Each time it came up I weakened a little further, reluctantly and a bit angrily. Especially when in each case, the advice came with a warning: you never can predict how external family members will react to being sidelined. Displeasure can metamorphose into enmity, which can manifest in a number of ways, some of which have been curses of some sort to ensure an unhappy marriage or no children or death of some sort. Nollywood isn’t always wrong, Nigerians — and Africans in general — can be quite superstitious. I am modern enough to think I don’t believe in such things, but African enough not to want to take any chances. And there’s that verse in the Bible that comes to mind: “A curse without cause shall not alight (Prov. 26:2).” It’s both comforting and ambiguous. Comforting when you search the recesses of your mind and past and realize you’re innocent of any wrongdoing. But ambiguous in a situation like ours. What, exactly, constitutes ’cause’? Murder? Adultery? Theft? Not presenting your intended to your maternal family? A whole exegesis has probably been written on that, but surely it’s just easier to look for them? We decided it wouldn’t hurt to try.

The town is quiet, laidback and not as busy as I expected. I see no market, but maybe it’s on the other side. Or maybe they still have market days and today isn’t one of them. The compounds are almost identical: square or rectangular sandy areas cordoned off from the main road and the neighbours by a few shrubs, humble bungalows with tin roofs plopped down right in the middle. I imagine they have remained unchanged in the last twenty years, except maybe for a new coating of paint. There are even some mud huts. Make that the last thirty years.

The only modern structure we see looks out of place. It likely belongs to a politician who, by building this house, has done his duty to save the area from total backwardness.

My late grandfather had a popular printing press in Ubiaja. We decided the best way to begin was to ask where the press was and about the man who owned it. I ask the driver to stop a couple of times to query people who look like they would know. I feel a little foolish as they look at me speculatively; one middle-aged man goes as far as to ask if I am so-and-so’s daughter who came at so-and-so time. I almost wish I were, but shake my head with a smile. At the back of my mind is the tiny desire to feel like I belong, to prove I have roots in this place, to shake off the feeling that I am an imposter.

Finally, we strike gold. A tall young man at a house we are directed to says that he can take us to the compound, which is only a house or two away. It is a bungalow with an open veranda and there is a young woman with a child sitting outside. I wonder if I might be related to her as I make inquiries. Looking at me curiously, she says she hopes there is no problem—the way most Nigerians do when they have struggled to place you, can’t, and wonder if you’re a bearer of bad news. I tell her no before she goes in. She returns with an elderly woman, hair cut low, wearing a sleeveless white cotton blouse and a wrapper tied around her waist.

Another man joins us and he and the young woman introduce the old woman as my late grandfather’s sister, not his wife as I’d assumed. When I tell her my mother’s name, Priscilla, I buttress the point by also mentioning her native name, Izegboya, to which the old woman embraces me, exclaiming words in Esan which are vaguely familiar but incomprehensible to me. The tone of her voice, and the sorrow, get to me, and I fight tears. My mother, after all, had been her niece; my Uncle Daniel had been her nephew. I am told, without ceremony, that he died a year or two ago.