Adigun

In his room that evening, Chike knelt by his bed, covered his head with a pillow and he cried out loud. His jaw itched with the untended crop of thick black hair that covered it – he had not shaved in weeks – and he had become the spitting image of his father. In the days that followed, sadness descended on the Obidike compound and the staff despaired, not knowing what would become of them. Some had left immediately, while others lingered, waiting to learn their fate after Dr. Obidike’s demise. The week was longer than usual as many dignitaries far and wide came to the Obidike mansion to commiserate with the family. Many of these visitors paused to consider the life-sized portrait of the late chief, standing in the entrance foyer, before bending to sign the large, leather-bound condolence register beside it. Some people came just to sign the register and leave, others simply didn’t leave at all. It was customary for family to come from the village to mourn their relative, but it was hard to contend with the horde of strangers that arrived under this guise and took up residency in the mansion’s rooms. They did this as a matter of course, without seeking permission. The chef worked round the clock to prepare meal after meal for these uninvited guests. The pantry had to be restocked twice in a week. Within a few days, all twenty-two bedrooms at the Obidike mansion were filled with ‘family’ from Mbaino and Archukwu. 

In theory, all these people were here to make preparations for the final rites of their illustrious son, and the elders guided the meetings on the burial arrangements. The estate gate was left open for a never-ending stream of cars and pedestrians, some bearing personal belongings, which included goats and chickens. The mansion soon developed a foul smell to accompany the tense atmosphere. Aggravating as it was for Chike and his mother, according to the traditional rules, the house now belonged to the family – the deceased man’s family, apparently, not the wife and family that had lived with him up till his death.  

Duke, the head chef complained to Mrs. Obidike about the eating habits of their guests and asked that she make provision to replenish the pantry. She erupted. “Over my dead body! Over my dead body! Who are these people?

“Who are they?

“Where were they when we were at Jobore with nothing?!

“Where were they when I had to sell my blood in Liverpool to pay my husband’s school fees?

“Who does this? Shows up in a dead man’s house and declares a festival!?

“Duke! Shut the Kitchen! Stop the cooking! Enough is enough!

“I will not drop one kobo for their feeding. Sebi they have said I’m a witch; but they can come into the house of a witch and eat up all her food! 

“Duke, stop the cooking! Enough is enough!”

By this time, Mrs. Obidike was shrieking and her sentiments were clearly heard all over the mansion. 

Yet, more ‘relatives’ arrived. Some had started camping out on the lawn in front of the swimming pool. The entire estate was littered with people from Dr. Obidike’s village. 

A week and four days passed and many of the guests had started cooking their own food with firewood on the lawn of the premises; there was smoke everywhere, but not enough to obscure the piles of trash and dirty pots and pans that littered the grounds. Firewood smoke accompanied the non-stop flute-and-percussion sounds of the Okenga musicians, who had an unspoken pact with the Ogene boys, ensuring that they never occupied the same part of the estate while playing. Both groups performed mourning songs for Dr. Obidike. The once quiet neighborhood became a noisy village festival. Elder after elder arrived from the village to make preparations for the funeral of their son and, with each arrival, the heated arguments that accompanied their deliberations intensified.

They argued about traditional rites, ceremonial details, roles of the titled elders, and the logistical ‘support’ that should be made available to the key players. On this day, the bone of contention was on which parcel of their ancestral lands Dr Obidike’s body should be buried and the yelling could be heard at the opposite end of the street. This was when Mrs. Obidike, who had been left out of all of the planning up till that point, sauntered into the midst of the shouting men, banging a rolling pin against a silver tray until they fell quiet and glared at her. “Since nobody has asked me,” she declared casually, “I have no choice but to come and tell you; I and my family want my husband to be buried in Lagos.” 

The elders, to a man, leapt to their feet, enraged. “Abomination! Abomination,” Maazi Obidike shouted. “Over my dead body!

“Lagos? Lagos! Woman, you insult us once again!

“You insulted us all through the life of our brother and sat on his head with your witchcraft. Now, you want a Red-Cap chief to be buried in Lagos? 

“Tufiakwa! Over my dead body!

“Our brother was a very wealthy man – we all know – and obviously you are now trying to secure your piece of the pie, eh?” Here, he turned away from Mrs. Obidike and panned his gaze around the gathering of men. Maazi Obidike had a vicious parody of a smile on his face. “Igbo kwenu!!!!,”  he roared and the room shook as the gathering roared back. He turned back to Mrs. Obidike and his voice dropped to a bemused hiss.

“So, because our brother treated you like a little queen, you now feel like a ruler of men, eh? Telling us where we will bury our blood?”

“Maazi, I am not interested in ruling any men, please! I am his wife and mother to his only son; have I no voice in the matter of his burial? All these people invade my home, destroy my things, decide my fate, and I should just keep quiet? Have you no regard for me at all?”

Maazi Obidike turned to the elders again, this time with genuine amusement, then rounded on Mrs. Obidike once more. “Wife? Mother to his only son? Your home? Your things? Woman, you would do well to be quiet. In fact, SHUT UP!” Maazi’s visage was livid as he howled at her. “You own exactly NOTHING of my brother’s. 

“Or you don’t know my brother had a family in the village?

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?

“Oh, you think all this is for your only son?”

“Your husband did not tell you your son is not the Diokpa?

“Let me enlighten you; my brother had a family in the village that you have always been at pains to keep him from. A woman who bore him his first son. Whom he would have married, but for your seductions and witchcraft. Now the rightful heirs will claim what is theirs and you –”

“Which family,” Mrs. Obidike shrieked. “Which family, I ask you? A bastard child that YOU fathered?” Maazi Obidike froze and his eyes darted about the room. He noticed that several other people, men and women, had filled the room, and many of them seemed to be Mrs. Obidike’s relatives.

“You think I don’t know that you slept with your brother’s fiancé? Why not claim your son so he can inherit your rags when you die?”

“Woman, me chionu! Your viper’s tongue will not work here today. Your charms cannot work on us! Your lies and your disrespect expose you for who you are! You were just after his money, otherwise you would never seek to have him buried in Lagos. Lagos! A descendant of Okoro Torti! Ngwanu, go and bury him now, and see if the god of thunder, Amadiora, will not strike you dead!”

The younger Obidike brother slammed his fist against the wall, adding, “Carry him and bury him and see if Amadiora, the only god of thunder will not destroy you and your bastard son!” 

“Whose son are you calling a bastard?” a voice shouted from the crowd by the room’s entrance. Maazi Obidike realised that Mrs. Obidike’s people did not come in here simply to spectate and, as he turned to the source of the voice, a bottle sailed across the room and shattered against the wall, dowsing the two of the elders in fermented palm wine. The living room erupted. 

The men and women from Mrs. Obidike’s family had come prepared for war. When one of the elders from Arochukwu slipped in the spilt palm wine, he grabbed blindly at Mrs. Obidike’s wrapper to stop himself from going down. Mrs. Obidike keened at the affront and the hapless elder found himself being clubbed by two portly women bearing pestles. In the bedlam that ensued, the Obidike brothers slipped out of the room with the practised ease of men who know how to foment trouble and how to avoid its fallout. The luxurious living room was ripped to pieces as the brawl went on for several minutes. The large glass centre table was smashed, a bead of blood hanging suspended from one of the shards left sticking out of its gilt frame. The pale marble bust of Ceasar, once adorning the grand piano, laid on its side, surrounded by broken glass from the sliding door it had been thrown through, casting its serene gaze on the combatants. The domestic staff joined in the brawl to protect their late master’s wife and kin. Duke came out of the kitchen with a large wooden mortar, his chef’s hat flopping about impossibly, and joined the fight.

The Onyeodikara side was badly outnumbered by the Obidike contingent, however, Mrs. Obidike soon found herself being rough-handled by a group of irate Aro women, some of whom brandished knives and pans they had gone to get from the kitchen. The gardener, Chukwumerije, seeing his mistress in such peril, stepped out through the broken sliding door, over the prone bust of Ceasar, and returned with the high-pressure hose from the garden outside. With barely a pause to aim, he pointed the nozzle in the direction of his mistress and unleashed a jet of water. The mob scattered as the water was sprayed everywhere. There was bedlam as the warring parties fled – and Chukwumerije caused about as much damage with the hose as the fighting itself had caused – but the hostilities within the house ended.

The Obidike brothers were joined outside by their townspeople, who chanted war songs and hurled gravel from the driveway at the building. Maazi Obidike told his people to stop destroying their own property and ushered them off the grounds, as they gathered their tattered clothes about their bodies and favored their wounds. Mrs. Obidike stood at the main entrance in triumph as they left, but Maazi Obidike was to have the last word. “Jezebel,” he cried, “I will not allow you to deliberately destroy my brother’s things just because you know you cannot have them. 

“He is gone now and, according to tradition, I AM DIOKPA! How his wealth will be apportioned is MY decision! So, first of all, I will leave instead of giving you and your riff-raff an excuse to spoil what is mine.

“But when we return, you and your ill-bred spawn, Chike, will be driven out! Mark my words, woman, DRIVEN OUT . . . WITH NOTHING!”

9

Mrs. Obidike stood on the balcony overlooking the swimming pool. She was dressed in the black boubou that had become her uniform over the past month, with a black silk scarf that dangled over the stainless-steel railings she was leaning on. She looked drawn and emaciated, with noticeably darker skin. “Chike,” she called, “Come and see what your father’s people have done to my Bonsai tree! Chei! See what they have done to my garden, oooohhhh!” 

As she surveyed the wreckage of what was once a lush garden, an old lady drifted toward the Bonsai tree, followed closely by a group of four other seniors from the village. The lawn had grown wild and the compound was littered with empty water bottles and trash.

Following the dust-up in the living room, there had been a temporary exodus of the Aro invaders from the late chief’s mansion. Maazi Obidike was not going to allow the enemy hold what he now claimed as his own territory, but he was practical enough to want to avoid the all-out war that would ensue if he sent the titled elders back to continue planning his late brother’s last rites. So, in a cunning master stroke, he simply sent in the oldest available relatives he could find, along with a few small children – essentially daring Mrs. Obidike and her horde to mistreat them or deny them shelter. The deliberations over the funeral were now conducted at one of his unoccupied houses, where he had sequestered the relevant group of titled elders. Meanwhile, the feeble old and vulnerable young infiltrated Dr. Obidike’s mansion within two days of the living room brawl and acted as a reminder to Mrs. Obidike that the war was far from over.

“Mama, please leave my Bonsai tree, ah beg you,” Mrs. Obidike barked down at the little old lady who had finally shuffled her way to the ragged tree. The old lady ignored her and ripped off a branch, breaking off several small twigs and handing them to the small group of two other geriatric women, one shriveled old man, and a 3-year-old girl. They all promptly stripped their twigs of their barks and stuck them in their respective mouths, chewing and cleaning their teeth. They wandered away from the tree, much like a flock of birds in formation, and perched by the edge of the swimming pool, into which they began spitting their chewed-up mulch.

“No, you can’t do this! Not in my pool!” Mrs. Obidike’s hoarse protests were feeble at best – more reflex than anything else – as she was resigned to the carnage that had befallen her home. 

“Chike, see what your uncles are doing to us; see, see, see?

“That old man had just washed his clothes and poured the soapy water into the swimming pool.”

Chike, who had come up behind his mother, gently stroked the stubbly growth on her scalp where her long, dark hair had been.

“Chike, why? Why? Why are you not doing anything to stop these people?”

“Mum, calm down. I’m working on something. Sorting everything out. You just need to trust me.”

“Trust you, Chike? Trust you? The Mbaino elders say they are coming on Friday to throw us out of this house! Already the whole place is littered with their stinking old bushmen. Look what they have done to my house. They have to be stopped! Dealt with!”

“I have told you to leave these people alone,” Chike soothed. “These are mercenaries from the village, sent by my father’s brothers to make your life miserable. Don’t let them succeed!” Chike paused, taken aback by his mother’s intense glare. “Mum, what is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Chike, I went to the morgue; your father’s corpse has been moved!

“How can they just move my husband’s body?

“Why won’t they let me bury my husband?

“What did I do to Maazi to deserve this?

“Chike what are we going to do?” Mrs. Obidike was crying quietly.

“What will we do, Chike? What will we do? They won’t let me bury my husband so the man can rest in peace.” She leaned on Chike and her shoulders rose and fell as she sobbed.

“Calm down, mother, I told you I have everything under control. It shall be well, trust me.”

“When I raised the alarm, the Mbaino people told me they too went to the mortuary yesterday – to arrange to move your father’s body to the village – and the body was not there! See the games they are playing, Chike? They stole the body and now are acting like they don’t know anything.

“How can anyone move a corpse from the state morgue without a death certificate? 

“Chike the death certificate is with you, right? They must have forged it.

“Look at that one, Chike, look at that one!” Her voice cleared for a moment and went up an octave as she took in the scene unfolding before them in the garden below. “Stop! Stop! You can’t urinate there, you animal! I mean, who pees in a swimming pool?

“Chike, please call the police. I cannot take this any longer.”

“Let’s go in mother. Forget all about this mess, take your meds and get some rest.”

“Rest? They have stolen my husband’s body from the mortuary; how can I rest?”

“A few more days, mum; everything will become clear soon. Soon you will see the full picture and you will be at ease. Please just be patient.”

Chike walked his mother through the sliding door, pushing the heavy velvet curtain aside to allow her through. She sat on the bed, looking wistfully down at the rumpled sheets. “This is my darling’s side,” she sighed. “This is where he sleeps. He would tap me on the back and say, ‘Winnie, this is my side of the bed for a reason; it is closer to the door! I have to protect you from any intruder – that is why I sleep on this side.” She burst into tears and fell on her side with her face in her hands. Chike looked down at his mother, feeling helpless at the sight of her shaven head – a requirement according to the Igbo tradition – and marvelling at how small it was. Finally, he said, “This is war, mother. You need to brace yourself and be strong. We have already won, but our enemies don’t know it yet.”