The Girl with the Louding Voice(85)

We walk until we see a hole formed with brown rocks with a round opening for people to enter. There are voices in the air, plenty women singing afar off, a moaning song of no words, a song of sorrows.

Ms. Tia is holding my hand tight, her nails pinching my skin, nearly drawing blood.

“What the hell?” she whispers into my ears.

“This is not the hell,” I whisper back. “This is holy ground.” I like Ms. Tia, but sometimes, she can like to ask questions that don’t make sense.

“Those women are in the spirit, preparing for you,” the Mother Tinu says. “Beyond this cave lies the sacred river where your bath will take place. Did you bring clothes to change into?”

“I already told the man I had clothes in the car,” Ms. Tia says.

“I believe you have paid?” Mother Tinu slides her eyes from Ms. Tia to the doctor mama. “Because we have a strict policy here. No pay, no bath.”

“Pay?” Ms. Tia says. “We have to pay for this?”

“I have handled it,” the doctor mama says with a stiff voice.

“In that case, let us go,” Mother Tinu says. “When we finish the bath, Adunni, you will run to the car and bring the clothes.

“This way,” she says to Ms. Tia. “You need to bend your head to come in. It is full of rocks inside; we don’t want you to bang your head. You have come to seek solution, not headaches.” She laughs by herself.

We bend our necks, walking like old people into the cave place. It is a small space, so we line up ourselves: Mother Tinu in front, me behind her, Ms. Tia behind me, and the doctor mama last. It is dark too, the ceiling low, with rocks deep into the roof of it. I bang my head on some rocks, bend myself lower, almost crawling, until we come out on the other side. Now we are facing a riverbed with tree branches hanging low as if worshipping the muddy floor in front of the river. The river is dark green, the water curling like a tongue around the gray rocks on the edge, licking the golden-brown leaves between the rocks. The place takes me back, back, to where I was watching the sky, the gray covering the orange as the sun hide itself and gave way to rain, to a time when Khadija was warring with God for her soul. It is dark here too, as if the rains are coming, only this time it is the leaves that have become a blanket over the sky.

There are four women kneeling in front of the river. They tie a white cloth around their chest, white scarf on their head, a string of cowry beads around their neck. They sway here and there on their knees as if the wind is rocking them, as if the dipping tree branches are whispering a soft, sad song into their ears.

“Ooo,” they keep saying, “ooo.”

“I don’t like this,” Ms. Tia whispers, gripping my hand even more now. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“I don’t like it too,” I say.

“Can we delay this for a bit?” she is still whispering into my ear, still pinching my flesh.

“Silence!” Mother Tinu shouts from our front, and Ms. Tia jumps.

“No whispering around the baby-makers,” Mother Tinu says. “Wait there. Don’t move one step further. I will get the holy cloth and holy brooms.”

As Mother Tinu is walking away, Ms. Tia says, “Brooms? What for?”

I never heard of anybody ever using brooms in Ikati to wash theirself. I know of sponge, and black soap. But not broom, and not in a church. The talk of broom is making me feel discomfort. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe we will sweep the floor first?”

“Adunni, you heard the woman,” the doctor mama says. “Shut your mouth.”

Mother Tinu is now walking back to us. She is holding a folded white cloth and what look like a pack of long brooms. She reach us, and I see that she is holding four brooms. Each of the brooms is made up of long, very thin, and very many sticks tied together with a red thread around the top of it. We use this kind of broom for sweeping the floor in Ikati. What are they using it for here?

“Take this,” Mother Tinu says, giving the cloth to Ms. Tia. “Take off your clothes and put them on the floor. Tie this white cloth around your body, and the smaller one on your head.”

Ms. Tia collects the cloth, and slowly, she pulls off her jeans, her t-shirt. She is wearing a pink brassiere and pink pant of lace material. Her stomach is the flat of floor, her skin smooth. There is a mark to the left of her belly button, darker than her skin, looks like a tiny upside-down map of Africa. She press the square of folded cloth between her breasts, saying nothing. Not one word. Her lips just shake and shake, like she wants to burst with angry words, but something is holding her back, tying her down.

“Come on, Tia,” the doctor mama says. “We have to hurry. Tie the clothes around you, take off your bra and underwear. Those must go too. Is that right, Mother Tinu?”

“Yes, everything she came in. Be quick, please.”

“Leave her to take her time,” I say, my voice sharp.

“Shut your gutter mouth,” the doctor mama says.

Ms. Tia ties the cloth around her chest and on her head. Next, she drops her pant to the floor, and pulls her brassiere out from her chest, drops it to the floor too.

“Now,” Mother Tinu says to us, “will you two take a few steps back please?”

Me and the doctor mama, we take two steps back and stand far from each other like enemies in a battlefield.