I was filled with suspense as I awaited Toyosi to tell me where my mother was. Perhaps, she
had taken her somewhere to kill her.
“Impossible,” I said to myself.
Toyosi pulled me by my hair as she led
me to my room
and began to throw my things out from
there. She then
led me to the kitchen to show me where I
would be
lodging henceforth. I would be living with
the rats over
there.
Toyosi tore a sheet of paper and wrote
all the rules and
regulations I must follow there. They
were very many.
I began to read:
Deaf Rose, henceforth here are the things
you must
observe:
You should not step your toes in the
parlour except
whenever you are needed there. You are
now a
housemaid and nothing more. You will
only be fed once
in a day as from now. You will cook,
wash the plates,
clothes and clean the house every time.
There is no
more school for you–your room is the
kitchen
henceforth…
The rules were without end.
Toyosi pushed me. When I fell, she
pinned me to the
ground with her right hand.
My suffering started afresh. I had
returned to my old
self, this time worse. Toyosi had now
made my father’s
home her permanent residence. I
wondered if her
husband wasn’t concerned about her
whereabouts.
I couldn’t do anything well at the thought
of my mother.
It was already a week and I still didn’t
know what
happened to her. I was living a hell on
earth.
Toyosi would beat me up at will. She
would complain
that I had put too much salt in the meal.
All the clothes
I had just washed, she would demand I
rewash them
because they were not as clean as she
wanted.
Toyosi wasn’t going anywhere anymore.
Maybe
because of me I didn’t know. She was
always at home,
monitoring me. She would prevent me
from leaving the
house. As if she knew that leaving the
house was the
next thing on mind. If only I could get
out of this house
arrest, then the next step would be for
me to flee the
house.
I could earn a living outside, I thought.
My mind flashed
back to that swindler feigning deaf and
dumb that day. I
would just do something similar: I would
write I AM
DEAF AND DUMB on a paper and
laminate it. Then I
would put it on my chest and beg for
alms. But how
could I possibly get out of the house?
Whenever Toyosi was leaving for the
market, she
would lock me in and take the keys with
her. That
would be the only time I would have the
opportunity to
visit the parlour.
Bode was my regular human-guest in the
kitchen,
always there to bully on me. I had many
non-human
guests; geckos, cockroaches and rats. At
night
mosquitoes would lodge with me too.
I had made some big yams into pillow. A
bag of rice
was my mattress. Rats and cockroaches
would run
around my body as I lay flat like a
handfan.
I was desperately seeking a way out. My
poem book
was nowhere to be found. I didn’t get
talked to by
anyone. I had developed phobia already,
fearing
everything around me. Even Bode could
walk up to me
and give me a slap on the face. My
confidence had
vanished.
I became sickly. My appearance had
gone imbecilic. I
do fold my hands together all the time,
shaking like a
cloth spread on the line.
One day, I got to the parlour while
everyone had gone
out of the house. I lay on the sofa and
sighed. The fan
was pouring its breeze on me. My
stepmother mustn’t
come and meet me there, else I would be
doomed.
Toyosi got in suddenly. I was in soup. If
only I had
some functioning ears I would have
heard the sound of
the door as she was turning the keys in
the keyhole.
Toyosi thumped hard on me until I was
no more on
earth. My mother’s aparition appeared to
me and spoke
to me. She said she had been killed by
Toyosi. She said
she didn’t want me to die too, so I
should rise up again.
I felt a blow at my back. When I raised
my head, Toyosi
poured a pail of water on me. She was
laughing. I
thought I was destined for suffering so I
accepted my
fate.
The courage to write a poem was no
more in me. The
zeal had died since Toyosi tore the book
I was writing
them in. I remembered what my
classteacher told me;
so how would I come in contact with that
publishing
company, Judimax? I had better give it
all up.
The world was no more worth living in;
no one to share
my pain with me…just only me in the
planet earth. I had
totally accepted my fate. Now a little
surge of strength
had engulfed me. I would confront Toyosi
and ask her
for my mother once more. This time
around, I will pull
up a strong face teeming with audacity. I
thought I had
nothing to lose at this juncture. Nothing
worse could
come on me since I had already
experienced the worst
tragedy anyone could have.
I walked right into the parlour. She was
having her head
on a pillow, having ensconced herself on
the sofa. I had
no fear. I tapped her shoulder and stood
tall. If I perish,
I perish, I thought like the biblical queen.
Toyosi never expected it. She was
stunned when she
saw that I was the one tapping. She must
have thought
that it was Bode, going by the way she
was turning
lazily from side to side while I was
tapping her.
I read her lips. She had just said ‘What!’ I
was prepared
for the worst. She had warned me not to
ever step my
feet into the parlour except if she needed
me there. As
a matter of fact, the only time Toyosi
would need me
was when food was ready. I would have
to set the
table for the family and return to my
corner–the
kitchen.
Toyosi’s eyeballs bounced like
basketballs in their
sockets. She was ready to pounce on me.
My look was
stern right now. I was ready for her.
“What do you want?” she said with sound
language
which I understood going by the
movement of her lips.
I had been very familar with such lip
movement.
I didn’t need to sign anything. I just gave
her a note I
had written earlier and then I sank into a
chair opposite
her. She raised her head to lengthen her
look. Her
mouth was wide agape.
Toyosi began to feed her eyes with the
content of the
note I wrote there. I was expecting a
reply, but for
minutes she was still having her head
bent, perhaps
absorbed in the one-sentence note I gave
her.
Is there anything in there to ponder about
for so long? I
ruminated. I stood up and walked close
to her. I signed
my request before her face right now.
Definitely, she had murdered my mother, I
thought as I
gave consideration to the vision I saw in
my trance
when she beat me to blackout earlier.
The simple question I asked in that note
was “Where is
my mother?”
Toyosi stood up in a flash. She was
speechless. I
stiffened my bone as I got prepared to
get a spicy slap
on my cheek. Her shoulder touched my
forehead while
she was rising up. To my amazement she
just walked
away.
Toyosi returned with a pen and a
notebook. She began
to write something. When she was done,
she gave me
the note and stared into my face.
I took a little time to stare back into her
eyeballs. Her
big almond eyes reminded me of the
almond fruit. I
began to read:
You asked a question and I have an
answer for you;
your mother has returned to her habitat,
the prison.
Well, it was a funny little trick back then.
We got your
mother out by bribing the chief warder
and everybody
we needed to bribe. It was for a little
time, so she
would return back there. Oh! You would
need to see the
horror on your mother’s face when I led
her to three
policemen at our return from Abuja. I
told them she
was an escaped prisoner.
Your mother was arrested and taken back
to the chief
warder. Her jailterm would no more be
two years but
five, says the chief warder. Rose, I hope
you’re now
clear of it all.
My tears dropped on the note and my
eyes went dim,
but there was more to read.
Last month, November, your classteacher
was here to
see your mother and you. I told her you
now leave in
Abuja, schooling there, so she wouldn’t
bother coming
to see you anymore. And as you know
already, your
aunty has travelled out, so then, tell me
who will fight
for you. Who else knows you are existing,
no one? Not
even your father. He sees you as dead,
just the way I
also see you.
I let the note fall off my grip as I sighed.
Knowing that
my mother was still alive was all I cared
about. Let
Toyosi do whatever she could, I wasn’t
going to be
moved.
Toyosi picked the note. It was as if she
still had
something to write:
Two men walked in here just yesterday;
they got your
contact address from your school. They
said you won a
publishing contract with them. I chased
them out with a
turning stick when they wouldn’t want to
admit that it
was the wrong address they had. They
wouldn’t dare
look for you again because I threatened
to pour acid on
them at their next visit. Ask me where
your poem
notebook is right now; I turned it into
mash and flushed
it down the sink. Gone forever!
I knew what I would do if there seemed
to be no one
to talk to. I would rather find solace in
that book my
aunty told me about–the bible. She said
it could comfort
one. I have read it sometimes in the past
but
eventually, I gave it up.
Now I had no Bible, but John had one
dusty one he kept
inside his room, on a small table beside
his bed. If only
I could get in there to have it, then all
would be well, I
thought. My father wouldn’t even look for
it even if I
took it from there, because he had
abandoned it since I
was three according to what my mother
told me.
Toyosi laughed and laughed as she stood
up to go to
her room. She didn’t chase me out of the
parlour right
now and I was surprised at her
behaviour.
I sat down confidently to watch the
ongoing
programme on the TV. Only God knew
what they were
saying in that big box. All they were
saying fell on my
‘deaf ears’ or maybe they were just
miming.
Bode had just awoken from sleep. He
spread-eagled as
he began to laze towards me. He frowned
and yelled
when he saw me:
“Mummy! Rose is in the parlour!” I knew
that was what
he was saying repeatedly, having studied
his lips
movement. He walked away in shame
when no one
answered him.
To be Continue
