We Are Able

Episode 13

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.