The Girl with the Louding Voice(28)

Papa is sitting in the sofa when I enter. He is sleeping deep, putting his head back on the sofa wood, his cap on his nose. His snoring is loud, it shake the whole parlor. He jump awake when I enter, open his eyes wide as if he have see a evil spirit.

“Adunni?” He wipe his eye, shake his head. “It is you?”

“Sah.” I am shaking too much, it is hard to be kneeling down. “It is me, sah. Good afternoon, Papa.”

Outside, the driver press the horn of his motorcycle, peen.

“The driver want to collect his money, sah,” I say, and before Papa can answer, I run to the room I was sharing with Kayus and Born-boy and take the money I was hiding inside my mat since long time ago, run outside, and pay the driver twenty naira.

“What did you find come?” Papa ask when I am back inside the parlor. He is standing on his feets now, hands on his waist. “You run from your husband’s house?”

“No, sah. I didn’t run from my husband’s house.” I bring myself to the floor, kneel down, and hold his leg. “Papa, help me.”

“What happen?” Papa ask when I begin to cry. “Why are you crying?”

As I am talking, I feel his leg slack, feel as he remove hisself from my hand and fall hisself inside the sofa. “Khadija is dead?” he ask, talking whisper. “Your senior wife is dead?”

“It is Bamidele,” I say. “She have a man-friend, a lover. Bamidele is his name. He is a welder from Kere village. He give her pregnants and now he is leaving her to die because he didn’t come back with soap to baff away evil curse.” Even as I am talking, I know it is sounding as if I am telling lies. “I am talking true, Papa. God is seeing my heart! God knows it is true! Bamidele have a soap and he didn’t come back and Khadija is dead because of him. It is true, Papa!”

Papa put his head inside his hands, he didn’t talk for a long, long time. When he up his head, his eyes are red, watery, look as if hisself about to cry too. “Who see you when it happen?”

I shake my head. “See me? Nobody. Bamidele’s wife say he is traveling. She will not talk true.” I remember the twins that was fetching water. But I don’t even know their name, or if they see me and Bamidele with Khadija. They see me, that I know. Everybody see me. Everybody will say it is me that kill Khadija.

“I am talking true. I swear it,” I say.

“Ah,” Papa say, touch his chest three times. “Ah. Adunni, you have kill me, finish.”

“I swear I didn’t do anything, Papa!” I am crying too much and coughing out my words. “Help me, Papa, help me!”

Papa remove my hand from his knees, sigh a sad sigh. “Adunni, I must go to the village chief. We must tell them what happen.”

“No, Papa, no!” I pull his trouser cloth. “You know what will happen. They will not give me a chance to talk myself, they will just kill me. They will not hear what I am saying about Bamidele.”

“We cannot leave Khadija by herself,” Papa say. “Somebody must go and bring her body come. I cannot do it, because they will say I kill her. So, let me go now to the village chief and tell him what happen.”

“If they ask you to bring me come, what will you tell them?”

Papa give me one look, and I never see him look so sad, so confuse.

“Then I bring you come,” he say, voice so soft, so breaking. “Khadija have her peoples, they must know that she is dead. The village chief must know that Khadija is dead. Morufu must know. Let me go and find all these peoples. The village chief will not kill you when I, your Papa, is alive. I swear it that nothing bad will happen to you. But first, stop your tears. Go inside your room and wait for me.”

Papa look left and look right, tap the side of his trouser, as if he is finding something but didn’t know what it is, then he put his feets inside his slippers and leave me kneeling by myself in the parlor.



* * *





My heart is still turning around inside my chest as I am standing in the room I was sharing with Kayus and Born-boy. I go to the window, pull Mama’s wrapper that we use for curtains to one side, to check it sure that nobody is coming. Outside, the sun is starting to climb down from the sky, the color is changing to the red of Papa’s eyes when he is drinking too much. The compound is empty, quiet too, only the leafs from the mango tree are dancing in the evening breeze and whispering to theirselfs.

Is it a wicked thing, to be thinking to run away, when Khadija is by herself, lying dead in Kere village? Is there another options for me? Papa say nothing will happen to me, but Papa make a promise to Mama and he didn’t keep the promise. How will he keep his promise now to save me from this troubles?

I wipe my eyes, move away from the window, roll out my mat from under the bed, pull out the black nylon bag from inside the raffia mat and put my belongings inside it.

I don’t have much things because three of my four cloths is in Morufu’s house. I take my ankara dress, one pant, the black brassiere that Mama gived me when I was first starting to growing breast, my chewing stick, and my mama’s old Yoruba Bible. It have a black rubber cover, the words inside small, the edges folding from many years of Mama reading it at night with candlelight in the kitchen. I press it on my chest now, say a prayer to God to help me. To save me from my troubles.

I look around the room, at the cushion Kayus is using as pillow on the green mat in the corner, at the kerosene lantern beside it, and shake my head. How will I be leaving all of this? If I run away now, where will I see Kayus again?