NANA

NANA

One day, I will write a book about you.

This was supposed to be a sad story but I refuse to tell it that way.

Gratefulness, a self-affection, that was what Oluwabunmike felt each time she was home and home to her was where her grandmother, Nana was. Nana, that woman who would go to school to give a talking down to any teacher who dared harass her, like she did when Oluwabunmike was in primary four and a teacher had flogged her till big red welts had appeared all over her body because she could not spell O-N-O-M-A-T-P-O-E-I-A. The previous week, they had learned figures of speech and her teacher had made them memorize it all. Oluwabunmike had found it all overwhelming; having to memorize what simile, metaphor, personification meant with examples. She understood it enough to formulate her own examples but her teacher had insisted they had to give the examples she had taught them and when Oluwabunmike simply wrote down her own examples her teacher had taken it as a personal affront and marked all of her examples wrong. The next day, Nana came to school book in hand, attitude in tow.

“Awa na lo school o, examples ti omo yi give correct now. All the examples are correct so why did you mark her wrong? Did you read what she wrote at all?”

Oluwabunmike had never seen Mrs. Adams so intimidated. Tall, thin, fiery Mrs. Adams who was always shouting suddenly seemed small and Oluwabunmike felt a perverse joy at this. How could she not? that woman was a terror. Everyone feared her so they did what she asked. It was nice to see someone finally stand up to her especially when that someone was her own Nana.

Mrs. Adams spoke in a low, injured tone: “She did not write the examples I gave to them”

“Kilenso yi? Is that what education is about? you don’t want your students to think on their own. Instead of rewarding and encouraging the little girl for coming up with her own brilliant examples you are busy harassing her!”

“No one is harassing anyone”

“Really? then what is it? You will remark this whole classwork.”

Nana dropped the notebook before Mrs. Adams and waited till she marked everything correct and scored her 10/10. They won. In the academic scheme of things, it was an inconsequential win because that classwork had no effect on her final grade. It however had a domino effect for Mrs. Adams because for the rest of the week she received parents who had heard about how Nana had gotten her to mark all her examples right and came around to ‘correct’ their kids’ notebooks filled with ‘original’ examples and Mrs. Adams had a particularly difficult time explaining to these parents that their kids’ examples were not right at all but Oluwabunmike’s was. Each time another angry parent left, Mrs. Adams cast Oluwabunmike a murderous glare and this always amused Oluwabunmike. And this made Mrs. Adams even angrier and unable to forgive. So, the following week when they had done figures of sounds and Oluwabunmike could not spell onomatopoeia, Mrs. Adams had her moment. She had flogged Oluwabunmike so much and so hard that everyone knew it could not possibly because she could not spell onomatopoeia.

And Nana was back, angrier and implacable. She made the Head teacher apologize to little Oluwabunmike personally. Nana would have asked that her class simply be changed but she did not because, the new teacher was bound to treat her differently and Nana didn’t want this. So she ‘hooked” her on Mrs. Adams neck. For the remainder of the school year, Oluwabunmike bloomed. She formulated her own examples and always made sure she got them right because she did not want to give Mrs. Adams the satisfaction of gloating if she got things wrong.

* * *

“A beautiful lady must always make her hair, Oluwabunmike, look at how fine you are now”. Nana said in a tone that seemed both amused and chiding. Oluwabunmike had not wanted to plait her hair just to visit her father. Why does she have to do all the work? The man never came to visit. Every two weeks, Oluwabunmike had to get dressed and follow Nana to his office at the other end of town. The commuting from Alakia to Bodija was particularly stressful for Oluwabunmike because to save on transport fare, Nana usually lapped her in the yellow and wine Micra cabs that were definitely not built for 7 people including the driver. She always felt embarrassed whenever a rude driver shouted at them for being too slow or would not pick them up because “e no dey carry lapping”, but Nana insisted so she had no choice. Every two weeks she would go to her dad’s office dressed pretty and sit in the too cold office while drinking Bigi chapman or Bigi apple, or Bigi cola, or Bigi tamarind or whatever flavor her Dad’s assistant deemed fit to buy that week but it was always Bigi. Oluwabunmike wished they would ask her sometimes, just to know what she really wants, just so that her father would talk to her even if that was the only thing he would ask her and she would not feel like a sculpture at an exhibition; to be shined and looked at.

Oluwabunmike always resented Nana on these visits. Her trying too hard, her telling her father things that should have been kept between them, her sharing their inside jokes with him, his laughing at them without as much as taking a glance at her. It seemed as though he was scared he would find a monster sitting on the couch if he looked her way. For two hours, he just talked and guffawed with his mother about his daughter while she sat there and watched like she wasn’t the joke. It was on one of those visits that Oluwabunmike decided that she’d never like this man who was her father. Oluwabunmike was there as usual sitting pretty and drinking her Bigi orange and listening to her father complain about his wife. She was monitoring his accounts; she now wants to play an active role in the company since they both put up the capital for it; she had heard he entertains the child he had outside their marriage here and was making a fuss about it so Nana and Oluwabunmike would have to stop coming.

“Will you be coming to see your daughter?”

“No Maami it’s not possible o n sho mi kiri ni”

“Bawo wa ni bayi?”

“Mama ran eyan siyin fun ounje. Eyin le ma wa yoju si wa nile but e le mu eleyi dani”

Nana stared at her son for what seemed like forever and said: “You are a Coward. You can’t even take responsibility for your own daughter.”

“I am taking responsibility”

“How? You think being a father is about paying school fees. Olamilekan, we don’t need your pity cheques we would manage just fine. Sho gbo? omo yi ma diru o ma digba mo mi lowo. Don’t expect me in your house ever again. If you want to see me, you know where I live.”

“Oluwabunmi let”s go home”

Oluwabunmike felt warm all over. It was like her mouth was filled with fast melting candy. Nana chose her; Her Nana chose her, and it was at that moment, in that office that their unbreakable bond was created.

* * *

Nana looked on at this child whom was filling out in all the right places. This child who wasn’t a child anymore. A child wrapped in a cocoon of her innocence but nonetheless exposed to the worldliness of others. Oluwabunmike was now 17. It seemed unbelievable to her that it had been seventeen years already, seventeen years since Oluwabunmike’s mother, Seyitan had killed herself after what had seemed to them then as an unnecessary sadness at the birth of a child she was responsible for making. Nana had always thought Seyitan a strong person so was particularly surprised that she would kill herself. She had gone through months of Lekan’s insistent denial and disdain with a quiet valour.

On the days following Oluwabunmike’s birth, Seyitan would not even touch the child. Everyone had thought it was because the father of the baby had refused to take responsibility for the child. But even after the man came around to his senses and what seemed like a workable situation was created – Seyitan would live with Lekan’s mother and Lekan would continue to maintain her and take responsibility for his child but he would not marry her -- Seyitan kept sinking into despair. She could not help it. She had nothing against this child. How could she? She had known what she was doing getting into a relationship with a man who had been married for years with kids. She loved Lekan as improbable as it seemed. He, a 40-year-old man with 4 children and she, a 22-year-old Corp member.

To love, must be to decide with your eyes open to be naked. Like waking up on a market day and deciding, “I shall wear no clothes to the market today”. Selective lunacy. At first, it had started out as a sugar daddy arrangement but she would come to care for this man. This man who still thought it cool to say ‘shit mehn’. This man with a toothy grin. This man who was incapable of any niceties. This man who was so handsome and yet ugly in his ways. This man who would sleep with a woman before lending her a pen. This man who had made his money as a yahoo boy and then after hitting it really big, started building bars around the city. Anywhere alcohol, drugs and sex could sell, Lekan was there. Yet, she cared for him. Slowly, then deeply, so much that it scared her. Seyitan found herself noticing his softer features. She began to read compassion into his most mundane acts so she came to see him as a man capable of giving himself. She let herself get pregnant and the man she knew not the idea of him she fell in love with surfaced. He simply discarded her like one does an old toy. Seyitan had lost guard. Initially with Lekan when the terms were clear, when her role as a sugar baby was clearly defined, she was careful. She used her pills regularly, she made him wear a condom and when he refused to wear one, she wore one herself. She checked herself for STIs regularly and treated herself as soon as she caught one because Lekan was not one to stick to a woman and made no pretenses about it. She merely had to inform him, so he could treat himself and give her money to do same. She wasn’t a mistress, no, that was too dignified to describe what they had. She wasn’t his woman. She was simply to him, a favourite toy and it had worked for both of them until Oluwabunmike.

On the day Nana met Seyitan, it had rained. A heavy downpour that had made Seyitan soaked and shivering by the time she arrived at Nana’s doorstep. Nana would never know how Seyitan found her. But on that day she had welcomed her and offered her a towel to dry herself and a cup of hot Bournvita because she was a pregnant woman. The Bournvita had been too sweet because she had added too much milk and Bournvita. She barely drank the stuff yet Lekan insisted on sending tins of them every month.

“Who did you say you were again?”

Seyitan straightened out non-existent folds in her boubou dress and began to speak. “I am Lekan’s girlfriend ma”. Nana took a long look at her, took it all in and said “Have you told him?”

“Yes ma, but he has refused to accept it”

“Okay dear, I will give you my number, call me next weekend I will have spoken to him”,

Seyitan knelt down, “Thank you so much ma”. It was way easier than she had thought it would be. Hadiza was right, his mother was a good woman,

Seyitan tried but she just couldn’t bond with her child. She found herself crying so often. Unwanted, uncontrollable tears. she felt tired all the time, she couldn’t take care of the child. According to google, baby blues wasn’t supposed to last this long. So she kept quiet and sank deeper into her despair. On the day Seyitan took her own life, it was dark. There had been no light in the neighbourhood for days. An air of tragedy hung around the house and the house had been quiet all day. Even Oluwabunmike who had perfected the art of screaming to get attention was unusually quiet and still that day, as if she knew what was about to happen. After they had had a rather quiet dinner, Nana retired into her room and so did Seyitan. The day had started out as usual, with muezzins making the call to prayer from different directions, the mix of their voices creating a discordant tune that drove Nana out of her bed. She had made breakfast and had gone to call Seyitan to come for breakfast when she found her just lying there still. Nana knew what had happened even before she touched and felt her cold stiff body. She had smelled death before she came close to it.

Seyitan was buried by noon. Her parents, who were Muslim had insisted on a Muslim burial even though she was not one herself. It was as if they felt the need to put a stamp on her before sending her on to the great beyond. A small battle had ensued between Seyitan’s family and Nana over Oluwabunmike’s custody. In the end it was Nana who won because she was the one who really wanted the child. Seyitan’s parents who were separated had only made a show of asking for the child because they would have looked bad otherwise.

* * *

Oluwabunmike getting into university early meant that she’d have to leave home and Nana would learn to live alone on her own. Oluwabunmike was in the process of applying to schools when it first happened. She had gone out for a friend’s birthday party. There seemed to be a lot of those these days as they were done with secondary school and were mostly just waiting for their admissions. On her way back she met Nana, about three streets away from their house.

“Nana, ekuule, where are you going?

“Ehn?”

“Where are you going? What do you want? you should have called me to get it on my way back.”

“I’m looking for Dauda”

“Dauda?”

“Yes. my husband”

“Let’s go home jhoor, which husband are you looking for?”

It was at that moment that Oluwabunmike realized she would not be going to University in Kano. The dream had to change. Her Nana was old. She was looking for her dead husband. She’s feeling lonely already. The following week, Oluwabunmike obtained a change of institution form and applied to the University of Ibadan. That way she was closer to home and could take care of nana. At the time, It was a fairly easy decision to make, after all the major reason she had wanted to go to Kano in the first place was to be near her teenage boyfriend Ahmed who had convinced her it was easier to get into university in the north and that the facilities were better and not overcrowded like in the south. He had also painted a surreal picture of that hot city in the north to her which made her really want to go there. In latter years, she would come to loathe this moment, when caring for Nana became too difficult and things got worse instead of better.

Oluwabunmike followed the movement of the plate and carefully avoided it so that it landed with a crash on the floor away from her face for which it was intended. Nana was having another of her moments. The third one that week. The day before, Nana had overturned the bucket of water she had left for her bath because it was too cold. Two days before that, she had locked the door to her tenant’s outdoor toilet because according to her he used it too often. And now this dramatic and unexpected show of violence.

“Get away from me, you bastard. Omaale jatijati. Oloshi omo.”

Oluwabunmike couldn’t believe her ears. It couldn’t be possible that these obscenities were coming from her Nana. Her Nana who all through her childhood had never screamed at her, talk less of calling her names. It was shocking. Has Nana always been this evil person lying under a gossamer of goodness and old age had simply stripped of that thin layer of goodness?

Oluwabunmike needed to clear her head, this was too much. Nana had called her a bastard. How could she? Knowing fully well, how badly that word affected her. Oluwabunmike remembered how as a child, Nana had tied her scarf around her waist, battle ready and dragged her down the street to confront the woman who sold provisions who had called her ‘omaale’ because she had brought torn money to buy salt from her. Oluwabunmike had gone home in tears not because she had been insulted but because of the nature of the insult. The woman had in the way of Ibadan traders verbally abused her for bringing bad money to her but had only thrown in the ‘omaale’ word because Oluwabunmike dared to talk back at her. In the rule book of trader customer verbal duels, this was way below the belt because Oluwabunmike was indeed a bastard. Oluwabunmike had returned home in tears and after she had explained what happened to Nana, the alacrity with which Nana grabbed her scarf and tied it around her waist like she did it all the time and stormed out of the house had both surprised and gladdened her. That was her hero, her Nana, not the stranger who now possessed her body.

Oluwabunmike was on the verge of tears when she arrived at Fawaz, her boyfriend’s room. His familiar smiling face and erotic smell and hard body immediately made her feel better. She had barely sat down before he asked her what was wrong. Oluwabunmike became convinced of her good choice once again. This man can tell when she’s unhappy and he can then make her happy.

“I just don’t recognize her anymore. It’s like she’s an entirely different person. I hate her now.”

“Common babe, don’t say that. I know you don’t. You worship your Nana.” He said as he pinched her cheeks playfully.

“I worshiped the woman I knew not this stranger o.”

“Babe, you know she’s old now. Old people become babies again. You have to start thinking of her as a baby.”

“But she is not a baby. She knows what she’s doing. Was she not the one reading newspaper and analyzing and telling stories yesterday? She just wants to hurt my feelings. She probably resents me for chopping her pension money all these years.”

“Don’t be like that. Old people’s care is usually difficult. You just need to chill sogbo?”

“Thanks boo”

“For?”

“Listening to me. I feel so much better”

“Then make me feel better”

“Jeeezzzz, you’re something else”

She moved into him and pressed her lips hard against his. He reciprocated with equal wanting and within minutes yanked off her clothes until she was completely naked and went all the way into her. They moved together in sync to the music of pleasure. He came. She came. And they laid side by side, sated before they both fell asleep. Later, she felt his lips on her forehead and woke with a start.

“What time is it?”

“6:30”

“Wow, I have to get home to make dinner for Nana”

“Let me see you off.”

Oluwabunmike felt it first, the premonition that something bad had happened. And then she saw it, the bad thing that had happened. Her grandmother being lifted by some men into a car that she didn’t recognize. She started to run to catch up with the car before it moved but she couldn’t. When she got to the street, she saw some neighbours, they moved towards her all speaking at the same time

“Ibo lo gba lo? Where did you go?”

“Okada ti gba Mama. Mama was hit by a motorcycle. She said she was going to her friend Mrs. Adejare to visit.”

How? How could Nana be going to Mrs. Adejare’s house when she knew well enough that Mrs. Adejare moved to the United States five months ago to live with her daughter. Mr. Omar, their tenant whose toilet mama had locked moved towards her and offered her a ride to the hospital. She was too shocked to say anything. On a regular day, she would not have entered Mr. Omar’s car even if his were the last car on the road. Mr. Omar with his leering face and groping hand and suggestive remarks. But this was no regular day. Nana had called her omaale, she had been angry at Nana and wished her evil for a moment and now Nana was wounded or even dead.

It was until they arrived at the hospital and Oluwabunmike saw her grandmother lying on the bed in bandages, looking so small and helpless that she started to cry. Mr. Omar put his arms around her and his intermittent whispers of ‘pele, it’s enough’ sounded irritating to her. But she did not move away from his embrace because another human being’s touch any being’s touch was comfort to her.

This doctor seemed too small, too young to know what she was doing. She looked like she was barely a day over nineteen. How could she possibly know what she was doing? Oluwabunmike tried to tune her out, but her voice was so gentle and soothing that listening to her felt like joy.

“From your reports and our observations of your grandma for the past two months that she has been here, my medical opinion is that your grandmother is showing signs of dementia. Her symptoms are more consistent with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions. It can last for years and like in your grandmother’s case be undiagnosed or simply dismissed as “getting old”. Alzheimer’s is quite difficult to manage and there is no known cure. We can only try to manage it. You might need to get help because she needs to be watched around the clock to avoid any more wanderings. Just for her safety.

Oluwabunmike starts to cry. The small doctor pushes her a roll of tissue paper. And this tiny gesture from a woman she had diminished in her mind made her cry even harder. The guilt was crushing. Her grandmother had been sick all this while and what did she do? She got angry at her and wished her evil and left her alone to be hit by a motorcycle just to go sleep with her boyfriend.

There are people who make you feel shame just by being. Fawaz was definitely one of those people. He was a mushy bag of goodness. In the weeks following Nana’s diagnosis, Oluwabunmike was so overwhelmed by guilt she threw herself fully into Nana’s care. She shut out the entire world and created a new universe where it was just her and Nana. She stopped going to school and on the days Nana remembered she was in school and was not supposed to be at home in the middle of the day, she simply lied that they were on holidays. Her other friends soon got tired of calling and texting and simply let her be. But Fawaz kept showing up she had no choice but to let him into that world. He was the one who drove them to medical appointments, He was the one who helped her with washing and cleaning, he was the one who stayed with Nana and chatted with her while Oluwabunmike caught up with school work. He was the one who introduced her to Jo and Fitila. Jo would eventually become her partner in the struggle. Jo listened while Fawaz held her hand. Jo was her support group where she got all the community she needed and when things got too hard she knew her Mental Care Foundation community was rooting for her. On the days Nana refused to eat what she had spent time and energy to prepare. On the days Nana became convinced her gold chain which she always wore and never took off even to bath was missing and accused of her of stealing it. On the days Nana asked for people who were either dead or moved a long time ago, Fawaz was there.

“You know in my days, everybody bought shares now everybody is buying land and cryptocoin. Everyone should read this book. It’s very helpful”

“Nana, its bitcoin not cryptocoin” I laughed.

Today was one of those days when Oluwabunmike felt she could actually breathe and be a person with Nana. She was in the parlour reading a book, “The Smart Money Woman by Arese Ugwu” Oluwabunmike thought the choice of book rather hilarious because the book was a finance book for millennial women. Was Nana planning to start buying stocks at 76? Arese said she wrote the book for everywoman but Nana definitely doesn’t make the cut. She wasn’t even a millennial woman. But what Oluwabunmike finds even more interesting was her ability to read. How could someone who had lost all inhibitions and seems to live outside of herself still retain the ability to read so perfectly? How could she still remember stories from her childhood and forget things that happened merely hours ago totally? How could she have the energy to sing and dance in the day when she couldn’t sleep for most part of the night? How could she still draw perfect pictures? Just how? The mind definitely works in mysterious ways. Nonetheless, it was these moments Oluwabunmike lived for. Those moments when she saw her Nana clearly and her Nana saw her.

Oluwabunmike stared at the NYSC letter of redeployment before her and she remembered filling her change of institution form years ago. But this was different. She was finally going to leave this city of brown roofs and fly. She felt free and felt guilty for feeling free. Nana died three months ago and she was still grieving. But could she ever stop grieving?

The day Nana died still seemed surreal to her. They had both retired for the night the evening before and Nana had insisted that she slept in her bed. That would be the last time she would share a bed with her. That night, Nana had been full of stories of her childhood and they had laughed and reminisced long into the night. The next morning, Nana was stiff in her arm. And that was it.

Nana’s death enveloped her with a feeling of failure. She didn’t fulfill her promises to nana. She didn’t buy her a car. She never built her a house with five bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. She never built a mosque with Hajia Abike Suleiman Nee Dosunmu on it. She never took her on that vacation to Canada. This was particularly stinging because Nana had refused to travel to Canada with her son and his family when they relocated because she couldn’t bear to leave Oluwabunmike behind in a boarding school all by herself. On the day Lekan came by for the first time since that day in his office to say goodbye and to try to convince her for the last time, and she had seen Nana shed a tear of longing she had made a vow to take her to Canada as soon as she could but Nana left sooner than she thought.

She shouldn’t be eager to leave, to leave all the pieces of her Nana buried in this city behind but she was. She really wanted to leave. The change might be good for her. And like Fawaz liked to remind her the memories are not attached to this spread of a city. The memories are lodged safely in her heart to be pulled out whenever she wanted and sometimes when she did not. Maybe she’d be back someday to build that mosque with Hajia Abike Suleiman Nee Dosunmu on it to secure her Nana a place in heaven.

Till then.

Amal🍒