Ojuola (Finale)

She ran, her tongue flailing like a thirsty bingo in the jungle yearning for the cool water bowl in its master’s house. She did not know where she was going. Her feet just continued to pound the thorn-thistle path. Then, she heard it – sounds of big vehicles breezing past ahead. She fanned out her arms like an eagle hovering in the high clouds. In a burst of speed she came out, onto a tarred road.

***

The night was cold and scary. Baba Di after his night rituals which consisted mostly of groans and grunts and mutterings had poured a warm liquid over her head. When it streamed into her eyes she’d screamed until her voice broke and only whimpers escaped her trembling lips. After the pain came sweet emptiness. Ojuola fell into a deep slumber from which she was only awakened when the birds’ chirping heralded the rising dawn. She felt it in the first moment of wakefulness. It was very different. Her eyes fluttered open and the acacia trees waved its branches in a halo over her head. It took just a moment and it hit her.

“I can see! See!” she squealed. Her palm covered her quivering lips as she surveyed the alcove for the old man. She was alone. Adrenaline pumped in a surge through her veins. Her legs found motion.

Ojuola (8)

 

Read Part 7 here

 

She wakes in full flight panic. She struggles but realises she’s tightly bound. The air is hot and she can barely breathe within the space. Her heart hits her rib cage, so hard she can hear the vibrations. Her eyes feel numb as if there are ice cubes in them. The rolling movement stops. Ojuola knows she is in the boot of a car. She hears footsteps and the creaking sound of the boot popping open as a gush of air hits her face.

“Please…what did I do? Please, I’m sorry…” she begs in her confused state.

She can hear Nat’s cheeky laughter and Ireti whispering something inaudible to him.  They drag her along. She feels the sharp pricks from twigs and elephant grasses on her legs.

“They are taking me into a forest,” her sense of her surroundings kicks in. She stops struggling with them and follows them quietly like a sick cow to the slaughter slab.

“My son, you’re welcome,” a frail voice greets. It belongs to an old man hunched over some calabashes, his long dreadlocks almost obscuring his face.

“Here is your gift Baba Di,” Nat says, a hint of pleasure in his voice. Ireti does not make a sound.

Ojuola shivers as she feels the old man approach. He yanks off the blindfold on her eyes. He laughs a strange deep throated laughter that startles her. Nat coughs uncomfortably.

“What’s wrong Baba Di?”

Baba Di stops laughing and clears his throat. He spits sputum and grinds it under his bare foot.

“The girl is blind, yet you cover her eyes.”

Nat begins to laugh and nudges Ireti to join him. She lets out something more like a whimper. Ojuola feels his sinewy hand on her shoulder as she is pulled down into a sitting position.

“Can we go now?” Ireti asks, tense.

Baba Di stirs a calabash of concoction and shakes his head. He seems to have forgotten his guests as he adds gunpowder and other ingredients into another calabash by his side. Ireti freezes on the spot. Nat tries to look unfazed but his eyes give away his trepidation.

“Hiaa!” Baba Di shouts.

Ireti and Nat fall over each other in their bid to escape. Their legs entangle in the undergrowth around the alcove. Ojuola does not move. She just sits and listens and sniffs at the air. Baba Di ignores the terrified couple as he moves to stand in front of Ojuola.

“Baba Di gave you perfect protection. I accept no gifts with stain. Return and get me a perfect gift.”

Ireti reaches out to grab Ojuola’s hand but Baba Di stops her with his fixed red-rimmed eyes stayed on her. She steps backward into the wall of Nat’s body.

“Say something…”she whispers hotly to him.

Nat finds his voice and promises to return with the perfect gift. Baba Di is back at his calabashes and ignores them. Ireti looks at Ojuola, regret lingering in her eyes.

“Ojuola, we’ll come back for you…”

Ojuola disregards Ireti’s empty promise. She wraps her arms around herself and rocks to the gentle swirling breeze from the trees in the forest. She stops her motions in shock as a growing red patch appears in the midst of her darkness.

Ojuola (7)

Read Part 6 here

They have been partying hard from the evening into the night. Ireti had zoomed back into the compound just when the noises of little children and their parents returning from their daily routines cued Ojuola into the knowledge of dusk’s arrival. She heard Ireti’s ringing laughter before she heard the other voices. She’d been unsettled throughout the ride from the clinic. Ojuola had smelt the tension in the stiff silence that hovered in the car. She’d dropped her off at the door, leaving her to fumble with the unseen keyhole. The powdery dust raised in the wake of Ireti’s departure had settled on Ojuola’s trembling lips.

“You no see dat manager, e wan piss for bodi!” Ojuola listened to their gruff drunken laughter above the loud jarring music. They had been quiet in the first hour of their return as they shared the booty. The thump of something against the table signalled the counting of one share.

“Ireti sharp woman, you arrived just when I needed you,” Nat says and the others cheer as their favourite jagbajagba song starts on the stereo. Ojuola presses her thighs together. She closes her eyes tight and prays that famous childhood prayer for ‘number 1’ to come and ‘number 2’ to go. But her bowels do not heed her supplication.

Ojuola opens the door and holds her breath as the blare of music hits her harder. She manages to walk unnoticed to the toilet where she heaves down in super relief. Her hand is stayed on the flush. They would hear the sound and it will draw attention to her. So, she leaves the putrid odour hanging in the air and exits.

“We must not forget Baba’s meat o, that his protection work well well,” the now familiar gruff voice of one of the men bellows.

“The meat don ready since,” Nat replies with a dry laugh. Ojuola collides with something hard on her path. There’s sudden quiet in the room as the music skips and comes to a halt. She can feel their eyes on her. Her skin tingles.

Ojuola freezes on the spot. She wills her legs to move. She orders her vocal chords to scream. They fail to fall to command. Nat grabs her wrist and pulls her closer to his side. She smells the strong whiff of alcohol and cigarette smoke on his breath.

“Nat…” Ireti begins frailly.

“What!” he snaps back.

Ojuola can feel her hot garlic breath on her neck as she moves closer and whispers out of hearing of the others.

“Mary? What would we tell her when she returns?”

“Blind girls especially naughty ones get lost,” Nat says with a finality that melts Ojuola’s buttery heart into oil. Her voice returns. She lets out a piercing scream, loud enough to shame the bass echo of the stereo.

“Sharrap! Stupid girl!” familiar voice grunts.

Nat shoves his fist into Ojuola’s mouth. She chokes on her saliva.

“Bring it,” he speaks through his teeth.

The last thing Ojuola remembers is the flashing light in her head and the sharp stinging in her nostrils before it all turns black.

Ojuola (6)

(Read Part 5 here)

She can hear it. The footfalls by her window. The first time she’d heard it, she’d broken into a cold sweat. She transited to Adatan and the nightmare-filled nights. She could hear the thump-thump of her heart in her ears, so she knew she was awake. Since that day, when she’d heard them through the door, sleep had with light cockroach-legs wandered away from her. She wanted to tell Mary but she could not. Not without proof. This was her mother and even if she did not have any love for her stepdad, they were her family, before she was brought in. She had to be sure. Very sure.

Ojuola (5)

(Read Part 4 here)

His head lays on her lap as she runs her fingers in small roundish circles on his scalp, as a mother trying to lure her baby into sleep. One of his eyes is closed and the other halfway open in between a seeming state of wakefulness and sleepiness. When she stops the motions of her hands, both eyes open wide. He sits up on the bed and cracks his knuckles. She’s watching him like a bird surveying its prey from its vantage position perched on a tree. She knows him well enough not to interrupt his introspection. He gets cranky when a clog is put in the wheel of his thoughts.

Ojuola (4)

Read Part (3) here

The doctor says I may see again. Sight! I will stare at the clear blue skies unblinking when that day comes. I wonder if the sky in the city is the same. In Adatan, they hang like balls of fufu begging to be moulded by eager fingers and swallowed down a hungry throat. I have learnt the smell of this house. I don’t like it. It smells like the coming together of many herbs and scent leaves. It leaves my nose and throat dry. I miss the smell of the wet grass and rain. Here, when it rains, I taste dust on my lips. The noise. The television playing loud music that has no semblance to the rhythms of the bata and gangan. They repeat a meaningless string of words. Words that make blood rush to my cheeks. If I could but see, I would cover my eyes in shame. That’s his kind of music. He listens to it all day.

Ojuola(3)

Read Part 2 here

She is humming. A grating scattered tune that jars on Mary’s nerves. She endures. Mary’s mother keeps casting her dark stare at the back of her daughter’s head. Mary can feel it even as she stays her eyes on the car’s windscreen, perched on the front passenger’s seat.

“I did what’s right, it’s right,” she repeats mentally, as the breeze from the bushes on the highway caresses her cheeks. Ojuola’s face is wreathed in smiles. She is peaceful. Mary pats herself on the back for standing her ground.

“She comes with us, mum!” Mary had insisted, standing eye to eye with her mother. Her mother’s lips trembled. The fire in her daughter’s eyes quenched the ashes in hers. Her aunt had told her at the hospital when she birthed Mary – “My sister has returned to us. Your mother is now with you.” Mary, the mother to her mother can have whatever she wants.

Ojuola (2)

Read Part 1 here

The rivulets of sweat on her Mother’s shiny black back, courses through the hollow, to her shoulder and drips to meet her sagging breasts. The hoe raised high connects with the dark soil, moulding medium rounded heaps.

“The heaps for yams have to be bigger than the ones for maize,” she says.

Ojuola dangles her small hoe over her shoulder. She’s tired but she won’t stop. She wants to impress her.

“Maami, how long before sunset comes?” Ojuola asks, wiping her sweat-beaded brows with the back of her hand.

“Bebe idi, I know you’re tired,” she smiles. She tells Ojuola to rest in the shade of the banana trees.

“We have to finish the heaps today, the rains will soon be here.”

Ojuola’s arms feel like lead and even as she wills them to move, they don’t obey. So, she moves to the banana alcove where she closes her eyes and dreams of big cities and high heeled shoes. She wants to walk in them one day. The type of shoes that Mama Mary, her aunt in Lagos wears when she comes to Adatan. Koi, koi, koi, she used to mouth as she trailed behind her, lugging her big bag stuffed for children in the compound.

OJUOLA(1)

She sits by the east wall of the compound facing the blinding sun. Her hands quiver in sync with the creaking branches on the mango tree.
“They came during the dry season. When the maize farms had been torched,” she mumbles. Mary inches closer to her. The bench under her squeaks its protest at the sudden movement. No one has ever spoken of that time. The old men in the family do not speak about it. They grunt and clear their throats and spit thick sputum mashed underfoot as answers. The old women avert their eyes and turn the red oily stew with a ladle until it spurts and splashes on their hands and they retort in anger. “Afira! Be gone, silly child!”

“It was too dark. I didn’t see them,” she mutters.
Mama Agba passes shu-shu-ing her brood of chickens and the moment passes. A brief tightness around her lips, ears pricking up and the spark in her unseeing eyes dwindles.
Ojuola; the eyes of affluence become bereft pools of sorrow.