Praise Song for the Butterflies Read online

  Outside, the wind whipped again and lightning flashed across the sky.

  “Hello? Djiimy? Hello?” Wasik cried into the receiver.

  The line crackled and went dead.

  The next day he packed his family into the car and drove to Prama. The trip took four hours and when they arrived, the Mercedes was covered in red dust. As they entered the village, a group of children—the boys indistinguishable from the girls—began running alongside the car, tapping the windows and waving.

  When they reached the hut where Wasik had been born and raised, they found his mother seated outside on a stool, picking through a gourd filled with dried peas.

  Wasik leaped from the car and bounded over to her, wailing, “Mama, oh Mama!”

  Abeo’s visits to Prama had always been filled with delight and discovery: the wonder of watching a goat give birth, fetching freshly laid eggs from the chicken coop, drinking warm milk straight from the udder of a cow. But she sensed that this visit would be different. The frenzied excitement that normally accompanied the preparation and four-hour journey was marred by her father’s dark melancholy. At the petrol station on their way out of town, Wasik, who was sitting behind the wheel waiting for the attendant to finish filling the tank, suddenly melted into uncontrollable sobs. This frightened Abeo because she had never seen her father—or any man—cry.

  Abeo now climbed from the car clutching her Walkman protectively to her chest. The circle of children closed in, pointing fingers and probing.

  “What is that?”

  “Can I have it, sister?”

  “What is that? Did you bring one for me?”

  “What is that, sister?”

  Abeo broke free, fled to her grandmother, threw her arms around her neck, and inhaled a sour mixture of sweat and grilled meat.

  The old woman squeezed Abeo, kissed her cheeks, patted her backside, told her that she was too thin, offered her a mango, eyed the silver-and-black contraption the girl held in her hands, and shook her head in dismay.

  Grandmother’s home was a three-room, thatched-roof mud hut. The front room held two metal chairs with tattered green cushions and one short square table made of wood. A yellowed calendar depicting the deceased prime minister Mbeke Kjodle hung on the wall near the door. The back rooms were furnished with twin-size beds, grass sleeping mats, and nothing else. The cooking area was located behind the house and consisted of three piles of stones beneath an awning made of grass. There was no indoor plumbing, just a standpipe in the middle of the compound where the women lined up daily to fill their buckets with water for cooking, drinking, and bathing. Not too far from the standpipe was the communal toilet, which was little more than a concrete box with a hole in the ground.

  In the days leading up to their father’s burial, Wasik and his brothers were fitted for the special funeral garments—red-and-gold dashikis. While the tailor labored away, the carpenter constructed a coffin from a forty-year-old walnut tree. An artisan was hired from the neighboring village to carve the coffin with details that reflected the senior Kata’s life as a farmer, husband, and father.

  The cost was high, a staggering three thousand cendi. Wasik’s brothers grumbled at the price, but Wasik said he didn’t care if it was thirty thousand cendi; his father deserved the best.

  The nights in Prama were long and black. Strange sounds echoed in the darkness and turned sinister in Abeo’s imagination. Mating cats became feuding lions; the patter of feet—a charging elephant. She pressed her trembling body against the bulk of her grandmother until the music of the old woman’s heart lullabied her to sleep.

  On the day of the funeral, large black-and-red tents were erected at the graveyard. Vendors sold handkerchiefs and beer to the mourners. The village elders beat their breasts and wailed. Sitting to the right of the coffin were long tables draped in red cloth piled high with offerings of money, food, and liquor. The funeral attendants distributed laminated programs that pictured the deceased Kata. Abeo stared down at the photograph of her grandfather; his black eyes watched her from beneath his furrowed brow. She had been fond of him, but did not feel sadness because her young mind could not comprehend the fact that death was final. Even as he lay stiff and cold in the open casket, she watched him expectantly, anticipating the moment when he would sit up and ask her to fetch his smoking pipe.

  The interment of the body marked the end of the mourning period and the beginning of the celebration.

  Slowly, people pushed their sadness aside, gathered around the tables, and piled their plates high with red-black, fungee, fried fish, pepper stew, bread, and fresh fruit. Libations were spilled in honor of the deceased, and then consumed.

  Soon, the mourners were laughing and dancing to the syncopated rhythms of bola drums and kazoos.

  Abeo, fairly satisfied with Ismae’s explanation as to why her grandfather had been placed in a box, joined her cousins in a game of hide-and-seek, while the adults drowned themselves in plum wine and schnapps.

  The merriment went on until the darkness seeped from the sky and a new day was upon them.

  In the tiny bed Abeo’s parents shared, Wasik turned to his wife and mumbled something.

  Ismae giggled. “What did you say?”

  Wasik’s eyes rolled drunkenly in his head. He cleared his throat and repeated, “I will bring Mama to stay with us for a little while.” The words dripped like sap from his mouth.

  Ismae stroked his forehead. “Of course, Wasik. Whatever you think is best. Now sleep, sweet husband, sleep.”

  4

  To Grandmother, Port Masi smelled of smoke, steel, and shit. She thought her son’s house was too grand and reminded Wasik that he was not a king or a chief, so the number of rooms was unnecessary, especially for a family with just two children. She had raised eight children in her modest hut.

  “And why is the food cooked inside the house?” she barked, turning her nose up in revulsion.

  Wasik bought a television and placed it on the small wooden chest in her bedroom. Grandmother eyed it suspiciously. The last time she’d watched television had been a decade earlier when she’d visited her daughter-in-law’s family. Wasik proudly handed her the remote control to the TV. She looked at the little white object and then back at Wasik. “What am I to do with this?”

  The next day Wasik bought her a radio.

  Grandmother spent her days roaming the house, examining the souvenirs that friends had purchased abroad and given as gifts to the Katas: a white man on a surfboard, a pointed tower, a grand clock. The words stamped on the souvenirs—Hawaii, Paris, London—meant nothing to Grandmother because her language was Wele and her English was limited to hello and goodbye.

  In Abeo’s room, Grandmother picked up and then tossed down the stuffed animals that were neatly arranged across her bed. She reached for the snow globe on the nightstand, shook it, and watched the bits of white plastic swirl and settle on a tiny castle. She pressed her fists into her hips and stared at the poster of a galloping pink horse with a large spiral thorn jutting from the center of its forehead. Such frivolity, Grandmother thought to herself, sucking her teeth in disgust.

  Another annoyance for Grandmother was the house girl Ismae had hired to cook and clean for the family. Bembe was a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who had gone and gotten herself pregnant at the same time her own mother had conceived. Both mother and daughter were in their second trimesters by the time Bembe confessed her transgressions.

  They gave birth within a week of one another. Bembe a cedar-colored boy and her mother twin girls. Within a week their family bloomed from five to eight. Bembe’s parents didn’t make enough money to clothe and feed them all so Bembe had to drop out of school and find work.

  Sweet and quiet, Bembe wasn’t the best cook or cleaner, but she was company to Abeo and helpful with Agwe.

  For the first few weeks that Grandmother was there, she would not speak to Bembe. Instead, she silently watched, stalking her like a snake in tall grass. Grandmother’s silence and c
old, hard gaze raised the fine hairs on the back of Bembe’s neck.

  “I don’t trust her,” Grandmother muttered. “She has the fingers of a thief. She cleans like a blind woman . . . You call that jollof? I call it pig slop!”

  Ismae and Wasik smiled and listened respectfully to the old woman’s grievances, but did nothing to change the situation, and so one day Grandmother changed it for them.

  Wasik was at work, Abeo was at school, and Ismae had taken the baby to visit a friend. When Grandmother heard Bembe set a large metal pot onto the stove, she emerged from her room like a crow and flew into the kitchen squawking demands: “Show me how to work this stove. Fill this pot with water! Chop this . . . cut that . . .”

  A flustered Bembe complied without question.

  When Ismae returned home, Grandmother was standing over the stove stirring a pot of stew and Bembe was cowering in the corner.

  “Mama, what are you doing? We have Bembe to do that,” Ismae said.

  “I told you, her food tastes like pig slop,” Grandmother responded without looking up from her task. “Anyway, what am I to do, sit in that room all day listening to the radio and staring at the picture box?”

  “Of course we don’t expect that. But you’re here to rest, not work. Take a walk; the streets are safe, very safe. No harm will come to you. There are eyes everywhere. Our neighbors know who you are.”

  Grandmother dropped a pinch of salt into the stew and swirled the wooden spoon around a few times before bringing it to her lips for a taste. Satisfied, she nodded her head and then looked at Ismae. “You should have left me in Prama. This place is hell.”

  * * *

  Later, in the privacy of their bedroom, Ismae gently massaged her husband’s tense back.

  “It’ll get better,” she offered softly. “Everything is new to her. It’s just going to take more time than we thought.” She found a knot near his spine and began to work it loose.

  Wasik leaned into her kneading fingers. He grunted in agreement, but in truth, his mother was the very least of his worries. What was paramount in his mind was the allegation that had come down from the ministry of finance accusing Wasik’s superior—Ota Weli—of diverting government money into a personal account. As a result, Ota had been suspended from work while the powers that be investigated the theft.

  Wasik had been summoned to the minister’s office and questioned about the matter.

  I had no idea, Wasik explained to the minister, wringing his hands. He did not understand why he was so nervous, because he was in no way involved and knew nothing of the theft. But still, perspiration gathered in beads across his forehead, and even as he declared his innocence, his tongue turned to sandpaper.

  Really? None at all? the minister had pressed in a gruff voice. You are his right-hand man and you didn’t notice that these funds were missing from the account?

  No sir, I did not. Those particular books were not put in my charge.

  The minister eyed him warily. The truth will be revealed, he warned, and then dismissed Wasik from the room.

  “Did you hear me, Wasik?” Ismae whispered, her lips close to his ear. Her warm breath fanned across his cheek. Wasik turned and peered into her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Ismae,” he murmured, bringing her hand to his lips. “I was thinking about something. What did you say?” He kissed her fingers.

  Ismae grinned. “I said to stop worrying yourself about your mother, everything is going to be just fine.”

  “Of course it will,” Wasik said, pushing Ismae down onto the bed.

  5

  One day, a few weeks after Grandmother arrived, Ismae came wobbling into the house supported by her husband and a pair of crutches.

  Grandmother spat, “That is what happens when you wear those awful high-heeled shoes.”

  Ismae ignored the comment. “It was the silliest thing,” she stammered. “I go up and down those steps at least once a week. How I missed the last step, I don’t know. Thank God I wasn’t carrying Agwe!”

  Wasik helped Ismae onto the couch and placed a pillow beneath her injured ankle.

  Grandmother studied the cast. “How long will you have that thing on your leg?” she asked, running her finger across the hardened plaster.

  “The doctor said six weeks.”

  “Six weeks?” Grandmother responded with a huff.

  “Yes.”

  Grandmother shrugged, turned, and walked into the kitchen grumbling about high-heeled shoes and tight skirts.

  Ismae thought how helpful it would be to have Bembe there during her time of need. But the poor girl had crumbled under Grandmother’s tyrannical reign, and had found employment elsewhere.

  One afternoon during the second week of Ismae’s convalescence, she was sitting on the couch flipping through a magazine when Wasik arrived home early from work.

  Ismae gazed at her husband’s wan and worried face. “What is it? What has happened, Wasik?”

  He dropped his briefcase on the floor, went to the glass tray of liquor, and reached for the bottle of schnapps. “They have suspended me,” he squeaked.

  Ismae tossed the magazine aside. “Did you say suspended?”

  Wasik took a gulp of the schnapps, swallowed, and nodded.

  “But why?”

  “They think I have something to do with the money that was stolen.”

  Ismae already knew about the theft, because news of it had reached the papers. Even as the reports gained momentum, however, Wasik had kept the fact that he was being investigated a secret from her. But now the truth was out in the open.

  “That’s ridiculous. You’ve been working at the treasury department for years, and not a cendi has ever gone unaccounted for.”

  Wasik drained his glass and poured another. When he’d emptied the glass a second time, he brought it close to his face and peered at the empty bottom as if his life had fallen down into it.

  “How long will you be suspended?”

  “Until the investigation is complete and they find me innocent.”

  “And how long will that take?” Panic pealed like bells in Ismae’s voice.

  The schnapps circulated quickly through Wasik’s bloodstream, raising his body temperature, burning away the worry. He poured a third drink. “I don’t know,” he replied dryly.

  “What will we do for money?”

  Wasik swirled the liquid round and round in the glass. His head felt as light as a leaf. He sighed. “I will still be receiving some of my salary.”

  “Some?”

  “Half.”

  “Half? We can’t live on half!”

  Wasik downed the drink, reached for the bottle a fourth time, but thought better of it when Ismae cried, “Wasik, for goodness sakes!”

  “We have our savings,” he mumbled, “but I can’t imagine this investigation will go on long enough for us to have to dip into it.”

  Ismae let out a bitter laugh. “Have you forgotten where you live? This is Ukemby. What might take a few weeks in other countries can take months or even years here.” She shifted uncomfortably on the couch and then timidly added, “I could go back to work.”

  Wasik made a face and pointed a long finger at her cast.

  “It’ll be off soon.”

  He shook his head. “No, you need to be here with the baby. Don’t worry.”

  In the kitchen, Grandmother tiptoed away from the doorway where she had been eavesdropping, went to the stove, and turned the burner on under the pot of cold stew.

  * * *

  Days later, Agwe developed a cough, followed by a fever that raised boils the size of quail eggs all over his body. Wasik took him to the pediatrician, who prescribed a salve and antibiotics.

  The fever broke the next day, but the boils remained.

  Grandmother did not trust doctors or their medicine, so she went to the market and bought herbs, which she then pounded into a paste and put in a pot of boiling water. The concoction produced a stench so strong it could be smelled for blocks. />
  Ismae appeared at the doorway of the kitchen with her hand pressed over her nose and mouth, speaking through the slats of her fingers: “What is that?”

  “Medicine for the child.”

  “Bush medicine?”

  “What else would it be?”

  Ismae hobbled over and stared into the pot. “Is he to drink that?”

  “No, it is for him to wash in.”

  Ismae backed away from the bubbling mixture, went to the window, and flung it open.

  “I-I,” Ismae began respectfully, “I don’t think this is a good idea. The medicine the doctor prescribed will start to work very soon, so . . .” Her words dropped away under Grandmother’s icy gaze.

  “You trust some doctor’s medicine over that of your own kind?”

  Ismae blinked. “Own kind?” Dr. Lama was black and African just like her. Just like Grandmother. “Well, I think that—”

  Grandmother slammed the spoon down onto the stove. “What do you think? Tell me, Ismae.”

  Grandmother had never before used that hard and brittle tone with Ismae and it rattled her. The blood drained from her face, her lips continued to flap, but no words came from her mouth. Finally, wounded, she retreated to her bedroom, took an aspirin for the throbbing headache the encounter had brought on, and soon fell fast asleep.

  Hours later, she was startled awake by Agwe’s terrified screams. For a few moments Ismae floundered helplessly in and out of sleep, unable to decipher whether or not she was dreaming. When it became clear that Agwe was in peril, she jumped from the bed and landed on her wounded ankle. The pain shot up her leg and exploded behind her eyes. She fell back on the bed, cradling her foot.

  Agwe’s wails came again, cresting like waves. Ismae hurriedly reached for her crutches and hobbled out of the bedroom.

  “Mama! Mama, what are you doing?” Ismae screamed as she entered the bathroom.

  Grandmother had Agwe in the bathtub, one meaty arm wrapped tight around his squirming body. The other hand clutched a sponge dripping with the concoction she’d brewed. She dragged the sponge over the boils on Agwe’s shoulders, creating a seeping trail of ruptured flesh.