The Girl with the Louding Voice(33)

“Yes, ma,” I say, but is like she didn’t hear me. I didn’t hear myself too. Something have snatch my voice. There is a knocking on her door, ko-ko-ko. The door is shaking and Papa is shouting, vexing. “Open this door now!”

Cold is spreading rashes over my body. I am finished. Killed dead. What will I do? Where will I go?

“Adunni.” Iya is talking with her breath and I am not hearing her well. “Behind the mattress is one door,” I think she is saying. “It is leading to our baffroom. Go there. Quick.”

When I don’t move, Iya slap her hand on something. “Go. NOW!”

I push myself up as if something just shock me electric in the back. I can see the door she is showing me, it is the place where she was hanging cloth. How was I blinding to this yesterday?

The door is still rattling. “Open this door,” Papa is saying. And Iya is answering, “I am getting up from my bed. If you break the door of a old sick woman, thunder will strike you dead.”

I push the door open, and I am tumbling into a narrow corridor that is smelling like piss. The piss smell is choking me and making me to cough and bringing water to my eyes.

There is one very big bang, and then Papa’s voice: “Why was it taking you long to open door?”

Iya is giving a mumble of answer that didn’t make sense.

At the end of the corridor is another door. I enter, swallowing the vomit in my throat at the shits on the floor, some round and brown, like hard-boil egg, others watery like porridge. All of it is stinking. Flies is perching on the shits, jumping and dancing from one shit to another. To my left, beside the broken toilet with no flushing hand, is a baffing bowl with shit stains everywhere. I plant my feets on the only clean space on the floor and hold my vomit as I listen to Iya and Papa arguing with theirselfs:

“Where is my daughter?”

Mumble. Mumble.

“Did something gum your mouth? I say where is my daughter? Peoples say they see her coming here last night.”

Mumble. Mumble.

Papa say, “Kayus, this old woman is having ear and mouth problem. Search this room for me. Check it everywhere. Find Adunni!”

I hear boom, bam, slap, and I think Kayus and Papa are throwing the belongings in Iya’s room this way and that.

Papa say, “What is in this nylon? Is it not Adunni’s cloth? Kayus, look it and tell me.”

I don’t hear what Kayus is saying. I keep shut my eyes, fold myself into myself.

“Is that a door there?” Papa say. “Open it.”

Something is tumbling inside the corridor. Feets is making slap-slap again. Papa say, “Kayus, go inside that stinking place and check it that Adunni is not hiding inside. YOU HEAR ME?”

“Yes, sah,” Kayus say.

As the door is opening, I am holding my breath and pushing myself until my back is rubbing the shits on the wall. I am just praying the wall will open and swallow me and the shits, all of us together like that.

Kayus is standing in my front. Looking me. No blink. Like he is seeing the spirit of Mama and Mama’s mama. I am shaking my head, pressing one finger to my lips. My eyes are begging him, my spirit is begging him. Please don’t tell Papa, my eyes are saying, don’t tell Papa.

“Is she inside that place?” Papa ask from outside. “Kayus?”

“No, sah,” he say. “Nothing here . . . but the window is open, maybe she is running to the market square.”

“COME OUT and let us go NOW!” Papa say. “Quick. Morufu and his peoples are waiting. The village chief is waiting!”

Kayus stay like that a moment, mouth shaking as if he is fighting to not cry. His eyes are wet with tears, but there is a pinch of a sad smile on his lips. And when he press his hand on his chest and nod his head, I know that Kayus is wanting me to run away and, most of all, to not allow them catch me.

Thank you, I say with no voice. Thank you, my brother.

“Kayus!” Papa shout. “Come on!”

Kayus nod his head slow, our last bye-bye.

Bye-bye, Kayus, my eyes say to him as he is turning hisself around and running outside. Bye-bye, my sweet Kayus.

I remain standing there for a long, long time, with my hand on my chest, with the tears standing in my eyes.





CHAPTER 21

I find Iya sitting on the floor in her room, turning something inside a pot on top a kerosene stove with a long wooden spoon.

There is a fire dancing under it, and when I enter the room, she low the fire, press her up lip to her nose.

“Your whole body is stinking the whole place,” she say. “Go and baff. Throw away that smelling dress you are wearing. You have another dress?”

I look my belongings in one corner by the floor, my mama’s Bible perching on the ankara dress. “They will come back,” I say, watching my cloths. “They saw all my belongings. I cannot use that place to baff. It is full of shit.”

She start a laugh that end in a cough. Sound like somebody flushing toilet. “Nobody with sense is using that place to baff,” she say. “That place is for shitting. You shit and go. Every month, we clean it room by room. Next week, room number eight will clean it. Go behind the house, beside the well. Baff there.

“I am cooking yam,” she add with a smile, as if me and her just finish talking and laughing about yam. As if my heart didn’t just nearly collapse finish because of Papa.