The Girl with the Louding Voice

by Abi Daré

  “The UK,” he say, smiling soft, showing white teeths in straight line. “London.”

  “Then why you don’t look yellow like them?” I ask.

  He strong his face, then laugh ha-ha. “You must be Idowu’s daughter,” he say. “What is your name?”

  “Adunni is the name, sah.”

  “You are just as pretty as she was at your age.”

  “Thank you, sah,” I say. “My mama have travel far to greet Iya, her old friend that is living in the next village. Till tomorrow before she is coming back. I can keep your message.”

  “Now that’s a shame,” he say. “Can you tell her Ade came back to look for her? Tell her that I didn’t forget her.”

  After he climb inside his car and was going, I keep thinking, who is this man, and how he knows my mama? When Mama return and I tell her Mr. Ade from the Abroad of the UK come and see her, she shock. “Mr. Ade?” she keep asking as if she deaf. “Mr. Ade?”

  Then she was starting to cry soft because she didn’t want Papa to hear. It take me another three weeks to be asking her why she shock and cry. She tell me that Mr. Ade is from a rich family. That many years back, he was living in Lagos, but he come to Ikati to be staying with his grandmother for holiday season. One day, Mama was selling puff-puff and Mr. Ade buy some. Then he just fall inside love with her. Big fall. She say he is her first man-friend, the only man she ever love. The two both of them was suppose to have marry theirself. But my mama didn’t go to school, so Mr. Ade family say no marriage. When Mr. Ade say he will kill hisself if he didn’t marry Mama, his family lock him inside aeloplane and send him to the Abroad. After Mama cry and cry, her family force her to marry Papa, a man she didn’t ever love.

  And now, my own Papa is wanting to do the same to me.

  That day, Mama say, “Adunni, because I didn’t go to school, I didn’t marry my love. I was wanting to go outside this village, to count plenty moneys, to be reading many books, but all of that didn’t possible.” Then she hold my hand. “Adunni, God knows I will use my last sweat to be sending you to school because I am wanting you to have chance at life. I am wanting you to speak good English, because in Nigeria, everybody is understanding English and the more better your speaking English, the more better for you to be getting good job.”

  She cough a little, shift herself on the floor mat, keep talking. “In this village, if you go to school, no one will be forcing you to marry any man. But if you didn’t go to school, they will marry you to any man once you are reaching fifteen years old. Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.”

  That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice . . .

  I want a louding voice.

  * * *

  “Papa?”

  He is sitting in the sofa, keeping his eyes on the tee-vee, looking the gray glass face of it as if it will magic and on itself so that he can be watching the elections news.

  “Papa?” I move to his front. It is nighttime now and the parlor is having dim light from the candle sitting on the floor, the white of the stick is melting itself and making a mess beside the sofa leg.

  “It is me, Adunni,” I say.

  “My eye is not blind,” he say, speaking Yoruba. “If the food is ready, put it inside plate and bring it come.”

  “I am needing to talk to you, sah.” I low down and hold his two legs. My mind is shocking at how his leg keep thinning more and more since Mama have dead. Feel as if I am grabbing only cloth of his trouser leg.

  “Please, Papa.”

  Papa is one hard man, always stronging his face and fighting the whole everybody in the house, and this is why I was wanting Enitan to follow me come beg him. When my papa is in the house, everybody must be doing as a dead person. No talking. No laughing. No moving. Even when Mama was not dead, Papa was always shouting her. Long times ago, he beat her. Only one time. He give her one slap, swelling her cheek. He say it is because she talk him back when he was shouting her. That womens are not suppose to talk when mens are talking. He didn’t beat her again after that, but they didn’t too happy together.

  He look me down now, his forehead shining with sweat. “What?”

  “I don’t want to marry Morufu,” I say. “Who will be taking care of yourself? Kayus and Born-boy are boys. They cannot be cooking. They cannot be washing cloth and sweeping the compound.”

  “Tomorrow, Morufu will bring four he-goats to this compound.” Papa hold up four thin fingers and start to speak English: “One, two, ti-ree, four,” he say as spit fly from his mouth and land on my up lip. “He is bringing fowl too. Agric fowl, very costly. Bag of rice, two of it. And money. I didn’t tell you that one. Five thousan’ naira, Adunni. Five thousan’. I have a fine girl-child at home. At your age, you are not suppose to be in the house. You are suppose to have born at least one or two childrens by this time.”

  “If I marry Morufu, that means you are throwing all my futures inside the dustbin. I have a good brain, Papa. You know it, Teacher know it. If I can be finding a way to go to school, I can be helping you when I get a good job. I am not minding to go back to school and be old of all in the class, I know I can learn things quick. Soon, I finish all my educations, become teacher, and then I will collect monthly salary-moneys to build you a house, buy you a fine car, a black Benz.”

  Papa sniff, wipe his nose. “There is no moneys for food, talk less of thirty thousan’ for community rent. What will becoming teacher do for you? Nothing. Only stubborn head it will give you. And sharp mouth, because the one you are having is not enough, eh? You want to be like Tola?”

  Tola is Mr. Bada child. She is twenty-five years and look like a agama lizard with long hair. Mr. Bada send her to school in Idanra town and she is now working inside bank there and is having motorcar and money, but she didn’t find husband. They say she is looking everywhere for husband but nobody is marrying her, maybe because she is looking like a agama lizard with long hair or maybe because she is having money like a man.

  “She is having plenty money,” I say. “Caring for Mr. Bada.”

  “With no husband?” Papa shake his head, slap his hand two times. “God forbid. My sons will care for me. Born-boy is learning mechanic work at Kassim Motors. Very soon, Kayus will follow him. What will I do with you? Nothing. Fourteen years going fifteen is a very good age to marry.”

  Papa sniff again, scratch his throat. “Just yesterday, Morufu tell me that if you manage and give him a boy as first born, he will give me ten thousan’ naira.”

  A load roll on top my chest, join the other load that was there since Mama have dead.

  “But you make a promise to Mama,” I say. “And now you are forgetting the promise.”

  “Adunni,” Papa say, shaking his head. “We cannot be eating promise as food. Promise is not paying our rent. Morufu is a good man. This is a good thing. A happy thing.”

  I keep begging Papa, keep holding his leg and wetting his feets with my tears, but my papa is not hearing me. He keep shaking his head and saying, “This is a good thing, a happy thing. Idowu will be happy. Everybody will be happy.”

  * * *

  When Morufu come the next morning, and Papa call me to come and be thanking him for the fowl and he-goats, I am not giving them answer. I tell Kayus to tell Papa that my monthly visitor have come. That I am sick with pains in the stomach. I lie on my mat and use my mama’s wrapper to cover my head as I am hearing Papa and Morufu in the parlor, snapping open the cover of schnapps gin bottle and cracking groundnut.

  I am hearing them as Morufu is laughing loud laugh, talking in Yoruba about elections coming next year, about Boko Haram stealing plenty gi
rls from inside a school just last month, about his taxi business.

  I lie there like that, wetting my mama’s wrapper with tears, until the night is falling, and until the sky is turning to the black of a wet soil.

  CHAPTER 5

  Me and Enitan are in the backyard of our house behind the kitchen.

  She is doing the makeups testing for the wedding tomorrow, slapping white powder on my cheeks and pressing black eyespencil deep inside my eyesballs.

  Our kitchen is not like the ones I use to see inside tee-vee with cooking gas or anything electrics. Our own is just a space with three log of firewood under a iron pot and one white plastic bowl which we are using for kitchen sink. There is one short wood bench, the one I am sitting on top of now, a very handsome bench that Kendo, our village carpenter, builded for me with the wood from the mango tree in our compound.

  “Adunni, now you look like a real olori,” Enitan say to me now as she press the pencil inside my head as if she want to wound me. “The wife of the king!”

  I can hear laughing inside her voice, the joy of a friend that must be so prouding that she is doing wedding makeups. She push up my chin and press the pencil into the middle of my forehead, like those Indian people we see on the tee-vee in the village town center. Then, she draw the pencil on my eyesbrows, left and right, and paint my lips with red lipstick.

  “Adunni,” Enitan say, “I count one . . . two . . . and three, quick! Open your eyes!”

  I blink my eye, open it. At first I am not seeing the looking-glass Enitan is holding to her chest because of the tears inside my eyes.

  “Look,” Enitan say. “It is fine?”

  I touch my face here and there, say “Ah, ah,” as if I am very happy with how she make up my face. But the black inside my eyes is looking as if somebody elbow me on the eye.

  “Why are you looking sad?” Enitan ask. “You are still feeling sad to marry Morufu?”

  I try to give her a answer, but I think I will just cry and cry and not talk anything sense and mess up all the makeups she is putting on my face.

  “Morufu is a rich man,” Enitan say with a sigh, as if she is just tired of me and all my troubles. “He will be taking care of you and your family. What more are you finding in this life when you have a good husband?”

  “You know he have two wifes,” I manage to say. “And four childrens.”

  “And so? Look you,” Enitan say with laugh. “You are having luck to be marrying! Be thanking God for this good thing and stop all this nonsense crying.”

  “Morufu will not help me to finish school,” I say, my heart swelling so full up, it push the tears down my face. “Hisself didn’t go to school. And if I am not going to school, then how will I be finding a job and having money?” How will I have a louding voice?

  “You can worry, eh,” Enitan say. “School is not having any meaning in this village. We are not in Lagos. Forget about schooling this and that, marry Morufu and born fine, fine boys for him.

  “Morufu’s house is not far. I will be coming to play with you and go to the river with you when I am less busy from my makeupping work.” She bring out wooden comb from the pocket of her yellow-of-sun dress and start to be combing my hair. “I want to weave it in shuku style,” she say. “Then I put red beads here, here, and here.” She touch my head in the middle of my head, near my left ear, and behind my right ear.

  “You want it like that?” she ask.

  “Do it anyhow you want,” I say, not caring.

  “Adunni, the new wife of Ikati,” Enitan say, making her voice sound like a singing song. “Give me one big smile.” She dip her finger into the side of my stomach and twist it until a smile is crawling to my down-face, until I cough a laugh that pinch my chest.

  Afar off in our compound, beside the mango tree, Born-boy is putting a iron bucket into the well with a long, thick rope. The well, it was belonging to my grandfather-father. He builded it with mud and steel and sweat, and my mama, when she was not dead, she was telling me story of how my grandfather-father kill hisself inside the well. He just fall inside one day as he was fetching water. For three days, nobody knows where he was. Everybody was finding him, looking inside the forest, the farm, the village square, even the community mortuary, until the well was starting to give foul odor of rotten egg and somebody mess. The day they find my grandfather-father’s body, it have swell up as if his leg, nose, stomach, teeths, and buttocks is all pregnants at the same time. The whole village, they mourn him, wailing cry and beating their chest for three days. As I am watching Born-boy now, small part of me is wishing he will fall inside the well so that the wedding will cancel. But that is bad way of thinking of my brother, so I change my mind.

  Born-boy draw the water and set the bucket down and wipe sweat from his eyesbrow as Papa is pushing his bicycle with one hand and holding a green rag in his second hand. He is even wearing his best trouser cloth, the blue ankara with drawings of small red boats on it, looking as if he is going to visit a king. Born-boy lie flat on the ground, forehead touching the sand to greet Papa, before he collect the rag from Papa and is starting to shine the bicycle. Enitan put the comb inside my hair, cut the portions, and start to comb it fast and hard.

  “Ye,” I say, feeling the pinching from my hair to inside of my brain. “Slow your hand, jo.”

  “Sorry,” Enitan say as she press my head down and begin to plait the hair. After the first line, I up my head. Born-boy have finish shining the bicycle. Papa spit on the floor, rub the spit inside the sand with his feets, before he jump on his bicycle and ride out of the compound.

  * * *

  When Enitan finish the makeups and hair and I wash off the nonsense on my face, I stay in the same place outside the kitchen, sitting on the same bench, tearing green leafs off a stick of corns, plucking the seeds into a bucket.

  I been like this since middle of afternoon, and the moon is now so high up in the sky, the night hot and stiff. My back feel like a shell of egg about to crack and my fingers are corn yellow and sore and I want to stop the plucking, but the plucking is keeping my mind from running up and down, from thinking too much.

  When the bucket is nearly half full, I shift it to one side, stand to my feets, and stretch myself until my back make a click, and then I pour a bowl of cold water into the bucket before I cover it with a cloth.

  Tomorrow morning, Aunty Sisi, who is always cooking for peoples in our village, will come to our house. She will mix the soaking corn with sweet potato and sugar and ginger and grind it all together to make a kunu drink for the wedding.

  I kick off the rest ten sticks of corn to one side, not minding that the floor is full of red sand. If she wants more corn tomorrow, then she can peel it herself. Not me. My fingers feel too sore, and my body is crawling with the white, thin hairs of the corn, feel like little snakes climbing up and down my whole body.

  I find Papa in the parlor, snoring, his cap perching on his nose. Three cartons of small stout, gifts for the wedding, are sitting by his feets. One of the cartons is missing a bottle, and I see it rolling on the floor beside a stick of a burning candle, dark and empty. I wait a moment, thinking to talk to Papa one more time, to try and maybe make him think sense before tomorrow, but I think of the corn soaking outside, of the big yams inside the kitchen, the bag of rice and red peppers, of the two agric fowl and four he-goats in the back of the house.

  I think of Aunty Sisi, of Enitan and of all the other peoples who will be coming here early tomorrow, wearing costly dress and shoe and bag because of me. I look the stout bottle by Papa’s feets and sigh, low myself to the floor by the parlor door, and blow out a breeze on the candle to kill the fire.

  I leave Papa by hisself in the dark, and when I reach my room, I off all my dress, shake it for the rest of the corn hairs, and keep it to dry on the window.

  I tie a wrapper around my chest and lie down on the mat near Kayus. I try to put m
y head down on the mat to sleep, but my whole head be breathing by hisself, feel as if Enitan pump hot air inside my head when she was plaiting it to cause a wicked pounding. I sit with my back to the wall and listen to the wind hissing soft outside. Sometimes, I want to be just like Kayus, to have no fear of marrying a man, to not have any worry in this life. All Kayus ever worry about is what food to eat and where he can kick his football. He don’t ever worry about no marriage or bride-price money. He don’t even worry about schooling because I been the one teaching him school since all this time.

  Enitan say that Morufu have a house. A real working car. Plenty food to eat, moneys to be giving Papa and Kayus and even Born-boy. Money for Kayus is a good thing. I can try, like Enitan say, to be happy.

  I stretch my lips, force it to smile. But my chest feel full of birds flapping their wings inside of it. The birds are pounding their feets and pecking their beak and I want to cry so loud and beg the birds to stop making my heart to jump. I want to shout at the night and tell it never to become a tomorrow, but Kayus is sleeping like a baby, and I don’t want to wake him, so I take the edge of cloth, make it like a ball, and bite on it hard and taste the corn from this afternoon and the salt of my tears.

  When my spirit cannot cry any more tears, I spit the cloth from my mouth, sniff up my nose. Tomorrow will come. Nothing I can do about that. I lie down and close my eyes. Open it again. Close it. Open it. There is a sound beside me, a shaking. Kayus?

  I sit up, touch him soft, say, “Kayus, everything all right?”

  But my baby brother, he just slap off my hand as if I pinch him with two hot fingers. He pick hisself up from his mat, kick off his slippers from the floor, and run outside in the dark before I can think to ask him what is chasing him.