by Abi Daré
“This has got nothing to do with school,” Kofi say, dull. “Big Madam expects us, her domestic staff, to wear uniforms. I wear a chef’s uniform, and you will wear a housemaid uniform.”
The dress don’t make noise as it is falling out of my hand and landing on the floor by my feets. “This is not uniform for school? Why anybody with correct sense will be wanting housemaid to be wearing uniform?”
“Big Madam expects us to look professional. You know, like we are working in a proper place. And I agree. I don’t know about yours, but my job is an important job. She has important friends. Rich men and women in the society. Now, did Mr. Kola tell you that Big Madam will put you in school?”
“He say if I am behaving myself,” I say, “that Big Madam will put me in school. So, when I am seeing the uniform, I am thinking Big Madam—”
“Will educate you?” Kofi cut my words and shake his head. “She has never educated any housemaid in my years of serving her. You are here to work. Face your work. That’s that. Get changed and meet me outside your room in ten minutes.”
* * *
“Have you ever used an iron?” Kofi ask.
We are now inside a small room, with a long, triangle-shape table, a basket full of clean clothes by the door, a white iron sitting on top the table that say Philips on it.
“I see one or two of the shops in Ikati are selling irons,” I say, pulling the uniform around my neck to be making it fit. “But it is very costly. I never use it in my life.”
The uniform is reaching almost to my ankles. The arms space is too wide, and I look as if I am making preparations to be flying. Rebecca’s shoe is on my feets. That too is too big, so I am putting toilet paper inside the front, and it is making my toes to curl inside of the shoe and paining me. I think that this Rebecca girl was old more than me. Big too, more than me.
“It is simple to use,” Kofi say as he is twisting one button on the iron. “You just need to plug it in to the socket down there, adjust this dial here to match the label on the back of the cloth. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to check the labels. All you need to do is this.” He is sliding the iron up and down on the cloth, stronging his face as if the iron is vexing him. “When you finish, always remember to unplug the iron down there,” he say. “To prevent a fire outbreak. If you are not sure of anything, ask me.”
Kofi’s English-speaking and way of talking is sometimes too much, but I am using my brain and picking his words to make sense of it. “I will be making sure that I am unplugging the plug every time. I don’t want fire to be outbreaking.”
“Good,” he say. “Big Madam has a schedule for housemaids. I am sure she will take you through it, but I know she expects you to start work at five a.m. You will mop all the floors in the house, including the tiles on the wall in the five bathrooms. Clean all the windows, sweep the compound, and scrub the paving on the driveway. At night, she expects you to water all the flowers, wipe the mirrors, and dust the beddings in all the rooms.”
“Is okay,” I say, feeling a sadness all at once. “It is plenty work, but I can be working hard. Mr. Kola say he will bring my moneys for me after three months.” Maybe after many months of working here and saving the money, I buy bus fare and go back to a village that is near Ikati. If I am near Ikati, and near Kayus, even Papa, then my heart will not feel like it is full of something heavy.
Kofi pull his eyesbrows back. “You really think Mr. Kola will bring your salary in three months? You believe that?”
I nod my head yes. “He is helping me. I don’t have a banking account, so he is keeping money for me. Why are you stronging your face?”
“I am frowning because,” Kofi say as he is pressing a button and water is jumping out from the iron onto the cloth, “he told Rebecca the same thing. She believed him, and he collected all her salary and did not show up here again until this afternoon when he brought you.”
“You mean he will be running away with my moneys?” I ask, feeling my heart begin to climb up and down, up and down. “Because I swear I will be finding that man and knocking his head with this too-big shoe on my feets. Kofi, are you check it sure of what you are telling me?”
“I only told you what I observed.” Kofi shrug his shoulder. “Goodness. For such a young girl, you are feisty. I don’t mind you being feisty, but around Big Madam, you stay humble, quiet. You respect her, okay?”
“What is my concern with anything feisty?” I say. “Me, I be respecting everybody if they are respecting me back. Now, tell me true, can I be finding Mr. Kola in this Lagos?”
He sigh, but a smile be bending the top of his lips. “We will have to wait and see what happens with Mr. Kola, okay? Here, take this shirt from me and iron it.”
CHAPTER 26
We are now standing in the kitchen and Kofi is blending pepper inside the blender. I use to grind pepper on a stone in my papa’s house and in Morufu’s house. It was a easy thing to do, just roll the stone front and back, but this machine is too quick, making too much noise, confusing everybody.
I want to understand how one small button on the machine is turning around the pepper, tomato, and onion and disappearing it to become water-pepper, but my mind is still thinking about what he say about Mr. Kola and my moneys and about what he say about Rebecca missing. I feel like something hot is shifting inside my head and burning me with all the things I am not understanding about everything.
“This Rebecca girl,” I say, “who was she? Why did she ran away? What chase her from here?”
Kofi stiff his finger on the blender button, but he don’t turn to look me. “She was Big Madam’s former housemaid,” he say. “I already said she probably ran away, which means she used to be here, but she is no longer here. Do not ask Big Madam about her, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I say, shifting on my feets, feeling the hot in my head climbing high. “But will the same thing happen to me too? Will I be no longer here like Rebecca?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Kofi say, pressing the blender button and noise is filling the kitchen again.
“But can I talk to Big Madam about another matter?” I shout, over the noise. “Where is she?”
He stop pressing the button, look me over his shoulder. “Talk to her about what? Big Madam does not know where Mr. Kola lives.”
“I want to ask her to not be paying my money in Mr. Kola banking account,” I say. “Maybe she can give me and I will keep it under my pillow. How about that one?”
Kofi use a napkin-towel to mop the sweat from his forehead. “Look. Don’t bother. You cannot reason with Big Madam. She is never in a good mood. She only speaks to you when she wants to. You don’t go to her for anything. She comes to you. There is nothing you can do about your salary right now, or about anything, except maybe to find another job. Do you know your way around Lagos? If you got out of the front gate, would you turn left or right to get to the main road?”
“I don’t know Lagos.” I cross my hand in front my chest. “Why can’t I be talking to Big Madam? Is she not a human beings like—” I stop my talking as the door to the kitchen is opening and one woman that is looking like Big Madam is rushing inside like a wave on a ocean edge, loud and crashing. I blink, look her again. It is Big Madam, but all the makeups on her face have wash off. Her face is looking like something rotten; like a bad road with mud-holes, her skin filling with oily pimples in every space. She is wearing another boubou, blue with gold thread running down the middle of it. The gele she was wearing before have come off, and her head is full of short, gray hair, plaited in round-about style. She put two hands on her hips, eyes jumping from me to Kofi, left to right. “What is happening here?”
“I am wanting to talk to you, ma. Serious talk.”
Kofi give me one look. His eye is warning me to keep my mouth shut, but I don’t even do like I am seeing him.
“Mr. Kola say he will keep my money in his bank
ing account,” I say. “But Kofi is telling me—”
“We were just—” Kofi jump inside my words, silent me. “I mean. I was just showing Adunni how to blend peppers, ma’am.” His voice is changing tone, and he is talking as if he is fearing Big Madam will blend him with the blender.
“I asked you to show her around the house,” Big Madam say. “Did you? Has she done any work since she got changed? Is she smart and sensible? Or do I need to get Mr. Kola here first thing tomorrow to take her back to her village?”
“No, ma’am,” Kofi say. “She’s a fast learner. A bit talkative, perhaps feisty, but intelligent. She even managed to iron a few shirts. I taught her.”
“Adunni.” Big Madam look me up and down. Her eye is reminding me of how Papa use to look me. As if I be smelling of shit.
“Yes, ma?”
“Follow me.”
As she turn around and walk outside the kitchen, I follow. We pass the dining room to inside her parlor. The parlor is like all the other parlors in the house, with a round, curving sofa, gold tiles on the floor, long looking-glass on the wall. There is a tee-vee on the wall too, flat like a looking-glass. One man is inside the tee-vee, talking something but no sound is coming out. Big Madam fall inside the sofa, and the cushions make a praa sound.
She pick up the remote-controlling and point it to the tee-vee, off it, and blow out a angry wind from her mouth. There is a glass table next to her, a cup full of orange drink with ice block inside.
“Adunni?” she say as she pick up the cup and drink the drink.
“Yes, ma.”
She swallow, set the cup down like she want to break it, and the ice blocks jump, make a chink sound. “Adunni?” she call again.
“Yes, ma?” I say. Is she having ear problem? Why is she calling me two times?
“Don’t stand and ‘yes, ma’ me,” she say. “When I am talking to you, I expect you to be on your knees.”
I kneel down, put my hand in my back. “Yes, ma.”
“How old are you?”
“You mean me, ma?” I touch my chest.
“No, I mean your ghost,” she say. “Who else will I be talking to? Will I be asking myself how old I am?”
“Fourteen going fifteen years of age, ma.”
“Mr. Kola said your mother died and you ran away from home?”
“Yes, ma.” Thank God Mr. Kola didn’t tell her about Khadija.
“When did you stop schooling?”
“Primary school,” I say. “I was managing nearly almost four years inside primary school before I was stopping. But I like book. And school.”
“Can you read and write?” she ask.
I am nodding my head yes.
She reach down and pull up one handbag with yellow feather, look like somebody kill a fowl, dip the poor thing inside paint, and sell it to Big Madam. She pull out a biro, bite the cover, spit it to the floor, give me the biro with no cover. She pull out a notebook and give me that one too. I collect.
“Now open the two ears God gave you and listen carefully,” she say. “You will write a list of things we need in the house and give it to Abu, my driver. He does the shopping in the house with Kofi on Saturday mornings. Every two weeks, on a Friday, go around the house, note what we need, and write it in that notebook. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma,” I say.
“I don’t know what Mr. Kola told you, but I am a very important woman in the society,” she say. “I have very important clients. Presidents, governors, senators, they all wear my fabric. Kayla’s Fabrics is number one in Nigeria.”
“Yes, ma.” What is concerning me with all this things she is telling me now?
“Your job is to keep the house clean and tidy and to do what I ask you to do. When you are not working, you stay in the boys’ quarters, in your room. Whenever I need you, I will send for you. Understood?”
“Yes, ma. I am understanding.”
“Now.” She lean back in the sofa and stretch out her feets. “Massage my feet.”
“Like how?” I ask.
She is turning her hand this way and that, as if she is molding clay. “Use your hands and rub my feet and my toes. Massage it.”
I look her feets, skin like dry cement with white cracks on the side of it, and shake my head inside of me. With all the money she is having, her feets be like she work on a building site from morning till night with no shoes. I hold her two feets, twist my nose from the smell as I am using my hands to press the ankles this way and that. I am wanting to ask her about Mr. Kola and my money, but when I look up at her, she is closing her eyes. Soon she be snoring, her throat making a noise like the blender in the kitchen.
I am like that for fifteen minutes when the door to the parlor open, and one man which I am thinking is Big Daddy enter. The man is reminding me of when a balloon have just burst, the shape of it when the air inside is coming out. Big Daddy look like he is having air in the top half of his body, and no air in the rest bottom half. He is wearing a white agbada, with a cap on his head. His skin is the brown color of new potato and around his mouth is full of gray hairs. There is a eye-glass sitting on his nose, and behind it, I can see his eyesballs, wide and red, jumping as if he didn’t have focus. He stagger front, knock the side of the tee-vee, before he come to my side.
“Who is this one now?” His voice is dragging, like Papa’s voice when he drink too much.
“Evening, sah,” I say. “Adunni is the name. New housemaid for Big Madam.”
“Adunni, dunni-licious.” He lick his lips, tongue climbing over his mustaches. “Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” He touch his chest, show a hand full of plenty hair, thick and curling. “I am Chief Adeoti, the one and only. But you can call me Big Daddy. Say it let me hear. Say ‘Big Daddy’!”
“Big Daddy,” I say.
The man is making me discomfort. I shift, look Big Madam, but the woman is sleeping. I shake her leg, but she just change the gear of her snore. Make it even more louding.
“Big Madam.” I pinch her feets. “Big Daddy is asking of you.”
Big Madam didn’t answer. She is just eating the air and snoring. I tell you true, if I carry the tee-vee and smash it on top her head, I don’t think she will wake. Is like she have dead.
“That woman can sleep through a tsunami,” Big Daddy say as he fall inside the sofa and off his cap, slap it down on the seat beside him. He off his eye-glass, blow air inside of it, and wipe the glass with corners of his agbada before he is putting the eye-glass back on his nose. “What is that your name again?”
“Adunni. Sah.”
“Ah. Adunni. Wonderful name.”
“Thank you, sah.”
“How old did you say you were?”
“I didn’t say my age to you before, sah,” I say.
He laugh, show teeths that is missing one in the bottom. “Sharp-mouthed, eh? I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, let me ask properly. How old are you?”
I tell him.
“Fourteen going fifteen, eh? That makes you what? Nearly sixteen going seventeen. Almost an adult. Not so innocent.”
“No, sah,” I say. “My name is Adunni, not Innocent.”
Big Daddy throw his head back and laugh again, rubbing his big hand on his belly. “An ignoramus of the highest order. Come on, Adunni. Humor me some more. What else have you got in store?”
“Nothing inside the store, sah,” I say, just as Big Madam is jumping awake.
She is looking around the parlor like she lost and just find herself in a dark forest. “Adunni?” she say, looking me down. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Yes, ma,” I say. “Big Daddy have come back.”
She look up, see Big Daddy, blink her eye. “Welcome back, Chief. How was the journey? Adunni, go and tell Kofi to serve dinner. Tell him to squeeze some more orange juice.”
&nbs
p; Her feets is still in my lap. I didn’t sure whether to remove it or be waiting for her to remove it.
“What are you staring at?” she shout. “Get up.”
“Your feets, ma,” I say.
She collect her feets, slap it on the floor.
As I am standing up and leaving the parlor, I am feeling the heat from Big Daddy eyes as it is following me outside the parlor, even after I close the door and enter inside the kitchen.
* * *
At night, inside my room, I off the light and climb on the bed and press my hand to my heart, feel it beating hard. My body is paining me from all the cleaning and sweeping, but first time since my mama born me, I am by myself, inside my own room, with my own bed, a real bed with soft mattress.
This is a good thing, to be having all these things, but I feel as if my body is missing a part of it: a eye, a leg, one ear. There is no Khadija here, no Morufu with his Fire-Cracker and stinking, smelling mattress and hard-coconut stomach. Khadija’s childrens are not whispering and laughing quiet to theirselfs in the room at the end of the corridor, and who know when I ever be seeing Kayus and Enitan and Ruka in the stream like I use to do before?
I close my eyes as a memory climb over me so sudden: of a time when I was five years of age and me and my mama visit the waterfalls in Agan. I can hear it now, the roaring and thundering of those waters, a noise that was giving Mama a tickle so much that she was throwing up her hands under the shower of it and laughing. But me, as I was sitting on the brown rocks beside the waterfall and watching her, I was fearing, fearing that the water will vex and swallow me and Mama. When my mama sense my fear, she climb down to where I was sitting and pull me to my feets and press my face into the soft and wet of her stomach. “Adunni,” she shout, “have no fear. Listen to the wonder of it, listen to the music in the noise!” So I listen and listen until my ears catch a song in the noise—a blowing of a thousand trumpets mixing with the beat of a hundred drums. And just like that, there is no more fear, and soon, me and my mama, we begin to laugh and dance under the water.