But who, in the evil of this big house, will help me?
CHAPTER 29
Fact: With over 250 ethnic groups, Nigeria has a wide variety of foods. The most popular include jollof rice, skewered pieces of grilled and peppery meat called suya, and akara, a delicacy of bean fritters.
Middle of the afternoon on Sunday, the whole compound is filling with different cars.
Is like nothing I ever see. Cars with shape like aeloplane and helikopta, like boat and bucket. Some of them short with no roof, others are tall like Big Madam’s car. All of them are looking too costly. I don’t see the womens coming down from the car because Big Madam say I should be weeding the weed in the backyard grass.
I ask her why she is wanting me to weed grass on Sunday afternoon, and she pick a stone from the backyard and use it to knock me hard in the head and call me idiot “for daring to ask me questions.”
As I was pulling the grass in the outside on Sunday, Kofi call me to the kitchen. “I am going crazy here,” he say. “Go and wash your hands. I need your help.” I wash my hands, and Kofi give me a tray full of small, fried meat with green pepper and onions with toothspick in the middle of the meats.
“Here is the stick-meat,” he say. “Take it inside the living room and serve all the women.”
I look the tray, at the way Kofi arrange the meats in a circle style around the edge of the plate, with one small tomato in the center of the plate.
“I should just give them the meat?” I ask. “One by one? And the tomato, what am I doing with that one?”
“That is not a tomato,” Kofi say with a sigh. “It’s a cherry. It is used to garnish the plate. Leave it as it is. Adunni, I beg you, don’t touch the food. Do not attempt to pick up the food for anyone. If you touch it, Big Madam will pour it all into the bin and ask me to cook a fresh one. If that happens, chale, I will skin you alive. So, keep your mouth shut, your head down, and hold out the tray and curtsy like this—” Kofi bend his knee quick, stand up. “I repeat, do not speak to anyone. Serve the food and come back here. Is that clear? Now where on earth did I put that pot of jollof rice?”
As I enter the parlor with the tray, I turn to the first woman standing in front of me. Her skin is a rich dark color, shiny, smelling of bitter oranges and firewood, a sharp, strange smell that slice my nose and cause it to tickle. She is wearing a tight green dress, short to her knees area, the round top of her smooth breast peeping from the neck of it. Her hair is low-cut, the brown of a tree bark, with one line on the side of it, a parting from her ears to the middle of her head. Every makeups on her face is green color, except of the blood-red of her lipstick. Even her eyesballs are a sharp green. I keep my eyes to the floor as I am giving her the tray.
“Who is this one?” she ask, talking with a high, cracking voice, the voice of a too-much smoker. “Florence, is this the new maid you told me about?”
“She’s as useless as they come,” Big Madam answer from one corner of the parlor as somebody laugh from somewhere by the tee-vee.
“Where do you find them?” one woman ask. My eye cut to her. She is wearing ankara dress, blue and white, with shine-shine stone around her chest areas. There is a wig on her hair, big and round, as if she gum hair on a football and put it on her head. The powder on her face is the orange of evening sun, her lips the same brown of the court shoe on her feets. “From your agent? Mr. Kola? I told you to stop using local agents, you won’t hear. The agency I use, Konsult-A-Maid, they get me the best. All foreign.”
“I’ve told you guys this several times,” Big Madam say, “Mr. Kola is cheap and reliable. When Rebecca left, he found this one quickly. I don’t need a foreigner to clean my house for me. My children are abroad, so there is no fear of her harming them. You people that hire all these expensive Filipino nannies for your children, tell me, do they do better than these ones? All of them are useless. Having white skin and a strange accent does not make you a better worker. I hear some of you even pay them in dollars? Why on earth will I pay a housemaid in dollars in my own country? And with the current exchange rate? God forbid!”
Green Eyes pick the meat, her nails long, green color match her eyes, the tip of it curling into the finger. I am fearing to think how she is using that long nails to wash her buttocks in toilet.
“What is her name?” she ask. “Come on, girl. Raise your head. What is your name?”
I lift my head. Kofi say I must not be talking, but this woman is looking me with her green eyes, blinking, waiting for me to give answers. She make me think of a cat, a black cat with brown hair and green eyes and long nails.
“Adunni is the name, ma,” I say.
“Well, at least this one speaks English. Who remembers that girl that Florence had for like a week? That stole half of your kitchen food. What was her name?”
“Chichi,” Big Madam say. “Possessed child of the devil. I sent her back to the hell she came from after I caught her urinating into the cup I use for my morning tea.”
“Rebecca is still your best house girl ever. Well-spoken, respectful girl. She was what, twenty?”
I stay stiff when I hear Rebecca’s name. Maybe one of these womens will know. Maybe Big Madam will say something.
“Who cares?” Big Madam ask. “Does anyone want some cocktails? I also have some peppered snails on the grill. There’s suya too, fresh and spicy.”
“Florence, did you get to the bottom of what happened with Rebecca?” Football Head ask. “I always liked that girl,” she say. “Did she run away? Florence? Did you go to her family?”
Big Madam say, “I could have sworn someone requested homemade piña colada.”
“They all run away in the end, don’t they?” another woman say. I peep that one too. Her whole body is one straight line. No breast, flat chest like floor. Her hair is long to her back, straight, the black of charcoal. Her eyeslashes is sticking outside of her face; like a short broom sweeping the red powder on top her cheeks. “Why would Florence bother traveling to goodness-knows-where to search for Rebecca? We all know that house girls are notorious for getting pregnant for one local idiot and disappearing. Hey, you. Bring that tray here.”
“Yes, ma,” I say as I move my feets, carry the tray to her, and keep my eyes on the gold tile on the floor. “Here, ma.”
She pinch two stick of meat and pick it, fingers like matchstick. “Take it round to the girls,” she say.
I raise my head. “Which girls?” I ask. “You mean the womens?”
The woman, she throw her thin head back so quick, I am fearing it will just snap off, fall to the ground, and roll to the outside.