by Abi Daré
“I am coming, ma,” I shout before Big Madam will complete her sentence.
I turn around quick, nearly falling over as I run to the stairs, and just before I start to climb, I look back and see Chisom laughing, shaking her head at me.
* * *
“Your shop is very fine, ma,” I say to Big Madam as we leave the shop, and Abu is driving up a short bridge.
“So very big, beautiful.” My stomach is very hungry, and keeping silent too much is making my mouth to smell a foul odor, so I keep talking, even though Big Madam is sitting in the back seat, breathing hard, not answering me.
“Just like heaven,” I say. “All the lights in it, shining beautiful. The smell too, like perfume. The fabrics? So costly. So nice.”
Abu slide his eye to me, as if to ask if I am mad, but I keep talking: “And all those peoples coming into your shop and calling on the telephone, very big Nigerian people. Your children must feel too proud of their mother.” Then I keep quiet.
As Abu is turning into the road that is leading to the house, Big Madam say, “You think so?”
At first, I am not sure she is talking to me, so I whisper my answer, say, “I think so.”
Big Madam laughs. A real laugh. I turn around to look at her in the back seat. She is smiling. At me. With me.
“You are very good at selling to everybody,” I say, forgetting all of my hunger, and Chisom, and everything that was worrying me. “All the customers that came inside today, you sell to all of them, making good money. You make it seem so easy to do business. Honest, ma, if I am ever wanting to be selling clothes, ma, I want to be selling just like you.”
“Like me?” Big Madam press her fingers, full of gold rings, on her chest and laugh again, and her eyes, which were red and tired, are now lighting up the whole car. “Adunni, I started my business from nothing,” she say, pushing herself to sit up and lean forward. “Fifteen years ago, I was selling cheap materials from my boot, going from place to place, looking for customers. I wasn’t born into wealth. I have worked hard for my success. I fought for it. It wasn’t easy, especially because my husband, Chief, he didn’t have a job. If you want to be like me in business, Adunni, you will need to work very hard. Rise above whatever life throws at you. And never, ever give up on your dreams. Do you understand?”
I nod. Keep my eyes on her. Feel something share between me and her. Something warm, thick, like a embrace from an old friend.
Then Abu press the horn, peen, and Big Madam blink, look around. “Ah? Are we home already? Adunni, what are you staring at me for? Will you fly out of this car and get inside the house before I slice your head off? Idiot!”
I climb out of the car, tumbling over everything we just shared—the warm look, the quick smile, the hope that maybe she can be ever kind to me—and run quick inside the house.
CHAPTER 43
Fact: Nigeria has the largest Christian population in Africa. A single church service can record a congregation of over 200,000.
Buhari win the elections.
Kofi danced as if him and Buhari are sharing the same mother and father. “Change has come,” he say as the tee-vee announce the announcement last week, pulling off his white hat from his head, throwing it up and catching it with a laugh. “Change has come! Nigeria will thrive! This is what we have been waiting for!”
Papa was always following elections news, and I wonder now, with a pinch of sadness in my heart, if he too danced for this news, if he is still thinking of me.
But Big Madam was ever so mad. She curse and curse Buhari so much, I am fearing the man will fall dead any day from now. She say he is a witch doctor. That he does not know English. Now that makes me think, if he does not know English, and he is a new president, maybe Adunni too can be a president one day?
Today is the first Sunday in April, and we are going to Big Madam’s church for the Women in Business special thanksgiving service. She say I must follow her to help her carry the bag of fabrics she wants to gift to the women in her group. I have never been to church since I came to Lagos, and I am feeling excited as I climb into the car and sit in the front with Abu.
Big Madam and Big Daddy sit in the back. Big Madam is wearing her boubou, but this one is a heavy gold material, so heavy I have to carry the edges so she can climb into the car. There are white, shining stones on the shoulder and sleeves, a thick line of silver lace around the neck. Her gold gele is like a tiny ship in the middle of her head, her earrings a string of five red beads that drag her ears down to her shoulder.
I am still wearing Rebecca’s shoes. The edge of the shoe is now cutting, and yesterday, I used a needle and a thread to sew it back. I like the shoe, it makes me feel as if I know Rebecca from before, as if I am carrying her along with me on my feet everywhere, sharing her life, her secrets with her. I know that very soon, I will know what happened, why she just disappear and why nobody in this house is wanting to talk about her.
Ms. Tia is still in Port Harcourt, she text me just this morning. She say her mama has been in hospital admission since new year and that things have “finally settled down, so should be on the next available flight back to Lagos.” She say too that her husband, “bless his heart, has been coming to Port Harcourt every Friday to be with me.”
I read the message three times, before I reply: OKAY. SEE U SOON.
“Do you have money for church offering?” Big Madam asks Big Daddy now, as the car is climbing up the bridge that looks like it is hanging by the many threads, thin white fingers on the left and right side of it. I think this is the Lekki-Ikoyi bridge that Ms. Tia uses for her morning running.
“What kind of stupid question are you asking me, Florence?” Big Daddy says. “Did you give me offering money?”
Big Madam grunts, opens her bag of feathers, and brings out money, bundles of it, a brown rubber band around the bundle. “That is fifty thousand naira,” she says to Big Daddy, dragging a fat bundle out from the rest. “Use 10K as offering. The forty thousand is your donation for the Good Men conference next weekend. Chief, please make sure you donate the money, because the last time I gave you two hundred thousand for the Over Fifties Men’s Retreat, the church secretary never received it.”
Big Daddy snatch the money and push it deep into the pocket of his green agbada. “Why don’t you wait till we get to church so you can take the microphone and announce to the congregation that you gave your husband, the head of the family, the man in charge of your home, two hundred thousand naira for retreat, and that he spent the money? Useless woman.”
Big Madam nods, but her jaw is shaking, shaking like she is fighting to not cry, and I feel something pity for her. When she faces the window and sniffs something up her nose, Abu loud up the radio and The News on Sunday fill up the car with noise.
We drive like that, with nobody except the radio talking, until Abu climbs down the bridge and cuts a turn by the left of a roundabout.
* * *
When Abu brings the car to a stop, Big Madam climbs down, but Big Daddy stays in the car. He says he will be joining us after; he wants to smoke a small siga first, to make his mind open to be hearing from heaven.
The church is a round hat-shape building with a gold, heavy-looking cross on the tip of the roof. The windows, I count fifty of it, is made of colorful glass with drawings of doves and angels on it, the whole compound full of tall cars like Big Madam’s Jeep. Everybody coming in is dressing like it is a birthday party or wedding celebrations, with high heels, geles of all sorts of rainbow colors, costly-looking lace, and plenty makeups on the face of the women.
In Ikati, our church is having just roof and bench and drum for the music, and people be wearing cloth to church like they mourn, sing like they mourn too. This one, from even outside, I am hearing plenty music, makes me want to dance.
We climb up the stairs, enter a place that looks like a parlor with no sofa. It is cool in
there, with many people laughing, talking, smiling to each other, saying happy Sunday. In front of us is the front door of the church, two glass doors with red carpet on the floor in front of it.
There is one woman standing in the front of one of the doors like a gate man; she is wearing too-tight black skirt that look like it is giving her breathing problem, and a red shirt that look like it belongs to a child that is two years of age. It push all her breast up to her neck. Under her plenty makeup, pimples be pinching all her face, make her look like she had a measles sickness that didn’t finish healing itself.
“Good morning, welcome to the Celebration Arena,” she says, giving Big Madam a wide smile that stretch her lip, and all the pimples around her mouth gather to one angle.
“I assume this is your housemaid?” she says, looking at me like I am wearing my cloth from back to front.
I kneel, greet her. “Good morning.”
“Adunni, get up and bring my handbag,” Big Madam says. “Yes, she is my house girl,” she says to the woman. “Am I correct in thinking that she cannot enter this church auditorium? I need her after the service to bring fabric from the car.”
The woman shakes her head. “She can’t. She will go to the housemaid service at the back. I will take her there and bring her to you later. Go on in, ma’am. God bless you.”
I am standing there, watching, as Big Madam enter the glass door, as a shock of cold air and singing voices escape and reach me.
“Why am I not following my madam into the church?” I ask the woman after the door has swallowed Big Madam inside of it. “Where will I find her when she finish? I don’t know anywhere in Lagos. I don’t want to lost.”
The woman stretch her lips into a quick smile. “Don’t worry, you will be fine. Follow me. This way.”
We cut to the far, far back of the church. She is walking on her red high-heel shoe as if the floor is a tightrope. We pass one path with a bush to the left and right of us, like a parting of short, full hair on a flat head. We reach a house. It is the first time I see a gray house in Lagos that make me think of Ikati. It has no paint or door or window. Beside it is another small house, with no door too. I smell the piss before I see the round edge of the white toilet bowl, the broken brown tiles on the floor. It look like they just builded this house anyhow and throw it to the back of the church, after they finish using all the money for the fine church in the front.
“That’s where the housemaid service happens,” she say, covering her nose with a hand, the red of her pointed fingernail pressing into her cheek. “There’s a problem with the toilet flushing system, but that’s on the queue to be fixed. Hopefully should be sorted out before next Sunday. Anyway, have a seat with the rest in there. The preacher will be here soon. We’ll come and get you after the service, okay?”
I step inside, see about five girls sitting on the floor, their head down. They all look the same age of me: fourteen, fifteen. All are wearing dirty dress of ankara or plain material with shoes like wet toilet paper, tearing everywhere. Hair is rough, or low-cut to the scalp. They smell of stinking sweat, of a body that needs serious washing, and they all look sad, lost, afraid. Like me.
“Good morning, everybody,” I say, trying to smile, to see if I can talk to one of them, to make a friend.
But nobody is answering me.
“Good morning,” I say again. “My name is Adunni.”
One of the girls look up then, hook her eyes on me. There is no kindness in her eyes. Nothing. Only fear. Cold fear. She say nothing, but with her eyes, she seem to be saying: You are me. I am you. Our madams are different, but they are the same.
I look around, see Chisom at a far right corner, pressing her phone. I forget the rest girls, walk quick to her. There is a white wire inside her ears, and she is nodding her head to a silent music and eating a chewing gum. She look happy in her blue church dress, black shoe, and clean white socks, and as I bend low in her front, I wonder if she is a housemaid like me and the rest girls here, or if Caroline is just having a different way to keeping her own maids.
“Chisom,” I say.
She blow a bubble with the chewing gum, use her tongue to kill it. Then she slap the floor near her for me to sit, pull out her earphones. “Skinny!” she say. “How are you?”
“Adunni is the name, but fine, thank you,” I say. “Is this your church?”
“No,” she say. “My madam goes to another church. We only came for the Women in Business program. Why are we sitting here? On the floor? I asked that usher with plenty pimples, but all she said was, ‘It is protocol.’ My madam said I should follow her and that she will complain after the service. What is ‘protocol’?”
“I don’t know.” I sit down and pull my knees up like the other girls. “Your madam is very nice to you,” I say. “Why?”
“Because she is a nice woman,” Chisom says, “and because me and her, we understand ourselves. I take care of her, and she takes care of me.”
“Like how?” I ask. Maybe if she tells me, I can try and take care of Big Madam, make her kind to me.
“I know things about my madam,” Chisom says. “Things nobody else knows. All her secrets, everything, I keep them for her. Me and her are more than madam and housemaid. We are like sisters. But you, and all these girls here? There is nothing you people can do to make your madams nice to you. Nothing. Most of them are just wicked, anyway.” Chisom put her wire thing back inside her ear, begin to snap her finger and shake her head.
I wait a moment, then elbow her. “Chisom?”
She pull out the wire, give me vexing look. “What?”
“That day at the shop,” I say, talking soft, “you said Rebecca was thin before, then she begins to get fat. Do you know what happened to her after she was getting fat? Why was she fat? Did she run away?”
“I don’t know,” Chisom says. “Me and her didn’t ever talk much, but when I saw her, she looked big. And when I saw her the second time after the first time, she was getting more big, then I understand.”
“You are confusing me, Chisom,” I say as one man enter the room. He is wearing suit like a worker, holding a big black Bible under his arm. “Hello, everybody,” he say, looking round with a smile at all of us sitting down. “I am Pastor Chris. Today we will—”
“Understand what?” I ask Chisom. My heart is beating so loud, it drown everything the pastor is saying. “Tell me, what did you understand?”
“Rebecca told me she was getting married,” Chisom says, whispering. “She was very happy, but seemed so afraid. Next thing, they say she didn’t come back home from going to the market one afternoon. But—”
“I said can we all rise up?” the pastor says, clapping his hand. “You two in the corner, stop chatting. Stand up!”
“Wait,” I say to Chisom, not even looking at the pastor’s face. “Who was Rebecca marrying?”
“I don’t know, but I think—” She cover her mouth. “Shh, the pastor is coming this way.”
* * *
I was not able to speak to Chisom again after that.
Her madam, Caroline, she came to find her in the middle of our own service and to take her to the big, fine church in front, and after the service, I stand beside the church gate and try to find her. I use my eyes to search all the women and men in their fine dresses, eating meat pies and laughing and talking about the church service, but I don’t see her and I don’t see Caroline too. I was thinking to maybe enter into the church building to keep looking for Chisom, when Big Madam pull me by my hair and drag me inside the car.
We are in the car now, driving home silent.
Big Daddy is at the back snoring loud, and Big Madam is on her phone talking to somebody about a “supply of organza material for two hundred wedding guests.”
When we reach home, Big Madam and Big Daddy climb out of the car, but I don’t climb out. I don’t want to enter the hou
se. I want to stay here, in this car, and hide myself forever.
Everything Chisom said about Rebecca is not making sense. If she was marrying somebody, then why didn’t Kofi know? Why didn’t anybody know? I sigh. I am tired. Hungry. Confused. Angry at myself too, for thinking something bad happened to Rebecca when she was happy and getting married and maybe just decide to run away because she didn’t want Big Madam to stop her marriage plans.
Just like how I too don’t want Big Madam to stop my scholarship plans.
But why did she take off her waist beads if she was just getting married?
I sigh again.
My hair, which Big Madam was dragging in church, is paining me in the brain. My body is looking like a map, showing different marks of where Big Madam has been beating me so much. There is one on my back, a wound, she used her shoe heel to open it two times, causing it to smell bad for a week, after it was nearly drying. There is another behind my ear, one to the left of my forehead.
How will I free myself from this place? The end of April seem so far, even though it is only few weeks from now. Even then, I don’t know if I will win the scholarship, and even if I win, will Big Madam let me go from here? I feel a longing so deep for Ikati, for my life of before, a pulling that twist my heart and cause me to start to cry.
“Adunni,” Abu say, and I look up, forgetting he was even in the car. “Haba. What is making you cry?”
I wipe my face. “Everything, Abu,” I say. “My life, Rebecca, everything. I am just tired.”
I put a hand on the door handle, make to push it open.
“Wait,” Abu say. “Why is Rebecca making you cry? She is not here.”
“Yes,” I say, then I tell him about the waist beads, and what Chisom say.