SOUR SUGAR #projectnigeria

Chapter Two

2.

                       On that same day, when we were at school, mama had packed our clothes and belongings in separate Ghana must go bags. When she came to pick us up after school was over, she did not come with the car she usually drove, the Mercedes Benz papa got for her some time ago. She had come with a taxi, which did not drive us through the route that led to our home, but to the one that led to Gran'ma's house in the island. I wondered if gran'ma had conveniently had them live close to her house, in the same city for times like these. Although, gran'ma did not live in the suburban part of town, where the houses had barb wires on the fences, gates so high you couldn't see the line of cars parked in the houses with painted white walls.

The taxi pulled up at gran'ma's compound in the village that was a minute away from the beach. We could smell it in the air as we got down, the soft tingle of it, the wind brushing against our skin and blowing strands of our hair from their braids. Her house was surrounded by coconut trees that swayed in the wind, the lawn was lush and green and well tendered to by the gardener. There was a gazebo made of bamboo at the middle of it.

My favourite moments as a child growing up were spent here in my grandmother's house. Gran'ma would take Madey, Memunah and I on a stroll to the beach. We would beg her to buy us Fanice yogurts, knowing she would not refuse because she loved to spoil us, and we would play by the shore of the beach, running away from the shore each time the waves of the water came and touched our feet because we were scared it would carry us into the river.

I saw that gran'ma was there on her frontage, bright green flower beds beside her, waiting for us with a warm smile on her face. We did not run to her with joy in our feet like we usually would. There was no joy here. Instead we approached the house with unsure feet like lead and confusion in our eyes. When gran'ma embraced us, it was awkward. We did not even open our mouths to greet her, but she did not seem to care. Mama must've already called and told her what happened. Mama herself ushered the taxi man to carry our bags out of the taxi's trunk in silence then pushed us in after she had paid him.

We had spent close to two weeks there. Through the phone, Mama had told Papa she would never come back to him and I had believed her. Papa never showed up at our school, or on the front steps of gran'ma's house. And every night consisted of mama spilling out her ordeal with papa by the dining room whilst we watched Superstory. Gran'ma let us sit on the couch as we watched.

Suddenly, the show we used to enjoy at home seemed uninteresting. My attention was not on it. All I could do was look towards the direction of my mother and gran'ma as they spoke. Their conversations would start off hushed, and with gran'ma wanting to know if she was alright, her hand on mama's hand. And mama would scowl and say in her high pitched voice that sounded too girlish, ''I have suffered, mummy. I have really suffered in Tope's hands. I don't think I can continue to be married to that man! Mummy, I am tired.''

''what do you want to do about it?''

''mummy, I want to leave! I cannot continue like this!''

''Gina, don't say that...what about your children?''

It was then that mama would raise her voice, something she hardly does, and her soft voice would become even higher. ''the more reason I have to leave! I cannot have my girls thinking this is the way to be treated by their future husbands. He had a prostitute under our roof, mama,'' She whispered that part as if she did not want us to hear and remember again. ''How could I not know she was at the guest room, mum? The guest room! My children had seen that woman Tope brought. I did not even see her! What sort of disrespect is that?''

''These things happen, Gina. Every marriage goes through this. You just have to be stronger and work it out.'' But mama wouldn't agree with her. She would continue to complain until Superstory was over and it was time for her to make us go to bed.

Then gran'ma would shake her head and tap mama's hand when she would stand to leave, her small body sunken in defeat. I did not know if gran'ma understood, or why she was adamant on Mama returning back to papa, despite all he had done to her.

Perhaps, she thought of us – not wanting us to grow up in a broken home. Oh, the irony. Did all wives go through what my mother went through? Was it bound to happen like gran'ma seemed to imply? Is that how my grandfather treated my grandmother when he was alive?

Each time I starred at the picture of the grandfather I had never met, I couldn't bring myself to imagine him sneaking prostitutes out the back door or beating gran'ma after drowning himself in Gulder at a beer parlour. The picture frame gran'ma had of him, hung above the television set, showed him in his youth. Thick short afro parted on the side, big wire framed glasses, thick eyebrows, and a smile big and bright, a young gran'ma beside him holding him by the arm in her wedding dress with a smile just as big and bright. As they ran out of the church, a rain of raw rice fell down on them.

I imagine Efa and I's wedding to be like my grandparent's wedding picture.

My mother always told us stories of our grandfather. He used to be an artist, the kind that made sculptures for museums, and he was wealthy because of the sculptures he'd sold off to people abroad. He would take mama and gran'ma to his art exhibitions here in Lagos and sometimes in London. She was close to her father, and he never really raised his voice at her, it was her mother that did the scolding.

Her father had taught her how to paint on an easel when she was five. It was because of her father's love for art that she had been influenced to love it herself, like a religion. When mama told me she used to paint in secondary school, I was fascinated, surprised. Even more surprised when she had shown some of her old paintings to us, the ones she kept hidden away somewhere in gran'ma's house. I would silently – in my mind – feel bad for her that she never once picked up a paint brush now that she was older, married and with children.

Her father had encouraged her to express herself. And after he had died when she was only sixteen, she was determined to follow in his footsteps. She would tell us with some sort of regret that she was going to major in theatre arts at the university of Ibadan, until she dropped out when she had accepted to marry our father, whom had promised her the world, whom had been so in love with her that not even gran'ma or his brothers could stop them from being together. I would come to figure it out on my own that my parents had rushed into marriage because mama was pregnant with Madey and did not want to raise her out of wedlock.

There were no wedding pictures of my parents mounted on the wall above the television set with grains of rice raining down on them, smiles so big and bright. They were no pictures of a traditional marriage of any kind. What they had was a court wedding, but they didn't even bother to take a picture, then.

Every time my mother talked about how she had married papa, I could feel the pain still fresh in her heart as she spoke, the regret she carried with her every day. She would tell us, warn us rather – never to be with a man that did not think of marriage as a priority. Who didn't seek for approval from the family of the woman he so claimed to love.

One day, a sunny Sunday afternoon, Papa came to gran'ma's house with his brothers to beg mama to come home. They had talked for hours whilst we stayed in the bedroom, waiting for him, yearning for an explanation to all of this.

After a while, we heard a knock on the door. He had let himself in upon hearing no answer from us. Memunah's lips were hard and unforgiving. She just stood there and watched him move closer to us like an alien, sauntering around the room that seemed too small for his frame, a look of misery and regret on his face. Madey was cautious, but when he smiled at her, she smiled back, genuinely glad he was here, and I just missed him so much that I had ran to him, embracing him in a hug. He picked me up and whispered that he would never do such a thing again, that he would never hurt us, and I believed him. Because I loved him, despite everything. He was my father.