One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories by New Internationalist

Author:New Internationalist
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906523763
Publisher: New Internationalist

Sequoia Nagamatsu is an American – originally from San Francisco and educated in Iowa. He currently lives in Niigata City, Japan, where he teaches English and is working on a story collection and novel. His plays have been performed in San Francisco and his stories recently appeared in Elimae and Underground Voices.

JUDE DIBIA NIGERIA

AMONG STRANGERS

“SHAME ON YOU!”

That was what she said, spitting on the dry ground at the same time. I only found out the meaning of her words days later, after I had forced my cousin to translate it for me. This was after I had had trouble sleeping because I could not erase the bitter look in her eyes from my mind or the sad pitying look that followed it.

“Shame on you!” She said so in Igbo.

They say that language unites a people. That was the common saying. That was why wherever you may find yourself in the world, no matter how remote the place is, when you find someone who speaks your tongue, you are immediately brothers or sisters. You are one because your language unites you. My language instead alienates me from my people. It has made me an outcast, a stranger to my kinsmen. It was long coming and somehow I knew.

I remember when I was about five or six years old, Mother was sitting on the veranda with two of her sisters and they were laughing, with tears streaming from their eyes as they enjoyed their girly gossip. They were as animated with their gestures as they always were when they spoke in their language – Igala. I was always fascinated by their gatherings because I was acutely aware that I was an only child and also because they were so different from me. I was a male child. I wore my short knickers and singlet most of the time and was forever enthralled by Mother’s flowing skirts and traditional blouses and the wrappers – lapas – which she wore sometimes. Many times I would stick my small head under her skirt to stare up at the darkness. I remember being shocked once when I had crawled under her legs just after she had taken a shower and to my horror when I looked up I saw she had only a tuft of hair there and no penis like I did. I remember that also because she had screamed loudly, dragged me from beneath her and slapped me silly until I cried for hours. But this particular day when I was about five or six, I remembered picking out some words of what Mother and her sisters had been saying and practicing them over and over again that afternoon. The next time they were gathered together in their small laughing-weeping group I surprised them all when I suddenly announced shyly:

“Oma Onekele…”

A grave silence followed after that. Three pairs of eyes stared hard at me. Three mouths dropped open in surprise almost all at once. Three pairs of eyes all looked back at one another and suddenly burst out laughing again with inevitable tears of joy in their eyes.

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