The Girl with the Louding Voice(34)

“Hunger is not doing me,” I say. “Are you check it sure that my papa and Kayus, they have go?”

“Since when?” she say. “They must be reaching Ikati by now. One of the small boys that is helping me in this compound is watching the village border for me. The boy can run very fast. If he sees your papa or brother coming, he will come and tell us.”

Iya remove the cover from the pot, dip the spoon inside, and turn it around. I think it is yam porridge she is cooking. It is smelling like pepper and crayfish and palm oil yam, but it is looking like orange shit. Vomit climb my throat, but I push it back.

“I send another small boy to call Kola for me and tell him to come,” she say. “Go now, Adunni. Go and wash yourself of all themess.”

“What if Papa come back as I am baffing?”

“Stand there and be asking me foolish questions,” she say as she slap the spoon of yam porridge on her palm and lick it for taste. “If your papa come back again and find you just standing there, I will not put my mouth in your matter. There is a room and bucket next to the well. Go quick.”

I pick my ankara dress, pant, and brassiere from the floor and leave her front.

The well, a circle of gray wall deep inside the ground and full of water, is behind the building. I throw the bucket inside, draw my water, and enter the baffroom: a square place with cold cement floor, slippery like someone pour raw egg on it. Just like the baffroom in Morufu house, there is green grass climbing up, up the wall to the iron roof.

I off my cloth and begin to pour the water on my head. The cold water is shocking me electric and I am scrubbing my whole body with my palms and the water is mixing with my tears. Scrubbing and crying and scrubbing and crying until it feel as if I will peel my skin and be pouring blood if I don’t stop.

When I finish, my skin is breathing in and out from too much scrubbing sore. I wear my brassiere and pant on my wet body like that because I don’t have cloth to be drying the water. By the time I go back to Iya, she is eating the yam porridge from the bowl, her fingers full of orange yam, as if she dip her hand inside orange paint.

“You want food now?” she ask, licking her fingers. “It is new yam, new harvest.”

“No, ma,” I say. “My stomach is turning me.”

“Rest your mind, Kola is coming,” she say. “He is living in Idanra town, which is not far from here, but he is driving a motorcar and is having one of those telephone things that you are carrying around with you. What you call it?”

“Mobile of telephone,” I say. “Morufu is having one. In English-speaking, to mobile means to be letting a thing go up and down by itself.”

“That is it,” Iya say. Her eyes are shining, as if she is prouding of this her brother and this his mobile of telephone.



* * *





I am fighting sleep from my eyes when somebody start to knock again. But it is not angry knock, not like Papa own.

“Open it,” Iya say. “It must be Kola. My brother.”

I open it. There is one man standing there. He look lanky, with a face like a burned something. There is marks on his face too; two straight lines from under each of his eyes to his jaws area, as if somebody vex and draw number eleven on each of his cheeks with thick black paint.

“Morning, sah,” I say, kneeling down.

He bend his neck to the left, eye me up and down, and clear his throat as if he about to start singing a very loud song.

“Is my sister inside?” he ask.

“Come in, sah.” I step to one side for him to enter. “Welcome, sah.”

He greet Iya with a quick nod of his head, and she pray for him and thank him for the Milo and Lipton Tea he was sending her last month. He ask if she is taking her medicine, and she say yes, three times of the day, even though I didn’t see her taking any medicine yesternight or this morning.

When he scratch his throat again, I am thinking maybe he is needing water.

“Did you send for me?” he ask Iya, sounding as if he is vexing, as if Iya is always troubling him. “I don’t have any money for you yet.”

“I don’t care for your money,” she say, “but you must help me for this one. The girl that open the door just now is Adunni. Remember Idowu, the woman selling puff-puff in Ikati? Adunni is her daughter.”

“Ah.” Mr. Kola turn to my side, nod his head yes. “I remember when she was bringing food for you. Sorry about your mother’s passing.”

“Thank you, sah,” I say.

“She needs our help,” Iya say. Then she is telling him all the story about Khadija and how my papa is looking for me and how he will be coming back. “Can you find her job like all those girls you use to help? Adunni is very good girl. She is even knowing book. She is speaking good, good English.”

Mr. Kola sniff his nose. “Iya, I can help her, but not today. Today is too short notice. I know she is in trouble, but if she can wait maybe one week, I can find—”

“One week is too far,” Iya say. “She must go today. This morning. Her papa will come back to find her here. I know it. I cannot let anything bad happen to Adunni. I make a promise to her mother years back, I will keep that promise till I die.”

My eyes pinch again with tears when Iya say this, and I press my hands together, bring it to my lips and say a prayer of thank you for her.