Death By Natural Causes

The woman Mother was bargaining with looked as if she had tasted more sorrow than happiness. Perhaps Mother looked the same. She called Mother shrewd in pidgin, with a humorous glint in her eyes and a small smile straining against her lips, belying her amusement. Mother nodded with smug acceptance, basking in the approval of her adversary. It was a sweet meaningless dance they performed each time they haggled over her tray of mangoes, each wanting the vain satisfaction of believing they bested the other. I tugged at my mother’s thumb. I was growing impatient. I was turning eleven tomorrow and I needed to decide what to wear to school.

Mother looked anxiously at the darkening evening sky, “I have to rush o my sista, it is about to rain” Mother said, her tone familiar and jovial. They exchanged naira notes and more pleasantries. Mangoes in hand, we walked to the junction where the buses pick up passengers, jumping into one while it still crawled along. In Lagos, buses never come to a full halt.

The rain started with loud heavy torrents, pelting against the windshield relentlessly, causing the wind to smell like earth. I inhaled deeply. Behind us a heavyset man slouched and snored, his belly rotund, his head askew over his large frame. His face was weathered and oily, and his mouth was bent into pensive frown. Spittle dripped from the side of his lips, a watery sludge that trickled unto his shirt. As the bus swerved and honked loudly, he awoke with a start, averting his eyes, seemingly embarrassed. He spasmed into a sudden hacking cough, sending spittle flying everywhere. A speck landed on my forehead. I turned away, revolted but respectful. As we alighted at our stop, I calculated it would take fifteen more minutes for the walk home, fifteen more minutes until I had a shower.

The rain had turned the sepia toned evening into a midnight black. A chilly breeze billowed through the streets, shaking the branches of the mango trees. The air felt wet with tension, uneasy. It was then I saw them, shadowy figures, adjacent to us, about ten feet away. I clutched Mother’s hand, moving closer, feeling the psalms she had taught me begin to teeter on the tips of my tongue. It was useful to know a few prayers if you lived in a bad neighborhood, especially if that was all you could afford.

Thunder roared and cracked a white zigzag of lightening across the sky. The sudden flash of fluorescent illuminated the face of the man on the right. He had a satchel slung across his shoulder. His eyes looked stark, menacing, hungry. I felt my bladder threaten to overflow.

“Let’s just walk in the other direction” Mother said.

She pulled me closer, entwining my fingers in hers. I chided myself for my paranoia. They were just two men standing. It meant nothing. Just look away. But even my soothing self-assessment did not put me at ease. I began the recite the psalms in my mind, wondering if King David also felt the vicelike grip of fear squeeze his throat while he wrote these psalms. We began to walk faster, the clipped tempo of our footsteps drumming quietly through the damp night air. With every second their footsteps grew closer; I could hear with aching clarity as their feet splashed into small puddles. I named them in my head, Mr. Satchel and Mr. Ugly.

Mr. Satchel was slender, athletic, lithe, with eyes that were narrow black slits. On his lips lay a peculiar, beguiling smile. I felt a current of foreboding snake up my spine.

“Don’t look at them!” Mother whispered with agitation.

They were six feet away now.

I started to recite psalm 91 under my breath.

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of The Most High”

They inched closer. Three feet away.

“Just keep walking, don’t look” Mother said, her voice low and heavy with distress.

“shall abide under the shadow of The Almighty…”

Two feet away.

“I will say unto The Lord; my refuge and my fortress…”

We were poised to walk past them any second now…

“My God in whom I trust, He will deliver us from the snare of the fowler” I whispered, my voice tremulous, my teeth started to chatter with abandon.

We were walking past them now.

“and from the deadly pestilence…”

“Stop.”

We froze. My contents of my bladder strained against my urethra.

Perhaps we were imagining things. Mother nudged me to continue walking.

“I said stop.”

It was uttered more quietly this time, but somehow, it carried more command.

We turned around.

“Good evening o” Mother said, feigning a jocularity that convinced nobody.

“Is that your child?” Mr. Ugly asked. I could see his entire profile now, and his face affirmed his name. He was pudgy with wizened bloodshot eyes and thick lips blackened by smoke. A gold tooth rested on his lower right incisor. The pocket of his jeans bulged. He had a gun.

“Yes, she’s nine years old” Mother lied, as if her assertion of my infantility would protect me from perversion.

He grunted.

“Even better” he said with a nauseating grin

I felt my stomach churn with revulsion.

Mother’s voice became something unfamiliar, a pained pleading whisper.

“Please, just take my money” Mother said, hastily gathering loose naira notes from her handbag and stretching out her hand in conciliatory fashion.

“Kneel down” Mr. Ugly commanded.

“Please sir” she begged, her voice small, placatory, as if trying to negotiate with her personal Goliath.

I kept my eyes on the pavement, counting the tiny potholes. The air was still now, a deafening silence. I cursed our ill luck and Lagos traffic for our current predicament.

“Please she’s a child. I take God beg you” she sputtered in broken English.

He reached into his jeans pocket and pointed a black handgun at Mother’s head.

I looked up at Mr. Satchel with begging eyes, trying to arouse in him a mercy I knew to be absent. His eyes were stoic and hollow.

“No” Mother said.

“Are you mad?” Mr. Ugly sneered sarcastically

He placed the nozzle of the gun against her forehead.

“Ttt…te..take mmme instead” she stuttered, her voice ragged with fear.

He turned, his eyes hungrily roving my drenched form. I gazed down, I was counting stones now – one, two three four, one two three four, one two three –

“And you” he said, gesturing towards me with the gun, “lie down”

I laid on the concrete and felt liquid filth seep into my braids. God forbid Mother should die. I closed my eyes, feeling the gentle drizzle of rain coat my face like a cool mist.

“Go first” Mr. Ugly gestured towards Mr. Satchel with a wink.

Mr. Satchel dropped his leather satchel on the floor and crouched above me. I forced my eyes open. He had good skin. A rich mahogany brown. The type usually found on people from better circumstances. He started fiddling with his waistband. I looked away from him and cast my head to the side, my cheek raw against the putrid pavement. I continued counting stones even as his pants dropped between his ankles, even as he crouched between my legs.

“Do it quick” Mr. left urged, his eyes darting wildly back between Mr. Satchel and Mother, his gun wielding hand unsteady.

When Mr. Satchel raised the hem of my pinafore, Mother lunged at Mr. Ugly with a tortured scream. He staggered and fell to the ground as a gunshot rang through the air.

I picked a large, jagged rock and hit Mr. Satchel against the head. He looked at me in disbelief, a steely glint of rage hardening his eyes.

“You worthless bitc-” I hit him again. He flailed, trying to disentangle his legs from his pants. I hit him again. Harder this time. That hard grotesque thing between his legs had now deflated. Blood gushed over his face, red and thick. I hit him again and again, until he collapsed on top me. He reeked of rancid sweat and cloying expensive perfume. His head was a bloody lump of macerated flesh, like a carcass picked apart by hungry vultures. It was then I saw my mother standing above me, holding the handgun. She pushed away his motionless heap of flesh and carried me up. Mr. Ugly was unmoving. He had three holes in his chest.

“Bring the satchel”. Mother said. She lifted the flap and stowed away the artifacts of our killings – both rock and gun. I lifted the brown bag and strapped it across my shoulder. Home was just a few minutes away. We walked the rest of the way home in silence.

Mother made calls that night, her voice undulating with frantic whispers from our apartment corridor, while I stood in the shower and watched blood that was not mine float and curl down the drain in a vivid crimson red. Afterwards, I opened the satchel, setting aside the rock and the gun. The underside of the leather flap was a soft brown suede, and inside lay a little black book. I ran my fingers over the moleskin fabric, tracing the rise of its dogeared edges. The last item inside was a velvet pouch. I opened it and felt my breath catch in my throat. With shaky hands I drew out two bundles of cash, real American dollars. I began to count each crisp Benjamin with trembling fingers. A total of twenty thousand dollars. I looked up as Mother came in. I saw the exact moment her heart floundered; I saw the look of triumph she tried to mask with dismay. She sat beside me on the floor and wrapped me in a silent hug, her eyes wet with tears.

Nothing was ever the same again. Mother called Aunty Ifeyinwa, whose latest flame worked at the American embassy on Walter Carrington. The one with the long queue of beleaguered looking people clutching folders of documents and dreams. Mother later told me he was a diplomat, that he used his connections to grant us asylum. The next day I watched NTA news while Mother made more panicked phone calls. Mr. Satchel’s face filled our tiny tv screen. They said he was a former governor’s son and that the police were rounding up suspects. Some of the suspects had already died of mysterious ailments in custody. The other body that was discovered was said to belong to a local hoodlum who frequented political rallies. The policeman on tv said it was “probable” that Mr. Satchel was bludgeoned by Mr. Ugly’s thuggish cohorts after a foiled robbery attempt. They showed Mr. Ugly’s mother on the screen, glum and tearful, with red resigned eyes, protesting feebly, insisting her son was not a thief. The reporter scoffed at her in derision, his face wrinkled with disbelief.

Mother got rid of everything that day, except the cash, and I wrote down everything in the little black book before she did. Just in case. She told me she was going to run an errand at the lagoon and came back with empty hands. I counted every second until I heard her rapt knock at the door, my chest heaving with relief. We left that night, with all our belongings in a duffel bag.

That was four years ago. We live in a place called Connecticut now. Mother has a good job, and we live in a big house. We no longer cook with a kerosene stove beside our mattress on the floor. We no longer eat half rotten soup and pretend it tastes sour because of fermentation. Yesterday, someone at school even called me a “rich kid” and I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Sometimes I worry that I feel no guilt, no regret, no grief over the…incident, but that feeling never lasts long.