Like most children, I was very curious. I questioned everything and didn’t stop until I got answers. Satisfactory answers. That also meant I was foolish and impulsive; like when I ‘questioned’ how adults defecated (did it come through the same hole as mine? Was it sometimes painful too?) and played ‘investigator’ by peeping through a crevice in the toilet door while Uncle Sam, who had come visiting, was using it.
In between apologizing to Uncle Sam and spanking me, my mum asked repeatedly:
‘Why did you spy on your uncle?’
‘I wanted to see’ I cried.
‘See what?’
‘Nothing, ma.’
And I did ‘see’. Stars, plenty of ’em, swimming in my salty tears as the cane seared my flesh. Uncle Sam watched on, with a wicked grin on his round-shaped pimpled face, satisfied that the rude interruption saw and cried.
That experience didn’t deter me. My curiosity felt like a fire shut up in my bones, heating up muscles and joints, threatening to burst open and consume me and the people in my environment. It had such immense power over me, that I think, If I were a cat, I would have exhausted my nine lives!
Ironically, I wasn’t talkative. I cocooned myself, simply observing everything and everyone. Then, when I ‘spewed’, my victims may have sustained ‘acid-like burns’.
It didn’t help too, that I constantly had objects of interest to wonder about. If my home tutor wore a new shirt, I would ask him how much it costs. If the tailor’s shop across street, which was usually busy, had fewer customers, I would wonder if he’d taken ill. If the dry cleaner came a day or more late to collect dad’s clothes, I would ask him why. Harmless questions, really.
When dad went on trips and wouldn’t pay my school fees on time, I would go to mum, who usually had a measuring tape across her neck and a scissors in her hand, and besiege her with whys. Soon though, her patience ran dry and I would get terse or sarcastic replies; which only fueled my investigative instincts, unfortunately. And it didn’t take too long before I used them.
That time came, when I was seven or eight years old. I felt powerless over this particular yearning; I just had to know. Madam Mercy, our beautiful dark-skinned neighbor was single. Why? My mum was married, mama Chizoba was married so was Jummai and mama Obinna. Something was wrong. And who better to find out than yours’ truly?
Madam Mercy managed the drinking joint just opposite our house. If she were few inches shorter, she would be obese. She wore tight skirts and colorful tops. She hardly ever spoke. When she did, it came out in spurts, like pus from an infected pimple-fast and spontaneous.
So that evening after a late lunch, I sauntered to the joint. It was old, with rusted aluminum zinc roofing sheets, muddy dwarf walls and very low ceiling. If I climbed the wooden bench that had a steel back rest, I could touch the ceiling. Customers usually sat on that bench, sipping drinks placed on a wooden medium-sized rectangular table.
Earlier during lunch, bigsis had said not to go. She sounded surprised that I had such musings but didn’t think I had the nerves to play Sherlock Holmes. It was not like when I asked her why she suddenly started covering her chest all the time and would winch in pain when I mistakenly hit it; or when I asked our tutor whether women gave birth through the vagina or the anus. This was different. This was a neighbor, an older neighbor and a very personal question. By now though, my mind was made up and nothing could stop me. What did she know anyways? I thought. I felt invincible.
I met madam Mercy locking the door that led to an inner room where she kept personal items and an old deep freezer. She may have been surprised to see me because she knew my dad was on one his trips and we had no guests.
‘Madam Mercy, good afternoon ma’
‘Ehen Ozi, ke ki mere?’
‘O di mma, ma’
‘I choro mmanya?’
After I replied in the negative, with brow etched in a rather innocent curious furrow, I asked:
‘Ke ihe mere I ka nubero di?’
She stared at me for a few seconds, and then quickly mumbled something. As hard as I try to remember what she mumbled, it eludes me. I just remember her eyes, if they were arrows, I wouldn’t escape their deadly shots. They mirrored the turmoil in her mind: ‘Who sent this girl?’ ‘Why would she ask me something like this?’ ‘And really, why am I single?’.
I walked away that evening, feeling nothing. I don’t remember if that hunger was satisfied. I think it was; else I would’ve pressed on. When I told bigsis what I had done, she reprimanded me. Said it wasn’t nice. That was when I started to feel remorse… but only for disobeying bigsis.
Looking back, I think I was more selfish than curious. It was all about me and my hungry fire. Or I wanted so badly to prove bigsis wrong that I hurt someone else. Although I never apologized, I know better now: Never let your fire be anyone’s pain.
iammyfuture 