The Girl with the Louding Voice(8)

“She is having plenty money,” I say. “Caring for Mr. Bada.”

“With no husband?” Papa shake his head, slap his hand two times. “God forbid. My sons will care for me. Born-boy is learning mechanic work at Kassim Motors. Very soon, Kayus will follow him. What will I do with you? Nothing. Fourteen years going fifteen is a very good age to marry.”

Papa sniff again, scratch his throat. “Just yesterday, Morufu tell me that if you manage and give him a boy as first born, he will give me ten thousan’ naira.”

A load roll on top my chest, join the other load that was there since Mama have dead.

“But you make a promise to Mama,” I say. “And now you are forgetting the promise.”

“Adunni,” Papa say, shaking his head. “We cannot be eating promise as food. Promise is not paying our rent. Morufu is a good man. This is a good thing. A happy thing.”

I keep begging Papa, keep holding his leg and wetting his feets with my tears, but my papa is not hearing me. He keep shaking his head and saying, “This is a good thing, a happy thing. Idowu will be happy. Everybody will be happy.”



* * *





When Morufu come the next morning, and Papa call me to come and be thanking him for the fowl and he-goats, I am not giving them answer. I tell Kayus to tell Papa that my monthly visitor have come. That I am sick with pains in the stomach. I lie on my mat and use my mama’s wrapper to cover my head as I am hearing Papa and Morufu in the parlor, snapping open the cover of schnapps gin bottle and cracking groundnut.

I am hearing them as Morufu is laughing loud laugh, talking in Yoruba about elections coming next year, about Boko Haram stealing plenty girls from inside a school just last month, about his taxi business.

I lie there like that, wetting my mama’s wrapper with tears, until the night is falling, and until the sky is turning to the black of a wet soil.





CHAPTER 5

Me and Enitan are in the backyard of our house behind the kitchen.

She is doing the makeups testing for the wedding tomorrow, slapping white powder on my cheeks and pressing black eyespencil deep inside my eyesballs.

Our kitchen is not like the ones I use to see inside tee-vee with cooking gas or anything electrics. Our own is just a space with three log of firewood under a iron pot and one white plastic bowl which we are using for kitchen sink. There is one short wood bench, the one I am sitting on top of now, a very handsome bench that Kendo, our village carpenter, builded for me with the wood from the mango tree in our compound.

“Adunni, now you look like a real olori,” Enitan say to me now as she press the pencil inside my head as if she want to wound me. “The wife of the king!”

I can hear laughing inside her voice, the joy of a friend that must be so prouding that she is doing wedding makeups. She push up my chin and press the pencil into the middle of my forehead, like those Indian people we see on the tee-vee in the village town center. Then, she draw the pencil on my eyesbrows, left and right, and paint my lips with red lipstick.

“Adunni,” Enitan say, “I count one . . . two . . . and three, quick! Open your eyes!”

I blink my eye, open it. At first I am not seeing the looking-glass Enitan is holding to her chest because of the tears inside my eyes.

“Look,” Enitan say. “It is fine?”

I touch my face here and there, say “Ah, ah,” as if I am very happy with how she make up my face. But the black inside my eyes is looking as if somebody elbow me on the eye.

“Why are you looking sad?” Enitan ask. “You are still feeling sad to marry Morufu?”

I try to give her a answer, but I think I will just cry and cry and not talk anything sense and mess up all the makeups she is putting on my face.

“Morufu is a rich man,” Enitan say with a sigh, as if she is just tired of me and all my troubles. “He will be taking care of you and your family. What more are you finding in this life when you have a good husband?”

“You know he have two wifes,” I manage to say. “And four childrens.”

“And so? Look you,” Enitan say with laugh. “You are having luck to be marrying! Be thanking God for this good thing and stop all this nonsense crying.”

“Morufu will not help me to finish school,” I say, my heart swelling so full up, it push the tears down my face. “Hisself didn’t go to school. And if I am not going to school, then how will I be finding a job and having money?” How will I have a louding voice?

“You can worry, eh,” Enitan say. “School is not having any meaning in this village. We are not in Lagos. Forget about schooling this and that, marry Morufu and born fine, fine boys for him.

“Morufu’s house is not far. I will be coming to play with you and go to the river with you when I am less busy from my makeupping work.” She bring out wooden comb from the pocket of her yellow-of-sun dress and start to be combing my hair. “I want to weave it in shuku style,” she say. “Then I put red beads here, here, and here.” She touch my head in the middle of my head, near my left ear, and behind my right ear.

“You want it like that?” she ask.

“Do it anyhow you want,” I say, not caring.

“Adunni, the new wife of Ikati,” Enitan say, making her voice sound like a singing song. “Give me one big smile.” She dip her finger into the side of my stomach and twist it until a smile is crawling to my down-face, until I cough a laugh that pinch my chest.