The Girl with the Louding Voice

by Abi Daré

  “Adunni,” he say as he is starting to slow the car because the other cars in front too are slowing.

  “Yes, sah?”

  “We will reach Lagos soon,” he say. “Keep quiet and let me drive.”

  So I shrug my shoulder and keep my eyes on the road. We pass a woman sitting on a short bench, her back bending over a pot of boiling oil, long iron spoon turning around in the black oil, the spoon pushing the frying balls of puff-puff, like a farmer using a stick to push his sheep here and there. It make me think of a time far back, when I will be standing beside my mama and holding old newspaper in my hand like a plate. Mama will pick the brown puff-puff out of the oil, three by three, shake the spoon until all the puff is draining of the oil, before she will drop it inside my newspaper-plate for me to eat, to taste it for sugar and salt. Me, I will jump and laugh and say, “It is hot, hot, hot,” and Mama will say, “Hot but sweet, not so, Adunni, not so?”

  I think of how she was telling me to sing when the sickness was biting her body and making it hard for her to move herself from her sleeping mat.

  “Adunni mi,” Mama will say, “my sweetness. Sing away my pain.”

  When Kayus come to my mind, I push him away. I don’t want to think of Kayus, of how he press his hand on his chest this morning, of the sad in his eyes as he was saying bye-bye.

  So I start to sing a song my mama teach to me when I was about six years of age, a song of hope and God’s love.

  I press my nose to the window and start to be singing it from somewhere in the bottom of my stomach:

  Enikan nbe to feran wa

  A! O fe wa!

  Ife Re ju t’iyekan lo

  A! O fe wa!

  Ore aye nko wa sile

  Boni dun, ola le koro

  Sugbon Ore yi ki ntan ni

  A! O fe wa!

  One is kind above all others

  Oh, how He loves

  His is love beyond a brother’s

  Oh, how He loves

  Earthly friends may fail or leave us

  One day soothe, the next day grieve us

  But this Friend will ne’er deceive us

  Oh, how He loves.

  When I finish, I peep Mr. Kola. His front head is releasing the frown, and his lips is tilting up, as if he is wanting to smile.

  “Everything is okay, sah?” I ask. “Is my singing making too much noise?”

  “You sing well,” he say. “Has anybody told you?”

  “My mama was saying so many times,” I say.

  He say nothing. Just swallow something. After a moment, he say, “I hope Big Madam will be good to you.”

  Me too, sah, I am thinking, me too.

  * * *

  “Welcome to Lagos,” Mr. Kola say. “Wake up, Adunni.”

  I jump wake up, and wipe my eyes and the stupid spit that have run from the side of my mouth to inside my dress. “Sorry, sah,” I say. “We have reach?”

  I don’t know how long I am sleeping, but now I am seeing so many cars on the street, like when solja-ant is gathering their self around cube of sugar. The cars are pressing horns to be talking to each other: peen, peen. When one car behind us make the peen noise, Mr. Kola strong his face, say something in his breath, and slap his hand on the wheel-steering, peeen.

  The smell of fresh bread, of pineapples and oranges and paw-paw, of the gray smoke from the buttocks of the car, of petrol, of armpits that have not baff in a long time, all mix together and fill the air.

  I draw a breath, and it feel too thick, it block my throat, make me cough.

  There are peoples squeezing their self on the road between the cars. Everybody is selling everything they are seeing to sell, even the mobile of telephone and DVD movie. One man is holding something like block-milk and pressing his nose on the window-glass on my side of the car.

  “Buy cold ice cream!” he is saying. “Hello, baby girl,” he say to me. “No ice cream for you today?”

  When we don’t give him answer, the man leave our front.

  Another man jump in front of our car. He is wearing a green singlet and black trouser, holding a round bottle with foam-water inside of it. Before I can ask what he is doing, he press the bottle-cover and pour the foam-water on the front-glass of the car, pull a brown cloth from his pocket, and begins to wipe the water.

  “Get away from my windscreen,” Mr. Kola say, pressing the horn, peen. “I swear I will jam you with my car. Move out of my way.”

  But the man is not even doing as if he can hear Mr. Kola. He wipe the glass fast, fast, up and down, left and right. I am trying to not laugh because the cloth is leaving more dirty on the glass than before, and I am thinking maybe it is oil inside the bottle. When he finish the wiping, he shake the cloth, fold it, and put it inside his pocket. He smile, put his hand to his head, make a salute. “God bless you, sah,” he say, “we keep it clean for you to be seeing the road.”

  “Look at this idiot,” Mr. Kola say, “he wants me to pay him for staining my windscreen. God punish you.”

  I didn’t sure the man is hearing Mr. Kola. He is just standing there, showing his teeths in a smile, touching his head in salute, and saying, “God bless you, sah,” until Mr. Kola move the car front, and the man run off to the car behind us.

  “Nuisance,” Mr. Kola say. “Idiot. Nuisance.”

  The car move again to near one boy, about six years of age. His red t-shirt is hanging on his long neck like a hanger, red baffroom slippers on his feets. He is looking me, but his eyes feel like they are far away from this place, lost inside another city, another time of life. He touch his hand to his mouth, wave me bye-bye, touch his hand to his mouth again. There is a signboard on his neck: HUNGER. HELP PLS.

  “What is this boy wanting?” I ask Mr. Kola.

  “He’s a beggar,” Mr. Kola say.

  In Ikati, we don’t have begging childrens. Even if the mama and papa of a child is not having moneys, they don’t send their childrens to beg. They wash and clean and pick dustbin, and the girls will marry and the mama and papa will collect bride-price and use to eat, but the childrens don’t beg for food.

  “I am feeling a little hunger, sah,” I say after we move the car front again. It twist my stomach with no warning, the hunger, but I am talking with a low voice because I feel shame to be asking for food after all the help him and Iya have help me.

  “You want a sausage roll?” he ask as he roll down the window on his side and use his hand to be calling one seller that is carrying tray of small, small bread on his head.

  “Sauce or what-you-call-it?” I say.

  “It is just bread with meat inside,” he say. “Sausage roll.”

  “Yes, sah,” I say.

  “How much?” Mr. Kola ask the man.

  “One hundred naira,” the man say, and pull out one small bread from the tray. “Very hot. Fresh from bakery.”

  “Give me three.” Mr. Kola use one hand to hold wheel-steering and another to pull out fresh notes of moneys from a bundle in his pocket. I watch the bundle, feeling sad at how he squeeze dirty money that cannot buy even two of the sausage for Iya this morning, as he is paying the man with the clean notes.

  “Eat two, leave one for me,” he say, giving me the bag of food.

  The meat inside is small, hard, feel like I am eating salty chewing gum, but I am too hungry, so I swallow it before I finish biting it.

  The okadas on the road in Lagos is too plenty. Left, right, here, there is just the motorcycle-taxi everywhere, and they are entering in front of cars with no fear, inside out, moving around the road like streams of water. The people sitting on the back of the motorcycle are wearing one kind plastic cap that is too big for their head, and when I ask Mr. Kola what is it, he say, “That is a helmet. Everybody riding okada in Lagos must wear it or else the governor will put you in jail.”

&
nbsp; “You will go to prison if you don’t wear helmet cap?” I ask as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Yes,” he say.

  I want to ask more questions because what he is saying is not making sense, but I am seeing something else that is catching my eye: big bus. Plenty of them. Yellow with black lines on it. Some of them is carrying load that is tie to the bus, the other of them are carrying peoples. The one next to our car is having the door open. Some of the peoples inside the bus are lapping other peoples. There is one man holding the door open and his body is hanging outside it. The man is shouting, “Falomo straight! Enter with your correct change!”

  “Why is he not sitting inside the bus?” I ask.

  “Some bus conductors hang on to the bus in Lagos,” Mr. Kola say. “So that they can sell their seat. Thank God, the traffic is moving.”

  Mr. Kola forward the car, and soon we are leaving all the noise behind us and climbing one road that is going up, up, above one river that is stretching far, far under us, and even if you stretch your neck and look it, you cannot see where the river is ending. On the river, there is a fisherman in the afar, looking like a stick on the water. White boats are going along of it too, canoes carrying peoples.

  I drag my eyes away and look up at the green sign on top the road. “‘Third Mainland Bridge. Victoria Is-land. Ikoyi.’” I am reading the sign out loud, because I want Mr. Kola to know that I know English.

  “Victoria Island,” Mr. Kola say. “High-land. Not Is-land.”

  I don’t understand it. The sign is not reading “high-land,” but I keep my words to myself. “Is it where we are going? This Victoria Island place?”

  “We are going to Ikoyi,” Mr. Kola say, and give me one kind look, as if he is wanting me to be jumping and dancing. “But I will take you to Victoria Island, so you see what it looks like, then we turn around and go to Big Madam’s house in Ikoyi. When you get to her house, you will understand. Big Madam has a mansion. Big house. She is rich, Adunni. Very rich.”

  “That is good?” I ask.

  “Money is always good,” he say, pressing his lips tight as if he is tired of all my questions.

  We are driving like that in the silent, until we climb down from another up road and we are now inside town again. This time, everywhere is just shining and brighting. Tall buildings with wall of glass, and shape like ship, like hat, like choco-cubes, like circles, like triangles, all different shapes and color and size is left and right of us on the road.

  “Eh!” I say, my eyes wide, looking everywhere.

  “Yes,” Mr. Kola say. “It is very nice. Nice but busy. That glass building there is a bank. That blue one, far away, on the edge of the water, is the Civic Centre. This one here, with the hundred or so windows, is the Nigerian Law School. That hotel there, the very tall one that looks like is full of shining stars, is the top of the Intercontinental Hotel. Very expensive hotel. Five stars. Look, that is the Radisson Blu hotel. Let me link back to Ikoyi from here.”

  We drive on a street with more buildings and plenty shops until Mr. Kola nod, say, “Look, Adunni, look at that shop, the one with mannequins in the window beside that GTBank, that’s Big Madam’s shop. She owns the entire building.”

  I look the tall glass building Mr. Kola is pointing me, catch the shining and blinking blue and green letters on the roof of it: KAYLA’S FABRICS inside of the glass. There are two dolly babies with no hand, behind the window too, their skin like the peoples in the Abroad tee-vee. I never see a dolly baby that is tall like me in my life. One of the dolly baby is having costly-looking blue lace pin down on her body, and the other one be naked with two small breast on top the chest like a guava that didn’t ripe.

  “Eh!” I say it again because only “eh” is coming to my head.

  “Her daughter’s name is Kayla,” Mr. Kola say, keeping his eyes to the road. “That’s why it’s called Kayla’s Fabrics. Good, the traffic here is moving.” We keep driving, and Mr. Kola keep pointing to this shop, that mall, that office. Everything is too beautiful and too much loud for me to be following it all because it is filling my head and making it to be swelling big. When the car turn into one quiet road with green leaf trees on the left and right, and there is no more noise and glass and bank, then my head is no more wanting to burst.

  “What do you think?” Mr. Kola ask. “Of Lagos?”

  “Too much, sah,” I say. “Lagos is just a noise-making place with too much light and glass.”

  Mr. Kola throw his head back and shift the cap on his head and laugh. “‘Noise-making place’ is a good way to describe it,” he say. “Big Madam lives at the end of this road.”

  “Yes, sah.”

  “Adunni.” He stop the car on the side of the road, turn his whole body, and look me. “You must behave yourself in Big Madam’s house. Don’t steal. Don’t tell lies, and please, do not follow boys.”

  I strong my face. “Me? Steal? It didn’t possible, sah,” I say. “I don’t tell lies. I don’t like boys. I am a very good girl, sah.”

  “I need to warn you because if Big Madam tells me she does not want you anymore, I don’t know where to put you. You understand?”

  “Yes, sah,” I say. “I don’t know where to put myself too. The village chief will kill me dead if I go back to Ikati.”

  “Now—” Mr. Kola clear his throat three times, which means that what he wants to say a serious thing. “Big Madam expects you to be very hardworking.”

  “I can be working hard, sah,” I say.

  “She will give you rules to follow. You must obey them all.”

  I nod my head yes.

  “Eat what they give you. Sleep where they show you. Wear what they give you,” he say. “You hear me? Don’t start to grow wings after you have been there for a short time. If you do, you will get kicked out. You know you cannot go back to Ikati, so behave yourself. You hear?”

  How I can be growing wings when I am not a fowl? “Yes, sah,” I say. “What else must I do?”

  “Every month, she will pay you ten thousand naira,” he say.

  “Ten what? For me?” That is too much money to be collecting.

  “I will collect the money for you and keep it in a bank,” he say. “When I come and visit in three months, I will bring all the money. You hear?”

  “Yes, sah,” I say. Maybe Mr. Kola is a nice man. He didn’t smile every time and he tell a lie about medical test, but maybe he is helping me. “Thank you, sah.”

  “Now, it is time to go.” He on the car engine, drive small, and turn inside one road. At the end of it is a black gate. Mr. Kola stop the car in front of the gate and press his horn, peen, peen.

  Just then, one tall gray car with front lights like the eyes of a angry cat is coming behind our back. The car is tall than any car I ever see. The car come to a stop, press peen, and just like that, the gate is opening wide.

  “That is Big Madam in the Jeep,” he say. “When we get inside the compound, greet her and then step aside so I can talk to her. You hear?”

  “Yes, sah,” I say as our car is starting to move.

  I look the whole the compound, at the big white house with red roof and two long gold posts in front of it, as if one fine carpenter carve the trunk of a tree, sandpaper it, and spray it with gold paint. I look the short palm trees, three on each side of the road, with trunks like thick pineapples, their long, green leafs spreading out as if to say, Welcome to this fine, fine house. I look the yellow, blue, red, and green flowers sitting inside black glass flowerpot here and there in the compound, the gold lampposts with round bulbs like moons in a container, the ten windows at the top of the house, blue squares of looking-glass sitting in a frame of gold. The red stone stairs climbing down from the front of a wide black door is reminding me of a tongue, the tongue of a giant that been eating too many shining things.

  As I am looking it all, swallowi
ng the whole place with my eyes and with my heart beating fast, I am thinking that maybe Big Madam is a queen, that this is the palace of the king.

  CHAPTER 23

  Big Madam’s car come to a stop in a space next to another car like it.

  Mr. Kola put his own car behind, off his car engine, and we climb down. The man driving Big Madam’s car, he climb down too, and run to the other side of the car. I look his fair, smooth skin, the long brown dress he is wearing, the white fila on his head, the three dark marks on the side of his forehead, the white prayer beads in his hand, which he keep holding even as he open the car door, bend his head, and step to one side.

  “Who is he?” I ask Mr. Kola.

  “That is Abu,” Mr. Kola whisper, “Big Madam’s driver. He has been with her for years. No more questions.”

  The cool air inside the car is escaping with a strong flower smell as somebody is climbing out. First thing I am seeing is feets. Yellow feets, black toes. There is different color paint on all the toesnails: red, green, purple, orange, gold. The smallest of the toes is having gold ring on it. Her whole body is almost filling the whole compound as she is coming out. I am now understanding why they are calling her Big Madam. When she come out, she draw deep breath and her chest, wide like blackboard, is climbing up and down, up and down. It is as if this woman is using her nostrils to be collecting all the heating from the outside and making us to be catching cold. I am standing beside Mr. Kola, and his body is shaking like my own. Even the trees in the compound, the yellow, pink, blue flowers in the long flowerpot, all of them too are shaking.

  She is wearing a lace boubou, which is long up to her feets. The boubou is doing shine-shine as if the lace is having eyes everywhere, and blinking the eyes open, close, open, close. She is not having a neck, this woman. Just a round, fat head on top the wide chest with breast that must be reaching near to her knees area. There is one gold gele on her head, and it is looking like she just gum a ceiling fan on a hat and put it on her head.