Big Madam pinch her boubou open in the chest area and blow air inside it. “Agent Kola. That is what you always say when you want to sell them to me. The last girl you brought, what is that her name? Rebecca? She is still missing till today.”
Which girl was Mr. Kola brought before? Why was she missing? I am looking Mr. Kola, but I know I cannot be asking him the question now. I turn to Big Madam, thinking to ask her who this girl was, but her face be like a circle of silent thunder, flashing angry and making me to be afraid. Did something bad happen to this Rebecca that make her to be missing? And if something bad happen to Rebecca, will something happen to me here too?
“Go inside and wait for me there,” Big Madam say. “Let me talk to your agent.”
Mr. Kola nod his head yes. “Go inside,” he say. “I need to speak to Big Madam. I am coming.”
I stand to my feets and look the compound. At the palm trees on my left and right, at the other cars in the place, at the main door in the afar, which look like the door to heaven with the gold wood handles on it. As I am walking away, I can feel the eyes of Mr. Kola and Big Madam entering my back.
When I reach the front door, I look back at the two both of them, head bending close to each other, talking and talking.
* * *
The handles on the front door is the gold head of a smiling lion.
It is a statue, but I still check it sure that the lion will not just jump awake before I knock the door. When it open, one short man with skin so smooth, the color of cooling charcoal, is standing in my front. His cheeks are round, swelling, as if he is keeping air inside of it, with mustaches that curve around his mouth. He is wearing white trouser and shirt with a long white cap on his head. There is a long blue cloth hanging around his neck and in front of his stomach with a writing on it: The Chef.
“Good afternoon, sah. Big Madam say I should be coming inside,” I say, pointing behind my head to Big Madam and Mr. Kola. “Adunni is the name.”
“Finally, the new housemaid arrives,” he say.
“Housemaid?” Is this the work I will be doing? Mr. Kola didn’t say before. All he was asking is if I can be working hard, and I am saying yes.
“I am Kofi,” he say, pointing one short finger to the writing on his cloth. “The chef. The highly educated chef. If you are here to werk, follow me.”
Why is he talking as if his tongue have a problem? Saying “werk” instead of “work”?
“Why are you talking one kind?” I ask, looking him close. “Are you from the Nigeria?”
“I’m from Ghana,” he say, turning around. “I have lived in Nigeria for twenty years, but my accent is stubborn.”
“You have a stubborn accident?” I ask as I follow him inside, feeling pity. “When it happen? It affect your mouth? Hope nobody die?”
He stop walking, look me like I mad. “Where does Big Madam find these uneducated beings? I said I speak with an accent. Not an accident. Okay?”
“Is okay,” I say, even though it didn’t okay. What he say is just making me more confuse. Maybe he have a accident in his head too.
I look around the room, feel a shiver all over my body. There are gold and black tiles on the floor. The walls are pale red, with pictures of Big Madam and two childrens, a boy and a girl, sitting inside the picture. The boy have a nose like big letter M and the girl have teeths that is sitting on top her bottom lip. The two both childrens are wearing long, black robe, with triangle hat on their head. Big Madam is standing in between them, her hands on their shoulders, left and right. There are two chairs far back in the room with wood handles, and two round cushions on the floor, red and gold and swollen like balloon.
There is a smell of shoe polish, of fish stew, of new money. It feel too cold too, and I peep one white box in the wall where the cold air is climbing out from. I see a line of looking-glass on the wall to my left and right, and a clock with big face and big numbers. At my right side, I see a bowl of green water with blue stone at the bottom of it, and small fish swimming around a light pole inside the green water. The fish are having different colors: red, green, black and white, orange. Different shapes too, and one is even looking like a frog. The light pole is vomiting bubbles, plenty of it, making sound like water boiling too much inside pot.
Kofi point a finger to the fish-bowl. “Take a seat over there by the aquarium. I will be in the kitchen preparing dinner. Your job is to take care of the house. Mine is to cook. You stay in your lane; I stay in mine.”
Before I can be asking why he is talking of lane as if I am a motorcar, he enter inside one glass door and close it on my face.
“Ah-kweh-ri-um,” I say slowly, looking the fish-bowl, as I sit in the chair next to it and put my belongings on the floor. The seat is soft, the brown rubber of it is smelling like new shoe, the top of it cold on my buttocks. I look the clock. Time is saying fifteen to two.
Have they find Khadija by now? Bury her? What of her childrens, are they wailing cry now because their mother is dead? And me, why am I here, inside this noise-making Lagos, doing housemaid of one Big Madam with too much color on her face? Why am I not in Ikati, in Morufu’s house, sleeping beside Khadija and talking quiet talk in the night? Or with Mama, if she was not dead, sitting by her feets on her mat, smelling her smell of flour and sugar and milk?
Why am I doing housemaid work, when all I was wanting was to go to school? I don’t know when or how my eyes is wet of tears again, but this time, I cry quick and wipe it quick and tell my mind to be strong as I wait for Big Madam and Mr. Kola to come.
CHAPTER 24
Big Madam didn’t bring Mr. Kola.
She come in by herself, stand in the middle of the parlor, put two hands on her hips, and begins to be shouting at top her voice: “Kofi! Kofi!”
Me, I am sitting in the chair, watching her. I open my mouth, close it back. I didn’t sure whether to be saying something or keeping my words to myself.
“Kofi?” she shout. “Ko— Where is this man? KOFI! Are you deaf?”
Kofi jump out from somewhere, holding a wooden spoon. “Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t hear you over the blender noise in the kitchen. I was just— Do you need something?”
“What is for dinner?” she ask. “Did you get the oranges from Balogun market? How about the yams? Is Big Daddy’s fresh fish on the fire?”
Kofi is nodding his head yes and shaking his head no at same time. “The fish is in the grill. The oranges were not fresh, but I got them anyway. I am cooking white rice and fish stew for dinner. Would you like some broccoli on the side? Steamed or stir-fried?”
“Steamed. Get Adunni her uniform,” she say. “Show her to her room.”