by Abi Daré
So I sit there and listen: to the sound of his feet as it is kicking the door outside of our room.
Kick. Kick. Kick.
I listen to his voice, the sad and angry of it, as he is screaming my name over and over again. And I listen to Papa, who is shouting a curse from his sleep and telling Kayus to pick one: keep shut his noise-making mouth or come to the parlor to collect a nice, hot flogging. So I drag myself from my mat and find Kayus in the outside, sitting on the floor with his back to our bedroom wall. He is rubbing his left feet with his hands, rubbing and crying and crying and rubbing.
I low myself to him, pluck his hand from his feet and hold it tight. Then I pull him close, and together, we stay like that, saying nothing, until he fall into a deep sleep with his head on my shoulders.
CHAPTER 6
My wedding be like a movie inside the tee-vee.
My eyes was watching myself as I was kneeling down in front of my father, as he was saying a prayer to be following me to my husband house, as my mouth was opening, my lips parting, my voice saying “Amen” to the prayers even though my mind was not understanding what is happening to me.
I was looking everything from under the white lace cloth covering my face: the womens and mens standing in our compound under the mango tree, all of them wearing the same style of blue cloth with no shoe; the old man drummer holding a talking-drum under his armpit, pulling the rope on the side of the drum and banging a stick on the face of it, gon! gon! gon!; my friends Enitan and Ruka, laughing, dancing, singing. I was looking all the food: the palm oil rice and fish and yam and dodo; Coca-Cola and kunu and zobo drink for the womens, palm wine and schnapps gin and stout and strong ogogoro for the mens; bowls of choco-sweets for the small childrens.
My eyes was watching myself as Morufu was putting his finger inside a small clay pot of honey and lifting up the cloth to press the honey-finger on my forehead three times, saying, “Your life will be sweet like this honey from today.”
I keep looking, even when Morufu lie down and press his head to the floor in front of Papa seven times and Papa collect my hand, cold and dead, and put it inside Morufu’s own and say, “This is your wife now, from today till forever, she is your own. Do her anyhow you want. Use her till she is useless! May she never sleep in her father house again!” and everybody was laughing and saying, “Congra-lations! Amen! Congra-lations!”
My eyes was just watching myself, watching as the picture of schooling that I put on top a table in my heart was falling to the floor and scattering into small, small pieces.
* * *
As Morufu is driving his taxi-motor away from our compound, he is putting his hand outside the window and shouting, “Thank you-o! Thank you-o!” to the peoples lining the road to the left and right of us, waving us bye-bye and wishing us good home.
I am sitting beside him in the car, my head down to my chin, my eyes on the henna Enitan drawed on my hand this morning and thinking how it is resembling what my mind is feeling: plenty twisting and turning of a thin black road so that it is looking beautiful from the afar, but when you look it well, then you are seeing all the confusions.
“You feeling fine?” Morufu ask when there are no more peoples on the side of the road, when it is just trees and bushes on our left and right side; when, outside, the world is turning, and darkness is now where the sun use to be, and the sky is just a big blue cloth with plenty shine-shine holes inside it. A breeze is blowing my face, and another bride, a happy bride, will be full of smiles now, looking the stars and thinking how she is having lucky to be marrying. But me, I am keeping my head down, trying to be locking the tears behind my eyeslids so it will stay inside my eyes and not come out. I don’t want to cry in front of this man. I never, never want to show him any feeling of me.
“You are not answering me?” Morufu say, cutting the road to the left, and soon we are nearing the areas that is close to the village border. “Come on! Look me!”
I push up my head.
“Good, very good,” he say. “Because you are now a married woman. My wife. The other two wifes in the house, what is their name again? Yes, Labake and Khadija, they will be jealousing you. Khadija is having small sense, but Labake, she will want to make you to be sad. You will not allow her, you hear? If Labake do you anyhow, talk you one kind, call me and I will flog her very well.”
My head is not understanding why he wants to flog his wifes. Will he flog me when I do bad?
“Yes, sah,” I say. The stupid tears is not behaving hisself. It is running down my cheeks.
“Eh. Am I hearing your tears?” He remove the wedding fila from his head and throw it to the back seat.
“You are sad?” he ask and I nod my head yes, because I am praying it will make him pity me and he will slow down on one side of the road and tell me sorry, it is a big mistake and he is not wanting to wife me again, but he sniff his nose and say, “You better wipe that tears and begin to laugh. You know how much it is costing me to marry you today? You better open your teeth for me now and start to be laughing. Come on! Why are you looking at me? Did I kill your father? Are you deaf in the ear? I say OPEN!”
I open my teeths, feel as if I tear my face.
“Very good,” he say. “Be laughing. Be happy. A new wife is always happy.”
We are driving like two mad peoples, me showing my teeths, and him talking to hisself about how he was paying thousands and thousands of naira for bride-price until we pass the junction beside Ikati bakery, and the smell of rising bread is filling my nose and making me to think of Mama. We pass the village mosque, where there are peoples coming out from the iron gate of the mosque: mens wearing white jalabiya, holding prayer beads and plastic kettles, and womens covering their heads with hijab, all of them walking as if something is chasing them.
After nearly twenty minutes of driving from our house, Morufu cut a turn by Ikati canteen, drive enter inside a compound that is big like one half a football field, a cement house in the middle of it. The house is dark, no light in the four windows. There is no door in front, just a short wooden gate. In front of it, a curtain is flapping in the stiff evening wind. Morufu bring his car to a stop near a guava tree with branch that look like a man’s hand, the leafs on it spreading out over the compound like too many fingers on the hand. I see there is another car in the compound, green, a blue nylon bag instead of glass in one of windows in the back.
“This is my house. For twenty years, I build it myself,” Morufu say. He point to the other green car. “That is my other taxi-car,” he say. “How many people are having two cars in this village?” He jam his shoulder to the car door, push it open. “Come down and wait for me there,” he say. “Let me collect your load from the boot.”
I climb down from the car, kick one or two rotting guava on the floor from my path. My ears pick a noise from the house, the sound of a door opening and closing itself. A woman, thick in flesh and round at the hip, as if she hide a paw-paw inside of her hips under the black iro she is tying around her waist, bring herself come out from the house. Her face is white, be like she mash up white chalk and use it as a powder. In her hand is a candle sitting on a plate, and under the dancing candle flames, she be looking like a ghost with hairnet.
She carry the plate of candle like a offering to one god, walking slow, her feets sounding as if she is marching on eggs-shells until she stop in my front.
“Husband snatcher, welcome-o,” she say to the candle, breeze from her mouth making the fire to sleep. “When I finish with you in this house, you will curse the day your mother born you. Ashewo.”
“Labake!” Morufu shout from behind the car, “You have started your trouble again? You are calling my new wife ashewo? A prostitute? I think you want to die this night. Adunni, don’t mind her-o. She is having mental problem. Her head is not correct. Don’t mind her!”
The woman, Labake, she hiss, drawing it, so that it is doing echo aro
und the whole compound, before she turn around and walk away, her buttocks rolling.
Me, I am just standing there, feeling a cold climbing up to my head, until Morufu come to my side. He drop my box on the floor, spit beside my feets, and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That is Labake, the first wife,” he say. “Don’t mind her at all, at all. All her talk is empty. Now, follow me inside, come and meet Khadija, the second wife.”
CHAPTER 7
I count six peoples in the parlor.
There is a sofa resting by the wall, a wood table in the middle of it with a empty cup sitting on top. The tee-vee in the corner beside the sofa is holding a kerosene lantern which is spitting dark orange light inside the parlor.
I throw my eyes around the womens first. There is Labake, the one with white face, standing near the tee-vee, slapping her stomach as if there is evil inside of it. Beside her, another girl. She look like half a adult, and is wearing long robe, a green-black color in the light of the lantern. I look her from the low-cut hair on her head to the swollen of her stomach. As if she is thinking I will use my eyes to be plucking her baby out from her stomach, she turn it from me and face the wall.
I look the childrens sitting on the floor, all four girls. They are blinking eyes at me as if I am tee-vee movie with too much flashing light. The most young of them look like she is one and a half years of age. All the girls are not wearing correct cloth. Only pant. Even the one with kola-nut-size breast is not wearing brassiere. I use to see that one at the stream, wearing just pant, dragging water inside clay pot. Me and her have play ten-ten before, long times ago.
Just then, her name enter my brain: Kike. She is fourteen. Same age of me. When she give me look as if she is shock of seeing me, I hook my eyes on the lantern on the tee-vee, on the flame of fire dancing inside the glass bowl.
“That is Khadija,” Morufu say, pointing to the tiny one with pregnant. “She look small, but she is still your second senior wife. Kneel down and greet her.”
As I kneel to greet Khadija, Morufu chase away the childrens. “Inside, all of you, inside,” he say, kicking their legs. “Up, up on your feets. Kike, Alafia, up, up. You have seen new wife enough! Inside to your mat. No noise today. No fighting if you don’t want to see my red eyes!”
The girls tumble on top each other, scatter away from the parlor.
“Labake, Khadija, sit down.” Morufu say. “Sit down, let me talk to all of you.”
Labake throw herself inside the sofa, fold her hand on top her chest. “We know what you want to say, so talk quick,” she say.
Khadija is not moving from where she is standing.
Morufu yawn and low hisself inside the sofa beside Labake. Under the lantern light, his skin is the rough of sandpaper and slack with aging old, the teeths in his mouth brown and bending left. I manage to count all five of it before he snap his mouth close. He must be around my papa age, maybe fifty-five, sixty years, but he look like Papa’s father.
“Adunni, this is your new house,” Morufu say. “And in this house, I am having rule. There is respect of me. I am the king in this house. Nobody must talk back to me. Not you, not the childrens, not anybody. When I am speaking, you keep your mouth quiet. Adunni, that means you don’t ask question in my front, you hear me?”
“Why?” I ask. “Where should I be asking you question? In your back?”
Khadija make a noise in the corner. As if she is fighting to hold a laugh.
“Adunni, you think I am making joke here? I hope your mouth will not put you in trouble,” Morufu say. He is smiling, but his smile is giving me warning. “You cannot be talking anyhow to your husband,” he say.
“I have special cane for flogging bad mouth. I don’t want to use that cane for you, you hear? Now what am I saying? This is your new house. I swear, I have gray hair before I marry my first wife. Why? Because I was busy making plenty money and learning my taxi business. First, I marry Labake, but she was not having any child. It is after we have sacrificed two goats for the gods of Ikati river that Labake was able to born one child, a girl.” He say this as if it is bitter something to remember, as if girls-childrens are a curse, a bad gift from the gods.
“Kike is her name. My first born. She is your age, Adunni. Since then, we have done many more sacrifice, but I think the gods of the water vexed for Labake. No another baby. I marry the second wife, Khadija. Big mistake! Big mess! Why? Because Khadija is having three girls: Alafia, Kofo, and I forget the name of the last born now. No boy. Adunni, your eyes are not blind, you can see very well that Khadija is carrying a new baby. I have warned her that if it is not a boy-child inside that stomach, her family will not collect food from me again. I swear I will kick her back to her hungry father’s house. Not so?”
“God is not wicked,” Khadija say to the wall. “This is a boy-child.”
“I want two boys,” he say. “If I have my boys, I will send them to school. They will become English-speaking taxi driver and make plenty money. Girls are only good for marriage, cooking food, and bedroom work. I have already find Kike a husband. I will use her bride-price to repair my car window, maybe buy more chickens for my farm, because I use too much plenty money to marry my sweet Adunni.
“But I don’t mind spending for my Adunni. I don’t mind at all! Now, you three wifes, all of you hear me well. I don’t want you to fight. Labake, mind yourself. You are always finding trouble. If you don’t give me peace, I will chase you out from my compound. I am getting old, I want peace. Let me see. How will three of you be sleeping with me?”
Morufu scratch his gray beard, pull out a hair, put it inside his mouth, and eat it. “Yes. We will do it like this. Adunni will sleep in my room for three nights in the week, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Labake for two nights, Wednesday and Thursday. You with the stomach, one night, Friday. Me, I will keep the last night to myself, to gather energy. Adunni is a new wife with young blood. She must born a boy-child for me. Not so, Adunni?” He laugh, but no one is joining him in the laughters.
Is he meaning to say we be sleeping on the same bed like a lovers? Is he wanting to see my naked? To do me the nonsense and rubbish things that adult people use to do? I shiver, put my hand around myself. Nobody ever see my naked. Nobody except of my mama. Even when I am baffing in Ikati stream, I am using the water as a cover-cloth, wrapping my whole body inside it. I don’t want Morufu with his rag face to be touching me. I don’t want a husband. I only want my mama. Why death collect her from me so quick? My eyes pinch with tears, but I bite my lip till I break the skin of it.
Morufu push hisself to his feets and remove the agbada he was wearing for the wedding. He is not a fat person, but he have a round stomach. It look hard too, like coconut. Maybe there is a disease inside it. I forget the name of it, but Teacher say, in class of Science, that this sickness is causing stomach to be hard when you are not pregnants and when you are not eating a balancing diets. I think Morufu is having this sickness.
“Khadija will show you the kitchen and baffroom and everywhere in the house. Nothing to be afraid of, you hear me?” he say. “Let me go and prepare myself for you. You have any question?”
I want to be asking if he can release me go back to my papa. I want to tell him to don’t touch me this night, or ever, ever. But I am shaking my head, shivering, shivering. The cold is colding me, even though Labake’s head is shining with sweat, and Khadija is using her hand to be fanning herself.
“No question, sah,” I say. “Thank you, sah.”
When Morufu leave us be, Labake stand up, tight her cloth around her waist, as if she is making preparations for a fight. “You and my Kike are of same age,” she say, eyes blinking fast. “Your dead mother and me, we are age-mates. God forbid for me to share my husband with my own child. God forbid that I am waiting for you to finish with my husband before I can enter his room. Ah, you will suffer in this house. Ask Khadija, she will tell yo
u that I am a wicked woman. That my madness is not having cure.”
She click her finger in my face, and push my chest so that I am falling inside the sofa. “I will suffer you till you run back to your father’s house.”
I shock so much, I start crying.
“Don’t cry,” Khadija say when it is just me and her in the parlor. She peel herself from the wall and come and sit down beside me. “Labake is just talking. She have a big mouth, but she will not do anything. No woman is happy to share her husband. Don’t mind Labake, you hear? Stop crying.” She put a hand on my shoulder, her touch soft. She is speaking better English than me even, and I think she go to school before they force-marry her for Morufu.
“Is not so bad,” she say. “Here, there is food to eat and water to drink. I am thankful for it, for the food.”
I look her face. Her eyes is far inside her head, as if she malnourish, and when she smile, her cheeks is swallowing her eyes so that it is almost disappearing. But I see a kind spirit in the deep of her eyes.
“I am just wanting my mama,” I say, talking whisper. “I didn’t want to marry Morufu. My papa say I must marry him because he pay our community rent.”
“Your own is even good. Me, my father give me to Morufu because of bag of rice,” she say. “After sickness have cut my father’s leg. You know diabetis sickness?”
I shake my head no.
“Sickness of sugar,” she say. “The diabetis bite his leg bad, and the doctor, they cut my father’s leg just here—” She put her hand on her knee and make a slice around it, as if she is cutting yam. “The hospital money is too much, and he cannot work again, so we are suffering to eat. At first, Morufu was helping us, but he soon get tired and he say he must marry me or no food. He buy my family five derica of rice, and my father bundle me into Morufu car and wave me bye-bye. We didn’t even do any wedding party like you.” She force a laugh, dry. “I was in school before that time, learning well. I have been here for five years now. Now he is saying he will not give my family food until I give him a boy-child. I am just tired of everything. I know this one is a boy-child so I can rest.”