“It’s not as big as your madam’s,” Ms. Tia say. “Ken wanted us to live in a very big house—think five bed, five bath, swimming pool, the works. I couldn’t imagine it. And the cost of keeping a house of that size in good shape and energy sustainable? Unthinkable.”
“What is that glass in the roof?” I ask.
“Solar panels,” she say. “It gives us electricity from the sun. I cannot stand generator noise or the thought of damaging the environment with the fumes.”
“One day, I will find a way to put the solar something in the houses in Ikati,” I say, look up the roof. “Many of the village houses don’t have light, but Ms. Tia, if we can do this solar thing, if we can collect the light from the sun and put it in all the houses, then the village will be better for it. We will not be needing anybody to give us light or be finding money for costly generator. We just take our light from inside the sun.”
“What a brilliant idea, Adunni,” Ms. Tia say, looking me with wonder. “I must raise this at our next meeting at work. There must be another agency we can partner with, to find a low-cost way of installing the panels in some villages. Maybe Ikati can be one of our first. Come on this way, Adunni. Careful of that pot of geraniums. Please take your shoes off right there.”
I pull off my shoe, feeling my heart warm and swell up with something proud as Ms. Tia talk of putting the solar in Ikati. I cannot even think of how beautiful Ikati will look, if all the houses and streets and shops are having light.
She kick off her own shoes too, keep them on one short wooden table outside the kitchen door. We enter her kitchen. I don’t think any human being has ever eat or even enter the kitchen before.
“You cook inside here?” I ask, looking the machines on the kitchen table, a coffee-making machine and a kettle, shining and new like somebody just off-load it from the package. Everything is white, too white, too clean, smelling of bleach. I am thinking that Ms. Tia have real fear of dirty, and a fear to be owning plenty things. The tiles on the floor, kitchen cupboards up on the walls, the toaster in the corner beside the cooker, and the water filter machine near it is all a sharp white.
“What?” she say. “Why are you giving me that look? Ken does most of the cooking, and I just make sure I clear up nicely when he’s done. Want something to eat?”
I shake my head no, even though I am hungry. Where will she find food for me in this empty kitchen?
She pick a towel, white, from one of the drawers, shake it, and wipe the table that is clean. “I am really looking forward to going out today. It will help take my mind off things.”
“What things?” I ask.
“I got my period again,” she say, shrug. “Not sure why I was so hopeful this time around. It messed up my whole week. And to make things even more crazy, my mother-in-law is now asking me to go with her to some prophet. She wants me to take a bloody bath.”
“Blood baff? For why?”
“Sorry, no. Not blood bath. She wants me to take a bath, at some stream. She says she knows a prophet that would wash away my childlessness. She’d mentioned it a few times in the past, but I kept thinking I would get pregnant and wouldn’t have to. But now she’s insisting.”
“We do it all time in Ikati,” I say. My mind cut to when Khadija died because she didn’t baff. “Maybe this it will help, make things very quick and speed up for you, so that in one year time, you born a baby. Just one.”
Ms. Tia push up her eyebrows. “That crap doesn’t work, Adunni. Does it?”
I shrug my shoulder. “The crap is working sometimes in Ikati. It may help you, make the baby come quick.”
“It’s just . . .” She grip the towel tight, make it a ball. “The thought of some nasty old man running his hands through my body in the name of giving me a bath. It’s . . . ugh. Repulsive.”
“Try it,” I say. “It will make the doctor’s mama happy too, keep your whole marriage free of her troubles. And when the baff begin to happen, close your eye tight like this, block away all the ugh.” I close my eye, squeeze it tight. “Think of good, good things when they are baffing you. Things like the baby name or baby clothes. Or your friend Cat-tee.”
“It’s Katie.” Ms. Tia laugh, and I open my eyes. “I would love to name my baby Adunni,” she say. “If it’s a girl. ‘Adunni’ means ‘sweetness,’ right?”
“Yes,” I say, feeling my heart swell. “I can be helping you take care of the baby too.”
“Like a little aunty,” she say. “I’ll think about the bath.”
I look at her sad face. “Maybe I can follow you?” The words fly out from my mouth before I remember what happened to Khadija at the river.
“Actually,” she say, before I can change my mind, “that would make a world of a difference, if you can come. We can ask your madam for one more day for us to go out, and we’ll use it for the bath?”
“You think?” I ask.
“I think,” she say with a wink. “The bath probably won’t happen until next year, but we can tell Florence that it will be our final outing together. Hopefully, the scholarship results will be out by then. I’ll agree a date with my mother-in-law and get you to come with me.”
“And the doctor?” I ask. “He knows about this baff?”
“He does,” she say, folding the towel. She open the machine-washer and throw it in. “He says it is harmless, and that if it makes his mother happy, I should consider it for my sanity. He sent me a bunch of roses at work, as if to say sorry for the stress she’s putting me through. Anyway, come with me,” she say, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
CHAPTER 41
Fact: Some of the earliest art sculptures in the world originated in Nigeria. The Bronze Head from Ife, which is one of the most renowned, was taken to the British Museum a year after it was discovered in 1938.
We enter a corridor with pictures of Ms. Tia and the doctor on the white wall.
It show them laughing, kissing theirselfs, doing real love, real marriage. I feel kind of sad, thinking about Morufu and the marriage he was having with me, Khadija, and Labake, the cold and bitter and pain of it. Can I ever find real love one day? And with a fine and kind man, just like the doctor?
“Come on this way,” Ms. Tia say, opening one door at the end of the corridor. “Here’s the living room.”
Ms. Tia has no tee-vee. Nothing with electrics in the parlor. The whole air is smelling of something like washing soap and lemongrass. There is a white, round sofa—never seen anything like it—with many cushions, all white and round shape. A tree with plenty silver brushes on the branches, as tall as a small child, is standing by the wall in the corner, decorations of stars and glass angels and gold bulbs on it. Christmas tree, I think, remembering that Big Madam ask Abu to buy one just last week from the market, only Ms. Tia’s own is white, not green. There are flowers inside clear glass vases too, four of them, with little cards inside, and when I peep one, I see it is from the doctor to Ms. Tia. Seem like he like to give her love-flowers every week.