Things Fall Apart
I was not yet fourteen, preparations for the conferment ceremonies were frantic. Our house in Port Harcourt was getting a fresh coat of paint, some minor renovations, it didn’t matter that the chieftaincy title was being conferred all the way in Abiribe.
My grandmother had descended on the house, her bearing covertly triumphant and mildly subservient to her firstborn son, about to become a titled man.
She beamed at him “Dimkpa!” and stared at my mother “Let us pray they don’t make him take on a second wife oh". My mother laughed like it was a hilarious joke, almost hysterical with the stress of having so much to do, seeing so much money being spent and hosting my sometimes unpredictable grandmother.
We all went to Abiribe, a few days before the ceremony. There were so many people everywhere, more than had shown up when my grandfather passed on a few years before. My father’s business mates, my father’s clients and suppliers, his age grade club, family from both sides, my mother’s friends from school, it seemed like anyone we had ever known was there. It was not a modest affair and these were the days before all the chieftaincy titles were bought for big money.
Maybe we had more money than I thought, my father’s angry moods were gone for the entire period, he was buoyed by adulation, celebration, they remembered his nicknames “Ekwueme! Talk and do!”
There was a promise of a changing tide coming up ahead. I could just feel it. My mother was happy but guarded, careful to watch out for when my father’s mood might change. She was vigilant about all his known triggers, and wary of the unpredictable ones. She didn’t need to worry, everything went perfectly. We returned to Port Harcourt, exhausted but happy.
My father was getting short-tempered again, so much money spent and he had so much to do to make it up again.
My mother talked about getting a micro-finance loan from an organisation that one of her friends from school talked about. They supported women, empowering them with financial aid. My father was scornful “Leave all those things, the people who are giving you the loan, do you know what they expect you to do with it? Can you make anything to be able to pay them back? I am a titled man, I don’t want anybody to come here and insult me.”
My mother tried everything in her playbook. This was how Madam Ngozi came into our lives. She showed up one day to help by speaking to my father directly. My father was different when she arrived. He smiled.
“Welcome, come in, come in,” standing up as she appeared at the door, his hand gesturing towards the settee graciously, “how are you? How is the family?”
“Fine, we are all fine,” she smiled, a tiny dimple in one cheek.
“Afam, go and bring her something to drink,” he ordered me, then glanced at my mother, silently tilting his head in a gesture for her to sit. Something passed between them, my mother looked away, her face a study in deference.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me sir...” Madam Ngozi started her pitch, I was off to get her a drink, rushing so I wouldn’t miss a thing. She described how her organisation was helping families, putting money in women’s pockets for the benefit of their families. He asked a few questions, nothing too unreasonable, not as many questions as he’d asked my mother about this new crazy idea of hers.
It was a brief visit, my father grunted his appreciation “It is good work, good work that you people are doing. It’s not too different from how we come together in our age grade to develop our town, one person brings, the other is helped, together we do what we can to get ahead...good work, very good.”
“So I hope it is okay that we are getting your wife involved in opening her own shop...”
“Ah no problem at all. What is there? No problem, nsogbu a diru.”
He walked with her to her car, my mother walking beside them, smiling her thanks at Madam Ngozi while my father accepted Madam Ngozi’s thanks solicitously.
I was putting away the tray in the kitchen when I heard the roar.
“A titled man like me! You brought a woman to my house to tell me what I must do or not do in my own family…me!”
To be continued…
