The Girl with the Louding Voice(13)

She click her finger in my face, and push my chest so that I am falling inside the sofa. “I will suffer you till you run back to your father’s house.”

I shock so much, I start crying.

“Don’t cry,” Khadija say when it is just me and her in the parlor. She peel herself from the wall and come and sit down beside me. “Labake is just talking. She have a big mouth, but she will not do anything. No woman is happy to share her husband. Don’t mind Labake, you hear? Stop crying.” She put a hand on my shoulder, her touch soft. She is speaking better English than me even, and I think she go to school before they force-marry her for Morufu.

“Is not so bad,” she say. “Here, there is food to eat and water to drink. I am thankful for it, for the food.”

I look her face. Her eyes is far inside her head, as if she malnourish, and when she smile, her cheeks is swallowing her eyes so that it is almost disappearing. But I see a kind spirit in the deep of her eyes.

“I am just wanting my mama,” I say, talking whisper. “I didn’t want to marry Morufu. My papa say I must marry him because he pay our community rent.”

“Your own is even good. Me, my father give me to Morufu because of bag of rice,” she say. “After sickness have cut my father’s leg. You know diabetis sickness?”

I shake my head no.

“Sickness of sugar,” she say. “The diabetis bite his leg bad, and the doctor, they cut my father’s leg just here—” She put her hand on her knee and make a slice around it, as if she is cutting yam. “The hospital money is too much, and he cannot work again, so we are suffering to eat. At first, Morufu was helping us, but he soon get tired and he say he must marry me or no food. He buy my family five derica of rice, and my father bundle me into Morufu car and wave me bye-bye. We didn’t even do any wedding party like you.” She force a laugh, dry. “I was in school before that time, learning well. I have been here for five years now. Now he is saying he will not give my family food until I give him a boy-child. I am just tired of everything. I know this one is a boy-child so I can rest.”

“How old are you?” I ask, looking her as she rest her back and put her hand on top the swell of her stomach.

“I am twenty years,” she say. “I marry him when I was fifteen years, and I have three children for him, three girls that he didn’t want because they are girls. Is not a easy thing, to be wife of Morufu. If you want peace in this house, Adunni, don’t let our husband be angry. His anger is a evil spirit. Not good.”

I am not liking it, the way she is saying “our husband,” as if it is title, as if she is saying “Our King.”

“Cheer yourself,” she say. “Smile a smile, be happy. Now, follow me, let me show you everywhere in the house, because our husband is waiting for you. Tonight, you will become a true woman, and if God smiles on you, in nine months’ time, you will born a boy.”

She push herself up and rub her back. Then she hold out her hand. “I think rain is coming. Can you hear it? Follow me, let me show you our kitchen.”

The sky clap a thunder, and it feel as if it strike me, right inside of my heart. I collect Khadija hand as if I am collecting sorrows, then I am following her.





CHAPTER 8

The rain is coming down with anger, be like the roof of the kitchen is a drum, and the rain is drumsticks in God’s hand. Khadija is standing under the roof shade of the kitchen, pointing to the here and the there.

“That is the kerosene stove,” she say, pointing at the iron stove in the left corner of the kitchen, her voice loud because of roaring rain noises. “For cooking food,” she say, as if anybody will use kerosene stove to cook a motorcar. “There is two of the stove. One for me and one for Labake. You can be sharing my own stove if you want.”

“Thank you,” I say as I wrap my hand around my body and look around all the kitchen areas. There is the remainder of fish stew in a bowl on the floor, the bone of fish looking like a thin white comb inside of it. There is one small wooden chair beside the bowl, and on the floor, a raffia sponge with a cube of black soap melting inside it. The kitchen is not having a door, just a space and two wooden pillars holding the roof.

Afar off, I see a door. One half of it is having paint, the other is just showing wood, as if somebody was painting it and he change his mind and leave it. Or maybe the paint is finish. The smell of old piss is rising over the rainwater smell and hitting my nose.

“Baffroom?” I ask.

“Yes,” she say. “You see the well at the front of the house? You fetch water there, cut from the kitchen here to go to toilet there. Everybody is using baffroom anyhow they are wanting it. Just use it as you want.” She say this as if it is wonderful thing, to be using baffroom as we want.

“But I must tell you that our husband must be first,” she say. “Very early in the morning, once the mosque call for prayer, or when the cock crow, around five in the morning. After that, anybody can use it. Our husband must do everything first. If he has not eaten food, nobody can be eating. He is king in this house.” She smile stiff, keeping her eyes on me and holding it strong. No blink. I wait for her to say something more, but she clap her hands, say, “That is okay for one night. Let us go back inside now. This rain is much.”

By the time we walk in the compound under the rain and go back inside the house, my cloth is wet of rainwater, my iro heavy.