The Girl with the Louding Voice

by Abi Daré

  “How old are you?” I ask, looking her as she rest her back and put her hand on top the swell of her stomach.

  “I am twenty years,” she say. “I marry him when I was fifteen years, and I have three children for him, three girls that he didn’t want because they are girls. Is not a easy thing, to be wife of Morufu. If you want peace in this house, Adunni, don’t let our husband be angry. His anger is a evil spirit. Not good.”

  I am not liking it, the way she is saying “our husband,” as if it is title, as if she is saying “Our King.”

  “Cheer yourself,” she say. “Smile a smile, be happy. Now, follow me, let me show you everywhere in the house, because our husband is waiting for you. Tonight, you will become a true woman, and if God smiles on you, in nine months’ time, you will born a boy.”

  She push herself up and rub her back. Then she hold out her hand. “I think rain is coming. Can you hear it? Follow me, let me show you our kitchen.”

  The sky clap a thunder, and it feel as if it strike me, right inside of my heart. I collect Khadija hand as if I am collecting sorrows, then I am following her.

  CHAPTER 8

  The rain is coming down with anger, be like the roof of the kitchen is a drum, and the rain is drumsticks in God’s hand. Khadija is standing under the roof shade of the kitchen, pointing to the here and the there.

  “That is the kerosene stove,” she say, pointing at the iron stove in the left corner of the kitchen, her voice loud because of roaring rain noises. “For cooking food,” she say, as if anybody will use kerosene stove to cook a motorcar. “There is two of the stove. One for me and one for Labake. You can be sharing my own stove if you want.”

  “Thank you,” I say as I wrap my hand around my body and look around all the kitchen areas. There is the remainder of fish stew in a bowl on the floor, the bone of fish looking like a thin white comb inside of it. There is one small wooden chair beside the bowl, and on the floor, a raffia sponge with a cube of black soap melting inside it. The kitchen is not having a door, just a space and two wooden pillars holding the roof.

  Afar off, I see a door. One half of it is having paint, the other is just showing wood, as if somebody was painting it and he change his mind and leave it. Or maybe the paint is finish. The smell of old piss is rising over the rainwater smell and hitting my nose.

  “Baffroom?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she say. “You see the well at the front of the house? You fetch water there, cut from the kitchen here to go to toilet there. Everybody is using baffroom anyhow they are wanting it. Just use it as you want.” She say this as if it is wonderful thing, to be using baffroom as we want.

  “But I must tell you that our husband must be first,” she say. “Very early in the morning, once the mosque call for prayer, or when the cock crow, around five in the morning. After that, anybody can use it. Our husband must do everything first. If he has not eaten food, nobody can be eating. He is king in this house.” She smile stiff, keeping her eyes on me and holding it strong. No blink. I wait for her to say something more, but she clap her hands, say, “That is okay for one night. Let us go back inside now. This rain is much.”

  By the time we walk in the compound under the rain and go back inside the house, my cloth is wet of rainwater, my iro heavy.

  “Let me take you to our husband’s room,” Khadija say. We walk along the corridor, my shadow dancing behind Khadija as she is walking and swinging the lantern; pointing Labake’s room to the left, her own room to the right, and the room for all the childrens near her own.

  “Don’t ever enter Labake’s room,” she say, talking whisper. “One time, Alafia, my daughter, she go to her room to give her food. That witch, Labake, she beat my Alafia till the girl was almost bleeding. If you like yourself, don’t go near her room.”

  We reach the end of the corridor and stop in front of one door. There is a curtain over the door, smelling as if it need a strong washing with soap and water. Behind the door, I am hearing low whistling, a sneeze, something ruffle like paper.

  “This is our husband’s room,” Khadija say. “You will sleep here for three days. After that, me and you will share my room. Is okay?”

  “I am afraid,” I say, talking whisper. My heart is inside my stomach, and I feel like I want to vomit it out. “Please stay with me.”

  She laugh, and in the dark of that corridor, I am not even seeing her eyes again. Only a flashing of her teeths. “This is your first time of sleeping with men?”

  “I never see any man naked,” I say. “I am afraid.”

  “It is good honor,” she say. “To keep yourself for your husband. When you go inside there, and he is ready for you, close your eyes because that thing will pain you, but when it is paining you, you must think of something you like. What do you like?”

  “Mama,” I say as tears is filling my eyes and climbing down my cheeks. “I just want my mama.”

  She touch my shoulder, knock on the door two times, and drag herself away.

  * * *

  “Come inside, come inside.” Morufu is standing in my front, holding the door open.

  Behind him, I see two lanterns sitting on a newspaper on the floor beside one kerosene stove. There is a mattress on the floor, the box of my clothes resting on the gray wall.

  “Why are you just standing there, looking?” There is a carpet of hairs on his chest, thick and curling and gray. He step to one side, and I carry my leg, one after other, and enter the room, my nose twisting to sneeze at the smell of old siga smoke. Even with the two lanterns giving light, the room is like a burial coffin. As if it is going to close itself around me and squeeze all my life away. My breathings is rushing out fast, my heart running and turning, running and turning.

  “Join me on the bed,” he say as he climb the mattress, tilting it with his body, the spring inside creaking. He lie down, rub his stomach, belch out the smell of gin.

  “Why didn’t you dance today in your father’s parlor?” he ask, put his two hand behind his head and give me smile. “Sit down, sit down. Are you not too happy to be marrying me? I am not a wicked man, you know.”

  “I am feeling cold,” I say as I sit on the mattress. There is no bedsheet on top it, no wrapper to cover the foam where the mattress is tearing or having hole. My eyes catch a dark plastic bottle on the floor. It contain cuttings of a tree bark and green leafs inside dirty water. I try to read the words on the bottle, slowly, picking each word one by one: Fire-Cracker Bitters. Wake Up Sleeping Manhood.

  What is it meaning to have a sleeping manhood? And is Morufu drinking it because of me? Why?

  Fear lock me inside of itself. “My body is paining me,” I say. “I was inside rain with Khadija. It is making me cold. Please let us sleep now. Today I am feeling sick.”

  “I just finish drinking Fire-Cracker.” He laugh, shift for me on the mattress. “You know how petrol is for car? That is how Fire-Cracker is for a man’s body. It is making my whole body to stand. You want to drink small Fire-Cracker? It will chase away all the cold. Lie down, rest your back.”

  I shake my head no.

  “Come on, lie down for me,” he say, patting the bed two times. The mattress cough out dust, give that foul odor of a cloth that didn’t finish drying before folding and keeping inside wardrobe. When I am not giving him a answer, he call my name, voice sharp.

  “I am coming, sah,” I say. Vomit is climbing up my throat again as I lie down beside him. He shift close, put a hand on my stomach. I stiff.

  “Relax yourself,” he say. “Relax.”

  He put a hand on my breast, pinch and squeeze it hard through my buba. Then his breathing is louding, running fast, as he move his hand up and down my body as if he is trying to find something that is missing. When he pull off his trouser, I start to be crying, calling for Mama. He climb on top of me, shift my legs apart as if it vex him.

  A spit of light en
ter the room, a quick flashing from the window that fill the room with a strange blue-white glow. Is it Mama? Sending her light to suck up all the dark inside of Morufu?

  Mama, help me.

  I try to hold the light with my eyes, to keep it with me, but it is too quick, half of a blink and nothing.

  The pain is suddenly, it snatch my thinking, my breathing, and send me out from my body to the ceiling. I stay up there, watching myself as I am biting my bottom lip, scratching his back, fighting him with every of my strong. But it is useless, my power is not having power because Morufu is behaving as if a devil is inside of him. The more I am fighting, the more he is pressing hisself inside me, pouring hot heat inside my under until he make a loud grunting noise and collapse hisself on top me. Then he roll off to one side, breathing fast.

  “You are now complete woman,” he say after small moment. “Tomorrow, we this do again. We keep doing it until you are falling pregnant and you born a boy.” He climb down from the mattress, wear his trouser, and leave me and my burning under alone in the room.

  I lie there with my tears running down the side of my face and into my ears as I am looking up the ceiling, looking the bulb with no light in the center of it.

  CHAPTER 9

  The early-morning air feel like a rope around my body.

  It is a too-tight, too-thick rope that been twisting around me all night, squeezing my head down to my both legs, making it hard to walk, to breathe, to think. I am wanting to just tear my whole body and throw it away as I am dragging myself from Morufu’s room.

  My under is on fire, feeling as if I sit on top a burning coal for many hours. I cannot remember many of what happen to me last night, my head is full of a dark cloth, blocking every of the evil Morufu was doing, until this morning when he say, “Adunni, go and bring me my morning food.”

  Afar off, in front of the kitchen, one cock is scratching the floor with his nails, scattering the red earth, his neck brown with dirty feathers. When it see me coming, he stop his scratching and greet me with a loud coo-koo-roo-koo.

  Two of Khadija’s childrens, their name have escape from my brain now, they run outside from the kitchen area, iron bucket dancing in their hands. It make me think of a time when I use to run to Ikati stream in the morning, laughing as I am going to fetch water for Papa, of a time when my mama was not dead.

  I wipe the tears running down my face as I reach the kitchen. Khadija is sitting on a wooden stool in front of the stove. The pot on the stove is boiling something that is making the cover clap.

  “Adunni.” Khadija raise her head, wave a fly away from her face. “Good morning.”

  “Your husband say I should bring morning food,” I say, searching for something to keep my eyes on, until I see the yam peels on the floor, the knife with wooden handle near the stove. The knife make me wonder evil a moment. Make me think, if I take that knife and keep inside my dress, then when Morufu want to rough me this night, I just bring it out and slice off his man-areas. “You are cooking something?” I take my eyes from the knife, hook it on her face. “Yam?”

  “Yes, fresh yam. Did you sleep well?” She tilt her head, look me up and down, as if she is finding what I have push down inside of me. “You have pain anywhere? You bleed blood?”

  Shame make itself a hand, squeeze my throat tight. “I bleed small blood,” I say. “In my under.”

  “I know how it feels,” she say, voice kind. “Ibukun powder is good for pain. When our husband leave for his work, I can boil hot water, press the part for you, and rub you some palm oil. The pain will go.” She look behind her shoulder, as if checking sure that nobody is coming. “He drink that Fire-Cracker?”

  I nod my head yes.

  She wave off another fly, shake her head. “First time he used it for me, I died five times and wake up again. He needs it to give him power for the bed-work. You will eat yam and onion?”

  “I want to wash my whole body,” I say. My body is smelling of a foul odor, the siga smell of Morufu, and my mouth is bitter, as if the bitter seed inside of me have full up and is now pouring into my mouth.

  “Go,” she say, pointing to the baffroom behind her head. “The children have put a bucket there with water for me. Use it. They will fetch another one for me.”

  The baffroom is a room of square shape, with walls that have green carpet grass climbing down it. There is a iron bucket full with water on the floor, the smell of piss strong in the air.

  I touch the water, draw my hand back with a shout. Is ice-cold, shock my skin. My whole body is shaking as I peel off my wedding cloth and hang it on the door. Dipping my hand inside the water and pouring it on myself, I begin, slowly, to wash the smell of siga and Fire-Cracker away from my body.

  When I finish washing myself, I lie naked on the cold, wet floor of the baffroom. I am afraid that if I come out, the morning and afternoon will pass too quick, and soon it will be nighttime, time for Morufu to fill me with his bitter fire. So I lie there and curl myself up like a worm and keep my eyes tight shut.

  Don’t cry, Adunni, I warn myself, don’t you never, ever cry for any nonsense foolish old man like Morufu.

  CHAPTER 10

  Since I been in this house nearly four weeks, my eyes have see things I can never wish for the worst of my enemy.

  There is a devil inside Morufu, a madness that come out when he drink that devil Fire-Cracker, or when one of the childrens is causing him to be angry.

  I have see him remove belt from his trouser and flog Kike and her sisters until their skin is bursting, until Labake and Khadija are begging him to not kill their childrens. There is a small devil inside Labake too, a devil that is only coming out when I walk in her front. Just two days back, early morning, after cock crow, I was baffing, taking time because it is the only time I am by myself, the only time I can be thinking sense, when Labake bang on the door and tell me come out because she want to baff quick before she is going to market. When I tell her that I am nearly finishing, that she should wait, she hiss a angry hiss, jam the door open, and drag me with my naked self outside in the open.

  Then she begin to pick sand from the floor and paint my body with it. I never feel shame like that. Khadija’s childrens gather around us and was laughing as Labake was using sand to scrub my body and curse me. I am giving her respect, so I didn’t fight back. When she finish beating me, she turn to the two of Khadija childrens and slap the laughters from their mouth.

  Khadija say I should bite Labake next time she try that kind of a thing. That respect is not answer to Labake’s madness. She say that before her stomach was swelling with this baby, that she and Labake will fight and fight until one of them is bleeding blood. She say next time, I must keep a bowl of red, hot pepper beside me in the baffroom so that when Labake come and find my trouble, I can pour the pepper in her face and bite her breast.

  Khadija make me feel a pinch of comfort in Morufu’s house. She keep to caring for me in between caring for her three childrens and the one swelling in her stomach. “Adunni, you must eat this yam,” she will say, giving me the bowl of yam and fish soup with a smile. “Eat it and be thanking God that we are having food to eat.” Or, “Adunni, come, let me put oil on your hair. You want me to wash it for you?” And I will say, “No, no, thank you, Khadija, I wash it myself.” Or, “How is that thing now with Morufu? Is it still paining?” And I will say no, it is no more paining me in my body, but in my heart and spirit and mind, the pain is never going away.

  Me and Khadija are sharing bedroom now, except of when Morufu call for me. It make things easy, sharing room with Khadija. When sad feelings are catching me in the night, Khadija will rub my back, her hand going around and around, as she is telling me to be strong, to be fighting to keep my mind. Sometimes, when her baby is kicking too hard on her stomach, I press my mouth to her hard stomach and sing a song to the baby inside until she and her baby will fall inside a deep sleep, and K
hadija say that when she born the baby, I must keep singing to him too, because the baby is already knowing my voice.

  Just yesternight, she was comforting me with her words. “When you begin to born your children, you will not be too sad again,” she say. “When I first marry Morufu, I didn’t want to born children. I was too afraid of having a baby so quick, afraid of falling sick from the load of it. So I take something, a medicine, to stop the pregnant from coming. But after two months, I say to myself, ‘Khadija, if you don’t born a baby, Morufu will send you back to your father’s house.’ So I stop the medicine and soon I born my first girl, Alafia. When I hold her in my hands for the first time, my heart was full of so much love. Now, my children make me laugh when I am not even thinking to laugh. Children are joy, Adunni. Real joy.”

  But I don’t want to born anything now. How will a girl like me born childrens? Why will I fill up the world with sad childrens that are not having a chance to go to school? Why make the world to be one big, sad, silent place because all the childrens are not having a voice?

  All night, my mind was busy thinking, thinking on the medicine Khadija was taking, on if I can stop my own pregnant from coming.

  This morning I find Khadija in the kitchen, where she is sitting on a bench by the stove and plucking ewedu leafs into a bowl by her feets.

  “Adunni,” she say, “good morning. You feeling good today? No more crying for your mama?”

  “I been thinking of what you say last night,” I say, my eyes on my feets, on my toesnails, which look like they need a clipping. “About childrens.”