HALF FISH

'Chike!'

'Ma!'

'I'm going to the market. Take rice from the pot and eat. Your brothers have ate already. Take half fish. Don't touch the meat. Don't pak the stew. Just take small. You hear me?'

'Yes ma', I answered.

'Behave yourself O! I am coming', she said, and walked out through the front door.

I went into the kitchen. With my two hands, I opened the two pots simultaneously and dropped the lids on the gas cooker. Even a sick man couldn't reject my mum's food. He'd rather eat it and throw up later, or maybe get better. The same for a sick woman, and boy and girl.

I took a plate of stainless steel from our plate rack and blew twice into it to remove any dust. Mum prohibited us from using the fine ceramic plates so we don't break them. I was sixteen. My immediate younger brother was fifteen and the one following was almost fourteen. There were five of us. I had never broken any plate. Except only once. Only dad, and visitors used the ceramic plates. And then we washed them. That didn't really upset me. It was the food that mattered, not the plate.

I reached out and saved the cooking spoon which was drowning in the pot of stew by the tip of the handle and served three spoonfuls of rice from the other pot into the stainless steel plate with it, and added what the Yorubas call fisi. Some grains on the surface of the pot of plain white rice were dyed pink. I looked at the cooking spoon. Grains of rice had stuck to it, and there was stew on it too. I hit the spoon repeatedly against the brim of the pot of rice to offload the grains from it into the pot. The cooking spoon was going back into the stew. The stew was permitted to get into the pot of rice, but the rice was prohibited from entering the pot of stew. Racism.

I dipped the spoon in the stew. An amazing piece of meat entered the bowl of the spoon. Mum said I should not eat any meat so I put it back. I spread a layer of the red stew over the rice in the plate and dropped the cooking spoon back into the pot of stew to drown because it didn't thank me for saving its life. I covered the two pots. Not simultaneously — one before the other.

'Fish. Fish.'

There was no fish in the stew — only meat and prawns. It had to be somewhere in the kitchen. I could smell it. And mum said I should eat fish. She couldn't have meant prawns. She would have said crayfish if she had meant the prawns. A small plastic bowl on the floor near the gas cooker, covered with a flat plastic plate looked suspicious. I uncovered it. I saw fried… fresh… fish.

I took a tablespoon from the… spoon rack attached to one side of the plate rack. I rubbed my thumb against the head to remove any dust. With the spoon, I took a piece of fish from the bowl and put it on an unoccupied region of my stainless steel plate where I cut it in two along the x-axis. It was the posterior part of the fish. The fish's backbone stuck to one half and the other half had a neat gutter. With my tablespoon, I put the half with the gutter back in the bowl and covered it with the plastic plate. The one with the backbone looked bigger. Even if it wasn't, I considered the backbone itself an added advantage. I took my dish to the sitting room. There was no dining in the house.

I sat on one of the sofas and said a short prayer, though not as short as the one a friend taught me, 'Plus Jesus minus Satan. Amen.' The guy was a joke himself. I mixed a little portion of the rice and stew. The head of the spoon with its content entered my mouth. There was a clunking sound as part of the metal spoon collided with my teeth. My mum's food never disappointed me. I removed the backbone with my right thumb and index finger and inserted it into my mouth. One reason I loved my mum's fried fish was because the backbone was always crunchy and tasty. My action created another neat gutter. I then took a piece of the main piece of fish — it was something to die for. I usually ate my fish bit by bit alongside my rice, or eba, or whatever it was, leaving a little piece of fish to eat last. But I couldn't this time. I didn't know when I finished my fish. It was too good. Or I was too ready for it. Although the rice and stew was more than palatable, I wasn't feeling satisfied at all eating it without any compliment.

While I ate the delicious but fishless food, I wondered why I should be doing that when there was fish, and even meat in the kitchen. The rate at which the spoon entered and left, and entered my mouth again, as well as the mass of food it carried per trip began to reduce as my wonder gradually turned into anger. At one point, I got so angry that I dropped my spoon on my plate and started talking. No one could hear me except me, and the invisible God.

'I don't know what's wrong with mum, honestly. Don't touch this. Don't touch that. What does dad do in this house? He doesn't provide money, or anything else for that matter. He doesn't work, beats you up, nothing! And yet you always give everything to him, and starve us, and yourself. You feed him, pay the house rent, struggle to pay school fees, thank God for my own. Everything! All alone. He only talkes and complains, and beats you up whenever you complain. And you go back to apologize to him. For what! Is that how they marry?'

I put a spoonful into my mouth. I was very angry, but not angry enough to forget I was hungry.

'She washes his clothes, and even asked me to join her today. Since morning I've been washing another person's clothes, when I've not even washed my own. What nonsense! You will always give us very small fish, and give the useless man all the meat and fish. When you can't buy meat, you give him all the fish, and cut one egg, boiled egg in two, and give it to two people. What rubbish! And then he opens his wide dirty mouth, "Why is there no meat in my food?" It's because you are useless! You don't work. You are a beggar! You should accept whatever is given to you. Rubbish!' I wished I could say it in his presence.

I took another spoonful and continued, 'Next week is Chika's birthday, nothing! We don't celebrate anything. You give everything to him. Why? I should take half fish, so that you will see enough fish to add to the meat you want to give him. Are we not human beings? What am I even saying? I'm going to take fish!

I got up immediately and went into the kitchen. I removed the plastic plate covering the bowl sheltering the fried fish. With my hand, I picked the remaining half piece, the one with the gutter, and another full piece. In my mind, I was like, Eat it! And damn the consequences!

I returned to the sitting room and started eating, for real! I discovered that day, the joy of biting a substantial quantity of flesh at a time. That was when I felt the real taste. Then Chika, my brother, walked in. I vibrated a little! That was when I realized that I might not have really made up my mind to eat it and damn the consequences. The fish was very tasty and no one was at home when I took it. Another possibility was that I wanted the whole matter secret. But I had to handle the situation.

'Chika', I said, 'why are you back so early?' I hoped he didn't notice any sign of nervousness or fear.

'They were just rehearsing for graduation stuff. You know, cultural dance… and all. But… who gave you that fish? That's a full piece.'

'What… what do you mean full piece?'

'Yes. Mum only gives us half! And you took a full one!'

'And so what? Is mum supposed to be giving us half and giving dad many meat and fish? Are we not human beings?

'No problem,' Chika said. 'When mum comes, you tell her that.' He walked into our bedroom. The five of us had the same bedroom.

'So what will mum do? Will she kill me? Let her come and kill me because of fish.'

I continued eating. The food was marvelous but my mind was not at rest. I was thinking of how bad it could get. She could cast out the demons from a possessed person by flogging. The last time she flogged me was when I was fifteen. It didn't mean that she respected me because I was sixteen, but it meant I respected myself. Our age didn't matter to her. No matter how old we were, we were still children, her children. That was why she gave me instructions not to eat meat at sixteen, and I wasn't allowed to use our ceramic plates. The only time she remembered we were men was when she wanted us to do heavy duty jobs, jobs meant for real men, 'Chike! You are no longer a child’, she would say. ‘You are a man! And the firstborn for that matter. Find a way to take these bags of garri to the store. I don't have money for transport now.' I'd be like, What the hell do you expect from me? Go and meet your husband! He is the man of the house!

About an hour after I had finished eating, mum came in.

'Welcome mummy,' Chika said, looking at me. I was like, you better mind your business! But I had already made up my mind on what I was going to do.

'Mummy welcome', I said.

'Thank you my children,' she replied. 'Chike, have you eat?'

'Mum it's not "Have you eat?" It is, have you eaten?" Please try to speak well', I said. I decided to start from there.

'English is not my language', she said.

'Then stop speaking it', I said. 'It's either you leave it, or you speak good English. At least try. Better tell your husband to send you to adult school, as you want to speak English. That's not my duty.'

Mum looked at me and said, 'You better watch your mouth. Is it because I ask you to wash your father's clothes?'

'What does he do in this house?' I asked. 'I know I can wash my dad's clothes. But that's when he's behaving like my dad.' I wanted to sound really angry, before she found out that I had eaten four times what I was instructed to.

'Chike, I don't have time for you now', she said. 'I'm hungry.' She went into the kitchen. No sooner did she enter the kitchen than Chika left the house. He was probably scared of what was going to take place.

'Chike! Chika!' mum shouted, 'What happen to the fish!'

'Nothing', I replied.

'What is nothing!' she said, coming to the sitting room. 'Did anybody eat again apart from you?'

'No', I replied. 'What happened?'

'What happen to the fish? I said you should take half fish. Where is the other half? Where is the other full one?'

'Mum I took half the fish. The other half is there. Which other full one are you talking about? You fried only one fish.'

'Which rubbish are you talking!' she shouted. 'There are four fish inside the bowl when I leave this house. Now, where is two?'

'Oh! Okay. I didn't understand you. You would have said I should eat half a piece of the fish, not half fish! When you cut a full fish into two equal parts, one part is half of the fish. You cooked only one fish. You cut it into four roughly equal parts. Half the fish is two pieces.'

'You are mad abi? You are using me to play rubbish abi?'

'I'm not joking', I said. 'I've eaten it.'

'You mean you! Only you eat two fish?'

'Two pieces', I said.

'You be fool shebi? Only you! When your papa come, watin I go give am? You no want make I get peace abi?''

'There's meat there. There are still two pieces of fish. Must you even give him meat and fish every time? Does he provide anything in this house?'

'Ah! Chike, I will kill you!'

As she bent down to pick her slipper, I yelled like I've never done before, at her, 'Who! For who! Don't just try that rubbish! You want to beat me because of fish? Because you want to give everything to that useless man? If it's because you are afraid of him, is it because we have been keeping quiet?'

'Eh? Chike?', she muttered. She was too shocked.

'Me and that animal, who deserves fish? Who! Is it the same man that promised to sponsor you in school once you got married to him? Look at you! Look at you now. You've even forgotten yourself. If not that I won that scholarship, maybe I would be like you by now. I don't even know how I'll go to university. Instead of washing people's clothes for free here, shouldn't I just start a dry cleaning job? The same person that stole your savings and gambled with everything? And came back two years later? The same man that beats you? Or you think I don't know? The same man that sleeps around? We all know he sleeps around. The same man that cut you with a cutlass? What do you see in him? The same man that…'

When I was done with the the same man thats, she was weeping. Looking at her, my vision became blurred. But I did all I could to prevent a tear from rolling down my cheeks. Was I successful? I pitied her. I pitied us. I pitied myself.