The Girl with the Louding Voice(17)

She lift up her head and thin her eyes at me. “Morufu must not know you are drinking medicine. You understand me, Adunni?”

My heart is melting as I look the round of her face, the kind spirit in her eyes. “Thank you, Khadija,” I say, bending to pick up one branch. “Can I pluck this one for you?”

“Adunni,” she say, taking the branch from my hand with care and setting it down on the floor. “Your mind is so full of worry, it is pouring all over your face. Forget about housework for today. Pull that bench, sit here with me, and let us talk.”





CHAPTER 11

With Khadija, the days in this house are short and sometimes sweet.

We talk together, laugh together, and with her stomach swelling so big and making her sometimes sick, I am helping to do her washing, cooking, everything. I am helping with her small childrens too, baffing for Alafia and her sisters, and feeding them food and washing their hair and dirty cloths. They are good childrens, Khadija’s childrens, ever happy and laughing and looking for Labake’s trouble.

Me and Morufu, we don’t talk much. He is always so busy with his farming and taxi-driving work from early morning till night. Sometimes, he will call me to his room, make me to stand in his front with my hand in my back, and ask me question as if he a doctor. He will ask me if I am having pregnants yet or if my monthly visitor have come because he want me to quick and carry pregnants and born a boy, but most times, he just want to rough me and eat food. I keep to drinking the drink Khadija make for me, from a dark bottle full of bitter leafs and ginger.

When it is my turn with Morufu, I will take a quick cap of it, go to his room, and watch him swallow his own Fire-Cracker, before I am making myself a dead body so that he can rough me. I am hoping that maybe after six months or something like that, he will see that no pregnant is ever coming, and he can send me go back to my papa. Maybe.

Labake is still fighting me. She will stamp her feets and curse if I am too long in washing the plates in the kitchen, or if I am too quick to sweep the compound, or too slow in grinding beans. She is always looking for my trouble, that Labake, always finding a way to fight me.

But today is the second Tuesday in the month.

The day for market womens and Ikati farmers meeting, which means the two both of Labake and Morufu are not in the house. Because of it, I am feeling one kind of a free I didn’t feel in a long time, and as I am cleaning the parlor this early morning, I feel a pulling in my heart to sing. To just be happy. To not think of sorrow or worry things. So I start singing a song I just make up in my head:

Hello, fine girl!

If you want to become a big, big lawyer

You must go to plenty, plenty school

If you want to wear a high, high shoe

And walk, ko-ka-ko

You must go to plenty, plenty school

I take the thick newspaper that been sitting under the lantern on top the tee-vee, fold it this way and that until it look kind of like the paper lawyer-wig I sometimes see inside the tee-vee. I put it on top my head, hold it down with one hand. Then I stand on the tip of my toes as if I am wearing a too-high shoes on my feets. I begin to walk on my toes up and down the parlor, singing:

Walk, ko-ka-ko

In your high, high shoe!

As I say “ko-ka-ko,” I stop my walking a moment to twist my buttocks left and right to the beat, then I keep walking on my toes, swinging one hand up and down, the other pressing the newspaper to my head so it don’t fall off.

My voice is happy and clear like a early-morning bird, and I don’t even see Khadija peeping her head into the parlor, looking me with the newspaper on my head, laughing silent.

“Adunni!” she say.

I shock, stop singing, then give her a big smile when I see that she didn’t angry.

“Sorry,” I say, “I was just—”

“Did you finish your morning work?” she ask.

“I finish it all,” I say as I remove the newspaper from my head, fold it, and keep it back on the tee-vee. “I make up a song about a girl wanting to become a lawyer. You want me to sing it for you? Hello, fine girl—”

She wave her hand to stop my singing and rub her stomach. “No, not now. I am still feeling a little sick. Maybe at nighttime.”

“Okay,” I say. “Did you see the okra I cook for you this morning?”

“I will drink some now,” she say. “Thank you.”

I look around the parlor, then nod my head yes. “All of this place is very clean. Now, let me go and start washing—”

“No,” Khadija say. “Leave the cloth in the backyard, I will wash it for you when I am better. The rains of last week must have swell up the river. Can you go and bring water from Ikati river for me? My clay pot is beside the well. Use it.”

“You want me to go to Ikati river?” I press a hand to my chest, blink. “Me?”

Morufu don’t ever allow me to go anywhere far like the river. He say that new wifes is didn’t suppose to be going up and down everywhere until after one year, after I have born a baby boy for him.

Khadija nod her head yes, then smile soft. “Adunni, I know your friends be always playing in the river around this time. The house is free of Labake and Morufu. It been too long since you seen them all. So go quick. Come back before afternoon.”

“Oh, Khadija,” I say, jumping up and down and clapping my hand. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”