Fiction

“I REMEMBERED OMA

Her deafening silence and no trace suggested death. I’m uncertain about her death, but quite convinced it would take something close to it or a permanent amnesia for her to forget me this long time. I have not heard from my friend near two decades though my memories of her were as crisp as our […]

Her deafening silence and no trace suggested death. I’m uncertain about her death, but quite convinced it would take something close to it or a permanent amnesia for her to forget me this long time. I have not heard from my friend near two decades though my memories of her were as crisp as our smiles in my birthday photo. Over the years this photo had become symbolic, like a cherished treasure I had to keep safe, mindful that pictures don’t lie.

I sat in my room looking at the photo; my gaze steady on Oma. She posed beside me with her charming smile, her right palm over mine, as I cut my birthday cake. It was my 18^th birthday, one among the seven I had ever celebrated. Mum told me circumstances overtook the ones I couldn’t celebrate.

In one quick moment, some events of my 18^th birthday flashed: the modest party at the instance of my parents, the swimming outing, my insistence that Oma and I must wear same colour of dress and shoe. Smiling at these youthful frivolities, somehow I laughed loud, which surprised me. The mirth dissolved into something more thoughtful as I reminisced on Oma’s where about.

*****

My last moment with Oma was in her village. Mum and I had travelled for her father’s burial: an exhausting full day’s journey interspersed by unusual stops because of bad roads. We arrived late at night and for five days, took part in the elaborate burial ceremony. Prior to interment, we witnessed the emotion laden early morning cry, loud sounding twenty one gun salute, dreadful masquerade dance round the corpse and other remarkable traditional rituals. Oma and her family came from the northwest of the Country with a high penchant for tradition and customs. Her father embraced it and blended well with its ideals and his western education.

“We are leaving tomorrow morning,” I told Oma over dinner.

She paused, trying to swallow a piece of meal in her mouth. I felt uncomfortable with her intent look into my eyes.

“You and your Mum have done pretty,” she said, fighting hard to hold back tears.

I consoled her again, which I had done the previous evening during her father’s interment.

“How long are you staying in the village? I asked.

“About a month or more,” Oma responded.

The last funeral rite for her father was in thirty days. Her uncles said it’s sacrosanct and required their presence because mourning period for her mother begins after the rite. Humm, I knitted my brows in dismay, wondering the heck about tradition and customs.

Her father’s death was sudden and devastating. News of the plane mishap gloomed our neighbourhood a little while. Many mourned. Many sympathised and much more eulogised his humility and forthrightness.

I remembered the day Oma’s domestic driver came to pick her from school. We were on mid-term break, though upper sixth students had compulsory revision classes because of

our national exam. The driver’s glib explanations were unconvincing and casted doubt on his unusual visit. I couldn’t let Oma go home alone.

On our way, the driver uttered few words in muffled voice, unwilling to answer many of our questions. He drove in somewhat suspicious silence, for a man known to be garrulous. This heightened our anxiety as we enveloped in deep thoughts, apprehensive of what to say.

At home, a small crowd gathered outside. They spoke in hushed tones, sober expression on their faces. Some stared at us with empathy. Two domestic staff came out to meet us, their faces also gloomy. Cold calmness prevailed within the house. Oma’s mother and younger sister huddled together in their exquisite sitting room, amidst a handful of visitors in teary eyes. Oma fell over her mother in wailing shout, weeping uncontrollably even when we had not been told anything.

*****

I counted days for the last funeral rite to come and go, earnestly expecting Oma and her family back to the city. Thirty days passed in two folds, they did not return. Oma was missing classes. Our national exam fast approaches. I became very worried and hardly concentrated on studies. Dad tried to get me on course–all sweet talks and encouragement. Mum was a little blunt that I should focus on my forthcoming exams else the mistake would cause me more pains.

“You have a choice to make between your friend and A/level exam,” she yelled.

“Oma’s return is beyond you – get that into your head.”

I had sinking feeling for mum’s flurry of words, but it didn’t bother me. I yearned for Oma’s return to school. Our school authority also became concerned. Dad sent words to her village to no avail.

We resigned to hope, the only thing I had leaving to the UK for further studies. I secured a government scholarship after our national exam and painfully left without seeing my friend, not even a farewell. I left my contact and kept touch with home, hoping that Oma would return and perhaps sat the next session of the national exam and join me in the UK. I was confident she would secure a scholarship as well, going by her outstanding academic records. She was the best science student in high school. So, I waited.

My waiting paled to nothingness. My hope dimmed, more so when mum informed me that Oma and her family vacated their DEVCOP residence in absentia. But I refused to give up on hope, rather hoped against hope even years after I returned from UK.

Then I met Nyake. Oma and I called her ‘aunty Nyaks’ – one of our many cajoles to curry a good ration of her delicious meals. She used to be in charge of the kitchen as one of Oma’s domestic servants.

“My little Katty now a Pharmacist,” Nyake teased after we exchanged pleasantries.

“Well, the young shall definitely grow,” I quipped.

“I didn’t expect any less,” Nyake said.

“You and your friend has always been serious minded.”

I chuckled, and promised to come see her again. We couldn’t talk much because of my engagement for the day. I led a medical outreach team to a suburb of Yaoundé where I met her. Now a grandmother, she came to see one of her daughters who just put to birth.

“Have you been hearing from your friend and her mother? Nyake asked when we discussed in my office few days later. I gapped and couldn’t believe she had no clue of their where about, the more reason I scheduled to meet her, certain her information would at least strengthen my hope of seeing Oma again.

Nyake told me Oma’s mother went through horrifying ordeals in the village as soon as the funeral rite was performed. Family members insisted on grabbing whatever her late husband left.

“They also wanted her to marry one of her late husband’s siblings after her mourning period,” Nyake said.

“What are you talking about? I asked.

“They pampered madam so much to do their biddings, claiming tradition and custom placed such demands on her”.

Oma’s mother was vehement and refused to condescend into amorous entanglement with any member of the family. Not after having it good with her late husband: a blissful marriage of about 21 years that produced two girls. She had no male child and the elders stressed it was the only thing that could guarantee her continuous stay in the family without any marriage tag. They didn’t take kindly to her vehemence. They raged and threatened to unleash the full weight of tradition on her. Theirs was not an empty threat, more so for elders who are willing to apply diabolic means to counter any flout to customs. Oma’s mother was greatly disconcerted.

“That’s why she sneaked out of the village with her children,” Nyake stated.

“I heard some influential friends assisted her”.

“And she did not confide in you their destination? I asked

“You’re supposed to be the last person with them”.

“No doubt, but she just told me they are leaving for safety.”

*****

Spasm of pain contorted my face after listening to Nyake. My body almost quivered in anger. I grumbled the agony of my friend and her mother and wished I was there for them. I rued death and wished it’s not a permanent sleep – a journey of no return.

“Perhaps the dead should return,” I muttered.

Their spirits could as well loom large in their families, and empathise with them and make interventions for them, and see the mendaciousness of some values they held so dear in lifetime. I bemoaned some traditional values: how they had become both a snare and menace, inflicting avoidable pains.

Tears blurred my vision as I sobbed, unable to continue looking at my birthday photo. It dropped off my hand. My heart saddened at the unrealistic promise of Oma and I there for each other. We had aspirations as students at Baptist Girls College Victoria where we met in a most unusual way during our second grade. It was a rainy day. Oma sat beside me at the rear during a long biology lesson. She was quiet, a little clumsy even to write lesson notes, her left hand supporting her chin. We were about leaving the classroom after the lesson; I inquired why she left her sitting position.

“The teacher was too loud for my slight fever and cold,” she said.

“I’m so sorry. Are you feeling any better now?

“Not quite”.

I walked her to the school dispensary though she hesitated like one with a phobia for medicine. I stayed with her at the dispensary till she received medical attention. Gradually, we became fond of each other and nurtured friendship which blossomed in a short time and strengthened beyond the confines of school.

We lived at the Bota housing estate. Dad’s self-contained bungalow was few blocks away from Oma’s Devcop senior staff quarters: beautiful duplexes, spatial, with luxuriant flowers along each tarred entrance. Her father held sway as director of finance in Devcop. Often I mopped at the quarters, wondering what secret lives in such edifices.

“No secret, Katty,” Oma once told me.

“Just fun and pains beyond the beautiful edifices.”

“Could there be pains for the affluent?

“Even the rich also cry, my Dad used to tell me”.

We laughed. We had just finished church service in one of the denominational worship centre in the housing estate. Oma looked sleek in her gorgeous attire like one out on a red carpet event: cream skirt of cotton fabric, dotted silk blouse and heeled sandals, giving

expression to her light purple skin and slim built. Somehow I refrained from gawking at her. At nineteen, she looked quite younger though age was insignificant in our friendship.

*****

Mum’s throat sound startled me, as she walked into my bedroom unnoticed.

“Sorry my dear, you seem lost,” she said.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” I responded, wiping my tears.

She picked the photo from the floor, looked at it for a moment, and placed it in the album.

“You don’t need stress of sorrow for your young pregnancy,” she cautioned.

“I’m certain your friend is at peace wherever she is – dead or alive.”

Mum held me up, and led me to the bed. I snuggled under the blanket to a troubled slumber – still remembering Oma like yesterday; wishing eighteen years had not gone by.

THE  END

�0{D{@