It’s raining outside but the sun is still high in the sky, golden and round. I can hear the kids downstairs singing-
“It’s raining, the sun is shining. There is a boil on the turtle’s anus.”
I’m in the father’s study. A room full of books, quiet and serious with knowledge. There are many pictures on the wall, a wooden desk in one corner, a fluorescent light bulb that gives the room a bit of light. This is not where I read, this is not where I write, this is where I cry.
But this is where the father writes, this is where the father had written for twenty years, this is where he had been writing since the mother left. This is also where he talks to himself a lot. Sometimes I listen at the door, my seven-year-old feet lift a little. His words are always incomprehensible. And every time I look through the keyhole, I see him smiling into space. Father has many literary works to his credit, many awards that came with brilliant prizes. Mother had once called him “a rich old writer who talked a lot to himself” in a feat of mild irritation. But she had never understood why mom left. So I stayed with Dad, his books, and his brown ceramic mug that I served him coffee with every morning.
The father did not care much about his wealth: his lands in Isolo, Ikeja and Oshodi. His fleet of cars, his numerous accounts bulging with naira bills. Years after my mother left, he had written more often, I was spending too much time in his study, and I worried that he wasn’t getting enough rest, food, or fresh air.
But he had lived the rich life, the life made easy by money, smiling through education with ease, getting a job at a company, and going on vacation at will. And one night, I had come back and found my father in his study, bent over his books, lifeless. His morning coffee was now cold and black and she knew he would always hate coffee. But he hadn’t realized that the tears were rolling down my eyes, the sticky cold sliding down my nose and into my mouth. I went out on the verandah and looked out over the streets, at the people who for many years had admired this mansion my father had built. He had wept on the verandah and let the world see my tears.
It’s been four years since my father died, but I still come home from work and go through his study. I still listen at the door to hear his soliloquy and if everything is quiet, I go in, close the door, sit in a corner and cry.
So on this sunny, rainy afternoon, while the children sing downstairs, I sit in the corner of the room, on the bare floor, thinking about Dad, how strangers would imagine my life; it is natural for people to be jealous of the rich, to imagine the life of the rich, their choices, what they like and what they don’t like. Feeling insecure whether or not to use the bathroom. But people never imagine that the rich have emotions, that their emotions can be expressed through tears. That they could cry. They do cry.
I start to cry Tears are hot and salty. I don’t know why I tried it. I do not realize that it has stopped raining. But I am in my father’s study and I am sure of one thing: the world will never see my tears again.