59
‘Come,’ a drunk woman grabbed her hand and led her through the
mourners into the living room. ‘Look at her,’ she said to Kayita’s family.
The mourners, even those who had been at the back of the house, had
come to stare at Nnam. She looked away from the coffin because tears
were letting down her ‘hold your head high’ stance.
‘Stealing from me I can live with, but what about my children?’
At that moment the gang’s confrontational attitude fell away and they
shook their heads and wiped their eye and sucked their teeth,
‘The children indeed . . . Abaana maama . . .yiyi but men also . . . this
lack of choice to whom you’re born to . . . who said men are human . . .’
The vigil had turned in favour of Nnam.
It was then that Nnam’s eyes betrayed her. She glanced at the open
coffin. There is no sight more revolting than a corpse caught telling lies.
Nnam is in the lounge. She has finished cleaning. She has taken all the
photographs that had been on the walls – wedding, birthdays, school
portraits, Christmases – and all the pictures taken before Kayita’s
death, whether he is in the picture or not, are separated from the
others. She throws them in the bin-bag and ties it. She takes the others
to the bedroom. She gets her nightgown and covers her nakedness.
Then she takes the bin with the pictures to the front door. She opens
the door and the freshness of the air outside hits her. She ferries all the
bin-bags, one by one, and places them below the chute’s mouth. She
throws down the smaller bin-bags first. They drop as if in a new long
drop latrine – the echo is delayed. She breaks the cabinet and drops the
LE PORTRAIT MAGAZINE
Page 59