“This is my house. For twenty years, I build it myself,” Morufu say. He point to the other green car. “That is my other taxi-car,” he say. “How many people are having two cars in this village?” He jam his shoulder to the car door, push it open. “Come down and wait for me there,” he say. “Let me collect your load from the boot.”
I climb down from the car, kick one or two rotting guava on the floor from my path. My ears pick a noise from the house, the sound of a door opening and closing itself. A woman, thick in flesh and round at the hip, as if she hide a paw-paw inside of her hips under the black iro she is tying around her waist, bring herself come out from the house. Her face is white, be like she mash up white chalk and use it as a powder. In her hand is a candle sitting on a plate, and under the dancing candle flames, she be looking like a ghost with hairnet.
She carry the plate of candle like a offering to one god, walking slow, her feets sounding as if she is marching on eggs-shells until she stop in my front.
“Husband snatcher, welcome-o,” she say to the candle, breeze from her mouth making the fire to sleep. “When I finish with you in this house, you will curse the day your mother born you. Ashewo.”
“Labake!” Morufu shout from behind the car, “You have started your trouble again? You are calling my new wife ashewo? A prostitute? I think you want to die this night. Adunni, don’t mind her-o. She is having mental problem. Her head is not correct. Don’t mind her!”
The woman, Labake, she hiss, drawing it, so that it is doing echo around the whole compound, before she turn around and walk away, her buttocks rolling.
Me, I am just standing there, feeling a cold climbing up to my head, until Morufu come to my side. He drop my box on the floor, spit beside my feets, and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That is Labake, the first wife,” he say. “Don’t mind her at all, at all. All her talk is empty. Now, follow me inside, come and meet Khadija, the second wife.”
CHAPTER 7
I count six peoples in the parlor.
There is a sofa resting by the wall, a wood table in the middle of it with a empty cup sitting on top. The tee-vee in the corner beside the sofa is holding a kerosene lantern which is spitting dark orange light inside the parlor.
I throw my eyes around the womens first. There is Labake, the one with white face, standing near the tee-vee, slapping her stomach as if there is evil inside of it. Beside her, another girl. She look like half a adult, and is wearing long robe, a green-black color in the light of the lantern. I look her from the low-cut hair on her head to the swollen of her stomach. As if she is thinking I will use my eyes to be plucking her baby out from her stomach, she turn it from me and face the wall.
I look the childrens sitting on the floor, all four girls. They are blinking eyes at me as if I am tee-vee movie with too much flashing light. The most young of them look like she is one and a half years of age. All the girls are not wearing correct cloth. Only pant. Even the one with kola-nut-size breast is not wearing brassiere. I use to see that one at the stream, wearing just pant, dragging water inside clay pot. Me and her have play ten-ten before, long times ago.
Just then, her name enter my brain: Kike. She is fourteen. Same age of me. When she give me look as if she is shock of seeing me, I hook my eyes on the lantern on the tee-vee, on the flame of fire dancing inside the glass bowl.
“That is Khadija,” Morufu say, pointing to the tiny one with pregnant. “She look small, but she is still your second senior wife. Kneel down and greet her.”
As I kneel to greet Khadija, Morufu chase away the childrens. “Inside, all of you, inside,” he say, kicking their legs. “Up, up on your feets. Kike, Alafia, up, up. You have seen new wife enough! Inside to your mat. No noise today. No fighting if you don’t want to see my red eyes!”
The girls tumble on top each other, scatter away from the parlor.
“Labake, Khadija, sit down.” Morufu say. “Sit down, let me talk to all of you.”
Labake throw herself inside the sofa, fold her hand on top her chest. “We know what you want to say, so talk quick,” she say.
Khadija is not moving from where she is standing.
Morufu yawn and low hisself inside the sofa beside Labake. Under the lantern light, his skin is the rough of sandpaper and slack with aging old, the teeths in his mouth brown and bending left. I manage to count all five of it before he snap his mouth close. He must be around my papa age, maybe fifty-five, sixty years, but he look like Papa’s father.
“Adunni, this is your new house,” Morufu say. “And in this house, I am having rule. There is respect of me. I am the king in this house. Nobody must talk back to me. Not you, not the childrens, not anybody. When I am speaking, you keep your mouth quiet. Adunni, that means you don’t ask question in my front, you hear me?”
“Why?” I ask. “Where should I be asking you question? In your back?”
Khadija make a noise in the corner. As if she is fighting to hold a laugh.
“Adunni, you think I am making joke here? I hope your mouth will not put you in trouble,” Morufu say. He is smiling, but his smile is giving me warning. “You cannot be talking anyhow to your husband,” he say.
“I have special cane for flogging bad mouth. I don’t want to use that cane for you, you hear? Now what am I saying? This is your new house. I swear, I have gray hair before I marry my first wife. Why? Because I was busy making plenty money and learning my taxi business. First, I marry Labake, but she was not having any child. It is after we have sacrificed two goats for the gods of Ikati river that Labake was able to born one child, a girl.” He say this as if it is bitter something to remember, as if girls-childrens are a curse, a bad gift from the gods.
“Kike is her name. My first born. She is your age, Adunni. Since then, we have done many more sacrifice, but I think the gods of the water vexed for Labake. No another baby. I marry the second wife, Khadija. Big mistake! Big mess! Why? Because Khadija is having three girls: Alafia, Kofo, and I forget the name of the last born now. No boy. Adunni, your eyes are not blind, you can see very well that Khadija is carrying a new baby. I have warned her that if it is not a boy-child inside that stomach, her family will not collect food from me again. I swear I will kick her back to her hungry father’s house. Not so?”
“God is not wicked,” Khadija say to the wall. “This is a boy-child.”
“I want two boys,” he say. “If I have my boys, I will send them to school. They will become English-speaking taxi driver and make plenty money. Girls are only good for marriage, cooking food, and bedroom work. I have already find Kike a husband. I will use her bride-price to repair my car window, maybe buy more chickens for my farm, because I use too much plenty money to marry my sweet Adunni.