by Maya Rossi
“It’s good to see you missed us,” Joy added wryly. She arched her eyebrows. “Canada is the ultimate. If I left,“ she said seriously, “expect me to disappear. This was your chance, Ada.“
We hugged. When I released her, she whistled. “You look… different. But that aside, you’ve been doing this alone?”
Like true best friends, they threw their bodies into the work. The food and drinks moved faster and without incident. Guests hummed in appreciation and we got bigger tips.
It was like a husband and wife dancing; we knew our moves before we even thought it. Towards the end of the party, we stopped by the laundry room to catch a break.
“Where’s Mary?” I rolled a cold bottle of water across my forehead.
There was an awkward pause, Riggy looked on without expression. Then I realized she hadn’t smiled or laughed or frowned since they joined me. She just had this… empty look, like she wasn’t really here at all. What was going on?
“Riggy? Are you al--”
“Girl,” Joy curled our arms, “where did you go? You just disappeared?”
I leaned closer, but kept an eye on Riggy. “Madam traveled, ordered me to serve Merrick--”
“Merrick!” Joy gasped. “Just you and that fine boy, together? Tell me something happens or I swear to God.”
“Shut up,” I murmured.
Riggy still didn’t bat an eyelash. Just held a coke bottle with both hands without drinking it, kept the bottle pressed to her lower stomach, looking disinterested.
“So what happened?” Joy asked.
“Yep. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything later.” I poked her shoulder. “But where did you all go? First day, I rushed to Mary’s,” Joy pulled away and started pinching the skin of her fingers, “your place and Riggy’s. You were all gone.”
Joy cleared her throat, pinched her fingers so hard I feared she would cut it out. “Uhmm, we had a burial, a week long thing.”
I kept my gaze fixed on Joy’s fingers. “Where’s Mary?”
“She’s dead,” Riggy stated in a flat, dead voice.
“Why are you all hiding?” Madam dragged Riggy and then Joy out of the laundry room. “We have people from the office.” She pointed at me. “Get Merrick.”
“Y-yes, ma.”
Did she say Mary was dead?
Riggy wasn’t acting right. So she had to joking. Some April fools thing. Mary couldn’t be dead. Sick, constantly weak Mary with her old woman’s fingers and good heart.
I blinked back tears, ran into a guest. Rosie.
Oh, Jesus.
“Are you alright?” She pushed a clean, silky sweep of the most delicious weavon I had ever seen in my life. It was like a waterfall, smooth like cream. Black and shiny.
“Mary,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?” She stepped back, concern and confusion creasing her forehead adorably.
“My friend.”
“Oh. OK?”
“She’ll like your hair,” I blurted out.
Rosie laughed, a sweet, light sound. “Then she has great taste. So, uh, take care.”
I turned in a circle to watch her leave.
Joy appeared in the kitchen window. “Go,” she mouthed.
Yes, Madam asked me to get Merrick. For his engagement.
Why didn’t she tell me about Mary? Was she really dead? When did it even happen? Oh, God.
I found him outside, down the street, talking football with the boys. Anger, reddish hot and thick, flowed up my stomach to my throat. I wanted to shake sense and reality into him. What was he doing out here?
Without thought, completely reckless, I marched to the boys. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I screamed. “Isn’t it bad enough this is your engagement party? Mary might be dead and I’m here looking for you? Are you a baby? What--”
“Hey, hey, shut the fuck up,” One boy slinked forward. I recognized him. Ayo Babalola. I flinched.
Merrick was suddenly there between us. “Step away from her.”
Ayo looked from me to Merrick and back again. “Really?” He shrugged. “I should tell you, she’s really sweet. Anyway, I did her first. What were you? Six, seven? Wait, maybe you already know.”
Merrick punched him right across the temple. He dropped like a stone. With a vicious snarl, he fell on Ayo. “I’ll kill you--”
I screamed.
A sick feeling erupted deep inside me. I shuddered. Then I was sobbing, silent, powerful tears. Merrick wrapped those protective arms around me. “Shhsh. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”
I shook my head, smearing snot and tears across his t-shirt. I pulled back, frowned. “You aren’t dressed-- Jesus, Merrick. Can you not make things harder than it already is?”
He reached for me. “Calm down--”
“Don’t touch me.” I rubbed my arms, wiped my tears. “Madam wants you at the party. Now.”
Riggy crossed the gate, almost running into Merrick. He stopped. She didn’t. Merrick turned, raised an eyebrow in question. I shook my head. He headed inside. I studied my friend. She looked and acted like a ghost.
“How did Mary die?” I asked.
Riggy startled, and her eyes slowly focused. It was unsettling, like she was awakening from a dream sleep. “Mary’s dead.”
Then she walked past and down the street. I stared after her, cold shivers running up and down my spine. The weather suddenly changed. The heat disappearing like it never was, and a cool breeze sidled in from the North. I rubbed my arms. There was still a lot of work to be done.
I crossed the gate and headed for the kitchen door. It burst open, and some guests spilled out, hurriedly leaving. As they scrambled past, I found myself pressed against the fence like mashed potatoes. Why were they fleeing the house like they discovered a bomb inside the house?
Was the house on fire?
“Ada?” Joy’s call came from the kitchen.
“Joy.” I peeled my body from the fence and pushed through the running guests. “What’s happening?”
“It’s Merrick.”
We ran to the living room. The crowd was thick like they never left. They stood in a circle, glasses and plates in their hands, expression arrested. Oga had stripped down to his singlets and trousers. Merrick knelt before him with his head bowed. From where we stood, I could make out the top of Merrick’s head.
Rosie stood to the side, crying. “Somebody help me. Mom! Don’t just stand there for-- Ah!”
Then I saw the chain-cane in Oga’s hand. He had his dress shirt wrapped around his hand for protection so he could wield the chain-cane. It was the long cane plaited around barbed wire. Sweat poured down Oga’s face, his chest heaved and his stomach bounced like flabby breasts with every stroke landed.
I pushed to the front of the spectators and stopped short. Blood everywhere. On the living room table, the new big screen TV and the tiles. Merrick weaved on his knees.
“Stupid boy!” Oga screamed, “you can’t marry a sweet woman, you can’t go to school, you can’t read. What can you do? I ask God for a son and he gives me what, you?”
And so the flogging continued. Each time Oga stopped, he would curse Merrick, take a swig of wine and continue where he left off.
“Somebody stop him, please!” Rose knelt, too close with her hand over her ears, crying profusely.
“Why does he not fight back?” I chewed on my fingers, eyes darting to Madam. But she seemed frozen in shock.
“Tradition.” Joy took my hand. “It’s a curse for a son to raise a hand against his father. Come on, we have work. This is none--”
“He’s my business!”
Then Merrick fell, face down, into the pool of his own blood. Oga jumped on his back, stomping and screaming like a madman.
My legs moved before I decided. I remember screaming at Oga, then Madam. Then Oga ended up on the floor. I definitely had Merrick’s head on my lap, crying and he kissed me, said everything would be alright.
The details didn’t stick. No
t the how, but the what. Rosie took Merrick to the hospital. The party ended, no engagement. No Rosie. No Merrick.
Just the four walls of my room.
I counted. Three days. Three bottles of water. The piss bucket and my blue watch for company.
I was terrified.
The hunger pangs had since faded. The headache lessened to a dull ache. My eyeballs were about to fall off from staring holes through the locked door. I needed an earthquake. An angel. Satan. Madam.
Anything to force the door open. I needed that door open. I needed fresh air.
Like I willed it to reality, the knob turned, and the door opened. I went to my knees, raising my hand to shield my eyes. I must have moved too quickly. My head swam. I pressed a hand to the ground to settle myself.
“Ma--”
“It’s me.”
That voice. My stomach muscles cramped painfully like I was having my periods. Only I wasn’t. I opened and closed my eyes, focused on the gold slippers. Madam Gold.
She sat on the bed and my weak senses picked up the familiar smell of fermented cassava that never left her. The last time she cooked it was before Aunty Sheila took me to the compound. Riggy said Madam Gold cooked the fermented cassava, then the girls sold the akpu in the streets for ten naira. Those days.
“How are you?”
“I-I’m fine, ma.”
“You know why I’m here?”
“N-no, ma.”
“Here.”
I gaped at the phone. “What?”
“Answer the call.”
I pressed the phone to my ears. “Hello?”
“Ada?”
“To?” I sank back until my buttocks rested on the back of my feet. “What are you…”
“Yes,” he answered my unspoken question.
I had never been shot. Not once in my life. A maid never got into any gun fights. Lots of flogging. Kneeling. Starvation. But no guns. Yet, I felt like I had been shot. To was still talking, but I couldn’t hear a word.
I shot upright, rounding on Madam Gold. “What have you done?”
She backhanded me hard across the face; her ring cut into my lip, spilling blood. Somehow the phone remained stuck to my ear.
“Ada?”
My ears were still ringing. I pushed my index finger in the left ear. “What?”
“It’s just me. It’s OK, they are other boys my age.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“How long have you been… there?”
“Two weeks now, I guess. See, I met this girl. She was the oldest. Mary?”
Mary’s dead. How many times did Riggy say that? In that dead, flat voice. Mary’s dead. Because Madam Gold killed her.
“Yes,” I mumbled.
But I just couldn’t follow the conversation. Not after that. I handed the phone back.
“So you and Merrick?” she asked.
“There’s no me and Merrick,” I blurted.
She pushed my grimy hair back. “That’s not what he said in the hospital. It was, uh, cute actually. Said he loved you, wanted to marry you and go live on that farm.”
Hospital.
My heart thumped like a piece of meat slapped on the seller’s table. “No, no, no. Nothing. There’s nothing at all.” She walked to the door, the gold heels clanking on the floor. “You can come in now.”
Madam burst in, looking nothing like her usual self. “My son, Ada. My own son. Merrick?” She covered her face with her hands, moved the hands to her head and moaned loudly. “You and Merrick? What a disgrace! W-what-what--” She slapped her thighs, cupped her breasts. “My baby who sucked from these breasts. The only son I have. The only son I pushed from this womb.”
Suddenly she ran forward, pushed my face between her legs. “Ashawo. You want to take this away from me? Do you know what I suffered, how I labored, what I sacrificed for--”
“Calm down.” Madam Gold placed a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down.”
Madam whirled to face her. They were of matching height and girth. But where Madam was fair and beautiful, Madam Gold was not.
“After everything I did for her? She shames me like this. To take my son away from me? The neighbors, my friends… how they would have mocked me. Merrick with the maid. God forbid!”
She pushed past Madam Gold’s hold to wag a finger in my face. “You’ll pay for this. As they mocked me, they’ll mock you. As you shamed me, I will shame you. Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think I won’t.”
Tightest
Chapter twenty-two
The first time Madam served me was when I got the scar.
Madam Gold had long since gone. But the ripples from her visit still tore me to shreds inside. I clenched my hands together to still their trembling. I would choose death over… this, what this turned out to be. But I had Tochukwu and Tonna to live for.
Merrick, if he was still alive.
A spoon clattered to the ground in the kitchen, and I lurched to my feet.
She said not to move.
Don’t move.
Don’t move.
I sat. Waiting was the worst. After my years of training, how was I supposed to sit here, waiting for Madam to cook and serve me? I couldn’t keep the food down, I was sure.
But as she placed the food and water before me, my body made my decision for me. I hadn’t eaten in three days. I inhaled the food like a madwoman.
Madam pulled out the opposite chair. I couldn’t read her face. I would have apologized, but my body chose the food over her. Not that she would understand. So I kept my eyes on her but didn’t slow down.
“You’ll make yourself sick.” She gazed at me fondly. “Slowly, slow--yes.”
I drank water. Like the food, it disappeared down my throat with terrifying speed.
Madam rose to get another from the kitchen. I squirmed in my chair, unsettled by her service and her kindness? Had she changed her mind about making me pay?
The front door opened. I paused with the spoon halfway to my mouth. Heavy footfalls sounded across the tiles. Oga’s perfume hit me. I swallowed hard.
To my surprise, he said nothing. As he climbed the stairs, I pushed the food to my mouth. Madam crossed her legs. She looked good in cream trousers and an expensive yellow silk shirt. Before I would have rushed to compliment her. Now? I kept shoveling food into my mouth.
“Ada?” She pushed a card across the table. “That’s your invitation.”
Merrick and Rosie.. I breathed in and out. Dropped my spoon. Madam watched calmly. Then I realized his picture might be on the card with Rosie. It was the way with weddings. I should know, having attended hundreds with Madam.