A Small Silence Read online

  He asked for her name—she whispered into his ear like someone blowing off a candle in three breaths and he heard, ‘De-san-ya.’ He left Maroko with her presence still filling the corner of his arm where she had rested when he carried her, filling a place that had become empty at a point in his life. Many weeks later, with his heart buried in a vacuum, he returned to look for her, and someone told him that a pillar had fallen on her and killed her. He left the place emptier than when he came. You have lost another one, he told himself.

  The name “Desanya” suited The Voice. It filled up the emptiness that came with the loss, with warmth. While he could not see this new Desanya, he could always spread his arms along the prison wall, begging Desanya to come for a chat. There were times she did not come. Those times, he cried as he pined for her. Those times, he felt lucky to sight an ant in the cell that he could talk to and express how much he missed Desanya. He would jump with an hysterical happiness and then smile at his luck when an ant waited for a few minutes to listen to him whine. At other times, when he was overcome with weakness, he would strain his ears to listen to the echoes of laughter, groans, or deep sighs from the other cells.

  Desanya interrupted him and he stirred from his thoughts. ‘You should go to your mother and Kayo. You’re spending too much time alone.’

  4

  Maami and Kayo startled as Prof hurried out of the bedroom. They stopped talking. Prof, ignoring them, began pacing the length and breadth of the sitting room, counting his steps and measuring the distance between the kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom, and the spaces between the furniture and the walls, loudly. He closed his eyes as he did this until he felt he was familiar with the spaces around the house and then he returned to the side of the sitting room where Maami and Kayo were now talking in low tones. When he turned to face them, he observed how Kayo and Maami, now quiet, conversed with their eyes, their throats bopping up and down as they swallowed spittle.

  Kayo’s heavy breathing and Maami’s quiet humming sounded like background music to an anticipated act. Prof watched his friend’s travelling eyes, which moved about as if trying to leap out of the sockets and ascertained that his friend kept something from him—many things from him.

  Theirs was a friendship that was almost natal and bore many good stories of the past. In their childhood, they were like conjoined twins; seeing one meant the other was close. Prof was the one “who had sense” while Kayo was the one “whose head was not correct”. The community threw this readily at Kayo, for it was common knowledge that his coarse voice was because of the gbana he smoked openly from the age of nine. Kayo never hid behind uncompleted fences or deserted schools like the other children who smoked marijuana. He went about, smoking it openly like a cigarette—which itself was seen as bad enough for teenagers. Kayo would take a puff and roll the whiff of cannabis in his mouth until it gathered into fumes that formed mushroom clouds which he blew into the faces of the children that gathered around him, while their mothers cursed from a distance, taking care not to come near him. They feared Kayo for his unpredictability. Yet, Prof knew he was timid, that his actions were a cover-up for his many fears. He could not confront anyone who stood up to him, those who were not hassled by his upfront hard ways which were actually a way to distract others from his diffidence.

  Prof saw himself and Kayo running to the stream to watch naked girls take their bath, plucking fruits from neighbours’ trees, and running errands for older people for a fee. There were also the distinct stories of selflessness and sacrifice. One time, Prof stole books from the office of the headmaster of the only secondary school in Ilese, and Kayo, who accompanied him was the one who was caught. Rather than relaying the story of how his friend lacked books but loved to read so much and that he had accompanied him to steal the books, he let out the first words which must have made sense to him in the convenience of defending a crime he knew he could not disentangle himself from. He looked up at the guard who caught him and said, ‘I just finished shitting, sir. The paper was for my yansh.’ He placed his hands over his buttocks to emphasise the purpose and place of the paper. Later, on the assembly ground, in front of the other students, he screamed, ‘The paper was for my yansh, sah!’ into the air, but not once did he mention his friend’s name.

  Many years later, unsure of what to do with their lives in the village after they completed university, they both moved to Lagos, and their struggles were soon forgotten, with regular visits to Abe Igi, the open food and beer joint where journalists, artists, activists, writers, and poets gathered under the leafy cover of almond trees at the National Theatre. They spent hour after hour there with other comrades and artists; talking arts, politics and imagining sex, until alcohol turned people into grouches cursing even their beer bottles, or simply laughing into the air with their fantasies.

  As he stood facing Kayo in a room years after they felt they could have died for each other, he wondered if their younger selves might have screamed in disbelief at the way their eyes now tore into each other as they considered the possible consequences that could result from the other’s defiance.

  He walked past Kayo and his mother and walked towards the switch for the light, then flicked it. Prof ignored Kayo’s curses at the power outage, straining to study the outline of his mother and friend in the shadows.

  He let the fatigued silhouettes swallow as much silence as they could before saying in a quiet voice, ‘I turned off the lights.’ Adjusting the cloth over his eyes, he moved towards the curtains and adjusted them to give the room an even darker shade. He waited, expecting Maami or Kayo to make a comment. When none was offered, he added, ‘I have been thinking about lights for a while now, and—’ He closed his eyes, and then opened them again slowly into the dimness, ‘I don’t think the light is important.’

  ‘Which one is this again? What has light got to do with your return?’ Kayo asked. He took a few steps forward, but stopped as Prof began to talk.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m just saying, I’ll be staying in the dark now,’ Prof replied with his eyes closed. There was a sound and Prof could not make out if it was a chuckle or a throat being cleared. He also could not tell from whom it came.

  ‘You want to live in the dark,’ Kayo said. It was a statement, meant as a question, and he did not respond to it.

  ‘So, how long are you going to live in the dark? Mr. Man, you’re funny sha. Electricity is never regular anyway, so, what’s with the drama?’ Kayo stomped towards the switch, laughing. His voice juddered with the laughter, until it reached a truck-horn pitch.

  ‘Don’t. Don’t do it,’ Prof said, making sure his tone conveyed both his annoyance and desire. He waited, half hoping Kayo would be defiant and challenge him. Kayo walked three steps towards him then stopped.

  ‘This is not funny! And what would you do if I switched on the lights?’

  ‘I can’t tell,’ he replied in a whisper.

  ‘Why are you doing this? May we not live in dark times, man.’ Kayo said, turning the situation into a prayer, as was typical of the Yoruba. His voice was as low as Prof’s, who was listening for footsteps, so he could tell when his friend moved towards the switch. He sensed that there was something different about this Kayo, different from the one he grew up with, but he could not make out what it was. There was a streak of confidence in this one. He seemed sure of the things he could make possible.

  Prof stepped in front of Kayo, placing his hands on the switch, and with clenched teeth, he muttered in one long breath, ‘I could kill if the lights come on.’ The iciness of his own words baffled even him, and with his back against the wall, he puffed out aloud. Except for the whirr of his breath, the room was quiet. He straightened up and said, ‘I think it’s time you leave.’

  ‘Leave for where?’ Maami jumped in. She did not wait for an answer as she added, ‘Oya, joko. Sit. You need to relax. You’re too tense.’ Maami then turned to Kayo, ‘Be patient with him. You know how prison is. He has—’ she paused and then said, ‘He need
s time, okay? He has gone through a lot.’ Prof walked towards the door. He turned the knob and opened it. In his younger years, he would have spent several hours revising how to look straight into his mother’s eyes to defy her wish. He sighed. The frail light of evening streamed into the room and he stepped into the shadows. Neither Kayo nor his mother moved.

  ‘Kayo, I really think you should leave now. I want to be by myself. Thanks for your kindness. Thanks for your concern. Please leave. Maami, please, you too.’

  Prof wanted to shout the words at them to express his heightening exasperation, but he found himself whispering and gesturing with his hands towards the door—right, then left, then right again—like a dance routine. His mother took a seat and Kayo continued to lean against the wall.

  ‘Am I talking to two deaf people?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you okay? Or has prison made you delirious not to know that I’m your mother?!’ Maami said, glowering at him. Prof listened to his mother’s sniffling. He wondered how she could cry with the smell of undispersed dust in the room.

  He snuffled. He looked towards the window and noticed the grey colour that settled over everything.

  ‘You want me to leave your house? You! You! Se o mo nkan ti o’n so sa? Do you know what you’re saying? Do you? I’m sure it is this accursed house. I should have taken you to my house from the prison. Kayo and I should not have taken charge of this house. We should have allowed the government to take it. This place is evil,’ she said, finally letting out a small sob.

  Prof moved closer to his mother. He nudged her on the shoulder, clasped his fingers around hers and compelled her to walk with him towards the door, ‘You really should go now, go home,’ he whispered, unlocking his hands from hers. He tightened his fist as tears stung his eyes and he struggled not to let them fall down his cheeks. ‘Maami. Please. Go.’

  ‘Let me help you. I’m your mother. I will help you. I don’t know what they did to you there, but you can be sure the reason I didn’t die was to take care of you. Don’t you understand? I prayed, I fasted, and God made sure I am alive to see you again.’ She cupped his face with her hands even as he tried to resist, ‘My son, please don’t send me away.’

  The corner of his lips pulled down, and he bit his tongue until he tasted blood. A sob stuck in his throat when he tried to respond. Unable to take his silence, his mother howled, ‘Eni!’ her voice beating as her body vibrated with the velocity of the words unfurling from her lips in the company of sobs that rose with each syllable of disbelief. ‘Eniolorunda Durotimi Akanni, whatever you are, you are still my son. They may call you Professor. They may call you activity—or is it activist?—these breasts fed you!’ she said, grabbing her breasts with her hands.

  Long seconds of silence followed between them, before she repeated, ‘You’re my son, you will not send me out of your house. Do you know what this means? To send me out of the same house where my things were flung from the window? Do you know? Do you know this is an abomination happening two times?’ She spoke with as much energy as her choked voice could allow.

  Prof could hear all the things she did not say. He heard the groans from carrying heavy baskets of cocoa from the farm to the market so that she could pay his school fees, while she saved up for her typing and adult education classes. It stirred up the loud wails reaching his prison cells any time she came to agitate for his release. It was also the wail of the late nights of his younger years when he listened as she returned from work as a farmhand because her petty trading was never enough for his school fees. He winced at each thought, yet he resisted putting the lights on or asking her to stay. This house was not the place for her. It was the place for him, and this was not the time for explanations. It was time to make a decision—an immediate one. She had to leave.

  Among these preoccupations, he heard Kayo placating him with words. He was not attentive enough to know what his exact words were at first, until he turned to him.

  ‘Please, let us stay. Ma binu. If I have offended you in any way, forgive me, please. Forgive me for bribing the warders. I know you don’t like things like that.’

  ‘I just want to be on my own for now.’

  ‘You have been through a lot, so you don’t know what you’re doing. Maami and I can help you. Let us.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, right?’ Prof shook his head, suspired and turned to his mother, ‘Maami, go home.’ He was tired and needed to sit on the floor without being told to do so, to sleep on a bed, to put out the lights and put them on again at his own discretion, if he ever wanted to do so. He knew there was a weariness in him, but he could not tell where it came from. He was tired of his mother and Kayo’s presence, and all he could say when he felt he had as much strength as he needed was, ‘Please, please go.’ Prof fell to the ground weeping.

  Maami and Kayo rushed towards him. He didn’t know which of them placed a hand on his shoulder, but it made him snap. And with his body vibrating he screamed, ‘Go! Go! Go! Just go!’

  ‘Stop! Stop! Stop this!’ his mother yelled back before she lowered her voice. ‘Eni, my son, no, no, don’t—’ She stopped suddenly, and the silence that followed showed that there was a lot unsaid between them. Prof stepped aside as his mother and Kayo walked ahead of him, taking slow steps towards the open door. With them, they carried the words they wished to say.

  When they hesitated by the door, he said, ‘E se, thanks. Thank you.’ And like he needed to assure them that this was not a total disconnect, he asked, ‘Will you bring provisions for me? Every two weeks? I will appreciate that a lot. You may leave it by the door when you bring it. Thank you.’

  ‘I have an extra key. I can always drop the food in the house anytime,’ his mother said in a defeated voice that still held some pride. It was a small way of emphasising that she could have her way if she wanted.

  Prof did not respond. Maami understood the silence. Her tone changed to one of resolve and she said, ‘There’s a GSM phone on the table, in case you need to reach me. If you need anything, let me know, okay? There’s a young girl selling wosiwosi downstairs. You can send her to me, she knows how to get me. So gbo?’

  Kayo lingered for a while at the door and he failed to surrender his hold on the door midway. The silence between them matured into grief as the distant noise of traffic filtered in. The smell of akara wafted in, but it did nothing to affect the tension in the room. Kayo finally let the door go, slamming it shut, and the lock’s tumbler fastened after them. Prof rested against the wood, which vibrated for a long moment as his mother banged on the door, each strike resonating in his body.

  ‘Eni. Ha! O ma ga o. If this is fair, it’s okay. But you must know that this is too heavy a load for me. I waited for your return and cried to sleep every night. But God knows best. Just seeing you alive from prison is succour,’ his mother said in a cracked voice.

  Prof placed his head against the door and listened to his mother sing his paternal oriki, each line punctuated by a pause. Apa’n jara omo olokun esin, omo a boba jokuso, abo ba jaro, omo yokoto yokoto nikun ajifa, igba te ji fa, emi le ni ikun la si, ara agba sin, abikuko bi eni rebi, omo poranganda, poranganda ti n koni le yin okan…

  He remembered how these words placated him as a child.

  They were the same words he repeated to himself, as an adult, when he felt like he was disappearing from his skin; with a cannibalistic void taking the place where he should be. He would be there, but suddenly feel absent and inexistent. These words reminded him of who he was and where he was from, the things that he thought were expected of him.

  His mother stopped singing his praise song. Prof tried to continue the words, but he could not remember them. And then he tried to translate them into English, to see if it would taint how the words grounded him to his childhood and his mother’s embraces. ‘Apa’n jara, child of the horseman, who holds the king’s rein, the one who is to descend with the king into the dark place, he who delights in the innards of the fortunate. For if you are not fortunate, w
hy do you celebrate a paunch? The child of Agba-sin, who saunters into the afterlife. Child of Poranganda, Poranganda who breaks the front teeth…’ He couldn’t remember the rest of the chant; it felt like another loss and a bigger emptiness ate at him. Prof sank to the ground. He listened to his mother and Kayo’s footsteps until only silence and echoes of their presence remained with him. The sounds that seemed frozen when they had been there now sneaked about the room.

  He heard a scream languishing in the distance, some jolting laughter, a baby’s cry and the buzz of traffic and again, the smell of fried akara. He shut his eyes as he felt his stomach crunching inside, as the pain in his head cascaded to every part of his body. He tightened his fists and then unclasped his hands for the burst of a wail which seemed to diffuse into every part of his shoulder. His whole body shook. Although he did not feel better, he felt like each time a tear stung his eyes, the small parts, the little parts, the fine cracks of his broken heart, mended. He picked up the GSM phone and tried to understand how it worked. After a futile attempt, he realised how much more things had evolved in his absence. He opened his mouth and breathed out, ashamed at himself for his inability to operate the GSM. At his inability to sing his oriki in full.

  5

  At the age of nine, Desire Babangida’s mother started to speak at length with her shadow, but the other children treated Desire as if nothing had changed. They played pranks on her. They joked about the smell of the food wafting from the different houses and how she salivated. They wondered whose mother’s snores kept them awake through the night. They laughed at how their parents, who were also neighbours, fought amongst themselves over the smell of burning firewood which entered their rooms. In the evenings, as the children ran home to their parents, Desire walked towards the side of the road where Iya Mufu sold tuwo to the community in the evenings.