The Girl with the Louding Voice(22)

“Why didn’t you tell him we are going to midwife?” I ask, confuse. “Anything bad in that?”

“You cannot understand,” she say as she rub her stomach and twist her face as if it is still paining her. “Are you ready for us to be going?”

I wear my black sandal-shoe, tight my dress-belt behind my back, and follow Khadija.

Morufu and Labake are inside the compound, standing in front of the taxi-car. Today is Kike’s wedding, so I know they are making preparations to carry her to her husband’s house.

Morufu is wearing the same agbada he was wearing for our wedding, and Labake is wearing something like a brown sack. She hiss, turn her back on me. I hiss too, loud for only my ears to hear.

“Where are you going this early morning?” Morufu ask, hooking his agbada sleeve on his shoulder. “You are not following us to Kike’s wedding.”

“God forbid,” Labake say. “They cannot follow us. Today is my day to shine. No witch can spoil it for me.”

“We are not following you,” Khadija say. She look as if her spirit is climbing out from her body as she wipe her front head, which is full of sweat. “I am going to my mother’s house. She so sick. I must take Adunni with me. My bag is heavy to carry.”

Why is Morufu blinding to what Khadija is feeling?

I bend my knee, greet him. “Good morning, sah.”

“Adunni, my young wife,” he say. “Do you want to follow Khadija to go and greet her mother?”

I look Khadija, she sway a little on her feets, nod her head. I nod my own too. “Yes, sah.”

“You must come back this night,” he say. “Because, tonight, I want to spend one special time with my Adunni.”

“By God’s grace,” Khadija say, “we will come back before sunset.”

“Till then,” Morufu say. He enter the car, on the engine.

We watch as Kike come out from the house. She is wearing a new iro and buba, there is a flower on the neck area of the buba. It is nice-looking, maybe she style it herself? There is a lace cloth on her head, on her gele, and it hang over her face, a curtain. She peep from under the cloth, her eyes filling with hope under the black khajal around the eyeslids.

“Go well,” I say to her when she reach my front. “Go well, my tailor.”

Me and Khadija get to walking the two miles to the bus garage.



* * *





The bus garage is not a far distant, but Khadija be walking ever so slow, moaning and groaning, rubbing her tummy as if she about to born that baby right there on the road to the garage.

She keep saying she want to shit, she want to piss, she want to sleep.

I am very fearing for her, but I hide my fear and tell her to keep walking, to don’t stop, to don’t piss or shit. The bus is not full, just market womens holding basket of bread, orange, beans, making preparations for selling morning food. We sit in the front seat, me near the driver that is smelling of early-morning spit, and Khadija near the door. I hold her bag in my laps, keep my eyes on her, as if my eyes will hold the baby inside her stomach. When the driver is starting the bus and is leaving the garage, I ask Khadija how she feel now. “Baby staying up?”

“Still coming down,” she say as she rest her head on my shoulder, squeeze my hand. “My eyes are closing. We are going to Kere village. Wake me when we reach.”

Before I can say don’t sleep, she close her eyes, and is starting to snore.





CHAPTER 14

We cut through the forest road, the bus driving between the tall mango trees with thick branches and leafs to the left and right of it.

The branches are leaning close, covering the road like a umbrella, light from the sun entering through a crack in the umbrella. We pass farmers riding their bicycle to the farm, the bells on it ringing to chase away peoples, chickens, and dogs from their road. We pass the womens with trays of firewood, bread, and green plantains on their head, their childrens sleeping in the wrappers around their back. They are just coming from the farm, taking the firewood and food to the house for cooking. I think about this, why the mens in the village are not letting many of the girls go to school, but they are not minding when the womens are bringing firewood and going to market and cooking for them?

We pass Ikati border, and soon a line of red hills be surrounding us like a embrace. Some of the hills is having mud houses perching on the edge of it, looking as if it will fall off the hill and just kill all the peoples inside any moment now.

Black goats, about fifty of them, are climbing up one of the rocks. There is a man at the bottom of it, holding a long stick, flogging the goats up, up. To the left of me is another hill that look like it is crying real tears; and a line of clear water, the blue of the sky, is running down the face of it, the top of the hill egg-shape and smooth like a man’s head.

One hour or so after the hills, we reach Kere garage, and Khadija, who been sleeping all the way, snoring deep too, is talking nonsense inside her sleep.

The driver bring the bus to a stop near a cocoa tree. The air have a smell of roasting nuts, and when I look around, I see a man turning walnuts in a wheelbarrow sitting on top a firewood flame. There are one or two peoples in his front, waiting to buy the walnut. It is a small village, this Kere place, half of Ikati, it seems, with one or two round houses that they builded with red sand here and there and the rest houses are nearly falling off the hills.