The Girl with the Louding Voice(12)

Khadija is not moving from where she is standing.

Morufu yawn and low hisself inside the sofa beside Labake. Under the lantern light, his skin is the rough of sandpaper and slack with aging old, the teeths in his mouth brown and bending left. I manage to count all five of it before he snap his mouth close. He must be around my papa age, maybe fifty-five, sixty years, but he look like Papa’s father.

“Adunni, this is your new house,” Morufu say. “And in this house, I am having rule. There is respect of me. I am the king in this house. Nobody must talk back to me. Not you, not the childrens, not anybody. When I am speaking, you keep your mouth quiet. Adunni, that means you don’t ask question in my front, you hear me?”

“Why?” I ask. “Where should I be asking you question? In your back?”

Khadija make a noise in the corner. As if she is fighting to hold a laugh.

“Adunni, you think I am making joke here? I hope your mouth will not put you in trouble,” Morufu say. He is smiling, but his smile is giving me warning. “You cannot be talking anyhow to your husband,” he say.

“I have special cane for flogging bad mouth. I don’t want to use that cane for you, you hear? Now what am I saying? This is your new house. I swear, I have gray hair before I marry my first wife. Why? Because I was busy making plenty money and learning my taxi business. First, I marry Labake, but she was not having any child. It is after we have sacrificed two goats for the gods of Ikati river that Labake was able to born one child, a girl.” He say this as if it is bitter something to remember, as if girls-childrens are a curse, a bad gift from the gods.

“Kike is her name. My first born. She is your age, Adunni. Since then, we have done many more sacrifice, but I think the gods of the water vexed for Labake. No another baby. I marry the second wife, Khadija. Big mistake! Big mess! Why? Because Khadija is having three girls: Alafia, Kofo, and I forget the name of the last born now. No boy. Adunni, your eyes are not blind, you can see very well that Khadija is carrying a new baby. I have warned her that if it is not a boy-child inside that stomach, her family will not collect food from me again. I swear I will kick her back to her hungry father’s house. Not so?”

“God is not wicked,” Khadija say to the wall. “This is a boy-child.”

“I want two boys,” he say. “If I have my boys, I will send them to school. They will become English-speaking taxi driver and make plenty money. Girls are only good for marriage, cooking food, and bedroom work. I have already find Kike a husband. I will use her bride-price to repair my car window, maybe buy more chickens for my farm, because I use too much plenty money to marry my sweet Adunni.

“But I don’t mind spending for my Adunni. I don’t mind at all! Now, you three wifes, all of you hear me well. I don’t want you to fight. Labake, mind yourself. You are always finding trouble. If you don’t give me peace, I will chase you out from my compound. I am getting old, I want peace. Let me see. How will three of you be sleeping with me?”

Morufu scratch his gray beard, pull out a hair, put it inside his mouth, and eat it. “Yes. We will do it like this. Adunni will sleep in my room for three nights in the week, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Labake for two nights, Wednesday and Thursday. You with the stomach, one night, Friday. Me, I will keep the last night to myself, to gather energy. Adunni is a new wife with young blood. She must born a boy-child for me. Not so, Adunni?” He laugh, but no one is joining him in the laughters.

Is he meaning to say we be sleeping on the same bed like a lovers? Is he wanting to see my naked? To do me the nonsense and rubbish things that adult people use to do? I shiver, put my hand around myself. Nobody ever see my naked. Nobody except of my mama. Even when I am baffing in Ikati stream, I am using the water as a cover-cloth, wrapping my whole body inside it. I don’t want Morufu with his rag face to be touching me. I don’t want a husband. I only want my mama. Why death collect her from me so quick? My eyes pinch with tears, but I bite my lip till I break the skin of it.

Morufu push hisself to his feets and remove the agbada he was wearing for the wedding. He is not a fat person, but he have a round stomach. It look hard too, like coconut. Maybe there is a disease inside it. I forget the name of it, but Teacher say, in class of Science, that this sickness is causing stomach to be hard when you are not pregnants and when you are not eating a balancing diets. I think Morufu is having this sickness.

“Khadija will show you the kitchen and baffroom and everywhere in the house. Nothing to be afraid of, you hear me?” he say. “Let me go and prepare myself for you. You have any question?”

I want to be asking if he can release me go back to my papa. I want to tell him to don’t touch me this night, or ever, ever. But I am shaking my head, shivering, shivering. The cold is colding me, even though Labake’s head is shining with sweat, and Khadija is using her hand to be fanning herself.

“No question, sah,” I say. “Thank you, sah.”

When Morufu leave us be, Labake stand up, tight her cloth around her waist, as if she is making preparations for a fight. “You and my Kike are of same age,” she say, eyes blinking fast. “Your dead mother and me, we are age-mates. God forbid for me to share my husband with my own child. God forbid that I am waiting for you to finish with my husband before I can enter his room. Ah, you will suffer in this house. Ask Khadija, she will tell you that I am a wicked woman. That my madness is not having cure.”