"Mummy, I want the neck to have white lace, just like Bisi's," I blurt.
"Olakemi!!! Bisi's dress is made of cotton," my mother frowns. "Yours is silk!"
"I know mummy, I know, pleeeaaase, I want my dress to have white lace at the neck. It's Keresimesi."
My mother stares at me and shakes her head. Chuckling, she turns to the tailor, who has a measuring tape around her neck.
"Abeg, no vex o, Madam T," my mother says, pointing at a collection of lace trimmings laid out on the tailor's table. "Make you add that kin lace to the neck."
Paying Madam T a bit extra for my dress is a sacrifice my mother isn't afraid to make. After all, I fuss this much only three times a year. Every year, I get three dresses - one for Easter, one in July for my birth date, and one in December. These dresses go to parties, weddings, church and any other place worth taking them. When they're weary, I summon the dresses from the previous year. By the end of the year, my three new dresses will likely be an inch or two shorter; either from constant swimming in odd-blue Omo detergent or from bathing in the fiery Lagos sun - it fries up every single thread. My mother however disagrees that the soap and the sun are at fault:
"Kemi, eating beans makes one taller."
If my mother's shop has done well all year long, she'll throw in a pair of shoes and a scarf to match. My sisters, on the other hand, like other Lagos seventeen and nineteen-year-olds, prefer clothes out of those from-abroad-six-months-ago magazines. There's a shop at the market that sells such clothes. When you search for them, you never know what you'll find - you'll never find two of a kind. Size is not even promised. But one thing is certain; when you wear these clothes, people will surely mistake you for an 'has-been-to.' If you tell them you were in Paris two weeks ago, knowing well your that feet never left Badagri's soil, they wouldn't know any better.
Being older, my sisters are allowed to go to the market alone. Their search for the perfect dress begins at least six weeks in advance. They dig through every valley till they find a dress that matches their hearts. Unlike the dresses Madam T sews, my sisters' come with white tags on the back. Sometimes the tags say 'Marks and Spencer,' and sometimes, it's the name of an Italian man. Lately, the Italian man has been disappearing, and it seems as if these abroad dresses have taken a detour to China before finding their way to our city.
Madam T's dingy sewing shop has a particular smell. The scent of freshly loomed brocade and tie-dye materials dangles in the air. When my mother goes to Madam T's, they sit for a long while and banter over yams sold for wicked prices, husbands who have done their wives poor, and the friends who have something worth poking a nose into. While they chatter away, I fondle small pieces of fabrics lying on the floor and sew them together with an invisible needle.
" Come Wednesday," Madam T says to my mother, handing her a receipt for the dress.
Ten days and Keresimesi will be here. I'll wear my red dress with white lace on the neck. My feet will either wear new shoes or not. We'll eat fresh yam and eggs for breakfast. Then we'll begin our labor for the day. My father, who keeps his distance from the kitchen, will shoo six chickens, a fat turkey and two goats to our backyard. With the help of my uncles, brothers and our male neighbors, the chickens, goats and turkey will be slaughtered after the muttering of a quick hunger-laden prayer. My sisters and I, carrying large pans, will haul floppy turkey and chickens to the kitchen where big pots await with boiling water.
In our crowded kitchen, we'll shove the chickens and turkey in hot water and sit on stools to pluck their feathers off till their skins are as bare as a monk's head. While we chat the morning away, my mother, her sisters, my great-aunts, and our neighbors' wives will chop peppers and greens, peel the skin off beans and begin to cook pepper soup. The aroma of food will find its way into my nostrils, and I'll stick my finger inside one of the brimming pots. If I'm not caught soup-handed, I'll get away with a fried piece of meat.
When the cooking is done and the men are weary of small sips of local gin and friendly curses, dusk will be here. We'll sit outside in the front of our house under canopies with tables and chairs arranged in small circles. The women will sit at one table, the men at another. Young girls and boys will sit together on their own. With the help of the mothers, food will be served from humongous basins. Slowly, fried chicken, goat meat and turkey, some floating in soul bowls on the tables and some stocked away in the kitchen till they're lusted for, will disappear. As the night grows darker, teenagers will sneak away, one at a time, to gather in somebody's sinful parlor. People we've never seen before (and might never see again) will walk by and pause to wish my mother a merry this and a merry that. Whether they mean it or not, she'll bless them back with a plate of food.
Ice-filled 'coolers' that were once large metal barrels for something else will hold tons of Heineken beer, orange Fanta and Coca Cola bottles. The heat of the African night will slowly melt the ice, letting the bottles drown. If you wish for a drink, you'll have to forage. Digging further, you'll find someone's secret bottle of Johnny Walker.
When our hands begin to fade into the darkness of the night, the men will plug in a generator and hang wires of light bulbs above the canopies. Mosquitoes will surely come to pay us homage before collecting blood on their way out. For some reason, nobody will notice them. Uncle Femi will jam Bob Marley into his cassette player and turn it up to its loudest. Among the chattering, the boom of firecrackers, joyful exchanges of 'eku odun, eku iyedun' and 'merry Christmas', we'll barely be able to hear the music. But one thing I'm certain of is that we'll dance until dawn comes.
© Abby Haroun 2009
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