THE GRAPH

We called Nabem Mister Eyes, because we said he had the largest eyes on earth. He often went livid whenever we did. We were always alert for when he’d hit out, and we darted away. We were coming up with funny degrees of the joke, so much that Nabem couldn't often help laughing, until it didn't really upset him any more.  We laughed when he wore glasses… we said thirty percent of his eyes remained uncovered underneath the rim of the glasses, and another thirty percent above the rim.

When he stared at the beginning pages of a book, we said it only seemed he was reading from those pages, that the actuality was… he was reading the end pages… That his gaze needed cushioning, so that to read from page two hundred, he needed to be looking at page one.

We said because of his eyes, that Nabem could see the future; and so we asked him to give us clues on what lay in our exam question papers… Exams that were months away. Of course it was all a joke. But when Nabem got an A in Geography in our Senior School Certificate Exam, I thought we might have been right all along.

                It was the view from the window of the room that would be mom's that brought all this…’Nabemic’… thoughts upon me. I was resting from all the work I’d done. Dad’s repeated coughs from the kitchen invaded my reverie. Him coughing wasn't new, but it was growing in intensity these days. What retirement opens you up to…

                   That anything took shape that Sunday afternoon was really because of Chaz and I, not really Dad. The three of us had come to clean up our new home and make it ready for the arrival of the family. A fine, humane apartment in the quieter parts of the city… still green, and still with distant views unhindered by high rise buildings, electric poles, billboards, masts, and all whatnots. Mom and my elder brothers had insisted on the idea of moving here, discouraging Dad from retiring to the village… where old men distractedly anticipated death. We were moving for the first time in twenty years. Back then, we operated at Dad’s pace; and that meant having to jog behind him at times, and getting run over when we stood morosely in his way. Dad was fast, business-minded, and energetic. Twenty years changes everyone… moves everyone along the graph of life. It had set us well along the path to the tip, but Dad had made the bend. Law of diminishing whatever!

                Chaz and I rushed to the kitchen. He wouldn't admit he needed help. Typical! But we tried to see what we could do anyway. Now I wondered afresh if this was nothing but senility… because of what the issue was. I hadn't quite come to know what he suffered from, but he took drugs all the time. His breathing had been laborious for weeks. I noticed every time I stood close to him, but I never knew the right question to ask.

                Twenty years ago it’d be us worrying to call it a day and go home. Today it was Dad said we’d covered reasonable grounds, we should go. We didn't leave the old place until eight days, so he said we could still make some comebacks before D-day.

                In the car as I drove us home, my mind ran around the spectre of what was to come….

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I'm just discovering that Obinna smokes, but I'm not surprised. To be frank, it discomforted me only a little, given that Chaz, my younger brother, was there. My buddy smoking would definitely paint me in bad light. He tried to be reasonable, though. As if he knew how I felt, he dropped behind to light up. The three of us were walking to the house. It was night already. It easily was here. Electricity hadn't made a full entrance so, once the clock hit eight, a black sky blanketed the world completely. My people say, “It is God that drives away flees from the body of a tailless cow.” And also, “If God would let a rash afflict you, He will give you the fingers with which to scratch”… Here now, the moon was always at its best. Or… maybe not always. But we never saw the moon in the city. If ever we did, we never appreciated it like this. Here we were closer to nature. The sounds from chirping insects were amplified by the green solitude of my native land. Children skittered here and there, playing under the moonlight.

Chaz and I were talking as we strolled… about Pa Onunze and his constant naggings. Funny was the way he gesticulated when he talked. He narrated even trivial stories with the kind of seriousness one would attach to weighty matters such as death. He cast his gaze into the distance, raised his hands and pointed into the air… The pitch of his voice rose unexpectedly. He could be speaking in a very low tone for a time, then, all of a sudden… “AND I STOOD UP AND COLLECTED THE HOE FROM HIM!!!” If you were meeting him for the first time, such burst of adrenaline could scare the crap outta you. Those of us who knew him well, battled with control over rising mirth the whole time. The funniest thing was that, he never seemed to notice that he was being funny. Even when we laughed, he never seemed to know… he simply continued his story, snuff in hand – usually. After visiting with him, we finally gave vent to all our suppressed laughs while discussing the time with him. He was one of our uncles… that was all we knew. How he came to be, we knew not. Nor did we know how Pa Ogbonna was our uncle either. But we were really close to him… enough for me of all people to be pulled to the village to attend his funeral. I had jokingly invited Obinna to accompany me, and he appeared all too willing to do just that.

                From the corner of my eye I could see the red glow of his cigarette, and the scattered smoke he puffed. I wished Chaz wouldn’t see him, but I might have been wishing in vain.

                Amongst the people who have been friends with me over the years, I have found hardly anyone who shares even a tenth of my idiosyncrasies. Not that I know precisely what they are; but I believe I’ll know the moment I spot someone who looks anything like me. Here was Obinna, my friend… he was nothing like me. Now he was disgracing me by smoking in public as if his life depended on it – and in the presence of my “good boy” younger brother. I felt it’d be pretentious of me if I rebuked him now, so I let things lie. After all, I thought, in two days the funeral would be done and over with and we would all be out of here.

The shrill chirps of insects in the glowing night were all over the place. I liken it to something I've heard before: …the stillness of a spinning top; this was the silence of constant noise. What we call silent night isn't really silent. No minute; no second of this life can ever be completely silent. There’s always noise – no matter how faint. But the village was a quiet place… in ways that the city wasn't. Here’s the real pace of man – the ideal pace. Slow. People run up and down in the city; and when they run out of life, this is where they bring them to – the village. Some return before it’s over, to die on their own terms – at their own pace. That was it for Pa Ogbonna. I've never imagined he lived anywhere else but this village. These were the ones who, though the war was lost, never accepted that lopsided reconciliation. They say, ‘he who conforms against his will, is of his opinion still’. We’d arrived the earth to meet him an already ageing man. Wrinkled face with dark blotches… made us think he was angry always. Moreso, when we were up to our little pranks and he yelled, we fled as if we were being chased by an evil spirit. When the whole talk about witches and wizards arose, he was my model of a wizard. He didn't talk much, just sat in his easy chair in his front yard with his hand fan. Never did I see him on a shirt or a trouser; it was always yards of cloth thrown around the body… and his red cap. When he walked he always had his staff, and his hand fan… his chewing stick in his mouth. His movement was slow, his figure bent… and then I thought he was going for a meeting of the witches and wizards.

All this was about fifteen years ago. Now, my own dad has aged, and I've realized that men wrinkle as they age. So Pa Ogbonna was in order… and he was probably not a wizard nor an evil man at all. His son did a stint with us in the city… but things weren't looking up, so he changed base. He was still changing bases when his father died. And when we all converged for the funeral, his father’s house looked neglected. It was his responsibility to fix it, but he hadn't the means to do so.

I took a cursory look at my home town the whole time. In the city we drove cars, saw movies, hung out with pretty ladies, spoke fine English, went to the gym, had contemporary music, met with celebrities, married, had children, travelled the world… All these, I thought, aren't they enticing to these guys? Why would there be life at all in the village! How could anyone want to stay here! These people were not expecting NEPA – even if in days – NEPA had never been here. Little generators were huge luxuries, and only the ‘elites’ owned them. The rest of the people didn't envy, they didn't really want a small machine that pollutes the entire neighbourhood just because it emits light… light that their local lamps could give without any noise at all.

                People woke up in the mornings according to the promise the day at the farm held. If there was enormous work, then rising was early – to be almost through before the sun made a full assent in the sky. If the day held nothing but weeding and light works, people took their time. But farming was a daily program – there was always something to do there. When families came back, the men had their easy chairs set for them, and their wives who had just returned from the farms too served their food. After that, they picked up gourds and went to the stream for water. And they did all this with a sense of joy and responsibility. Nowhere on earth are women more dutiful than in my hometown. When a man came to marry you, his wealth was measured by what cash crops his family owned. It didn't mean you refused if they had none, it meant you were blessed if they had any. But this blessing was sort of a curse in disguise. All the fruits from the trees would be processed by you, taken to the market by you, sold for a pittance, and you remitted the money to your husband – all with a sense of joy. Then you were applauded as a dutiful wife, and that increased the good reputation of your maiden family. Your sisters would get husbands too… your daughters, their daughters…

                I imagined modern girls in the city succumbing to this kind of arrangement. I often found myself laughing. I thought about how hard and how inhuman some cultures are… and how they have given rise to laziness and a misplacement of values in excuse. Yes, the world has turned its back on such arrangements now but, I thought, aren't we better off with this than with what we have now? Now that all most women care about is how to paint their nails and fix weave-ons that touch their hips? My friend Obinna was another good case in point… he had no values. When we arrived my village everything sucked. I kept nagging; and because I nagged, he did too. I thought it was wrong for him to. Even if I spited my town, I felt he needn't do it with me. I even felt he had to placate me… ask me to take it easy, that it was how villages were worldwide. But no, he nagged along… making me feel guilty for bringing him. Now I was changing and he had no idea. He still came and complained to me about how the women slaved for the men. Did he know I now saw that as duty? He still complained we were so backward we had no electricity. Did he know we didn't give a damn about the whole fuss? He still complained about there being no network. Did he know this was now my cherished retreat?

On the morning we were to leave for the city, Obinna’s hushed up readiness wasn't in tandem with the way I calmly put my things together. In the car his gaze was on the road, and how long it would take to get to Abuja.

My gaze was behind, and I was slowly closing the chapter: if the chaos of the city doesn't take my life, I shall return here upon retirement… to sit in my front yard whenever I feel like, with yards of cloth to cover my body. I shall have packs and packs of chewing sticks. I shall have a staff and a fan. I may or may not be a chief – doesn't really matter. I shall make haste slowly. If children come around me, I shall try to smile, so they don’t get scared… But I am silently aware of the further grotesqueness a smiling wrinkled face would assume. So I realize I may not really be able to keep them from running; so I guess that’s it. When I retire I’ll be back here… to enjoy the calm, the peace, the proximity to nature, and die at my own pace.

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When we got home that Sunday evening, Mom heard of how our day went, and what had led to the intense bouts of coughing. From that grey tale, she stringed a robust joke that relaxed my evening a great deal. I guess the best jokes are the ones conjured from very tense and annoying moments and stories. Perhaps that’s why comedians always cut their teeth on political satires.

When Mom turned a matter for which she ought to have been sympathetic into one for which she was amused, Dad didn't find it funny. But the serious look on his face buoyed Mom and, before long, we were all reeling in bouts of preposterous mirth, and she fanned the fire of our mirth with gasps of more and more gibberish. Nor could Dad help it.

                Mom was truly the lubricant of the family as, amidst the gloom posed by Dad’s retirement, our having to pull up stakes, Dad’s health, and the future, she could still make us laugh and love and live.

The jovial ambience lingered through dinner. Next up was the family’s night prayers. After that, we said our goodnights and shared hugs. And then in sleep we awaited the future with the same cheerful disposition that has brought us thus far.

We believe in God.

Copyright (c) 2013.

The First Round: Ef. Nnamdi, George Uzoma, Jude Nnadozie