Page 71 of Death of the Author

31

Interview

Mother

I grew up in a palace with four mothers. We are from Ondo State, Nigeria. My mother was not the queen, but she was a second wife, which gave her a good amount of power and respect. I was always proud of that. The queen was a kind woman. She raised me as much as my mother did, though her five children hated me for it. I called her Yaya, and no one else did. It was our personal name. She liked me so much that when I was young, she had a bed set up in her room and I would sleep there.

I was the oldest of my mother’s three children, and my younger brother and sister were twins. When they were babies, they were such a handful that my mother was glad that I was so close to Yaya. I was also my father’s favorite, I guess you could say. Altogether, between my four mothers, I had seventeen siblings, but I was the one who effortlessly stayed at the top of all my classes and was most interested in how everything at the palace worked. When I was twelve, I began documenting everything. I liked to recordwhat happened, make sense of it, and put it all together in my mind. And I wanted to understand where I fit in the grand scheme of things.

I’d follow my father around when he met with politicians and public figures or gave talks. So I was seen everywhere, sometimes with the king, other times with the queen. Our kingdom was not very big, but it was very old. My brother Remi, Yaya’s oldest son, was next in line to the throne, but more people talked about me. Oh, Remi detested me. I was a girl and I knew more than he did, had a clearer voice, was loved by my motherandour father. Oh, I was such an annoyance to him.

There is a lot an older brother who is next in line for kingship can do when he wants to make trouble for someone. My brother had his own followers, and he got them to hate me, too. We had slaves in the palace; all of us grew up with them. These were children offered to my father by their parents as gifts. You have to understand, to have more children was to have more wealth, so of course my father took them in as his own. In exchange, he raised them and they eventually earned their freedom. For the ones who were academically gifted, my father paid for their college educations, and three of them still live with him. His personal physician began as his slave. We all ate at the same table. I slept in Yaya’s room, but the slaves slept in beds with my siblings... and my brother turned them against me.

I am a tall woman, but my brother was taller and bigger, and I didn’t grow until I was in my late teens, so he used to terrorize me. Our siblings did, too. Everyone else was younger and afraid to face his wrath, so they followed along.

I am proud to be from the type of family I am from. I know that here in the United States, such things are not understood. You all spin everything that is not familiar to you as either terrible or less than you. You only see things through your narrow lens and personal experiences. It is your weakness. I understand. But my family is a beautiful one, even if it is not perfect. Weareroyalty. True royalty. That stands for something older than this country’s existence. Respect your elders.

Anyway, what no one knew or understood yet was that I would go on tomarry an Igbo man with no kingdom. A village man from a family of hardworking people in Imo State. When I told my father I had fallen in love with a man named Secret Wednesday Onyenezi, he burst out laughing and said, “Ah ah, these Igbo people always have something to hide! And it’s usually money!” He’d laughed himself to tears. He of course stopped laughing when he realized that I was serious. My mother, on the other hand, never laughed at his name. But she never stopped being suspicious of him.

Secret and I met in university. Plants brought us together. There was a courtyard full of flowers, and I used to walk there just to admire it. There were all kinds of flowers: pink dahlias, red roses, tiger lilies, lilacs, even giant sunflowers. I would kneel down and brush my face against the soft petals of the fragrant lilacs when no one was looking. Bees, butterflies, lizards, and these green-headed sunbirds would visit the place, like students going to department buildings. So much enjoyment. Someone was clearly taking care of these flowers, because these weren’t plants you saw growing wild in Nigeria. Most of the students on campus didn’t really notice it. Everyone was just trying to survive. But I loved that little courtyard. It smelled heavenly, and there was a comfort there that made me want to sit and smile.

And one day, I was standing there staring at the flowers when the great cultivator of all this beauty came with a watering can and plant food sticks. A skinny boy wearing a white shirt and expensive trousers that he didn’t mind getting dirty. We fell in love at first sight. That’s the only way I can describe it. He was Igbo; I was Yoruba. I come from a family that has always had expectations for me, and one of those was that I would marry a Yoruba man of name. Secret has no respect for royalty and was always yelling that the “Igbos have no king” and “African democracy is the way,” this and that. My family was appalled, but it was worth it. It was beautiful and real; Secret and I just fell in love from that first moment, a love so strong that neither of us had to change to accommodate it.

I say all of this to highlight that this is what our second daughter, Zelunjo, came from. From conflict and diversity and peoples who havenever been afraid to face it all. I am proud of Zelu, even though I will never understand her. I read her book the moment she handed me one of the early copies. I don’t know where all that came from, all that drama, empire, clashing, shouting, all that wahala. Somewhere deep in my daughter’s head, I guess. Maybe when you speak to Secret, he can explain it better. He reads these things with a finer eye than I do.

32

Passing

Zelu rushed through the hospital doors, ignoring all the stares that turned her way. She probably should have come with Msizi. She needed his emotional support right now. However, she’d insisted he stay behind; she didn’twanthis emotional support. She’d wept the entire ride in the autonomous vehicle. Before she even reached the front desk, people were moving toward her, calling her name. One of them had the audacity to ask for an autograph (which she gave just to get rid of him, drawing an angry face beside her name, which seemed to delight the guy even more).

Zelu approached the front desk. “Hello,” she began.

The receptionist smiled sheepishly. “Are you...”

Zelu felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes. A lump was building in the back of her throat. “I am,” she managed to get out. “Did you like the movie?”

“Oh myGod, I loved it,” the receptionist said, her face lighting up.

“I’m glad,” Zelu said, wiping away a tear that had escaped and begun rolling down her cheek. “I’m... I’m here to see my dad.”

“Oh!” the woman said, realizing. “Shit... I’m sorry. Please... hold on.”She looked at her computer and then at Zelu. “Room 219. That way, right down the hall.”

“Is he...” Then Zelu shook her head, cutting off her own question, and said, “Okay, thanks.”

She moved through the hospital wing as quickly as she could. After the shock of the freezing air outside, her exos were warming back up, and she was glad. They didn’t like the super cold of Chicago in late January, and neither did she. Not for the first time, she thought about moving with Msizi to Durban, which lay beside the Indian Ocean and was nicknamed the City with No Winter.

Her gait was jerky, which was always jarring to her spine. But as she walked and the exos warmed up, it smoothed out. By the time she heard the voices of her mother and siblings coming from inside the room, she was back to moving in her usual way. She took a deep breath. “If it gets bad, just leave,” Msizi had said to her before she’d gotten in the cab. “Don’t question yourself. Go back when they are not there.”

She stepped into the room. Her father’s bed was obscured by the bodies of her family. “You decided to come,” her sister Chinyere said, turning around.

“I came as soon as I heard.”

Chinyere huffed. “Always so hard to get a hold of, even when you have no real responsibilities!”

“The fuck is your problem?” Zelu snapped. She was about to say more when her mother rushed over and hugged her, as did her brother. The others just looked at her and said nothing. There were nine people in the hospital room, not including her father. It was cramped. Her mother took her hand and led her to her father’s bed. His eyes were closed and his usually rich brown skin looked washed out, like something inside of him had left. Zelu shivered at the thought. “Can I wake him up?” she asked her mother.

She shook her head. “He... he won’t wake up. Hasn’t yet.”

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