WE ARE ABLE Episode 11 and 12 by SammyHoe
Toyosi came one weekend. She wanted 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.
WE ARE ABLE by SammyHoe
Episode 12
The following day, Sunday, Toyosi was back in our house. She was still as keen on knowing my name as the day before yesterday. My aunt’s instruction didn’t strike my opaque head. I was going to demonstrate it to her once and for all.
An inner voice came. At first I was
shocked when I heard it and thought I could now hear with my ears, but
when Toyosi turned around to answer her son, I knew I was still deaf
because I didn’t still hear her voice. The inner voice had just asked me
not to do it.
“Please demonstrate your name,” she asked again. As
though she had enchanted me, I rose up and made some gestures with my
hands. She was glad. She signaled that I should do it over and over
again and I concurred. She also began to do it until I told her she had
done a perfect job.
Toyosi left the home after presenting some goodies to me. It was soon dark. The day had gone to bed but my eyes were just clear. I wasn’t feeling sleepy at all. Mother came to my room and saw me turning around under the quilt after switching on the light of my room. My pillow was clutched to my chest.
“Rose, aren’t you sleeping?” she asked.
“I don’t feel like…sleeping,” I yawned. She came to sit beside me on the bed.
“What’s the matter Rose?”
“I don’t just know,” I said.
“Maybe you want me to rock you to sleep, Rose,” she said. “And I wouldn’t mind doing that.”
“I’m no more a small girl mum,” I replied. “By September I would be getting to JSS 1.”
“And then?” she said. She looked into my gray eyes and frowned. I didn’t know what she spotted in them. “Rose, are you nervous?”
“A
bit,” I said. I was feeling nervous indeed. My heart was tapping faster
than normal. My blood was burning within me. It was as though
something bad would happen.
“Don’t be nervous Rose,” she said. “Or would you come and sleep in my room?”
“I wouldn’t mind doing that,” I said. Mother bundled me up the way I saw father bundle Toyosi up those few times she was playing love with my father in our presence. She dumped me playfully on her bed. I ricocheted like that round thing my brother called ‘high land’. Mother’s bed was as fat as a thousand sliced bread packed together. Sure no one would have a bad dream on such, I thought.
As soon as my back made intimate contact with the mattress, my eyes began to close. My breath poured easily. I fell into unconsciousness. A dream began to form on my face.
Vividly in my dream I saw a woman sitting on a mat beside an old man whose teeth was like a rotten banana. The ambiance of the room was familiar to me. The woman was the one I saw calling some statements into a basin of water having my image some weeks back. This time around, she wasn’t speaking with her mouth, instead, she was gesticulating.
“Bode, the son of John, I am calling your name right now. Answer me to death right now, Bode!” she said in sign language. “Answer me to death right now!”
It was like a film show
to me. An image had formed inside the water. She was shocked when she
saw the image in it. It wasn’t mine, but that of Bode. I could read
disappointment and shock on her face when she saw the image.
I thumped up. So it was a dream, I thought. I tapped my mother to life.
“Mother, I have a dream.”
“A dream?”
“Yes mother, a bad dream,” I said, breathing like a cow.
“About what?” my mother yawned and beamed at the wall clock. It was just 2 am.
“Something like that one I had in Aunty Rachael’s house three weeks back,” I said.
“Do you mean the dream about someone gawking at your image in a basin of water?” my mother asked in a fearful manner.
“Yes mother,” I said. In fact, this time around the woman was speaking in sign language.
“Ah! Calling your name in sign language?” Mother said and deflated my two cheeks in between her palms.
“Not my name this time around,” I said. “She was calling Bode’s name.”
“In sign language?”
“Exactly, yes,” I said, sweating.
Mother was glad I didn’t respond to the call since it wasn’t my name
that was called by the strange woman in the dream. However, she felt
concerned for Bode.
“Who’s this strange woman of darkness calling us at night? Why can’t she present herself in the day? She must be a coward.” Her heart thumped. She was scared. “Now that you said that the woman is communicating in sign language, are you safe at all? What is the probability that she won’t pounce on you in the next dream?” My mother faced the ceiling and began to weep.
“Mum,” I said and tapped her. She looked at me. “I think I know who she is.”
“Who?” she asked in an intriguing manner and I answered pointblank, “Toyosi!”
“How do you know?”
“She asked for my name yesterday, but I demonstrated her son’s name, Bode to her.”
“Ah!” my mother held me tight. “A witch cried yesterday, a child died today, who don’t know that it is the witch who killed the child?” she spoke in proverbs.
“Mother, let’s go and check Bode in his room
first,” I said out of concern. Mother and I began to head for his room.
He wasn’t in.
“What?” we both screamed in sign language.
*******TO BE CONTINUED*******
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