When Mothers Fought Daughters

“Go back in there and greet every one of them!” Mrs Omara screamed, looking directly into her daughter’s face as she pointed a shaking finger at the living room, which was now full of people.

A bulky figure, Mrs Omara always looked serious at all times, even during those hours she spent partaking of her favourite meal of the day, gossip. This time around, the seriousness that contorted her face was the kind that screamed volumes and promised danger if it wasn’t complied to. Every other burdened breath from her only seemed to emphasize the point further.

“Did you not hear me?” the older woman continued, moving closer, arms strategically planted on both sides of her waist.

“I heard you mama, “Nora replied silently,” but......”

“But what?” Mrs Omara started, her voice rising. “What?”

Her air was now one of decided understanding as though she’d foreseen this particular event and her countenance was anything but plain. When she went on to twitch the side of her lips, Nora knew that a real battle was on the brink of breaking out. Still, she didn’t budge.

“There are so many people in there mama, “ Nora replied after a short pause. She dared not look at her fuming mother, who she expected to produce a slap or something equivalent in pain at the earliest opportunity. Her eyes couldn’t stay put; they darted everywhere about the room while expertly dodging the bulging figure standing in front of her.

“And they are talking to each other already, “she continued. “I do not want to interrupt them because i think it will not show good behaviour.”

A short pause filled with the heaviest of silences passed. Mother looked at daughter while daughter fidgeted with her fingers.

“Good behaviour, eh?” her mother started coolly, a minute later. She then started to walk away from Nora, slowly but surely, and back to the small dark kitchen to the left of the corridor where she’d appeared from. If Nora thought she knew her mother, she suddenly felt very unsure of the fact. That slow stoic walk had to mean something, Nora thought. She of all people knew that her mother never lost an argument and especially so if it was between her and one of her tiresome children.

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Nora had in fact already been to the living room way before it had filled up with warm murmurs and nonchalant laughter, courtesy of a collection of the weirdest guests including, among others Mrs Lindiwe and her two loud daughters. Her older brother Paul, an expert at playing the good son in such moments, was already in the room, ushering in guests and passing around muffins. She had not been long in the room before deciding that greeting was not going to be part of her activity; in fact, she intended to avoid the festivities if she could. The people were too many already, Nora thought-8 women and 5 men, all of whom had been invited by her mother to a celebratory dinner with the Omaras- and wondered aloud if they would even recognize her if she did go out of her way and do the greeting rounds. Most were already converged around either Mrs Lindiwe or one of her daughters, and the few that weren’t seemed to be finding a great comfort in munching on the muffins that were being passed around. There were other problems too; Nora’s dark grey flowery frock looked -and felt like a carpet on her skin, making her feel very uncomfortable and lowly. She had actually set aside her new blue cotton dress for the occasion and would have worn it hadn’t that airheaded maid Patsy done her magic and scorched it black in three places with a flat iron during one of her most recent acts of absent minded confusion. All she had left was the ugly grey thing she’d worn to church the previous Sunday, which, no matter how hard she assured herself still looked presentable, did not. Then there was Tony, the town doctor’s son, seating right across the room.........

No, she definitely wasn’t going in there anytime soon.

In actuality, Nora was scared to death. At 16, she still suffered from shyness and could attribute it to almost all the embarrassing events that had happened in her life as far back as she could remember. Just walking to the living room had her legs trembling under her weight and her heart pumping louder than that of a thief about to be mobbed by an angry mob. She had planned to dodge the whole event by pretending to run errands here and there, and it had all been going according to plan when she’d bumped into her mother in the corridor.

Now as she turned away slowly and made for the back door, she could only think of how quickly her mother had given up and let her go. Enigmatic, that woman!

Suddenly a familiar voice cracked the already thin air around her, startling her.

“Where do you think you’re going Missy?” the voice called out.

It was Mrs Omara alright, come from the kitchen, her mood different, her determination visible, her anger palpable. And the Nora saw it. In Mrs Omara’s hand was a long thin bamboo cane, the kind that was used to cane the younger ones when they fought at school or played on the way home.

“Mama, i was......”Nora started, before the words dried on her lips on seeing that long thing.

The glint in her mother’s eyes said it all. She had come back changed and more than determined to make her daughter see the sense in greeting the fathers and mothers of her potential suitors.

“Get yourself in that living room in the next two minutes, or make sure this cane is shredded to pieces on your skin, you headstrong girl!” shouted Mrs Omara as she inched closer.

Nora’s heart beat multiplied in a minute.

“Do you hear me-o?” the older woman shrieked, clutching at her ear in a show of explanation and closing the gap between her daughter and the back door. The cane was now strongly perched in her right palm, ready to strike.

“Yes, mama.....mama I’m sorry, I am going now eh? I am going!” Nora managed to mutter.

Mrs Omara wasn’t done yet. “If you’d really wanted to show that good behaviour you think you have, you’d have stayed in that room from the beginning and ushered in the guests, she said, before adding, rather bluntly, “like your brother is doing. Move!”

Her voice cracked at the end of the last segment, exposing the exhaustion the older woman was undergoing.

Nora started to walk slowly toward the living room, fearful of what she would face and scared of what was behind her. Mrs Omara continued her speech despite the fact that it was now clear she was having an effect on the Iiving room’s occupants, most of whom had heard her high pitched shrieks through the wall.

“I will not tolerate this foolishness,” she threatened. “Girls younger than you all over Nigeria are already managing households of their own without half the training i have had the misfortune of wasting on you”

“Mama! “ Nora exclaimed. “I am going now, eh? I am going,” she pleaded, heading closer to the living room door. “They will hear us!”

“Let them hear!” replied Mrs Omara hotly. “Let them hear,” she paused to breathe, “how i kill my daughter for being very foolish! Who do you fear in that room? What have they done to you, eh? Mbu,” she added, mimicking her daughter in a sing-song voice, “it will not be good behaviour, mama...Which good behaviour? Where have you heard of girls your age that cannot greet visitors? Such shame! And she is not embarrassed in the slightest! You foolish girl!”

“Mama!” Nora cried. She was starting to feel the effects of her mother’s taunting.

“What do you want to do to your father and I, eh? She wants to ashame us o! To ashame us!. And i will hit you with this thing,” she screamed as she lunged toward a fleeing Nora before stopping midway and continuing,” if you don’t quicken your steps and step into that room right this instant! Such a foolish girl! What will become of her, eh? God o?” and then bursting into another of her loud rants.

“Am going o!” replied a most hesitant Nora, who was retaliating from her place near the living room door and was visibly shaken. Her anxiety had been overtaken by the power of teenage hormones which now persuaded her to shut her screaming mother up. But no amount of hormonal backing could push Nora to do something she knew she would regret. She still stood there for a minute, pondering her next move and watching her mother.

Mrs Omara went on and on about her daughter’s foolishness and lack of manners and continued to be as melodramatic in her speech as she was in her actions, pleading to the air, pointing at the sky repeatedly, rolling her left hand around her head, all while tying and untying the loose kanga wrapped around her waist. Nora did not wait to see how her rants would end, but decided to slip into the room, bad frock or not, and play the good, well behaved Nigerian girl with a promising future as a married woman, if only to calm down her now crazy mother.