FIVE SPOTS IN THE SOIL

My kolo sits under the wooden bed. It's my third one, made from fired clay, the kind they sell at Bariga Market for 800 naira. A crack runs from its lip to its belly. I melted a white candle over it, but the wax only capped the opening. It couldn't mend the clay; it just stopped the coins from slipping out. Inside are ninety-eight notes. Not ninety-eight thousand naira. Ninety-eight separate pieces, mostly folded 100s and 200s from hawking groundnuts at Ojota. I stand between danfos with a tray, count change with sweaty palms and tuck the notes away before the wind carries them off. Our face-me-I-face-you in Bariga has six rooms, one corridor and one gutter. Dayo isn't just my older brother. Since our father died, he's taken his place. Father died last November from liver failure. He drank ogogoro behind the gin shop on Igi Oloun Street and beat Maami with whatever was within reach: a stool, a belt, his slippers. The compound enjoyed about two weeks of quiet after his death. Then Dayo started wearing his corduroy slippers. Same shuffle. Same habit of kicking our door instead of knocking. At twenty-seven, without a steady job, he had inherited the one thing our father seemed to value: authority without responsibility. Being head of house meant he could take whatever he wanted. Maami had never learned how to say no without being hit. Dayo had a way of making sure the rest of us learned the same thing. I still have two dark spots on my left shin from the day he swung the wooden pestle we use for pepper and missed my knee by an inch. When Dayo smashed my first kolo behind the pit latrine and took the 3,400 naira inside, Maami was sitting on her thin mat in the corridor. She wiped my eyes with the edge of her wrapper. 'Patience, Tola. If you talk outside, they go say we no train pikin. Cover your brother shame.' Beside her mat stood the heavy triangular grinding stone she used for pepper. She usually washed it near the gutter after grinding and left it there. It wasn't an excuse she had invented. Women on our street said the same thing. Report your brother and the compound calls you a witch. Kayode, my younger brother, is nineteen. Last month, Dayo broke my second kolo and took three 500-naira notes from inside. Kayode saw him leaving my room with the money and told Maami what he'd seen. Dayo dragged him to the well at the back, where moss grows over the cement, and punched him twice in the mouth. One of Kayode's front teeth shifted forward. You can see it whenever he speaks. I gathered the red clay shards from my first kolo, carried them behind the zinc shed where we dump ash and pressed them into the soft soil. Four little spots. I wasn't looking for revenge. I wanted leverage. Dayo had stolen from me twice. Both times, he'd broken my kolo to get at the money inside. Each time, Maami and the tenants dismissed it as a family matter. I knew the police wouldn't come running because someone had lost groundnut money. I needed something people could not easily wave away. Iya Basira runs the daily esusu on our street. Miss a contribution and she'll arrive with two boys, shouting your name for everyone to hear. Her big notebook frightens people more than her voice. On that fateful Thursday morning, I borrowed 5,000 naira from her. I told her I needed to buy groundnuts, twenty measures at 250 naira each. Then I asked her to count the money outside, beside the corridor tap, while Mrs Ajala from Room 4 washed plates. I wanted Mrs Ajala to see the money in my hands. If Dayo took it, I would have someone who could say where it came from. And Iya Basira would come looking for her money. This time, if Maami and the tenants tried to settle it as a family matter, I would report him. I wanted people to know what he had done, and I wanted someone to finally take it seriously. I didn't know what else to do. I only knew I couldn't keep losing what I worked for and pretending nothing had happened. By evening, I sat by the corridor window with the kerosene lantern burning on the ledge. Dayo usually leaned there to smoke. He was there again, watching as I counted the notes and folded them one after another. 'Keep counting,' he said. 'Before tomorrow we go know who get house.' His breath smelled of cheap gin and weed. I slipped the money into the inner pocket of my blouse, the one I'd sewn myself so conductors couldn't pick it, and went into my room. The latch was a thin piece of wood nailed into crumbling cement. It made a loud kpa when pulled. I made sure it did. Shortly after midnight, Dayo kicked the lower panel. Rain had softened the wood; the nails gave way. 'Bring that money, foolish girl! You think say you fit hide money from the owner of this house?' I backed against the wall. 'No be my money! Na Iya Basira money I borrow! She go come ask for am!' 'You think I care who you borrow am from? Na this house you dey, and na me be the man of this house! Bring the money!' His right fist caught my cheekbone. My ear rang. I screamed. Not the muffled cries I usually buried in my pillow. This time, I opened my throat and screamed towards the corridor. Room 4's window was barely three feet from mine. Someone might come out if they heard me. That part, I had planned. Maami arrived first, her wrapper hastily tied across her chest, one end dragging on the floor. 'Dayo, fi àbúrò rẹ sílẹ̀! Jọ̀wọ́, fi Tola sílẹ̀!' 'Maami, ẹ jọ̀ọ́, ẹ padà! Ẹ jọ̀ọ́, ẹ jọ̀ọ́!' But Maami kept coming. She reached for Dayo's arm. 'I say leave her!' Dayo shouted, jerking his arm away. 'Dayo, ọmọ mi, jọ̀wọ́. Kí ló dé?' He turned on her. 'You too? You wan join am?' He planted both palms on her shoulders and shoved. 'Maami!' I lunged forward, but my foot caught against the doorframe. By the time I reached her, she had fallen backwards. Her heel caught the raised concrete threshold, and the back of her head struck the pointed corner of the grinding stone. The sound was small. A thud, like a ripe pawpaw dropping from a tree onto packed earth. 'Maami! Maami, ẹ jọ̀ọ́!' I dropped beside her and touched her shoulder. She didn't move. 'Maami, get up. Maami, please.' When I tried to lift her head, my fingers came away wet. Blood was spreading beneath her braids, running across the cement towards the gutter. The money slipped from my blouse. Notes scattered across the floor. Two 500-naira notes landed in the blood. 'Maami, open your eyes. Maami!' Dayo stood over us. 'Maami! Maami, get up now!' He bent down and shook her shoulder. 'Maami, wetin happen?' He looked at the blood on his hands and stepped backwards. 'No, no. Maami, get up. Abeg, get up.' I couldn't tell whether he was talking to her or himself. A door opened behind us. Kayode came out in his shorts. He looked at Maami, then at me. 'Mummy!' He rushed towards us, pushed Dayo aside and knelt beside her. 'Mummy. Mummy, hear me.' He touched her cheek. When he looked at his fingers, he went still for a moment. Then he turned to Dayo. 'Wetin you do?' 'I no do anything. She fall.' 'You push her!' Kayode grabbed Dayo's shirt. Dayo shoved him, and they stumbled against the wall. Kayode went for him again. 'Kayode!' I screamed. 'Leave am! Come here!' He looked at me, then down at Maami. His hands were shaking. Dayo began moving towards the door. 'Where you dey go?' Kayode shouted. He rushed past him to the front entrance and pulled the main gate shut. The rusted metal screeched. He dropped the heavy bolt. 'Open this gate!' Dayo shouted. Kayode stood in front of it, breathing hard. The noise had brought the others out. Doors opened along the corridor. Someone asked what was happening. Another person shouted, asking who had fallen. Mrs Ajala came out of Room 4. She hurried towards us, then stopped when she saw Maami. 'Ha! Wetin happen?' I tried to answer, but my voice broke. 'Maami. Help me.' She knelt beside me. 'Jesus. Is she breathing?' I didn't know. I held Maami's hand and called her again. 'Somebody bring a vehicle!' a man shouted. 'Make we carry her go hospital!' another voice said. Behind us, Dayo was still talking. 'She fall. I no push am. Na mistake.' 'You push her!' Kayode shouted from the entrance. One of the men moved towards Dayo. Another followed him. 'Abeg, hold am. Make e no go anywhere,' someone said. Dayo struggled when they caught his arm. 'Leave me! I no do anything!' Mrs Ajala looked up. 'Somebody call police!' 'I don call them!' a voice answered from the corridor. I didn't look to see who it was. I was still holding Maami's hand. I kept rubbing her fingers, as if that could make her hold mine back. Someone found a vehicle and they took Maami to the hospital. I went with her. I kept asking them to check again, even after they told me she was gone. By 6 a.m., officers from the local division had arrived. They arrested Dayo and took him away. The investigation was later transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Panti. He was brought before the Yaba Magistrate's Court for remand while the investigation and legal advice proceeded. Maami was buried three days later. Her people came. Our father's people came too. Some of the women who had told her to endure came with food and sat in the corridor. They cried loudly, called her a good woman and said she had tried her best. I watched them move her mat to make space for the chairs. Nobody sat on it. There was plenty to do. People had to be fed. Her clothes had to be gathered. Someone asked where her wrapper was. Another person wanted to know who would keep her things. Everybody seemed to know what needed doing except me. Kayode barely spoke. He stayed close to me, sometimes sitting beside the wall, sometimes disappearing into our room. One afternoon, I found him holding Maami's old head tie. He kept turning it over in his hands. 'You wan keep am?' I asked. He nodded and put it in his pocket. On the morning of the burial, I held one of her wrappers against my chest. It still smelled faintly of the soap she used. I wanted to keep it, but I couldn't explain that to anybody, so I folded it and put it inside my bag. They lowered her into the ground. People prayed. Someone began a song, and the women joined in. I stood beside Kayode and watched until there was no more of her to see. When we returned to the compound, her mat was still rolled up. The grinding stone had been moved away from the gutter. Nobody mentioned why. For days, I kept expecting to hear Maami calling my name from the corridor. Sometimes, when I woke at night, I almost answered her. Kayode stopped sleeping with the light off. If I woke in the night, I sometimes found him sitting on the edge of his bed. He never said what he was thinking, and I didn't ask. There were things neither of us knew how to say. The investigation continued. Eventually, Dayo's case went before the High Court in Ikeja. Months later, during the trial, Dayo kept turning towards the bench, waiting for Maami's brother or our landlord to stand and plead on his behalf. That's how people try to settle things here. Family brings elders, pays a lawyer and begs for forgiveness. They call it settling the matter. Kayode testified. He described how far Dayo had stood, how he pushed Maami with both hands and where the grinding stone was. I told them when I'd borrowed the money, where I'd counted it and what Dayo had said. The pathologist's post-mortem report recorded an occipital skull fracture caused by blunt-force trauma. The judge sentenced Dayo to twelve years for manslaughter in Kirikiri Medium. When the sentence was read, he urinated. I watched the dark patch spread across his trousers as the wardens held his shoulders. He was calling my name. 'Tola, Tola, na me be your brother.' I stood up, adjusted my black scarf and smoothed my skirt. I didn't feel justice. I'd imagined something like a balance being restored, but there was only emptiness and a list of things that still needed doing. Kayode and I would have to pay the rent, buy kerosene and fetch water. Life hadn't stopped to wait for us. Under my bed, the cracked kolo is still there. Maami's mat, the thin one she used to sit on in the corridor, is rolled up and empty. There are five spots in the soil now. Four behind the zinc shed, where I pressed the broken pieces of my first kolo. The fifth is beside the gutter, where Maami's blood entered the earth. Four clay, one blood.

Other insights from Big Dee

Contributor Points

Points-to-Coupons

Referral Earning