“Adunni and I are done,” Big Madam says again. “She can go and get her things.”
* * *
I run all the way to my room, and when I reach it, I take off my shoes and arrange them under the bed. I peel off my uniform, fold it, keep it on the bed. I wear my dress, put on my sandal-shoes from Ikati.
I look around slowly, at the bed, the cupboard in the corner, Rebecca’s shoes on the floor, the folded uniform on the bed.
I set at packing my belongings into my nylon bag: my mama’s Bible, the nine hundred naira I brought with me from Ikati, my pencils and notepad, my Better English and grammar books. I pick up Rebecca’s waist beads, look at them for a long time, and, with shaking hands, drop it into my bag too. If she is from Agan, maybe one day I will see her and give it to her.
I feel a strong pull of sadness as my mind drags me back to Ikati, back to when I was about five or six years of age and playing in the village stream with Enitan, splashing water on our faces, laughing with no sense of what life will bring for all of us. My mind rolls again, like a tire set down from the top of a mountain, as I think of Mama and her laugh, which was the sound of ten quiet sneezes; of Khadija, my friend, and the many nights we lay together on the mat in her room, sharing stories into the far deep of the night. I think of Rebecca, and I say a prayer that wherever she is, she will find peace.
It is when I think of Kayus—who I had been locking up in my mind for so long, for fear of running mad with the pain of missing him—that my knees make a sudden bend.
I fall to the floor and start to cry: for Mama, who spent all her days—sick and well—to gather school fees money, sometimes frying one hundred puff-puffs to sell under the hot Ikati sun, and many times, returning home at night with tears in her eyes because she didn’t sell even one. I cry for Papa, who thinks that a girl-child is a wasted waste, a thing with no voice, no dreams, no brain.
I cry for Big Madam, with her big house, the big cage of sadness around her soul. For Iya, who was kind to me because my mama was kind to her. For Khadija, who lived and died for the love of a man that left her to die. And for myself, for the loss of everything good and happy, for the pain of the past and the promise of the future.
My cry is a soft wail, both a whipping and healing to my heart . . . until someone calls my name from afar, a sound that stops the wail so sudden, as if something snap off a rushing stream from the source of it.
I wipe my face, push myself up, and pick up the cloth-hanger inside the cupboard. Kneeling on the bed, I pull and twist and stretch out the hanger until it is a thin line, a metal pen with no ink. Slowly, I begin to scratch the wall with the tip of it. I scratch and scratch, blowing away the chippings from the white paint, curving and carving letters deep into the wall until my neck and fingers are paining from too much bending and scratching.
When I finish, I climb down from the bed, pick up the nylon bag of my belongings. At the door, I look at the wall, at what I scratched into it. The C is one half of a square and the A is almost a triangle, but I can read the words:
ADUNNI & REBECCA
I leave the room, closing the door on the memory of the sad and the bitter and the happy of it all, knowing that even if everybody forgets about Rebecca, or about me, the wall in the room we shared will remind them that we were here. That we are human. Of value. Important.
CHAPTER 56
I got in, Kofi!” I shout when I get to the kitchen. “I am going to school!”
Kofi drops the round of dough in his hand, cuts to where I am standing, and gives me a quick embrace. “Ah, Adunni. I overheard the doctor’s wife talking to Big Madam just now! You got in! Congratulations.” He sniffs, wipes one eye with the edge of his apron. “I know the school, and I will come and visit you at some point. But whenever you visit Ms. Tia, please call my number. I have stored it in your phone.”
I wide my eyes. “You know I have a phone?”
“Chale, I knew from the day you got it. I even know the code. I have stored my name as Chale. Call me sometime, my friend?”
I start a crying laugh, a happy one. “Thank you, Kofi, my friend,” I say. “For pushing me to enter the scholarship. For everything.”
Kofi wave away my thank you. “All I did was to give you information and encourage you. I would have done the same for my daughter. You did all the hard work. You and that woman, the doctor’s wife.” He low his voice, “So, what did she do with the letter?”
“She teared . . . tore it all up,” I say, my voice low.
Kofi’s eyes are sad. “If I had suspected that anything terrible happened to her, I would have done more for her.”
“No more we can do for her,” I say. “Big Madam told me what happened.”
As I tell Kofi, his eyes grow from sad to wide, then to calm. “Let us hope she is okay, wherever she is. You did your best for her.” He pats my cheeks two times. “Go and enjoy your new life. When my house is complete, you can come and visit.”
“And what about all my salary? Should I ask Big Madam about it?”
“Forget that, chale,” he says. “I’ve always told you to apply wisdom in all your ways. This is a rare chance at freedom, you better take it and run!”
I leave Kofi and run to the main house, but before I go to Big Madam and Ms. Tia, I pass by the dining room and step into the library. “Thank you,” I say to all the books in the shelf. “Thank you,” I say to The Book of Nigerian Facts, touching the cover with the shining map and the green-white-green color of the Nigerian flag, the lettering of many, many facts inside the pages.
“Thank you,” I say to the Collins and all my book friends, for helping me find my free in the prison of Big Madam’s house.
I stay like that a moment, quiet and still and looking at the bookshelf, as if it is the grave of my mama, and my thank you is the sand I am pouring on the coffin, only this time my sadness is mixing with joy and thank you.
I stay there until I know it, until I feel a warm release inside of me that it is time to go. When I walk away from the library, I don’t close the door. I leave it open for the spirit in all the books to be following me.
“That took you forever!” Ms. Tia says as I reach the reception area. She is dancing on her feet, eyes like fire. “All packed and ready to go?”
Big Madam is sitting in the chair beside the aquarium, head bent low, turning and turning her mobile phone in her hand.
“I am ready,” I say.
“Mrs. Dada.” Big Madam raises her head. I have never seen her look so sad, confused, and angry all at once. “Adunni is a, a very smart girl. She . . . she served me well. Good luck with her. And Adunni.” She pushes herself from the sofa and comes to stand in front of me, eyes like a low-burning fire, a tired flame. “It would be better for you to mind your business and face your future,” she says, slowly, almost whisper. “Face your life. Do. You. Understand. Me?”