Dolls

The family buried Aunty Fola with two dolls; a plastic one and a wooden one were placed in her stiff arms, in her polished wooden coffin. She was terrified of dolls. I got to see and hear her fear of dolls when I was four. My mother told me to leave my doll at home when we went to visit her, but I snuck my thin blonde haired doll under my dress as we left the house. Aunty Fola had been living abroad, it was the first time both first cousins saw each other in years. Aunty Fola opened her door, hugged my mother and asked for me. My mother said I was near. I had crawled in between their legs during their very long hug. Aunty Fola felt my hands rubbing her legs; laughing, she untangled herself from my mother and looked down at me. She saw me, well not only me, but me and my doll. I saw her face go slack. She took in a deep breath and a scream came out of her, while her eyes were fixed on the doll I was holding. I saw them roll into her head and she fell on the floor.

Our family has its roots in Holloway Street, one of many in Lagos Island, and its branches spread all over the world. Holloway is a long winding street tucked inside Oke Arin market. Inside Holloway's cramped houses are the old ones, the mothers. Women who have lived long, their grey heads filled with events and lives. They exist in the coolest rooms reclining on beds or couches, asleep or awake, their toothless gums slowly work on the many things they know. They are connected to the outside world by things seen and unseen, past and future. Inside them the stories of our lives live. On warm afternoons, the old ones are carried out of their rooms to the top of their buildings. Here the sun warms their bones and makes sluggish blood run through frail bodies. Till sundown, they would chat, laugh with friends on adjacent rooftops, Holloway humming below them.

My family, the Bamigbose, believe that this fear started with Asake the wife of Ajagbe whose daughter had a doll. We do not remember the girl's name, we know her by Omolangidi. She was known by this name because of her wooden doll. The girl always carried her doll close to her bosom or sometimes tied it to her back with one of her mother's gele. Everyone in Holloway knew her and the doll, but only a few people knew the doll's name. It amused her when people tried to guess and failed. When she was a baby carried on her mother's back, both were kept warm by Asake's wrapper. The girl dragged the doll along with her as she learnt to walk. And when she could walk both doll and girl trailed behind Asake when she hawked jogi and eko in the mornings. This was when the storied buildings in Holloway were mere bungalows, squat rectangular buildings made of mud plastered with cement.

Sandra Brewster, Untitled (Cold) (detail), 2014.

Mixed media on wood. Courtesy of the artist.

One day, Asake told her girl that she would throw her doll into the lagoon. The worried mother had tried everything to make her six-year-old stop bedwetting and had become desperate. She decided to shock her girl to stop by taking away the thing she loved most. The mother had dragged the wailing girl to the edge of the lagoon and threw a piece of wood far into the lagoon. The daughter believed it was her doll that was being carried away by the waters of the Lagoon. She fell to the ground, rigid, her jaws tightly clenched, and eyes rolled into her head. The mother had unknowingly thrown a part of her daughter into the lagoon. The scared woman cradled her girl until she opened her eyes. That night the girl and mother slept on the same mat with the girl in her...