How well do you really know her? You know, the girl that sits in front of you in your Literature class. The one you occasionally have study sessions with. The one with the cute smile and chubby cheeks, that invited you on a road trip this weekend? I mean, she’s sweet and all, but did she forgot to mention she’s into different kinds of satanic sex rituals and it may get just a little bloody during this trip. surely she didn’t?
How well do you really know him. Sure he’s a good neighbor. He never fails to give you your packages when Fedex drops them off at his place. He smiles and waves as you rush off to catch the 8 o’clock bus every morning. He even gives little bonzo some doggy treat from time to time. But you don’t really know what goes on when he goes into his apartment and pulls the blind, do you? You don’t know about the hundreds of unsuspecting scam victims he defrauds behind his computer screen. Or that he once went to prison for raping a thirteen year old girl. Let’s face it, there’s a lot we don’t know about the people we come in contact with on a daily basis.
As I look at the different groups of mourners, I cant help but wonder why they cry. Are they so bereft with grief because the world has lost a great man, or are they weeping for the loss of all the monetary benefits they have grown accustomed to over the years. I see Aunt Chizzy, my dad’s youngest sister. Every month, he debited N300,000 in her account. Her hands are on her head as she repeatedly screams his name. I see Mr Hassan, the family driver. I have never heard of a driver that earns N100,000 a month, Mr Hassan is a lucky bastard, or should I say… was. He is shaking his head in disbelief and muttering incoherent words to himself. I see pastor Joseph, ofcourse he will be here. I can not count the amount of seven figure checks dad wrote to the church. I just cant, even if I tried.
I feel the stares, the whispers.
“poor children. It was only last year their mum passed”
“To think the youngest is only ten”
“what would happen to education. Didn’t I hear two of them school abroad”
I am dressed in all black, the official mourning apparel in these parts. By my left is Kene, my ten year old brother, by my right is Tochi, my twenty one year old sister. The hugs, the kisses, the consoling words, they never stop.
“Be strong dear, you know that’s what he’ll want”
“He’s in a better place watching over you three angels”
It is time for the eulogy. Tochi is supposed to read it since she is the oldest. But she refuses, she says she just cant. People are waiting, the whispers grow louder. The last thing I want is a scene, so I take the little paper from her and walk to the podium to give my dad his parting words.
The crowd is eagerly awaiting my speech so I begin.
“Daddy was a loving father, not just to we the children, but to everyone that came in contact with him. He was always ready to assist the poor in any possible way. His palms wiped away the tears of many people”
I am seven years old and I feel the sharp pain on my cheek but it really isn’t me. It’s mummy. Daddy is hitting her, he’s slapping her repeatedly, she’s begging him to stop, she’s crying. I clutch my cheeks and run into my room. Maybe pretending i never saw that will make it go away. The next morning, we all have breakfast. Mummy and daddy talk about the news in the morning paper as usual, everything seems normal. Yesterday could have been a dream for all I know.
“I can not begin to count the number of charity events he hosted, the number of donations he made to different foundations all over the country”. My voice is shaky and my fingers tremble, one year at Tisch school of the arts has definitely paid off.
My mind flashes to when the beatings grew more frequent. Tochi and I became very aware of daddy’s temper tantrums. He would come back from work exhausted. We will serve him his dinner and a piece of meat will be slightly cold. That was enough to tick him off.
“who warmed this food”
“I” my voice, a frightened whisper. I feared what always followed.
“Call her for me” he will say, in a slow matter o’ fact voice.
The slaps, the kicks, the punches. Every bruise, every black eye killed me a little more. I will lie in bed all night crying, begging God to make him stop hitting mummy. Tochi and I never talked about it. It was easier to pretend it never happened. But I could tell she cried too, I could tell from her sunken eyes. The next day, mum will appear by dad’s side entertaining guests while they host a charity event. They will look perfect, tell the right jokes, their chemistry was perfect, scarily so. Dad never hit us, he punished mum for any of our wrongdoings. When i broke his favorite mug, mummy got beat. When Tochi forgot to sweep the parlor, mummy got pushed to the wall. I was traumatized, i still am. It’s one thing when you read about abuse stories, when you watch it on tv. And it’s a totally different story when it is your reality, when as an eleven year old child, you spend recess worrying about whether mummy’s swollen eye has gone down. Whether the cut in her cheek has stopped hurting.
“He was a loving husband. He stood by my mum through thick and thin. When the cancer came, he was always by her bedside, always near by”.
My family looked picture perfect from the outside. My friends envied me because we were rich. They always wanted to come for sleepovers. They wished their parents were as nice as mine. We were that family that always had Sunday dinner at Eko hotel and suites or Radison hotel. The one that spent summer in NYC or Qatar. No one knew how to take perfect family portraits like we could, the right smiles plastered on our faces, daddy leaning in to give mummy a kiss as the camera man clicked away. Yes, we were so gifted in the art of deceit.
I remember that night in Newyork, we were all in dad’s room watching a movie. Everything seemed so good, mum and dad were making jokes, little kene was playing with his psp, it was the calm before the storm. Mum made a lighthearted comment about how dad needed to get a haircut because he was starting to resemble a homeless man. We all giggled, until we realized dad had stood up and removed his belt. Within seconds mum was on the floor and he was flogging her, in front of us. In front of six years old Kene. It was sick, it still sickens me till this very moment. We cried that night, every single one of us. And for the first time, we three kids stopped pretending our family was a normal one, we stopped acting like mummy’s limp really came from a bad fall, like her constant black eyes were because she spent her night studying for exams. The time came when we realized not talking about it wont make it automatically disappear. That night, we cried together in my room and called daddy all sorts of names. We vowed never to show him any kind of affection going forward. I will never forget waking up in the middle of the night to feel his lips on my cheeks as he gave me a goodnight kiss.
“My angel, goodnight”.
You will never understand how much I still cringe at the very memory. It was sickening, my body still crawls and I get shivers just thinking about it. After all the evil this sick scum did to my mum, he will act like nothing happened. I was a fool, we were all fools. No one could stand up to him.
“When my mum died last year, he threw her the best funeral ever. He ordered a hundred white roses from New Zealand to commemorate that day. He opened a cancer foundation in her memory, truly.. he was a special man”. I dab at the imaginary tears in my eyes as the audience applauds me.
My mum died of cancer last year, but between my siblings and I, we knew she died long before the cancer took her. All those years of physical and psychological abuse broke her down. She was a beautiful woman, very vivacious and energetic. He stole that beauty, that joy, he took everything from her. By the time she died, i could barely recognize my own mum. Yes the chemotherapy took her hair, but daddy took her soul. “Keep the mind weak, and the body strong” was the motto of the slavemasters in their dealings with slaves. Daddy was a greater evil, he kept both mummy’s mind and body weak.
Every one thought the marriage was made in heaven, every single person was blindsided by the money my dad showered on them. Pastor joseph never noticed how the kids of his favorite congregation member always looked scared, or how his wife started walking with a limp. They never saw our SOS messages, the silent pleas we made, the unspoken cries for help. No, as long as daddy whet their palms with naira notes, he could be ordained knight of the chapel for all they cared.
“Your death is something we are all struggling to come to terms with. I don’t know how we’ll survive the pain of your absence, why is the world so cruel? Why do good people die?” i continue. I am appalled by my own lies.
His last night on earth was just a regular day. If I had known he was going to die, I could have thrown a ball in celebration. My sister and I were home for the holiday. I hated coming to the house, everything there, the pictures, the smell, reminded me of mummy. It was hard to look at this man who fathered me without feeling a surge of hatred and animosity. He was in his room, just about to take a short nap. Tochi and Kene had gone to Palms to see a movie, I was alone with him.
I was just about to leave the room when I saw him gasping for air as he struggled to sit up. It was his asthma, it had started again.
“Nne, my inhaler is in the sitting room. Get it quickly” he wheezed.
“Yes daddy” I replied dutifully, ready to rush off to get it before the attack got any worse.
And then I stopped in my tracks. I still don’t know what hit me. Maybe it was the picture of mummy placed right opposite his bed. Maybe it was because I could never forgive myself for all the nights I placed my ear-phones over my ears to block out the sounds of mummy’s cries as tears streamed down my cheeks. Maybe I was tired of pretending this man was the saint everyone except we his kids claimed he was.
I just know I stopped. And I stood to watch him. I saw his face contort in rage as he shouted at me to hurry. He said he was barely breathing. I stoically took the key out the lock, it was like something had possesed me. I saw his face morph from confusion to fear. As he struggled to get to the door, I slammed it shut and locked him in. I spent the next hour crying outside his bedroom door as I listened to him pant till I could hear him no more.
“And, as we lay you down in your final resting place daddy, may your soul rest in perfect peace. The world has truly lost a great man”
I step off the podium and the applauds grow louder. People whisper more soothing words as I pass by. It’s a travesty really, this sham of a funeral. Daddy’s eldest sister hugs me.
“I don’t know how you’ll cope without your dad. I always felt you were the closest to him” she says softly.
I give her a shaky smile and break down completely in her arms as she consoles me.
Look at that neighbor, that classmate, that niece one more time. Look beneath the teary eyes of that girl, and you’ll see a cold calculating hardness that’ll keep you up all night for days..
