Dog days are over.

I dug with my fingers because I couldn’t be bothered to find something to dig with, there was no time. I scraped away the grass and dug until I hit stone and my fingers bled. I dug until I unearthed a pipe and shit stained my fingers. It started to rain then and the foul stench of the already decaying shit mixed with the heavy scent of rain. It had to be there, under the guava tree in his backyard. It just had to be. When I saw him a few months after he moved in we’d walked around the yard he was so pleased to have. Finally, space after living in single room apartments and cohabiting with near strangers for the first forty years of his life. It wasn’t a big backyard but it had grass and aloe vera sprouts and a guava tree that actually produced fruits. He was ecstatic as he showed me around the yard after the tour of the inside of the two bedroom bungalow. We’d come to a stop right on this spot I now dug and he’d looked me square in the face and told me that this was his earth. He tapped the tree trunk and his glee was palpable and so, it must be here he buried it. Where else could it be? His wife said he sat under the tree on this very spot every evening, drinking beer and counting his takings for the day.

Pausing to clean the sweat and rain off my brow with my wrist that thankfully, was not shit stained yet, I thought again of where he could possibly have hidden it. He was a crude man but he had softened with age. The nice house and (very little) extra money had done things to him. I had to find it and I had to find it quickly, the funeral was in an hour and the rain had lessened my visibility and was slowing me down. I started to panic. If I didn’t find it then I’d probably never get another chance to. Sure, evening would come but how would I possibly find what I could not see in the day when the night comes? I continued digging, frenetically at this point but the rain became heavier and the holes I’d made turned into puddles of muddy water. I was exhausted, so I sat on the floor and cried, my tears mixing with the rain, no discernible difference. I don’t know how long I cried for before I realised that the guests had begun to arrive. The only advantage of the rain was that now, I didn’t have to worry about filling the holes I’d made, the water did the work. I stood up and went to the bathroom in the house, pausing to look at my reflection, a disheveled mess stared back at me.

The party was to be in the living room while his body was to be sunk into the earth in his yard. I washed myself and wiped the shit and mud off my dress and shoes as best I could, the rain water had helped clean some off already. To deal with the smell I rubbed some hand wash soap under my armpits and on my dress, wiping it with water to prevent foam. That would have to do. My hair was wet, water dripping from the ends of my braids but that did not matter. All the guests would be wet in varying degrees; the commute from their homes and cars to the house would affect them somehow and if asked, I’d simply lie that I just came in and had no umbrella. There, fixed.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom the house had filled up considerably. His wife was here, flanked on both sides by sympathisers, friends of hers mainly. He’d had few friends and no family. Until me, I daresay he had no solid emotional human attachments. 
He liked his wife enough to marry her when she fell pregnant those twenty or so years ago and became used to her so much so that he stayed with her even after their son died but he never loved her, he ignored her most of his life, barely acknowledging her existence. The priest said we’d wait for the rain to subside to carry on with the actual burying; the lowering into the ground. After that we’d come back into the house that now held about fifteen people (a shocking number because anyone who truly knew the man probably hated him) and whisper senseless, sentimental, dishonest nothings to one another, eat from the paltry spread and be on our way. Well, that’s what the other guests intended to do, me, I had unfinished business. I would have to continue digging seeing as my earlier attempt to find it was unsuccessful. Fucking rain. 

After about an hour of waiting for the rain to stop, the candle of small talk long burnt out, we ventured outside for the lowering. The rain did not stop or even dwindle and everyone had places they’d rather be so the priest decided we might as well get on with it. As we filed outside into the small yard, the smell of shit from the still leaking pipe filled the air, mixing with the smell of rain and overflowing gutters in the street. We gathered around the hole they’d sunk at the edge of the yard, pall bearers who had materialised from nowhere bearing the underwhelming casket and the priest said a few words. He’d have hated that. He was never one for religion, too uninterested and content in sinful bliss for that. He always said he could be a good con man if necessary but men of god (like their gods) were the real con men. One time a priest of some sort had come to him for me and he’d complained about it for months even though we still rendered the service we’d been paid generously for.

The silliness of the whole scene; the blatant ignorance of the man he was and the emptiness and meaningless symbolism of the burial rites, the priest blessing the casket and consecrating his long damned soul reinforced my need to find it. I would bide my time and when the house cleared I’d go back to digging. The house was to be sold the next day, his wife had wasted no time. Better to claim it before the debt collectors did. She had already moved all her belongings out the day before (hence my freedom to dig to my heart’s content before the funeral). My plans were foiled by the rain and my resolve waned. It will not happen again. The actual burial went seamlessly and then we all filed back into the house, too wet and self conscious to sit comfortably on the couches. She intended to leave them behind for the new owner of the house. She wasn’t very touched by her husband’s death or attached to his things, understandably so. 

It was nearly dark when everyone left. The paltry spread turned out to be really delicious. The never ending supply of puff puff and fried meat and beer kept people happy and occupied. The alcohol fuelled conversation because we truly had nothing of substance to say to one another. None of them knew who I was or why I was there. I wondered where she’d found the money to fund the entire burial process but then again, I did not really care. You see, his wife and I had a complicated relationship as is expected from a situation like ours is, or was. Her husband had “tested the product” a couple of times and she was well aware. I don’t think she cared much and so, neither did I. When she asked me why I wasn’t leaving yet I told her that I wanted to look around one last time. To replicate the tour he’d given me a few years before. Again, apathy. Soon I was alone. 

I went back to the same spot from earlier that day and continued my search. This time I used a shovel, logicality had returned to me. As I dug I recalled my last conversation with him. He’d been more paranoid than usual and strangely chatty. He’d told me that he was finally ready to “reap the fruits of his labour.” Told me he’d leave Lagos and that he intended to build a house in his village before the year ran out. I’d laughed in his face and asked him what money he had? All the money he ever made was gone even before it hit his pockets. He in turn laughed back at me and said the words that have put me in this precarious position. “You, more than anyone should know that I am not stupid. Imagine how shameful it would be to work all those years and not have anything to show for it. You see, I have lots of money somewhere on god’s green earth, somewhere special and only death and decay can separate me from it and my two storey building in Awka.”

There were not many places he deemed special. I’d already checked the old house we worked from, turned it upside down. It was not there. It has to be here. I continued digging, the incessant pattering of rain had not stopped by the way, but the shovel made my digging more efficient, more impactful. I’d upturned most of the earth under the tree, the pipe of shit still gushing and roots now displayed prominently when I had an epiphany. I knew where the bastard had hidden it. It was not here. I dropped the shovel and ran, not caring to cover the now inconsequential holes in the ground. He’d hidden the money where he’d found me. He’d once called me the brightest spot on this green earth, it was only logical that he’d hidden it in my father’s long abandoned house, after all, he had the keys. How didn’t I think of this sooner? 

All his money was mine. I was the Genesis of all is fortune and every good thing he had was built off the sweat on my back, literally. Maybe now I’d enjoy some of it. Death had done half the job, decay would soon play its part, and me, I would fully sever him from his money and just knowing he’d be turning in his grave heightened the pleasure and anticipation of my potentially incoming wealth.