Tella - Episode 2

 

Every morning was the same, a crushing pain just on one side of my head that came and went in a pattern. The events of the previous day didn't help matters too. I couldn't understand what had caused so much noise in the house the previous night, because in a way, I was starting to believe the whole superstitious believe about dead people who came around to disrupt the house in order to get the attention of a living family member who could help them settle an unfinished business and help them get rest was true.

But if it had been my grandfather's spirit, what could it possibly want me to do?

And after I saw those two white orbs, I started to feel some way, somehow, my grandfather's spirit was really lurking around. 

Even if I tried to drift off, my dreams would  come back; in fact, it was worse than being awake. Those men were always there.  The ones behind my parent's vehicle and the ones that pretended to be a couple . Their voices as they argued whether to kill me or not always startled awake. 

Every night for me was a battle of sleeplessness, a torment that must be endured.

Beside me, Anu slept peacefully; her thin arms rested above her head. At least, for now, she was strong until the next crisis; just a month ago, Ayoni and I had rushed her to the children ward because of an episode

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. Taking in a deep breath, I glanced towards the open window. 

The sun had barely risen and the room was moderately warm from the lantern I had switched on to protect Anu and me from the cold.

From outside, I heard the rain drum on the window pane and I sat up from the bed. Next to the bed, slightly resting on the wall was the guitar I had picked from my grandfather's storeroom. Whenever I came to Oyo, back when my parents were both alive, my grandfather always sat outside to play it and once in a while I begged him to let me play too but he never allowed me.

A strong urge to play the guitar enveloped me and on impulse, I picked it. My knowledge about the instrument was a bit rusty, but I still knew how to go about the basics.

Brushing my fingers over the strings about halfway between the sound hole and the bridge, the image of my grandfather -sitting on a stool - outside his house flashed through my mind. Then I began to hum my grandfather's favourite song:

Tèllà ọmọ orisha. (Daughter of gods)

Tèllà ọmọ orisa obirin (Tèllà daughter of the goddess)

Tèllà iwoni imo (Tèllà you are the oracle)

Ọmọde ti o ti fa omije ya kuro oju awọn eniyan o si mu ayọ wá si ẹbi. ( The child who has pulled the tears away from people's eyes and brought happiness to the family.)

As soon as I sang the last word, a lone tear dropped from eyes. Those were strong words that evoked the emotions of my grandfather when he wrote those lines. Not wanting to wallow in pity concerning the generation of my family and how it could wither soon if the one offspring curse continued, I wiped the tear off my cheek.

Finally, I stepped out of bed and started towards the window. Plates used to serve guest the previous day littered the whole compound. I picked my small phone and made my way out of the room.

Outside was more hazardous than I had imagined. Remnants of amala and ewedu were left on the plates. Bottles of soft drink littered the ground and I busied myself with gathering it, washing the plates and by the time I was done, the early morning sun had risen, giving my body a sense of warmness.

I made my way to the bedroom to find Anu already seated on the bed as she scratched around her eyes. When my six-year-old saw me, her face brightened. A surge of joy radiated through me as I watched her bounce down the bed and started towards me.

"Mummy I'm hungry," Anu said in a croaky voice as I lifted her to my shoulder.

"Pele my baby," I cooed and removed tiny pieces of foam that had been attached to her hair when she was sleeping. "Shey you will drink pap with akara?"

Anu nodded.

Sighing, I stepped out of the house into the street and my nostrils were invaded with the smell of exhaust fumes from moving vehicles. Aborerin had always been an area bubbling with life the last time I was in Oyo and it hadn't changed a bit. On both sides of the road; provision stores, hairdressing saloons and food vendors littered the whole place.

From a distance, Iya Ibeji (who was known for her incessant need for gossip) walked towards me as she pressed her phone. On impulse I crossed to the other side of the street, praying in my heart she hadn't seen me.

For a woman close to her fifties now, I wondered if she ever got tired of carrying both true and untrue stories about people around the neighbourhood. But it didn't stop at that; she loved poke-nosing into other people's business.

When I was in secondary, I was in the same class as Taiye and Kehinde, her twin daughter and never had I caught them say nasty things about people, in fact, the two hardly even talked to people in class or the area. It was just difficult to believe Iya Ibeji had raised two reasonable adults.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as she stopped pressing her phone and looked towards my direction like she had been waiting for me to get closer.

"Is this not Tèllà?" She asked loud enough for me to hear, but that didn't stop me from pretending not to hear her. "Tèllà!" she called again.

I stopped in my tracks, knowing she had recognized me and would want to stop me for a little chat. I whirled around to see Iya Ibeji already crossing the street towards me.

"Ehn en. I knew it was you."

"Aha mummy good morning ma," I knelt down and Anu followed suit.

"How are you ré," she smiled and glanced towards Anu. "A ku éyin Baba Oyo."

"Yes, ma. Ese ... thank you ma," I said and started to walk away but she held me by the arm.

"Is this your daughter?"

My neck stiffened as I nodded in response. 

"Yes, ma."

"Eyah. Fine girl how are you ré," both her forehead and side of the eyes wrinkled as she smiled. "But you need to feed her more o. She is too thin."

I narrowed my eye at her, swallowing the retort that fought at the back of my throat; instead, I nodded and said. "Okay, ma."

I didn't wait for her to hurl indirect insults at me before leaving her standing in the street.

Thirty minutes later, I was back in the house, fed Anu with akara and the pap and busied myself with cleaning the living room.

The air was filled with the musty smell of moist dust that covered some of the picture frames that hung on the brown walls. Most of those pictures were those of my grandfather's, grandmothers and my mother's. There was this particular one in which my father carried my mother bridal style while mother laughed and covered her face with both palms.

When I was done with the cleaning, I stepped into the storeroom through the corridor that led to two other rooms in the house. The previous night after I heard the shattering noises of plates from the kitchen and noises from the storeroom, I had only picked the guitar and left Ghana must go bags. Now I was hoping I could get some useful things for myself and give out the rest to people who needed them.

A layer of dust had covered the whole room and it didn't spare the bags too. Pulling my cloth over my nose, I unzipped the closest bag and peered inside. It contained nothing but gardening tools. But as I lifted the other bag on the table, a loud knock boomed through the house.

"Who is that?" I asked as I cleaned my dust stained fingers on my wrapper. 

When no one gave me a reply out of fear from the horrible news that happens to women who had been unlucky to be raped or killed, I looked through the little space between the door to see a couple of people in ankara. "Ta ni?"

I asked again and I got a reply from familiar voices.

When I opened the door I was greeted by Baba Majeogbe my grandfather's youngest brother - whom my great grandparents had fifteen years after they gave birth to my grandfather - an aging man with a fringe of grey-white hair around his balding, mottled scalp. Ade his son, whom I was a year older than stood next to him, he had a round face like his father and bulgy eyes to go with.

"Baba good morning," I knelt down with both legs then stepped aside to allow them in.

"Tèllà," Baba Majeogbe said as he sat on the three sitter cushion sofa.

As I sat down on the seat, opposite them, Anu walked into the living room and knelt down when she saw both men. In return, they played and made jokes about how such a young girl could have learned such manners.

Smiling, I asked. "Baba what would you like to eat or drink?"

"Ose gan. We have only come to see you about the house," gestured to the ceiling and returned his hand back between his legs.

"Oh OK. What about it?"

Baba Majeogbe coughed then began. "Inheriting a property is not a task befitting for a woman."

As the words sank into my head, a jolt of annoyance shot through me, making furrow my eyebrows as I rested my back.

What kind of person thinks like that? Since when did inheriting properties become something a woman isn't strong enough to do?

"I do not know if Baba Oyo... my brother told you a woman cannot inherit a property in our family," although Baba Majeogbe's voice was gentle, he sounded serious.

As if a bucket of ice had been poured on me, I shivered then shook my head in the process a bitter laugh escaped my mouth.

"But I'm the only offspring my grandfather has left?"

"As Baba Oyo's lawyer, I came along with my dad to read to you his will," Ade spoke up this time. 

I had completely forgotten he had studied law at the university and had been my grandfather's lawyer when he was alive. He ripped open a sealed brown envelop and read out the will and true to their words, my grandfather, whom I loved with all my heart had willed the building to Baba Majeogbe.

"Although you are allowed to take Baba's other belongings. Once you are ready to return to Ibadan, you can bring the keys down to our house or hang it on the wall outside."

 With that said both men stood up and left.

I couldn't even cry because it was no use. It was as if I had used up all the tears left in my eyes for the years of torture Ayoni had put me through. Somehow, everyone, I thought cared enough about me had forsaken me; even Baba Oyo the man I loved chose his brother over me. Cold air washed over me and I shivered despite the warmth in the house.

My only hope at adding more to my low income - as an NCE graduating teaching in a primary school - has been snatched right under my nose.

"Mummy sorry," Anu wiped the lone tear I hadn't even realized was falling.

"Thank you," I smiled. "Mummy will be okay."

By evening I sat in front of the house, the evening was cold as ice due to the light downpour that afternoon.

I stared at the lines of orange and purple hues in the sky as my mind replayed the events of the day. The way Baba Majeogbe's eyes danced around like a thief and his pretense at being gentle as a dove. What has really been bothering my heart since their visit was the question of whether my grandfather knew all these years he would abandon me this way when I needed him the most even in his death.

Did he give his only property to his brother just to punish me for abandoning him for some years since I married Ayoni?

The thought of Ayoni made my inside swirl with irritation. If my grandfather was punishing me because of him, truly I had made the biggest mistake of my life marrying him. Ayoni had brought nothing but pain into my life, he made me fall in love with him and look past his genotype promising to stand by me if the worst came to worst, but he didn't stand by his words. The first few years of Anu's on and off sickness, Ayoni had withdrawn from me totally. Sometimes I wondered if he blamed me for bringing forth a child with the sickle cell disease. The previous night, even when I tried to look past his attitude towards me, I had called him to ask if he had arrived Ibadan safely, but my husband didn't even pick the call. It was later, around half past twelve in the morning he had sent me a text saying he had got home.

Withdrawn to my faith, I got up and went into the house. Inside the room, Anu slept and grunted once in a while due to the catarrh. As I began to make my way out of the room, I heard something drop to the ground, making a quiet thud. I whirled around to see the guitar on the floor.

My heartbeat quickened at the discovery, just this evening I had placed it on the table against the wall, there was no way it could have dropped to the floor except if a heavy wind blew it.

As I inched closer to the guitar, the warmth in the room dropped, becoming colder than usual and with each breath I took, a puff of transparent smoke passed through my mouth. Although I tried stopping me from moving further, it was like an unseen force was pulling me and each step I took created an abnormal reaction in the room. Then I heard the faintest bit of whisper behind my ears but I couldn't catch on to what the voice said.

As soon as I picked the guitar, my fingers started brushing against the strings and I find myself humming the same song my grandfather used to sing to me years back.

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