Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike

 

Bat

I’m in the kitchen scrubbing the insides of a kettle when I hear Pa say, Bia nwoke. I dash into the parlour while Ma goes on humming over the pot of egusi soup she is preparing. Each time Pa summons me out of the kitchen, it’s a soldier’s voice I mostly hear—sharp, full of bite. He is not a soldier, from what I know, but I grew up hearing he had fought as a Biafran in the civil war. The war happened over thirty years ago. I’m just ten, so I don’t know if any of it is true, since there’s no photograph of him in army uniform anywhere in our flat. And I have yet to see any terrible scar on his body. Like the type on Uncle Chidobe’s face. 

I am standing in front of Pa right now. He is sitting straight on the only armchair in our parlour. Ever since I saw him try to fling his brother out of it, I’ve come to avoid the armchair like rat poison. Sometime last month, Uncle Chidobe had staggered back home, plopped himself on the armchair, and ordered to be served like some lord. Pa came back, looking gruff, and saw that his throne had been occupied by someone else. He hoisted his brother by the neck, but Ma grabbed Pa by the waist before he could send Uncle Chidobe flying across the parlour.

Pa sweeps his eyes over me as if I’m dripping suds. ‘Can the kitchen make a man?’ he asks.

I stare at the stump that is his neck, the heave of his large chest. Every time I consider his build, I wonder why he didn’t go for a woman his size rather than for Ma who’s merely taller than me by two shoulders or three.

‘Don’t look confused, I am only asking.’ Pa points his finger towards the kitchen, barely moving his head, which is quite small for his size, even with his shoulders shaped like a pair of humps. ‘Are you planning to take over the kitchen from my wife?’

‘No,’ I reply.

‘Then why do you like lurking around the kitchen?’

‘I was only helping—’

‘Is she handicapped?’ Pa snickers, cutting me short. ‘You act at times like you’re not my own flesh and blood.’

I don’t understand why Pa has to complain about something I like doing—helping Ma cook in the kitchen. Besides, I don’t like seeing her looking tired each time she returns from Ekeonuwa market, where she goes every day but Sunday to sell some measly ugba. But I do not mention all this, since he seems not to be liking my efforts. Just last Saturday he asked me if I was working on becoming a woman.

Pa slouches back in his seat, twisting the stubble on his jaw. When I was seven, he would hold my hand and run it against his chin and the hairs felt like bristles to my skin. But he stopped playing with me when I turned ten. I once asked him why, and he said I was too old to be ‘monkeying’ around.

‘Do you know why I called you?’

I suppose it has something to do with the kitchen. Yet I say, ‘No.’

‘What are they doing?’ he asks, pointing to the TV.

Two sweaty men are tackling each other with all their might. I can see their faces clenching, muscles popping, as they try to hurl each other to the floor. A man in a white-and-black-striped shirt and black trousers squirrels endlessly behind them, darting his head this way and that, to see which man will slip and go down first. 

‘They’re wrestling.’ 

Pa cocks his head towards me. ‘I didn’t hear you.’

I say it again. 

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

 ‘Why are they not in the kitchen?’

‘They’re too old…’

He prods me. ‘So they’re not in the kitchen?’

I stay my lips. Pa does not repeat his question. Instead, he puts on a grin that reminds me of my friend Izu, who once got a bee trapped in a bottle. I remember flinching each time the bee slapped around, thumping its wispy body against the glass, while Izu went on grinning as he filled the bottle with water. We both watched the bee floating dead shortly afterwards. That was the third thing I’d seen him kill. The first time he cut a millipede to three bits, I could do nothing but watch and wince. The second time it was a frog, which he buried in a hole he had dug. I have tried not to get too close to Izu, but he keeps dragging me along to go hunting down animals that mean no harm to anyone.  

‘Let me not see you in that bloody kitchen whenever there’s a wrestling match on the TV. Do you understand?’

‘I hate wrestling!’

‘What do you bloody know? Better learn to love it.’

‘But Pa –’

‘I’ve never slapped you before, you know why? The day I’ll slap you, your mother will rush you to the hospital. Either you will lose some teeth, or you won’t be able to speak for a month.’

I glance away, sulking. Pa has never threatened me before, even when I am out playing football late with my mates.

He motions for me to stand before him. ‘Chidi, don’t expect pity from anyone,’ he goes on. ‘Life will always try to crush you, so you must toughen up, or else you’ll be trampled to dirt. Women are lucky enough because they’re the weaker sex… do you want to be a woman?’

I just stare at him.

‘Let me tell you about my boss. Mr. Anosike liked shouting at me. Maybe he thought that as a dropout I was a bloody half-man…’ Pa shuts his eyes briefly. I wonder why his boss would want to insult him. Was he not frightened by what Pa’s knuckles could do to one’s face? Wasn’t he even scared of Pa’s size?

‘One day I got fed up with his insults. Do you want to know what happened next?’ Pa expects me to show excitement, but I murmur, ‘You lost your job.’

‘If you don’t have any bloody brain,’ he says, ‘at least have some muscles.’ Raising his beefy left arm, he pumps it so hard it comes rippling with too many veins. I sometimes wonder why Pa chose to be a loading assistant at the bus terminus when he could have grown himself into a wrestler of note. Suddenly, he grits his teeth in pain. ‘Is your mother cooking stones? How much longer does a man have to wait before he can eat in his own house? Call her!’

I spring towards the kitchen. He calls me back just as I reach the door.

‘I want to see you here…’ He clicks his fingers. ‘one minute!’

I return in less than a minute.

‘She’s bringing your food,’ I puff, my breath steaming up my nose.

He huffs, ‘Come, sit down. Let’s enjoy the wrestling.’

I grumble quietly, unable to understand how anyone could enjoy watching his fellow men beating each other up.

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