When Michael and Ndubuisi Warred

A bather with his clothes on knows himself.

igbo proverb

Yet water had no hand in what any of my names would be.

The day my head popped out into this world, it poured so hard my mother mused of it: We feared the roof would cave in on us; it drummed so loud I didn’t hear your cries! My father was rain-drenched on his way to behold his first child—his son who would be his wife’s replica and not his; he didn’t mind the rain pelting his moromoro head: he was going to be a father after all, after six years of waiting to be—my birthday was his own Father’s Day.

It rained the whole day.

That day my mother held me in her hands for the first time and muttered, He’s a rain-child, my blessing! She would insist whenever the subject of her barrenness came up, You opened my womb for more babies to come in and stay.

It rained for two more days.

Our neighbourhood was flooded—flood lifted our belongings off the ground; and my father bore gladly the loss of some of his prized possessions—his consolatory prize: his fresh admittance into the league of fatherhood, a father assured of the continuity of his name; and years later, on a sick bed, he said, You made me a responsible father, and a smile lived on his face the rest of his last few days.

When my feet became sturdy hands stomping the ground as drums, That shows how very much you and water agree, my mother would say to me most rainy days that I never caught cold dancing in the rain with other children in our neighbourhood. And some years later, during university education, when she learnt from a relative of my near-obsession with water, rivers, and seas, she said: I’m not surprised—he’s a July-child. He may one day make a sea his lair.

Yet water had no hand in what names I bear.

________

For six days, after I was born, I was without a name. For six days I belonged to two different worlds: the world of humans and the world of unborn children—I had the option of staying in only one. For six days I was just a he, relishing the sweetness of my mother’s breast milk, relishing the pleasures of her Igbo lullabies, relishing the bliss of dreamless forty winks.

For six days I was a baby without worries—my mother would chuckle over memories of my infancy. It didn’t take efforts to get you to giggle: my throat was a bag of tinkles.

Among the Igbos, a child is not named at birth—a child is to be named seven or twelve days after birth; the days allow for solemn meditation on what name or names the child will bear; and every adult member of the nuclear family can suggest a name for the child.

Among the Igbos, naming a child entails careful reflection on the circumstance or circumstances surrounding the child’s birth; the circumstance bears weight on the child’s name; the name could end up being a coarse or a smooth road for the child’s journey through Earth—a wrong name can make a bad child.

On the seventh day I became ripe for a name, for an identity that I’m to carry with me for the rest of my life; that I’m to fill into every document alongside my signature; that I’m to defend with my life—even though I had no say in the decision of what my name should be.

My days with names on Earth would begin—what kind of child would I be?

My father wanted Ndubuisiokwu—meaning: with life there is hope or life is most supreme. Simply explained, it is an encouragement to be hopeful.

My mother wanted Ekwutosilam—meaning: do not slate me. It was to be an admonitory response to her critics who called her barren for the six years after marriage that she...