10.
Ofure tended to her husband day and night. Some nights, he would wake up muttering and whispering inaudibly. Sometimes, she decoded that it was his mother’s name he was calling. Some names, she didn’t recognize. When he got well enough to walk, he told her that he was going to the garage. She worried that their rejection might lead him to drink again and something worse might happen. But he said that they would pity him because of his condition. They were humans after all and she thought this tactic was wise. And so, when she woke up, she found that her husband was not on the other side of the bed, he had left early.
Ofure scooped cold water on her body and fed the kids before taking them to their nursery. The woman in the nursery was an Igbo woman. Ofure could not help but stare at the hair on this woman’s chest whenever she dropped her children. She always wondered why the woman forgot to shave her hair every time she saw the strands. Today, few children were around as opposed to the crowd of bodies and noise that were always assembled whenever she got there.
‘Good morning ma. Is there no class today?’
‘Not at all. Some of the parents have withdrawn their children’
‘But why?’
‘You know that my husband has run away with another woman. Things have been very difficult and as from next month, I will be increasing the prices of the crèche service.’
Immediately, Ofure’s smile crashed and her legs began to wobble. She merely brushed her children’s body instead of hugging them. A bigger tornado was approaching and this one threatened to overpower and rip her to shreds. When did this woman’s husband leave her and with whom did he run away with? If she was unemployed and stuck at home, she would have heard this gossip and planned ahead of this wave. But her job had been demanding and she only had time to gossip with the neighbors at weekend. Even on Saturdays, she took time in catching up with the sleep that she had missed through the week and Sunday was church day. She prayed that luck would find Collins in his garage and make the men employ him again. She could not afford this new burden. If she told her mother, her mother would tell her to withdraw Esosa from school and leave Ehis until she was strong enough to afford school.
‘Girls do not need too much education. That was why I was strong enough to raise all you girls. Eventually, she will end in a man’s house. No one likes a woman that knows too much’.
Ofure knew that that was what her mother was capable of saying. But her mother was not a cleaner who worked in the school where she worked. Her mother sold pap in the garage and she did not see that women were also attending school and many times, she saw girls in classes, even in higher classes. Just last week, a woman had driven her children to school. A woman drove a car. Who would have taught that? When she told Collins, he grunted and said the woman must be a prostitute. How come could she afford that much wealth?
And so Ofure was wrapped in this myriad of thoughts that it followed her to her workplace and made her clean and sweep grudgingly. It was only when a student or a teacher greeted her that she stumbled out of her reverie. She went back into her trance immediately their footsteps faded.
Soon, she finished her job and went to her stool close to the gateman’s bench and sat there, with her cheek in her arms thinking about the next step. Normally, she would sit close to the junior classes and mumble after them as they recited alphabets and numbers. It seemed like everything was against Ofure that day, the gateman kept intruding on her thoughts with his family problems. She half listened and half dreamt. Before long, the day was over and she had to go and clean the classes and wash. She changed into her apron and began her duties.
Ofure felt the hand behind her and turned quickly, almost throwing off the dirty water that she had used to mop the floors with. She turned around, half expecting to see the gateman receding with daring smile and crafty fingers. Instead, she yelped when she saw the principal.
‘Good Evening sah’. Had he come to sack her because she had performed her duties slower today?
‘Ofure, Is it?’
‘Yes sah’
‘How are you? I hope the job hasn’t been too stressful. I understand kids can be quite difficult to handle and observe hygiene these days.’
‘Yes sah. No sah’.
At this, the man laughed. Without his glasses, Ofure noticed that he had a small face. Lips that laughed out of difficulty, or perhaps the need to please others, that was why his jaws were so locked and tight.
‘Well. Take care. Tell me if you need anything’.
At this Ofure wondered if perhaps she could ask for a small raise. The man had laughed with her and touched her even; perhaps he was a nice man. Of course, he was, or else why would he offer an illiterate who couldn’t speak English a job in this big school. And so Ofure left her mop and bucket and ran after the principal before he could enter his car. He stopped when he noticed that the woman’s breast threatened to flip out of her tight clothes if she ran any further.
‘Sah, I wan tell you sometin.’
At this the principal checked his watch and led the way into his office. The room was dark and the man switched on all the lights, blinding Ofure for a mini second. Ofure told the man everything in Pidgin, starting from her husband’s near-death experience to her new job, the financial burden and finally the issue that had burdened her mind since the morning. The principal sat still and looked at her when she had finished. She wondered if he had understood her pidgin or perhaps, he had got lost when she was speaking and didn’t even know that she was done.
He stood up and walked to her and sat in front of her. He said a lot of things, some too difficult for Ofure to understand. Her mouth kept open as he spoke, refusing to close and swallow what he was saying. He said he would have asked her to enroll her children in his school, but the school fees weren’t moderate. He said he could help her if she helped him. His mouth was not the only thing moving and soon his hands began to caress her face and neck and slipped down her brassiere. Ofure screamed and ran out of the man’s office. She did not stop until she got home.
After Ofure had taken her bath and fetch her children from school, she fed them again and waited for Collins, the time was almost eleven and so she suspected that he must have got his job back. She was breastfeeding her children when Collins stormed into the room at midnight. She had planned to let him eat before she told him that she was going to quit her job. She needed her husband to be sane before he found out that the source of their income was going to be cut off soon. But immediately, he entered the door and laid on the bed, her mouth unlocked like a tap and she recanted the whole events. She was in the middle of narrating when she realized that Collins was snoring. That night, Ofure dreamt of the principal, locking the doors and touching her in his office. She did not sleep well that night. She woke up early, took her children to school and left for work.
On the way to work, she summoned bravery and told herself that she was going to quit if the Principal threatened her or anything out of the ordinary happened. But nothing happened. And on the second and third day, nothing happened. She didn’t see the principal and nobody came to disturb her.
‘Perhaps it was a mistake. Ofure had grown up among sisters and learnt that it was difficult for some men to control themselves among women. Perhaps the principal was one of such men. The third day, on Friday, Ofure was sleeping when she heard her children crying, not from inside but from outside. She stormed out of her sleep to see a neighbor beating her children.
‘Why?’ Ofure, asked, ready to pounce and tear off this neighbor’s clothes.
‘They are eating my child’s biscuit. Tell them to keep their hands to themselves’.
Ofure stared at her children as they cried, their eyes and mouth opened as spittle and tears mixed. She looked at them and wondered if her eyes were still drowsy or were her children getting slimmer? It looked like the clothes they were putting on were for someone older than them and not them. She was always too tired whenever she came back from work and she never had time to prepare dish for them. She gave them gari and fish, the delicacy she had grown up to. Perhaps this weekend, she would visit her mother’s place and collect some pap. That day she learnt a lesson in parenting. When you are poor, you become too helpless to help even your own child. Money gave one a voice, a power of influence in the society. As Ofure watched the neighbor’s kids smear his clothes with sweets while her children cried and walked like malnourished children, her heart sank. Ofure removed the dirt on their faces and took her children inside. She struggled within herself not to cry through it all. She sought out her savings and was aghast when she found the wooden box empty. The children were not conscious enough to start stealing and there hadn’t been any break in, ever. She opened the box and pushed her children aside. Today, she and her husband would engage in a marital war.