We were sitting at the dingy dining table about to eat. Everyone had his head bowed in the prayer before meal which father recited with anger-like vigour such that one began to visualize death eaters swirling all around our food. Mother was corroborating with amen’s like a backup singer, but the rest of us just sat in gloomy silence trying our best to keep our eyes very tightly shut. I was sure we would hardly enjoy our dinner if father was to catch me or any of my brothers with our eyes open when he was praying. It assured almost certain death, or pain that resembled it…after the prayer which seemed to have lasted for 2 straight hours, father opened his eyes, his bushy eyebrows lifting with such slow delicacy one would think he was trying not to distort the sanctity of the hefty prayer he had just delivered. Of course no one opened his eyes before father; you had to be sure he had done so first before you could follow suit. He placed his large hairy hands on the table and gave the very short nod which signaled permission for the rest of us to begin eating. Mother stood up and throwing her nylon veil over her left shoulder began scooping the potato mash into our china plates. I raised my eyes to stare at Hakim who was sitting across from me on the other side of our large dining table. The I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass look he gave me told me he had, like me, been sleeping or mind-wandering all the while father was praying. I gave him a slight smile only he could see. He gave me his signature snicker.
In the midst of the gloominess which seemed to coat the walls of our house, my brother Hakim and I had found a way to excite ourselves, to transport our beings to a world that existed above the walls our parents had so discreetly erected to keep us in check. We pretended when they were there, became the perfectly tailored kids who worshipped Allah, greeted everyone around and rejected unauthorized gifts from strangers. But at other times, we were like every other kid on the block. We knew Beyonce, we listened to her music almost every day on the little iPod Hakim had bought with the money he made when he sold one of Father’s abandoned briefcases which he had dumped in the garage. He had told me about his plan to steal one of father’s old cases. Although I knew father would literally kill us if he ever found out about the theft, but I had completely supported him. There was something terribly satisfying about being disobedient; it meant some kind of freedom.
I pick at my food as father’s loud munching bounces off the walls of the dining room. Even though potato mash is one of my favourite meals, my mind is dwelt strongly on the nuts and kunu which Hakim had hid under my bed and which we would return to much later in the night when snoring sounds mixed with the cries of crickets. My other brothers, three of them,: Abdul, Shehu and Dino, are lined up side by side along my side of the table. They are all eating with some speed but trying hard not to make a sound from their plates and spoons. I was sure the tension on that table could be slit nicely through with a bread knife if someone felt like it.
All of a sudden, father’s deep baritone booms over our food, startling me
‘Hazizat!’
I take a while to answer, drawing a scowl from my father
‘Father’ I said, dropping my spoon to focus on the heavily bearded face staring at me.
‘Did I tell you…my friend Alhaji Dimka is coming tomorrow to see you’
I swallowed hard….
To see me?, I thought. I wanted to ask why….but I knew why. I’d known why for weeks now. It’d been almost the only thought on my mind
I turn to stare at Hakim as I slowly reply
‘Okay…father’
