Why You Must NOT Drink ZOBO Anyhow In Lagos
Why You Must NOT Drink ZOBO Anyhow In Lagos
Part 2: The Woman Under the Blue Umbrella
Three months after Mama Bose disappeared from Aareli Street, people had almost returned to normal.
Almost.
The cart was gone.
The crimson bottles were gone.
The smell of ginger and hibiscus that used to drift through the street every morning had disappeared.
But memories are stubborn things.
For some people, recovery did not mean forgetting.
It meant remembering what had been taken.
Baba Remi was the first to notice something strange.
One Monday morning, he came into my shop holding a piece of fabric.
“You remember the man who sold Mama Bose the recipe?”
I looked at him.
“What man?”
“The one she mentioned.”
“The man under the blue umbrella?”
He nodded.
“I have been thinking about him.”
“So have I.”
Baba Remi placed the fabric on my counter.
“I saw that pattern yesterday.”
I stared at him.
“Where?”
He pointed toward the road.
“On a woman walking past my shop.”
I waited.
“And?”
“She was wearing a blue umbrella pendant.”
My stomach tightened.
“Are you sure?”
Baba Remi nodded.
“I know what I saw.”
We said nothing for a while.
Then I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes laughter is the first thing people do when fear arrives too suddenly.
“You think the man under the umbrella has come back?”
Baba Remi looked at me.
“No.”
His voice was low.
“I think he never left.”
That sentence stayed with me.
For the next few days, I watched the street more carefully than I had in years.
Nothing happened.
No mysterious cart.
No strange bottles.
No woman shouting warnings.
Life continued.
Children went to school.
Buses came and went.
Traders argued over prices.
The Senators had returned to their old habits, though they now occasionally stopped themselves halfway through a piece of gossip and asked whether they were certain.
Mama Caro was sewing better than ever.
Baba Remi had begun rebuilding his business.
Everything looked normal.
Then, on a Wednesday afternoon, a stranger arrived.
She was young.
Perhaps thirty.
Beautiful in a quiet way.
She wore a simple blue dress and carried a large black handbag.
She stopped in front of my shop.
“Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon.”
“Do you know where I can find Aareli Street?”
I almost laughed.
“You are standing on it.”
She looked around.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I mean the old Aareli Street.”
Something cold moved through me.
“What do you mean?”
She smiled.
“The street before Mama Bose.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
She knew the name.
Nobody outside the neighborhood should have known.
“Who are you?”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she reached into her handbag.
She pulled out a small notebook.
“I am looking for someone.”
“Who?”
She opened the notebook.
Inside were names.
Baba Remi.
Mama Caro.
Professor Thursday.
The three Senators.
And my name.
I stared at the page.
“Where did you get this?”
She closed the notebook.
“From my mother.”
“Who is your mother?”
She hesitated.
Then she said something that made the street seem suddenly much quieter.
“Madame Tomorrow.”
I nearly dropped the bottle I was holding.
The woman smiled sadly.
“My mother died two weeks ago.”
I did not know what to say.
“She left me instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“She told me to come here.”
“Why?”
The woman looked toward the place where Mama Bose’s cart had once stood.
“She said there was something she never finished.”
That evening, I gathered Baba Remi, Mama Caro, Professor Thursday, and the three Senators.
We sat inside my shop after closing.
The young woman sat across from us.
Her name was Amara.
She told us that Madame Tomorrow had not always been homeless.
Her real name was Adesewa.
She had been a teacher.
A very good one.
Years earlier, she had taught chemistry at a secondary school.
Then her husband died.
Afterward, she discovered that he had left behind debts and a business partnership she had never known about.
She lost her home.
Then her savings.
Then almost everything else.
But there was one thing she kept.
A notebook.
In that notebook were records of people she believed had been harmed by a strange network of sellers operating across Lagos.
Mama Bose was not the first.
She was not even the worst.
That was when Professor Thursday leaned forward.
“Network?”
Amara nodded.
“My mother believed there were people who used desperation to recruit sellers.”
“Recruit them for what?”
“To distribute things that changed people.”
The room became silent.
Baba Remi frowned.
“You mean drugs?”
Amara shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
She opened the notebook again.
There were dates.
Locations.
Names.
And photographs.
Some showed roadside sellers.
Others showed restaurants.
Small drink stalls.
Herbal shops.
Food vendors.
Different businesses.
Different people.
But every photograph had one thing in common.
A small blue umbrella somewhere in the background.
Professor Thursday took the notebook.
“Where did your mother get these?”
“She followed them.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven years.”
The Senators exchanged looks.
One of them whispered, “Eleven years…”
Amara nodded.
“She said Mama Bose was only one piece of something much bigger.”
I felt the hairs rise on my arms.
Then Amara reached into her bag again.
This time, she removed an envelope.
“My mother told me not to open this until I came here.”
She placed it on the table.
There was no name on it.
Only one sentence.
For the people who finally listened.
Professor Thursday opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed Mama Bose.
But she was younger.
Much younger.
Standing beside a man beneath a blue umbrella.
The same man she had described.
The man with kind eyes.
The room exploded.
Baba Remi stood up.
Mama Caro covered her mouth.
One of the Senators began praying.
Professor Thursday stared at the photograph.
“Where was this taken?”
Amara turned it over.
There was writing on the back.
Lagos Island. June 2014.
I looked at Baba Remi.
“That was two years before Mama Bose came here.”
Amara nodded.
“My mother discovered something else.”
“What?”
“She was not recruited in Lagos.”
Nobody spoke.
“She was recruited somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Amara looked directly at us.
“Benin City.”
The name hung in the room.
Then she continued.
“My mother believed the man under the blue umbrella traveled from city to city looking for desperate people.”
“What did he offer them?”
“Success.”
“That sounds harmless.”
“It wasn’t.”
Amara’s voice became quieter.
“He told them he could make their businesses thrive.”
Professor Thursday leaned closer.
“And what did they have to do?”
“Nothing at first.”
That answer frightened me more than anything else.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“They simply had to sell what he gave them.”
“Food?”
“Drinks.”
“Medicine?”
“Sometimes.”
“Anything else?”
Amara shook her head.
“He changed the product depending on the person.”
I thought about Mama Bose.
Her zobo.
The crimson bottles.
The tiny sealed bottle beneath the cart.
“What happened to the sellers?”
Amara looked down.
“Some became wealthy.”
“And?”
“Some disappeared.”
Nobody moved.
Then she said:
“My mother believed the people drinking the products were not the only ones being watched.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sellers were being tested.”
“Tested for what?”
Amara hesitated.
Then she whispered:
“Who could carry the consequences.”
Professor Thursday stood suddenly.
“This is impossible.”
Amara looked at him.
“My mother spent eleven years trying to prove it.”
“She found evidence?”
“She found enough to become afraid.”
“And the man?”
Amara closed the notebook.
“He knew she was following him.”
The room fell silent.
That night, nobody slept well.
The next morning, something happened.
At 6:15 a.m., Baba Remi called me.
“Come outside.”
I stepped onto the street.
He pointed toward the pavement.
There was a blue umbrella lying there.
No person.
No owner.
Just the umbrella.
Underneath it was a bottle.
Not zobo.
Water.
Plain bottled water.
Except there was no label.
And on the bottle was a message written in black marker.
You should have listened the first time.
I felt my chest tighten.
Behind me, Mama Caro whispered:
“Who left that?”
Nobody answered.
Then Professor Thursday arrived.
He picked up the bottle carefully.
“Don’t touch it.”
We all stared at him.
He turned the bottle around.
There was another message.
Madame Tomorrow was not warning you about Mama Bose.
He looked at us.
“She was warning you about what comes after Mama Bose.”
A bus passed at the end of the street.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then a voice came from behind us.
A child’s voice.
“Uncle?”
We turned.
One of the neighborhood children stood there.
“What?”
He pointed toward the road.
“That man.”
“What man?”
“The one with the blue umbrella.”
Every adult turned at once.
At the far end of Aareli Street, beneath a blue umbrella, stood a man.
He was too far away to see his face.
But he was watching us.
Then he turned.
And disappeared into the crowd.
Baba Remi ran.
Professor Thursday followed.
I followed them.
We pushed through pedestrians.
Past buses.
Past traders.
Past motorcycles.
But the man was gone.
Completely gone.
We searched for nearly an hour.
Nothing.
When I returned to my shop, Amara was waiting.
She looked frightened.
“What happened?”
I told her.
She closed her eyes.
“My mother said that would happen.”
“What?”
“She said that once people began asking questions, they would come looking.”
“Who?”
Amara looked at the blue umbrella lying on my counter.
“The people who make the offers.”
I stared at her.
“And what happens when you refuse?”
She swallowed.
“My mother never told me.”
Before I could answer, the lights in the shop went out.
The entire street went dark.
Someone screamed outside.
Then another voice shouted.
“Fire!”
We rushed outside.
Smoke was rising from the building where Mama Caro kept her sewing workshop.
Mama Caro screamed.
“My machines!”
People ran toward the building.
Buckets appeared.
Water was thrown.
Within minutes, the fire was under control.
But the damage was severe.
And on the wall above the burned sewing machines, someone had painted four words.
STOP LOOKING FOR HIM.
Mama Caro stood frozen.
Baba Remi clenched his fists.
Professor Thursday looked at me.
Nobody needed to say it.
This was no longer about Mama Bose.
The story had not ended.
It had only changed direction.
That night, Amara told us the final thing her mother had written in her notebook.
A warning.
A date.
A location.
And a name.
The name was not Mama Bose.
It was not Madame Tomorrow.
It was not even the man beneath the umbrella.
It was the name of a company.
A company that operated legally.
A company with offices.
Employees.
Bank accounts.
Advertisements.
And branches in cities across Nigeria.
A company that sold drinks.
Thousands of bottles every week.
Amara placed the notebook on the table.
“My mother wrote that this was where the trail began.”
Professor Thursday looked at the name.
Then his face changed.
“You know this company?”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“Everyone knows it.”
I stared at him.
“What is it?”
He slowly turned the notebook toward us.
At the top of the page was a logo.
A blue umbrella.
And beneath it were five words:
Tomorrow Begins With Us.
Outside, thunder rolled across Lagos.
And somewhere in the darkness beyond Aareli Street, a man opened a blue umbrella.
The rain had not even started.
