Daughter of the soil

My father's father made love to the earth. He worshipped it, bent towards its rising sun soil loved him in return. It gave him sun-ripened yellow corn in the rainy season, big

cobs he gave us when we visited, and we boiled it and ate it with ube, pear which we soaked in hot water to soften. It gave him yams, tubers as big as a man's head and

longer than a woman's thighs. He tied the yams in barns, a criss-cross of strong ropes like the veins in his hands and legs.

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The earth was also his memory box. His Aniagorom, which means "the earth speaks for me," my father's mother died before my father became a man. But Mpa always told us

about her. She was in the sand, sleeping.

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"My Ani had skin the colour of the white sands in the riverine area. Very fair. Hair as dark as the fertile loam soil." Kosi, my talkative younger sister, would then ask how much he loved her. "Ma ukwu o zoro n'ani. I loved even her footsteps on the ground." He told us stories of our dad as a child when he used to frolic in the sand. Kosi's eyes would go wide at this point. "Mpa, you mean our daddy used to be a child?" "Yes, and he ate almost all the sand in this compound. "Really?" "Your Mpa cannot lie to you. In fact, people started calling him onu aja aja, he with the sandy mouth, because he always had sand on his face. His mother used to heap sand around his waist as a baby to teach him how to sit. She would go inside and come back to see him having a feast." Kosi would giggle at this point even though she had heard the story a thousand times and then run off shouting, "Daddy, daddy. Mpa said you like eating sand."

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I used to sit in his thatch kitchen with the floor made of mud and watch the first rains kiss the dusty earth. The smell and feeling was an emotion I couldn't name, one that lived in nostalgic memories and would have me sniffing cement walls to relive the earthy scent when we travelled back to Lagos. Steve would later tell me that it is called petrichor.

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It was in his kitchen that I used to sit when we visited during Christmas and watch Kosi and my cousins, children of my father's five siblings, play and raise the harmattan dust.

Mpa met me in the kitchen one of those days and sat with me. We listened to Kosi's voice ringing through the compound as she stood in the middle with her palms over her

face to cover her eyes and counted to ten before going to find her playmates who had hidden in different parts of the compound.

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That was the day Mpa told me who I was. "They say as parents we're not supposed to have favourites, but we can't help it. Your father is my favourite, maybe because he is my last child and his mother died when he was still a mere boy. He did not really enjoy the love my Ani could give. Now I have plenty of grandchildren, and you're my favourite." "Eziokwu Mpa? Are you telling the truth?" "You know I won't lie to you. You are like your grandmother. Quiet like sand, but dangerous when kicked up or when the wind blows. You raise fiery dust, strong enough to make a person go blind. You hold power. I wish I could be here when a young man sweeps you off your feet. I'll make sure I wrestle with him and touch his back to the dust, so he knows not to mess with you." I laughed, picturing my old grandfather wrestling with a young man. "Don't laugh. I still have strength in these arms."

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I never told anyone what Mpa told me. I carried it in me the way I carried petrichor. It is a secret affirmation I hold within me. The last time I saw Mpa, he was sick and looking ashy. "You are not dying. You're supposed to stay and see me get married." "I'm just going to rest like my Ani. Just taking a long nap. I'll probably be sand by the time you're married. Don't worry. Your father will do the wrestling for me."

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So on his burial, with the family members in matching ankara and the huge cooking pots boiling in the backyard, I didn't cry. I just wondered how long it would take for him to

become sand, to become one with the soil, to become something he loved. I told Kosi about it. "That scares me." "What are you scared of? It's Mpa. He is sand. We all are. You are. I am." "I'm not! I'm going to tell Daddy what you said."

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I met Steve when Mpa had become earth. "I chose you because you're calm." After we got married, he said I deceived him. "You're strong-headed, and this surprises me because you look quiet."

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The first time he hit me, a slap to my face that made my neck crack, I didn't say a word. He apologized and said it wouldn't happen again if I just did whatever he asked me to

do. I caused it because I had changed from the obedient person I used to be.

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I drove straight to the police station and called my father on the way. Daddy arrived, and when we went back to the house, Steve was watching football. Dad was furious. "You hit my daughter." "Ogo, in-law, it hasn't reached like that. Annie, I love you. We can work this out." And then I walked up to him, so close our noses touched. "It's Ani, not Annie. If you loved me, you would worship the ground I walk on."

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