Iya Andrew
fiction
When I saw Iya Andrew break into a scuttle, I knew the end of the world was here. She had never run before. Everybody knows. And markets were the last of places we thought this could have happened if it wanted to happen. The day was slow but every body that moved moved under the mad sun with precision. The precision of bodies. Bodies knowing how exactly to manoeuvre and be manoeuvred. So when Iya Andrew broke into a run, at the same moment when the street light became a shade of green, vehicles preparing for flights, she disrupted the flow of careful bodies. Bodies started jamming—such horror. Trays sprawling ripe tomatoes on the dirty floors of Akindeko. Adults and 14-year-old pickpockets trampling fallen pyramids of white garri. I knew, there and then, that Iya Andrew initiated the silent pandemoniums of Aniyameta.
Baba Twins and Iya Andrew understand themselves so much. At Aniyameta, they are both said to be honest people. A lot of people are honest in Osogbo. I therefore find it difficult to believe they can be any different. Take, for instance, Mother. On one dark night of 2007, she brought a fractured purse home. "It fell down in Oja-Oba. People passed by it," she told Father and I. Father took it from her, leaving The Tribune on the table, the evening news spluttering from the lips of an unsmiling man in the TV. He examined the purse, how much torn it was. The brownness of it differing slightly from the brownness of the dirt around it. And he sighed, sinking the more into his favourite chair, saying, as if tired: Just take it to Oke-Okanla. You know that police station just behind the Ataoja's palace. Ehen. Report it there tomorrow. Later that night, I took the purse from the cupboard where it slept. I, unlike Father, examined its insides. Seven One-thousand naira notes nestled therein. And we had no dinner at the time. I knew, there and then, that people of Osogbo are honest people.
Why Baba Twins and Iya Andrew understand themselves so much is this: They have both lost their spouse. Baba Twins fathers alone since we had known him. So we named him 'Baba Twins'. The boys both attend the confiscated school at Costain Area. Iya Andrew's husband, on the other hand, was said to have, on one morning, left Aniyameta before I was born. According to Aunty Joy, another good neighbor, he left without anything other than his blackened fez cap. The fez cap was worn by him to any outing, she explained away from the earshot of Iya Andrew. Outings aside festive occasions that required native dresses. Native dresses proper for couples. Couples like Iya Andrew and her husband. So on days people did not need to know them as couples, he wore this off-white cap on any outfit. And so it became black. Accumulated dirt, you know. Maybe because Andrew was not yet grown to help with his father's laundry. So Baba Twins staggered in one evening, held the rusty gateway by the left hand, sat on the bench that was always outside in the Osogbo cold, and started crying. I, at the far-end corner of the fence within, pruned my unfurling amúnútutù at the time. It continued into rich thick spirals around guidesticks which leaned against the aging fence. Iya Andrew then emerged from Aniyameta, held Baba Twins tenderly by the shoulders, her mouth moving, me seeing all these with the edges of my eyes, and kissed his lips. I knew, there and then, that only them understand themselves.
Women feel so much, and they show this unlike men. On the day they brought Okiki's mother, another good tenant, from Testing Ground, Okiki still yet to return from school, Iya Andrew tripped and spilled ground pepper on the floors of Aniyameta. Like an involuntary libation. A libation that consecrated, although rushed, the floors that would receive the careful impact of the corpse. The people were as though they did not see what just occurred. Baba Twins, at the farthest corner that fenced Aniyameta, peered at Okiki's mother. Like she was his longlost wife returning home at last. Albeit stiff. Iya Andrew, having suddenly realized the loss of her family's stew-for-dinner, barged outside. Where the brevity of steps unfolded downwards to a final traditional floor of Osogbo. A floor that accommodated my mother, camped in an open jail that worshipped the blue sky. And, as if taller than a thumb, I looked at all of these. Seeing things and no things at the same time. She first held the railings of Mother's grave, sobbing mechanically. As if telling her that another woman of Aniyameta would soon be joining her in the earth before herself. Mother, quilled by this earth, listening to these sobbings. Marbled solemnly. Then she knelt by her, praying, saying all things and no things at the same time. Or maybe because of the distance I was from Iya Andrew.
In 2009, Father comes home with very outstretched arms. He stands at the door, holding, in his right hand, The Tribune. Rough around the edges. He waited at the door, arms still infinitely stretching, invoking an embrace. I, perched on a two-by-four rat-infested couch of the living room, sneeze. A bulb flickering in the inner room at that very moment. He tells me that Iya Andrew is in Police Hospital. That she just met with an accident at Oke-Fia. Father tells me this while I unfold in his arms. I want to tell him this is not true. That just five hours ago, I had seen Iya Andrew in Akindeko. Half-naked. Her hair standing differently in cardinals. Brown. Running from nothing. Bumping into people, laughing and apologizing. Then breaking into another run.
Now 2012, I still see Iya Andrew. That image of her in soiled dress. In Olaiya. Algaed. Grime adorning her hair. Touching people and making people bump into themselves. That very thing they abhor. In my dream, Mother tells me Iya Andrew is her sister. I understand. I tell her Okiki is my brother, too. How logical is that? I tell her to fuck off my dreams, and remain in that open jail perching on the earth. Afterall, she chose to remain stiff, intentionally unmoving, no matter how much I cried, when they brought her from the mortuary, when the people, as if rehearsed, told Father and I that she slipped when about to board a korope in Ota-Efun, and that her forehead found the harsh roadside kissable. So this is Two Thousand And Twelve. No other deaths or madness can move me. Aunty Joy remains the only matured female of Aniyameta. Others are outside, marbled solemnly. While others are on the bare streets, roaming. Walking up and down the face of the earth. Tattered.
An iya alakara, at the junction opposite Mama-T Saloon, displays herself and her wares at only Eight in the night. When it's Nine-Thirty, she vanishes. So Iya Andrew, when she was still sane, had once politely asked her why this was always so. "I have a full family," the woman had blurted indifferently, swaying the pan with the oil sizzling in it, people teeming behind. Iya Andrew had first smiled, then frowned when she understood. She walked back to Aniyameta, and told Baba Twins to send Kehinde at exactly Nine-Forty, and sat patiently on that lone bench like one waiting for a doctor's bad news. When Kehinde returned, empty-handed, Iya Andrew sprouted like a promising flame, and dashed towards her room, Andrew tailing. In the morning, when asked why she sent Kehinde that particular errand, considering she was never spotted eating akara, she said the answer would be publicly given, and that it was in "that fetish woman's shop" that the venue would be. "Tell me, Joy, who sells Akara only at Eight O'clock in the night and leaves before Ten pee-hem?" Aunty Joy, taken aback for such a difficult question aimed at her, only grinned. The next morning, the iya alakara came to Aniyameta. She said she was sorry. And that she would sell her akaras only in the hot afternoons of weekdays, or in the midnight "by 4!" or in the morning of a Sunday. Iya Andrew, her gele standing elegant, laughed and bumped into her, sending ripples of electricity to the tiny bodyframe of the woman, and on an okada where Andrew was wedged, she screamed. Today was not a Saturday.
Story Context: I recently made a short story submission to Noisy Streetss. In the story, a mother, whom I did not explain much on, simultaneously consoles two young boys who just lost their mother to death. Imagine such herculean task. She embodies our day-to-day neighbors who, over the years, become almost families to us. In the above fiction, I manage to explain her essence, mental troubles, and contributions to household shenanigans. To understand the real “Aniyameta", I encourage you to read my recently published creative nonfiction, Round Akaras.