I broke into two on the door, one part going out, one part turned towards the settee where he laid, the evening sun framing his slack lips and the soft rise and rise of his chest. I hated him but I needed him. I walked back into the parlour and closed the door. I sat down on the cane chair to the left and listened to his rasping breath.
When I left the house two years ago, I vowed to never return but here I was again, tugged as if by my umbilical cord. I hate the hold he had over me. What I hated the most was that he has never sought to exert his power over me. He never called me while I was gone, whether to threaten or to plead, he had continued on like a pebble leaving a little boy's hand and I became a prayer bead between a mother's thumb and index finger. I could not sleep. I wondered if he was eating, if he was still opening the shop, if the girl was still coming to clean the house. How can you hate someone and worry about him at the same time?
He snorted and the curtain shivered near him. It was getting dark and if I stay any minute more, I will miss the bus going to Lagos. I got up again and looked for something to do. The fridge, was there any edible thing in it? It had not crossed my mind to go to the market. I have not gone to the market in a long time. I have been eating out. There's this girl there. The fridge had only bottles of beer in it. I took out one and popped the cover. The pop shook the silence roughly and the rise of his breathing paused. As if a god has found his sacrifice short of an item, his red eyes fixed on my hands already bent towards my lips.
"You are still here," he said.
I gulped the beer. It was just cool. The heat of the day was lagging behind the breeze that fed from the river just across the highway but the house has been hoarding all that sun and now it seemed as if it was staging a war with the evening coolness. My shirt collar itched. I needed a bath. I watched him try to struggle up. I watched him fail.
I should be happy that he is not as strong as he used to be. I have prayed for this day, when we can stand face to face, him as big as he has always been and me as big as I have come to be. Even in the half light, I could see that I was late. All that was left of the terror of my childhood was skin and bones.
"How is your mother?" He asked.
I tipped the neck of the bottle into my mouth and studied his face. My mother had died just before I found her in the chalet where she had fled to. He knew this. I knew for a fact that people came to him with information about her. He was taunting me.
"I find that question despicable. You know quite well she is dead. Despite your sickness, you still seek to wound me," I said.
I studied the frown on his face, the uncertainty. He seemed to shrink within himself.
"You do not know or you do not remember?" I asked.
"What are you saying? Of course I have not forgotten anything. My memory is intact, young man," he replied.
There. I could hear the fear. His memory was messed up. O ye gods, this was not right! I needed him to remember. I dropped the bottle on the top of the fridge and walked back to the cane chair. The moon was rising, and I could hear the fishers returning from dredging the river for food. Their mutters rose and fell in rhythm that stood counterpoint with the shouts of good night and the laughter of little boys and girls catching the tail of the day's play. I felt my throat hitch.
My mother and I used to be apart of that noise. I used to wait for her at the river bank, skipping stones with the boys, pursuing frogs and catching glimpses of the setting sun from the corner of my eyes. When she came with her catch, we would sit near her canoe and we would tell stories. She would tell of the river, of the fishes, of the way the river meandered into strange places. I would tell her of what the neighbourhood had done and said in her absence. Sometimes, we would just be silent, watching other people pass and pass again, Waiting for his drunken scream to reshape our silence into fear.
"I have not forgotten anything," he said.
I had thought to break him with my power, with knowledge, with memory but he looked empty. The man was no longer there. The monster had fallen back into the abyss. I studied him as he watched the window. My revenge tasted stale in my mouth.
"Why did you not look for us?" I asked. The question fled my lips without my knowing.
He turned to look at me then he frowned.
"Why have you not gone to bed? Are you not going to school tomorrow?" he asked.
Anger bubbled within me and I almost wanted to hit him then but I stayed my hand. I got up and walked to the door. I opened and stepped out. Immediately a hand covered my mouth and another grabbed my wrists. I struggled but I could not fight everybody. A gunshot rang in the night and the bodies gathered on top of me fell off like leaves. I staggered to my feet and there he was waving from left to right.
"I told you to stop coming here. I don't know where your son is. Ejiro has gone and she took the boy with her. Tell your stupid king that his son is not in my house," he said.
My heart tripped through my chest and stopped for two millisecond.
"You are not my father?" I muttered.
"No he is not," a voice replied.
A man walked out of the darkness. He studied me then he turned to look at the man I had called father,
"Hello, brother," he said.
The man I had thought destroy with choice words turned to look at me
"You were safer were you where. You shouldn't have returned. Ejiro should have prepared you," he said. He sighed then he pointed the gun at the man calling him brother and fired.
Hell! The man staggered but he did not fall. He smiled at me and I felt hands grab at me again. I fought. I fought like a crazed cat. I fought harder as the man I had called father once emptied bullets into the stranger without effect. Gods! I knew fear.
The man arrived at my once father's front and they began to tussle. The last thing I saw was the two of them sinking into a quicksand that had grown out of the concrete front yard. When I opened my eyes, the sun was up and mother was staring at me from across the room.
"You are still here," I asked.
"Finally. You are awake. We can begin. What did you see?" she replied.
©Oka Benard Osahon, Feb 25,2020.
