The Girl with the Louding Voice(30)

“We will come and dance for you too when you have a new baby!” Ruka say with a wink as she is walking away with her friend. “Bye-bye!”

“Bye-bye,” I say, but I don’t move, even after they go far, even after the rain is starting to fall. It is a heavy rain, the kind that is shaking the earth and causing the roofs of the houses to be sounding as if a mad person is playing mad music: banging pots, pans, and spoons together. The rain beat my hair, run down my face and into my mouth so that I can taste the coconut oil pomade from my hair, and the salt from my tears and the rainwater. The water is soaking my cloth, making me to be shivering in the middle of the path. I am thinking of what Ruka just say, about coming to dance with me when I have a new baby. Will my papa and Morufu be shocking with anger and surprise when they hear that I am missing? Will they think it is because I kill Khadija that I am running away? Will my papa be having heart pain because of me? Will they put my papa inside prison until they find me come? Or will Papa know that I am running away? And if they find me, will they hear what I am saying about Bamidele?

I wipe my face with the back of my hand and sniff up the catar from my nose. This decisions is too hard, and maybe I am not doing the correct thing. Maybe I can go back home and try to follow Papa to the village chief? But if I do that, they will kill me just like they kill Lamidi the farmer, and Tafa, Asabi’s love-boy, and other peoples I cannot remember now.

I think I must go first, then when Bamidele is finding hisself, I can try and be coming back. I take the edge of my dress, twist it and squeeze out the rainwaters, shake it to try and dry it, but the dress just gum his wet self to my skin and give me sneeze.

I pick up my running until I reach the market square. There is one light pole in the center, the golden-yellow beam is making the wet cement floor to shine like glass. In the center of the square, there is gray stone statue of our village king on his throne. His stone eyes is wide-open, and he is holding a big stick, as if he is watching the whole place for thiefs . . . for me.

The rains have stop, but the sky is the black of coal, and the market stalls are empty. All the sellers of tin-milk and sardines, of garri and maize, even the mens that are selling electronics like tee-vees and DVDs, they have leave the place. The mallams that always use to sell suya too have run for shelters. The smell of the dry meat, frying onions, and pepper is still inside the air, making hunger to be vexing my stomach.

I cross the market square and cut to the village border. There is another statue of the king, like the one in market square, only this one, the king is holding the sign that is saying: BYE-BYE TO IKATI. THE VILLAGE OF HAPPYNESS. If you look the sign from the back of it, from where the express is turning inside our village, it is saying: WELCOME TO IKATI. THE VILLAGE OF HAPPYNESS. Today I am facing the side that is saying bye-bye with no any happyness.

I see one woman selling akara in a pot of black, hot oil, under a red umbrella. She is talking to the akara, speaking in Yoruba, telling the beans-cake to be sweeting itself and bringing customers even though the rains have chase them all away.

When she see me, she wipe the sweat from her forehead into the oil, and it make a sssh noise, causing black smoke to be rising in the air and pinching my eyes. “You want to buy akara?” she ask.

Hunger is flogging me, but I am not having the mouth to eat anything.

“No,” I say. “Thank you. No any moneys to buy.”

She strong her face, using her eyes to climb from my feets to my head. “If you don’t have money to pay for this good food, go away from here and let better customer come.”

Just then, I hear a voice calling my name; rough, the voice of a siga smoker.

I feel a hot thing running to my head. Who knows me this far from my house? I turn around. Mr. Bada. He is wearing a blue kaftan which is tighting his body. His round, fat head, which didn’t have any hair, is shining in the dark as if he use oil to polish it.

“Good evening, sah,” I say, kneeling down to greet him.

“You want to buy akara?” he ask as he put his hand inside his kaftan pocket and bring out a bundle of money, pull out two twenty-naira note of money and give it to the woman. “Madam, give me six for my Adunni here. She is my friend’s daughter. She married Morufu the taxi driver. She is a new wife. Young wife.”

The woman didn’t even do as if she can hear him as she is collecting the money and folding it three times before she push it deep inside her brassiere.

“Thank you, sah,” I say.

“Get up, child,” he say. “What are you doing here in this rain?”

“I am going,” I cough out words sticking to my throat, “to the next village.” Foolish girl, I think to myself. Why are you telling him where you are going?

“To do what?” Mr. Bada ask. “Where is your husband?”

“My husband, he send me to go and collect car spare part from one workshop.”

“Your husband should send another person in this rain,” Mr. Bada say as the woman pack six balls of akara with the spoon, shake all the oil back inside the pot, and wrap it inside one old newspaper for me.

“Yes, sah.” My hand is shaking as I collect the newspaper bag of my food. “My husband will be picking me from the place. Thank you, sah.”

“Good,” he say. “Go well. Greet your husband for me. You hear?”

This time, I don’t stop my running until I reach the next village, until I reach the place where Iya was telling me to come to her if I am ever needing her help.