Girl

by Edna O'Brien

  *

  In the evening, we are brought to our quarters. It is a little house on the far side and as we cross the courtyard I see cats hiding under the two motorcars and a truck, nuzzling down for the night. The two cars, a sister tells me, are for taking nuns to the hospital or meeting visitors at the bus station. The reason why we could not occupy the room earlier is that a bishop had been staying for a week. He comes regularly for the peace and quiet. Also nuns come from their different houses all over the world. In the dining room, I had heard them talk of a nun who was shortly to come from Ireland. Her name is Sister Rosario and they are making a shawl for her, with many roses stitched into it, to match her name. Three nuns worked at it from different sides of the tapestry. They sing her praises. She is old. They wonder if she will like the shawl, or if perhaps she will think it a little too gaudy. They also wonder if she will wear it over her shoulders or over her knees when she sits in her rocking chair, saying her rosaries. What they do not say is when she is coming.

  Our dwelling is small and everything has been readied and cleaned. There is a jug of water and a baby’s bottle with two clean teats. Sister leads me into the reception room, which itself leads to the bedroom, with a thin, gold-coloured curtain to draw across. She tells me that the dogs will come out in a short while, so that I must not cross the yard again until morning. Having no guns or men to protect them, the dogs are their only safeguard.

  Then we are left alone.

  Babby does not want to get ready for bed. She wants to play. This time it is with the curtain. By tugging at it she realises she can draw it. She goes behind it, hides and then peeps out and goes ‘Boo’. The next game is to pull on the curtain and decide as to whether she or it is the stronger. I have to be sure that she doesn’t pull too hard, or it will be taken off its hooks and we will be in trouble.

  I have to coax her to have a bath. Once in it she is pleased. They have placed a littler bath in the big bath and there is a duck for her as a new friend. She loves the towels and the face towels. They are yellow, with the word Visitor stitched in black at the corner. She also loves the soap that the nuns themselves make. It is the colour of butterscotch and I have to stop her from putting it in her mouth, because she assumes it is sweet. Once in the bath, she is distracted and determined to wreak small punishment on her new duck.

  It is dark when the dogs are let out. They howl and howl, excited at being freed. I cannot see them. I dare not pull the curtain aside, or they will leap up. I get into bed.

  *

  I waken each night in that room thinking, Where will we go. My dreams are bizarre. Sometimes I am on a journey with other mothers and children and then turfed out of the truck in a lonely bit of countryside, in batches. The driver bids us a merry goodbye, glad to be rid of us.

  When the dogs are brought in at dawn, I stand by the window and see the last of the moon, breathlessly beautiful, with a halo around it.

  THERE WERE NO GATES. We just walked into a huge courtyard swarming with people, children marauding around and one melancholy goat, tethered to a post, bleating away.

  Two dogs, all bone, ran around, barking hysterically at one another. The steward who was showing us around said that people bought these animals to try and fatten them up and then resell them at a profit. Everyone, as he said, trying to scrape a livelihood.

  Word had been sent to the convent that a room should become vacant, and Sister Christiana hated breaking the news to me. Even as we were leaving the little guesthouse, fresh flowers were being put in a vase and holy water sprinkled on them, to welcome Sister Rosario. Sister Christiana gave me farewell gifts – chapatis, cereal and a pot of guava jelly. Then she took a medal from her vest, pinned it to my collar and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. It was in veneration to the tongue of St Anthony.

  The camp had been a school at one time and now housed hundreds of displaced people. It was a two-storey structure that occupied three sides of a square with the courtyard in between. There was an air of improvisation. Women were queuing to get water, others bickering for their place in the queue by one of the three fires, and still others trying to wash their children from pitchers of water or the one leaking hose.

  Our room was on the ground floor. A cotton curtain divided it from the noisy corridor. People passed back and forth all the time. There was a mattress, a thin sheet and in the corner a little brazier with pieces of crushed charcoal.

  We put our belongings down as the steward was eager for us to continue the tour and get our bearings. He pointed to the latrines, and whispered to me that at night it was more usual for women to go in batches of three or four. Outside, on the opposite wall, was a derelict shed with the word Medical in large print. The door was locked. It had been long since abandoned. Further along there was a prayer room and I asked the steward if I might go inside. It was tiny with an adjoining vestry, vestments on a table and a tin bowl for holy water. A consecration bell lay sideways on a saucer, it tinkled eerily as we walked past it. There was a picture of Christ in scarlet, with an inscription, O God is forever and ever. The steward explained that the chapel opened for services some Sundays, but pastors could not come regularly as they had to serve the numerous camps all around.

  Outside, young men sat on the ground, playing some kind of card game. Children were playing in their designated corner. It was a game in which they jumped from one small square of clay to another, avoiding the dividing lines, and the winner was rewarded with a speckled marble, which they all coveted.

  Nearby, an oldish man beckoned to me to come and sit by him. He had a little food in a plastic bag and though he did not touch it, from time to time he looked in at it to make sure it was there. His name was Daran, which meant ‘Born at night’. Babby tottered about but the other children scorned her because she was too young and meddlesome, wobbling in and out between the squares and interrupting their game.

  ‘I will not die in this camp,’ Daran said, thankful to have someone to listen to his story at last.

  I will die a free man. My house is still standing. A woman told me so. The house I built with my own hands. Three years it took. I had three bedrooms with a water hole nearby so that I was able to build a bathroom. The tiles of the roof are a milk white so that it can be seen from far off. I left everything behind. I ran for my life. My wife was not there. I have not heard word of her since. I do not know where my children went, maybe with her, maybe not. My house is all I have left. The Jas Boys vandalised and burnt all the other houses, but not mine, because of its three bedrooms and also a yard where they could do drills. They had three rooms to sleep in. I learnt all this from a woman called Fatima, who peddled from place to place. She too lived under the Mandara mountains. She came by here one day, selling soup. A yellow soup that she made from mustard seed and packed in small plastic pouches. She recognised me. She told me that my house was still standing. She and her husband had been taken together, but she would not convert whereas her husband did. He asked her not to fight with them, to make life easier for both of them. She refused. He is dead now, or so she thinks. She has no love left for him. She stole a bicycle and escaped her village, she lived in a cave that was also the site of a mass grave, and as a result overcame her fear of death. Eventually, she started up a small business selling soups, because she always had a knack for cooking. I met her by chance. I was begging a farmer up yonder for a tiny bit of land to grow maize – ‘If you don’t work, you don’t eat.’ He had a hard heart. I kept going back, doing little things for nothing, clipping hedges and so forth. One of his children got sick in the mind, and his wife told him, ‘Give Daran a perch of land and God will repay us.’

  He took five short steps, put pegs down, and said, ‘This is your ground for the next six months.’ It is all I have. With the little money I have accrued I will leave here, I will make my way to the Mandara mountains and fill my eyes with the vision of my white roof. If it is occupied I will go to the military. I will show them my papers. I will be reinstated.
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  ‘Arise, O compatriots,’ he said, as he stood, his arms outstretched, his eyes full of a crazed certainty.

  The children, who had heard the story many times, threw clods of clay at him.

  *

  The classroom was long since abandoned. It was where people charged their phones and from the two wall sockets, a huddle of different coloured phones. Cable wires branched and looped together. Sitting there opposite a blackboard, I thought I could hear the voices of the young children who had been in this very classroom and sat on those very benches. It was an unfinished English lesson. The teacher had written the letters ‘Si’ on the blackboard, and under it were a list of words that she had encouraged the children to find for themselves:

  Silk

  Sift

  Sim card

  Sip

  Sir

  Sit

  Sieve

  Sigh

  Sight

  Then a big woman came in, talking to herself. Her sleeves were rolled up, either because she had just been in a fight or was intending to. She looked at me as if I should not be there. Then she went to the jumble of phones, searched for her own, picked it up, put it to her ear, listened, and said, ‘Bastard.’

  ‘That woman has mental problems,’ she said, as she sat on the floor, with a child between her legs, totally mute.

  ‘That woman has mental problems.’ She gloated at the harm she would do to her before the night was out and recited her various afflictions:

  My husband and I were happy in the tailoring business. We made suits for weddings. He did the measuring and the cutting and I did the sewing. Business slackened a bit after the oil boom crashed, as grooms could not afford the bridal jewellery and the brides’ parents were mortified at not being able to buy furniture for the new home. Nevertheless, we didn’t fold. Then one evening, as I was carrying two new suits across the fields, for a groom and his best man, the Jas Boys caught up with me on their cycles.

  ‘How are you,’ they said, pleased to relieve me of the suits of clothing, and before I could escape, I was already theirs, my wrists tied with chains. We rode for hours and when we came to a mountain cave they stopped for the night. They took turns raping me. I was brought to one of the camps and put to work sewing and stitching for the wives. Soon I was pregnant. I only escaped because the wife of one commander, who was besotted with him, sent me to the village to choose the nicest underwear. In that village I met a lorry driver with whom I did business in exchange for a ride a few kilometres from my own village. The sign that read ‘Tailoring’ was gone. I knocked on the door and a woman answered. Your husband don’t love you, she said to me. She said it several times. He did not like being spoken for. He came forward saying that we must live together, it was a condition of our religion and we would have to share. That was only the start of it. She still did the cooking. She still slept with him. We quarrel. We all end up here. He lost his business, he lost himself, disappearing for days.

  A phone rings, and she springs like a panther to get to it – ‘Where are you. How did it go. When are you coming back,’ and then I hear her listening, and knowing she is about to be cut off she shouts into the phone, ‘I love you.’ She came back, retrieved the baby where she had left it and where it seemed to lapse back into a kind of coma.

  ‘What did he say when you said “I love you”?’ I asked.

  ‘He said, “I know,”’ and then she looked around, forlornly.

  Three days previous he had set out on the long walk to the city. Someone had seen a sign on a window, Tailor Wanted, and he decided he would go there, find a job and get a separate house for each family. But even as she said it, she knew he had absconded.

  *

  A few lit cigarettes flicked through the darkness. I thought I was dreaming, until I wakened and heard people coming through the open gateway, still others creeping out from their holes and corners, to do business. It was the hour of buying and selling and bartering. Men had come to sell food, medicines or whatever they had. Older people came out to plead, to implore. One woman almost knelt. She asked for one pill, just for that one night, so that she could sleep. One night’s blankness. She would pay when she could. A man swore at her and she shuffled off. Human nature on bended knee. Girls came to sell their favours, in order to get food for themselves and their children. Some had men pushing them forward, as they bargained and taunted the dealers. There were scuffles. Don’t touch her, don’t touch her. Two opposing cliques fought over a particular girl, the known beauty. The security guard was off duty and moreover, would be helpless with this crew. Everything was quick and furtive. An older man intervened and those who had a few naira bought what they could and withdrew to their rooms. Younger couples hurried towards the small alcoves by the church and behind the school, while still others went through the open gateway, out into the cleaner fields.

  It wakened Babby. It frightened her. She clung to me, her feet kicking my stomach. I tell her she is safe. We are safe. I promise her the thing she loves. Semolina. Semolina. She knows the word by heart. I had got the brazier fitted up and with the little money I earned from doing farm work, I was able to buy things. She watched as I stirred and stirred the semolina, pressing the lumps with a wooden spoon, bruising them against the side of the saucepan. She was hawing in anticipation. We ate sitting on the floor and then licking whatever was left on our fingers.

  We were safe. I had put a magic boundary between us and all that lay beyond. The cotton curtain was our fortification.

  ONCE A MONTH BABBY and I went back to the convent. We set out very early when it was still cool and I resumed my old habit of counting the thousand steps at a time, as I had done with Buki. The welcome was gleeful. Two folded pancakes with maple syrup poured over them awaiting us. Babby recognised her surroundings, ran around scraping the metal chasing on the front of a settee, which had always fascinated her. Then she found the cream lace antimacassar, which she put on her head to look clownish. They had a surprise for me. Who should tell me? The honour was given to Sister Christiana. It was a letter propped by the little vase of flowers in the centre of the table. I read it quickly, and thought I might be hallucinating.

  My dear friend, Sister Angelina wrote,

  I have good news. Masses were said. We have found a post for you. Poor Mother Pius went back to Verona on holiday and had a fall. Her health was declining and she had been so brave. Well into her eighties, but too stoic to let any of us know. We need a second teacher, as I cannot do it all alone. They are rascals, as I think I told you. I have been given permission from the Mother of my Order.

  The children are also looking forward to your arrival and I think they are a little disappointed that they do not yet have uniforms, to show off when you arrive. A rich lady in Lagos has sent word that she is going to contribute towards our school and towards their educational programme. She learnt about us on the internet. How kind the world can be at times.

  But let me not digress. You will find our village here in the plateau, printed in small lettering on the convent map. One of the sisters will bring you to the taxi station. It costs 1,200 naira and babies can travel for free. The driver, if he is friendly, will take you and will ask other colleagues in the taxi to contribute even a little money. Tell him that you are coming to teach and he will be pleased. There are rivers along the way where you might want to get out, but the driver cannot stop, as there is no time. He has to make two journeys per day and it is a long way from Jos. Bring a bottle of water and nappies for the baby. The drive is long and quite jolting. You will come off the main road and onto a still rougher road, with stones flying up in all directions. He will drop you in our village, which comprises six houses in one compound and a big baobab tree where people rest. You will be hot and hungry. If you knock on any door and say, ‘Please can I have a drink for my baby,’ they will give you milk or water, or whatever they have. They will give you food if they have it. No one will turn you away. Rest awhile and then carry on. Children will point the
way. It is a steep walk up the hill to our little structure, which is brown, with a zinc roof, also stained brown from the rain.

  *

  She met me long before the hilltop, she ran down, brimming with excitement and put Babby on her back. First thing she gave us was a local drink made from millet, saying it would sustain us until we had supper. Proudly she pointed to the garden, and the neatly tended furrows, with beans, garlic, cassava and peanuts. Their two goats had rambled off, but she was certain they would return, as they liked their little shelter. She pointed to me to go alone to the prayer room, where I could give thanks to God. It too was small. There was a wooden dais, with a big Bible opened at a certain page. A crucifix hung from the wall, a gold crucifix with a raised ruby heart. I guessed that it was a gift from the bishop, because earlier she had told me how lucky they were with donations they had received. The governor gave them land to build a house and make a garden and Bishop James called on various government sources and held a grand reception in his villa for the inauguration.

  The classroom, which also served as the dining room, was crammed with chairs stacked together, books on the table, a blackboard and various things the children had forgotten. Babby was tottering around, getting to know her new surroundings, finding things, a stick daubed with clay and a knitted doll. She liked the doll and began to kiss it and then have fights with it. It was sweltering. Pointing to pallet beds, Sister Angelina said the nuns sometimes slept there. A local man had made them, in exchange for the loan of their donkey, which he needed to fetch building materials between two small farms, as he was making a second house for his second family. She said the fathers tended to take more than one wife and that led to more children and lingering disagreements. In some instances, the mothers did not like the first children and there were squabbles as to who ate what, who sat at the table and who slept in the husband’s bed on different nights. Eventually, the first family, or even the second family, were made to leave, some going to cousins and some to run away. The children grew up fast, they had to.