I lie there with my tears running down the side of my face and into my ears as I am looking up the ceiling, looking the bulb with no light in the center of it.
CHAPTER 9
The early-morning air feel like a rope around my body.
It is a too-tight, too-thick rope that been twisting around me all night, squeezing my head down to my both legs, making it hard to walk, to breathe, to think. I am wanting to just tear my whole body and throw it away as I am dragging myself from Morufu’s room.
My under is on fire, feeling as if I sit on top a burning coal for many hours. I cannot remember many of what happen to me last night, my head is full of a dark cloth, blocking every of the evil Morufu was doing, until this morning when he say, “Adunni, go and bring me my morning food.”
Afar off, in front of the kitchen, one cock is scratching the floor with his nails, scattering the red earth, his neck brown with dirty feathers. When it see me coming, he stop his scratching and greet me with a loud coo-koo-roo-koo.
Two of Khadija’s childrens, their name have escape from my brain now, they run outside from the kitchen area, iron bucket dancing in their hands. It make me think of a time when I use to run to Ikati stream in the morning, laughing as I am going to fetch water for Papa, of a time when my mama was not dead.
I wipe the tears running down my face as I reach the kitchen. Khadija is sitting on a wooden stool in front of the stove. The pot on the stove is boiling something that is making the cover clap.
“Adunni.” Khadija raise her head, wave a fly away from her face. “Good morning.”
“Your husband say I should bring morning food,” I say, searching for something to keep my eyes on, until I see the yam peels on the floor, the knife with wooden handle near the stove. The knife make me wonder evil a moment. Make me think, if I take that knife and keep inside my dress, then when Morufu want to rough me this night, I just bring it out and slice off his man-areas. “You are cooking something?” I take my eyes from the knife, hook it on her face. “Yam?”
“Yes, fresh yam. Did you sleep well?” She tilt her head, look me up and down, as if she is finding what I have push down inside of me. “You have pain anywhere? You bleed blood?”
Shame make itself a hand, squeeze my throat tight. “I bleed small blood,” I say. “In my under.”
“I know how it feels,” she say, voice kind. “Ibukun powder is good for pain. When our husband leave for his work, I can boil hot water, press the part for you, and rub you some palm oil. The pain will go.” She look behind her shoulder, as if checking sure that nobody is coming. “He drink that Fire-Cracker?”
I nod my head yes.
She wave off another fly, shake her head. “First time he used it for me, I died five times and wake up again. He needs it to give him power for the bed-work. You will eat yam and onion?”
“I want to wash my whole body,” I say. My body is smelling of a foul odor, the siga smell of Morufu, and my mouth is bitter, as if the bitter seed inside of me have full up and is now pouring into my mouth.
“Go,” she say, pointing to the baffroom behind her head. “The children have put a bucket there with water for me. Use it. They will fetch another one for me.”
The baffroom is a room of square shape, with walls that have green carpet grass climbing down it. There is a iron bucket full with water on the floor, the smell of piss strong in the air.
I touch the water, draw my hand back with a shout. Is ice-cold, shock my skin. My whole body is shaking as I peel off my wedding cloth and hang it on the door. Dipping my hand inside the water and pouring it on myself, I begin, slowly, to wash the smell of siga and Fire-Cracker away from my body.
When I finish washing myself, I lie naked on the cold, wet floor of the baffroom. I am afraid that if I come out, the morning and afternoon will pass too quick, and soon it will be nighttime, time for Morufu to fill me with his bitter fire. So I lie there and curl myself up like a worm and keep my eyes tight shut.
Don’t cry, Adunni, I warn myself, don’t you never, ever cry for any nonsense foolish old man like Morufu.
CHAPTER 10
Since I been in this house nearly four weeks, my eyes have see things I can never wish for the worst of my enemy.
There is a devil inside Morufu, a madness that come out when he drink that devil Fire-Cracker, or when one of the childrens is causing him to be angry.
I have see him remove belt from his trouser and flog Kike and her sisters until their skin is bursting, until Labake and Khadija are begging him to not kill their childrens. There is a small devil inside Labake too, a devil that is only coming out when I walk in her front. Just two days back, early morning, after cock crow, I was baffing, taking time because it is the only time I am by myself, the only time I can be thinking sense, when Labake bang on the door and tell me come out because she want to baff quick before she is going to market. When I tell her that I am nearly finishing, that she should wait, she hiss a angry hiss, jam the door open, and drag me with my naked self outside in the open.
Then she begin to pick sand from the floor and paint my body with it. I never feel shame like that. Khadija’s childrens gather around us and was laughing as Labake was using sand to scrub my body and curse me. I am giving her respect, so I didn’t fight back. When she finish beating me, she turn to the two of Khadija childrens and slap the laughters from their mouth.
Khadija say I should bite Labake next time she try that kind of a thing. That respect is not answer to Labake’s madness. She say that before her stomach was swelling with this baby, that she and Labake will fight and fight until one of them is bleeding blood. She say next time, I must keep a bowl of red, hot pepper beside me in the baffroom so that when Labake come and find my trouble, I can pour the pepper in her face and bite her breast.
Khadija make me feel a pinch of comfort in Morufu’s house. She keep to caring for me in between caring for her three childrens and the one swelling in her stomach. “Adunni, you must eat this yam,” she will say, giving me the bowl of yam and fish soup with a smile. “Eat it and be thanking God that we are having food to eat.” Or, “Adunni, come, let me put oil on your hair. You want me to wash it for you?” And I will say, “No, no, thank you, Khadija, I wash it myself.” Or, “How is that thing now with Morufu? Is it still paining?” And I will say no, it is no more paining me in my body, but in my heart and spirit and mind, the pain is never going away.
Me and Khadija are sharing bedroom now, except of when Morufu call for me. It make things easy, sharing room with Khadija. When sad feelings are catching me in the night, Khadija will rub my back, her hand going around and around, as she is telling me to be strong, to be fighting to keep my mind. Sometimes, when her baby is kicking too hard on her stomach, I press my mouth to her hard stomach and sing a song to the baby inside until she and her baby will fall inside a deep sleep, and Khadija say that when she born the baby, I must keep singing to him too, because the baby is already knowing my voice.