When we were kids, our father ruled us like a royal despot. His words became law to all of us without exception but I knew otherwise. I received great pleasure then to know that Dad’s bravado did not extend to our delectable mother.
An attack of small pox in his youth that left his face with permanent scars marred my father’s handsomeness. The story behind that attack made him one of the few survivors of the small pox epidemic that nearly wiped out our village in those days.
The severance of the epidemic reached an alarming proportion when people died in hundreds in our town and the surrounding villages. Grandfather Giwa and his family bared the brunt of the epidemic in the Giwa’s compound. One sad day, he lost five children. Grandfather had fifteen wives and many concubines. He could have married more if he wanted. His friends literally begged him to marry their daughters. He alone owned five houses in the Giwa’s compound; each consisted of twelve rooms. He had so many children that I don’t know the actual numbers of my uncles and aunts.
Many families fled their home for their farmhouses. When the epidemic became uncontrollable, the British District Officer in charge of our area sets up a commission of inquiry to unearth the remote cause of the epidemic, arrests its spread, and if possible eradicates it.
They discovered that the worshipers of Sanponna (the Yoruba malevolent god of small pox) facilitated the spread of the disease.
As custom demanded, the family of anyone who died of smallpox must notify a Sanponna priest who would bury the dead.
The priests would carry the dead body to the evil forest. In addition, the priests would carry away every earthy possession of the deceased. No family member dared touched anything belonging to the deceased for fear of affliction by the dreaded decease.
This practice made the priests greedy. The more people died the more loot to share. Since they could not rely on the god to kill people fast enough, they devised a way to help the god.
They would collect the water used to wash the body of a deceased person. This they would use broomsticks to spray during the night into any area where they wanted the decease to break out. Since small pox is an air borne decease, it would infect anybody that inhaled the dust-infected air during the day.
The fact that the country lacked the knowledge to tackle the decease at that time made the inhuman act a big business for the Sanponna worshippers.
The livid District Officer swore to deal with the priests when they intimated him of this fact. He ordered an outright ban on the worshiping of the god. The government arrested and sent to prison anybody found to be a priest of the deity.
The priest because of the easy wealth they acquired at the expense of unsuspecting populace defiled the order of the District Officer. Not until he sent many of them to prison before they could bring down the epidemic.
While Dad remained the engine that kept the family going, Mum represented the oil that kept the engine in good working condition. Dad’s incurable optimism contradicted mum’s realism. Dad never learned from his mistakes. On several occasions, he escaped making disastrous investment on the express advice of our mother.
I will never forget one particular investment that nearly brought us to ruin. My father sauntered into the living room one afternoon with Uncle Philip in tow bubbling with excitement. “Mama Moses, where are you? We have arrived. We just cut a sweet deal with some farmers to supply us with as many tons of cocoa as we can pay at half the price we buy now. Where the heck are you?”
My father kicked Alice who rested her head while watching television out of his way when he noticed the absence of mother in the dinning room.
“Where is everybody?” inquired Uncle Philip.
“Where is everybody Moses,” my father repeated the question when he saw me reading a book in the sitting room. His speech was impaired. He must have taken some palm wine or beer.
Dad being a social drinker could not hold his drink; unlike Uncle Philip who someone said could drink a brewery to bankruptcy! Mother detested Uncle Philip because of his drinking habit. Anytime Dad came home tipsy, Uncle Philip would be there to tag along. Mum suspected he induces Dad to drink.
Uncle Philip dropped with a loud thud into one of the padded chairs, my Dad’s favourite. My Dad segregated his own favourite everything that only he must use as a rule. He owned his favourite chair, plate, spoon, cup etc. that are exclusively his. No one must use them as a rule except Mum who chooses to disregard such rules.
“Philip, will you move to the other chair?” said Dad thickly, “I feel as if someone is singing ‘Arise O compatriot’ in my brain, the only problem is that I cannot rise right now talk less of being a patriot.”
“Dad, why you drink when you know you cannot hold your drink like Uncle Philip?” I asked moving out of Dad’s arm reach.
“What right have you to query me about anything?,” Dad asked his eyes looking for the nearest object to throw at me. The nearest object was his favourite jug, which he looked at with regret. I moved out of his reach in a moment. “My Sango strike you down dead,” he swore.
Dad with his exposure is an archetypal Shaile man who would rain curses and abuses on anybody without battling an eye. People said that a Shaile man’s curse is as effective as water on the back of a duck. If the Shaile man’s curse is ineffective, what does that make his prayer?
One day Dad cursed a man he had an argument with in annoyance that the man would not live to see the next three days. The man died two days later. Those present informed the wife of the deceased who reasoned that if a witch cried yesterday and a child dies today, definitely yesterday’s witch must be responsible.
The police promptly arrested dad. Before they discovered he knew nothing about the man’s death, he spent three weeks in police custody.
One would think Dad would learn from that incidence, he never did. It is too deep in his Shaile blood. Is it not a marvel that someone would invoke Sango the god of thunder to shrike his only son dead?
“Welcome Joe. Did you just come in?” Mum greeted my Dad with a smile as she emerged from the kitchen with Aunty Taiye. Only mum dared calls Dad by the abbreviation of his name. Dad detested the abbreviation of his name, but mum cared less. Whatever mum wanted, she gets. Nobody can dissuade her from doing anything she wanted no matter the consequence.
“Hi Papa Faith, how is your family?” We have not seen you these past three days. Hope all is well,” Mum asked Uncle Philip in a tone that clearly said, ‘I don’t care what happen to you and your lousy family, you servant of Bacchus’ but she kept on smiling.
“They are all well thank you,” Uncle Philip answered
He knew Mum was just trying to make conversation. He was aware that she cared less if he and his family fried in the deepest part of hell. In fact, she would love that to happen. This did not stop Uncle Philip coming to our house as often as he likes, sometimes at the most ungodly hour of the day to see Dad concerning one business deal or the other, most of which turns out bad.
Dad told Mum about his new deal. He lowered his gaze unable to meet mum’s eyes. He waited for a reply. Mum face was blank
“How much are they asking in advance?”
I had come to know that tone of voice. Anytime Mum speaks in that tone, I wanted to be somewhere else because a storm would brew. Aunty Taiye would rather to be somewhere else too. She took my hand and led me out of the sitting room.
I did not know what transpired later but contrary to mother’s wise counsel, Dad went ahead and does the deal. He lost one hundred and twenty thousand Naira to the farmers. The farmers because he paid them in advance, packed the cocoa beans into bags before they were dried. This made them go bad after sometime in the warehouse where the Dad stored preparatory to shipment. My gullible Dad sent them to his overseas buyers. The importer sent them back two months later.
Dad fled to Togo where he spent three months before he came back to Nigeria by which time Mum’s anger had subsided. As for Uncle Philip, we did not see him until the following year.
My Dad was the favourite child of his mother who sent him to school at an age people his mates were not old enough for school. His school was only two blocks of classroom with six classes. All the student and teachers dreaded a single block attached to the first building. This was the headmaster’s office. He was next to god. He was accountable to no one, so the students thought. They call him Mr. Cane because his hands were never empty of at least two canes.
Two other smaller buildings consisting of the toilets for the teachers and the students sat at the extreme end of the football field.
Father told us one day they caught him playing father and mother’s game with Aunt Deborah-one of our beautiful maternal aunt. Dad was six years old then. A teacher marched them straight to the headmaster’s office. That was the first time Dad would be in the office.
Books of various sizes covered the four walls of the headmaster’s office from bottom to the top. Mr. Cane sat behind a table so long and wide it occupied half of the room. He was writing when dad, Aunty and the teacher came in. He did not look up or give any indication that he saw them. They stood in front of his long table. Maybe he would ask them to get out of his office. He went on writing. The teacher cleared his throat to draw the attention of the headmaster.
“Yes,” the headmaster barked at them.
Hot water flowed all over dad’s legs. The front of his short was all wet. Dad had never been more afraid in his life. Though he did not see what they did wrong, their presence in the headmaster’s office brought him to the reality of being in more trouble than he imagined.
“Sir, I caught these two in the toilet lying on top of each other.” The teacher replied as if he was the accused rather than the complainant.
Mr. Cane sat up straight in his chair with interest. He closed the book on which he was writing.
“Is that so?” he twisted his cane round and round in his hand. Dad stomach turned to jelly. His legs shook. His intestine contracted in his belly. His heartbeat increased like a locomotive engine gone berserk.
“What have you to say for yourself young man?” The headmaster asked looking at Father. Dad searched his mind for a lie; he could not think of any that Mr. Cane would accept. He kept quiet.
“So it is so.” Mr. Cane’s eyes seem to be shining. The man smiled as if he secretly amused.
“Were you trying to play Mum and Dad’s game?”
That is it. Why did he not think of that before? That was exactly what they were doing. Maybe Mr. Cane would let them go after all. Dad opened his mouth to answer but no word came out. His eyes moved down to the front of his short. He looked up and caught the principal looking straight into his face. He quickly averted his eyes. For an unexplainable reason, he blushed.
“You two have been bad children,” Mr. Cane said looking at Dad and his cousin. My Dad nodded in agreement even though he did not have the slightest idea why playing Mum and Dad game could be bad. After all, his Mum and Dad play it all the time. Could it be because they were playing it in the wrong place at the wrong time?
It took the patient explanation of grandmother Ibidun to make Dad understood that what they attempted doing was wrong. I sometimes wondered how dad could remember that incident since he was too young then.
