My father’s people call me Alhaja It’s the same name they called my grandmother who died when I was four.
When she returned
from Mecca, she earned the society’s credentials for a Muslim woman who
has been on pilgrimage to the joint capital with Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
A man would be called Alhaji.
Grandma returned
from Mecca with a golden tooth and wore a golden skull cap made of wire
mesh on her head, before she tied her gele on it, before she headed for
the market where she was a woman leader. She carried me by strapping me
on her back. Well, I could walk, but she preferred that I didn’t. This
is what I always remember of her. It is the other things that they say
about me and her, that I don’t. And for this reason, I desired to know
how I earned her name. And this is because, for a long time, it did not
occur to me that my grandma could have a name other than Alhaja. It did
not matter that her mate – her best friend and my step grandmother –
was also called Alhaja, which we differentiated it with a prefix Elepo,
as she, sold palm-oil.
Now, as a grown-up,
I have come to understand that every Yoruba Muslim family has its own
Alhaja, and where there is more than one person of such appellations,
relatives distinguish them by locations – Alhaja Surulere or Alhaja
Ibadan; or even by size – Alhaja Small or Alhaja big.
I earned a name
from grandma – and I did not have to be a Muslim or take a trip to
Mecca to get that. For typically, as a Yoruba, should I have needed to
get respect for coming back as her, I might have borne names like
Iyabo, Yewande – a reincarnated mother – should I have waited until her
death to be born. Yet, I am treated as a reincarnate. Things like extra
chicken where the others get one, lots of gift, and a blossoming
relationship between Father, who sees me beyond his daughter. I was his
mother. So I can always walk up to him and talk of the others’ domestic
shortcomings. I was a mouthpiece for anyone in my home that could not
approach my disciplinarian father.
A change occurred.
One of my aunts visited my parents, whom I still live with, and patted
me on the back – again. Then her hand fondled my chin – embarrassing me
into self-consciousness now that I am a matured woman. She rendered a
brief panegyric – originally my grandma’s – and lots of prayers on
advancement, prosperity and opportunities. Then she said as she left,
‘Alhaja, my mother, take care of your father.’ Ok. There’s a problem
here. (I didn’t tell her that bit). Her parting propped up a decision
in me. I decided to remember or assume how my name change occurred. It
would perhaps make a definition of my duties as a batoned grandmother
easier.
Again, my decision
is borne of the fact that I feel like someone who has borne another’s
name for too long, and not even with benefits of sharing the
responsibilities that should come with it. Should there be need for
any. And so I impressed it upon myself to assume a mental
responsibility of being a big aunt, mother or cousin to my paternal
relatives, allowing my quiet to inhabit the grandeur of that space of
deference which I am accorded.
Nothing mattered
for a while, until recently, when a friend, flipping through my photo
album, remarked about how much I look like my late grandmother. Again I
picked up a photograph of the woman and pictured the nose, flamboyant
at the extremes, yet it would not pass as the typical African nose. It
was too small. Her lips, full as mine, would not curve towards the
chin; hers was spread into a smile – perpetual. Her eyes, even in the
black and white photograph, were intense and questioning. What colour
were her eyes. Mine are deep brown, under the lights, and they are like
sundials with chocolate spread. I looked deeper. The picture wouldn’t
tell.
My grandmother’s
love grew out of the stories I heard concerning my fondness for her.
Fondly, mother would express how she died, ‘a good death’ – in her
sleep. ‘She went to the market and slept.’ Her death did not amount to
much performance. She lived, and then died.
Father, an only
child to his mother, would sometimes look at me with a smile afloat on
his face. Finally, if in a too-light mood, he would tell me how I would
sit, sleep, and eat with her when I was younger. ‘No one could take
your hijab from you,’ he said. ‘You really loved her.’ ‘I did?’ ‘And
every weekend we knew we had to take you to stay over at her place.’
‘At grandpa’s house, abi?’ I smiled at that. The house in question was
my grandfather’s. I grew up knowing the place as the ‘Sallah house’ (Id
el kabir). Many years after, grandma died, my father still celebrated
Sallah on her behalf, calling the mosque to say prayers on her behalf
and afterwards there was so much fried meat for the children to eat.
Yet, I could not remember this Alhaja whom I looked so much like.
‘What did I do when
she died?’ ‘Well you cried.’ ‘Just cried?’ ‘Yes. Or what else would you
have done?’ Crying was alright, but there was a part of me that trusted
that I could have done something else.
So I became again,
that four-year-old, whose beloved is lowered into the earth, holding
the edge of her mother’s dress. Crying? Just crying, could not be
alright, if I really loved her and became her. Then, I wondered if it
was a divine plan at the time to understudy her before she died. It
didn’t work out. I am a writer. I didn’t turn out a trader.
Perhaps in death,
people will wonder aloud, how death took away a kind-hearted and
helpful human. Until then, I explored the realities, which showed me
that understudying her did not work out.
Perhaps before
then, I was there besides her when she died, pulling her rigid body to
wake for prayers, at dawn? The mosque calling for prayers and the rush
of a tenement building – scrambling, screaming and stifled shouting.
But what did I do after that? My mind could not pull through, I let it
pass.
Father said I was
at home with them when she died. That someone brought the message to
them and I was in the living room with everyone else.
So I imagined a
great scream from my mother once some-somebody came to deliver the
message. Her cry halted the teasing from my two elder brothers. We all
stilled, unsure of what happened. Perhaps, at the time, I was hungry.
My brothers understood that something was wrong with grandma, but I
didn’t. So I waited for everyone to calm down and I acted normally, but
the people around me didn’t. They petted me, cuddled me, offered me
help….
Perhaps the next
morning, mother would not leave the kitchen. Her younger and elder
sister – both known as big mummy to me, stayed with her. Then my aunts,
uncles and some other people whom I had never met came to see my
father. Not one along kokoro, biscuits and go-go sweets, like grandma
always did when she came for a visit. They patted me on the back and
sat close to my father. Fondled my chin, one after the other. Then a
family meeting began – loud, whispers, cries and again talks.
Between, their talks. Food was served. It was not a party, but a lot of people around.
Perhaps a part of
me, said: ‘something is amiss. Grandma is not a part of the meeting. So
I walked outside, and hoped to see grandma, who would arrive with the
usual delicacies.
I remained outside, until, the visitors came out one after the
other, patting my head and smiling kindly – than normal to me. One
after the other, they gave me her name, ‘Alhaja…’
