In Africa, the market does not exist in a vacuum: it is a social system, a thing that could be felt. It is a current that pulls stories from homes and villages and deposits them, raw and unvarnished, between the tomatoes and peppers. The story of Iya Farouk led me back to my own, to the women in my family whose strategies for survival were their own form of market bargaining.
My grandfather died atop a gin seller with pendulous boobs. The way my mum tells it, my grandma received the news with blankness, the kind novelists reserve for strong independent African women. When they brought the girl to the village square (bawling and swearing that my grandfather had promised to marry her and that was the only reason for which she would sleep with a married man; her mother raised her right), my grandma asked why they wanted to burden the poor girl.
Of course no one listened to her.
She also asked that she see to the burial arrangements alone. They said yes, sure. I don't know how possible this is, seeing as how they're Igbo. Maybe poor Igbos in the 70s did things differently.
On the day of the funeral, after my grandfather's body had been lowered to the ground, the guests stuck around for funeral rice. My grandma sat there, on her mat, in her black, watching them watch her. When it was getting uncomfortable someone shouted her name and asked for the food for the mourners.
My mother says my grandma shot off the mat. She said sorry, she would send my mother to the next village to buy beans, because that was where they sold the best beans, and she would send my uncle Solomon to buy pepper and onions from Mama Olie—wait, Mama Olie, you are here? Open shop for my son, biko. And that she would grind it all at Emeka's mill and they were not to worry, it would be ready in three hours. But hei, she had forgotten: the father of her children didn't leave any money behind so they would have to wait for her to beg a bit at the village junction.
My mother says the memory of them dispersing is one of her best.
My grandma is the only one home when I return. She is on the veranda in a swaddle of old woman clothes, smelling of old woman: soup and talcum powder and mothballs, listening to Ave Maria FM on her phone.
She tells me welcome and I say thank you. She asks if I've had Sunday rice and I say no and I watched someone die.
'Who?' she asks in fright.
'A woman we used to buy tomatoes from.'
'Oh,' she says. 'Sorry.'
I drop my mother's medication in her room and tell our housekeeper, Mabel, to tell my mother I left by 4pm and not 2. I am back in my apartment when my mother calls me.
'You've heard the news?' she asks.
'Yes. It was horrible.'
'Horrible? Her time had simply come. There are lots of worse ways to go.'
'Worse than being hit by a luxurious bus?'
'Nchedo, what are you talking about? Your grandma passed in her sleep. A few hours ago. Your sisters in Boston heard before us, can you believe it? Nenye called me at house fellowship.'
'Oh.' A moment passes.
'What grandmother?'
'What do you think, silly girl? If it was my mother, would I be sane enough to talk to you? Come over to your father's family house. Those stuck up vultures have already begun to gather.'
My paternal grandmother did not perform epic acts of bravery in her youth. She made the most delicious oha soup and plantain fritters, though. Her hugs were pillowy and warm. In every conversation, growing up, I was fixed on her voice, a classy, assured almost-whisper. Once she had a cough and her voice grew deep and raspy. I liked that even more. I sat with her and asked her a million questions about knitting and even as a child, I could see her eyes dart around uncertainly, like she was not sure this was allowed, or like she wanted someone to save her. She tried to like my sisters and me, tried to like our mother. Tried to like my mother's mother.
'I thought you were talking about Iya Farouk. She died this afternoon. I saw her when I went to get your medication from Medplus.'
'Oh, that's sad, all those children that she had. What will happen to them now?'
'No, she had only one child. Farouk.'
'Oh, I was thinking about the other tomato seller, the one not so far from this one you're talking about. With the lazy eyes and that sunburn.'
'No, that's Iya Taofeek.'
'Oh, well, may her soul rest in peace. The Muslim kind. What did you say about coming come?'
'It's a Sunday evening and I have work tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow, then. After work. Your grandmother just died, for crying out loud. Tell Sebastian. Bring him over. Your father's nieces and nephews are going to be there and we have to show them you've fixed up.'
When I call Sebastian he says he's not sure he can make the trip from Abuja to Lagos on such short notice. I tell him to please try. I tell him that it will please my mother.
'You've played that card so much it's become stale,' he laughs. 'I'll try.'
'Thank you,' I say.
'I miss you,' he says.
A moment passes. 'I love you,' he says. He blows me a kiss, a wet, sucking thing.
I dream of Iya Farouk and my grandmother in my kitchen. Iya Farouk is plucking vegetables and my grandmother is stirring a pot of soup. They are laughing and talking in Yoruba. My grandma sees me and says, 'Nchedo, this kitchen is just terrible. It's empty, except for week-old trash.' Iya Farouk bursts into laughter and wipes her hands on her yellow dress.
'Why are you laughing like that?' my grandma asks her. 'Don't you know you're dead?'
This makes Iya Farouk laugh even more.
This is the third story in the Market Diaries series.
Read the previous story: Market Diaries #2: The Good-Undies Compartment
Juliet is a Nigerian writer and storyteller drawn to the unseen narratives of everyday life. The 'Market Diaries' series explores the profound moments hidden in the ordinary bustle of the market.
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