A World Not Yours

Like Henry, the animals seemed to know that the child had not been a miracle. On the day of the celebration, bleating goats circled in and out of the compound, running into walls and scattering the guinea corn kernels drying on the ground. Chickens pecked skittishly at cabbage scraps they could not eat, while the restless dogs barked to scare away their squawking. The sun, envying the frenzied pace in the compound, rose too high in the October sky to witness the activity. Women came on a mission to cook for the celebration. With babies strapped to their backs, they pounded boiled yams, splitting the air with the drumming of pestle against mortar. Fingers deftly chopped pumpkin leaves, peeled yellow plantains to salt and fry, and gathered firewood to kindle the flames. Not once did they stop to sit. If they looked to be standing still, one only needed to see the twist of their lips to know that they were counting the number of dishes to be washed, or studying the viscosity of the thinning palm oil to know when the onions could be added.

Miriam rested on a stool under the shade of the tin roof, protecting her new bundle, far from the billow of white smoke winding its way around the necks of the pawpaw trees. The wrapper tied around her body did not cover her chest, where Gideon latched to her swollen breast. Days before, in the middle of the night, Miriam had suddenly gone out of her mind, releasing an agonizing wail that roused every single person sleeping in the compound and unleashed what seemed to Henry like chaos. One of the girls dashed to call the midwife. Henry’s mother hurried from her room carrying old wrappers. Another of the cousins scrambled to find the razorblade for the umbilical cord and plastic sheets to catch the blood. Miriam crawled on the ground, refusing water, heaving, and throwing her head back so often that Henry was convinced of its imminent detachment. His mother slapped Miriam’s legs and laughed. Did Miriam not know that women of old swallowed their screams so that that same power might go down to push the child out? If Miriam could not handle these mosquito-bite contractions, how could she handle the actual delivery when the baby decided to show itself and enter the world?

Once it seemed that the child might finally be birthed, three women were allowed in the room: the mothers of the expectant parents and the midwife. Henry was unable to sleep that entire night, knowing the miracle the child was supposed to bring for him. He closed his eyes and listened for the cries of the infant, the assurances of the baby he had waited for. The following morning, their mother invited Henry into the darkened room to meet his nephew. Though the plastic sheets stained with dried blood and fluids had been taken outside to burn, the suffocating and pungent smell of birth permeated the cramped room. Miriam lay on a mattress in the corner covered by a blue bed sheet, while the midwife carried the child, rubbing a layer of salt on the baby’s umbilical stump so that in three days’ time it would shrivel. The midwife told Miriam that the boy looked like his father. See his nose, the midwife said. And his eyes, Henry’s mother chimed, how his eyes turn downward in the corners like Shagye’s. When Henry gazed upon the child, he saw a wrinkled and hairless face wrapped in a red- and black-patterned cloth. The baby had a flat head, purplish eyelids, and swollen lips, his face contorted like a frying puff-puff, and he bore no resemblance to anyone that Henry knew. But what mattered most to Henry was not the appearance of the child; it was hearing confirmation of the name Miriam had chosen.

“Settle yourself,” his mother said, when it was time for him to hold the child. “Haven’t you ever seen a newborn before?” She carefully placed the baby into his hands.

“What is his name?” Henry said, pretending not...