The Girl with the Louding Voice(6)

I raise my head, look her face. She herself was wanting to marry since she was thirteen years, but I think because her top lip is folding and bending to the left from a accident when she was small, nobody is talking marriage to her papa. Enitan don’t care about schooling or learning book. She is just happy to be plaiting hair, and now she is thinking to start a makeupping business as she is waiting for when a husband will find her come.

“You cannot come and beg my papa for me?” I say.

“Beg him for what?” Enitan hiss a loud hiss and shake her head. “Adunni, you know how this is a good thing for your family. Think of how you been suffering since your mama . . .” She sigh. “I know it is not what you want. I know you like school, but think it well, Adunni. Think of how your family will be better because of it. Even if I beg your papa, you know that he will not answer me. I swear, if I can find a man like Morufu to marry me, I will be too happy!” She cover her mouth with one hand, laugh a shy laugh. “This is how I will dance on my own wedding.” She pinch her cloth by her knees and hold it up, begin to pick her feets, putting one in front of the other, left, right, right, left in a song only she can hear. “You like it?”

I think of Papa smashing his radio this morning, of how he is planning to buy new things with Morufu’s moneys.

“You like it?” Enitan ask again.

“You are dancing as if you have a sickness in your two legs,” I say to Enitan with a laugh that feel too heavy, too full for my mouth.

She drop her cloth, press a finger to her jaw, and look the sky. “What can I say to make this Adunni happy now, eh? What can I—Ah! I know what will make you happy.” She pick my hand and begin to drag me to the front of her house. “Come and see all the fine, fine makeups I am planning to use for your wedding. Do you know there is a color green eyespencils? Green! Come let me show you. When you see it all, you will be so happy! Then, after that, we can go to the river and—”

“Not today,” I say, collecting my hand and turning away to hide my tears. “I have too much work. All the . . . the wedding preparations.”

“I hear you,” she say. “Maybe I should come to your house in the afternoon for the makeups testing?”

I shake my head, begin to walk away.

“Wait! Adunni,” she shout. “What color of lipsticks should I bring? The red of a new wife or the pink of a young—”

Bring a black one, I say to myself as I turn a corner. The black of a mourner!





CHAPTER 4

Two years before my mama was dead, one car drive inside our compound and bring itself to a stop in front of our mango tree.

I was sitting under the tree, washing my papa’s singlet, and when the car stop, I stop my washing, shake the soap from my hand, and keep looking the car. Is a rich man own, this car, black and shining with big tires and front light like the eyes of a sleeping fish. The car door open, and one man climb out, bringing along the smell of air-con and siga and perfumes. He tall like anything I ever see, with skin the brown of roasted groundnut, and his fine face and long jaw make me think of a handsome horse. He was wearing costly trouser cloth of green lace, with a green cap on his slim head.

“Good morning, I am looking for Idowu,” he say, talking fast, fast, voice smooth. “Is she around?”

Idowu is the name of my mother. She didn’t ever use to have visitor, except of the five womens from the Church Community of Praying Wife every third Sunday in the month.

I roof my eyes from the morning sun. “Good morning, sah,” I say. “You are who?”

“Is she around?” he ask again. “My name is Ade.”

“She have go out,” I say. “You want to sit-down wait?”

“I am sorry, I can’t,” he say. “I only came to Ikati village to visit my grandmother’s burial site. She, uh, passed away while I was abroad. I thought to say hello to your mother on my way back to the airport. I fly back tonight.”

“Fly? Like aeloplane? To the Abroad?” I have been hearing of this the Abroad, of the Am-rica and the London. I am even seeing it inside the tee-vee, the womens and mens with their yellow skin and pencil nose and hair like rope, but I have never see anybody from there before with my two naked eyes. I been hearing them in the radio sometimes too, talking fast, fast, speaking English as if they are using it as special power for confusing everybody.

I look this tall, fine man, at his skin, which is the brown of roasted groundnut, and his short black hair like foam sponge. He is not resembling the peoples in the Abroad tee-vee. “Where are you from?” I ask him.

“The UK,” he say, smiling soft, showing white teeths in straight line. “London.”

“Then why you don’t look yellow like them?” I ask.

He strong his face, then laugh ha-ha. “You must be Idowu’s daughter,” he say. “What is your name?”

“Adunni is the name, sah.”

“You are just as pretty as she was at your age.”

“Thank you, sah,” I say. “My mama have travel far to greet Iya, her old friend that is living in the next village. Till tomorrow before she is coming back. I can keep your message.”

“Now that’s a shame,” he say. “Can you tell her Ade came back to look for her? Tell her that I didn’t forget her.”