Mens and womens are talking, laughing, buying, and selling as if there is no end of day for them. Even some of the sellers’ childrens are playing in rainwater by the market stalls. There is one motorcycle under a guava tree across the market square. I walk to the place and see the driver sitting on the floor, his back pressing the tree. There is a chain from his left ankle to his motorcycle, maybe to stop thiefs from stealing it when he is sleeping. There is small gold padlock on the chain where it join his ankle to the motorcycle. He is wearing a t-shirt and a jeans-trouser, and his snoring is rising to reach me over the night noises.
“G’evening, sah,” I say, making my voice to rise. “I am wanting to go to Kasumu Road. Sah. It is you I am greeting. Why you are not answering? Excuse, sah?”
When he don’t give me answer after I am calling him three times, I kick his leg, and he is trying to jump up, but he is falling back down because the chain is pulling him back.
“You are crazy,” he say. “Why are you kicking me like that when you see I am sleeping? You don’t have elders in your house?”
“Sorry, sah,” I say. “I was waking you since but you didn’t give me answer. I want to go to Kasumu Road.”
He put his hand inside his pocket and bring out a small key, open the padlock. “Fifty naira for this time of night,” he say as he pull the motorcycle from the tree, jump on top of it, and put fire to the engine. “You are coming or not coming?”
“Please, sah,” I say. “Fifty naira is much for me. Twenty naira?”
“I swear, after the kicking you give me, you suppose to pay three hundred naira,” he say. “Jump on top. I will carry you because of God.”
“Thank you, sah.” I climb, sit in his back, put my nylon bag inside my lap, and hold tight my breath because his body is smelling like cow manure.
As he is driving through the village, I am seeing lines of houses with iron roof sheets, beer parlors with green and red lightbulbs in the outside, mens with fat stomachs squeezing theirselfs inside small wooden benches outside the beer parlor, drinking, laughing, playing bang-bang music.
At the turning to Kasumu Road, I am seeing shadows of light in the windows of Iya’s house and I am hoping that Iya will help me. That she will remember what she say to me that long time ago, when I bring her food. That she will have a kind heart and keep me in her house for a small time.
I pay the man, climb down from the back of his motorcycle, and release one long breath. I walk into the compound, passing the long corridor, which is having one lightbulb in the ceiling that is offing and onning itself as if the electric in it is having problem.
At room number two, I knock on the door. “Iya,” I say, “it is Adunni behind the door. Adunni, the only daughter of Idowu, puff-puff seller from Ikati village.”
Nobody answer.
I knock it again, tighting my fist and banging it harder. “It is me, Adunni. From Ikati.”
Still, no answer. Now I feel like I want to piss and shit at same time and I press my hand in between my legs.
If Iya don’t open this door, where will I sleep this night? The market square? I think of that driver and his body smell, and spit is filling my mouth and tears is standing in my eyes as I am knocking and knocking and knocking, but nobody is answering me. I am crying, big loud cry that is tighting my chest and coughing my throat. I am thinking I have make a big, big mistake. How was I thinking that this is a good ideas? Why sometimes I do foolish, stupid things like this? I am crying so plenty that I didn’t hear it when the door in my front have open.
I wipe my eyes. The door is open but nobody is there. I look down, and I see Iya sitting on the floor.
“Adunni,” she say, and her voice is thin, like it is inside a container with a tight cover on top it. Her two legs are in front of her, looking like cable wire. There is a walking stick on the floor, next to the legs, and I am thinking she didn’t eat any food since the last time I bringed food to her because her neck, leg, face, and chest is the thin of a stick. There is no hair on her head too, only patch of gray hairs in the middle of it. She is tying a cloth across her chest, and when she is breathing, her chest is climbing up, down, up, down, sounding as if somebody is sucking hot tea from a cup. Nobody needs to tell me that Iya is more sick than even Mama was.
I kneel to greet her. “G’evening, Iya,” I say. “Am I waking you with my knocking?”
“Ah, Adunni,” she say. “I hear you are knocking, and I am getting up from my bed, but it is taking long because I have to carry and bring my dead legs with me.” Her skin is dragging back on her forehead as she is talking. Her two eyes are open, but she is not looking me. Her eyes are finding something else behind my back.
“What is bringing you to me at this time? Have the rains scatter your house?”
“I am needing your help, ma,” I say. “I am inside deep trouble in the house.”
“Come inside.” She use her buttocks to drag herself back as she open the door wide for me. “We are having half current, so no ’lectricity light inside here. Look to your left, there is a kerosene lantern over there.”
The smell of kerosene is thick in the air as I enter. My eye cut to the window, and I cross the room, collect the lantern from the floor, and on the lamp. As I am holding the lantern up and looking the whole place, my heart is falling. There was a box tee-vee, wardrobe, chair, and fan before, but now, is only mattress on the floor and one blue kerosene stove behind it. Two or three cloths are hanging on one kind wooden handle behind the mattress and that is it.
The two both of Iya’s eyes are wide-open and stiff, and when I go to sit on the floor behind the door, she is not using her eyes to follow me. She is just looking the window and talking.
“Ma binu,” Iya is saying. “Don’t be angry. I sell the chair last week. What happen to you?”
As I am telling her the story of Morufu and Khadija, I am fighting very hard to not cry. “I just need a somewhere to be staying for small time,” I say. “Maybe until after Bamidele come out and tell them that he is the one that cause it for Khadija to die.”
Iya shake her head. “Bamidele is not never coming out, not with a new wife and new baby coming. Even if they catch him, they will drag him to Ikati chief because Khadija is from there. We all know that Ikati village is worst for killing people with no questions. Bamidele will never say the truth about Khadija. Nobody wants to die before their time. Ah, your mama will be too sad for all these things that have happen to you. What can I do for you, Adunni?”
“Help me,” I say. “Let me be staying here small, to hide myself. After maybe I can find work in another village and be using the moneys to help myself.”
“You cannot stay here,” she say. “As you are sitting there, I can only see the smoke of you. Sometimes, I cannot see anything. My eyes is sick. My legs is sick. My body is sick. Everything sick.”