me to begin
teaching her sign language. I became
glad and began to
teach her with immediate effect. She
would write
whatever she needed to know on paper
and I would
make effort to demonstrate it to her in
sign language.
My father John hadn’t changed for good.
I keep
wondering why one’s biological father
could deny one
in such manner. If he didn’t want me why
then did he
get my mother impregnated and then
made me come
to existence? He should have aborted my
pregnancy
while I was in the womb, I thought.
“Mother, why is this man still like
before?” I asked my
mother.
“He will change,” mother replied. “Let’s
just keep
trusting God and praying to him to touch
the heart of
your father. The Lord who touched the
heart of Bode’s
mother will surely touch his heart too,”
she said.
“Amen,” I replied.
Toyosi came around at another weekend.
She was
furious when she saw Bode in the act of
bully. If not for
the fact that I have permanently
jettisoned the act of
revenge, I would have torn him apart.
Toyosi came in
time, just when Bode gave my nape a
hard slap, having
a leaf between his lips to mock me. I had
turned my
neck upon my knee, gnashing my teeth.
The way Bode
behaved really depicted the fact that he
wasn’t a
bastard—I mean to say that he was my
father’s child
indeed, because that way exactly must
have been my
father’s way of life at his childhood too—
wicked ways.
I could read Toyosi’s lips. She was
screaming at her
son. She rushed towards him and caught
him by the left
arm. The rest was a story—she beat him
black and blue.
“Sorry young girl,” she said to me in sign
language.
“Thank you,” I replied her, raising my
face again.
Toyosi wrote a note. She wanted me to
teach her how
to spell her name ‘Toyosi’ in sign
language. If she had
learnt the alphabets very well, she would
have been
able to do that easily.
I demonstrated the spelling of her name
in sign
language. She was glad. She opened her
bag and gave
me some confectioneries she had bought.
She had also
bought some fried rice in an eatery. She
gave me a
bottle of orange juice. I gulped it down
without care. It
wasn’t the first time I would be collecting
gifts from
her.
Toyosi watched as I gulped the juice. She
began to
caress my hair. She spoke to me in the
little sign
language she had read. Then, she wrote
another note,
asking me to spell my own name for her
in sign
language too.
“My name is very simple…,” I said. There
was a knock
at the door.
Toyosi hasted to open the door for the
knocker.
Rachael my aunty came in. The look on
her face was
rather outlandish. I wonder what had
happened to her.
“Welcome ma,” I said.
“Thank you Rose,” she replied faintly. She
saw the juice
half-drunken on the table and frowned.
Toyosi went before her and genuflected
for her to pay
her some respect.
“Stand up my wife,” she helped to raise
her up. “Where
is my sister?” Rachael asked me in sign
language.
“My mummy has gone to the market,” I
replied.
“Your father, what about him?”
“He’s gone to work,” I replied.
“Does he work every day?”
“Yes, except on Sundays,” I replied.
“Okay, I’ll wait for your mummy anyway,”
she said.
“She’ll soon be back,” I said.
Toyosi was just beaming at us. She
didn’t understand
much of what we were communicating
since she
wasn’t vast in sign language yet. She
seemed to be
uncomfortable with my aunt’s presence,
perhaps
because of the halt to the sign language
I was teaching
her. I could see her speaking to my aunt.
She must be
bidding her goodbye, going by the way
she was rising
up, her shiny cerise bag hung to her left
shoulder. She
had a vignette on her neck which was the
spot on her
body that had become a cynosure of my
aunt’s eyes
since she came in.
Just when she was up, Bode rushed in
again and gave
me a bite on my right shoulder. Toyosi
swiftly grabbed
him before he could escape and beat him
silly. Bode
wept bitterly. The noise of his cry was
surely ear-
splitting, going by the manner some
grotesque had
formed around the faces of the two
women—Toyosi
and my aunt. Toyosi twisted his arm and
pinched him.
The story of his face was all about tears
for the space
of ten minutes after, even when her
mother had left. He
was insulting me, but since I couldn’t
hear him, I wasn’t
affected a bit. To make me affected,
Bode poked the
leaf into her mouth again. I wasn’t
bothered this time
around.
As soon as Toyosi left the house,
Rachael swiftly drew
close to me.
“Rose, who drank that juice halfway?”
she asked in a
critical manner.
“Me,” I said.
“You?” she frowned. “Have I not told you
that you
shouldn’t collect anything from her
anymore?”
“Ahn ahn,aunty, why? Why don’t you
want me…?”
“Hey! Rose! You are very stubborn. The
last time you
came to my house, remember I told you
that you
shouldn’t trust someone so much. Why
are you so much
trusting that Toyosi can’t harm you? I’m
saying it again,
don’t take anything from Toyosi. I mean
that woman
should not be trusted too soon!”
I bowed my head in cogitation. Whom do
I follow, my
mother or my aunt. My mother was the
one who asked
me to be free with Toyosi because it is
only through
her that we can actually get the favour
of my dad. If not
for Toyosi who came to fetch us from
our refuge the
other time, perhaps my mother would still
be staying
out of wedlock till now.
“But…but mother asked me to be free
with her!” I
replied. My hands shook as I spoke.
“Hannah asked you to be free with her?”
Rachael said as
if it was a serious issue. “Let her come
and I’ll
challenge her about that.” The door
began to open. It
was my mother.
“You are truly the daughter of our
father,” my aunty said
as my mother got in.
“Why d’you say so?”
“We’re just talking about you Hannah,”
Rachael smiled.
She was beautiful in her own way. Her
mouth was
shaped in that oval Terminalia
catappalike fruit shape. A
black little round spot stood out beside
her nose. That
was what some of my mates called ‘Sign
of God’.
“Gossipers,” my mother said jokingly in
smiles.
“Why don’t you hear us before judging
us?” she said.
“Em…by the way, did you meet Toyosi on
your way
coming?
“I didn’t meet her, was she here?”
“Yes…she just left,” we said.
“Oh, Toyosi, I wished to see her,” my
mother was sad.
She had so much loved her now. Since
our
reconciliation with my dad, Toyosi had
been helpful in
the area of helping us get things done.
She was the one
who involved my daddy in registering me
for Secondary
Education I would be commencing next
month. If not
for her support in convincing my dad to
do that, John
wouldn’t have bothered paying.
“Was she the one who brought you these
things?” my
mother asked and I replied, “Yes.”
“God will bless her mightily. Whatever
she lays her
hands upon shall prosper,” my mother
prayed for her in
her amateur sign language. I had to
correct some of
her misspoken words. At that juncture,
she noticed the
look on Rachael’s face. “Rachael what’s
the matter?
Why is your face like this?”
Rachael spoke. She said she was
suspicious of Toyosi’s
sudden moves.
“Prophetess you have come again,” my
mummy was
laughing. “It is you who said that my
husband will
receive me back; it happened through
Toyosi, now you
are doubting the motive of the person
God used to
bring the reconciliation.”
“Just be careful of her, that’s all I have
to say,” Rachael
said soberly.
“Okay o, we have heard you,” my mother
replied and
made up a stiff neck. She moved her
nose in a mocking
way.
“Well, Hannah, just be careful.”
Rachael saw the notes Toyosi had
written. She read
them out. Thereafter, she asked, “Did she
ask you to
gesture her name in the sign language?”
she asked.
“Yes, I replied!”
Rachael spotted the note in which she
was asking me
to demonstrate my own name too.
“Did she also ask you to demonstrate
your own name?”
Rachael asked fast. Her face was folded
up in fright.
“Yes she did and…”
“What? Did you do it?” Rachael grabbed
my arms in
fright.
“I—I haven’t,” I said
. “I was about to say it when you came
in.”
“Huugh,” she sighed in relief and sank to
her chair.
“Don’t you dare tell her your name,
Rose!” she said.
“Why?” my mother and I asked. She
couldn’t say a word.
A horrible look was glommed to her
gloomy face.
Mother and I laughed at her.
To be continued
