by Abi Daré
“My normal?” I ask. “How it taste?”
“I read your essay, Adunni,” she says. “You’ve been through so much, so bloody much, and yet you always have a smile, you cheeky thing, you always have a damn smile on your face. When I got flogged in that church, I felt a fraction of—” She drops my hand, drawing another breath to steady herself before she picks my hand again. “I felt a fraction of what you have had to endure for months. I tasted your normal, Adunni, and I have to say, you are the bravest girl in the world. And all this bullshit happening to me, that’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through. Nothing.”
My throat is a rock, a rock filled with water, with something else that I don’t know what it is.
“My own bloody marital issues aside, I’ll be back in about a week, and when I do, I will go and find out if you got it. If you did, I will get you enrolled. We will go shopping and buy every single thing you need to make you comfortable. And when you do get in, I will come visit you every time I get a chance. I will stand by you and support you in every way I can. I know it will be tough to get your madam to agree, but I will fight her with everything I have, every single resource. I will get her bloody arrested if I have to. This is your chance. You worked hard for it. Nothing will take it away. And to answer your question: If”—she hold my hand tight—“if, God forbid, you don’t get selected, I will figure out something for you. You cannot continue to stay with Florence. No way. I just need time to figure something out, but let’s wait and see what happens with the scholarship first, okay?”
I nod my head yes, and I am wanting to say thank you, but the tears are coming from my eyes and I am wanting to catch it with my hands, but she is gripping my hands so tight, the tears are sliding down my cheeks and down my neck and inside my dress.
CHAPTER 49
Fact: Despite the creation in 2003 of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, to tackle human trafficking and related crimes, a 2006 UNICEF report showed that approximately 15 million children under the age of 14, mostly girls, were working across Nigeria.
Kofi is catching sleep in the backyard when I get back to Big Madam’s house.
He is lying on a bench, his white chef-cap folded on his eyes to block the early-morning sun, and with his two hands across itself on his chest, he is resembling a dead person that is waiting to enter mortuary.
“Kofi?” I say and clap my hand two times. “Are you sleeping?”
“No, I am swimming,” he says. “In the ocean.”
He slaps the cap to the bench, pushes himself up. “Abu has been looking for you. He’s getting frantic. Says he has to see you about something. What is it? And where did you run off to?”
“Tell Abu to find me in my room later,” I say. “I went to Ms. Tia. I was full of worry for her. But all is okay now, I think.”
“Why were you worried for her?”
I shrug, shake my head. I want to tell Kofi, but I cannot ever be telling him something so deep about Ms. Tia.
“So what if Big Madam was home?” he say. “Look at the filthiness of this compound! If that woman causes Big Madam to sack you before you can plan your way out of here, chale, I swear, all I will give you is tissue paper to dry your tears.”
“How is her sister?” I ask. “Is it bad?”
“Her sister is in surgery,” Kofi say. “Big Madam called a few minutes before you got here. She wants me to cook some fish stew and send it with that idiot she calls her husband. I don’t think she’ll be back for a few days. Why do you look so happy?”
I laugh, even though nothing is causing me a tickle. Something pinch my feet in that moment, making me want to dance, so I jump up and begin to sing to a song that has been in my head since I left Ms. Tia’s house:
Eni lo j’ayo mi
Lo j’ayo mi
This is the day of my joy
The day of my joy
* * *
Kofi is watching me with a smile as I am turning around and around, going up and down, waving my broom in the air.
“Did Mr. Kola finally bring your salary?” he asks when I stop dancing. “Or, wait, let me guess? You heard back from the scholarship people? The results are out this week or next week, isn’t it? Is that why you are so happy?”
“No any news about scholarship yet.” I tap the broom head and begin to sweep the dry leaves. “And I didn’t ever see that nonsense Mr. Kola man since he dropped me in this house. Mr. Kola is a slave trader. Him and Big Madam, they are slave-trading people like me. Only difference is I am not wearing a chain. I am a slave with no chain.”
“Preparing for the scholarship has helped you learn a lot.” Kofi puts his cap on his head, slaps it down. “So, illuminate my understanding. Tell me what you have been learning about the slave trade.”
“The Slavery Abolition Act was signed in the year of 1833,” I say as I sweep around his feet. “But nobody is answering the abolition. The kings in Nigeria from before, they were selling people into slave work. Today, people are not wearing chain on their slaves and sending them abroad, but slave trading is continuing. People are still breaking the act. I want to do something to make it stop, to make people to behave better to other people, to stop slave trading of the mind, not just of the body.”
“Chale, I swear, if you can pull it off,” Kofi says with a side smile, “then kudos to you. And who knows, maybe someone will talk about you too one day. You know, as part of history.”
I stop my sweeping, stand myself up to his level, and look him in the eyes.
“Not his-story,” I say. “My own will be called her-story. Adunni’s story.”
CHAPTER 50
It is midnight.
The rain outside has been beating the roof like a gun shooting shots, the air smelling of the dust of the earth, of the hope of my independent. I am lying on my bed, talking to Mama, telling her about Ms. Tia and the doctor hiding things from her, about my scholarship result coming out very soon, when there is a knock on my room door.
Ko, ko, ko.
Three knocks. Abu.
I push myself up from the bed, run to the door, push the cupboard a little from the back of it, and open the lock. “Abu,” I say. “Sorry I was not free yesternight when you were looking for me.”
“Sannu,” Abu say, greeting me with a quick bow of head. But he doesn’t try to enter my room and I don’t ask him to enter. He stand outside, throw a quick look to the left and right of the dark corridor, before he puts a hand in his pocket, brings out a folding paper. His face is a shadow of fear, his jalabiya wet with rainwater and gumming to his chest. “I left Big Madam in the hospital so I can give you this thing. Adunni, this thing I want to give you, you cannot say it is from me. You did not get it from me. Walahi, if anybody ask you and you say it is me, I will tell them you are lying!”
“What is it?”
“I found it in the car, about a week after Rebecca was missing. It was inside the 350 Benz Big Daddy is always using to go out,” he say. “I have been keeping it for too long, but now the load of it is weighing me down, making it hard for me to say my prayers. Dan Allah, Adunni, I beg you, take this thing from me! Take it.”
He presses the paper into my hand as if it is an evil curse that he doesn’t want to hold with his own hands, and folds my fingers to cover it. “Adunni, hear this because after today, I will not talk about this thing again. See. The day after Rebecca was missing, I went to wash the 350 Benz because Big Daddy asked me to wash it. I washed outside, but inside the car . . .” He draws a breath. “Inside, the front seat was wet. Wet like somebody poured water on it. So I stop washing, run to Big Daddy to ask who wet the front seat. He said he did not know. I asked Big Madam, she said maybe Glory, her shopgirl, maybe she poured water by mistake. I asked Glory, she said she didn’t pour any water on the seat. It was when I found this letter after one week of Rebecca missing, and I read it,
that I know why the seat was wet. And since then, I have been keeping the letter, carrying the load.”
“Why are you telling me about wet seat?” I ask, confused.
“The letter”—Abu shakes his head, as if the memory is causing him pain, as if I didn’t just ask him a question—“it was deep inside the seat belt buckle. Inside. I only saw it because I was trying to buckle it, to wipe it clean, and the buckle was refusing to work. When you open the letter, look it well, you will understand everything I am saying. I am going back to Big Madam in the hospital. Sai gobe. Good night.”
Before I can say one word, Abu bow quick, turn around, and disappear into the darkness.
I fold out the paper with shaking hands. A short letter with no end. The writing is small and neat in black biro, and each letter is measuring the same tall and wide size, the same space in the middle of the letters, but near the end of the letter, the writing is changing to rough, like the person was hurrying up, and what is that stain on it?
I hold the letter up in the light. The edge look like it was inside a struggle, like the scattered teeth of a mad man, or the edge of Kofi’s bread knife, and near that edge is a print or two of a finger dipped in blood. I look at it well, at the red-brown color, the stain of dried blood, around the fingerprint, and I think, as my heart is starting to climb a ladder of fear, that the person who was writing this was bleeding blood.
My room seem to turn around on itself as I try to steady my jumping heart, to set myself and read:
My name is Rebecca. I am a housemaid of Chief and Florence Adeoti, which we are calling Big Madam and Big Daddy. I am pregnant for Big Daddy. Big Daddy forced me to sleep with him at first, then he promised to marry me if I am sleeping with him all the time. Sometimes, when Big Madam is at home, Big Daddy will put sleeping medicine inside Big Madam’s cup of juice at night so she will sleep when he is coming to my room.
When I found myself pregnant, Big Daddy was very happy. He said he will marry me and that me and Big Madam will be his two wives and live in this house together. Since he told me, I have been so happy.
This morning, he said we are going to the hospital to see the doctor, but I want to write this letter because after eating the food Big Daddy bought for me, my stomach has been paining me, and I am somehow afraid that Big Madam will be angry about
About what, Rebecca? Why didn’t you finish the letter? What happen to make you stop writing and hide it inside the seat belt buckle?
I fold and fold the paper until I cannot fold it again, until it is a small, hard rectangle, a bullet-looking thing. My whole body is shaking. Big Daddy is the boyfriend that Kofi and Chisom were talking about. But why did she take off the waist beads? Why is there blood on the letter? Did he kill her? Or did he keep her somewhere?
I squeeze the letter in my hand, feeling something bitter form inside my heart like a rock as I climb my bed and lie there like that for nearly one hour, thinking about Rebecca, fearing so much for what happened to her, that when there is a twist on my door handle, I don’t hear it.
When it comes again, I sit up straight. At first, I think it is the rain, maybe it caused a twig outside to crack, snap to the floor, but when the cupboard groans from behind the door, when it begins to move, I sit up.
“Abu?” I say, standing. I didn’t lock the door on myself when he left, but I pushed the cupboard just a little to block it. Did Abu turn back from going to the hospital to meet Big Madam because maybe he wants to tell me more things about Rebecca? “Abu?”
I don’t hear any answer from Abu, and my room door is still opening, still pushing the cupboard door more and more back, still scraping the floor.
“Who?” I whisper, standing still beside my bed, afraid to move. “Who is there? Who is it?”
Big Daddy. I know it is him. I can smell his drink from where I am standing, can feel his evil inside my room.
I want to move to the door, to push it back, but I know I don’t have the strong power to match his own, so I bend myself low, slide under the bed, and close my eyes.
When he enters, I lie still, make myself a wood log, a dead body. I hear the shift of his feet on the floor as he is coming closer, the ruffle of his cloth. My hand feels something like a ball of cloth and I grip it, hold it tight as if it will save me from Big Daddy.
“Adunni?” His voice is a whisper, dragging with drink. He stops near my bed, his feet so close, so near my mouth. His big toe is ugly, looks like a bending arrow, the toenails long and black, curving into the floor. I think to snap his nail off with my teeth, to bite his toe till he bleeds.
“I know you are here,” he whispers.
The bed creaks and hisses as the mattress is pressing down on my face, the spring inside pressing into my head, my shoulders, my chest, as if to drill a hole through my bones and flesh. His body on the bed is crushing, closing my chest down, down, until I cry. A soft cry, inside of me, but he hears it.
“Aha!” His face is looking at me. There are eyes everywhere on his face, evil-wicked eyes.
“Aha!” he says again as he grabs my feet and drags me and all the dust from under the bed. He falls on top of me, his whole body stinking like sweat of three years.
Fight.
Is that Ms. Tia talking or my mama?
Adunni, fight. Scream.
I scream until my voice is tearing, until I am not hearing myself, until my scream is entering the rain noise and coming back as a thunder. He tries to cover my mouth with his palm, but I knee his stomach; it makes a pffts sound, and he groans, slaps my face, dazing me a moment.
“Behave yourself,” he grunts. “Behave!”
His two hands are nailing me down now, trapping me under his body, but I bite his cheeks, taste the salt of his blood, the drink in his skin, and spit it on his face.
I hear the snipping of his trouser zip. The grunt as he is pressing me down on the floor. His breath is smelling of rotten teeth, of something sweet: the vanilla scenting Kofi is putting in his cupcakes.
Fight.
My hand is dead. My legs are pinned down. How can I fight? I keep to twisting my head left to right, right to left, saying no, no, no, but his palm, wet and hot, is pressing on my mouth and catching my no and pushing it into my nose.
Mama, I cry inside of me. Save me, Mama.
There is a sudden flash of light from outside, the same blink from the past, from the day with Morufu, only this time, it comes with a shout of thunder, a powerful rumble, and I know Mama is here. Mama is fighting for me. Fight, Adunni. Fight.
I gather all my strength, clamp my teeth on his hand, sink it into his flesh. When he shouts, I twist from under him, snatch up my mama’s Bible from the bed, and smash it on his head. His phone, which was lighting up with a number and making a noise in his pocket, fly out, land on the floor, twist around and around like a fan, and keep ringing and ringing.
Big Daddy howls like an animal. “Bitch,” he says, coming for me.
Just then, the door is bursting open and the earth is shaking and Big Madam is standing in the middle of the door, inside my room, and Big Daddy is zipping his zip and pushing Big Madam out of his front and running out of my room.
Big Madam, looking like she is dazed, walk like a ghost, pick up Big Daddy’s ringing phone from the floor, and press it. Then she is staring at it, and staring at it, and I don’t know what she is seeing inside the phone, but it is something very bad and very scary and I think more scary than what was happening with me, because Big Madam, she smash her knees to the ground of my room, put her hand on her head, and is starting to wail: “Chief, ha! Caroline! Baby love? No!”
She look such a sorry sight that I forget about myself and Rebecca and Big Daddy for a moment.
I just want to help Big Madam and beg her to stop crying, but she keeps looking at the phone, keeps pressing it, and her mouth keeps opening wide, wider than I ever see, wider more than the
River Benue, which is one of the widest of all the rivers in the whole of Nigeria.
CHAPTER 51
Everything after that just fly away so quick, as if I blink it all away.
I remember Big Madam sitting on the floor in my room, crying and crying, and then, when I finally make a move to touch her, she stares at me like she is seeing me for the first time in my life, before she push me away and run out, run far to the main house.
I am by myself in the room now, but I can still smell him.
His sweat. His rotting teeth. The drink. I smell fear too. The hairs on my hand are standing up, as if rising to the fear with respect, saying, Welcome, sah, welcome, ma.
The rain outside is now stopping and there is no more thundering noise and everywhere is so silent, but there is the faint moan of a woman about to born a baby afar, a woman inside a deep, deep well, a dull trapping noise that fills my whole room with something thick that I am not seeing with my two naked eyes but I am feeling inside of my heart, and so I pick myself up and run to the main house.
* * *
First thing I see when I enter the parlor is Big Madam’s wig. It is hanging from one of the mirrors on the wall, looking like the skin of one dead bush-rat. Cushions are all over the floor, near the tee-vee, by the standing fan, around the feet of the sofa. Big Madam’s gold high-heel shoes are scattered here and there, her feather handbag is open, and lipsticks, eyeshadows, pencils, money, everything is crawling out from it.
Big Madam is sitting on the sofa. She doesn’t open her eyes when I enter, don’t even do as if she can hear me. She keeps her eyes closed, and with the tears running down her swelling face, I feel the block of bitter inside me begin to melt. There is blood around her mouth, and she is pressing the place near her jaw with shaking hands. She is moaning still, but not loud like before. Now it just sounds like she is breathing out noise with her mouth.