The Girl with the Louding Voice(23)

Across the garage, there is one shop selling choco-sweet, siga, newspapers, and bread. A woman is sweeping the front of the shop, the broom doing swish, swish as she is going front and back on the floor and singing, her voice climbing across the road to come and meet us:

In the mornin’

I will rise and praise the Lor’

“This is reach Kere village,” the driver say with a shout. “We stay here for ten minutes, then we move!”

My stomach is starting to tight itself as I elbow Khadija. “Open your eyes,” I say, but she just drop her neck to one side. Why she sleeping so much? I lick my lips, feel as if I lick a fire, and elbow her again. “Khadija?”

Why, why, why did I follow her to this place? What was I thinking in my brain? What if she keep sleeping on and on, forever and forever?

“Khadija, wake up!” I shout and the bus driver look me. “She didn’t wake up!” I say to the driver, and the sound of my tears in my voice shock me.

“Adunni?” Khadija open her eyes slow, look around the place, and wipe spit from her mouth. “I am waking up. This is the place. Let us come down.”

“You doing fine?” I ask. The twisting in my stomach stop a moment as I wipe her face with my hand. “I was fearing you were sleeping too deep. You feeling well?”

“Very well,” she say, collecting my hand. “Follow me.”

Together, we climb out from the bus and walk, her stopping and moaning, me telling her to try keep going, until we cut across the bus garage, pass the singing woman in front of her shop, and find ourselfs on one road. There is a guava tree on the side of the road, and one brown goat with red thread on his neck is eating the grass around the root of the tree. The goat look up, see us as we are coming, tear a grass, and run away. Khadija stop, rest herself on the guava tree, the fruit on top of the tree dropping low to near her head, looking yellow, ripe for plucking.

“You want to sit down?” I ask, putting her bag on the floor. “Rest yourself.”

Khadija bend herself until she is sitting on the tree root. “I will wait here for you.” She point a shaking finger the round house in the afar. “Cross this road and go to that house with red door. Knock it three times. If a woman open it, tell her you are selling leafs, then turn back and come here. But if is a man that open it, tell him you ask for Bamidele. Tell him Khadija send you. Bring him come to me.”

I strong my face, confuse. “Where is the midwife’s house?” I ask. Bamidele is the name of a man. I never see a man-midwife in my life. “Khadija?”

There is new sweat on her forehead now, beads of water spotting her up lip.

“Please don’t ask too much questions now,” she say. “If you want my baby to not die, please go and ask for Bamidele. Tell him . . . Ah, my back, Adunni. My back is paining me.”

I give her a long look, wonder again why I follow her come. Why didn’t I stay in Ikati and mind my own matter? But Khadija help me with the drink for not having pregnant, she keep my mind free of worry in Morufu’s house, she fight Labake for me. And if she die here, everybody will say I kill my senior wife. They will say jealousy make me carry her to Kere village and kill her dead and leave her by a guava tree. They will kill me too, with no question, because in Ikati, they kill anybody that kill or anybody that steal.

I remember when one farmer, Lamidi, he kill his friend because of farmland fight, and the village chief tell his servants to be flogging Lamidi seventy lashes with palm frond in the village square every day until he have die dead. They burn his body after he finish dying. No burial. They just throw his black body inside the forest, a burning offering to the gods of the forest.

I carry my legs and cross the road quick, hurrying my feets until I reach the front of the clay house.

When I look back, Khadija raise her hand and wave me bye-bye.

The door is the red of blood, angry-looking. I fold my fingers and knock it one time. No answer. I can hear something inside, somebody is hearing radio, the morning news in Yoruba.

I knock again.

The door open slow. I find myself looking a man. He is tall, young, fine-looking. He is wearing a trouser cloth, no shirt on top. No shoes on his feets too. Radio inside his hand.

“I am looking for Bamidele,” I say. “Is it you?”

He off the radio with one button on the side of it. “Yes, I am Bamidele. How can I help?”

I keep my voice low. “Khadija. You know her?”

His face shift, and he look back inside his house as if checking sure nobody is coming. “What happen to her?” he ask.

“She say I should call you come,” I say. “She is sitting afar off. Not well.”

“Not well?” He strong his face. “Wait.”

He close the door.

I stand there, shifting on my feets, feeling much confuse. Who is this Bamidele man? What he and Khadija have with theirselfs? And why she tell me she is going to see midwife, and she tell Morufu she is going to see her mother? The door open again, cut my thinking. The man is wearing a shirt now, matching material with his trouser. “Take me to her.”

We walk small, run small, until we reach Khadija. There is much sweat on her face now, and she is turning her head this way and that. I stand to one corner, and the man, this Bamidele, he kneel down, take Khadija’s hand.

“Khadija,” he say. “It is me. What happen?”