I
‘Open your right palm.’
‘What are we doing? Mum.’
‘Just open it, don’t ask questions.’
‘Okay, mummy.’ I stretch my arm forward, it is askew to her breasts as she sits. She obtains a handful of salt from the bowl on an àpótí. We are in the kitchen where the sun slants like a stream, allowing floating particles of things to flow with air through holes from our wooden window.
‘Salt.’ She says, fulfilled. I know this because of the smile that tersely plays around her lips. ‘Salt is success. It is happiness. It is sweetness. It is favor. It is goodwill.’
‘Okay, mummy.’ I say. Happy she is happy. My friends are outside, afar, on a field, tossing our newly-bought fẹ́lẹ̀lẹ̀ to one another. Mother hinders me with what she is doing. But, gentler than ever, I allow time to pass through my not thinking about my friends and the new ball.
‘Take a little and taste it.’
II
In the morning, the blue plastic chair stands aloof, midway, blocking entrance to the kitchen. I walk past it. I do not push it away with a leg as I have always done. Mother is in the kitchen, waiting, salt in hand, wrapper hanging loosely on her body. I look at her eyes, those sunken eyes survey my appearance in a quick validation. She nods approvingly, smiling. She ages, very quickly, than I do. Grey hairs saunter the blackness of the hirsute forest on her head. I am with only a towel. Green, salved around my waist. My knees, however, protrude. The towel is getting smaller and smaller. When I was younger, it was a blanket to all of my skin.
‘Sit. I will bathe you when we are done with salt.’
‘Mother.’ I mutter, the air becoming stiffer than usual.
‘What? You’re never too big for me. I gave birth to you, Jacob.’ She says, handling a pinch of salt into my waiting palm. I taste. ‘Did you say the words?’
‘Yes, ma. In my heart.’
‘Very good.’ She smiles, running her two palms across my cheeks, down to my stubble. ‘You will get the job. No one else will. Only you. Àkànjí.’ Then she breaks into quiet crying. Sounds as piercing as a continuous needle in one’s skin. Her sobs do do things to my heart, and in the quiet of the night, while crickets sing till midnight, I hear these sobs again: rhythmic, purposeful, tiny.
This morning, after the bathing of my head which she does almost hurriedly, I head out to the streets of Lagos. Past Mushin and the never-ending bustlings. I mount an ọ̀kadà to the company that had mailed just yesterday, inviting me to an interview. On the ọ̀kadà, the man asks me what it means to lose a person. I pretend to not hear, consciously blaming the wind that engages my two ears on the fast-moving streets and bodies.
‘Broda. You dey hear me so?’ He begins. ‘A-say a-lost my wife last week. She dey pregnant, and a-no geh money to give the hospitals. Dem talk say she go need surgery. Dat na twins dey a-belle, and she no fit born dem normally. I talk give dem say a-no geh dah kain amount. Five hundred thousand, broda. For this Naija. Me wey be ọ̀kadà man since covid time. A-look everywhere, broda…’ He turns sharply into a new street. Potholes grace his tires. ‘…A-look everywhere for the money, broda man. A-no see. The hospitals con leave her to her suffering. She no too get parents like me. So nobody dey to call. And my twins, omoh, my twins dey a-belle dey wan come to life. But the hospitals no gree let dem come. Dey even wan make my wife go. You get? broda,’ he laughs briefly, ‘my children wan come, she wan go. hehe.’
III
Before Father dies, leaving only a house and fifty thousand naira in his wardrobe, I am a reader. He will come, sneaking into my room where I lay, asleep, a teddy bear embracing my fullness. He will sit on the floors, disbursing whatever things he had brought from his workplace for me. Once in a while, I will stir awake. He will still be there, reading the books he had bought for me. On these occasions, I will not speak, I will only sit with him, on the floors, resting my head on his broad shoulders, training my eyes on the words on the pages as he flips.
He largely buys storybooks. The kinds that possess images roughly drawn like sketches portraying key events, ongoing ones, in the books. These images help my imagination. I will picture myself, while reading these books, in the nucleus of the mayhems. Other times, I will be a character, hidden, stalking the others in the book as they go about their own issues.
When he dies, Mother does not wail. I, a retired reader, do not, either. The people had looked at us. How our eyes are heavy with words of water but not bursting. How our lips are hard, how our heads are together, in their own griefs, comforting themselves. Mother sits beside me, I do not know where her mind revels. Then she flings herself up, eating air, muttering words. Women amongst the sympathizers had followed her into the kitchen. Where they held her by each arm, retrieving whatever thing was in her right palm.
Salt.
IV
At the company, the ọ̀kadà man offers to stay and wait. He is a generous man by looks. He asks me what time I will be done. I say at most, Eleven. He dismounts and sits at a kiosk, conversing with the recharge-card woman. I understand he enjoys doing this. To tell people his sorrows, unasked. It helps him, like mother’s deliberate salty foods we gnaw, to sweeten the bitter griefs of loss.
‘Mr Adegboyega Jacob?’ The secretary says.
‘Yes. Good morning.’
‘Good morning. Please, sit over there at the reception. The director will see you soon.’ She says, munching what I believe is a gum. Her hair is dyed black. Her hands, behind the desk, unseen, busy themselves with a keyboard.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ I trudge, with my shoes giving brief sounds as products of their ongoing marriage with the glassy floors, to the reception. People move about here almost stolidly. They seem content; unperturbed by the perpetual tragedies of living. They seem a sect that has never known grief. They seem nescient to the fact that salt is more than what goods it portends to humanity. They seem lively.
When I get home, after the ọ̀kadà man had insisted on receiving my phone’s digits ‘because of next time’, I do not meet Mother. The sitting room appears neater. The curtains slowly dance as in a conversation with the incoming winds. I allow my body to crash on the sofa, the sofa creaking my welcome. The voice of an ìyà ológì then wafts inwards, suffusing the room I lay, unfolding memories of yesteryears:
‘What are we eating today?’ Father had said, his baritone a stark contrast to Mother’s sonority that the room had been echoing. He held my two shoulders, I, rocking myself at his legs.
‘First, we will have ògì. It will carpet our tummies for the arrival of breakfast.’ Mother had said, excited we actually listened to her reasons that morning.
‘Ògì. Jacob. Hear your mother. Who eats —or should I say who drinks— ògì in the morning of a Saturday?’ Father coughed in a patronizing manner. I only smiled, enjoying the moments.
‘Bring the salt jare, Àkànjí.’ Mother said, smiling tersely, a sign of fulfillment. She then scooped enough spoons of the ògì into a big bowl.
‘Salt? Ha, what have I married?’ Father had screamed. I trembled with light laughter coursing my body, heading to the ingredients section. ‘She does this all the time. Since our wedding night. Jacob. Your mother used salt to spray our bed on our wedding night.’ He laughed, Mother laughed, so I laughed. Life seemed easy.
‘Àkànjí.’ Mother’s soft voice meets me on the sofa where I still lay, sprawling. ‘What have you eaten?’
‘Mother.’ I mutter, washing over her appearance. She returns from the market, the commodities in her hands tell me so. ‘I have not. Bring these, let me help you carry them to the kitchen.’ Sprinting, I meet her front where, peeping, I catch the nylons of Mr Chef’s salt. Mother bought enough and she smiles anew to me.
V
In the night, before we sleep, Mother and I sit in the sitting room, Silence sitting with us, too. She fiddles with a cardigan, how the loosened wools tangle her fingers. She does this unknowingly, whenever she thinks. Mine is to lock fingers with my hairs, removing strands, little pains will be my prizes.
My phone then vibrates. ‘It is an email from the company,’ I tell mother. ‘They say I should come tomorrow, that the manager is interested in me. They manage to add that, in my CV, they had seen that I am a graduate of Engineering. They said that was enough. That that was what they needed. Engineers.’
Mother beams as I tell her this. She holds me in an embrace, eyes glinting, ready to burst. She holds me by the hands, and, together, we fly to the kitchen. We both know what is due, what is next. I do the honors, plucking the bowl from its counterparts. Together, we mutter words. Words of success and of happiness. Words of goodwill and of sweetness. Words of salt.
Emmanuel Olabiyi is a student-artist that studies English Language and Literature at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His works have appeared and are forthcoming at Lolwe, Ikike Arts, The Weganda Review, Herlore, Artisans Quill, etc. He is a budding novelist.
