The Girl with the Louding Voice(32)

“What is bringing you to me at this time? Have the rains scatter your house?”

“I am needing your help, ma,” I say. “I am inside deep trouble in the house.”

“Come inside.” She use her buttocks to drag herself back as she open the door wide for me. “We are having half current, so no ’lectricity light inside here. Look to your left, there is a kerosene lantern over there.”

The smell of kerosene is thick in the air as I enter. My eye cut to the window, and I cross the room, collect the lantern from the floor, and on the lamp. As I am holding the lantern up and looking the whole place, my heart is falling. There was a box tee-vee, wardrobe, chair, and fan before, but now, is only mattress on the floor and one blue kerosene stove behind it. Two or three cloths are hanging on one kind wooden handle behind the mattress and that is it.

The two both of Iya’s eyes are wide-open and stiff, and when I go to sit on the floor behind the door, she is not using her eyes to follow me. She is just looking the window and talking.

“Ma binu,” Iya is saying. “Don’t be angry. I sell the chair last week. What happen to you?”

As I am telling her the story of Morufu and Khadija, I am fighting very hard to not cry. “I just need a somewhere to be staying for small time,” I say. “Maybe until after Bamidele come out and tell them that he is the one that cause it for Khadija to die.”

Iya shake her head. “Bamidele is not never coming out, not with a new wife and new baby coming. Even if they catch him, they will drag him to Ikati chief because Khadija is from there. We all know that Ikati village is worst for killing people with no questions. Bamidele will never say the truth about Khadija. Nobody wants to die before their time. Ah, your mama will be too sad for all these things that have happen to you. What can I do for you, Adunni?”

“Help me,” I say. “Let me be staying here small, to hide myself. After maybe I can find work in another village and be using the moneys to help myself.”

“You cannot stay here,” she say. “As you are sitting there, I can only see the smoke of you. Sometimes, I cannot see anything. My eyes is sick. My legs is sick. My body is sick. Everything sick.”

“I can help you be taking care of yourself,” I say. “I can cook, wash, fetch water, go to market, you just say it and I will be doing it.” But as I am saying that, I am thinking, how will I do that and the peoples from this village will not send a message to my papa?

Iya is shaking her head no. “The end is near for me, Adunni,” she say in Yoruba. “My ancestors, they are calling me come.” She tilt her head to the side and up in the air, as if somebody from the top of the window is calling her name. “Can you hear it? They are drumming the drums and singing the songs to welcome me.” She open all her teeths in one kind of smile, and the lantern light is making it look as if she only have one half of face.

I didn’t sure how to answer her or her ancestors, so I am keeping my words to myself.

“Your mother was a kind woman,” she say. “God rest her soul.” She think a moment. “Stop crying, Adunni. I can help you.” She push her head back until she is lying on the mattress. “I have one brother, Kola is his name. We share the same father but not the same mother. He is doing job of helping girls like you.”

She is looking up in the ceiling now, eyes open wide with no blink. For one moment, she don’t say anything. Then she say, “Tonight we sleep. Tomorrow we talk. Off that lantern so we don’t die inside fire before the cock crow.”

“Yes, ma.” I off the lantern, stretch myself on the floor, and fold my hands under my head, my nylon bag of belongings by my feets. The whole place is quiet, but crickets outside are speaking kre-kre far into the night. Sometimes Iya will just start to cough like she wants to cough out all her lung. Other times, she will snore like a generator engine.

I lie there, thinking of my mama, of Kayus, of Khadija, of the time when I didn’t have plenty trouble like this. I am thinking all these things until the first cock is saying coo-koo-roo-koo at first light and the early-morning sunlight is pouring inside the room from the window.

Just then, there is one kind noise, sound like two animals fighting. At first I am thinking maybe the noise is inside my head, but the more it is coming close, the more it is louding. It is not animals fighting. It is voice of a man, a voice I know very well. It is coming closer with feets that is sounding bam-bam like a mad solja marching to the war front. As it is reaching Iya’s compound, my heart is starting to beat fast because it is the voice of my papa. His most angry of all voice.

He is shouting: “Where is my daughter? And who in this cursed village is bearing the name Iya?”





CHAPTER 20

All my body have collapse.

My head, it is telling myself to get up—Adunni, get up, get up and run—but my arms and legs is not making sense with itself. I feel like going to toilet, and as I am thinking of it, hot piss is flooding my dress, covering the whole floor. My heart is in my ears, banging boom-boom-boom.

Papa is here. Here in Agan village. What can I do? Where can I go to disappear and never be finding myself?

“Adunni,” Iya is calling me from her mattress. I am giving her answer, but my voice, it have gum to my throat. It is not coming out.

“Adunni?” she call again, and the sleep is dragging in her voice. “Is it your papa’s voice I am hearing?”