The Spider King's Daughter Read Free Page A

oozing stump over my window and leering into the backseat. On one side I had my hawker; on the other was this creature. Of course I had to give him money. A whole five-hundred-naira note and all he could say was thank you. Maybe I can befriend a hawker but surely not one who speaks to beggars.
       
     
    I met Mr T about a year ago, when I was still hawking sweets. We were both chasing after the same car and surprisingly he was faster. A full five seconds before me, his pus-filled stump was hovering over the polished window of the Benz.
    On one side, I held up my rack and my customer pointed at a pack of Mentos. On the other, Mr T brought his stump closer to the transparent glass and his benefactress shrank and scrabbled for her purse. Out of one window fluttered a crisp two-hundred-naira note. Out of the other sank a dirty fifty. We were both tired from our dash and we ended up sitting next to each other on the side of the road.
    ‘Would you like some mints?’
    I offered the pack by reflex, immediately wanting to withdraw when I remembered how little I had sold. My father taught us to always act like waiters, or hosts as he preferred to say. He was an effacing man, always scanning a room looking for someone to serve. Offer your seat, offer a drink, offer your mints. It was easy to play the host when you were rich. I hoped the beggar would decline.
       
     
    He took the pack, unwound the foil and placed a mint in his mouth. His jaws crushed this first white disk, then the next and the next until all that was left was the wrapping.
    ‘How much?’
    ‘It’s a gift.’
    ‘There’s no free thing in Lagos. How much?’
    ‘It’s OK.’
    ‘If that is so then follow me.’
    I watched him walk away. The distance between us grew as pride and other things filled my head. You know you’ve fallen when you are a hawker that is friends with beggars.
    The space widened.
    If your old friends could see you.
    It was about ten metres now.
    If only he wasn’t dead.
    At this sickening note of self-pity, I propelled myself forward.
    Under a nearby bridge was a pile of cardboard strips and scrawled above this heap was a sign that said: SIT HERE AND CARRY MY CURSE. Mr T took me there and asked that I sit. I bent my knees in compliance, read the message and promptly stood.
    ‘I brought you here to pay you with something more precious than naira. Many have wanted to know what I am about to tell you. One man from America even asked for an interview. He came with a tape recorder and notebook. I refused him. You will be the first person to hear my story in the past twenty years.’
    I knew that when you had fallen, the memories that charted your decline became invaluable. Yet, I did not want the story. It was too important to be exchanged for a pack of mints but it was worthless to me. Before I could say no, he had begun.
    * * *
    ‘I haven’t always lived like this and I used to be quite handsome. Or so my wife told me. You smile. Because you think I was incapable of being a husband?’
    His stump waved my apology away.
    ‘You are right, perhaps I was. She was never the same after I married her. I offered all the things eighties Nigeria promised, a good job, servants, two cars. We both failed and I ended up in Oilet Grand Insurance. Do you know it?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘It was a horrible place. All day I read claims that I knew I would deny. Seven years into what I thought would be the rest of my life, I was fired. No pension. No reference. After that, things started disappearing. First my wife, then the car, then the gateman, then finally the house. Still, when my daughter and I moved here, I was hopeful.’
    The cardboard pile did not look big enough for two people. Perhaps the daughter had moved out and built her own cardboard house.
    ‘She started to lose weight a few weeks after we moved here. Her skin became stretched like the pastry of a meat pie, a meatless meat pie. With our money almost gone, I had two options: begging or