HiveComb

“Whoever makes it first will help the other,” I said to my elder brother, patting the soil just after I had carefully buried my mango seed into the ground

Chijioke looked up to me and laughed. His hands were covered with mud from digging the ground. “Of course na, Brothers forever.”

We spat into our palms, shook hands, and swore by the mango seed.

It was the rainy season, and we were outside, just in the backyard of our father's compound, playing when we saw a mango seed and decided to plant it. Just the kind of thing children loved to do without any tangible reason at all. Well, that was about twenty-three years ago when our father was still alive. And the tree still stands tall, just that it stood behind a house that was no longer ours.

We now live in Chijioke’s house. A very big building painted cream and white. Just in front of it stood a smaller house he called a security post, and a metal gate that groans like an old man whenever it opens. That was where I lived and worked. As his gateman.

I make sure to sweep the compound, polish his car every morning, and whenever he wishes to drive out or drive in, I am there to open the gate. What hurts me most is that he barely looks at me like the big brother I am. If he cares to even interact with me. It'll be nothing but nod his head to my greetings. Other times, he’d just honk and wave without meeting my eyes.

The first time I agreed to work for him to be paid after I had lost my job and he had sworn that even if he was to help me, I had to work for it, he had looked me in the eye and said, “I didn’t ask you to do this job.”

I had smiled and replied. “You didn’t have to. Besides, you said there is no space for me in your office, so I can manage this one.”

He just nodded and walked inside. Already, I could see the guilt swimming in his eyes. I wondered why he refused to help me after all the promises we made to each other.

Years ago, after our father's death, I had sold my carpentry tools to send him to school, to pay his university tuition. I had remembered the promises we made to each other under the mango tree. I strongly believe that he would remember too if I were in his shoes.

Well, Chijioke did remember, but only differently. Because when he became the local government chairman after school, he promised jobs for our people, and me especially. But I waited for years, and all I got was unfulfilled promises. I can still recall visiting his office severally times in my best suits, wearing my best shirt. And on each occasion, his secretary had told me to wait that the Honorable was busy.

I'd sit and wait for him all day, but in the end, he wouldn’t see me. By the third visit, I stopped going.

One evening, as I sat outside my post looking into the sky that was about to send down thunder and rain on earth. I perceived the smell of burning rubber coming from the main house.

At first, I thought it was the neighbor’s burning refuse as usual. But the smell grew thicker, oily, choky till it started crawling up the kitchen window.

“Fire!” I shouted, picked up my slippers, and ran towards the house.

I yelled their names and banged on the door like a madman. “Oga! Madam!” But no one answered.

Then the lights from inside flickered, footsteps and shouts upstairs, a scream, then silence. I froze. What could be going on? I tried to break the door, but a little voice in me whispered; Remember, he forgot you. He left you to suffer.

I turned to walk back to my post, but another voice came; He's your brother, would you want him to die?

His family ran outside without him. I asked and was told he was trapped in the fire inside. I quickly damped my clothes in a tap nearby and rushed inside to save him. This time I was pushed by the feeling that he was my only brother left in this world and that I wasn’t ready to lose him. The more I forced my way inside, the more the flames hissed, crackling like laughter.

“Chijioke!” I yelled, trying to hear his voice and know his location in that loud flame.

I heard his voice call back to me, he was I his bathroom, stuck and surrounded by flames. I covered my face with a rag, broke the door, and there was Chijioke trying to push open a jammed window.

“Brother!” he shouted when he saw me. “Help me!”

Quickly, I grabbed a chair from his room and smashed the window. I tied a few towels in his bathroom into a rope and let it out the window. With that, we climbed down the burning house, breaths shaking and soot covering our faces.

When we were finally safe, he turned to me and said. “You saved me.” I looked at him with so much pain in my eyes and replied. “I almost didn’t.”

Just as I expected, he didn’t believe it. Immediately, the rain started falling, heavy drops that hissed against the fire, turning the smoke into steam.

I sustained bruises that day. The same way he did, but his was more serious than mine.

The next morning, he came to the gatehouse while I was packing to leave his house. His hands were bandaged, his face pale

“You’re leaving?” he asked quietly, surprised to see me pack.

“Yes. I can't continue life this way. I have to go find myself again.”

In shame, he replied. “I know I should’ve kept my promise.”

I smiled at him. “It's not too late. You can still do that, but this time not to me.” I pointed to her daughter standing at the door. “Teach her what you forgot,” I said.

“Teach her what we forgot,” I said.

He didn’t answer. He instead stared at his feet. Then I picked up my small bag, opened the gate, and stepped out.