The Girl with the Louding Voice(36)

“Soon,” he say, looking up in the car looking-glass and cutting to another lane in the road.

“What will be happening to me?”

“You work,” he say. “That reminds me. Adunni, listen. I have a medical result in my boot. My doctor friend made it for me. Big Madam wants to be sure you are not carrying sickness.” He slide his eyes to me. “Are you carrying sickness?”

“No, sah.”

“Good. I will write your name on the medical result and show it to Big Madam. If she asks you if we went to the doctor, you must say yes, we went to Idanra clinic, okay? If you say no, no more work for you.”

“I will say yes,” I say, shifting in my seat, not understanding why Mr. Kola is lying. If he is lying about doctor, what else he be lying about? Did I really think it well before I was running to leave Ikati and follow this man? I look him, the flesh of his jaws moving up and down as if he is eating the air, and sigh. If he is telling lies to me, nothing I can do about it. I cannot be going back to Ikati or running to anywhere now.

“You will stay with me in this work?” I ask.

“No. I will visit you every three months.”

“I will be going to school in this work?” I ask.

He look me one kind, clear his throat. “If you are behaving and Big Madam likes you, she may put you in school.”

“If my papa comes back to find me, will Iya tell them where we are going?”

“Iya will die than to betray your mother,” he say. “She is a stubborn woman and is not afraid to die. Look, your papa can never find you again, not by Iya. Not by me. Not except you go back to Ikati by yourself. Do you want to go back?”

I shake my head in a quick no, even though my heart is paining me that I cannot never be going back to Ikati. “Who is this Big Madam?” I ask, rubbing my chest, the pain in my heart. “Why are you calling her that?”

“Adunni,” he say as he is starting to slow the car because the other cars in front too are slowing.

“Yes, sah?”

“We will reach Lagos soon,” he say. “Keep quiet and let me drive.”

So I shrug my shoulder and keep my eyes on the road. We pass a woman sitting on a short bench, her back bending over a pot of boiling oil, long iron spoon turning around in the black oil, the spoon pushing the frying balls of puff-puff, like a farmer using a stick to push his sheep here and there. It make me think of a time far back, when I will be standing beside my mama and holding old newspaper in my hand like a plate. Mama will pick the brown puff-puff out of the oil, three by three, shake the spoon until all the puff is draining of the oil, before she will drop it inside my newspaper-plate for me to eat, to taste it for sugar and salt. Me, I will jump and laugh and say, “It is hot, hot, hot,” and Mama will say, “Hot but sweet, not so, Adunni, not so?”

I think of how she was telling me to sing when the sickness was biting her body and making it hard for her to move herself from her sleeping mat.

“Adunni mi,” Mama will say, “my sweetness. Sing away my pain.”

When Kayus come to my mind, I push him away. I don’t want to think of Kayus, of how he press his hand on his chest this morning, of the sad in his eyes as he was saying bye-bye.

So I start to sing a song my mama teach to me when I was about six years of age, a song of hope and God’s love.

I press my nose to the window and start to be singing it from somewhere in the bottom of my stomach:

Enikan nbe to feran wa

A! O fe wa!

Ife Re ju t’iyekan lo

A! O fe wa!

Ore aye nko wa sile

Boni dun, ola le koro

Sugbon Ore yi ki ntan ni

A! O fe wa!

One is kind above all others

Oh, how He loves

His is love beyond a brother’s

Oh, how He loves

Earthly friends may fail or leave us

One day soothe, the next day grieve us

But this Friend will ne’er deceive us

Oh, how He loves.

When I finish, I peep Mr. Kola. His front head is releasing the frown, and his lips is tilting up, as if he is wanting to smile.

“Everything is okay, sah?” I ask. “Is my singing making too much noise?”

“You sing well,” he say. “Has anybody told you?”

“My mama was saying so many times,” I say.

He say nothing. Just swallow something. After a moment, he say, “I hope Big Madam will be good to you.”

Me too, sah, I am thinking, me too.



* * *





“Welcome to Lagos,” Mr. Kola say. “Wake up, Adunni.”

I jump wake up, and wipe my eyes and the stupid spit that have run from the side of my mouth to inside my dress. “Sorry, sah,” I say. “We have reach?”

I don’t know how long I am sleeping, but now I am seeing so many cars on the street, like when solja-ant is gathering their self around cube of sugar. The cars are pressing horns to be talking to each other: peen, peen. When one car behind us make the peen noise, Mr. Kola strong his face, say something in his breath, and slap his hand on the wheel-steering, peeen.

The smell of fresh bread, of pineapples and oranges and paw-paw, of the gray smoke from the buttocks of the car, of petrol, of armpits that have not baff in a long time, all mix together and fill the air.