The Girl with the Louding Voice(20)

“You lie for me,” I say, my heart swelling with a mixing of thank you and a sad surprise. “Why?”

But Kike is not giving me any answer, she just shrug her shoulders, and, picking herself up, she shake the sand from her knees and run off fast, calling for her mama, begging her to wait for her.

I watch the dust settle back to the ground a moment, thinking maybe Kike will come back, before I sit on the floor, spread my wrapper between my two knees, and begin to use my hands to pack Khadija’s broken pot and all my happy feelings from seeing Kayus today into my wrapper.

I don’t know how long I stay there, sweeping everything into the wrapper: the wet sand, the pieces of a bone that a dog eat and spit out a long time ago, a tin of milk that been crushed under a car tires, weeds from around the bush. I keep packing things, keep putting them into my wrapper, not minding the stinking smell from it all or my dirty hands.

When I cannot pack any more, I try to stand to my feets, but I cannot. Something be pressing me down, and I didn’t too sure if it is all the rubbish inside my wrapper, or the sorrow swelling heavy in my heart, so I stay there like that, sitting on the floor, until someone say my name in a whisper.

“I been waiting for you to come home.” It is Khadija, her voice soft, concern. “Look how dirty you are.”

“It was Labake,” I say, pushing myself to my feets, as everything inside my wrapper tumble to the floor like a rain of rubbish. “Labake push me and now your pot is smash up and I was picking it for you, picking everything and thinking of how to fix it, to fix everything that be all mess up since my mama was dead, but it is too hard. Everything is too hard.”

“Oh, Adunni,” Khadija say as she press a warm hand to my cheeks and wipe the tears I didn’t know was there.

“Come with me, child,” she say. “You need a hot baff, a bowl of sweet yam, and a deep, deep sleep.”

She take me by my hand and drag me and my heavy heart back to Morufu’s house.





CHAPTER 12

Since last week, my heart been feeling one kind of soft for Kike, and when we see, we sometimes greet each other with our eyes, but this morning, she find me where I am sitting on the floor and grinding pepper in front of the kitchen.

She stand in my front, hand on her hip, and tilt her neck. “Adunni,” she say, “good morning.”

“G’morning,” I say as I pick the grinding stone and pour water on it to wash away the dirty, before I begin to roll it on the ball of peppers that is sitting on another wide gray stone in between my legs.

“Thank you for . . . for that day in the bush,” I say, keeping my eyes on the grinding stone. “I been wanting to say thank you, but your mama, she keep watching me, watching to see if I will talk to you.”

“She is in the market now,” Kike say. “Till sunset before she is coming back.”

“Why you tell a lie for me that day?” I ask.

“Because of . . . nothing,” she say.

I look up, roof my eyes from the sun. “I didn’t want to marry your father,” I say. “You know it.”

She bend herself, sit on the stone beside me. “I know it. I know you want to go to school. You have a good brain, Adunni. Good for learning school. Everybody in the village is saying so.”

“Then why is your mama fighting me?”

“My papa did a bad thing when he marry Khadija and you because of no boy-childrens. She is using that pain to fight the two of you. You . . . you are my age, it make it all very hard for her.”

“I hear you,” I say.

“My father find me a husband,” she say. “He been looking since I was ten years. He tell me yesterday that he collect my bride-price. Tomorrow, I go to my husband’s house.”

“Who the man?” I pick up another pepper, tear it into two, put it on the grinding slate, and begin to roll the other stone on it. “You meet him before?”

Kike shake her head. “His name is Baba Ogun. He is selling medicine for sick peoples in his village. He have one wife before. She die six months back of coughing blood. He is finding another one, a young girl like me to make him feel like a young man. We are not doing real wedding because he have a dead wife before, but my papa and mama will take me there soon.”

Kike is not vexing; it seem as if she didn’t mind it to be second wife of a old man with a dead first wife.

“You happy to marry this man?” I ask as I spoon up the pepper, check it. The white seeds among the pepper is like sand in my hand, so I pour it back on the stone, keep grinding.

“It make my papa happy.” She shrug her shoulder. “My mama want me to learn tailor work. But Papa say he didn’t have money to send me for training. He will use my bride-price to fix up the other taxi-car.” She lean back, watching as my hand is rolling the stone over the peppers, front and back, front and back.

She sigh. “I wish I am a man.”

I stop my hand. “Why you wish that?”

“Because think it, Adunni,” she say. “All the mens in our village, they are allowing them learn school and work, but us the girls, they are marrying us from fourteen years of age. I know I can be a good tailor. I can draw fine, fine style.” She take a finger, draw something in the sand. When I tilt my head and look, I see a long dress, fishtail shape, sleeves like two ringing bells.