hates

Monday, January 8, 1968. At five in the morning, Oderah, almost six years old, had been awake for a while. Sandwiched between Kenko and Bartholomew, on a narrow, handmade bamboo mat, he re-scanned the ceiling and stared repeatedly at the blank walls. Where two walls met, he looked down, reflecting on the Unukwu-Udu Mmiri, a gigantic wide earthenware pot containing drinking water, topped with a flat saucer on which rested an inverted cup without a handle. .

Oderah and her brothers slept in one of those hidden rooms in the middle of a house. The only rear window attached to the room was closed, making it hard to tell if the night moon was late rising or the rising sun early. Still, all Oderah thought about was how to get up and leave without waking her brothers.

Farming, weaving, breeding, selling, gathering and tilling keep the children in full swing in times of war. How Kenko and Bartho managed to stay asleep despite the tasks ahead puzzled Oderah as she tried to control her inner turmoil. Maybe they came to lie next to him late at night. This rug, as soft as palm oil, made no noise when laid.

‘Due to the circumstances of the war,’ he felt, ‘three brothers are now tied together on a narrow mat, on a cold concrete floor in a small room. But for how much longer?’ Every time one of them was awake, he wanted to escape from the others and continue his own enterprises.

The adults had been out of action, many never returning to their villages; many more, for fear of recruiters, went into hiding. The children of war will do everything they can to help, to stay alive for the duration of the war.

No one does any work lying on a cold mat. All he had to do was reach for the doorknob, three feet away from his toes. ‘How useful this handle has been,’ he thought, ‘opening the door every time it is turned, without letting out a creak.’

What was worrying him at the moment was how to get up cleanly from the mat, without waking Kenko or Bartho. Once on his feet, he could tiptoe toward the door that gave way with the sound of a pin being dropped.

If Oderah had slept on her stomach, none of this would have mattered. Like a monkey on all fours, he would have crawled back, cleared the doormat and his brothers, and stood up when he was near the doorknob. Regret filled his little heart.

Going from a supine sleeping position to a prone position in such a confined space would infuriate Kenko, who would surely, even in a deep sleep, deliver a precise elbow strike aimed at the offender’s ribs. Also useless, slippery carpet with no grip, was the idea of ​​sliding backwards across the carpet.

Only one viable option remained. Beside the three heads of him, actually within arm’s reach, was a sofa as solid as a termite mound, with four iron legs. Over and over again, Oderah had used the lever on the couch to lift himself off the mat. This morning should be no different.

Lying on his back, he reached a left hand over his shoulder to grasp the nearest iron leg of the sturdy sofa. Similarly, his right hand caught another iron foot. Using his chest muscles for strength, careful not to tangle with his siblings, he lifted his entire body onto the smooth surface of the carpet, like a dice on a checkerboard, stopping when he reached it. near the top end.

As he pulled, like an acrobat spinning on his head, he somersaulted, adjusting to a crawling position. Back within two feet of him, he waited for a reaction. Without camera. His movement had been flawless, and Kenko didn’t throw an elbow. He tiptoed around half the mat and reached the door, turning the knob and walking down the short but wide corridor behind.

Farther away and slightly to her right was the kitchen, its non-latching door open wide enough for Oderah to step inside without lifting a finger. On one of the low wooden shelves was a box of matches. Oderah retrieved and struck a match and guided the flame to a nearby location. ogbeidimbua locally made incandescent device, comparable to a candlestick resting on a hollow glass vase.

Happiness lit her face when, scanning the kitchen for clutter, she noticed that her drum was still exactly where it had been, in the corner behind the kitchen door.

He picked up the paint can by its curved metal handle and lifted it onto a low wooden stool in the center of the kitchen, next to a mortar and pestle. A metal knife with a hard edge at the top easily pried open the lid whenever he came to inspect, which was usually several times a day. He grabbed a knife, but soon after changed his mind. One of the rodents might be ready to jump out of the drum and escape.

Put the knife back on the wooden shelf, Oderah told herself. Having complied, she placed an eye on the diamond-shaped vent in the center of the lid cover. Five trembling shadows assured him that the five rodents were still alive.

Delight and dignity descended on him. He was beginning to be a man who prided himself, not only in keeping the peace among these captured creatures, but also in keeping himself. Who knew how far this company could go? If the mice reproduced and learned to live amicably, he might have enough to feed other starving children in the village in wartime.

Behind every delight follows regret, and so it was with Oderah. Inside the drum, she remembered, was a rat with a fresh injury and a predatory neighbor. The predator, a plump rodent with the jaws of a tiger and the furry neck of a chimpanzee, had bitten into the back of the thigh of her scrawny relative. Staring at the long-necked furry rodent had discouraged him, on many occasions, from threatening his neighbors. Once again, Oderah reached for the metal knife to open the lid.

Just as she was leaning over the box again, a sound came from the backyard behind the kitchen. Still holding the metal knife in his hand, he took two steps toward the rear windows, slid back the vertical latch, and quietly opened the left window glass.

Though the moon had not fully receded, there was only a glimmer of sunlight, not strong enough to disperse the town’s stubborn fog, making it difficult, but not impossible, for a reasonable eye of a discerning observer to penetrate.

Looking down for the source of the noise, Oderah saw the backs of the two Leopards as they clung to the top edge of the block wall, their feet about to land in the backyard. Every kid in the neighborhood knew how the recruiters paraded their captives through the mundane streets of town, but none, that Oderah could tell, had ever seen them scale a fence.