The Icarus Girl (36 page)

“O ya, stop that, now,” Jess heard her grandfather bark out from behind her. Sarah looked on in bafflement as Jess and her grandfather levelly met each other’s eyes, Jess’s expression suddenly sullen as she moved out of the relieved Biola’s way. Her father may have sternly told her off many times, but Sarah had never heard him speak this way to his Wuraola. She shrugged, reminding herself that Jess needed antiseptic for her knees, then began following Biola up to the kitchen, followed by Jess, who skipped up the stairs after them. She passed her grandfather without a glance, even though he frowned at her all the way up the stairs.

And as evening fell and Jess stood on her chair so that she was better able to blow out the candles on the enormous pink-and-white cake that Aunty Funke had made, Sarah leaned back into Daniel’s arms and watched thoughtfully as Jess, surrounded by a blur of smiling faces, cheers and clapping (and the soft smacking of balloons together as Bose and Femi attacked each other), blew out all the candles in one gusty puff and clapped her hands delightedly as she sang loudly along,

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOOOO)

finally smiling contentedly, because even if Jess’s voice did seem a little nasal (did she have some kind of fever coming on? it couldn’t possibly be malaria already), she was happy, at last.

Reclining on a sofa in the downstairs living room, Daniel was watching Sarah, Bose and Femi munch contentedly on the firm sweetness of sugarcane, plucking back the green with their fingers to reveal the creamy yellow-white that left gluey juices on their hands and clothes. Sarah’s father had sent for the sugarcane, but aside from Daniel, he was the only person in the room not eating it. Instead, half lying on the opposite sofa with his eyes closed, he was nodding occasionally in response to what Sarah was saying. A newspaper was on his lap as he ruminatively chewed on half a bitter kola nut, which he occasionally dipped into a small bowl of yellow salt that was set beside him. Bose and Femi were pushing trucks around on the floor in between their sugarcane eating activities, hers yellow and with a broken windscreen, his blue with the PepsiCo logo on the side.

Sarah changed to English. Daniel drooped for a few minutes longer under the unrelenting sun flowing in through the open, uncurtained window, then got up and put the setting on the fan to high. To his amazement, Sarah, who had been in the middle of explaining the plotline of her children’s story to her father, stopped, complaining to him, “Aw, why? It’s all cold now!”

“What?!”

Sarah began an exchange which they both knew would inevitably end in Daniel’s switching the fan power back to medium, but was interrupted by her father suddenly opening his eyes and saying, “Bisi-mi. When was the last time that you prayed?”

Discomfited, Sarah glanced at Daniel, who put his hands up to show that it wasn’t his situation.

“I can’t remember,” she said at last. “It was probably recently, though,” she added hopefully.

Gbenga Oyegbebi shook his head and closed his eyes again.

“Eh-heh, so I see that you are now too big a writer to say any prayers. There’s nothing God can do for you.”

Daniel began to feel alarmed, hoping that there wasn’t going to be an argument right before his eyes. Where had this come from, anyway? Hopefully, he waited for the discussion to slip into Yoruba, but it didn’t. Evidently his father-in-law wanted him to hear this.

“Daddy, you know that’s not true,” Sarah said, calmly enough, wrapping the remains of her sugarcane in some newspaper that she had gestured to Bose to bring from Gbenga’s lap. Gbenga laughed quietly and dipped another corner of the kola nut into the salt, still without opening his eyes.

“Bisi, I am your father. You think I don’t know why you don’t want to pray, but I’m telling you now that you’re wrong. Think on Jesus! Think on him so that you don’t start thinking only of yourself, going inwards and inwards until there is no life outside of Bisi—”

Daniel heard the strained tone in his wife’s voice; she was checking herself so that she didn’t disrespect her father, much in the same way that she restrained her quick anger when she spoke to anyone important.

“Daddy. I don’t think only of myself, I assure you. How much does it matter whether I pray or not?”

Sarah’s father shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Bisi, how could you, now? You know that when you pray, you are heard, if not by God, then by yourself. When you pray, you tell yourself what you truly want, what you really need. And once you know these things, you can do nothing but go after them.
Sae
you understand?”

Sarah flicked an embarrassed gaze at Daniel as Bose and Femi, apparently not liking the seriousness of the conversation, crawled out of the room in a spectacular truck chase, making growling motor noises under their breath.

“Daddy, I’ll try and pray.”

“Try, oh! Believe in curses, believe in miracles, believe, believe, believe in these things even if you don’t see them happen. Remember, I am your father. And I tell you, forget about the face of Jesus.”

The face of Jesus?

Daniel looked at Sarah for clarification, but she was reeling with surprise.

She opened her mouth, then closed it, opened it again.

“How—?”

“Where is your daughter?” Sarah’s father interrupted her.

The whirring of the fan came to an unexpected halt, accompanied by Funke’s shout from the kitchen: “Up, up, Jesus! Down, down, NEPA!”

And all three of them laughed, curses, miracles and the face of Jesus carried away on the humid air.

The next day Sarah was sitting in the kitchen with Funke and Biola, deliberating the merits of bread and butter over the “arduous” efforts of
akara
.

“Hah! Arduous! Big writer word!
Akara
is only arduous to you, Bisi,” Funke snorted, with the supreme confidence of a woman who has no fear of her kitchen. “I already soaked and grated plenty of beans and put them in the freezer. I can take them out and blend them and make
akara
whenever I want.”

“Well, good for you,” Sarah told her. “I just hope that one day you don’t run out of oil for the generator, because when those NEPA devils cut off the electricity again, what would happen to your precious beans then?”

Bose skidded into the kitchen, the sleeves of the blue shirt of Akin’s that she’d decided to wear floating out around her arms. “Aunty Bisi, Aunty Bisi, Jessamy can speak Yoruba!”

Conversation came to a surprised halt as Sarah laughed aloud and Biola reached out and grabbed Bose, tickling her until she screamed.

“Ha, Bose, no! Jessamy is our very own
Iya Oyinbo!
”

“
Irọ, irọ
,” Bose chortled, before breaking away and pointing to the upstairs sitting room a few doors away. “Ebun is teaching her!”

She leapt excitedly in the air, in expectation that her statement would be verified when Jess, squealing with laughter, was jostled into the kitchen by Ebun and Tope, who attempted to cajole her into saying a few words in Yoruba. She would not.

Sarah leaned forward and caught Jess’s hands, bringing her closer. “
Kilo de?
” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

Jess tipped her head to the side and peeped shyly at Sarah from under her eyelids. The sun had struck her irises liquid gold again. She took a deep breath.

“
Ko si nkan-nkan
,” she replied at length, capturing the accent and even the lift in tone perfectly.

Ebun, Tope and Bose crowed in delight. “It’s nothing! She said, ‘It’s nothing!’ ”

Sarah nearly fell off her chair in bewilderment. “That’s wonderful!” she cried, once she’d taken a second to recover herself. “What else can you say? Go and say something to your father!”

She could just imagine Daniel’s face; his nine-year-old daughter picking up a language in minutes. It was so strange, though! But maybe Jess had picked up more language than she had been aware of on the last visit. Jess nodded at her suggestion, but first moved across the kitchen and climbed onto Aunty Funke’s lap.

“Aunty Funke,
ẹ joo, mo fẹ akara
,” Jess said to her aunt, who had a hand over her heart and was laughing fit to burst.

“Of course you can have
akara
!” Funke told Jessamy, before darting a triumphant look at Sarah and adding: “I have beans ready frozen!”

“Hah! But Jessamy, where is
Iya Oyinbo
?” Biola teased Jess, as Daniel came into the kitchen, sleepily rubbing the back of his head, to find out what all the commotion was about.

Before Sarah could explain properly, her father added his part to the enquiry.

“Ah-ah! Is there a party? Are musicians coming to town, or what is it?” Gbenga called grumpily from the kitchen doorway. No one had heard him coming. His steel-grey hair was flattened to his head, and he had a red-and-yellow towel wrapped with a thick loop around his waist, cutting off the rough shirt that he slept in so that it bulged outwards. Jessamy slid off Funke’s lap and crawled quietly under the table as everyone in the room strove to be the first to tell him.

“I taught Jess Yoruba,” Ebun said, proudly, pushing Tope when she disagreed, clamouring, “No, I did, I did!”

Jess’s grandfather moved into the kitchen, and Biola vacated her chair, which was nearest to the door, so that he could sit down. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Eh-heh, so you taught Wuraola Yoruba. Let her come and talk to her grandfather then!”

“Good point. Where is she?” Daniel asked, leaning heavily on the back of Sarah’s chair as he yawned.

The cousins looked at each other, nonplussed, but Sarah bent a little in her chair as her eyes swept the darkness under the table set against the wall; she could see Jess’s bright eyes peering watchfully at her.

“Hmmm,” she said, motioning to Funke to pull her daughter out from under there, which she did with difficulty due to Jess’s subdued protestations and struggle.

“Ah-ah! What’s wrong with you?” Funke asked, presenting Jess to her grandfather. He watched her calmly, his chin in his hands.

“Fi mi silẹ, Baba Gbenga, fi mi le, ẹ joo,”
Jess moaned faintly, still writhing in Funke’s firm grip, before Gbenga had even said anything. She fell silent when he started back in his chair and then looked around the room at everyone—at Ebun, who was saying, “Ha! I hadn’t even taught her that yet,” and at Sarah, who was now mystified and slightly uneasy, and even at Daniel, who was gazing at Jess with mixed pride and concern. Then he stood up and shook a finger at Jess with an expression of anger crossing his face, one familiar to Sarah
(You this girl! I know what to do
for you!)
and left the room, hastily retying his towel as it began to slip around his hips. Sarah had to hold herself down in her seat to prevent herself from running after him, propelled by her sudden, unjustifiable but implacable fear that he was going to fetch his belt
(Ah he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, not to his granddaughter?)
and when she looked around at Biola and Funke, she saw with part relief and part dismay that she wasn’t the only one who was forcing herself to stay still.

“Why did you tell your grandfather to leave you alone, now?” Funke was asking Jess, holding on to her shoulders and looking keenly into her face.

“We never talk to our elders like that, Jessamy,” Biola added, as Tope, Bose and Ebun fled, giggling, to spread the word to the other cousins. “It looks as if
Iya Oyinbo
has not gone
too
far away after all—”

Sarah couldn’t restrain herself any longer and hurried out of the kitchen to knock on her father’s bedroom door.

“Eh,” he said, by way of an invitation for her to enter. She opened his door to find that he had speedily dressed, Western-style in brown, belted trousers and a white shirt and was now putting his shoes on. He grunted but didn’t say anything when he saw her, instead picking up his wallet from the dresser and putting it into the pocket of his trousers. She spoke to him in English, trying to calm him down. He looked impassive, but his movements told her that he was agitated. Why?

“Daddy. Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.”

“Daddy—”

“Why are you asking me where I am going? Are you now my parent, or what is it?”

“I just—”

“I am not old enough for those roles to change, Bisi. O ya, move aside.”

She trembled, but stayed where she was, and he drew back in disbelief.

“I don’t want you to be angry with my daughter. I don’t know what’s the matter with her, but . . .”

“Bisi.”

“Daddy!”

“Where is your daughter?”

“Daddy, what do you mean?”

“Bisi.”

“Daddy?”

“I said, where is your daughter?”

She knew better than to answer “in the kitchen”—his temper was beginning to sound clear in his voice. She hovered in front of him, buying time.

“I’m going to find Iya Adahunse,” he said.

“Iya Adahunse! Why?” Disbelief rang high and loud in Sarah’s voice.

“For Wuraola.”

“For—?”

“Who’s Iya Adahunse?” Daniel said from behind Sarah, stumbling awkwardly over the name. Sarah didn’t look at him, maintaining fierce and steady eye contact with her father as she tried to understand his concern.

“She’s . . . kind of . . . traditional . . . like a sort of medicine woman.”

Daniel paused.

“What d’you mean, traditional? D’you mean a witch doctor?” he asked, turning Sarah around to face him. His expression was incredulous, his eyes thinning to blue-green slits as he looked at her askance.

Sarah didn’t reply but tried to twist out of his grip as she reached out to her father, who had by now strode out of his room and was heading purposefully down the stairs. She was conscious of Biola and Funke standing in the kitchen, unsure whether or not to intervene.

“A witch doctor? My daughter isn’t having anything to do with a witch doctor,” Daniel insisted, now letting go of Sarah and starting after Gbenga. “Jesus, what’s going on? She learns a bit of Yoruba and now she needs to see a witch doctor?” he shouted after Sarah’s father.