TALES BY MOONLIGHT

The smell of ìyá’s cooking wakes me from my sleep.

Jollof rice.

The chicken broth, Maggi seasoning, and tin tomatoes make my mouth water and my stomach immediately grumbles, speaking for us both. I hurry for the bathroom before any of my siblings get there and decide to spend forever.

The door to the girls’ room opens and Tinuke comes out of it, scratching her eyes so much I’m almost certain her sight blurred. We lock eyes and I watch as realization settles on her face. Before I can react, she runs to the bathroom door and locks it behind her. I bang on the door repeatedly.

“Tinuke, you know this isn’t fair, I woke up first”

“First come, first serve”

“But I came out before you”

“Wo Bayo leave me alone. It’s your fault for not thinking fast” our exchange wakes the rest of our siblings up. Deji, Yinka, Sade and Funke. They stand on the corridor, yawning and stretching- not quite awake.

“Ah, kílònsèle? Food is ready,” ìyá calls out from the kitchen.

“It’s Tinuke, oh! She has been in the bathroom for over an hour.” says Deji, who has been awake only five minutes.

“Hm ogá o”

“Deji!!!”

“Over an hour, ke”

Everyone cries out in response to Deji’s comment. Even Tinuke, the subject of his exaggeration, joins from the bathroom.

“Suuru logba Deji. The gluttonous dog that wants the fattest bone understands this concept”

Times like this make me think back to when things were different when there were no friendly arguments over who gets to use the bathroom first, when there was no Ìyá, when it was just Funke, bààmí, mààmi and I, in our two-bedroom house, a 15 minutes walking distance from here.

Bààmí, our father, was a soldier. A very dedicated one, so dedicated that when the war between our village and the neighboring ones broke out, he told us cowering wasn’t an option. Even though they were outnumbered, he said he would still go to the frontline to fight for his hometown.

When we woke up the next morning, he was gone. Mààmí told us he had to leave before first light.

“Don’t make things harder for me by crying these crocodile tears. You should be grateful for the father you have.” She blared. “Now go and pray to Olódùmarè to watch and protect him”.

Five moons later, two men showed up to our house with a black polythene bag that contained Bààmí’s uniform and shoes. They told us he died fighting for our great town, that he was a real man and that it was now up to me to walk in his footsteps and take care of Funke and our mother.

Mààmí got hysterical and no one could get her to calm down. It was like that for an entire week. Tinuke and I would stand in the corner of the living room while different people, family and strangers alike came and went, expressing their condolences. Some would cry with her, fall to the ground and roll all over our raffia mats? some would tell us to get them a glass of omi tutu or a plate of rice like our house was a bukka while others gave us 100 naira each to buy biscuits and sweets for ourselves which was quite nice considering biscuits cost 10 naira and sweets were 3 for 5 naira. They were the only ones I gave ‘omi tutu’ without saliva to.

Every day, while standing in that little corner of the room, listening to our mother cry tirelessly, I’d count the holes in the wall, trying to pass time. They were twenty. Three big ones bààmí refused to fill with cement. He said the house would reek of the trapped rat’s carcass. Eight medium-sized ones, big enough to stick a pinky in, and nine small ones.

One evening, mààmí told us she wanted to get what her sister, Aunty Tolani, brought back for her from her journey to Ògbòmoshó. That was the last we saw of her.

Suicide.

We held no funeral service for our parents, their graves were dug and their coffins were lowered into it. When I asked Aunty Tolani why, she said it was an abomination for people to die so early in their lives. My parents, 38 and 31, were believed in our culture to have lived extremely short and meaningless lives.

“It’s a tragedy,” she said “abi? A kin se be”

We don’t do that.

On the night our parents were buried, Aunty Tolani took us to ìyá’s house, the woman who would become our new caregiver. She said she had heard Ìyá took in kids who were orphaned by the war and cared for them.

The entire walk there, Aunty Tolani wouldn’t stop complaining about one thing or the other.

“Why are you not talking? Don’t do this nonsense there, oo”

“You’re not even grateful at all. Here I am looking for who will take pity on you and look after both of you. Don’t you know I’m supposed to be selling my new goods in ilé-Ìfe”

“If your mother didn’t act so foolishly, none of us would be here. Not so?”

She held on tightly to our hands the entire walk there like we’d snatch them and run away.

“Èkaalè ma” we chorused. I prostrated like I was about to become one with the ground while Tolani knelt on both knees and crossed her arms behind her back. From the corner of my eye, I saw Aunty Tolani’s lips curve into a half smile. We both had done as she ordered.

Ìyá has a habit of telling us stories of ìjàpá the cunning tortoise every full moon. She’d place two kerosene lanterns on the concrete floor, their warm glows illuminating the surrounding and we’d form a circle around them. Beneath the lanterns will lay one of the adires she and Sade had spent the previous days making and on our bodies, matching bubas. She’d make more than enough puff puff and Zobo and at the end of the tale, we’d stay still on the àkpótis, rubbing our overfed bellies with smiles of satisfaction on our faces. And on this night, there’s a full moon.

She is running late, so we take turns retelling our favorite tales. Mine is the one of Ìjàpá and his wife, Yanibo, being unable to conceive. After so many futile attempts, the tortoise visited the village babaláwo. As he hoped, the herbalist had a solution to their childlessness. He made a concoction that was made of bush meat and stew. He warned ìjàpá to not have a taste of the concoction no matter what, but the tortoise couldn’t resist the tantalizing smell coming from the calabash. Now tempted, he took a sip and another and another till the bowl was empty. He realized what he has done when his stomach began to grow and ìjàpá, instead of his wife Yanibo, became pregnant. He returned to the herbalist and composed a song to ask for forgiveness and narrate what he had done and it goes…

Babaláwo mo wa bebe…… alugbirin

Ogun to se fun mi le kan….. alugbirin

to ni ki ma mu owo ba enu….. alugbirin

mo fo wo kan mo mu ba enu…. alugbirin

mo je tan, mo wa se kun gben du..alugbirin

Babaláwo mo wa bebe… alugbirin

Herbalist I have come to beg you..

The concoction you made for me..

The one you told me not to put in my mouth..

I touched it and had a taste..

I ate it and my stomach became big..

Herbalist I have come to beg you..

At the end of the day, the herbalist made a new one for Yanibo but refused to give ìjàpá a cure to teach him a lesson.

Ìyá finally comes out and Yinka leans into me “I wonder what story she would tell us this time”. I watch as he plops two balls of puff puff into his mouth.

Ìyá

“Àló ò” I start but then give it a second thought. Perhaps I should tell something other than tales of the cunning tortoise. I know all of their background stories, I think it’s only fair for them to know mine. They all stare at me with excitement and anticipation, like they always do.

“Before I got here, before I met you all, I used to be married to this one chief, Chief Sunkanmi,” I smile remembering that adventurous time of my life.

“Everyone told me I was lucky he chose me as his new bride.” I watch in silence as their eyes widen. Even Yinka peels his eyes from his plate to look at me.

“Some even went as far as saying they envied me. Being a 60-year-old man’s fourth wife was an accomplishment. Sade mouths ‘ah’

Less than a month after he came down to my parent's house to ask for my hand in marriage, he married me. I had no say in this, of course, my parents were desperately in need of grandchildren and the minute a rich man showed interest in their daughter, they jumped at the opportunity.

He drove us to Lagos in his Peugeot 604, which he had told me was the only one of its kind in the country. I remember thinking if it was the only run-down model. The baby blue paint had turned brown from rust, the bumper was nearly holding on for its dear life.

Funke started laughing “Is that not how Baba Carpenter’s car is” and I joined in because it is indeed true.

My co wives didn’t like each other at all, in fact, they had separate flats because they couldn’t stand one another but they soon bonded over their disdain for me- the newest and freshest meat- as our husband would say to boast to his suya and palm wine buddies. They’d fold their arms anytime I went past them, and put their faces up high like they had broken their necks and had neck braces holding them up.

“Why are you here and not there,” Bayo asked

“I ran away”

Adebayo

So many villagers began to appear robbed, dead, or missing. First, it was Baba Kola who returned home from a busy day at work and didn’t meet any of his furniture or clothes, then it was a case of missing school children and the worst of them was the shocking death of the King’s nephew. A rumour that the accomplices were from a neighboring village spread. We now leave the house only when we need to buy foodstuff or Ìyá and Sade have new adires to sell. We’ve stopped telling late night stories, the only thing the lanterns do these days is collect dust. I miss the snacks, the stories, the chilly air and sometimes, Yinka’s habit of finishing his portion before the stories start.

I now spend most days studying the crack in the wall and watching as ants make their way along it, carrying food and kissing one another. Deji and Yinka play ayò every day. I wonder how they haven’t gotten bored with the game or each other. Sade and Ìyá, as always, are busy with their business. Funke sleeps the whole day and only wakes up when it’s time to eat and Tinuke, I actually do not know what she does but I assume it’s eavesdropping since she always has one thing or the other to say about our neighbor’s dilemma during dinner. Just last night, she said our newlywed neighbors, Yewande and Lekan, had an argument over their conjugal duties or the lack thereof. She also said Lekan got so angry he slept in the parlor and not in the bedroom with Yewande but I think this is just Tinuke being Tinuke unless she has not only been eavesdropping but spying too.

Ìyá comes into the bedroom to tell us she is going to the market to buy tomatoes and pepper. Deji and Yinka gave grunted replies, still engrossed in their little game.

“E mà pe” I said

Don’t be long.

Ìyá

Because of the unrest, traders close early, no one wants to fall victim. I hope Bisi is waiting for me like she promised last week. I see her waving from her stall and thank the gods that she hadn’t retired for the day. If I return home without the pepper, we wouldn’t have any stew to eat the rice with. I collect the sack, thank her, and hurry back home before the kids get restless.

Buses are now unavailable, so I have to walk home. At the end of the street, I see a large frame calling out to me. I move closer and see that the face isn’t familiar. I assume he is a traveler trying to pass the night in town. He holds a small Ghana must-go bag in his right hand and the darkness conceals what is in his left.

“Èkaalè” he says and I nod in acknowledgment.

“Are you lost?” he says something but I miss it. I am about to tell him goodnight when I notice a pool of blood on the floor, which I trace to the bag in his hand. I muffle a scream with my hands and start running. The rumors were true. He catches up with me and raises his left hand above my head.

He was holding a knife in his left hand all this while.

Adebayo

It has been a while since ìyá left for the market. She ought to be back by now, but an aroma of food doesn’t fill the air. I head downstairs to see if there is anything I can do to speed dinner preparations, but I see Sade, Tinuke, and even Funke, talking in the kitchen. The stove has not been lit and the pots are empty.

“Ahan! Ìyá isn’t back yet” they shake their heads and I see the worry on their faces. I’m about to tell them everything will be okay, but I’m interrupted by a ruckus that appears to be happening outside our house. We all head out to see people crying and screaming. It isn’t long before Yinka and Deji join us.

“Kílòde”

“Kílònsèle”

We ask, now distraught at the commotion.

“Ìyá ti ku” someone shouts.

Ìyá is dead.

Translations

Ìyá- mother or a mother figure

Kílònsèlė- what’s happening

Mààmí- (My) Mother

Bààmí- (My) father

Olódùmarè- God

Omi tutu- Cold water

Bukka — A local restaurant or bistro

Ògbòmoshó- A city in Oyo state, South-Western Nigeria

Ìlé-ìfe- An ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria

Èkaalè — Good evening

Bùbá- A traditional Yoruba wear

Àkpóti- Wooden stool

Adire- tie-dye cloth

Babaláwo- male herbalist

Ayò- a game originated by the Yoruba community.

Kílòde- What’s wrong