The Other Side of Truth (17 page)

My dear children,

When you were little, your Mama and I used to tell you stories. So did your grandparents, Uncle Tunde, Mama Buki—in fact many of us elders who loved you dearly. I am sure you will remember Tortoise. He might have been slow like a bent old man, but was he not always quick-witted? Sometimes he was artful and cunning, sometimes sensible and wise! There is one story I especially want to tell you now. It is one in which Tortoise is all these things as well as being courageous and daring. Perhaps you have heard it before. Never mind. The beauty is that we usually do not tire of hearing these stories again. What makes this one extra special is that it is also a story about stories!

LEOPARD AND TORTOISE

Once upon a time, a hungry leopard was searching for something to eat. He had been prowling around all day without any luck. His stomach was beginning to feel pinched. As evening drew in, he came to a clearing
in the forest—and there, in front of him, was a Tortoise. In one single swoop, Leopard slapped down his paw on Tortoise’s back.

“Oh please,” cried Tortoise. “I can see this is truly my end. But please, Mighty Leopard, just grant me a few minutes’ grace before you devour me. I wish to prepare myself to leave this world.” Now Leopard knew that Tortoise could not escape. He also thought that a little time would allow his stomach juices to prepare to receive Tortoise!

“As I am in a good mood,” he growled. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

As soon as Leopard released him, Tortoise began to scratch furiously at the grass under his feet. He worked in ever-increasing circles. He hardly stopped to breathe. Leopard watched, amazed. Whatever was Tortoise doing?

When Tortoise had used up every last second, he looked around at the deep marks that he had etched into the earth around him.

“Tell me,” said Leopard. “Why have you done this?”

“Well,” replied Tortoise. “From now on, anyone who comes to this place will see that some creature put up a great struggle for life here. You may eat me, but it is my struggle that shall be remembered!”

My dear children, do not worry. I do not intend to be eaten up by any Leopard! But like Tortoise, I believe in the power of the stories we tell. If we keep
quiet about injustice, then injustice wins. We must dare to tell. Across the oceans of time, words are mightier than swords.

Your loving Papa

MIST WRAPPED ITSELF
around the school. It threaded through the skeleton trees that lined the driveway and clung to the frostbitten bushes opposite them.

Very early in the morning, there is sometimes mist in the forest. It lifts in waves like a long-tailed bird forced into the open. Forced to reveal the nest it wanted to hide. Scents of forest and damp earth rise up with the mist. Grandma never allows them out of the compound until the mist has gone. She tells stories of people who lose their way because of it. Stories of iwin, the tree sprites who play wild games and make the wanderers scramble out of the woods with eyes flickering and madness on their tongues
.

Sade peered through the gloom ahead. She recognized the slim figure walking alone with her head bent forward, covered by a scarf. She hurried to catch up with Mariam.

“Please. Can we go somewhere? There’s something I need to tell you,” Sade whispered. Her heart pounded.

The hall was hardly private. If Marcia and Donna were there, Sade did not want to see them. However the noisy batches of students took no notice of them as they weaved their way toward an unoccupied corner. Mariam turned to Sade with folded arms. Her dark eyes waited, silently on guard.

“I stole from your uncle’s shop—a lighter, a cigarette lighter.” Sade watched for horror and disgust to change the silent face. But not a muscle seemed to move. Mariam’s gaze remained steady. As steadfast as Mama’s eyes would have been.

“Marcia said her cousin would hurt my brother.” Sade forced herself to continue. “She and Donna came with me. I took the lighter while they kept talking to your uncle and—” Sade hesitated. Her heart was flapping wildly. “That lady is your mother, isn’t she?”

Mariam nodded and Sade watched the navy blue head scarf ripple slightly. She recalled how the thin bony-faced woman in Daud’s Store had also stared at her in this guarded way.

“My mother, my uncle, they know about the lighter.”

Mariam’s voice was so soft and flat that Sade was unsure she had heard correctly.

“Marcia and Donna, they do the same to me,” Mariam continued evenly. “But you stop talking with me. Like you don’t want to be my friend,” Mariam accused her quietly.

“They…you…all know? Why didn’t your uncle stop me? What did Marcia do to you?” Sade’s tongue felt dry and clumsy as her questions stumbled over each other. She ignored the shrill ringing over the tannoy.

“They make me steal. From Uncle. I must give them gold pen or they do something bad. Like fire! But I tell Mama and Uncle and he give me the pen. He say, ‘Let them think you steal it. People like that are no good. Don’t fight them. Just keep away.’ I give Marcia the pen and they leave me alone. But now I see them start with you.”

Sade did not know what to say or where to look. So Mariam and her family had known all along! Papa would surely not have said the same as Mariam’s uncle. How did people know what was the right thing to do? It was all so confusing. Yet she admired Mariam for telling her mother and uncle. At least they had all faced the threats together.

The hall was almost empty. Sade forced herself to look straight into Mariam’s face. The bell was ringing again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You told me all about your uncle and your mother.” Mariam had even spoken about her father’s death in prison and her brother who was missing. “I told you nothing.”

Mariam’s eyes seemed to soften.

“It’s OK. Maybe you worried about something,” she said. “Come. Morrissy go mad if we late. You see me at break?”

Mr. Morris was calling the register when they entered the class. Sade expected him to say something cross or sarcastic. However, his gaze seemed to rest on her for an extra second like he was taking a snapshot on slow shutter speed. He simply said, “Ah, there you are!” Marcia’s narrowing eyes could not hide a flicker of surprise as Sade followed Mariam down the aisle. Was it at seeing them together again?

“Why don’t you tell them off, sir? You tell us off if we come late!” Donna’s words were as spiky as her hair.

“Indeed I would, Donna. If only to hear whether your latest excuse was any better than your last!” Mr. Morris’s words produced muffled laughter and giggles. There even seemed to be some snorts from Kevin’s desk.

At the end of the register, Mr. Morris announced that the class could talk quietly among themselves until the bell. Then he signaled to Sade.

“I’d like a word in private with you, Sade.”

“Telling you off in private! That’s discrimination, that is,” Donna hissed into Sade’s ear.

“Do you want me, sir? I come late with Sade.” Mariam stood up with Sade. She was coming to her aid. Despite everything.

“
A friend in need
,” Mama would say.

“No, thank you, Mariam. This concerns Sade only,” said Mr. Morris. His eyes roamed the classroom. “I shall just be outside in the corridor. If your chattering lifts the ceiling, my Christmas present to you will be detention.”

Sade followed Mr. Morris, feeling dull and numb. What now? Why did he have to notice her? She had more than enough to worry about already. In her other life, if a teacher wanted to have words with her, she would quickly think of Iyawo sitting quietly on her desk at home. Iyawo, who held up her graceful neck and lace-patterned head so calmly. That used to soothe any butterflies in her stomach. She tried to think of her Iyawo now. But the only picture that came to mind was an Iyawo who was dried out—the wood split and
cracked. The patterns on this Iyawo’s hair were furrows eaten by termites. Sade bent her own head in dismay. She felt herself crumbling.

When Sade next opened her eyes, she was lying on a bed staring at someone misty and fuzzy. Slowly the figure became Miss Harcourt. There was no Mr. Morris, no class, no corridor. She was in a small room full of whiteness. White walls around her, white sheet beneath her, white screen at the end of the bed, white chair beside her. Miss Harcourt asked how she was feeling. Sade barely managed to nod. Everything about her felt heavy, most of all her tongue. She watched the teacher’s silky chestnut hair swing lightly as she tilted her head.

“You gave us quite a fright! Passing out like that! Mrs. King is on her way now…need a doctor but…probably stress. We had no idea…”

Sade drifted in and out of listening. It seemed that the school now knew something about Papa. Did that mean they also knew about Mama? Did they know what happened to Mama after the ambulance men carried her away under the blinding white sheet?

She didn’t know. She didn’t even know if Papa knew. She had not even had a proper chance to ask him.

“If we had known before…help…cope…”

Sade shut her eyes and her ears.

Aunt Gracie’s doctor came to the house and declared he could find nothing wrong with her. His eyes twinkled behind thick
round glasses, like those of a friendly Brown Owl. Once again Sade heard the word “cope.”

“It must have been all too much to cope with, Mrs. King. Even for an adult, you know, it would be too much. What the child needs is rest. And you must encourage her to eat more.”

Aunt Gracie led the doctor out of the pineapple-colored bedroom to the door.

“I think she finds it hard to eat because her father has stopped…”

The hushed tones trailed down the stairs, out of Sade’s hearing.

AUNT GRACIE COAXED SADE
with a bowl of soup. She brought it into the bedroom on a small tray brightly painted and labeled
FLOWERS FROM JAMAICA
. Sade avoided looking at her, staring instead at the scarlet imitations of flowers that looked like flaming forest buds.

“My mother made the very same chicken broth, you know. She used to say, ‘It build you up, so you better drink up!’”

“But I’m not hungry, Auntie,” Sade tried to protest.

Aunt Gracie lifted Sade’s hand, smoothing it between her own.

“I know,” she said gently. “But your mama would have wanted you to eat.”

It was the first time Aunt Gracie had mentioned Mama. Something silently burst, like the air exploding in Sade’s ears up in the airplane. It was scary. Like entering somewhere new and strange.

“I’ll try, Auntie,” she whispered. She forced herself to take sips from the bowl, but was relieved when Aunt Gracie left her and she could block out all thoughts in sleep.

When she woke, the light outside was already fading. Femi must have come back from school, but Aunt Gracie had probably asked him not to disturb her. She pulled the curtains and turned on the desk light. In the yellow glow, her room looked comforting. She reached for her felt pens and a piece of thin white card from a batch she had discovered in the bottom desk drawer. Resting a folded piece of card on the Flowers of Jamaica tray, she sketched a flaming forest tree with sweeping umbrella branches stretching out across the paper. Then an equally tall pawpaw tree next to it, as elegant as a straight-backed woman carrying a jar of water on her head. Underneath, sprouts of lemongrass. She could almost smell the lemongrass from the backyard at home.

For a short while she was totally absorbed in drawing and coloring. Then she opened the card and on the inside printed in curling letters:

She sat for a while with her pen poised above the opposite page, trying out different words in her head. Finally she simply wrote at the top:

I am very sorry
.

The space beneath looked bare and empty. Perhaps she could draw a magnolia like the one outside Papa’s study. But when she tried to imagine it closely, her mind went blank. She felt panic. What would Mariam’s family think about the
card? They were Muslims and wouldn’t celebrate Christmas anyway! Would they accept her apology? She might as well tear up the card! She held it open, staring at her message, each hand pulling at the card as tightly as it could. But her hands balanced each other and the paper did not rip. Suddenly she was shaking with rage.

Sade shoved the card and pens into the desk drawer and flung herself back under the quilt. She had only got into this trouble because of Madams Marcia and Donna. If only she had never set eyes on them! She never wanted to be in the same school. Not even the same country. She just wanted to be at HOME. LAGOS NOT LONDON. She hadn’t chosen to come. Her head throbbed. Why did Papa have to write all those things that upset the Brass Button Generals? Why didn’t he just keep away from people who meant trouble? Like Mariam’s uncle said—“Just Keep Away.”

The door to her bedroom creaked open. Sade thrust her head above the cover as Femi poked his head around the door with a finger in front of his lips.

“Aunt Gracie said to let you sleep,” he confided.

“Get out!” Sade screamed. “GET OUT!”

Startled, Femi ducked away. But Sade had seen the fear in his face.

She buried her face. Whatever had come over her? Whatever was she thinking?

Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree
.

If Mama could see her now, that’s what she would say. You are letting evil enter your heart. How can you think of blaming your own father!

Sade trembled as she imagined Mama’s eyes and voice. She should make herself face the truth. She had been avoiding it. Mama’s eyes were telling her to look into herself. Yes, it really was because of her that Mama had died. She had always been so slow in preparing her schoolbag. Femi had been ready that day. She was the one who had held him up. Kept him waiting. Her nightmares reminded her. That was why they always started with her packing her books. In slow motion. Waiting and waiting to hear Mama’s scream. If only they had set off earlier that day, the gunmen would have missed them. Joseph would have shut the gates—and Mama would still be alive.