Life’s bitterness persists, an unrelenting stream of woes akin to a newborn’s initial grasp on a mother’s breast – feeble and uncomprehending. The weight of its despair becomes truly apparent only when you venture into the once bustling Ụmụdi market, tasked with getting the cooking ingredients carefully whispered into your ears by your mother. “Buy a packet of Maggi seasoning, three bulbs of onions, a bounty of catfish, and the modest elegance of periwinkles,” her words lingered, albeit with a painful residue as her hands relinquished their grasp.
In your community, the specters of destitution and famine have taken residence, perched like a vulture upon a camwood tree. The community now embraces these grim companions with a reluctant cordiality. The once-vibrant Ụmụdi market, a hub of bustling commerce, has faded into a shadow of its former self. It evades description, for fear that articulating its decline would magnify its lamentable state.
You navigate the labyrinthine market, sidestepping puddles left by last night’s rain, the same rain that had serenaded your sleep beneath the haven of your bed covers. The pre-dawn hush was heavy, laden with the scent of moistened earth, as the moon retreated, its light borrowed from the sun.
“Mind where you dey go! If my wares fall, you’ll pay,” a vendor chides, rousing you from your reverie.
“Sorry, sorry.” Apologies fly from your lips as you survey the nearly deserted market.
Your journey leads you to the onion lane, a sight you’ve grown accustomed to, yet this time only two sellers grace your vision—your customer excluded. Undeterred, you approach a Hausa vendor, perched upon a large mat adorned with an assortment of onions.
“How much for this?” you gesture toward a cluster of four modest bulbs of onion, their dimensions scarcely surpassing those of limes. The vendor arches an eyebrow, his gaze darting across his array of onions as if the one you’ve indicated eludes his sight. A memory surfaces—your younger brother, Chidiebere, often played this same game when tasked with fetching specific ingredients for your mother’s culinary creations. His eyes would dance above the exact spot she pointed at, a charade that brought amusement to you and vexation to her. He would linger there for so long and your mom had to check whether he was subtracting the meat she intended to use to cook.
“Ebere, What’s holding you?” she would ask, her hands posed akimbo.
“Mum, I can’t see the onions you said I should bring,” he would whine and your mom had to muffle her chuckle, staring at the onions that lay right between them.
“Look at it here before I beat the hell out of you.” she would point but Ebere’s eyes would be wriggling above where your mother’s hand darted until she squatted his head to the exact spot the onions lay.
Much like Chidiebere, the vendor forces your hand: you squat, pointing once more to the elusive bulbs, mirroring your brother’s antics.
“Ah, that one is five hundred nairas,” he finally concedes.
You reel back, as if his words physically push you. Five hundred what, for these diminutive onions? “Isn’t it two hundred naira?” you attempt to negotiate, only to be met with a toothy grin, tarnished by the hue of tobacco-stained teeth—a mirror of the woman at the funeral, her annoyance concealing her smile.
Money slips through hands like water through a sieve, a realization you’ve witnessed before. At the burial, you elbowed your way to the front of the line for refreshments, your urgency akin to others jostling for their share. Fingers brushed against food, others’ as well as yours, and the sensation of salvation mingled with the fervor. When your turn arrived, the distributor bypassed you for a scrawny boy clutching his portion as if it were a lifeline. The boy’s hungry eyes and lips devoured the rice, drenched in red oil, his feeble frame a testament to the cruel sting of scarcity.
You waited but she kept testing your patience as she served others without acknowledging you anymore. “Aunty I dey wait na,” you reminded.
She bared her teeth. “ No be people I dey serve? You too big for this thing oh.” You clenched your fist, your ego crushed. So you left the burial ceremony without informing your mother of your departure. Muttering how biased she was.
“If you no want buy, abeg leave my shop. Na money we dey find for this country,” the hausa man reminds you, swatting off flies. You shake your head, fishing out one thousand naira notes from your pocket and handle it to him. He grabs it and lifts it higher as if it’s a telescope, a fake note.
“I hope to say this money no be canta?” he says and tosses it into his bag.
“Oga, you go give me jara oh. Five hundred naira no be beans.” you jokingly say as he hauls one more into it and stretches the tied onions to you. You take your change and trudge off. You hope the money your mother gave you would sustain all the things she needs for her cooking. Life no balance sha, you think.
*****
Hours earlier, before your mother dispatched you to the market.
You were returning from the football field, when a piercing scream reverberated from your home. Instinct urged you to intervene, but familiarity bred a kind of apathy towards the tumultuous symphony within your household. Your father’s once-commanding voice berated, “You must be mad, Chinelo!”
Does a drunkard discern the boundary between reality and his intoxicated musings? “Why haven’t you cooked since four hours ago?”
Approaching the window, you observed your father’s wrath descending upon your mother, her arms protecting her face from the storm of his blows. His arms, vessels of inebriated strength, struck her with an unholy fury. It was a scene familiar to you, as regular as the rhythm of your heartbeat.
In the corner, your younger brother sobbed, a witness to the macabre theatre of domestic discord. Your father, Amaobi, wielded his anger like a weapon, unleashing its venom on the most inconsequential provocations. His words stumbled out, hindered by the stammer that had long held him captive.
He glared menacingly at her as she whimpered on the floor and then, he stormed off to his room, the echo of his rage trailing in his wake. He had always been a tempest on the precipice of eruption, his ire triggered by trifles. You watched your mother pick herself up from the floor and shuffle to the kitchen, her limbs carrying her weight with an air of resignation. Your brother followed, tears painting his face. But why? You had asked no one in particular severally. Had they spent a happy time together? In a gladsome ecstasy?
Why was she musing all this beating alone, spending her days sobbing in a pathetic depression? You pondered the reasons behind the torment your mother silently endured. What brought them to this point? Were there once moments of joy, now buried beneath the weight of resentment? Why did she bear the brunt of his aggression, spending her days imprisoned in this cycle of melancholy?
Hours later, after your father had departed to engage in his vices, your mother received a call that elicited an ear-piercing scream. The phone call was met with a response that seemed to exude elation, an emotion incongruent with the news she had received. Her body language exuded an almost giddy anticipation as she wiped tears from her eyes, as though she had been praying for this very moment.
“Ọ bụ gịnị? What it’s?”
Your mother sprawled on the floor. “A hit-and-run car ran over your father. He’s dead. ” Her eyes beamed with sunlit happiness, momentary giggling gliding off her lips as she dusted her dress and went inside. You realized in those eyes of hers shone a hunger for normality, for regalement, for comfort and succour. Her body longed for freedom from this den called marriage.
Unbeknownst to you, her hunger for freedom must not be limited to emotional emancipation alone. Aside from that, there was hunger for survival.
