The Girl with the Louding Voice(14)

“Let me take you to our husband’s room,” Khadija say. We walk along the corridor, my shadow dancing behind Khadija as she is walking and swinging the lantern; pointing Labake’s room to the left, her own room to the right, and the room for all the childrens near her own.

“Don’t ever enter Labake’s room,” she say, talking whisper. “One time, Alafia, my daughter, she go to her room to give her food. That witch, Labake, she beat my Alafia till the girl was almost bleeding. If you like yourself, don’t go near her room.”

We reach the end of the corridor and stop in front of one door. There is a curtain over the door, smelling as if it need a strong washing with soap and water. Behind the door, I am hearing low whistling, a sneeze, something ruffle like paper.

“This is our husband’s room,” Khadija say. “You will sleep here for three days. After that, me and you will share my room. Is okay?”

“I am afraid,” I say, talking whisper. My heart is inside my stomach, and I feel like I want to vomit it out. “Please stay with me.”

She laugh, and in the dark of that corridor, I am not even seeing her eyes again. Only a flashing of her teeths. “This is your first time of sleeping with men?”

“I never see any man naked,” I say. “I am afraid.”

“It is good honor,” she say. “To keep yourself for your husband. When you go inside there, and he is ready for you, close your eyes because that thing will pain you, but when it is paining you, you must think of something you like. What do you like?”

“Mama,” I say as tears is filling my eyes and climbing down my cheeks. “I just want my mama.”

She touch my shoulder, knock on the door two times, and drag herself away.



* * *





“Come inside, come inside.” Morufu is standing in my front, holding the door open.

Behind him, I see two lanterns sitting on a newspaper on the floor beside one kerosene stove. There is a mattress on the floor, the box of my clothes resting on the gray wall.

“Why are you just standing there, looking?” There is a carpet of hairs on his chest, thick and curling and gray. He step to one side, and I carry my leg, one after other, and enter the room, my nose twisting to sneeze at the smell of old siga smoke. Even with the two lanterns giving light, the room is like a burial coffin. As if it is going to close itself around me and squeeze all my life away. My breathings is rushing out fast, my heart running and turning, running and turning.

“Join me on the bed,” he say as he climb the mattress, tilting it with his body, the spring inside creaking. He lie down, rub his stomach, belch out the smell of gin.

“Why didn’t you dance today in your father’s parlor?” he ask, put his two hand behind his head and give me smile. “Sit down, sit down. Are you not too happy to be marrying me? I am not a wicked man, you know.”

“I am feeling cold,” I say as I sit on the mattress. There is no bedsheet on top it, no wrapper to cover the foam where the mattress is tearing or having hole. My eyes catch a dark plastic bottle on the floor. It contain cuttings of a tree bark and green leafs inside dirty water. I try to read the words on the bottle, slowly, picking each word one by one: Fire-Cracker Bitters. Wake Up Sleeping Manhood.

What is it meaning to have a sleeping manhood? And is Morufu drinking it because of me? Why?

Fear lock me inside of itself. “My body is paining me,” I say. “I was inside rain with Khadija. It is making me cold. Please let us sleep now. Today I am feeling sick.”

“I just finish drinking Fire-Cracker.” He laugh, shift for me on the mattress. “You know how petrol is for car? That is how Fire-Cracker is for a man’s body. It is making my whole body to stand. You want to drink small Fire-Cracker? It will chase away all the cold. Lie down, rest your back.”

I shake my head no.

“Come on, lie down for me,” he say, patting the bed two times. The mattress cough out dust, give that foul odor of a cloth that didn’t finish drying before folding and keeping inside wardrobe. When I am not giving him a answer, he call my name, voice sharp.

“I am coming, sah,” I say. Vomit is climbing up my throat again as I lie down beside him. He shift close, put a hand on my stomach. I stiff.

“Relax yourself,” he say. “Relax.”

He put a hand on my breast, pinch and squeeze it hard through my buba. Then his breathing is louding, running fast, as he move his hand up and down my body as if he is trying to find something that is missing. When he pull off his trouser, I start to be crying, calling for Mama. He climb on top of me, shift my legs apart as if it vex him.

A spit of light enter the room, a quick flashing from the window that fill the room with a strange blue-white glow. Is it Mama? Sending her light to suck up all the dark inside of Morufu?

Mama, help me.

I try to hold the light with my eyes, to keep it with me, but it is too quick, half of a blink and nothing.

The pain is suddenly, it snatch my thinking, my breathing, and send me out from my body to the ceiling. I stay up there, watching myself as I am biting my bottom lip, scratching his back, fighting him with every of my strong. But it is useless, my power is not having power because Morufu is behaving as if a devil is inside of him. The more I am fighting, the more he is pressing hisself inside me, pouring hot heat inside my under until he make a loud grunting noise and collapse hisself on top me. Then he roll off to one side, breathing fast.