HOME, BITTER HOME

My heart danced as the taxi pulled up before the mud house, which was now sloped to one side. The same house that had haunted me for years and made my mother bipolar.

Suddenly, I wished I hadn't listened to Mama. I sat there in the taxi staring at the house like I had seen my father's ghost.

'Madam! ', my eyes met the taxi driver's on the rearview mirror.

'Sorry ', I alighted, paid him and grabbed my luggage. The taxi drove trailing a plume of red dust.

Quickly, I turned around to leave. I wasn't ready to face them--my paternal grandmother and uncles.

'who is it? ', I heard a wobbly voice behind me and stopped in my tracks. It was her; my nightmare of a grandmother.

'it's me, Omojo', I said in our local dialect facing her.

'Omojo!' she gasped and embraced me.

She hadn't changed at all only her hands were wrinkled. She was still smallish and her stern eyes were still intact. The compound had not changed much. The avocado pear tree was still there in the middle of the compound. I remember sitting there years ago, to cry everyday.

'how is your mother? '. Like she cared.

I nodded with a smile and followed her inside.

She called someone, probably one of my cousins, to get my luggage.

How could I have forgotten what they did to my poor mother, after my father died, nineteen years ago. They took everything he left for us. I watched my mother become emaciated as she completed the traditional mourning rites. I was five years old while Chegbe my younger brother was only a baby. We had travelled from Kaduna; where we lived to the village for my father's burial. He was buried behind his father's house. This same house!

Mama stayed indoors for three months. She only came out at night to ease herself. I watched my grandmother shave her hair and tie a strand of twisted cloth around her head, as she cried. The faded wrapper she wore for a year, remained vivid on my mind. The upper part of her body bare. She used her hands to cover her chest whenever she came out to ease herself, bare feet. She also went around with a stick like an old woman.

How traumatized I was!

She gradually became a stranger; like I never knew her. She didn't speak to Chegbe and I much. One month into mourning, she handed us over to her mother. We stayed at our grandmother's until she completed the rites. I hated her then. Blamed her for her predicament, for not speaking up and confronting them. But I was too young to understand.

My grandmother said it was our tradition and that she would bring a curse upon herself if she didn't perform the rites. I came to know the term 'tradition' at a very young age and detested it and here was I again all in the name of the so-called tradition.

Mama said it was imperative that I informed them about my wedding plans; that they were family and my uncles were supposed to be at my traditional ceremony to receive the kolanut and bride price from my in-laws, according to tradition.

That night, I sat beside my grandmother in her kitchen on a carved stool and watched her blow the firewood to flames with a raffia fan as she told me about the upcoming festival of ancestors and how that she was too broke to get the cock and goat needed for the rituals, to celebrate her deceased parents. I listened keenly, nodding my head like a lizard and rubbing my palms on my jean trousers as I watched my cousins who were sitted in the middle of the compound on the red sand.

They were sharing the bread, Mama had forced me to buy, amongst themselves. Their mothers sat across the kitchen looking at me sternly talking with their voices lowered. I knew they we talking about me.

I felt proud because I made the children smile and was jealous of them at the same time; seeing them that happy made me wish I was that excited when I was their age and experience the soothing feeling of being home.

To me, this house was hell. Despite the fact that those who made it hell were now acting like angels.

'ah your uncles are here', my grandmother announced.

I knelt down to greet them; my father's younger brothers. One of them tapped me on the back with the same hands he had used to slap my mother for talking back at him years ago. The same hands he used to covet my father's property. They were both reeking of local alcohol, made from fermented millet wine. We exchanged pleasantries then I went back to join my grandmother who was now roasting fish.

'how is Chegbe? ' she asked

'he is fine', I didn't tell her he had just gained admission into the University. She would have prolonged the discussion, which I was trying to avoid.

'You children just abandoned me for years...not even a phone call ', she lamented and ate a pinch of the fish.

'No', I muttered.

'You should come home often, to your roots. This is your real home'. An owl howled pass the the roof of the kitchen. She cursed at it as she chewed.

'Home? I hate this place', I blurted. She wasn't shocked at all. She merely showed her kolanut-stained teeth.

'what has your mother been telling you? ',she asked. They always had a way of singling my mother out as the bad egg.

'She made me come here', I defended her. I wished I could have done that nineteen years ago.

I wanted to ask my grandmother what they had done with my father's insurance , his black Honda car, his clothes and how they were able to sleep fine all those years without my mother's wails haunting them. But Mama had given me a serious warning and had made me swear on my father's grave, that I wouldn't.

I was eager for morning to come so I could leave. I knew if I stayed another twelve hours, I 'd be forced to say words I shouldn't and might even end up fighting someone; I would have started off by plucking the eyes of those gossips looking at me from across the compound. I would go to my maternal home, relay my message and be on my way.

'what are you still doing there. Aren't You going to serve your husbands dinner?' my grandmother said to her nosy daughters-in-law angrily.

They all went their way each to her kitchen.

'Omojo, You should eat too'.

'I'm not hungry'.

'You haven't eaten since you arrived this afternoon'.

'I have some bread and butter in my bag. I will eat that'.

she looked dissapointed, 'at least take one fish'.

I picked one and wrapped it in a banana leaf.

She smiled.

Immediately, piercing images flashed through my mind. I recalled Mama's sleepless nights after we returned to Kaduna. The experience she had at the village made her depressed and she began to act strange. I stayed up numerous nights to calm her down, for two years, all by myself. I fed her, washed her and braided her hair in a dishevelled manner, while she sat there unconsciously like a vegetable. Mama might have forgiven them but I would never forget. I'd rather call a mental asylum home than this so-called place.

'ati Omojo', one of the children approached, 'Baba is calling you'.

I rose up. Finally! I would state my mission and leave and breathe freely again.

'Omojo, are you sure you don't want to eat? No wonder you're so lean', I heard my grandmother say.

I pretended not to hear and slide the fish into the little boy's hand. He ran off, leaping for joy, to tell the others.

I was welcomed by my uncles' voices immediately I stepped into the stuffy and musty room. The eldest was sitting on a rocking chair; which my father had bought for their late father when he was still alive.

'Welcome back home!' They burst into laughter. They were drunk.

I forced a smile...