The Girl with the Louding Voice(70)

Ms. Tia sigh. “I’ll check back in next week.”

My heart is heavy as Ms. Tia make to be going. Big Madam hold up her hand. “Wait, Mrs. Dada. As I mentioned to you last week, my agent is called Mr. Kola. He is a very reliable agent. Reasonably priced too. I can give you his number, and if you don’t want Mr. Kola, because I know people like you can like to feel posh, you can try the agency Kiki talked about at the WRWA meeting. What did she call it? Konsult-A-something?”

“Konsult-A-Maid,” Ms. Tia say. “I will come back on Monday.” She reach the door, put one hand on the handle. “What time on Monday?”

“Before midday,” Big Madam say.

“That’s fine,” Ms. Tia say.

“Find yourself your own maid,” Big Madam say as Ms. Tia is leaving the parlor. “I am not a housemaid charity. Enjoy your afternoon, Mrs. Dada.”

Ms. Tia nod her head, keep her mouth in straight line. “Have a lovely weekend.”



* * *





Before Monday, I am using all my brain to be learning English.

I am reading the Collins, doing my best to be learning more hard words.

I turn the pages of the Collins and pick any three hard words I can find and I cannot wait to use the words for Ms. Tia. I learn:


Assimilate



Communicate



Extermination





I am also doing my best to learn my present tense with all she has been teaching me. When she comes on Monday morning, the sun is big in the sky, the heat biting inside of my armpits as if I put one hundred pins under my arm as I am waiting for her by the gate. When I see her running down the road, I raise up my hand and give her a wide smile. She didn’t bring any motorcar, she say her house is just in the afar corner, and that we can be jogging there because car smoke is always causing problems for something in the ozone.

“How was your weekend?” she ask as we are walking down Wellington Road. It is a quiet road, no cars passing, red and green and brown roofs of big houses peeping over curved, high fences.

“I assimilate all my work,” I tell her, and she stop, give me one look like I am saying something so foolish.

“You’ve been reading the dictionary?”

“I am communicating the Collins,” I say, and she throw her head back, laugh a loud laugh that is echoing around us and causing one bird in the palm tree in our front to fly away. She laugh so hard, she stop to put hand on her knees to keep herself from falling.

“Adunni, you are something else. Listen, a dictionary alone would not help you to speak or write better,” she say, wiping the tears under her eyes with her finger. “Work with me at my pace and you will get there. You still have two weeks before the deadline, so take things a little bit easy on yourself, okay?”

I want to answer her with, But I want to extermination my bad English, but I change my mind because I didn’t sure the word is fitting the sentence. So I say, “Okay.”

“Your madam was so not impressed by my visit on Saturday,” she say as we reach the end of Wellington Road. “I thought it’d be great if we could maybe, actually, go to the market together today. I sense she won’t let us continue to hang out, unless of course her husband can convince her to.

“Such a shame really,” she say. “We’ll have to make do with whatever time we have. Right.” She stop walking as we pass one light pole in front of a gray gate with grass in front of it. “That’s my house. It’s the first house when you come in from Milverton Road. Ready to come in?”

I nod my head yes, feeling something tremble inside of me.

Ms. Tia doesn’t have a gate man like Big Madam. She open the gate herself and we enter inside her compound. The house is sitting like one fine queen behind a field of grass. The green on the grass is not dull like the one in Big Madam’s compound, this one is a green color that seem like it is breathing and alive. The house is white, with blue windows and a red roof. There are squares of blue glass on the roof, about thirty of them, all joining each other with white lines and dots, blinking under the early-morning sun. Flowerpots sitting in gray stones line up the floor all the way to the front door of the house, where a round grass decoration of red bows and gold bells is hanging on the front of it.

“It’s not as big as your madam’s,” Ms. Tia say. “Ken wanted us to live in a very big house—think five bed, five bath, swimming pool, the works. I couldn’t imagine it. And the cost of keeping a house of that size in good shape and energy sustainable? Unthinkable.”

“What is that glass in the roof?” I ask.

“Solar panels,” she say. “It gives us electricity from the sun. I cannot stand generator noise or the thought of damaging the environment with the fumes.”

“One day, I will find a way to put the solar something in the houses in Ikati,” I say, look up the roof. “Many of the village houses don’t have light, but Ms. Tia, if we can do this solar thing, if we can collect the light from the sun and put it in all the houses, then the village will be better for it. We will not be needing anybody to give us light or be finding money for costly generator. We just take our light from inside the sun.”

“What a brilliant idea, Adunni,” Ms. Tia say, looking me with wonder. “I must raise this at our next meeting at work. There must be another agency we can partner with, to find a low-cost way of installing the panels in some villages. Maybe Ikati can be one of our first. Come on this way, Adunni. Careful of that pot of geraniums. Please take your shoes off right there.”