Lies

By Alefina Vuki

Iknew it but everybody tried so hard to hide the truth from me. I could tell from the mournful wailing coming from the bedroom, and from the grim faces that silently moved in and out of the house that something was terribly wrong.

So I refused to be fooled by the lies I was told and confronted my older brother and younger sisters with the truth. I could tell that my three younger sisters had sensed that something unusual had occurred but I guessed they were too young to grasp the horror of it all; they simply stared blankly at me. My older brother’s face expressed shock and disbelief—he knew it all right. And anyway if a ten-year-old kid like me would see through the facade of lies the adults had built up, perhaps out of kindness and concern for us (or maybe they simply did not know how to convey the message across to us painlessly), isn’t it only natural that my twelve-year-old brother should have guessed the truth too?

Everyone in that house should have been handed a certificate for lying, at least those who refused to answer my questions directly and gave evasive answers which, instead of putting my mind at ease, made me more confused than ever. For I think it was simply cruelty of the first degree when they went to such lengths to hush up the truth, and then sending a strange red-eyed woman (a relation of some sort) to dress us up and then lead us to the bedroom to kiss our beloved father cold in his coffin.