KIMBERLY PART SIX.

(continued from the previous part)

Kim was learning how to cook.

Few weeks after the funeral, Rose and john were finally persuaded to return to school, leaving only the four of them at home. Before she left however, Rose called Angela and Kim aside and frankly told them to take care of their parents, especially their mother. “She will never get over this grief.  She is a mother and to a mother, whatever evil that wants to befall her children should befall her.  But what she needs now is not grief but happiness, she needs to learn how to laugh again and only the two of you can do that. If you both are always happy in her presence, she too would be happy eventually. Do you both understand?”

“Yes” they both chorused and she hugged them in turns. “I la you both” she said, faking American accent and this brought rusty smiles to their faces after weeks of grief. “Now, you both look prettier with the smiles”

After she’d gone, both Kim and Angela began working on their assignment with fierce determination. Each of them wrote their mission statement on the walls in their rooms “Mission: To Make Mum smile again”

They did everything they could in her presence to make her happy but she was too far gone in her grief to even notice their efforts. Most times, she was in Maxwell’s room, sitting on his bed and speaking to him as if he were present. Whenever they see her like this, it always broke their hearts and puts to their minds that they have not been successful in their efforts.

“What else can we do to make her happy?” Angela asked one night, in Kim’s room, frustrated.

“I don’t know yet but there must be something that we can do. I am still thinking”

“Nothing seems to be working!” Angela said in despair.

“Anyways, maybe we should give her time. Meanwhile, did you notice that since that incident happened, we have not eaten real pounded yam in this yam?” that incident was used for Maxwell’s demise, they thought it makes it less painful if put that way.
“Well, that isn’t bad, I don’t miss it because I hate it before though mum loves ……. Wait!” Angela said excitedly “Are you suggesting that we……?”

“Yes, that’s exactly my point! That is her favourite food, let’s start from there and it may make her happy.”

“Good. What ingredients are we going to need or should we tell the cook to prepare it?” Angela asked. Whenever it comes to kitchen and cooking issues, she always look up to Kim because the latter knows a lot about cooking that Angela could not hope to know in a lifetime.

“For that we need yam, and for the soup, we need egusi- that’s melon, oil, onion and other thing that we can find in the kitchen if we look very well”

“And how do we prepare it?” Angela asked in wonderment

“Simple but I can’t be able to explain it all now”

The sound of pestle on mortar drew Mrs. Smith to the kitchen the following day. She found Kim and Angela in the kitchen, engrossed in pounding yam.

“What are you both doing?!” she asked, mystified.

The two girls were surprised to see her there, they didn’t know how long she had been watching them.

“We are pounding yam- for you” Angela said with an embarrassed smile. All at once, it all looked stupid to them and they felt foolish.

Mrs. Smith moved closer to the mortar to examine the yam they were pounding.

“Here, let me take a look” she dipped her fingers into the mortar and made a face then she busted into laughter. The girls didn’t know why she laughed but they joined in nevertheless.

After the laughter had subsided, she told them that the yam they pounded was half cooked and that not even dogs would take a morsel of the mess that they called pounded yam and that was what made her laugh.

“I think it’s high time I gave you girls proper kitchen education” she said as the family supped that evening in the living room, while watching a movie.

The following day, Mrs. Smith took them to the nearest market in the neigbourhood and showed them all the ingredients they needed to make a proper pounded yam delicacy. “What makes coming to market interesting is the haggling part. As ladies, you have to learn this. In the marketer, the seller will, naturally gives you a price that exceeds the worth of whatever you want to buy form him or her, knowing that you will beat down its price. So if you do not haggle, that seller will think you aren’t smart enough.  Thus, many women haggle over the prices of even the cheapest thing, not because the price us too much for them to pay but because they don’t want to look inexperienced to the market women. Watch me as I buy this box of matches”

The girls flanked Mrs. Smith on both sides and watched excitedly as she negotiated the price of the box of matches. At last she bought the box for one hundred and seventy naira instead of two hundred and fifty naira that the seller had first given.

“Can I buy the next item, mom?” Angela asked

“Why not, go ahead” her mother said, smiling.

After two hours in the market, they all came back home with all the things they’d bought. On the way back home, Mrs. Smith informed them that they would make a feast that night and invite some friends of the family over but when they got home around six in the evening, Mr. Smith was waiting for them in the living room and he was pacing to and fro absent-mindedly. He didn’t even notice their arrival until Kim and Angela knelt to greet him. The girls left Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the living room to freshen up and get ready for the lengthy cooking that would soon start while the driver and the cook began offloading the things they bought in the market into the store room.

The cooking began thirty minutes later. Kim and Angela were left to cook the food while the cook and Mrs. Smith supervised them and assisted them where absolutely necessary.  Before the meal was done, the Abdullahs arrived for the dinner so Mrs. Smith had to leave the girls in the kitchen under the watchful eyes of the cook, in order to welcome their guests and serve them drinks before the main courses.

Mr. Abdullah was Mr. Smith’s attorney. He was a Hausa man from the northern part of Nigeria but he had stayed long enough in Lagos to know bits and pieces of the westerner’s customs and tradition and snatches of Yoruba language too. His was the first family that would be invited to dinner at the Smiths’ residence after Maxwell’s death. The dinner meant so much to the family.

During the dinner, Mr. Smith and Mr. Abdullah were discussing the problem of ethnicity that is threatening  Nigeria’s unity.

“I wonder how long it would take some people to realize that it doesn’t matter what language we speak or the ethnic group we are associated with” Mr. Abdullah said as he swallowed a big ball of pounded yam, he waited some few seconds before he continued “We are one irrespective of the part of Nigeria one comes from.  Look at us, my wife and I are Hausa and here we are having a sumptuous meal in the house of the Yorubas. To the common Nigerians, we are one but to some of our leaders, we aren’t one and they are continually dividing us, poisoning our hearts, minds and souls with tribalistic hatred and prejudices.”

Everyone on the table listened to Mr. Abdullah with rapt attention. Even Ahmed, the Abdullahs’ six year old child paused in his childish gibberish talks to listen.

“Well said Mr. Abdullah, it’s aptly put” Mr. Smith said.

The rest of the meal went uneventfully. Mrs. Smith lapsed into silence and barely contributed to the table talks. After the meal, the adults retired to the main living room while the children went to the second living room that was essentially created for children and fitted with all the latest gaming gadgets. The Abdullahs had four children, three of them were grownups and were University graduates already but they had unexpectedly conceived their last child six years back, long after they’d thought God wanted them to have only three children. This last child was over pampered and unfortunately, Angela and Kim had to put up with the spoilt brat that evening. He kept mimicking Kim’s tics, barking like a pup.

“Stop that!” Angela shouted at him several times but he wouldn’t.

“I will stop when she stops making that sound. Why can’t you tell her to stop…gbo gbo gbo gbo!”

The Abdullahs left to their relief around 10PM and the house became sane and quieter after they’d gone because Ahmed alone makes noise like an elephant and he could play even more than ten kids of his age combined together. Kim and Angela were called down into the living room. Kim could not help but notice that Mrs. Smith’s eyes were swollen from crying and her heart lurched in fear. Has something happened to anyone again?

“Kim, Angela, both of you sit, there’s something I want to tell you” Mr. Smith said and both girls sat. “I got a call this afternoon while I was at work. It was from the police station”

Kim didn’t have to be told which police station he was talking about. She knew it was the police station where he had gone four years ago when her mum just died and none of her family members could be found. She knew without being told that there is news about one of her family members.

“When I got to the station, I met a woman who claims to be your aunt and that she had been looking for you for almost a year now since she came back to Nigeria. She said she had traveled out of the country few months before your mum died. In a nutshell, she wants you back since she is your real family……”

“You are my family….”she wanted to say more but she couldn’t because her tics got worse and she had to cover her mouth to suppress the noise. Her tics normally occurs about twenty seconds interval but whenever she was excited, sad or anxious it occurs almost every two seconds. She had to use the back of her palm to hit her chin several times to suppress its frequency. On this occasion, it was worse and she had to shove her hand into her mouth to suppress it but the effort was useless. She sobbed helplessly.

(To Be Continued)