By Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ

I see the woman dodge into the shop and know her immediately. Mummy and Daddy’s friends, them have all vamoosed, but me, I will never forget them. Mummy used to say I have bad heart because if you do me bad, I do you back, God no go vex. And this woman, she did me and Mummy bad. Common shop cannot hide her keep. If she likes, she should run to Kafanchan today, me I will follow her in her back-in her back.

Her name is Mrs Mbachi, Mama Ujunwa. Me and Uju, her last-born, used to be friends before-before. Mrs Mbachi, them would come to our house, she and her husband. I don’ know his name. I use to call him Uncle or Papa Uju. He like to drink Seaman’s Aromatic Schnapps and pour libation on the carpet because he carries chieftaincy title. Mummy would boil and mud her face, frowning. After they left, she made Mercy, our housemaid that time, to scrub the carpet with Elephant Blue and brush. She used to point in Daddy’s face with her yellow fingers like uncooked shrimps: ‘Bia, this man, don’t be bringing these bush people to come and spoil my Italian carpet for me!’ And Daddy would throw his head back and laugh because he liked when Mummy does as if she is scolding him, even though they are always doing love. Daddy would pinch her cheeks and call her ‘Ikebe Super’, his hailing name for her because he said he can perch on her bum-bum and she will just be walking and not know he is there. Then he will beat her on the thing, kpaa!, like that. Mummy will pretend to be vexing until he drops something for her, and I knew I was getting a new dress and shoes and bag to match after escorting Mummy shopping to spend the money, and maybe even Den’s Cook for hamburger and ice cream for me and cream soda for Mummy. Mummy will tell them not to put tomato o, because I don’ like tomato and they will say, ‘Madam we know noooow,’ and she will dash them money too because they behaved well to remember what me I like to eat.

Those were the days when things were sweet.

When we came back from eating his money, Daddy will now put turntable and play William Onyeabor ‘When the Going is Smooth and Good’, and he and Mummy will dance and dance, but I dinor know that something like that song is singing can do us as well.

That time, Mama Ujunwa used to give my mother cloth on hand, and she will pay after - George and Georgette and Akwete and plenty-plenty Hollandaise - fresh from Main Market in Onitsha, before any of the wives in our side had them. After Daddy died, she was among the first to come and collect her property back. I didin even see her at the burial. That’s why she is hiding from me inside the shop like a rat in a food store.

I leave where am squatting and pursue Mama Uju. She enters a jewellery shop in Ogba Gold. I know this shop. Mummy used to come here before, when Mama Uju introduced her to Solo, the owner, because he don’ cheat since he is a church person and can swear on Bible. Inside, all the showcases are lined with black foam so that the rings, earrings and all those assorted things shine like stars in the night sky. Mummy used to buy gold, not GL, as she told anyone who asked, but I don’ know what is different between gold and GL. It don’ matter anyway. The whole thing is gone now, plus-including her wedding ring and the small ring made from Igbo gold that I used to wear when I was small. It’s in all the pictures. Those ones too are gone, the albums and frames. Daddy’s brothers took them. What is their business with pictures they are not inside?

Am leaning against the zinc walls of the shed, and people are looking at me with corner-eye but nobody chats to me, not even small ‘How are you?’. My silpas are too big. Aunty Ojiugo said it is better to be big than small so that I will wear it a long time. The sun is entering innermost my eyes. It’s afternoon. My eyelashes divide the colours into red and green and yellow and orange but me, am not going to find shade where will cover me. Let Mama Uju come and pass. I want her to see me here. I want to see the thing her face will do.

A mineral seller plays bottle music with his metal opener, sliding it across the red Coca-Cola crate on his head. Some of the bottles are empty. The others are black like heaven, sweating with cold. There are also Krest bitter lemon and the tonic water my mother used to sometimes drink, those tastes of malaria medicine. The soft drinks are what carry Mama Uju’s legs out of the shop. Always a longathroat, this woman.

‘Hey, mineral-person! Come!’ It is her voice.The man stops and turns back. He don’ even give me face and maybe that’s what makes Mama Uju think that me I’ve gone. She steps out. ‘You have soda water? Is it cold?’

‘Aunty, good afternoon,’ I say.

‘Jesus!’ She jumps. The mineral seller shows me warning with eyes not to spoil market for him. Mama Uju comes back to herself. Her chest is going up and down, up and down, like a dog that has chased its tail tired.

‘Treasure? Is that you?’ That is the name that everybody uses to know me because of my daddy.

‘Yes, Aunty. Is me.’

She holds her throat as if her heart is jumping out of it. Her hand is full of chains and gold rings. When I was small, Mama Uju was black. Now only her hands and feet are remaining that colour. Her face is fair, but it’s not fresh like Mummy. Mama Uju’s yellow is forcing-yellow, like a mango that has been tied in a waterproof bag to ripe it quick before selling. Her cheek and eyelids have drawn red-red threads inside. She is wearing a blouse that sits on her shoulders, orange lace. English lace. The space between her breasts sparkles with sweat.There are hairs there and under her chin. Everybody knows only wicked women like Mama Uju have beards like men.

‘Hewu! You poor child. How is your mother? Embrace me.’

‘She is fine,’ I say.

Mama Uju narrows her eyes. She is continuing to open arms to embrace me, but I refuse to move. The mineral-man’s eyes are on her and then me. He hands her a bottle of soda water and also a bottle of tonic water.

Mama Uju waves him away, irritation doing her whole body. ‘Go! Take that thing that is not cold and go.’ She sucks her teeth. ‘Idiot.’ Mama Uju likes doing Big Madam. She thinks if she shouts at people it shows how important she is. She stares at me and I stare at her back and don’ bite my eyes. I know she wants to leave me here and go, but shame is catching her. She shuffles her feet.

I feel like insulting her. I want to tell her the ancient and modern of her life. I saw it all. Nobody here gives children ear, so I saw everything just by being quiet and doing like I dinor see. I saw how she used to sneak eyes at my daddy when her husband dozed on the armchair, blinking like this and that as if there was something in her eye. She is his third wife and the man is old and rich and didin go to school. When they sat down to eat the food Mercy cooked, Mama Uju would use her toes to be touching Daddy under the table.

When Daddy smiled at her, she dinor see that he mercied her, but me, I did. After all, her husband was old and smelled like ogili okpei inside carton, and everybody knew he stored his money under the mattress as per local man, and Daddy was the one that helped him use his money well, like importing and exporting and that kind of a thing.

Anyway, I need Mama Uju to dash me money, so I suck my words and swallow them.

‘Aunty, how is Ujunwa?’ I bend my head to one side. ‘Long time I have not seen her eyes.’

‘Hewu! She is fine, my dear. She keeps asking when she can come and see you people, but she is so busy now, as per secondary school chikito, you know. All those assignments . . .’ She stops talking because she can see me standing in front of her and am not in school. Stupid woman.

‘Do you know where we are living now? I can come tomorrow to your shed and take you to the place. Or now, sef. Did you bring your car?’ I say.

Mama Uju looks around the market for somebody to call her name so that she will now go to greet them and never come back. ‘Ah, my car is in the mechanic, my dear, but I will find the place and I will come, you hear?’

She fumbles in her bag and brings out one ten-naira note like this. It is rumpled and she straightens it, ironing it between her hands.

‘Mummy is not yet well. She sleeps all the time. The other day, she was calling your name – “Nne Uju, Nne Uju” – like that. I haven’t eaten since two days now, and Aunty Ojiugo hasn’t come back since she left for Nkwelle-Ezunanka. You remember Mummy’s sister? Her half-sister. Yes, the one that farms. Her husband don’ want her to see us again.’ I twist my face and my empty hands – the money is already inside my pocket. I see from her eyes, from the way she is looking at her watch, that she don’ want to give me more money and am angry. After all, didin Daddy make them money? He used to gist Mummy what he did for them and me, I heard. Before everything happened, all of them used to come to him as if he was Jesus, now she wants to leave me in the middle of Eke Awka market with only one dirty ten naira that plenty people have touched?

‘Please, let me follow you to your shop and sit for a while, Aunty, the sun . . .’

‘No!’ She clears her throat and smiles. The lines in her cracked lipstick spread. ‘I’m not going to the shop.’

She don’ want me there. Am the daughter of ‘That Man’ and she don’ want people to remember that she knew him. I start crying loudly. People are beginning to look. It takes a few tears before she brings out another five naira. Stingy woman. Mama Uju takes her bag and walks away fast-fast. She don’ even say ‘Don mention’ when I say ‘Thank you’ to her.

Excerpt from “Dazzling” copyright © 2023 by Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ. Published by Headline Publishing Group (UK)

About the book: Treasure and her mother lost everything when Treasure's daddy died. Haggling for scraps in the market, Treasure meets a spirit who promises to bring her father back - but she has to do something for him first.

Ozoemena has an itch in the middle of her back that can't be scratched. An itch that speaks to her patrilineal destiny, to defend her people by becoming a leopard. Her father impressed upon her what an honour this was before he vanished, but it's one she couldn't want less.

But as the two girls reckon with their burgeoning wildness and the legacy of their fathers' decisions, Ozoemena's fellow students at her new boarding school start to vanish. Treasure and Ozoemena will face terrible choices as each must ask herself: in a world that always says 'no' to women, what must two young girls sacrifice to get what is theirs?

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Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Awka, Nigeria. A product of not one but two Nigerian boarding schools, she went on to attend Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria, before doing an MA in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her work has been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), a Nommo award (2020) and the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017 & 2020). In 2019, she emerged winner of the inaugural Curtis Brown First Novel Prize. Dazzling is her first novel.

You can read our interview with Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ here