Ties that Gag
Felicia Moh
They survived. Malaria that attacked each person at least once in every three months. They survived. Drinking water from the muddy brown pond which served as the community’s source of water; water that had guinea worm eggs which matured into live worms as they entered the human system. They survived measles, whooping cough, and countless cases of flu brought about by lack of immunization. They survived under-nutrition and a heavily carbohydrate-based diet. Egg was for adults, and any child that was raised eating eggs would steal in the future. They survived. Eating rice and stew only on Sundays. Because Sunday was a special day and they were a Christian family that went to church. After church, Mama would make rice and stew with tripe of cow and hides and skin. As the ‘things’ within the stew were shared according to seniority, you dared not choose out of turn or eat yours immediately. You wore the ‘towel’ on your finger and ran out to show other children the great feast that happened in your home. They survived the chiggers that burrowed into their shoeless feet as they did the ‘five-kilometre’ trek to their school and back every day. As Mama tenderly cut open the affected toe to pick out the flea, she rubbed hot sizzling oil into the wound and put a plaster on it. That foot must be protected from stones and from getting contaminated. Many a child died from tetanus infection. They survived poverty. So how did they not survive running the same prosperous business they had both contributed to nurturing?
They enjoyed the moonlight games and the tropical rains. They would run into the rain naked, glad that they could have a full bath without the hassle of fetching the water. They felt the biting wind and cold of the harmattan season when one would stand for several minutes wishing the cold water could miraculously turn to warm water before using it to bathe. But bath in the cold water, they must. So they began by testing a little with the feet and working up gradually to the head. That is if Kachi or Ogeri didn’t mischievously pour some ice-cold water on them from behind.
Uche and Azu were born eight years apart to Papa and Mama Mkpume. Uche was the older. Between them were two sisters; Kachi and Ogeri. Their parents were subsistence farmers in Amasiri, an Igbo village in Nigeria. Even though there were only four children in a monogamous household, providing for their needs was still tough. Their father, Pa Mkpume, planted yams and rice. Their mother grew cocoa yams, groundnuts, cassava, and vegetables. They depended on the benevolence of the weather. Groundnuts could provide bulk money, but just one incident of flooding, especially when it occurred close to the time of harvest, was enough to wipe out both capital and profit that would have accrued from the farm. They were living from hand to mouth.
The mango season was always a period of relief. The fresh green and yellow mangoes quenched the pangs of hunger. They were ‘stoned’ down or pulled down. Little boys and girls climbed the trees, ignoring ants and bees, as they reached the prized possessions. Up there, you could eat as much as you wanted before throwing some down for the weaklings below.
Maize grew fast and augmented the mangoes. While waiting for the yam to mature. They could be boiled in hot water and eaten with boiled ube. They could be roasted over a wood fire and eaten with roasted ube or coconut. They could be pounded with mortar and pestle and made into a pudding. Or de-husked and cooked soft with vegetables, palm oil, and fresh pepper.
Uche and Azu went to the same primary school. Azu inherited Uche’s teachers.
‘Why are you not like your brother? Uche would never talk to me like that,’ Miss Bernice would complain.
It hurts being a younger sibling. Azu never got new clothes except for Christmas; he inherited Uche’s old clothes. He inherited his rickety bicycle. He inherited his second-hand tattered jeans. He inherited his textbooks. He even inherited his enemies. If Uche fought someone in school and overpowered the person, the victim sought Azu later and retaliated. He was beaten up for fights he never started.
Uche completed primary school and was enrolled in the Community Secondary School. As he became more aware of the financial status of his parents, he set out to help as much as he could. He bought raw cassava and joined his sisters to process it to garri which his mother sold. He picked ‘bush’ mangoes, shelled them, and ended up with measly cups of ogbono for sale. He hired himself out to richer farmers where he helped them to make ridges and earned a daily wage. He set traps that caught game that they sold. He fished in the stream, kept the tiniest of his catch for his family’s use, but sold the bulk. He picked and sold snails. He made vegetable gardens and diligently watered the plants until they were ready for harvest and sale. During the holidays, he worked extra hard to raise the money for his next term’s fees. As a child, he was assuming more and more adult responsibilities. It wasn’t considered child labour, but contributing one’s quota as the oldest son. As he completed secondary school, Azu enrolled in the same school. His placement interview had been surprisingly easy.
‘Your brother, Uche, was a hardworking student. We hope you can do as well as he did,’ the principal told him.
‘I will do even better than Uche,’ Azu promised them. He was admitted into the school.
Uche would have liked to go to the university, but he knew his parents couldn’t afford it. Scholarship opportunities were as rare as comets. He threw himself into supporting his family more. He was doing whatever manual labour he could find. He looked wistfully as his classmates, some of who were no better than him in school, arrived home for the long holidays from their various universities. Some of them were no longer friends with him because they were way out of his league. They dressed smartly and spoke funny accents of English as a fitting tribute to their new status. They wouldn’t be caught dead speaking the vernacular. Even his village sweetheart had no time for him any more once the university boys were around. It hurt, but he understood. Women are pragmatic beings who can see a person with better financial prospects. He let her go with her engineer-in-training admirer. His own time would come, and love and women would all fall into place.
Fortune smiled on him from an unexpected source. Uncle Itiri came from Lagos to the village to look for a sales boy. Uche gladly volunteered. He would serve him for two years after which Itiri would ‘settle’ him: give him capital and start him off. It was all good. He joined him in the sale of second-hand clothing. As a sales boy, he was the first to come to the shop and the last to leave. Sometimes, he would sleep in the shop if Itiri had visitors to host in his one-room apartment which he shared with his wife and three children. He swept the shop and kept the record of sales.
Uche learnt the ropes very quickly. Itiri gave him recommended retail prices for the clothes, so whatever he pitched higher was for him. He was sending money home to support his parents. They had encouraged him to be faithful and truthful. He served Itiri for the two years agreed and he ‘settled’ him with a grant of two hundred thousand Naira to start on his own. Uche rented a one-room in a ‘face-me-I-face-you’ slum part of town. He sent for Ogeri, his younger sister, to join him. She had completed secondary school. She doubled up as a sales girl and housekeeper. They lived frugally.
With time, they moved to a bigger shop and a one-bedroom flat. Azu had completed secondary school and Uche encouraged him to go to the university. He paid for his little brother to get a sound education. He waited until his brother graduated from the university before he got married to Eleje. Like him, Eleje had only the senior secondary certificate. She had a large and kind heart. She was regarded as the second mother to the whole family. Azu joined him in Lagos after graduation. They agreed that instead of looking for a job, he should join Uche in his business.
Azu’s joining the business was like the proverbial Midas’s touch. Due to his level of education, he plugged loopholes that were draining finances and accessed bank loans. The business boomed and profits soared. They were making in one month what Uche and Ogeri were unable to earn in one year. Uche couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw how well they were doing. Finally, he would go to the village and show his classmates that, despite not having a university education, he was also doing well for himself. He bought a better car and changed to more comfortable accommodation. He and his family were still living modestly.
Azu was different from Uche.
He had an elitist taste. He refused to live with his brother in the slum part of town. He wanted a more decent accommodation, especially as they could now afford it. That was just the beginning of their misunderstandings. The younger brother thought the elder was too miserly, while the elder felt his younger brother was too wasteful. They had a misunderstanding too on the type of country home to build: Uche wanted a functional block of flats, but Azu wanted a palatial residence. Uche wanted them to keep building the business to yield more money, but Azu felt that they needed to move in an environment where he felt they could think better and plan better. What Uche considered luxuries were bare necessities to the educated Azu.
Azu had also married a well-educated career lady, Ugonma, and her taste was influencing him. The women sided with their husbands and there was a cold war between the two families. Uche and his wife Eleje were on one side; Azu and Ugonma on the other. They couldn’t see eye to eye. Their parents watched helplessly as the relationship between their two sons soured. They came from the village to reconcile them.
Papa Mkpume brought a pack of brooms. He asked each of them to pick a broomstick and try to break it. Of course, each could do that easily. He now asked each to try to break the bundle of broomsticks. They couldn’t. ‘So you see that when you’re united, nothing can break you,’ he concluded. But money was involved. Loads of it. Uche argued that he made Azu who he was. And he was right. But Azu argued that his skills grew the business to what it had become. And he was right too. Uche felt insulted and disrespected by his younger brother, but the younger brother felt that the elder was out of touch with reality because of his limited education.
Azu and Ugonma wanted their combined assets to be shared. It pained Uche because the business was originally his and he hadn’t wanted his brother to be his competitor. As the brawl intensified, Uche and Eleje finally reconciled themselves to the inevitability of separation. But how could their joint assets be shared without rancour? They needed find a way to share the business and neither would yield to the other. Their parents left without making any headway.
One day, they began their arguments as usual. Hot and unkind words were flying up and down.
‘Who do you imagine that you are? I made you who you are,’ Uche shouted at Azu.
‘You did, but my wisdom made the business what it is,’ Azu replied.
The women and the children were watching helplessly.
‘Please ignore the ingrate,’ Eleje shouted at Uche. This infuriated him the more.
‘I paid for his education! I brought him to join me, and he wants to take MY business from me,’ Uche was shouting.
‘Ignore the semi-literates,’ Ugonma advised her own husband. ‘No wonder Alexander Pope said a little learning is a dangerous thing. They’re envying us because we are more educated than them.’
The comments from their wives were exacerbating an already volatile situation. Until emotions got so high that Uche gave Azu a stinging blow. With bloodshot eyes, Azu picked up a full bottle of beer nearby and hit Uche on the head. Uche fell, hitting the centre table before crashing to the floor. There was blood everywhere. Time stood still. In that split second, Azu realized the horror he had caused. He shouted for help. Neighbours ran in, picked up Uche, and rushed him to the nearest hospital. He was pronounced dead on arrival. Killed by his own blood brother. Azu was picked up by the police. Homicide!
Eleje couldn’t believe the misfortune that had just befallen her family. She was sad and she was angry. So this was the reward that Azu could give the loving brother that went through many privations to bring him up! Why do bad things happen to good people? Why must it be her husband that would die? It took the restraining hands of neighbours to stop her engaging Ugonma in a physical fight too. She was mad with rage. Some passers-by spirited Ugonma to safety. They took Uche’s corpse away and deposited it in the mortuary.
Eleje was mourning for Uche. She went through the entire cycle of shock, anger, and resentment. Between her and Ugonma, a battle line was drawn. She would never forgive and she would never forget. Ugonma’s comment was part of the reason the fight became bloody. She had hit at Uche’s source of inferiority: his limited education. Instead of speaking soothing words that would calm the angry men, Ugonma had caused her husband, who was never given to violent behaviour, to hit his own brother. She knew that she would be interrogated in court. She would tell the court of all her husband’s efforts to help his brother and his family. She would convince them that it was premeditated murder. Ugonma did not deserve to have a husband when she, the longsuffering wife, would be a young widow. They were now sworn enemies. For life. She thought of revenge, but what could she do? Should she kill one of Azu’s two children? If she did, she would go to jail, too. Or should she consult a powerful witch doctor who would do the job silently for her? She often stayed awake all night plotting what the revenge would look like. She wasn’t just sad, but she was very bitter. She wailed at the whole wide world and there was no solution in sight. Her health was deteriorating fast too. She had no reason to live other than to avenge her husband’s death. Whoever caused her this pain deserved to perish with his entire household. Ugonma had visited her, but she refused to respond to her greeting even though that one was weeping profusely.
Then Mama Mkpume visited them in Lagos. She was a fraction of her former size. Seeing the grieving older woman tore at Eleje’s heart. Here was a mother who had lost one son and was on the verge of losing the second. These were her breadwinners too. What would she, Eleje, gain if Azu’s family was also destroyed except adding to the grief of the aged woman? What satisfaction would any form of revenge serve her, if not putting a bigger and deadlier wedge between the two families?
Mama’s arrival tipped the scale. Her resentment of Ugonma began to thaw. She saw that, like her, Ugonma was a victim. Victim of the men’s uncontrollable rage. She softened. Ugonma with a husband in prison wasn’t having it easy. The emotional burden of her husband being the killer of his own brother wasn’t easy. Unfortunately too, people were already bad-mouthing Ugonma as the evil woman who entered the family and destroyed it beyond repair. The stigma was mortifying. If she managed to go out of her house, people pointed at her as the wrecker of her home. After all, were the two brothers not living in peace before she came in as a wife? She would run back, sobbing into her house.
Eleje decided that they would fight this battle together. Papa Mkpume might die of heartbreak and grief, but whatever it cost, they would ensure that Azu didn’t die for as long as possible. Her children must have a living uncle and Ugonma would have a living husband. As these thoughts took hold in her mind, the knot on her chest lightened. She felt better. She extended forgiveness to Azu. He was suffering as much as she, the widow. She could feel the negative energy leaving her heart. She exhaled. And in so doing, released the prisoner, who was herself. Harbouring vengeful feelings was like drinking poison hoping another person would die. As she forgave even Azu, she felt accelerated healing. She could laugh again. She knew he already felt terrible with what he had done. Uche wasn’t coming back. They had only one direction to face: forward.
The legal team was working tirelessly. It was a race against time. They must succeed in converting the case from homicide to manslaughter, since it wasn’t a premeditated killing. Eleje knew that manslaughter meant life imprisonment, but at least, Azu would still be alive. Even if he was behind prison doors, there was the psychological satisfaction that he could still be seen and heard. Her sister-in-law, Ugonma, would still have a husband. Her children would have an uncle and her young nephews and nieces would still have a father. Her aged parents-in-law wouldn’t be deprived of two sons at once. How would Mama Mkpume, who was already hypertensive, cope with the loss of another son? Who knows? Azu might behave so well in prison that a benevolent head of state might grant him pardon.
Ugonma came to see Mama Mkpume at Eleje’s house. She stood hesitantly at the gate, not sure whether Eleje would let her in or not. But the latter called her cheerfully by name and asked her to come in. She let out a loud wail, came inside the sitting room, and fell at Mama Mkpume’s feet. Mama and Eleje joined her. None could console the other. At length, the emotions subsided. Eleje didn’t need to tell her that she was not angry with her any more. She just told her, ‘I prepared some fresh soup for Mama. Please, go to the kitchen and dish for yourself,’ which Ugonma did. Some days later, the three women went to visit Azu in prison. His disheveled appearance showed he wasn’t eating or sleeping well. Mama Mkpume and Ugonma were wailing. Eleje was the one that spoke.
‘I forgive you, Azu. What has happened, has happened. Be strong because we need you alive. We shall hire a good lawyer and while you’re here, I will be bringing you food every day.’
She put her hands around the other two women, led them to her car, and drove home with them. From that day, Ugonma and her children moved over to Eleje’s house and they lived together. Mama Mkpume joined them later after they buried Papa. Three women united in their shared grief. They all survived: the women, the children, and the business.