by Abi Daré
“Adunni, our new wife,” Ruka say when she is reaching my front. “Where are you going?”
“To fetch water at Ikati river,” I say, talking as if all my breath is about to finish. I am standing up now and pointing my hand to the back of my head, where my house is far behind. “Our well is dry, so I need to keep water for, for tomorrow.” I try to force a laugh, but I know the laugh will turn itself to crying.
“See!” the girl with Ruka say. “Which kind of new wife is this one? Fetching water with no bucket in the rain?” I eye that one. She is looking like the fowl that jump inside my path, with her thin neck and long mouth like fowl beak. I don’t know her, why is she asking me question?
“Ruka, please leave this one alone,” she say, the fire of jealousy burning inside her eyes. “She thinks she is better more than the rest of us because she is a new wife.”
“Adunni,” Ruka say, “I keep telling you how fine marriage is making you look. Did Kike marry this morning? Is it true?”
“Yes,” I say as another thunder scatter the sky. “Thank you. Let me be going before this rain is starting.”
“We will come and dance for you too when you have a new baby!” Ruka say with a wink as she is walking away with her friend. “Bye-bye!”
“Bye-bye,” I say, but I don’t move, even after they go far, even after the rain is starting to fall. It is a heavy rain, the kind that is shaking the earth and causing the roofs of the houses to be sounding as if a mad person is playing mad music: banging pots, pans, and spoons together. The rain beat my hair, run down my face and into my mouth so that I can taste the coconut oil pomade from my hair, and the salt from my tears and the rainwater. The water is soaking my cloth, making me to be shivering in the middle of the path. I am thinking of what Ruka just say, about coming to dance with me when I have a new baby. Will my papa and Morufu be shocking with anger and surprise when they hear that I am missing? Will they think it is because I kill Khadija that I am running away? Will my papa be having heart pain because of me? Will they put my papa inside prison until they find me come? Or will Papa know that I am running away? And if they find me, will they hear what I am saying about Bamidele?
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and sniff up the catar from my nose. This decisions is too hard, and maybe I am not doing the correct thing. Maybe I can go back home and try to follow Papa to the village chief? But if I do that, they will kill me just like they kill Lamidi the farmer, and Tafa, Asabi’s love-boy, and other peoples I cannot remember now.
I think I must go first, then when Bamidele is finding hisself, I can try and be coming back. I take the edge of my dress, twist it and squeeze out the rainwaters, shake it to try and dry it, but the dress just gum his wet self to my skin and give me sneeze.
I pick up my running until I reach the market square. There is one light pole in the center, the golden-yellow beam is making the wet cement floor to shine like glass. In the center of the square, there is gray stone statue of our village king on his throne. His stone eyes is wide-open, and he is holding a big stick, as if he is watching the whole place for thiefs . . . for me.
The rains have stop, but the sky is the black of coal, and the market stalls are empty. All the sellers of tin-milk and sardines, of garri and maize, even the mens that are selling electronics like tee-vees and DVDs, they have leave the place. The mallams that always use to sell suya too have run for shelters. The smell of the dry meat, frying onions, and pepper is still inside the air, making hunger to be vexing my stomach.
I cross the market square and cut to the village border. There is another statue of the king, like the one in market square, only this one, the king is holding the sign that is saying: BYE-BYE TO IKATI. THE VILLAGE OF HAPPYNESS. If you look the sign from the back of it, from where the express is turning inside our village, it is saying: WELCOME TO IKATI. THE VILLAGE OF HAPPYNESS. Today I am facing the side that is saying bye-bye with no any happyness.
I see one woman selling akara in a pot of black, hot oil, under a red umbrella. She is talking to the akara, speaking in Yoruba, telling the beans-cake to be sweeting itself and bringing customers even though the rains have chase them all away.
When she see me, she wipe the sweat from her forehead into the oil, and it make a sssh noise, causing black smoke to be rising in the air and pinching my eyes. “You want to buy akara?” she ask.
Hunger is flogging me, but I am not having the mouth to eat anything.
“No,” I say. “Thank you. No any moneys to buy.”
She strong her face, using her eyes to climb from my feets to my head. “If you don’t have money to pay for this good food, go away from here and let better customer come.”
Just then, I hear a voice calling my name; rough, the voice of a siga smoker.
I feel a hot thing running to my head. Who knows me this far from my house? I turn around. Mr. Bada. He is wearing a blue kaftan which is tighting his body. His round, fat head, which didn’t have any hair, is shining in the dark as if he use oil to polish it.
“Good evening, sah,” I say, kneeling down to greet him.
“You want to buy akara?” he ask as he put his hand inside his kaftan pocket and bring out a bundle of money, pull out two twenty-naira note of money and give it to the woman. “Madam, give me six for my Adunni here. She is my friend’s daughter. She married Morufu the taxi driver. She is a new wife. Young wife.”
The woman didn’t even do as if she can hear him as she is collecting the money and folding it three times before she push it deep inside her brassiere.
“Thank you, sah,” I say.
“Get up, child,” he say. “What are you doing here in this rain?”
“I am going,” I cough out words sticking to my throat, “to the next village.” Foolish girl, I think to myself. Why are you telling him where you are going?
“To do what?” Mr. Bada ask. “Where is your husband?”
“My husband, he send me to go and collect car spare part from one workshop.”
“Your husband should send another person in this rain,” Mr. Bada say as the woman pack six balls of akara with the spoon, shake all the oil back inside the pot, and wrap it inside one old newspaper for me.
“Yes, sah.” My hand is shaking as I collect the newspaper bag of my food. “My husband will be picking me from the place. Thank you, sah.”
“Good,” he say. “Go well. Greet your husband for me. You hear?”
This time, I don’t stop my running until I reach the next village, until I reach the place where Iya was telling me to come to her if I am ever needing her help.
CHAPTER 19
Iya is living in a face-me-I-face-you house in Agan village, which is the village that is sharing border with our own. She live in one room that is facing another person’s room. The room after her own is facing another room. Like that, ten rooms are facing each other, five on the left, five on the right, with a long, thin corridor in the middle.
By the time I reach Agan village border, the night is dark, the moon is a curving of bright yellow light in the sky. The rains visit Agan too, the wind is still blowing cold air on my body, and I am still doing sneeze. The market square in Agan border have more light poles than Ikati, and it is full of peoples selling zobo drink, mobile of telephone recharge card, bread, and suya.
Mens and womens are talking, laughing, buying, and selling as if there is no end of day for them. Even some of the sellers’ childrens are playing in rainwater by the market stalls. There is one motorcycle under a guava tree across the market square. I walk to the place and see the driver sitting on the floor, his back pressing the tree. There is a chain from his left ankle to his motorcycle, maybe to stop thiefs from stealing it when he is sleeping. There is small gold padlock on the chain where it join his ankle to the motorcycle. He is wearing a t-shirt and a jeans-trouser, and his snoring is rising to reach me over the night noises.
“G’evening, sah,” I say, making my voice to rise. “I am wanting to go to Kasumu Road. Sah. It is you I am greeting. Why you are not answering? Excuse, sah?”
When he don’t give me answer after I am calling him three times, I kick his leg, and he is trying to jump up, but he is falling back down because the chain is pulling him back.
“You are crazy,” he say. “Why are you kicking me like that when you see I am sleeping? You don’t have elders in your house?”
“Sorry, sah,” I say. “I was waking you since but you didn’t give me answer. I want to go to Kasumu Road.”
He put his hand inside his pocket and bring out a small key, open the padlock. “Fifty naira for this time of night,” he say as he pull the motorcycle from the tree, jump on top of it, and put fire to the engine. “You are coming or not coming?”
“Please, sah,” I say. “Fifty naira is much for me. Twenty naira?”
“I swear, after the kicking you give me, you suppose to pay three hundred naira,” he say. “Jump on top. I will carry you because of God.”
“Thank you, sah.” I climb, sit in his back, put my nylon bag inside my lap, and hold tight my breath because his body is smelling like cow manure.
As he is driving through the village, I am seeing lines of houses with iron roof sheets, beer parlors with green and red lightbulbs in the outside, mens with fat stomachs squeezing theirselfs inside small wooden benches outside the beer parlor, drinking, laughing, playing bang-bang music.
At the turning to Kasumu Road, I am seeing shadows of light in the windows of Iya’s house and I am hoping that Iya will help me. That she will remember what she say to me that long time ago, when I bring her food. That she will have a kind heart and keep me in her house for a small time.
I pay the man, climb down from the back of his motorcycle, and release one long breath. I walk into the compound, passing the long corridor, which is having one lightbulb in the ceiling that is offing and onning itself as if the electric in it is having problem.
At room number two, I knock on the door. “Iya,” I say, “it is Adunni behind the door. Adunni, the only daughter of Idowu, puff-puff seller from Ikati village.”
Nobody answer.
I knock it again, tighting my fist and banging it harder. “It is me, Adunni. From Ikati.”
Still, no answer. Now I feel like I want to piss and shit at same time and I press my hand in between my legs.
If Iya don’t open this door, where will I sleep this night? The market square? I think of that driver and his body smell, and spit is filling my mouth and tears is standing in my eyes as I am knocking and knocking and knocking, but nobody is answering me. I am crying, big loud cry that is tighting my chest and coughing my throat. I am thinking I have make a big, big mistake. How was I thinking that this is a good ideas? Why sometimes I do foolish, stupid things like this? I am crying so plenty that I didn’t hear it when the door in my front have open.
I wipe my eyes. The door is open but nobody is there. I look down, and I see Iya sitting on the floor.
“Adunni,” she say, and her voice is thin, like it is inside a container with a tight cover on top it. Her two legs are in front of her, looking like cable wire. There is a walking stick on the floor, next to the legs, and I am thinking she didn’t eat any food since the last time I bringed food to her because her neck, leg, face, and chest is the thin of a stick. There is no hair on her head too, only patch of gray hairs in the middle of it. She is tying a cloth across her chest, and when she is breathing, her chest is climbing up, down, up, down, sounding as if somebody is sucking hot tea from a cup. Nobody needs to tell me that Iya is more sick than even Mama was.
I kneel to greet her. “G’evening, Iya,” I say. “Am I waking you with my knocking?”
“Ah, Adunni,” she say. “I hear you are knocking, and I am getting up from my bed, but it is taking long because I have to carry and bring my dead legs with me.” Her skin is dragging back on her forehead as she is talking. Her two eyes are open, but she is not looking me. Her eyes are finding something else behind my back.
“What is bringing you to me at this time? Have the rains scatter your house?”
“I am needing your help, ma,” I say. “I am inside deep trouble in the house.”
“Come inside.” She use her buttocks to drag herself back as she open the door wide for me. “We are having half current, so no ’lectricity light inside here. Look to your left, there is a kerosene lantern over there.”
The smell of kerosene is thick in the air as I enter. My eye cut to the window, and I cross the room, collect the lantern from the floor, and on the lamp. As I am holding the lantern up and looking the whole place, my heart is falling. There was a box tee-vee, wardrobe, chair, and fan before, but now, is only mattress on the floor and one blue kerosene stove behind it. Two or three cloths are hanging on one kind wooden handle behind the mattress and that is it.
The two both of Iya’s eyes are wide-open and stiff, and when I go to sit on the floor behind the door, she is not using her eyes to follow me. She is just looking the window and talking.
“Ma binu,” Iya is saying. “Don’t be angry. I sell the chair last week. What happen to you?”
As I am telling her the story of Morufu and Khadija, I am fighting very hard to not cry. “I just need a somewhere to be staying for small time,” I say. “Maybe until after Bamidele come out and tell them that he is the one that cause it for Khadija to die.”
Iya shake her head. “Bamidele is not never coming out, not with a new wife and new baby coming. Even if they catch him, they will drag him to Ikati chief because Khadija is from there. We all know that Ikati village is worst for killing people with no questions. Bamidele will never say the truth about Khadija. Nobody wants to die before their time. Ah, your mama will be too sad for all these things that have happen to you. What can I do for you, Adunni?”
“Help me,” I say. “Let me be staying here small, to hide myself. After maybe I can find work in another village and be using the moneys to help myself.”
“You cannot stay here,” she say. “As you are sitting there, I can only see the smoke of you. Sometimes, I cannot see anything. My eyes is sick. My legs is sick. My body is sick. Everything sick.”
“I can help you be taking care of yourself,” I say. “I can cook, wash, fetch water, go to market, you just say it and I will be doing it.” But as I am saying that, I am thinking, how will I do that and the peoples from this village will not send a message to my papa?
Iya is shaking her head no. “The end is near for me, Adunni,” she say in Yoruba. “My ancestors, they are calling me come.” She tilt her head to the side and up in the air, as if somebody from the top of the window is calling her name. “Can you hear it? They are drumming the drums and singing the songs to welcome me.” She open all her teeths in one kind of smile, and the lantern light is making it look as if she only have one half of face.
I didn’t sure how to answer her or her ancestors, so I am keeping my words to myself.
“Your mother was a kind woman,” she say. “God rest her soul.” She think a moment. “Stop crying, Adunni. I can help you.” She push her head back until she is lying on the mattress. “I have one brother, Kola is his name. We share the same father but not the same mother. He is doing job of helping girls like you.”
She is looking up in the ceiling now, eyes open wide with no blink. For one moment, she don’t say anything. Then she say, “Tonight we sleep. Tomorrow we talk. Off that lantern so we don’t die inside fire before the cock crow.”
“Yes, ma.” I off the lantern, stretch myself on the floor, and fold my hands under my head, my nylon bag of belongings by my feets. The whole place is quiet, but crickets outside are speaking kre-kre far into the night. Sometimes Iya will just start to cough like she wants to cough out all her lung. Other times, she will snore like a generator engine.
I lie there, thinking of my mama, of Kayus, of Khadija, of the time when I didn’t have plenty trouble like this. I am thinking all these things until the first cock is saying coo-koo-roo-koo at first light and the early-morning sunlight is pouring inside the room from the window.
Just then, there is one kind noise, sound like two animals fighting. At first I am thinking maybe the noise is inside my head, but the more it is coming close, the more it is louding. It is not animals fighting. It is voice of a man, a voice I know very well. It is coming closer with feets that is sounding bam-bam like a mad solja marching to the war front. As it is reaching Iya’s compound, my heart is starting to beat fast because it is the voice of my papa. His most angry of all voice.
He is shouting: “Where is my daughter? And who in this cursed village is bearing the name Iya?”
CHAPTER 20
All my body have collapse.
My head, it is telling myself to get up—Adunni, get up, get up and run—but my arms and legs is not making sense with itself. I feel like going to toilet, and as I am thinking of it, hot piss is flooding my dress, covering the whole floor. My heart is in my ears, banging boom-boom-boom.
Papa is here. Here in Agan village. What can I do? Where can I go to disappear and never be finding myself?
“Adunni,” Iya is calling me from her mattress. I am giving her answer, but my voice, it have gum to my throat. It is not coming out.
“Adunni?” she call again, and the sleep is dragging in her voice. “Is it your papa’s voice I am hearing?”
“Yes, ma,” I say, but is like she didn’t hear me. I didn’t hear myself too. Something have snatch my voice. There is a knocking on her door, ko-ko-ko. The door is shaking and Papa is shouting, vexing. “Open this door now!”