In the void left behind by the car’s departure, Benaebi said, “I’m hungry.” His stomach churned loudly as he sucked his thumb.
Méneia put her hand on Dimié Abrakasa’s knee. “You spent a long time,” she said. “We waited and waited, Mma was angry. What did you get?”
Dimié Abrakasa looked away.
“What did you buy?” she asked again.
The smells and sounds of cooking floated out of the corridor. A rat moved in creeps and bounds along the front wall of the house, heading for the open door, then sensed Dimié Abrakasa’s stare and scuttled back into the shadows.
“Dimié!” Méneia cried, her voice trembling with alarm. “You got the thing for Mma, at least, didn’t you?”
“I lost the money,” Dimié Abrakasa said. He did not turn his head to see the expression on his sister’s face. He knew it by heart.
Méneia stared at her older brother without speaking. Benaebi, with a wet moan, jumped to his feet and ran into the house. His complaints, high-pitched and teary, floated through the open door. At the scrape of approaching footsteps Méneia’s grip on her brother’s knee tightened. Then she removed her hand and drew away.
“You lost what?”
Dimié Abrakasa scrambled upright. His mother stood in the doorway. Where the moonlight touched her bare shoulders, they gleamed with sweat. Her movement, as she advanced on him, was brisk, vigorous, oiled with intent.
Her shadow swept over him as she pulled up, and her foot stubbed his right big toe. Bringing her face level with his, she repeated, “You lost what?” Her breath stank of old alcohol.
The blow came out of the dark. It hurled him off balance. Then she was on him — slapping, scratching, kicking. Dimié Abrakasa fell to his knees and buried his head in his arms. He received a mule kick in the belly that tore a gasp from his throat. When she lifted a concrete slab and rushed forward, the neighbors caught hold of her. She fought against their restraint, spewing curses.
A phalanx of neighbors bore Daoju Anabraba into the house. Another group of neighbors gathered round the hunkered down form of Dimié Abrakasa. Méneia knelt beside him, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Benaebi, awestruck at the ferocity of his mother’s attack, was standing behind his brother, his hands clasped in his armpits. Mama Malachi, whose apartment was two doors down from theirs, touched Dimié Abrakasa’s shoulder. “You have done something very bad to make your ma react like so,” she said. Then she bent down, held his arms, pulled them away from his head. Someone switched on a torch and turned the light on him. His eyes were hare-caught-in-the-headlights bright. There was a speckle of blood on his lips and four flesh-white scratches on one side of his neck. As if in reaction to the light, blood welled from the wounds. Méneia caught her breath. Mama Malachi released his arms. They fell into his lap.
The neighbors drew to one side and consulted. A few words, repeated often, reached the children’s hearing: words like mother and landlord and drink. Then Mr. Mogaji of apartment one — the first door on the right — approached them.
“Do you kids have somewhere you can spend the night?”
Méneia blew her nose. Dimié Abrakasa did not stir.
Mama Malachi shouted across to them. “Talk! Do you?”
Méneia coughed to clear her throat. “My granma’s,” she said.
“Go there with your brother tonight,” Mr. Mogaji said. His torchlight played on Méneia’s face. “Don’t cry again, Méne, clean your eyes. We’ll talk to your mother in the morning. I have some spirit and cotton wool. Come and take, so you can clean Dima’s wound.”
. 9 .
Granma Anabraba’s house was in a part of town notorious for its youth gangs. It used to be a good neighborhood, and the architecture was a relic of safer times — the simple, cottagelike houses, wide frontages, and alleys that opened onto bordering streets. With fear had come a stack-up of security devices. Now, house doors and windows were reinforced with metal, front yards were walled and gated, and alley ends blocked off with piled debris.
When the Abrakasa children arrived at their grandmother’s house, they had to rattle the gate for several minutes before a frail, frightened voice demanded: “What do you want?”
Méneia answered. “It’s us, Granma.”
“Méneia?”
“Yes, Granma.”
“Dimié?”
“Granma.”
“Benaebi?”
“Granma?”
“What are you children doing out so late? It’s not safe! Wait, I’m coming.”
The rattle of metal, then the front door creaked open to reveal a dark, empty entrance.
“Psst!”
“Granma?”
Their grandmother’s voice floated across to them. “Dimié, look around and check if there’s anyone near you.”
The children peered up and down the street. “There’s nobody, Granma,” Dimié Abrakasa said.
“Make sure,” her voice insisted.
Dimié Abrakasa stepped back and scanned the area. The street was deserted.
“I’m sure, Granma. No one is here.”
Granma Anabraba appeared in the doorway. She paused there a moment, as if tasting the air, then she descended the short flight of steps and crossed the distance to the gate in a canter. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she whispered as she unlocked the gate, held it open for the children to enter, then clanged it shut and locked it. “Let’s go inside, it’s not safe out here,” she said, herding them toward the doorway with raised, crucifixed arms.
After the door was bolted, Granma Anabraba bent down to increase the dying flame of the hurricane lamp that sat in the chair beside the door. She straightened up with a low groan, turned to face the children, and voiced the terror that had gripped her since she identified the noise at her gate as nothing less extraordinary than a visit from her grandchildren. “What has happened to your mother?” she asked, peering into Dimié Abrakasa’s face. In the weak light cast by the lamp, she did not notice the scratches on his neck.
“Nothing, Granma,” Dimié Abrakasa said. “It’s just that we haven’t eaten anything today and there’s no food in the house. You know our Ben when he’s hungry, he won’t let anybody rest.”
Granma Anabraba released her breath. “I was afraid!” she exclaimed. She reached out to draw her grandson to her breast, clung to him. “It’s been so long since I saw you. You’re too skinny, Dimié. Why don’t you children visit me?”
Benaebi started to explain, “Mma said we shouldn’t—” but Méneia cut him off. “Shut up, Benaebi.”
With a bitter laugh, Granma Anabraba said, “Leave him alone. He’s not saying anything I don’t already know.” She released Dimié Abrakasa and took Benaebi’s arm. “Come, my child, let me feed you.”
When Granma Anabraba called from the kitchen for the children to collect their food, Benaebi jumped up from sleep and dashed down the unlit corridor. Méneia, before following, asked Dimié Abrakasa to let her bring him his food. He dropped back into his seat in answer. As his sister’s footsteps faded, the gloom of the room washed over him, lapping against his wounds like seawater. He thought of his mother, alone in the house. She, too, hadn’t eaten all day, hadn’t gotten her drink, and she’d had to endure the landlord’s insults. At the thought of the landlord, Dimié Abrakasa moaned. The patter of footsteps broke his reverie.