The Girl with the Louding Voice

by Abi Daré

  “Adunni?” Khadija open her eyes slow, look around the place, and wipe spit from her mouth. “I am waking up. This is the place. Let us come down.”

  “You doing fine?” I ask. The twisting in my stomach stop a moment as I wipe her face with my hand. “I was fearing you were sleeping too deep. You feeling well?”

  “Very well,” she say, collecting my hand. “Follow me.”

  Together, we climb out from the bus and walk, her stopping and moaning, me telling her to try keep going, until we cut across the bus garage, pass the singing woman in front of her shop, and find ourselfs on one road. There is a guava tree on the side of the road, and one brown goat with red thread on his neck is eating the grass around the root of the tree. The goat look up, see us as we are coming, tear a grass, and run away. Khadija stop, rest herself on the guava tree, the fruit on top of the tree dropping low to near her head, looking yellow, ripe for plucking.

  “You want to sit down?” I ask, putting her bag on the floor. “Rest yourself.”

  Khadija bend herself until she is sitting on the tree root. “I will wait here for you.” She point a shaking finger the round house in the afar. “Cross this road and go to that house with red door. Knock it three times. If a woman open it, tell her you are selling leafs, then turn back and come here. But if is a man that open it, tell him you ask for Bamidele. Tell him Khadija send you. Bring him come to me.”

  I strong my face, confuse. “Where is the midwife’s house?” I ask. Bamidele is the name of a man. I never see a man-midwife in my life. “Khadija?”

  There is new sweat on her forehead now, beads of water spotting her up lip.

  “Please don’t ask too much questions now,” she say. “If you want my baby to not die, please go and ask for Bamidele. Tell him . . . Ah, my back, Adunni. My back is paining me.”

  I give her a long look, wonder again why I follow her come. Why didn’t I stay in Ikati and mind my own matter? But Khadija help me with the drink for not having pregnant, she keep my mind free of worry in Morufu’s house, she fight Labake for me. And if she die here, everybody will say I kill my senior wife. They will say jealousy make me carry her to Kere village and kill her dead and leave her by a guava tree. They will kill me too, with no question, because in Ikati, they kill anybody that kill or anybody that steal.

  I remember when one farmer, Lamidi, he kill his friend because of farmland fight, and the village chief tell his servants to be flogging Lamidi seventy lashes with palm frond in the village square every day until he have die dead. They burn his body after he finish dying. No burial. They just throw his black body inside the forest, a burning offering to the gods of the forest.

  I carry my legs and cross the road quick, hurrying my feets until I reach the front of the clay house.

  When I look back, Khadija raise her hand and wave me bye-bye.

  The door is the red of blood, angry-looking. I fold my fingers and knock it one time. No answer. I can hear something inside, somebody is hearing radio, the morning news in Yoruba.

  I knock again.

  The door open slow. I find myself looking a man. He is tall, young, fine-looking. He is wearing a trouser cloth, no shirt on top. No shoes on his feets too. Radio inside his hand.

  “I am looking for Bamidele,” I say. “Is it you?”

  He off the radio with one button on the side of it. “Yes, I am Bamidele. How can I help?”

  I keep my voice low. “Khadija. You know her?”

  His face shift, and he look back inside his house as if checking sure nobody is coming. “What happen to her?” he ask.

  “She say I should call you come,” I say. “She is sitting afar off. Not well.”

  “Not well?” He strong his face. “Wait.”

  He close the door.

  I stand there, shifting on my feets, feeling much confuse. Who is this Bamidele man? What he and Khadija have with theirselfs? And why she tell me she is going to see midwife, and she tell Morufu she is going to see her mother? The door open again, cut my thinking. The man is wearing a shirt now, matching material with his trouser. “Take me to her.”

  We walk small, run small, until we reach Khadija. There is much sweat on her face now, and she is turning her head this way and that. I stand to one corner, and the man, this Bamidele, he kneel down, take Khadija’s hand.

  “Khadija,” he say. “It is me. What happen?”

  Khadija open her eyes, a struggle. She tilt her lip, as if she want to smile. “Bamidele,” she say, talking whisper so low, I am bending my head to hear what she is saying.

  “The baby is giving me trouble,” she say. “I am afraid I will die.”

  Bamidele wipe her face with his hand and I shock. Look around the areas. Who see us? There is nobody on the streets, only that goat is in the afar, bending its two back legs, doing hard shit; small black balls falling like bullets of rain from his buttocks.

  What is this man thinking he is doing, touching Khadija’s face like that? Didn’t he know Khadija is another man’s wife?

  “Aya mi,” he say. “You won’t die.”

  He mad? Why is he calling her “aya mi,” “my wife”?

  “Khadija,” I say, “what is this man talking all this nonsense for?”

  Khadija don’t give me answers. Is as if she is not even hearing me. So I stand there, looking like a big fool, waiting for the thing I am finding to find me.

  “The baby is pressing to come out,” she say to the man. “I am afraid that if I born it, it will die. Remember the curse you tell me about? The ritual me and you must do before the baby is reaching nine months?”

  What curse? Which ritual? I stamp my feets, feeling more and more confuse, angry. Why are they talking like this? Making no sense?

  Bamidele nod his head yes. “We can go today,” he say. “Together. Me and this girl will carry you.”

  He throw me one look, and I step back. Which girl is he talking? Not me. I am not following anybody to go and do anything stupid ritual.

  “I am going back to Ikati,” I say.

  “Please,” Khadija say. “Help me. My strength is finishing now, I cannot even stand. You and Bamidele must carry me to go and do this thing.”

  “Tell me what happen first.” I eye the man up and down as if he is smelling of a spoiling something. “Who is this man to you?”

  The man push hisself to his feets. “You are who to her?” he ask.

  “She is my iya ile,” I say. “I marry Morufu after her.”

  “Ah,” he say. “Adunni.”

  How he knows my name?

  “Khadija tell me about you,” he say, giving a sad smile. “She say you are a good person. Good girl. She say you—”

  “Talk sense please,” I say. I don’t have time to be hearing about my good self when Khadija is looking as if she is inside a bus of death.

  “Khadija is my first love,” Bamidele say. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” I say. How will she tell me? Is this Bamidele having foam in his head instead of a brain?

  “Five years back, me and Khadija was doing love. Real love. We suppose to marry ourselfs,” he say, “but her father fall sick, so he sell Khadija to Morufu to help them. Me, I didn’t have money that time. It pained me that they carry my love and give her to old Morufu, but I take it like a man. I leave Ikati, come and settle here in Kere to do my welder work. After four years of marrying Morufu, Khadija come and find me. She say she love me. Me and her, we begin our love again.”

  He drop his head, look her as she is twisting with pain on the floor. When he look me back, tears is shining in his eyes. “That baby in her stomach is for me. It is a boy inside. I know it.”

  “Help me,” Khadija say, talking so weak now.

  “Which ritual are you saying she must do?” I ask. “In which place?”

  “In my family, we have a curse,
” Bamidele say. “We must wash every pregnant woman inside the river seven times before the baby is reaching nine months. If the woman didn’t do this, she will die with her baby as she is borning it.

  “In my family, we don’t born many girls. All our womens always born boys. As I am like this, I have six brothers. I know that she is carrying my baby inside her stomach, that it is a boy-child, my son.”

  He sigh a sad sigh. “Kere river is not far from here. She can use that one. I have one special black soap she will use. I have it in the house. But let us take her first. Help me.”

  I look Khadija. “Is it true what this man is saying? The baby is not for Morufu?”

  “It is true,” she say. “This baby is for Bamidele. Morufu is a foolish, wicked man. He wants boy-children, but he cannot give me pregnant for boys. So I come to Bamidele, and he help me with a boy. But because of this curse, I cannot born the baby until I baff . . . but now the baby is wanting to come out, so I must be quick to . . . Carry me up, please.”

  I keep my feets to the ground. “Khadija, why will you give another man’s baby to Morufu?”

  Khadija throw her head left and right, twisting her face.

  Bamidele look me, worry in his eyes. “We must go quick,” he say. “Take her hand there and let me take it here. When I count one, two, three, we lift her up.”

  “I am not doing ritual,” I say, folding my hand on top my chest, feel it beating fast. “Let us just carry her to the midwife. The midwife will help her. The midwife will—”

  “She will die!” Bamidele shout so sudden, the goat in the afar stop his shit, take off, and run.

  “Please,” he say, voice down. “This thing is in our family for many years. I know people who die because they didn’t do this baff. Even my mother, when she was pregnant of me and my six brothers, she do the baff. We must be quick.”

  I don’t like this ideas at all. I don’t like that Khadija bring me come here and put me inside this nonsense mess with her. But she look as if she about to die, and if it will save her, then I must be helping her. I must. I think back to when I first come to Morufu’s house, how Khadija will wipe my crying tears every night and give me pepper soup to drink. How, even when she was feeling sick, she make a hot water for me to baff that day after Labake was breaking her clay pot.

  It was Khadija that make living with Morufu not so bad. Because Khadija was there, I been able to smile and laugh on many days. Now I must help her smile and laugh and see her baby boy too.

  I must.

  My heart is sounding boom in my ears as I bend down and pick Khadija’s hand. It feel like a ice block as I hook it around my neck. “Where is this river?”

  “Not far,” Bamidele say. “One mile walking.”

  “Why don’t we just take taxi or motorcycle?”

  He look around, shake his head. “I have a new wife,” he say. “What will people say if they see me with another pregnant woman inside a taxi or motorcycle?”

  I swallow the curse in my mouth. So the foolish man have a wife, and he also give Khadija pregnants? What was Khadija even thinking when she was doing all this? And how is she even sure she is carrying a boy-baby when the midwifes or the doctors have not check it?

  In Idanra town, which is not far from Ikati, there is one doctor there, he will come once in the month to help pregnant womens. I hear he have a magic eye-glass and tee-vee for checking if a baby is a boy or girl. I must ask Morufu to carry Khadija to the doctor.

  “We must go now,” Bamidele say. “We can take the back route over there.”

  He bend down on the other side of Khadija, pick up her hand. “One, two, three . . . carry her!”

  Together, we drag Khadija to where Bamidele say the river is.

  CHAPTER 15

  Khadija is warring with God for her soul.

  Me and Bamidele, we are holding her, begging her to be talking. To not be sleeping. I get to talking too, I talk to her about Mama, about Kayus and Born-boy, about Papa. I tell her more things that I want her to know, and things I am not wanting her to know. When I ask her, “You are still here? Khadija? You are still here?” she will make a moan, and I will get to talking again, saying anything that is entering my mind.

  I think of Death, how it come and take my mama and kill her dead.

  Death, he tall like a iroko tree, with no body, no flesh, no eyes, only mouth and teeths. Plenty teeths, the thin of pencil and the sharp of blade for biting and killing. Death is not having legs. But it have two wings of nails and arrows. Death can fly and kill the bird in the air dead, strike them from the sky and fall them to ground, scatter their brain. It can be swimming too, swallow the fishes inside the river.

  When it is wanting to kill a person, it will fly, keeping hisself over their head, sailing like a boat on top the water of the soul, waiting for when it will just snatch the person from the earth.

  Death can take form of anything. It clever like that. Today, it can take form of a car, cause a accident; tomorrow it can shape hisself as a gun, a bullet, a knife, a coughing-blood sickness. It can take form of a dry palm frond and flog a person until the person is dying. Like Lamidi the farmer. Or as a rope to squeeze all the life from a person, like Tafa, Asabi’s lover.

  Is Death following Khadija now? And if Khadija die, will it begin to be following me too?

  We take the path that Bamidele is showing us, the floor is so full of mud, it is sucking our feets inside it and we are fighting to pull it back out, making the walking even more hard for us, until I see the edge of water. I never feel so much hope in my life.

  “Khadija,” I say. “You do well, we have nearly reach.”

  She groan, a weak sound.

  “This is Kere river,” Bamidele say as we cut out from the path and find ourselfs in front of the river.

  The water is spreading out like a big field of glass, the top of it shining under the early-morning sun.

  There are two girls drawing water with their clay pot from the edge. One of them look up and see us, nod her head and continue to draw the water. One fisherman is paddling his canoe in the river, throwing the fishing net, spreading it like a peacock wing over the water.

  In my hand, Khadija slack herself. I slip on my feets, catch myself before me and her will be landing on the floor. Me and Bamidele, we make her to lie down. I make her bag a pillow and put her head on top it. I kneel down in her front, take the edge of my cloth, wipe her face.

  “Let us do the baff,” I say to Bamidele.

  Bamidele, he is sweating now too. He swing his head around the river, turn his face to me. “I will go and bring the special soap.”

  I look Khadija. Her eyes are closing.

  I pinch her, she open the eyes, close them back.

  “How long?” I ask him. I don’t want him to leave me and Khadija here, in front of a river, inside a strange village. “When you will come back?”

  “Soon,” Bamidele say, wiping his hand on the side of his trouser. “Five minutes.”

  “Too long,” I say. “Two minutes. Run quick and come back.”

  “I take a shortcut,” he say. “Off her cloth for me before I come.”

  “I am not offing her cloth,” I say. “How will I naked a pregnant woman by myself?” Part of me want to head-butt this Bamidele in the nose for talking like a fool. “I am not doing anything for her until you are coming back. You hear me?”

  “I am coming,” he say. He bend his head, say something to Khadija’s ear. She nod her head, be like ten minutes before her head move.

  Bamidele stand to his feets. “I am going now,” he say, and before I can talk anything, he turn around and start running back to the path we just come from.

  Just then, a thunder scatter boom from the sky.

  It is Death, making a announcement, giving us big, big warning.

  * * *

  Many minutes pass,
and Bamidele have not come back.

  I hold Khadija’s hand, counting the seconds, the minutes, and watching the river. The two girls by the water are helping each other, putting their clay pot on top each of their head. When they reach my front, they stop. They look like twins childrens. Their face is the same round of tomato, the same hole in their left cheek when they smile, but one of them is having skin the color of cocoa powder, and the other, her skin is the yellow-brown of fresh bread.

  “Is all okay?” the dark one ask, talking the way Kere people speak, clicking her tongue with every word she speak, making it a bit hard for me to be understanding.

  “What happen to her?” she ask. “You need help?”

  “She is sick,” I say. “I am waiting for”—I think a moment—“for the Babalawo. He will give her cure when he reach here. Thank you.”

  “May the gods be with her,” they say together as they walk pass my front.

  The sky have eat up the morning sun. Everywhere is gray, dark. The breeze is whistling, the air cold. I shiver, grind my teeths together. The fisherman have take his canoe and go far, far inside the river. Who will I call to help me?

  I wipe Khadija’s face again, her cool head. “How is the pain?” I ask. Fear have become a wall around my heart, it is wanting to squeeze my breath out, but because of Khadija, I am climbing the wall of fear and making myself strong. “You feel better?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she say, move her lip, as if she is thinking to smile. “The pain is going.”

  “Good,” I say. “Remember that lawyer song I been wanting to sing for you but didn’t able to because me and you been so busy with housework?”

  She don’t answer, but I keep talking. “I want to sing it for you now. I think you will like the song. Is a very sweet song, Khadija. You will hear it? Hello, fine girl . . .” My voice break a little, but I strong myself, keep singing:

  If you want to become a big, big lawyer