8.
The heavens threw me a chain,
And I glided down to earth,
Holding a broom and rag,
Forever a cleanser and a cleaner,
Or something of that sort.
The college was very big and Ofure did not deny her sight the classrooms and the green fields that sat in the middle of the compound. Mary kept pushing her along, as they climbed the long stairwells to the principal’s office. Some of the women had greeted the women as they walked the stairs. Ofure greeted back immediately and bowed a little. The woman who had brought her was not embarrassed. Instead, she felt pity. Ofure must have had a difficult childhood for her to have had a low esteem around educated folks. Mary taught the junior classes and so she was familiar with the principal. But the strange Ofure stood and nodded while the two of them spoke. Finally, the principal turned to her and asked her something in English. Ofure was not at all familiar with the strange language and the words escaped too fast for her to catch them. Mary whispered something and the principal spoke pidgin. Ofure breathed, finally, something she understood.
‘Do you have experience in this kind of work? I mean, have you worked as a cleaner before?’
‘Yes, my father and mother were cleaners. And before him, his father cleaned for the white man’. Ofure lied. She had no choice; she was tired of walking through the boundary and across the factories in Apapa. She needed a job. When the principal laughed, Ofure smiled. The principal said something in English, Ofure was about to repeat what she said when she realized that the man wasn’t talking to her. Mary told her to sit down and left the room, leaving Ofure to his strange man whose strength of knowledge had already devoured her self-esteem.
Left alone, Ofure looked at the degrees behind this man. There was also a picture of him holding hands with older men, smiling. Ofure looked at this man properly for the first time and noticed that he had the look of people who were gifted with knowledge, bald head, wide lips and glasses balanced on the bridge of their noses. What she did not know was that this knowledgeable man was also taking her in, watching her breast heave up and down as she struggled to manage her breathing. Ofure appeared fat, but she had a small nose and lips that made her face beautiful. And she was fleshy. He was sure she gave her lovers plenty to hold on to.
‘Your salary will be fifteen thousand. No more, no less’. Before he could say more, Ofure went on her knees, thanking, crying, and blessing the kind man’s generosity. Fifteen thousand was more than she bargained for. Collins had told her to make sure that her salary was more than five thousand.
‘But not more than ten thousand o. so that they won’t say that you are ambitious and send you away’ he had warned her.
And now, she was already making plans on how she would spend her money and the clothes and food she could afford. The principal told her the do’s and don’ts of her job and dismissed her. He had also suggested she hugged him instead of the usual holding of hands.
‘That means, he must be a really nice man’. She thought.
One week later, Collins came home in the back of strangers. And suddenly fifteen thousand which seemed enough, became so little. Collins, after experiencing a taste of after life, thought it wise to rest for a month before searching for a job. And so Ofure became the breadwinner of the family. While some are born with responsibilities, and others look for it, Ofure had hers thrust upon her. And so, she became the breadwinner. She paid for her children’s day care, paid the house rent, and sent her mother the monthly payment of her own bride price.