“Is all okay?” the dark one ask, talking the way Kere people speak, clicking her tongue with every word she speak, making it a bit hard for me to be understanding.
“What happen to her?” she ask. “You need help?”
“She is sick,” I say. “I am waiting for”—I think a moment—“for the Babalawo. He will give her cure when he reach here. Thank you.”
“May the gods be with her,” they say together as they walk pass my front.
The sky have eat up the morning sun. Everywhere is gray, dark. The breeze is whistling, the air cold. I shiver, grind my teeths together. The fisherman have take his canoe and go far, far inside the river. Who will I call to help me?
I wipe Khadija’s face again, her cool head. “How is the pain?” I ask. Fear have become a wall around my heart, it is wanting to squeeze my breath out, but because of Khadija, I am climbing the wall of fear and making myself strong. “You feel better?” I ask.
“Yes,” she say, move her lip, as if she is thinking to smile. “The pain is going.”
“Good,” I say. “Remember that lawyer song I been wanting to sing for you but didn’t able to because me and you been so busy with housework?”
She don’t answer, but I keep talking. “I want to sing it for you now. I think you will like the song. Is a very sweet song, Khadija. You will hear it? Hello, fine girl . . .” My voice break a little, but I strong myself, keep singing:
If you want to become a big, big lawyer
You must go to plenty, plenty school
If you want to wear a high, high shoe,
And walk, ko-ka-ko
My voice is shaking, fulling with tears, but I keep trying, keep pushing myself to sing: “Ko-ka—”
“Adunni,” Khadija say.
“Yes, Khadija,” I say, “I am here. Singing. Singing for you and for Baby. Are you liking the song? Is Baby liking the song?”
“Where is Bamidele?”
“He have not come back,” I say.
“When will he come back?” Khadija ask. “It been too long now. Where is he?”
“He is—” I stop my talking. What if Bamidele have run away, and he is not never coming back and he is leaving Khadija here to die?
Khadija drag her breath. “Will Bamidele cheat me?” she ask. “Will he leave me here like this?”
Before I can check my head for a correct answer, a deep cry come out from her, the howl of a dog in trapping. I look up, look Death sailing up there, and I tell it to be finding somebody else. I tell it to go and form a car and kill that shitting goat. But when I look Khadija, I know she is welcoming Death with her eyes. She and Death are becoming one, husband and wife.
“Adunni, take care of my children,” she say, her voice so small, so weak.
“No,” I say, and gripping her cold hand, “Khadija, not me. You. You take care of your childrens. You take care of my childrens too. Me and you, we stay together, we fight Labake together. We laugh Morufu together. Me and you. Not so, Khadija, not so? Okay, wait, wait a moment, let me sing another song. A song about—” I shake her shoulders.
Her body is moving, shaking, but her eyesballs, wide-open, be looking the gray of the sky, seeing only what the spirit can see. I put my face on top her breast, which is swelling with new milk for her dead baby, as I am starting to cry more hard and shake her shoulder.
Wake up, Khadija, I beg her with all of my soul. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
But it is of no use.
Khadija is dead.
And Bamidele have not come back.
CHAPTER 16
I push myself up and look around me.
The fisherman is starting to come back. I am wanting to wait for him to come, to ask him to help me so we can carry Khadija and take her to Morufu, but my head is sounding a warning. If I wait for him, he will think it is me that kill Khadija. He didn’t see when Bamidele follow me come here. He will carry me to the village chief of Ikati. I think of Lamidi the farmer. Of how they flog him for seven days. I will find Bamidele. Must. I will find him first, then me and Bamidele, we will come back here, and we will carry Khadija go home for burial. He will tell the village chief, Morufu, and Khadija childrens what happen. He will tell them he give her pregnants. That his family have a curse. That there is a soap to baff the curse away, but he didn’t come back to give Khadija the soap.
I wipe my face and make the decisions.
Bamidele will suffer for Khadija.
Not me. Not me.
* * *
I walk many miles, passing many paths, finding myself in front of another house, a lean tree with no leafs, a wild bush with red cherry fruits, beautiful for looking but poison for eating, but I am not finding Bamidele’s. Where is it? I walk fast, the pictures of Khadija’s body fueling my mind. It is lying inside that sand, by the river edge. The thunder is booming again in the sky and I know the rains are gathering to begin falling.
If the rains wash away Khadija’s body into the river, then she will lost forever. What will I say to Bamidele? Or to anybody? How will I tell them that Khadija is dead if I don’t have the dead body?
I beg the sky to hold hisself, to not rain, to give me more time to find the house. When I see that goat, the one with the red thread, sitting under the shade of the guava tree, I know I am nearing Bamidele’s house. I thank the goat, and keep looking until I find the place, the red door.
I pick a stone from the floor, knock it on the door. There is no answer from inside. I knock it again. Then I am starting to shout, “Bamidele, come out! Bamidele!”
The door open, slow.
The pregnants stomach show hisself first, before the woman’s face. Fair skin, face like a hungry dolly baby. Her hair is full of twists, all pointing up to the sky, be like thorns on a crown of flesh. Her round stomach, about the same size of Khadija’s own, seem to change itself in my eyes; it become a folding fist and blow my chest. This is why Bamidele is not coming back. Because he have a pregnant wife.
“I am looking for Bamidele,” I shout, breathing fast, trying to not cry. “Tell him to come out. Tell him Khadija is dead.”
“Bamidele?” She blank her face. “In which house?”
“This house,” I say as I look around, see the goat. It raise his head, look me, and I know the goat know it too. This is Bamidele’s house. “I come here this morning. He open this door, this red door. You are his wife?”
She thin her eyes, as if she is checking me well, before she nod her head yes.