I don’t say, Thank you, sah.
“Adunni, hear me well,” Papa say. “You must pay for the beans with that money. Then you tell Enitan’s mama that after your wedding, me your papa”—he slap his chest as if he want to kill hisself—“will pay for all she been ever give us. I will pay it all everything. Even if it is costing thousan’ of naira, I will pay it all. Every naira. You tell her that, you hear me?”
“Yes, sah.”
He look the scatter of his radio on the floor and bend his mouth in a stiff smile. “Then I will buy a new radio. A correct one. Maybe even a new tee-vee. A cushion sofa. A new— Adunni?” He slide his eye to me, strong his face. “What are you looking at? Off you go! Quick!”
I don’t say one word as I leave his front.
* * *
The path to Enitan’s house is a thin line of cold, wet sand behind the river, with a bush as tall as myself on the left and right side of it. The air on this side of the village is ever cold, even with the sun shining bright in the sky. I am singing as I am walking, keeping my head and voice down because behind the bush, childrens from the village are laughing as they are washing and splashing theirselfs in the river. I don’t want nobody to call my name, to ask me about any foolish planning for any nonsense wedding, so I quick my feets, cut to my right at the end of the path, where the ground is dry again, and where Enitan’s compound is.
Enitan’s house is not like our own. Her mama’s farm is doing well, and so last year or so, they begins to cover the red mud of their house with cement and begins to fix it so now they have a sofa with cushion and a bed with a good mattress and a standing fan that don’t make a loud noise when it is turning. Their tee-vee is working correct too. Sometimes, it even catch the Abroad movies.
I find Enitan at the back of her house, pulling a bucket out of the well with a strong rope. I wait till she set it down before I call her name.
“Ah! Look who is in my house this early morning!” she say, putting her hand up in the air like a salute. “Adunni, the new wife!”
When she make to bow her head, I slap her right up, right in the middle of her head. “Stop this!” I say. “I am not a wife. Not yet.”
“But you will soon become a wife,” she say, twisting her wrapper out from her chest to wipe her forehead with the edge of it. “I was greeting you, special one. You can like to be angry sometimes, Adunni. What is worrying you this morning?”
“Where is your mama?” I ask. If her mama is in the house, then I cannot be talking to Enitan about the wedding because her mama is worst of all for not understanding why I am not wanting to marry Morufu. One time she hear me talking my fears of marrying any man with Enitan, she pull my ears and tell me to eat my words of fear and be thanking God that I am having a man to care for me.
“In the farm,” Enitan say. “Ah, I think I know why you are sad. Follow me. I have some beans in the—”
“I am not looking for food,” I say.
“Then what is all this worrying face for?”
I put my head down. “I been thinking about . . . begging my papa to don’t let me marry Morufu.” I am speaking so quiet, I am nearly not hearing myself. “Can you follow me to beg him? If you follow me, maybe he will change his heart about this whole thing.”
“Beg your papa?” I can hear something strong in her voice, something confuse, angry too. “Why? Because your life is changing for better?”
I dig my toesnails into the sand, feel a sharp stone pinch my toe. Why is nobody understanding why I am not wanting to marry? When I was still inside school and was the old of all in my class, Jimoh, one foolish boy in the class, was always laughing me. One day as I was walking to sit on my table, Jimoh say, “Aunty Adunni, why are you still in primary school when all your mates are in secondary school?” I know Jimoh was wanting me to cry and be feeling bad because I didn’t able to start my schooling on time like the other childrens, but I look the devil-child inside his eyes and he look me back. I look his upside-down triangle-shape head, and he look me back. Then I sticked out my tongue and pull my two ears and say, “Why are you not inside bicycle shop when your head is like bicycle seat?” The class, that day, it was shaking with all the laughters from the childrens, and I was feeling very clever with myself until Teacher slap her ruler on the table three times and say: “Quiet!”
In the years I was in school, I was always having a answer for the peoples laughing me. I always fight for myself, always keeping my head up because I know I am in school to be learning. Learning is not having age. Anybody can learn, and so I keep to my learning, keep getting good marks in my work, and it was when I was getting more better in my Plus, Minus, and English that Papa say I must stop because he didn’t have money for school fees. Since then, I keep trying to not forget my educations. I even been teaching the small boys and girls in the village ABC and 1-2-3 on market days. I am not collecting plenty money for the teaching, but sometimes, the mamas of the childrens will give me twenty naira, or a bag of corn or a bowl of rice or some tin sardines.
Anything they give me, I collect it, because I like to teach those childrens. I like the way their eyes be always so bright, their voices so sharp, when I say, “A is for what?” and they say, “A is for apple, AH-AH-APPLE,” even though nobody is ever seeing any apple with our two naked eyes except of inside the tee-vee.
“Who will be teaching the small childrens in the village on the market days?”
“The childrens have their own mama and papa.” Enitan cross her hand in front of her chest, roll her eyes around. “And when you born your own childrens, then you can be teaching them!”
I bite my lips to lock the tears inside my eyes. Marriage is a good thing in our village. Many girls are wanting to marry, to be wife of somebody, or of anybody; but not me, not Adunni. I been cracking my mind since Papa tell me of this marriage, thinking that maybe there is a better options than to be a wife of old man, but my head, it have refuse to cooperating with ideas. I was even thinking to run away, to go far, but where will I go that my papa will not be finding me? How can I go and leave my brothers and my village just like that? And now, even Enitan is not understanding how I am feeling.
I raise my head, look her face. She herself was wanting to marry since she was thirteen years, but I think because her top lip is folding and bending to the left from a accident when she was small, nobody is talking marriage to her papa. Enitan don’t care about schooling or learning book. She is just happy to be plaiting hair, and now she is thinking to start a makeupping business as she is waiting for when a husband will find her come.
“You cannot come and beg my papa for me?” I say.
“Beg him for what?” Enitan hiss a loud hiss and shake her head. “Adunni, you know how this is a good thing for your family. Think of how you been suffering since your mama . . .” She sigh. “I know it is not what you want. I know you like school, but think it well, Adunni. Think of how your family will be better because of it. Even if I beg your papa, you know that he will not answer me. I swear, if I can find a man like Morufu to marry me, I will be too happy!” She cover her mouth with one hand, laugh a shy laugh. “This is how I will dance on my own wedding.” She pinch her cloth by her knees and hold it up, begin to pick her feets, putting one in front of the other, left, right, right, left in a song only she can hear. “You like it?”