The Black Maid

The church was perhaps her best place in the entire flora and fauna of the earth, in spite of the uneasiness of sitting through an oyinbo man’s sermon. Notwithstanding, she still felt mediocre there. She had known her mother but not her father. When she arrived in Ibadan, she had heard her aunt tell a friend that her siblings were ogbanje and that she was the only one, who survived, the smudge on her face was evidence. She was knocked for six on hearing the statement. Her mother had sent her to live in Ibadan due to the conflict her father’s family stirred against her mother. She didn’t miss her mother. She only felt remorseful for her. She thought of education but her aunt had ‘better’ plans for her. She would work in Lagos

It was 1905 and time seemed to be travelling at such a sluggish and sturdy stride. Years before, the England laws began to apply to every part of the city but that didn’t explain the inflow of oyinbo’s into the country. As told by iya Ibadan, the aunt she had lived with, the trade with the merchants started the inflow of the oyinbos in the mid part of the nineteenth century. She cursed the very day they ventured into her land because she had very little love for them. The household she worked for was oyinbo. When she first moved to Lagos, she was revolted. She by a hair's breadth saw oyinbo people in Ibadan. Lagos was a first-class city. There were large beautiful houses unlike in Ibadan where the populace of houses was huts and small ill-constructed buildings. There was something about the atmosphere that was murky, almost cruel but still she loved it. She loved to see the trees, colorful as they were and the healthy strong people in a hustle and bustle of life. She anticipated a better life.

She was glad however that she was no whore. The talk between her age grades was that in Lagos, black girls were given off to men to be prostitutes. She couldn’t fathom that. The sounds she heard from iya Ibadan’s tiny bedroom with whatever man she had for the night, was enough to scare her from the male gender. When she got to the house, they welcomed her with an eye she would never forget—and even on deathbed, the cruel eye still remained in memory. The tall slender mistress of the house, an oyinbo who was in her late thirties eyed her, hissed and showed her to her room. She was given a list of chores.

‘I no fit read’ she had said shaking with fright at the woman whose skin was so flawless as opposed to hers.

‘Illiterate’ the woman said in a contemptuous tone that even though she didn’t know what the word meant, she started to shriek. She wasn’t used to being screamed at and that was only the beginning. Everything she did wasn’t right and the children of the house relentlessly lampooned and snickered at her. It was disgust and odium that streamed up from the mistress and she knew it. The master of the house came into her room one night while she slept. He removed her brassier and pant and plunged into her. She had woken up that very night when her brassier was flung off brutally from her chest but she didn’t yell. She just watched as she was defiled, bloody tears streaming down her eyes. When he left, a mollified smile on his face, she saw the pool of blood on her bed and got to work washing it. She couldn’t tell the mistress even though she knew she would somehow find out and soon, she didn’t see her period. She was petrified. There was no one to talk to, nowhere to run to. She didn’t plan on telling the mistress because she was afraid the woman who was heads over hills in love with her husband wouldn’t believe her. She couldn’t abort the baby. She was panicky, forlorn and without help. The church was not help. They were all oyinbos.

She finally decided to tell the mistress on a crispy morning. The mistress hit her with a frying pan. At that point she hated herself and that she was black. The mistress told her to pack up

She left during the night. The next morning, they were all found dead. ‘No doubt’ in later years iya Ibadan said, ‘no doubt that she was ogbanje’

HER TEARS....

It wasn't the first night. It wasn't the second night. She had lost count. She sat at the corner, watching as he buckled his belt, packed his shirt and fled into the darkness. She had heard this story before. She had never dreamt she would be a victim. The tears that came down her sweaty face were all she had, all she could express in hating this uncle and then her own vulnerability. She was also afraid. She was too afraid. She didn't know who tell if she wanted to tell. She looked forward to mornings every night. She looked forward to the cockcrow screaming shrilly in her ears and an alarm clock playing its annoying tune. She looked forward to the sun, casting its brightness into her always dimly lit room. She looked forward to hearing the bustle of a new day and the hustle of the outside world. There was this assurance that came with the new day and there was this tingly feeling that made it all disappear as the evening approached.

She would talk to the gods or to herself or so it seemed, holding back the tears as the hour approached, sitting at the edge of the bed, feeling ashamed for what was yet to come. She would tell the gods to stop her uncle from coming to her room. She would ask the gods to strike him. She would ask them to make her dead parents come out of their graves—the eternal slumber. She would ask so much and command so much and if and when he didn't come, she would close her eyes and slowly drift away into an abyss of hunted dreams of the very brutality of an uncle.

It first started two months ago and she'd known that he only came when he was drunk. He wasn't even her uncle properly so called. He was just one of those people we called uncle for convenience. They shared no blood ties whatsoever and she thought, hence his brutality and wickedness.

She had thought of running away but since the death of her parents, things had been hard and he was the only one willing to take her into his home. She remembered the night he came and took her to his home. It had been just a month after her parents died in the June 2012 Lagos plane crash. No, the relatives didn't care about identifying the body or other technicalities; they came in and took the house and the beautiful things. What did she know? She couldn't defend herself, her father hadn't thought of a will and neither had he planned to die and so, she herself had to accept the inevitable.

Then, this uncle, a brother in her mother's protestant church which she dreaded going to but any which way had had to go to once or twice over the years had seen her wandering the streets after her father's brother's wife had beaten her and told her never to step foot in 'their' house. Yes, she didn't think twice before she sat down at the passenger’s seat and buckled her seat belt. She didn't think twice before she allowed him to take her to a restaurant to get good food. And she didn't mind when he's said I'd take care of you, you don’t have to worry anymore.

Because she was still vulnerable, though stupid was a much better word she had accepted it all with that blank stare lingering in her eyes. Fifteen and cursed with the best features one might say. Unaware however of the heads she caused to stare as she walked past. When in this house which she had been staying in for the past eight months--without education, she would fetch water from the neighbor's tap, a life she had never been subjected to, then the boys many of them would come out deliberately to look. They would also make passing comments like 'so round, that behind'

She would ignore. She didn't care. She and her mother had never gotten far with the 'boy-talk.' As an only child, they'd spoiled her beyond words, hence her father had once remarked 'she wouldn't be dating for a while,' he'd adjusted his reading glasses 'any boy who comes through to this gate to see her, I would kill' of course he'd been joking but she'd taken a cue and faced her books.

So, with the unfolding of events, being a quick adjuster, she'd adjusted. However this one thing, the taking of what most women value, desecrating her, making her feel dirty, she could never adjust to.

But who was she to tell? who?

Sometimes she blamed herself, other times she blamed her parents, most times, she blamed the gods if they did exist. She wondered how exactly she would run off. She wondered exactly whether she would ever heal from this pain that threatened to tear her heart opened, even if he died, even if he never came to her room again.

She always wondered about these, a harsh pain creeping up her neck and ears. It was the sort of pain that came with hatred. A newly born passion in her. She could kill him. She had killed him many times in her dreams. She had killed him many times in her thoughts. But she was too afraid to hold the kitchen knife in the physical.

Then there was the innate desire to be free even though she knew she would always be a caged bird at heart because of this experience. She was going to leave but she didn't know how. Despite all that happened--they said should make you stronger, other than hate, she was vulnerable and afraid. The fear plagued her and most times overthrew the hate.

She sat still in the corner remembering the blood that first night, remembering that she and the girls from her school had wanted to wait till they were married. They ranted on and on about how guys preferred virgins. They gossiped about non-virgins--it didn't matter if they were raped, non virgins were still sluts to them.

Grandmother before her death in that small white house overlooking the hills in a tiny town in Ogun state had gone on about the value of a girl's virginity. She told stories about the old days. How a girl who wasn't a virgin was shamed when her fiancé or husband found out. She told stories about girls who were raped in wars. She said they brought it on themselves, wearing those short skirts, using tiro, applying lipsticks--'shame on them' in her exact words.

So, she felt shameful of herself the way one felt when they had a stigma or better still, wore clear ugly clothes out in the public. It was how she felt. Like she wore only a dirty linen.

He had a girlfriend which was worse and sometimes, with that stern look when she came over for 'bedroom' prayer meetings, she was nice, as if she knew he had raped her. But she didn't know. She didn't even suspect.

After the first night she had been unable to look at him. As she swept the floor that morning she felt his eyes around her and then he'd said 'don't forget to wash the plates' as if nothing had happened. The nights were for the nights, the days for the days. He acted normally everyday but came to her room with soothing words at night like 'it wouldn't hurt, you can’t tell anyone about this, it’s because I care a lot about you' she was flabbergasted.

She was also afraid of getting pregnant or infected with an STD, even though he used a condom. She spent most of her day crying. She spent the hours in thought. She prayed for death a few times and had comforted herself with slashing her wrist.

Her face was grey, and thinning, the way a dying woman lost her color and energy. She lost her words. She lost herself. The tears were her only comfort. So where the prayers, channeled to the gods or said to herself.

Even if, she was going to leave when there were no tears and no words and the fear was weaker than the hate. Then she would run unto the streets like a bird let go to fly. She would fly away but still ask herself if her life could ever be different if that first night had been different.

TO BE CONTINUED....