1
After the foremost wails and the early condolences, the family meeting was called, and your half-brothers insisted that their big sister attend the gathering.
You hadn’t expected the courtesy. The old man did not leave behind a united front. His first wife and her son (whom by now, you were sure, had his own family), still lived in faraway Poland. Your mother, who had left him more than two decades ago, refused to talk about him, even in death. The boys were the only ones who saw his last moments, their own mother long and firmly remarried to an Igala chief.
It surprised you that the semi-circle was large, formed under a giant mango tree in an uncle’s compound. The old man had been popular here; in this riverine town he had hailed from and called home. You could tell from the despondent faces of uncles, aunties, and cousins, as they consoled one another. You could tell that they had loved him in life, and he had likely shown them more love than he had spared his own daughter.
They spoke of the old man with an affinity that sounded foreign to your ears. Even the young ones among them called him by his nickname, Oga Driver, when they spoke of how kind and how helpful he had been to them. A nickname you hadn’t known he answered to, until that afternoon. They regarded your younger brothers with respect and looked directly at them when they spoke to ‘the children’.
You wondered if they truly knew who you were; if they knew that you were older than the first boy with half a decade, and the second with up to eight years; if they remembered that their brother and uncle had actually married your mother; if they were aware that the very bus he drove until his demise had been bought by her profits from trading Mangala and stock fish from your hometown to Benin.
Your father’s brother, the convener of the meeting, an uncle you barely knew, soon began to speak about all that was required for the successful conduct of a ‘befitting burial’. He talked about community levies and age-grade dues that the old man owed. Debts that could not be written off, even in death. Debts, he said, that you and your younger brothers had now inherited. Side comments affirmed his explanation.
You had reservations about this. They danced about in your throat and wished to leap out in protest, but you took in two sharp breaths and measured your heartbeats.
Next, Uncle talked about what tradition demanded. He began to name groups of the town and factions of the extended family. He stated what each one was due. Crates of beer. Crates of malt drink. Crates of soda. Kegs of palm wine. Bowls of kola-nut. Bottles of schnapps. Bottles of gin. Bottles of ogogoro. Rolls of smoked fish. Fowls. Goats. More. Mutters of agreement followed every item.
You had strong opinions now. They bubbled under your tongue and begged you to share them, but you reminded yourself that you were the bereaved and causing a scene would not help you nor your brothers. All of these were expected, if you were to be honest with yourself.
What you hadn’t expected, and was in no way prepared to entertain, was what followed.
Uncle readjusted himself in his seat before saying it.
It was custom, he started. A man was never buried under the open Niger Deltan sky. Sun and rain never doled out their excesses over the graves of men and women from this great nation. You and your brothers would be shown your father’s land. You were to build him a house in which he would be buried. A house for the old man’s grave.
It was the final requirement, yet it was the most important one of all. Your father would not be laid to rest until a home had been raised in his name, Uncle declared.
The semi-circle nodded in agreement after this pronouncement. This time, no words played about inside your mouth.
2
On the flight back to the city, you wondered if your half-brothers had known about this custom of building a house for the grave all along. Was that why they had insisted you leave work and fly down there to ‘honour’ the old man? They had played it as a respectful gesture, but now you felt they had ambushed you.
You had been mildly sad since the old man passed. You hadn’t really known him, and he hadn’t made efforts in the latter years to know you. The news of his passing and these weeks of mourning had provided you with room for reflection, and you had ruminated over what could have been. It was these fantasies that made you sad: the loss of possibilities more than the loss of the man.
Now, at thirty thousand feet above sea level, you found that gloom evaporating. Anger was moving into the apartment it had occupied. You were infuriated by those silly funeral requests. No one in that semi-circle had really asked how you and your brothers were doing. They had been absent in your lives, yet now, they were present to see to it that their demands were properly transmitted.
Who did they expect to do it all? Your father’s eldest son was nowhere to be found. Your immediate younger brother, who had graduated from university some five years ago, was unemployed. He lived with a band of his friends in a flat where they sat before laptops and tried to swindle unsuspecting foreign women of their monies by pretending to be romantically interested in them. HK, or what was that thing they called it? Your father’s youngest son was still in the university. He called you every other month for pocket-money and you spared him what you could. Yet, these family people had brought up a long, vain list of demands, including a request for a brand-new house.
You scoffed. You wished you had let your tongue loose at that meeting. You should have called them out. Demanding obscenities without consideration for the bereaved; for those who had to bear the burden of loss and costs. Chalking it up to ‘na our culture’. These were the things that made you despise traditional systems and their accompanying institutions. Why couldn’t ‘our culture’ be more humane?
The flight attendant announced the plane’s arrival at the Murtala Mohammed Airport now. You let out a long, dispirited sigh. If only one could speak to the dead, you would ask the old man why he hadn’t raised a small bungalow in his lifetime, knowing his people needed one to bury him.
3
In the six months you had dated Biodun, there had been moments, days, weekends, weeks where you had doubted his devotion to you and questioned his ability to stay grounded. He had always dismissed them. Always said you were overreacting. Always promised to do better. Yet, nothing solidified those thoughts in your head stronger than the passing of your father.
That first week, he had called every morning and sent lunch or dinner by afternoon or evening. Stir-fry spaghetti and fried turkey. White rice and chicken sauce. Yam porridge and roasted beef. Shawarma. Parfait. Suya.
He had stayed on the phone longer at night-time, telling jokes and stories to lighten your mood and put you in good spirits. His narrations of happenings at his job site sounded exaggerated, and you suspected he embellished them all for comedic and dramatic effect, to keep you in good cheer.
You were grateful for every gesture. Grateful for his love and attention.
By the second week, he was back from his work trip. A two-week break as always. He visited your flat that first night with a wrapped box of chocolates. He talked about his project and juxtaposed the city with the one he had come from. Life was slower there, he said. The sun was hotter there. But the roads were wider. And the air smelled fresher, he admitted. You nodded at his observations and glared at him. You could see it on his face that he had missed being home.
You did not hear from Biodun for the next four days. And that was when you remembered what sort of man he was, what sort of man he had always been. Biodun was back. Back to his city and your father’s demise was hence forgotten. Your needs were forgotten. You were forgotten. His friends and the active nightlife scene had him now. They’d spit him back out after they were done with him, after he had lost remarkable sums of money. He would apportion blames to his friends and buddies and downplay his addictions. Then, recant and promise to change.
In six months, he had done this thrice already. Biodun called on the fifth day. By late morning while you were at the office. So, you knew he was calling after a hangover. You peered at the phone screen and watched it ring out. You were at work and did not need the drama. You had a thousand words to tell him but no strength in your bones to entertain his inconsistency. You counted down slowly from twenty to zero and measured your heartbeats.
When you took time out to think about it, you saw it as clear as day. Biodun was just another version of your old man. A younger, cooler, richer version, maybe. But a version, all the same. Before your mother had left him, your father had done his utmost to gaslight the poor woman. Called her a nag who didn’t want him to breathe. Called her names for asking him to be responsible. Called her a witch who wanted his downfall. After she left, he had made a U-turn; promised to change from his frivolous ways; begged her to return over the phone.
You had heard it once, somewhere . . . (or was it in an article online? You weren’t sure.) that girls often dated men who behaved like their fathers, who reminded them of their fathers. You hadn’t thought seriously about it, then. Yet now, it made sense. Biodun was the old man, raised to the power of a new model, like a Made in China smartphone.
Blocking his number was an easier decision after this realization.
4
As the weeks trudged along steadily, your brothers rang you every other weekend.
They asked about your health. They asked about your work. They asked about life in your city. The particular words were never said, but you understood these calls for what they were: reminders of the task which lay ahead.
You did not think that their reminders would get to you. You had already decided that you were not going to kill yourself to give anyone a ‘befitting burial’. You had already called Uncle and told him the funeral date would be decided by you and your brothers when you three had the money for the house. You had already assured him that you’d continue footing the mortuary bills.
But the check-ins slowly began to get to you. You noticed this when you began looking over the cost of constructing a cottage online. The old man had used his plot for farmland; a farmhouse could work. You found that raising a house, no matter how small, required millions. At foundation level. At lintel level. At the roofing stage. Not to mention finishing. Ah! You wondered how anyone was doing this, in the current economy. You developed new-found respect for developers and peered at construction sites in awe whenever you rode past one.
The old man came with his own, too. He visited now in your dreams. Rich of him because he had never visited you in life. He rocked his papa’s cap and his scruffy beard. He asked how you were doing. How your mother fared. How you were coping now having ended things with Biodun. You woke up with tears smudging your lash extensions. Why did he care? Wasn’t it too late now to play Daddy? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.
5
The decision to get it done was not an easy one, but by then you had gotten tired. Tired of your half-brothers having conversations with you on everything but what they truly wanted to say. Tired of Uncle sending text messages, asking when you and the boys would be ready. Tired of the general hospital sending you mortuary bills. Tired of the old man showing up in your dreams.
To start, you took out money from your savings. A sum you had saved for close to three years. A fund you had been nurturing for your japa plans.
To continue, you took a loan from the co-operative society at work. You hedged it against your salary. You began to work overtime to accrue more earnings.
To finish, you sold some home appliances. Your television. Your washing machine. Your generator. A busybody neighbour asked if you were relocating. You said you were only redecorating.
Your half-brothers showered you with thanks. Uncle praised you and said you had taken shame away from the family. You did not care for their kind words. You only wanted it all to end. You wanted the old man to finally let you be and go rest in peace.
