Chukwuebuka Ibeh
On the Sun-Baked Street

The desperate scream of "thief, thief!" was swiftly followed with a more desperate action. At first, confusion reigned. Heads turned eagerly to catch a glimpse of the supposed thief, but no one was found. Chimuanya reached out to grasp my arm so quickly it startled me more than the pain of his fingers digging into my arms. I had barely recovered enough to inquire about it, when I saw the reason for his doing so.

The man sped past me with such force I would have been knocked down if I had still stood where I was just before. The boys that ran after him were all clutching bamboo sticks. Taking the lead was Agwu, the vigilante head Mama had said she hated because he led his boys to commit all sort of atrocities: rob passengers wearing masks, waylay unsuspecting people at night; and yet he could still burn people for stealing just a cube of Maggi. I had not replied anything then. There was no need. Not that her hatred for him would provide us with a decent meal; not that it would take us back to the life we used to live.

"All these useless men in this town!" shouted a robust woman that sold frozen chicken in the shed next to the man that sold shoes, where I stood with James and Chimuanya, helping them in bargaining for a pair. "Chei! Thank God he was caught. Oh! I wish my son was here, so he would look after this shop while I join those boys in beating the life out of that useless idiot!"

I stared at her and marvelled at the venom with which she spat out the words, with so much hate in her eyes and voice. Maybe she had been robbed. It would be so easy to feel the rage then.

The man stopped and fell. There was a slow, unvoiced dignity to his falling. I could not see him clearly. A small crowd had gathered. But I could tell he looked well. He was not dumb. I could hear his faint pleas. He was not deaf, and from what I noticed, he was not blind or lame, so why had he chosen stealing as a lifestyle? How come he had left his house that morning, well dressed as he was, only to steal?

The shoe seller, determined to get back to his business, repeated the price he had earlier told us. I sighed and turned away, suddenly tired. Chimuanya stared at me blankly. I wanted to go home.

"Nekene. A man wants to urinate on him," a woman said. I turned swiftly. The man fumbled with his trousers for a while, and soon, the brownish liquid trailed from his penis, which he carefully enclosed in his palms, to the man sprawling on the floor. The man on the floor touched his face lightly. I knew that scenario.

I turned to go. Whatever had led the man into this was his business, not mine. I knew, and yet I felt a kind of connection to this, to the dust that hung in the air, to the sun that burnt the back of my neck.

Chimuanya frowned when I whispered to him that I wanted to leave. I knew he was thinking I was jealous of him. I did not blame him though. It would be so easy to think so after all. He would never know that what I sometimes felt, not just for him alone, but for Papa, for Mama, for Kechi and Ikenna, for the world, was hatred. A kind of hatred that made my head too heavy and blurred figures. Chimuanya held my palm, his eyes pleading. I let go and turned away. He would never know. Here I was, bargaining for shoes I would never wear, longing for a life I would never have back.

Next Saturday, Chimuanya would put on these shoes and go to school for the graduation party, and I would sit in Papa's empty shop, counting the cars that sped past. It had never been the same since Mama had left. Never been the same since Papa had lost his job, since he had looked at me deep in the eyes, and said, "Nnam, we have to move out of this house, and you have to change school," with a voice so casual and inaudible it would have been easy to assume he was joking, so I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

It was the same vacant look in Papa's face when we moved into our new house, if what we moved into could actually be called a house. The same vacant look when he had come back from his shop with a small bag and smaller food stuffs in it, when Mama had watched him for a long time before collecting it. When he had stopped shouting at Mama for serving his food without meat, when he had stared at me and said things words could not say.

It was the same look in his eyes when he told me he could not buy my graduation clothes.

I had stood up. I already saw them in my mind's eye, Chimuanya and the rest of them in their smart clothes and smarter looks, and me different. Perhaps it was that that made me stand up, meet his gaze, and say: "Papa, I will wear new clothes. Whether you like it or not."

He stared back, wounded. Mama would have slapped me and called me stupid, but she was gone.

* * *

Mama left on a Saturday, the same Saturday Kechi, my younger sister, died. We knew she would die, but we had imagined her death in blurred, distant figures. The same way we imagined laughter, real laughter that comes from deep down your stomach. She had woken up one morning, suddenly feeling weak. The doctor at the free medical centre called it "leukemia." His voice was crisp, the words rolling out of his mouth with flush and the ease of a person who was used to saying those words to people like us. He said it with off-handedness, as though it did not matter. Mama had stared at him, numb for a while, before she said "Tufiakwa!" almost spitting on the floor. "It is your children that have that disease, not my daughter. How many do you think have it? My daughter just has malaria, ogwula!"

I had stared at Mama, wishing she would not raise her voice, wishing she would be more reasonable, she wouldn't be blinded by her stiff faith. But a part of me believed her, wanted to believe her. Kechi just had malaria. She couldn't have "leukemia." The name sounded dangerous. That kind of sickness belonged to rich people, not people like us, people with no money and yet much pain.

Day after day, I sat with Mama in our sparsely furnished living-room, watching Kechi, silently gripping unto our thin hope, while Papa was going out to look for menial jobs, to look for buyers who would cart away the remaining chairs and beddings and pots and Mama's wrappers and anything else that was worth buying, at any price. He would return late in the night with unnamed syrups and tablets, and then join Mama to persuade Kechi to swallow them. Yet Kechi was growing paler by the day, her skin gradually losing its chocolate colour, its smooth texture getting harder, losing its moisture. Her temperature rose quickly like boiling water, thereafter leaving her convulsing for hours; her heartbeats grew weaker as the days went by. Mama looked at her always, quietly. Her breathing rasped, then she heaved loudly, shoulders slumping tiredly.

Once, Mama had felt around Kechi's chest for a while, her movements slow, tired, drained of hope and faith. She turned to look at me. Her eyes were weak. Then she looked away.

"She'll be fine" I said, quite unnecessarily. The words themselves felt so watery and useless in my mouth. I stretched my hands to hold her. "What if she dies?" Mama said. Her voice was low, her gaze distant. I let go, stunned.

"Yes. You did not expect that." She turned her head to look at me. "But what if?" She exhaled. "I hope she doesn't. I know she won't."

It was the firmness of her voice—a baritone one I had never known existed—her faith, the words themselves. They sounded so true. Kechi would not die.

But Kechi did die, one evening, on my lap.

I would always remember that moment, holding her head in my palms. Mama had told me to watch her so she could get something from the backyard, and I had placed Kechi's head on my lap to make her more comfortable. Then I began to hum her favourite tune. She looked up at me with her large, tired eyes for a while, and smiled broadly, revealing her dimples that seemed to go deeper than I last remembered. She reached out for my palms and clasped them in hers. Then she squeezed them firmly for a few minutes, and began to let go, slowly, until her palms fell to her side.

I stopped singing and watched her face for a while. It was still the same face, calm, smiling, suffused with peace, glowing with warmth. Her eyes were open, large, tired, her palms warm and moist. But her chest was no longer heaving in slow motions as it had been. I placed my head down to her chest, searching for what I was not sure of. Mama came in, and paused by the doorway. She gave me an awkward look for a while, then screamed at me.

"Obidinna! Gini mere? What happened?"

Dumb, I stared at her, the suddenly strange woman whose features I could barely recognise. She looked different, older than ever before. Everything looked different, felt different, older and dimmer than I could remember. The air we breathed was too warm, too moist, dusty, almost suffocating. Mama got down beside me and began to yank Kechi, roughly, furiously, until I was sure Kechi would soon jerk back to life. She let go fiercely, and in the still silence that followed her pause, in the vacant stare she gave me, so many unsaid things were communicated, and yet nothing was grasped. Then, her scream came, loud, piercing, hurting my eardrum. She ran outside to call the neighbours, dancing frantically. Her wrapper had slipped off, almost revealing her underwear. I could see the rat-eaten hole from where I sat, quiet. She made no attempt to retie it. Our neighbours began to troop in, one by one, the women screaming even before they came inside to see Kechi.

One of them, Mama Nkeiruika who sold okpa and moi-moi close to my school, slapped Mama. A swift slap that left Mama staggering. She ordered her to tie her wrapper properly. Did she want to bring a curse upon her son and the other young men in this room? Had the grief made her lose her senses too? Mama stared at her for a long time, silently, and I could tell she did not recognise this woman any more. This woman who lived a few houses away from us, who called Mama 'in-law' and called me 'di-nwam', even though she had no children. This woman who usually came in to separate fights between Mama and Papa, always siding with Mama against Papa. This same woman who was there when Ikenna, my younger brother died of measles as an infant, and who did not join the others when they laughed at Daddy coming back to the village empty-handed. This woman who was like a mother to Mama.

Mama slowly regained her voice and screamed, more like an animal being strangled.

"Let Obidinna be cursed! Let them all be cursed! Let me run mad! May Amadioha strike Okafor wherever he is! May Okafor never see good in his life. May Okafor. "

Three more deafening slaps, two from Mama Nkechi, and one from a woman whose name I could not recall, silenced Mama. There she was on the floor, weeping, screaming. The other women surrounded her, begging her to stop, and yet crying themselves.

I sat still, unable to cry, staring at them with open, distant eyes. I felt absent, detached from my being, as though I was watching the incident from a distance. As though the girl, who lay on her back, limp, lifeless, was a stranger, as was the mad woman who wanted to bring down the house with her piercing screams. Three men surrounded me. Holding me firmly, they began to pat my back, telling me in calm voices to be a man, to take heart. I stared at their faces, the calm hard faces and eyes reddened from forced tears. I wanted to tell them that their grip was hurting my arms. They should leave me alone. What was I being a man for? Why were there too many people in my house? What was the loud noise about?

Kechi was buried even before Papa came back.

Mama eased away from the women that were holding her and jumped into the narrow grave, holding tightly to Kechi, begging the men to bury her alive with Kechi. It was too much of a struggle, getting the violent Mama out. When they succeeded in the end, Mama stared at me for a long moment, then wiped the mud off her wrapper before she went in and shut the door.

I was the only one in the sitting-room when Papa came back. I had come to realise how empty our sitting-room was. Too much space that housed nothing. The air, strong with the stale smell of medicine and wet dust and sickness. Papa came in, holding a sack bag. Our sympathisers were long gone. He placed the sack on the table.

"Nnam, I bought the medicine. That one cost four thousand!" He paused, tilted his head, a tired smile on his face. "If you knew what I have been through to get the money, eh!" He shrugged. "The doctor said this was what Kechi needs to get well, okwia!" He paused again, as though remembering something. "Chelu. Where is your mother, and Kechi?"

"Onwugo," I said simply, as though it did not matter; and it really did not. "Kechi is dead."

Papa paused, taken aback. He stared at me, open-mouthed, horrified.

I wondered if he had seen a ghost. "Isi gini? What did you just say?"

I stood up. I wanted to slap him. What did he mean? Could he no longer understand Igbo? Or was the weight of the news weighing down his ability to hear? And why was he so shocked? What was so heavy about Kechi dying? Had we not all known that her death was imminent?

Papa sunk into the cane chair, heavily, almost breaking it. The sack fell from the table and its content spread on the floor. The fruits rolled away. So did the medicine, the small tablet Kechi had needed. I turned away. I did not want to look at Papa. I did not want to see that medicine.

She did not see the need for staying in this condition when she simply had other choices. She was still young, after all. Her family had never had a history of losing children, and it would definitely not start with her. She was not born to die poor. This union had ended the day Ikenna died from measles, the epidemic many children survived. She had watched her own son slip into quietness, utterly powerless to save him. She had only been around out of habit since then, because she, stupid as she was, kept hoping, and believing things would get better. With Kechi's death, it was truly over.

Mama said all this that evening, fumbling with her wrapper. Moments held; time stood still. It was the calmness of her voice, her sanguine expression, her clear eyeballs that had lost the trace of tears. It was the way Daddy blinked rapidly, wanting to wake up from this dream. It was the vacancy of Mama's gaze when it met mine, when she voiced the final words. "Okafor, I'm leaving."

"Obidinna, you should come with me," Mama said. She was behind me.

I stared at the wall. It was still the same smooth wall stained with tiny dots of blood from the many mosquitoes Mama had killed. Chinwe said it looked a funny kind of paint. Her face was carefully neutral, so carefully, that it marked her disappointment. She had not expected to find our village house like this, not expected us to finally live here. I exhaled before I turned to watch Mama. I could hear Papa's breathing from the sitting-room.

"No." I said.

She seemed taken aback. "What?"

"No." I said again. She exhaled. "Your father's condition will never get better. I don't expect you wish to die like this? Like your siblings?" She paused.

"My parents will take care of us. We'll be fine, Obi."

I took a deep breath. "No."

"Obidinna?"

I stared at her. I wanted to slap her, to arrange my fingerprints alongside those of Mama Nkeiruika and the other woman. I wanted to slap Kechi for dying, wanted to slap fate for reducing us to this, and then I wanted to smoothen edges, to arrange perfect lives for Papa, for the rest of us, seamless, easy. I wanted to create a life where hunger was less of an option, where we would not see the need to ask for happiness, because it would always be there.

But I turned away and said "No," again. A little louder than before.

I saw them from my window. Mama standing akimbo. Papa kneeling, palms desperately grasping Mama's legs. He muttered something I could not hear, but I heard Mama hiss and spit. I watched the thick blob leave her mouth and land on Papa's face. He touched his face and stared for a while at the sticky spittle he had wiped off, as though debating what next to do.

My head was stuffed with cotton wool, and blood, and sweat. A small crowd had gathered. Looking at them, I knew the news would never die. It would be passed on from generation to generation. A woman had spat on her useless husband. I closed my eyes. They felt too heavy to be left open. I opened them again and stared at the wall, and for a moment, I wanted to blend into it and dissolve into nothingness. And then, I wanted to urinate.

* * *

Now the man was sprawling on the ground, his hands lifted above his head as though in supplication, partly to beg for his life, and partly to shield himself from the blows that seemed unending. They had a kind of determination that unnerved me. I wished they wouldn't burn that man, they would let him go. I wished the man hadn't come to steal. There were other options.

"Chai! May God help this man and his sinful soul!" the woman who sold chicken said.

"A common thief. As old as he is!" the crayfish woman added. Her face tightened into a malevolent frown.

"What did he even steal?" the shoe-seller asked. He had been indifferent to the incident right from the start. He asked with an indifferent face, as though he did not really care but asked for the sake of asking.

"I heard it was a pair of trousers, a shirt, and a pair of shoes," the crayfish woman said, her expression dense with sanctimony, her face tightened to a grimace, suffused with disgust, as though she could not believe a full grown man could leave his house on that hot afternoon only to show up in the market and steal clothes.

I stopped. It was like fate intervening, a strange force propelling me, blinding me. The old man had stolen a pair of trousers, a shirt and a pair of shoes.

For a moment, I stood still. I willed myself to run, willed my legs to give way, but they felt uselessly limp. I felt the heat from the sun-baked ground seeping in through my thin soles. The heavy scent of sun-warmed dust hung in the air. I could taste some it on my lips. I felt dizzy, so light, I feared I would snap in a minute.

"Obidinna, let's go." I felt a hand on my shoulder. Without turning, I knew it was Chimuanya. It was his hand on my shoulder that made my numbness melt away. Agwu had ordered the tyres to be brought, and he, together with his boys, were already trying to force one tyre round the old man who struggled feebly to resist.

They were really going to burn that man. They were really going to burn Papa.

I ran. Time passed and I ran. My voice was alien, different from what I had known, maybe because I was different, time was different.

Everyone paused to look at me. I ignored them. Papa had stolen those things because of me. Papa had stolen money to buy those drugs for Kechi. Papa had stolen foodstuffs in the market because of Mama, because of us. I forced my way through the crowd. There sat Papa with a tyre round his waist and a litre of fuel above his head.

I wasn't thinking. I didn't even want to think anything. I fell on my knees and hugged him tightly. I held unto him, inhaling the smell of the hazy dust, and the stale smell of sweat, and fuel, all the while feeling the hotness of the sun-baked floor on my knees, Papa's tears meeting mine.

_ _

nekene: Igbo for “Look here.” //> back to text
okwia: Igbo for “I suppose?” or “Is that not so?” //> back to text

Chukwuebuka Ibeh lives in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He has just begun university. His works have appeared in PenEgg, Dwart Online, Jotters United and the website of Short Story Day Africa. He counts among his literary influences the writers Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chinua Achebe, Zadie Smith, Alice Munro, Tami Hoag, O. Henry, Chinelo Okparanta, Helon Habila, and Ali Smith.

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