening to the imam. Alhaji looked at us and smiled. His head turned to each of us in turn and we all looked up. A look passed between all of us. The imam’s voice made perfect sense to my ears. Mama did not even notice.

  Mama and Dan said their vows quickly and quietly. I focused on the chanting of the imam and let my mind travel upward and away from the wedding. Then, as the Christian minister clapped the Bible shut, our imam stopped suddenly. I stretched my ear toward Mama when she read a poem. She read quietly; it was probably just for Dan’s ears. “I do,” she said eventually, and Ezikiel sucked his teeth. His arm was shaking. I put my hand over his and held his fingers tightly. When Dan said, “I do,” I could hardly hear him, but he must have said it; Mama jumped on her tiptoes and threw her arms around his neck, giving him a full kiss that made Dan’s friends whistle, even though the ceremony was not yet finished. The bottom of my stomach felt like it had been removed. Everything dropped down. The shaking stopped. My body gave up. I felt as though I was in a dream. I was hoping that Father would burst through the gate and pick me up and tell Dan to get out, too loudly.

  The compound had been swept clean of dust. Two long tables were set up next to the veranda. It was meant to be one for Western food and one for our food, but our food spilled over onto the Western table, there was so much of it. Alhaji had ordered it all from the Warri-based catering company that his friend’s son owned. They specialized in Chinese food, which was Celestine’s favorite, but Alhaji had insisted on our food for Mama’s wedding. At one end of the tables were the soups: banga soup made from palm kernels; white soup containing seafood and meat; rice and pepper soup; isi ewu, the spiced goat head soup from Akwa Ibom that Alhaji loved; fresh fish pepper soup; goat-meat pepper soup; kpomo, cow skin in pepper soup. Next to the soups were the stews: palm-oil-prepared stew; stewed snails; efo riro, the spicy sauce containing spinach, fish, and meat; nkwobi, the cow tail that Grandma loved; egusi and ogbono with eba; jollof spaghetti and rice; amala, pounded yam; fried rice; designer rice; smoked fish; fried fish; polofiyai; kekefiyai; gbe; sea-harvest fulo … the table was bursting with food. A hundred different smells entered my nostrils. They danced together in my nose, one on top of the other as though all the foods should be eaten together on the same plate. At the far end of the long table, away from the house, was the barbecue. Plantain, bush meat, goat, and mutton took turns on the fire, giving the whole area a smoky spicy smell of tender meat. A large stack of paper plates balanced at the edge of one of the tables, with a serviette folded on every plate.

  At the other end of one of the tables sat the Western food, what Dan described as a buffet. “Can’t have a wedding without a good wedding buffet,” he said. It consisted of cold meat wrapped in dry pastries, dried pieces of bready pizza, small round balls made from egg and sausage, and no sauce anywhere. A large tray of cheese underneath a see-through plastic lid made the area smell like urine. One of the cheeses was covered with blue cracks like the bottoms of Grandma’s legs. Tiny sandwiches cut into neat triangles were shaped on a plate to look like a fan.

  “Bloody waste of time,” said Grandma. She put a sandwich in her mouth, chewed a few times, then swallowed. “The effect is ruined now.”

  There were giant bowls full of potato chips shaped like pieces of bacon, which Alhaji said was fine to eat, as it was only flavoring from chemicals. He did not mention the sausage rolls at all, which Boneboy kept eating until his belly swelled out like a coconut. It was more food than we had seen in a long time, but the Western food looked plain next to our wedding food—I was amazed when people ate it. The white men stood around crunching, dropping crumbs of pastry so large that the rats would think they had died and arrived in paradise. I wondered where all the white women were, what they were like, if they would have eaten the pastry like the men or might have tried our foods.

  Ezikiel hid in the house shadows. I took him a plate of our food, including his favorite spicy stewed snails. “I can’t eat,” he said. “I feel sick.”

  I touched his arm. He looked sick—his face had turned gray and hollow. “Try some,” I said. “It is your favorite.”

  “The only thing I’ll eat now is fireflies. To make me strong.”

  “Disgusting! Are you still eating those?”

  “Of course. They protect me from harm. Have you heard my asthma?”

  It was true. I had not heard Ezikiel’s asthma in a long time. I wondered if he had grown out of it. I did not believe t
hat fireflies cured asthma. If that was the case, many people in the world would be eating fireflies, and as far as I knew, Ezikiel and his new friends were the only ones.

  “I hate him,” Ezikiel said. He was spitting on the ground. “I hate him.”

  “He is not that bad,” I whispered. “He loves Mama. And he understands how we feel. His father left too.” My voice sounded like it was not mine at all. As if someone were pretending to be me.

  Ezikiel looked at my nose. “I have nothing in common with him.” His words were broken into tiny pieces. “Nothing at all in common with that man.” The middle of Ezikiel’s eyes jumped big, then small again.

  I did not say anything else in case I made Ezikiel angrier. I put the plate of snails onto the ground next to Ezikiel’s spit.

  I walked back to the wedding party. The white men wore ties over their shirts and had the same smile. Their eyes flitted up and down and around me. I kept scratching my arms and legs. It felt like having a torchlight shone up and down my body all day. They raised their eyebrows all the time and ate the Western buffet. Even the cheese with the blood running through it.

  “Have you tried this stilton?”

  “Shame there’s no port. Or Jacob’s crackers. Can’t get a good cracker in Nigeria, that’s for sure.”

  They laughed, loudly. Their stomachs were soft, like women’s stomachs, hanging over their trousers. Since working with Grandma, I had grown used to being able to tell, just by looking at the softness of a woman’s stomach, how many children she had borne. Some of the men were up to five births—full term. I continued folding serviettes, pretending not to listen. One of the men kept looking at my hands as though they were food.

  “Or a decent brew. I can live without cheese and biscuits, but I’d kill for a decent brew. The Nigerians make it far too weak, and the tea bags, God, the tiny little teacups—it’s like going back a century.”

  “Of course, that’s exactly what it’s like. A hundred years ago in England.”

  I put the remaining serviettes down on the plate and walked away.

  The band arrived late and began setting up quickly by the gate to greet any other guests with highlife music. Soon, every local guest was dancing and singing, joining in with the well-known songs, all except the white men, who stood as still as rocks and clutched tightly to glasses of beer. They did not move from the shadow of the food tent.

  When Alhaji stood on an upside-down box and coughed loudly, the band stopped playing. Everyone gathered around. Alhaji was smiling and looking straight at Mama.

  “I want to thank you all for attending this special occasion. These two lovebirds …” Alhaji paused until Dan laughed. “These birds have fallen in love. And today we celebrate gaining our new son, Dan. He is now one of the Kentabe family.”

  Everyone clapped and cheered. Even Dan.

  “We are very happy to have Dan, you see? We are happy for both my beautiful daughter and her new husband. Please raise your glass to the happy couple.”

  Everyone said “Cheers” and took a drink. Everyone except Ezikiel.

  “Now I can introduce the happy couple, Timi and Dan. Please, take your first dance, you see?”

  Mama and Dan moved toward the middle of the crowd. The band began to play Mama’s favorite song, by Stevie Wonder. Dan looked so happy dancing next to Mama’s face. The crowd looked happy. Even Alhaji looked happy. Everyone watched them spin around very slowly and stand very close. People tried to sing the words but missed some or got them wrong. It was only Ezikiel and I who knew that song. Father had played it all the time.

  Underneath the food tables there was the big pile of gifts. It was obvious which gifts came from the white guests and which from the locals, because the local people’s gifts were wrapped in newspaper, and the white people’s gifts were wrapped in shiny paper with bows and ribbons. Mama did not open any, but she looked at them many times and moved her body from side to side in excitement.

  I was hiding underneath the gift table when Boneboy found me. I must have been sure that Father was coming. I watched the gate area, fully expecting to see his feet. Boneboy suddenly reached out and touched my face. His fingers were cool. I let my head fall into his hand. His hand smelled like home. Like river water, and pepper soup, and coconut oil. “I cannot believe it,” I whispered. “I did not think it would really happen.” I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, Boneboy was kissing my lips.

  He held his mouth to mine for many seconds without moving. I did not dare move at all. His lips opened and I felt his tongue, a soft piece of fish melting into my mouth.

  Eventually Boneboy let my face go. His mouth remained open, his pink tongue through his teeth. My lips felt strange without his against them, like half of something. It was as if part of me had stuck to Boneboy and peeled off. I wanted that part back. My head moved toward his. My lips pulled so hard in his lips’ direction. Then something snapped in my head. I blinked. I smacked my own cheeks. He crawled out from under the table and ran into the house.

  “I hate you!” Ezikiel screamed. The dancing had finished and the food had finished and the speeches had finished and then suddenly Ezikiel had appeared. The drummer was moving so quickly it looked as though he had four arms. Still, Ezikiel could be heard.

  “I fucking hate you! I will never accept you as my father! You are not my father! You will never be my father!”

  Dan was standing in front of Ezikiel. His smile had dropped. He stretched his arms toward Ezikiel. He tried to touch him. Could he not see that Ezikiel did not want to be touched? Ezikiel did not want Dan to touch him. Not ever.

  “Of course I do not want a white father. We don’t want a white father. What was she thinking?” Ezikiel began to cry. “We want our father back. Our own father who made us.”

  I couldn’t believe the words Ezikiel had said. He never spoke of Father anymore. Before, he had said that he did not miss him at all. He had said that he did not care at all when Father left us. It was a lie. He felt exactly the same as I did.

  “Do you know what your father is?” shouted Mama. “He hurt me!” She stopped and moved toward Ezikiel, lowering her voice. “He hurt me.”

  Pictures turned in my head. Mama with a purple bruise, Father coming at her with his fist, Father banging Mama’s head down onto the ground as though he was trying to break a nut.

  Ezikiel’s eyes changed. His eyelids became tighter, reducing the amount of world that he could see. “A white man? A fucking oil worker! He’s going to get what he deserves.” He flicked his head at Mama, then back at Dan.

  “I’ll show you, White Gold. Me and the Sibeye Boys!”

  THIRTY

  Ezikiel ran and ran and ran. Boneboy tried to chase him, but Ezikiel’s legs were not holding back. Mama’s wedding day carried on as though it had not heard Ezikiel’s words: “Me and the Sibeye Boys!”

  Could Ezikiel be a Sibeye Boy? A gunboy? My brother? I did not want to believe it. I told my ears they had it wrong. But my heart was crashing, crashing. And Alhaji was drinking the Rémy Martin as though it was water, and Mama was not smiling and had stopped holding Dan’s hand, and Grandma was in the house shadows, chanting or praying.

  I tried to carry on as though I had not heard Ezikiel’s words. But people were talking. A boy who disrespected his mother on her wedding day! What kind of boy behaved like that?

  A Sibeye Boy, I thought. But it could not be true.

  As I went through the wedding, opening bottles of Supermalt and smiling and smiling and smiling, my thoughts were running on burning ground: Ezikiel’s friends, Ezikiel’s friends that he did not introduce us to, Ezikiel saying he did not want to be a doctor.

  But a Sibeye Boy? The kind of boy who killed? For the wrong reasons? And who gave the true freedom fighters no chance. Who gave Alhaji no chance? Ezikiel?

  It cannot be true, I thought, making the words in my head scream loudly. It cannot be true.

  But I felt the world outside the compound come in. Ezikiel had o
pened the gates.

  Suddenly, screaming came from outside my head. Cars! Fast tires on the dusty road. Shouting. A high-pitched screaming. A flash of white.

  Mama!

  I had gone inside for more Supermalt. Fast-moving shadows ran past the window, people rushing and crying and screaming. I ran to the door and out to the garden. Men had filled the garden. Tall, skinny men. Boys. They were wearing masks over their faces. They were shouting, laughing. Guns crossed their bodies. Necklaces of bullets.

  The Sibeye Boys!

  They sent the wedding party outside the gate, pointing their rifles to where they wanted people to go. The rifles had more power than words. They did not need to explain anything, they just pointed and people went. The men guarding outside the gate were gone. The guests walked quickly and did not look up at all. None of them looked back at us.

  I wanted to run back into the house, but Mama was alone on the veranda on her knees, her arms behind her head. One of the boys had a rifle pointed straight at her face. A rifle. Like a long thin arm. It looked straight at Mama’s face.

  I ran at Mama and dropped to the ground next to her. She screamed and leaned her body into mine. I felt the scratch of her wedding dress on my skin.

  We are going to die.

  The boy pointing the gun moved backward. He laughed. “Like mother, like daughter. I should take you too,” he said in English, pointing the tip of the gun at my head. I wondered what it would feel like, being shot. Dying. Would I go to heaven or paradise? Had I been good enough?

  “We could have fun with you.” I recognized his voice. I was sure. Where did I know his voice? I wanted to look at him, but I did not dare lift my eyes. “But we will get more for pure white gold. They take our black gold and we take their white gold.”