Dogs in the Sun

Chapter Nine

103 Dogs in the Sun Chapter Nine S he wasn’t with me. She wasn’t here in any case. Not here. Not here… The words darted and kicked about in my head, knocked and whistled like sizzling meatballs in steaming oil. What a fool I’d been to stir the topic. Now I knew what I had feared to know. The shred of hope on which I had hung had snapped and I was tumbling, tumbling. How far down would I fall? What did the revelations hold for me? Now I knew that Lemea hadn’t spent the evening with Olembe. I must seek out the truth. I must. Her reputation was my business. I was not going to have another man work my farm for me as if I had been stricken with leprosy. I was not a leper. My fingers, all ten of them, were in full health. Lemea was my farm, my plot of land. Recent happenings had shown me that it was growing into wild forest with monsters waiting in the shade. I was going to reclaim it, work it clean, chase away the monsters, destroy the reptiles, kill all the bad beasts. My father’s dying words…I could hear them still in my ears… my daughter… He hadn’t finished. Death had sealed his lips, leaving me with a half-finished whisper. As if winged to the place by those half-finished words now come alive, I found myself chewing roast maize in MaNina ’s house. I’d meant on leaving Olembe to go to my palm-bush and carry home the evening’s harvest of palmwine. But here I was in Ma-Nina’s house on a threelegged stool, with my back against a heap of freshlyharvested maize. 104 G. D. Nyamndi Nina handed me the roast maize at a steady rhythm. Questions followed the roasting and the eating, questions thrown in a way that did not show any worry. If Nina knew the fire burning inside me she would not tell me everything she knew, especially the bad ones. Yes, she spent the whole afternoon and the better part of the evening here with me. No, my mother was not in all through. She cooked, then collected her hoe and went behind the house to finish her cocoyam beds. What we talked about? Why do you want to know what we did and what we talked about? You want to know everything, just for the pleasure of it. Call me stubborn again. You cannot dig into our secrets like that. Another roast maize was handed to me which I waved back protesting: “You haven’t had any yourself.” “A mother eats through her child,” she said, then clapped the coal dust off her hands and placed both hands on the upper part of her half-stretched legs, her face lit with a dignity at odds with her age. There was something really maternal about her now that had not been there before that deep reflection on the joys of motherhood. “This child part again,” I protested somewhat humorously. “Who is your child here anyway?” “What are you? Or are you saying you’ve grown so big you are not my child any more? Who else feeds you apart from me? I know one or two names…they do not bother me…only let me tell you… a child has only one mother. I delivered you…you will never grow too big to be my child.” “I thank you for it. But will you now say I should not grow up and walk on my own feet? One can never talk strong talk with you. Ahah!” Strong talk. She turned at this and faced me. “I knew something drove you out of your house today.” “Nina, Lemea came home late last night.” “If it is that one you will run here. When did I last see you?” 105 Dogs in the Sun “You will see me any time you like. But now I need help. There are ants in our house.” “Let them bite those your feet well well.” “Nina…Lemea. It was not only that she came home late. She was nervous and agitated in a way I’m not used to seeing her.” “Not bleeding and her clothes torn and her body in mud.” “No.” “She came home safely, only agitated.” “Safely, I don’t know.” “Where is...