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’