Toyosi herself
isn’t going to be staying with us. Only
her son will be
staying.
Toyosi has just met with a man she will
marry but she
isn’t going to let that man know that she
has a child,
that is why she wants to return Bode to his father.
With the knowledge I have, my father
begs her that
she should stay with him. Mother says
she eavesdrops
on them and hear them speak.
My father kneels down before her,
begging her to be
his wife; he is even ready to throw my
mother and I out
for her sake.
“Toyosi, please come home. This place is
a hell to me.
Please stay with me, Toyosi,” John
laments.
“You have a wife already,” says Toyosi. “I
can’t be a
second wife; I mean it’s too early for me
to get into
rivalry with another wife. Please let me
just leave Bode
here. Joseph is my husband. He loves me
a lot,” Toyosi
says.
“Listen Toyosi, I quite understand you,
okay. If you
don’t want to be a second wife, that’s
right. I can drive
Hannah and her useless good-for-nothing
child out of
the house immediately…”
Good-for-nothing! If only my mum tells
me that
immediately my dad says it, I would have
taken it hard
with him. Maybe God doesn’t want me to
go wild, that’s
why. I only hear that few days back after
my mother
has recovered. She says she eavedrops to
hear that.
Well, ‘Good-for-nothing’ is what I am
afterall. Dad hasn’t
told any lie. When Bode comes to the
house and
discovers I am deaf mute and my mother
is on a wheel
chair, the boy runs back and holds his
mother tight,
saying, “Is this where you want me to
stay, aunty? I
can’t stay in the house where everybody
is disabled.”
“Ssh! Bode, shut up! At least your daddy
is not disabled,”
Toyosi says and blinks her eyes.
“But aunty, why can’t you be staying here
with us? So
that that woman on wheelchair will not
ill-treat me.”
“She dare not,” says Toyosi to my
mother’s face. “If
she will do that to you my son, then it
had been better
for her not to be able to get up from that
wheelchair
forever.”
When mother shares the experience with
me, I wept
sore and began to hate little Bode and
his mother. How
could they say such a thing? I will teach
him a lesson of
his life. Bode must be mute like myself
too, I think.
I put a knife on fire and pour some red
oil. I will put that
knife down his throat. He will lose his
voice.
Bode has finished eating. He is fond of
making fun of
me. He has even plucked a leaf and put
it inside his
mouth to mock me. Then he writes
something down in
a paper and tucks it inside my hand. I
read:
You are as deaf as a goat
Am I the one this small boy is calling a
herbivore? I
think. The boy laughs and runs about
when I wanted to
catch him to deal with him. I wonder who
teaches this
boy to be so heartless. Despite how my
mother cares
for him, he still does this to me. Why?
Bode soon return when his eyes are
heavy with sleep.
He falls on the bed and off he goes. I
make sure he is
fast asleep and ties him firmly to the
bed. Then I put a
knife on fire and pour red oil on the hot
knife.
I will teach Bode what it means to be
permanently
speechless in life. Perhaps he doesn’t
know that the
most painful thing in life is the inability
to express
yourself as you wish. That is why people
always
complain that the deaf and dumb people
are the most
rebellious, because we get angry when we
are very
much pushed to the wall because of our
inability to
speak out our mind.
I am going to teach Bode that I am even
more terrible
than a stammerer. How can anybody
encroach on our
right and go scot-free? I should have
done this thing
earlier. Why did I delay up to this time?
This is not the
first time Bode will be ridiculing me by
putting a leaf in
his mouth. I have signalled to him
several times to
stop that but he won’t. Now he will have
to bid his
vocal cord a goodbye.
I sit at the edge of the bed and then
stretches my body
towards Bode who is fast asleep. I
wouldn’t know if he
is snoring because I can’t hear a thing. I
hold the hot
knife close to his face. Nothing is going
to stop me
from dipping it inside his throat.
I can’t do it. I begin to weep. No! This is
not happening.
This is not me. How dare me? My hand
shakes. I begin
to retreat.
Bode’s eyes flashed open. He was
terrified. I see the
movement of his mouth. He must have
shouted,
“Murderer!”
Bode shakes the bed vigorously. I cut the
rope with the
hot knife and the boy flees in horror. He
didn’t return
until father arrives.
My father becomes enraged. He beat me
black and blue.
I’m done for it.
Father locks me out of the home. Mother
herself isn’t
allowed to come inside. He accuses my
mum of
bringing a bastard to his home and
calling her a child.
That is me daddy is calling a bastard.
That day we have to pull over in Mrs.
Oyin’s house. The
woman becomes disappointed in me.
“Rose, how many times have I warned
you to always
behave gentle? You are mature for christ
sake! Take a
look at your bre*ast, Rose. You are a big
girl.”
I couldn’t say anything. I just keep
weeping. I know my
mother doesn’t deserve to be locked
outside her
matrimonial home. I feel very guilty.
“Rose, why did you want to kill your
brother? He is your
brother, no matter what? And you raised
a knife to his
neck to cut off his neck? Rose, Haba!”
Mrs Oyin speaks
on. I have no strength to raise a finger,
let alone my
two hands to speak. I am not in the
mood to say a
word.
“Do you remember what happened to
Cain when he
killed Abel his brother in the bible? Rose,
don’t you ever
be pushed by anger to do evil in life,
because the result
of such doing will remain a stigma
forever in your
life…”
That is all my eyes could grab and send
to my brain for
interpretation: don’t you ever be pushed
by anger to do
evil in life, because the result of such
doing will remain
a stigma forever in your life.
I resolve to be calm, no matter the
situation. I didn’t
gesture it out for them to see, but in my
mind I have
made the decision not to bother myself
over offenders.
I will never raise my little fingers, let
alone my hands,
to fight back anymore. I will be calm like
a peaceful
river.
“Mrs John, we shall return to beg her
father to take you
back very early tomorrow morning,” says
my
classteacher.
“Thanks so much Mrs Oyin. We are
grateful,” my
mother says. I wonder why she doesn’t
blame me for
whatever happens. Is she a caring mother
or she is just
in the process of spoiling me?
To be continued
