Red Bowl
By: The Kalahari Review
Tags: Udoye Jennifer U, Nigeria, African Literature, Fiction

Red Bowl

The little girl sat by the beautiful gate, waiting for the Christian faithfuls to alight from the church after their sunday worship, her red bowl in her hand and her blind mother beside her, their fingers interlocked. The loud voices of the choir blared from the speaker mounted just outside the gate, and ‘sunday thanksgiving’ was scrawled bodly on a banner hanging from the brown rusty gate. The little girl raises her thigh a bit, and voraciously itched her anus, before bringing her finger to her nose. “Mama, aguru. I am hungry,” she muttered, loud enough for her mother to hear.

“No money,” the fat woman replied curtly.

The little girl purse her lips. She missed the thin man, whose skin was like the insides of an overly riped pawpaw, who visited mama at night. He smelt of engine oil and chalk, and laughed too loud. She hated it whenever he visited. Mama made her sleep at their neighbour’s, whose house always smelt of old musty clothes and books, and whose egusi soup had more of water than egusi. Their short neighbour never gave her enough fufu, but would brag about emptying her kitchen to feed the little girl, whenever she and mama exchanged words. Their raised voice acted like a magnet, attracting other neighbours whose ears were hungry for gossip.

The little girl raised her bowl as the over dressed worshippers trooped out of the beautiful gate. The little girl had always wondered why it was called the beautiful gate, it was old and rusty and looked like it had seen several generations of worshippers.

“Please, my mama is blind and I am hungry, help us and God will bless you,” the little girl recited as people walked by.

They usually dropped twenty naira into her bowl without sparing her a glance. The little girl was grateful for that, she didn’t want them to see the distaste on her face. Twenty naira can not sustain her and mama, it wasn’t even enough to buy moi moi and akamu. Her mother also stretched forth her hand, reciting ‘help your sister,’ as if the sister would make a difference. They elderly women with colourful wrappers drapped around their waist and shining necklaces around their neck, usually put fifty or hundred naira into mama’s hand, muttering words like, ‘e go better’ or ‘chigozie gi’ or ‘o ga adi nma.’ Most times they said nothing but walk away, their shoulders hung in pride and their hips swaying to the rhytmn of unknown beats.

“For him mind, he don make am. Na God go punish you.” One of the beggars at the gate had spat at an elderly man. The beggar had stretched his hand, sorry words spewing from his dry lips. The elderly man had dipped his hand into his pocket and threw one thousand naira note at the beggar, like most passerbys do. But the wind had carried the money along, children and some elderly men chased after the money. Some of the beggars laughed, even mama. Mama never said a word to any of the beggars here. She always wore shades to conceal her eyes and a scarf around her head.

“Why do you cover you face mama?” the little girl had asked her mother.

“So that people that know me wouldn’t recognise me.”

“Why can’t I cover my face too?”

“Because you have nothing to lose.” The little girl didn’t understand, but went along with it.

As the sun began to set, some of the beggars began to leave one after the other. Mama always stayed behind to receive food donated by the priest to the beggars at the, gate. It was like a sunday ritual, where the priest lavished oil on their fore head before giving them food.

“Hide that food. Go and stand in line and get another one,” her mother instructed, taking the food from the little girl and stashing it into her polythene bag. The little girl, hastened and took her place in the line, again. In the queue of the hungry. She loathed having to beg, but mama said it was the only way to survive.

The trekked home like every other day, with the little girl muttering a song and skipping behind her mother, who had already put away her disguise.

“Look at the birds, look at the birds. The little birds of heaven, the have no house……” she sang, her jolly voice lost in the bustling of Ngwa road market. With the truck pushers hauling insults at people who were restricting their movement, the night trader calling customers to their stall, and trucks and keke napepe drivers struggling to over take each other on what was left of the potholed road. Amongst the bustling and hustling, the little girl could hear her voice, rising above the crowd. And she was free.

The scorching sun was at its peak, as she led her mother through cemetary market, her red bowl in her hand and hunger in her stomach. Her mother firmly placed a hand on the little girls shoulder as the made their way, going from shop to shop to beg for alm.

“Help me and my blind mama, God will bless you,” spewed from her dry lips. The little girl walked her mother patiently, through the market, enduring insults from aggresive shop owners and the hot sun hammering on her head, until, finally they sat at the gate of line five, like they always do on every other week day. The always sat their to beg, and rest, before going home by sun set. The owner of the adjoining shop used to chase them away when the first started sitting there to beg for alms. Over time the shop owner gave up and allowed them to sit beside his shop. The little girl liked to listen to the shop owner speak, he reminded her of her late papa. Her papa used to sit idly under the oha tree in the middle of their face-me-I-face-you compound, his hand supporting the antenna of his old radio. He only visited on weekends, during the week he used his bus to transport people from Aba to Lagos. On sundays, he would sit with other men in the yard and talk about Nigerian economy and the high rate of fuel. The little girl liked to hear her papa speak, he used a lot of big grammar she had never heard before.

“Where do money come from, papa?” she had asked one evening, after she over heard her papa scolding her mama, over her careless use of money, ending his long speech with, “money doesn’t grow on trees”.

“From central bank. The print naira note.” His gruttal voice echoed into the cool night air.

The little girl went silent, she didn’t know money was printed.

“Those central bank people are wicked and aka(hand) gum,” she frowned her face.

“Why would you say that?” her father managed to ask, after recoverying from laughter.

“Many people don’t have money, and they don’t want to print money and give them.”

Her papa had laughed so hard that he started coughing.

Then one weekend he didn’t return, mama cried very much.

“Don’t cry papa would still come back next saturday o,” she consoled her mother. But her father did not come back the following weekend or the weekend after it. Instead her papa’s mother and siblings came to visit — they had cut mama’s hair and made her wear bland black dresses for the rest of the year.

“Forget o, most of these beggars claiming to be blind can see,” the shop owners friend said as he downed a glass of whiskey. The little girl looked at her mother, fear in her eyes. The other men sitting at the shop laughed.

“Eziokwu, true talk. Abi , one day when I went to buy material at Akwaete, one woman was leading one man that claimed to be blind. Hmm, na so, I take one thousand naira give the woman. As they walked away I turned around to look at them, the man was dragging the money with the woman oo.” The shop owner added.

“You for collect your money back,” another man said, while refilling his glass.

“Forget, they just don’t want to work. Instead of begging they can go and sell pure water, and make money.”

As they walked home that day, the little girl didn’t sing. She reminiced over what the shop owner had said. She wondered why mama, did not want to sell pure water or groundnut like their neighbour at home did.

“Mama, when would we stop begging?” she asked that night as the ate akara over a feeble candle light.

“When we have enough money,” she replied with her mouthful. A piece of chewed akara spewed from mama’s lips and perched on the little girl’s skin. Her gaze glued to the tiny mixture of spittle and akara on her arm, reluctant to wipe it off.

“When would it be enough?”

“When the money is plenty”.

“Like the shop owner’s money?”

Her mother nods. The little girl had seen the shop owner count bundles of one thousand naira note. She often wondered why he would’nt give her mama some. He almost never gave them money, except on good days, when he was very jolly.

“We should ask the shop keeper to give us some money, so we would open a pure water business and get our own money.”

Mama does not respond.

“Mama, I want to go back to school. Dinma called me illi something, I don’t remember the big word.”

“Go to bed Nelo.” Mama said and walked away.

The little girl watched the mixture on her hand, wondering if to clean it or just let it dry.

The days dragged by slowly, the little girl and her red bowl, accompanied by her mother, whose hand never left her shoulder until they sat down beside the shopkeepers shop, walked round cemetary market on daily basis. Except on Sunday’s when they sat beside the beautiful gate, hunger in their stomach and desperation in their eye, as they took their place in the queue of the hungry later in the evening.

The following week the shop owner’s son accompanied him to the shop. The little girl stole glances at him once in a while, longing to talk to him. She wondered if he talked about Nigerian government and poverty, like his father. He looked her age, and didn’t talk much.

He was there the following day and the day after, the little girl walked faster and spent less time at every shop they stopped by, she wanted to sit beside the shop keeper’s shop and watch his son, who always had a blue watch, with a spiderman figure emblazoned on it, strapped on his left wrist.

“Can you dash me money?” the little girl asked the boy one evening when the shop keeper was away.

The boy looked up at her,”why?”. The little girl giggled at his boyish voice which was nothing like his father’s deep throaty voice.

“Because my mother is blind and-”

“My papa said your mother is pretending,” the boy replied his gaze returning to the phone in his hand. The little girl bit her finger.

“Would you be my friend?” she asked, completely disgarding what he said.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a beggar and very dirty.”

The little girl struggled to keep herself from crying as she walked back to her mother, and as they walked home later that evening she reflected over what he said. She didn’t want to be a dirty beggar, and she didn’t want to be poor either.

She watched her mother eat dinner, while practicing what to say.

“Ndo. Sorry,” her mother said.

The little girl looked at her mother in surprise, oblivious of the reaason for the apology, but nods either way.

“I heard what that stupid boy said to you.”

The little girl looked away. She wanted to tell her mother not to call the shop owners son stupid.

“He said his papa says you are not blind.”

Silence engulfed the atmosphere, making the little girl uncomfortable. She listened to the discordant soprano of the crickets backed up by the bass of the toads outside. The little girl wanted to weep. Weep for her papa, and the shopkeeper’s son and weep for her red bowl that cracked when it fell down two days ago.

“After tomorow, we would stop begging.” Her mother said in Igbo.

“The moment you see me run, do the same and don’t stop until you get home.”

The little girl nods. She wanted to ask why, but choose not to. After tomorrow she would no longer be a beggar.

The shop keepers son was sitted on a stool outside, opposite the stacks of beverages carefully displayed outside the shop. The shop keeper and some other men were agruing, something about plummenting prices of shop rent.

The little girl wasn’t interested in their conversation or the boy on the wooden stool, who was always occupied with his phone, she kept wondering why mama would ask her to run. She kept on passing glances at her mother, who in turn looked like she was waiting for something or someone to arrive.

Several hours laters, the sales boy of the shopkeeper alighted from a tricycle, with a small polythene bag in his hand. The little girls mother squeezed her hand and motioned for the little girl to help her up.

“Mama, are we going home?” the little girl asked, as she watched her mother pack up their things into a small polythene bag. Her mother does not reply. The little girl loathed the fact that she never knows what her mother wanted or expected of her. She was not as close to her mother as she was to her father, even though she spent more time with her mother.

The shopkeepers sales boy drops the bag beside the shopkeeper’s son, whispering something into his ears, before he went ahead to meet the shopkeeper.

Mama gives the little girl a push and motioned for her to move towards the shop keepers son. The little girl did as she was told, still perplexed. On reaching the shop keepers son, mama grabs the polythene bag and ordered the little girl to run. Blindly the little girl throws herself into the crowd and runs. She looked back, her mother was right behind her and at a distant the shop keeper and his sales boy were hot on their trail. Soon she was running side by side with her mother, people stared at them in confusion. Soon some people started yelling, “thief ! thief! Ndi oshi. Catch them”. As they ran, the little girl kept looking back, the sun glared mercilessly at the little girl and her mother. The little girl began to feel dizzy. It felt like they’ve been running for ages, and worse of all, she hadn’t eaten all day.

They almost made their way out of the crowded market, when the little girl tripped and fell, pulling her mother along with her. The little girl knew they were in a lot of trouble when she looked up to meet her mother’s frightened face. The little girl had never seen her mother so scared and neither has the shopkeeper’s voice ever sounded as scary as it did, when he yelled, “call the police.”

The incessant buzzing of mosquitoes and the strong stench of urine made it difficult for anyone in the cell to sleep. The lady with a lit cigarette between her lips, wouldn’t stop talking and mama and the other women encouraged her by entertaining her questions, which the little girl feels she already has an answer to.

“No be government cause am? “

The other women nods furiously.

“Dem no fit give us food. Give us work zi, wahala,” mama said.

Papa once said only people that know book and go to school gets jobs, the little girl recalled. She wanted to ask mama if she had gone to school, but decided against it.

“Forget oo, no prison worse pass poverty o. Hmm, my sister if you no get money, you go suffer tire. If hunger no kill you, nothing fit kill you.” Another woman who had farted earlier said.

The little girl concurred with one thing the woman said, prison or not, she and her mama are still not free. She felt safer in this horrid cell, with the mosquitoes company, than out there on the streets with her red bowl and her mother — and the free meal tonight was a bonus.

The little girl slaps the mosquito that perched on her mothers arm, in an unsuccessful attempt to squash the bug.

“Leave them, they are just hungry,” her mother said, running her callous fingers between the little girl’s cornroll. The little girl studies her mother’s face, noticing for the first time since her papa passed away four years ago, that her mama still wore her hair short. Her mother looked so much older with the ugly wrinkles on her face and specs of grey on her hair. The little girl has never been this close to her mother — her mother’s arm wrapped around her small body and the feel of her mother’s huge breast against her face, all felt so strange yet comforting.

“Don’t worry we would be free soon,” her mother assured her.

The little girl could see the hope in her mother’s eyes. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to be out of here. With no landlord hauling insults at them for delayed payments and she didn’t have to beg, and most importantly, she was close to her mother, closer than they’ve ever been.

It wasn’t freedom if she had to carry a red bowl around and her mother pretended to be blind.

“It’s not freedom if I still carry that red bowl.” She muttered, almost inaudibly, and hoping that mama heard her.