Imelda

My name is Imelda Azubike. I am the only surviving child of this family, conscious enough to tell our story.

Growing up my mum used to tell us a joke; said the first time I dropped into this world, my crying took the shape of “why?” In my family, we are blessed with early speech: if you do not testify, “I hate this life, I hate my life” you do not originate from the Azubike family. I spoke on the seventh month after my birth, started walking too.

Being a child brought up in the ghetto was fun, having neighbors you could peep at but forbidden to reach. At the time, it seemed absolutely amazing, the splendor of being barricaded whilst growing up in an ‘ok’ place in Mushin, Lagos. Call me Imelda the groomed hoodlum, Imelda the hustler.

That’s the same thing my father said whilst battering my mother to sleep, every night, and on a good day, during noon. He was grooming her to not laugh on the phone for too long, to be devoted to him by keeping her out of reach from her family members… He was grooming me to watch: to die, quietly, patiently, with fear and trembling. The ideal virtuous Eastern Nigeria woman.

I am the second child of my family, I had an elder brother, and a beautiful younger sister. Until I was 5, my brother and I were inseparable, we were the only company we had, so he did his best to make me smile, he was 9. At age 10 my father called him into the spare parts business, every Friday after school till Sunday. Were it not for the fear of what people would say, he would have stripped him of formal education on his tenth birthday. Every blue moon, he would tell us the story of how he marched into the real world as an apprentice at the age of six, got his first 10 thousand naira before he was twenty. “No food for lazy man” he’d say. That was his plan for Udoka.

Udoka and I barely saw eye to eye anymore, he was being built into the ideal man, the Obi of this clan, after our father. Every first son is cursed to take after his father except he flees. So at the age of 12, Udoka ran. It was a beautiful Friday night, and Udoka had just had supper. He left his plates on the stool in the parlor, created enough space for his feet to lord over it whilst he picked okporoko in between his teeth. 

My mother, after observing this for a few minutes, walked up to him and ordered him to clear the stool and wash his plates, then left. However, she came back twice to Udoka in the same position. Infuriated, as she walked towards him, as if to smack senses into his head, he caught a grip of her hand, stood up, almost the same height as her and said "What are you and your daughter here for, if not to serve the men in this house? I will not do what you and your daughter are built for!” My mother in utter shock, collapsed on the floor with a scream almost rabid, “Ewo! Udoka egbwolemo! He has won! Your father has taken you away from me, he has killed me! He has killed my son!” 

Realizing what he had done, Udoka stood frozen. Her screams cut through him like bread knife through butter: when we were younger, my mother used to make him pray never to turn out like our father and for me, never to meet a man like him. But now he'd begun walking in our father's footprints. He watched her roll at his feet while she called out to me never to abandon her like he was doing.

The next morning, I woke up to a piece of paper in my hand “I will come back for you and mummy. Take care of mummy" My mother searched the heavens and the earth for Udoka, while my father went about telling his brothers in the spare parts business that my mother is a witch and she had eaten the only good thing that came out of her. 

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2010, my mother took in, this one was to be compensation for Udoka. In the first 5 months of her pregnancy, she had to still be very much involved in the tediousness of the spare parts business. They got an 11-year-old girl take care of an 8-year-old me. The house girl was to take me to school, bring me back, feed me, and to make sure that I stayed out of trouble. 11, she was put in school, a government school, she made friends, and sometimes they’d accompany her to pick me up from school. Sometimes early, sometimes not. On days when they’d be early, she’d have them stay over at my parent’s house, they’d talk and jest, until it was time to leave, till then, I was absolutely neglected. One sunny afternoon, I remember walking out of the house while she and her friends were engulfed in gist, I went to sit by the gutter, awaiting my mother’s arrival. After a long wait, I fell asleep. I eventually found out that our next door neighbor saw me sleeping by the gutter, picked me up, placed me in his 10-year-old daughter’s bed and kept me there until my mother returned from the market. My mother made sure to flog the evil spirits out of our house girl, that day. From then on, she told her to always drop me off at the neighbor’s place anytime she picks me up from school. I’d be safer with them, she thought. 

I made friends with the neighbor’s 10-year-old, Chiamaka. It was nice to be friends with someone other than myself and the inanimate objects in my father’s house. We became best friends, she was like the big sister I never had. I wanted to make cool friends like she had, wanted to become a prefect when I graduated into primary six. She was so kind and nice to me, made sure to buy me lots of junks on her way back from school. She had two elder sisters, who were barely around anymore. They had had to go stay with one of their paternal uncles to further their secondary education. She told me of how they were the ones who taught her the tradition of junk buying every time they came to visit. She had learnt from them, the need to always look after a younger one.

We had a special place in their house, Chiamaka and I, behind the parlor curtain. Whenever we played hide and seek, we somehow always ended up there: our secret place, whether I got caught or she did, she would always hold me down by the wall. She liked playing with my neck. I would laugh hysterically, at the feel of her lips on my neck, she was very good at tickling. As the days grew by, she started to visit my panties often. Said as a growing girl, I would need to be more conscious of my private part, so she helped me clean up, every time I got back from school. Panties down, bowl of water below, her hands in the water, back on my private part. She would clean and clean, till I got tired. Two days after, she said to me “Because I have been helping you clean up before you go to your house, I have not been able to clean my own private part. When I am helping you clean your own, you should help me clean mine too” So, that day, I learnt how to clean up for her. Her expression was always different from mine, she seemed more relaxed and pleasured.

The month my mother went into Labor, I was at our neighbor’s place for days. The neighbor told me they had to slice open her stomach. During this period, Chiamaka's elder sisters returned. They were on school break. While I was happy to see them, Chiamaka wasn't. She'd become more grumpy. I remember walking into their parlor one evening yelling in my naivety, “Chiamaka! It’s time for clean up o!” Her elder sisters laughing it off gestured at me to come over, whereas Chiamaka in anger, walked in, and put a halt to my footsteps by slapping me right across the cheeks. I had never seen her so angry, her sisters too. When queried for her actions, she said I had no right to scream her name in the manner in which I did. Clean up mostly happened at night now, we all slept in the same room but Chiamaka had a way around these things.

Three weeks went by and my mother finally returned, with my new sister in her hands. I was so happy that I had another sibling. Unlike Udoka, she seemed too tiny to leave me behind. I carried her most times, so I barely saw Chiamaka anymore. 

Despite being quite weak my mother still managed to cook, wash my father's clothes, breastfeed the baby, eat, sleep and receive his punches any day she did any less. “You gave me another useless thing, after eating the only reasonable one and you want to rest?” He’d say.

**   **   **   **   **   **

I saw my mother bleed out twice, after the birth of my sister, Eberechi, (who my mother believed was an evidence of God’s mercy over her life, after Udoka left us).

Three years later, I became a sales girl for one of my mother’s friends, Aunty Bunmi. My father had stopped paying my school fees, said I was another man’s property, he had done more than any man could do, training a useless female child up to primary six. My mother told her she didn’t want me to end up useless, so she wanted me to work in a good place, without my Father’s knowledge. Aunty Bunmi, who owned a very big boutique, offered to help. We had lots of customers, and I was their favourite attendant, partly because I graduated primary six in flying colors, and thus, could understand when they spoke English to me. Sometimes, I do my best to go past my 11-year-old knowledge of the use of spoken English by imitating some of them. 

Aunty Bunmi paid me 15 thousand every month, of which I saved 14000 in a bank account my mother helped open. The remaining one thousand naira was for sweet, chewing gum, and bike transportation. My work schedule was 9 till 3, so I could go pick Eberechi from school, cook and clean the house as though I had been indoors all day. 

One Saturday morning, I overheard my mother telling my father that she was too ill to go to the market, he had refused to give her money to go to the chemist the day before and her health had worsened. She couldn’t get herself off the bed. I remember hearing my father laugh hysterically while saying “You think I’ll be the only one working to train and feed your useless children okwaya?” He then pushed her off the bed, jumped atop her and started to pounce. I stormed into the room, trying to get him off her, to no avail, so I wrapped my upper body around her head so he’d hit me instead. After what seemed like minutes of his punches smothering my back, I felt a little covering at my back. Eberechi had come to play, she received the last blow. As what felt like saliva trickled down my back, I heard my father scream! Eberchi was not moving, I called out to her but she did not respond. I carefully stood up and got her in front of me, her eyes open, mouth agape but she was unmoving. I screamed!

My father ran out of the house, while my mother still lay unconscious. I ran to aunty Bunmi’s shop bare feet with Eberechi in my hands. Swiftly, Aunty Bunmi drove back to our house with a group of boys, got my mother into the car and took us to a hospital. My mother and Eberechi were unconscious for weeks. With my savings, extra work at the boutique, and a few side jobs after 3 O'clock, I took care of the hospital bills. I spent my nights in the shop since there was no home to return to. 

As weeks went by, and my mum and little sister became more conscious, I needed to find a place for us to live. I didn’t want to have to go back to that man, my mother’s husband. I got a job as a house help, I told them I had a family, and told them my mum would fill in for me during my absence as a result of having other side jobs. They were kind enough to give me a room at the back of their compound. When my mother was discharged, I brought her to our new home. Eberechi too. 

**   **   **   **   **   **

It’s been six years since my father beat my mother and sister into a coma. I wonder if he ever thinks of us, if he ever searched. I am now a renowned house help, got signed into an agency. I only get big offers now. Aunty Bunmi got me signed up. My family and I now have the luxury of changing environment every six years. My present housekeeping job comes with a boy's quarters in my boss’s compound. Though I no longer work for aunty Bunmi, I hear her chatter with my mother over the phone, once in a while. Eberechi is 9 years old now, home schooled. The main objective of the lessons are to get her to speak properly and on days when she can’t, write. Upon her discharge from the hospital 6 years ago, the Doctors had warned that the blow and shock might cause her to remain 3 years old, mentally, forever.

My name is Imelda Azubike. I am the only surviving child of this family, conscious enough to tell our story.