We Are Able

Episode 25

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.