Candice looks at me, rolls her eyes and gives me a great smile and I put my hand to my mouth and snigger. Just as I do so, the invisible audience gives a little snigger too.
The animal noises intensify and the man now looks angrier still. He sits forward, stretches his neck muscles and moves his head from side to side, then puts his hands in front of his chest and quickly draws them outwards, in a cutting action.
His arms now form a cross shape. He says, Hhhhhey! loudly, and all at once the animal sounds stop and there is complete silence in the forest. The man nods, leans back against the tree and then closes his eyes again, and almost immediately the silence is broken again by the chorus of laughter from the invisible audience.
Candice and I are rolling around on her bed, giggling and slapping each other playfully, when I suddenly become aware of another sound. I turn my head and realise that Feisha has been calling to us over the clamour of the television set. Her face is like a storm and she points to the set and indicates that it should be turned off.
Candice bounds from the bed in an instant and I stand up too, sensing that something is wrong.
‘It is that man!’ Feisha says. She looks at me. ‘Your husband! And he is not happy!’ Immediately, my heart is seized by fear. I am on my feet in an instant and spare only a fleeting moment to glance towards Candice. I see the concern on her face, notice how quickly the happiness we were sharing just a few moments earlier has been snatched away from us both. Then, with my heart racing, I put my head down and follow the billowing blur of Feisha’s pagne: back along the tiled hallway and into the large living room where Doctor Kwao’s guests are still enjoying his hospitality. As we pass through and Feisha excuses us, I can feel a dozen pairs of eyes boring into me, but I am determined not to look up. I am almost as mortified as I am scared. The floor passes beneath me like the never-ending desert. To help me cross it, I try to concentrate on the slap of Feisha’s sandals on the hard tiles. All at once, I become aware of a gentler padding behind me, a lighter step. Without turning around, I guess that Candice is following us.
At last we reach the steps rising from the living room to the outer hallway. As we climb to the top and turn right into the brightly lit corridor, I become aware of the silhouetted figure of a man – an elegant man, not the mean, scruffy form of my husband – lingering just inside the screened doors.
Doctor Kwao-Sarbah looks at me and, while attempting something close to a smile, rolls his eyes. ‘Ah, Madame Haoua,’ he says, ‘Monsieur Moussa is here to escort you home.’
His words sound awkward, full of unease. He has never addressed me as ‘Madame’ before.
For my part, I feel frightened, deeply embarrassed, and perhaps I even dare to be a little angry.
My husband stands on the veranda with a chew stick in his mouth.
I can tell immediately that he is irritated by the way he rolls it from side to side in his teeth. His clothing is still covered in gore and blood. He is babbling something, fawning before Candice’s father but, I am certain, determined that he will not be shown up by me.
‘I’m sure she simply misunderstood, Monsieur Boureima,’ Doctor Kwao-Sarbah says.
I steal a glance towards Candice, perhaps in some vain attempt to seek help, but the look on her face confirms that she too feels helpless and fearful of my situation.
As I shuffle along towards the doorway, I keep my head down, not daring to look Moussa in the eye. Doctor Kwao-Sarbah puts his big, clean hand on my shoulder and gently guides me on to the veranda. Before me, I see Moussa’s ugly feet, his long, yellow toenails still splattered with the fine spray of the mouton’s blood. I hear him suck his teeth and hiss the word, Walayi! Then, as Doctor Kwao-Sarbah takes his hand off my shoulder, Moussa reaches out and clutches my arm tightly. He is clever enough not to apply too much pressure with his fingers – not yet – but I am instantly aware of a certain amount of discomfort. He draws me firmly towards him and then steers me down the steps of the Kwao-Sarbah’s veranda. My head is reeling. I am frantically trying to think of excuses.
‘I apologise for this intrusion, Doctor.’
‘Really, as I have said, it is no intrusion,’ Doctor Kwao-Sarbah says. ‘Candice has grown very fond of your dau…’ He checks himself. Gives a little cough.
‘Perhaps you’ll come back with your young wife later on, Monsieur? And join Mesdames Doodi and Yola?’ But, like seeds sown on barren ground, his words fall, lost behind us as Moussa marches me towards the gates.
* * *
No sooner have we rounded the corner of the Kwao-Sarbah’s compound than I feel a sharp pain in the muscles of my upper arm. Moussa has gouged his filthy fingers into my flesh, and now proceeds to fling me towards our own compound. He catapults me through the entrance and I stumble and fall awkwardly to my knees as he releases his grip momentarily. On the street there are few passers-by now, and those who do notice us, choose to ignore us. For a moment I dare to hope that Khalaf, the Kwao-Sarbah’s guardian whose eyes have just bored through my husband as we passed him, will follow us. But we are alone.
I am trying to get up from the ground when I feel the fabric of my pagne tighten around my throat and shoulders.
‘Get your lazy hide off the ground, you little whore!’ Moussa spits, wrenching me upwards with one hand.
Before I can even put a foot forward, he shakes me, like a dog with a rat, and pushes me again, jabbing at my shoulder blades with his rough fingers. My blood is racing. For a moment I consider protesting. Offering some reason, some excuse, as to why I have disobeyed his word. As he swings me around the gatepost, and slams me against the block wall, I decide that it is pointless to protest, and resign myself to my fate. What will happen will happen.
‘I’ll teach you to embarrass me! I’ll show you who is master of this house!’
He repeats such phrases over and over again, between slaps and punches and kicks, his spittle peppering my face each time he opens his mouth. He grabs my jaw. Shakes my head from side to side. Breathes his foul breath right into my nostrils and squeezed open mouth. His eyes are slits of fire and rage. He is a demon, a devil, from whom there is no escape for me. ‘You pathetic little insect!’ he hisses. ‘Do you really think the doctor’s daughter gives a damn about the likes of a stupid little bush girl like you? An ungrateful, ignorant, worthless little nobody who does nothing to justify the food I struggle to provide for her?’ He grabs at my chest again. Pinches my left breast with his sharp fingernails. Then he takes hold of the neckline of my pagne and shakes me again from side to side. He lowers his head and summons a hideous, animal-like growl from deep within his gullet before discharging a sickening lump of phlegm at my feet. I yank myself away from his grip and take a step into the air, my foot failing to propel me at all as I am wrenched back by Moussa once again. I see the flat of his silhouetted hand like a raggedly black crow as it moves towards the side of my head. I make a poor attempt to avoid the blow and barely feel it as it connects; Doodi has covered my body in a mantle of pain already, so that Moussa’s frenzied attack renders only bruise upon bruise and little in the way of new shock to my flesh. Bent over now, with my hands above my head and my knees ground into the dust, I feel somehow that I am witnessing this beating, rather than enduring it – from the vantage point of my Whistling Mgunga tree, or from the kitchen window, or on television. And what I see is a small, frightened girl being slapped and kicked and shaken mercilessly by a screaming bully whose words have become a formless rant; just another assault on already ringing ears. The vision makes me angry.
Reminds me of watching Souley and her awful friends as they picked on smaller children, me and my classmates powerless to help, having already been warned that we would face a similar fate if we breathed so much as a word to Monsieur Boubacar or the other teachers at Wadata.
Perhaps it is really this image that now causes me to throw my head back, look defiantly into the eyes of my attacker and smile through bloodied teeth.
This is not happening t
o me.
This girl is dragged across the compound, her kicking heels ploughing deep, broken furrows in the cooling sand.
Her assailant has buried his fingers in the bedraggled cornrows of her hair. His jaw is set; his brow creased with fury. Without looking back, he trails his victim towards the storehouse. He kicks open the door – swears as it bounces back and strikes his elbow.
The girl has taken hold of the door frame and is gripping it tightly with both hands.The attacker barks something at her; then, still clutching her hair, boxes her ears with his free hand.
She grits her teeth and grips the frame still harder, until a series of kicks to the ribs forces her to let go with one hand. With the other she clutches frantically at the rough timber, the look of desperation on her face suddenly replaced by one of anguish as her fingers are crushed against the doorframe by the sole of her assailant’s sandaled foot.
As the girl finally releases her grip, her attacker grabs her wrist and flings her into the storehouse. She stumbles forwards, trips over her neatly-rolled bedding and crashes into a stack of oil drums and a wheel-less bicycle frame. She fights back tears, coughs, quickly wipes the back of her hand under her dripping nose and then scrambles to her knees. She puts a hand flat against the oil-stained floor and tries to push herself to her feet but, feeling the weight of a body much larger than her own bearing down on her and realising that she cannot break away, she succumbs at last to her assailant, who once again has a fistful of her hair.
He pushes her forward. Presses her face into the dust. Pins her down. Grapples with her pagne; wrenching and tearing at the fabric until he has exposed her.
Then – as the girl sobs and reaches back with one small, broken hand in a futile attempt to thwart him – he forces her legs apart and ruts her like an animal.
* * *
When Moussa leaves the storehouse, I remain on the filthy floor for quite some time, oblivious at first to the surge of pain building up within me. Then, as my head begins to clear a little, it strikes: burning my gut; searing behind my eyes, between my legs; stabbing at my knuckles and the oddly crooked fingers of my left hand.
I realise now that I was wrong not to fear this man more. That Doodi’s wrath is just a gentle breeze compared to the rage that Moussa has just unleashed on me. This is not the first time. But it is the most vicious. He has hurt me more than ever before. I know that this time I am really damaged.
I am lying on the ground with my knees drawn up to my chest, my torn pagne clamped tightly between my calves. I taste my own blood, mingled with dust and grit, and smell the stench of the slaughtered beast, transferred from Moussa’s loathsome body to my own. Outside, the light has all but faded, yet I can still make out the shapes of bicycle parts and tools strewn all around me; knocked from their shelves or from a nail on the wall in the recent struggle. I recall the morning, soon after I was brought to live in Niamey, when Yola came to me and helped me arrange the space; reorganised Moussa’s clutter, so that I could at least sleep here in relative comfort. I wonder if Yola is aware that Moussa has retrieved me from the Kwao-Sarbah house – if she even knew that I was there. I try to raise my head a little to listen for her but, in truth, I know that neither she nor anyone else will come to help me.
With my good hand, I brush some of the dirt from my cheek. I push myself up, so that I am in a crouching position. I lean forward and attempt to bear some weight on my left hand but an intense pain, like none I have ever experienced before, tells me that I cannot. I bring the grazed, misshapen form close to my face, then, gritting my teeth to fight back the tears, I wedge it into my right armpit.
With great effort I roll myself on to my bottom and lean back against the cool wall.
Each breath I take is punctuated by a fresh wave of pain in my side. I remember my father telling me the story of how once, as a boy, he had climbed one of the great upside-down trees near our village and fallen, awkwardly, cracking several ribs. For weeks afterwards he endured great pain, with every step he took, every movement he made, even when he laughed. I am certain that I too have damaged ribs. I wonder if I shall ever laugh again.
With my eyes closed, my mind again starts to wander back to Wadata. I see my mother’s face. Bunchie’s. I see little Fatima, Adamou, Abdelkrim, Miriam. Then, as another surge of pain catches me, I let the images go and, attempting to control the discomfort, concentrate instead on trying to breathe calmly and steadily.
The door creaks open and the light from a kerosene lamp swings across the floor of the storehouse. I open my eyes and see Moussa before me once again.
‘You must draw me a bath, girl,’ he says.
I bury my head into my chest and do not answer.
‘Do you hear me, girl?’
I shake my head without looking up.
‘Hey!’ he says. ‘Get up and do as I tell you. I can’t go back over to the good doctor’s house looking like this.’
Although I still do not look at his face, I can tell from the tone of his voice that he is smirking. I put my right hand on the back of my head and ignore him until his fingers jab me on the shoulder.
‘Hey!’
I throw my head back so suddenly that Moussa takes a step backwards, much to my satisfaction. ‘I won’t do it!’ I shout, angry with myself for allowing great tears to well up in my eyes again, but hopeful that I have warned him off.
But instead of relenting, he bends down, leans his face in close to mine again and says, calmly, slowly, and with great menace, ‘I don’t mind doing that all over again, you know. It’s your choice, Little One.’ The light from the lamp flickers and reflects in the whites of Moussa’s bulging eyes. He sucks his teeth. Stands upright.
Shrugs. Gives a little laugh and then turns and leaves, taking the lamp with him and leaving me in the darkness with my pain and blubbering rage.
Seized by cramp deep within my belly, I wince again, my nose bubbling and leaving a filthy trail of slime on the shoulder of my already sullied pagne. I peer at it in disgust, through raw eyes, and realise that I feel sullied inside too. I put my good hand between my legs; feel Moussa’s ooze, cold, on my flesh and hair. I contemplate the task that Moussa has set for me: the lugging of numerous pails of water from the faucet outside to the tin bath inside the house, followed by several more to the big pot on the gas burner in Doodi’s kitchen to take the edge off the cold. I long to cleanse myself. To scrub and scrub at my skin. To peel it off, smooth it flat against the stones of the great river; scrub it clean with soap and rhythmic fervour, while the songs of my mother and grandmother swoop and dip around my head like swallows, heady with living.
I know that Moussa will return soon if he does not hear or see me going about my work. When I finally manage to get to my feet, I stumble, and have to catch hold of the edge of a workbench in order to reach the door of the storehouse.
The weight of the slopping bucket causes me great discomfort, jarring my ribcage and under my arms, and bouncing off my knees and shins. Usually I can carry two at once but, when I attempt to lift a second with my left hand, the pain takes me by surprise, shoots all the way up my arm and causes me to cry out. The pail falls to the ground, bending oddly, collapsing under its own weight and reminding me of the recently slaughtered beast. As its contents seep into the dust, my mouth fills with the foul taste of bile. I barely make it to the latrine house before I retch.
When there is nothing left inside me and my belly feels like a rag wrung dry, I return to the faucet, splash water over my face, retrieve the pail and wait for it to be refilled, my head lolling with fatigue and pounding with the rhythmic certainty of the pestle.When I enter the house, Moussa has already dragged the bathtub over the bare concrete floor into the centre of the living room. He sits in near darkness, with only a small towel to hide his nakedness, listening to the radio and smoking a cigarette.
I shuffle to the kitchen, take the large pan from the shelf and place it on the burner. I fill the pan from the bucket, the strain of lifting it above m
y waist causing me great discomfort. I turn on the gas, take the matches and attempt to strike one with hands that will not stop trembling. After several attempts, the match ignites and I leave the water to heat. As I make my way through the living room, Moussa rises from his chair and steps out in front of me, the towel sliding to the ground. I sidestep him quickly, without looking at either his manhood or his loathsome face and the smirk that I know it will be wearing. He laughs as he moves towards the door. I make another journey to the faucet. And another. And another. When I am satisfied that the bath is full enough, I begin to add the hot water. As I carry pan after steaming pan from kitchen to living room, I find myself thinking sinful thoughts; of vengeance, retribution, but push them quickly to the back of my mind. I pour the scalding water into the tub and dip my hand in to mix it. I am in no doubt that Moussa will complain: it is not warm enough, not full enough, or there has been grit in the bucket, but I am too exhausted to do more.
I kneel beside the bath, submerge my broken hand in the water and draw the other slowly backwards and forwards across the surface. For a moment, I consider submerging my head too; imagine sucking the water deep into my lungs and escaping this place forever.
The sound of the bedroom door banging shut brings me to my senses and I gather up the empty buckets and pans as Moussa enters the living room again. He does not thank me and I do not wait to see if my preparation is to his satisfaction. I return the buckets to their place outside by the faucet and then, having rinsed the cooking pans, take them back inside to Doodi’s kitchen. When I have stacked the utensils neatly, I pass quietly towards the main entrance once more, eager to return to the storehouse and my stained bedroll; to embrace sleep and so, hopefully, begin the long process of healing.
I stop at the main door, aware of the sound of snoring. I look back over my shoulder and, through the gloomy light of the kerosene lamp to see that my husband has fallen asleep in the now filthy water; his head tilted back against the lip of the bathtub, his mouth open, his jaw slack, his scrubbed skin strained taut around his windpipe. For a moment, I think that I may vomit again.
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