This House Is Not for Sale (13 page)

—If the problem is one that he cannot solve, then the man should return home, put his affairs in order, and start waiting for death—

—His wife is still carrying him about from one healer to the other—

—I hear she has taken him to the powerful gray-bearded sheikh, the Islamic preacher and healer—

—I hear those ones are powerful too. They use words from their holy books—

—He has really suffered. Look at him, all bones—

The first thing that was demanded of Soja before he could see the sheikh was that he needed to convert, he should change his name and shave his hair.

He wanted to argue with them but they explained to him that it was all one God. He was only called by a different name. He agreed. His new name was Ahmed. He was happy. He covered his head with a
taj
, a cap worn by the Muslim faithful.

Finally he got to meet the sheikh. The sheikh shook his hands and touched his right hand to his heart in the Muslim fashion and said to Soja/Ahmed—
Inna lillahi Wa inna ilaihi Rajioon
. What the sheikh said to him was the Islamic prayer for the dead.

Grandpa said Soja's wife should stop carrying him from place to place. He said Soja knew what was wrong with him. He should say the truth.

After this people began to speculate about Soja's illness and the cause.

—You know when he was in the task force some of the female roadside traders bribed them—

—Of course everyone knows that they collected bribes—

—No, not that kind of bribe you are thinking about—

—The women who they took to their head office the task force head office you know—

—You mean they did things to the women?—

—Some of the women used what they had to bribe the task force people and get their goods back and free themselves—

—They got a lot of it, some members as time went on even preferred to be bribed that way. They say Soja was that way—

—Probably, that is what is killing him now?—

—Was it that he did it with another man's wife?—

—Not sure—

—If it was the one people got from doing it with another man's wife, the victim will fall off the woman, crow three times like a cock, and die—

—So if it wasn't that one what was it?—

—You won't hear it from my mouth. You know what it is that is killing him—

Soja finally died. They say he refused to go quietly. They said he died fighting. He struggled, he rolled from one side of the bed to the floor, he sweated, his labored breathing could be heard about three houses away. And then he stopped breathing. He was finally at rest.

Soja was buried in the military cemetery. Because of the speculation that whatever had made him sick was a result of his task force duties, his colleagues rallied, they contributed money for him and tried to get his gratuity and payment out very quickly. They were planning to give the money to the wife, but it turned out she was not the next of kin. Soja had never officially married her. Grandpa was the next of kin. He was the one who got all the money except for the contributions and the gratuity. Soja's woman cried, she begged, she threatened, she cajoled.

Grandpa asked only one question—she should receive the payment in her capacity as what?

Soja's woman did what she had heard the old woman did
to her husband. At midnight she stood in front of the house, bared her buttocks at the house, and cursed the house and those who lived in it.

She later repented and came back to beg Grandpa when she discovered that she was pregnant with the late Soja's child. Grandpa gave her a small space in front of the Family House where she could fry and sell bean cakes.

S
oja's wife, who now had a daughter named Fuebi, was using the small corner outside the Family House given to her by Grandpa to sell
akara
fried bean cakes. It was a good location to sell
akara
because of the many feet that passed by the house. Her mother fried the
akara
in hot oil while Fuebi wrapped the hot balls in newspapers for customers. Beside them on a tray were loaves of bread, which they also sold. Beside the loaves of bread lay a pile of old newspapers. One of Grandpa's acts of kindness was to allow them to make use of the space in front of the Family House to sell. Fuebi's mother may have been beautiful many years ago, but she was now the same ochre-white color as the smoke that emerged from the cheap firewood with which she fried her
akara
. Fuebi was beautiful.
She sparkled. She had a gap on her upper incisor, which was considered a mark of beauty. She had dimples. Her skin glowed. She smiled a lot. This was despite the hard work she had to do every day. Frying
akara
was the final task in a very laborious process that began with soaking the black-eyed peas in water overnight and washing off the tough skin the next morning. Washing and rinsing and pouring the water into an open drain very far from the house because the smell from the bean water was awful. Then carrying the washed beans to the communal grinding machine store where she joined the line to have the beans blended, then returning home to go to school. Coming back from school to go buy firewood and going to broad Teacher's place to collect old copies of the
Daily Times
. It was a tough job, but Fuebi never complained. She was always smiling. During a pause in sales or on days when due to rainfall the sales and frying came to a halt, the woman would turn to Fuebi and point at herself.

“Fuebi, hmmm, you must not let your life be like mine. Look at me, stained and faded like an old piece of cloth. How much do we make from all this suffering? From morning till night, fetch water, grind beans, grind pepper, cut onions, haul wood, build a fire, blow the fire, sit by hot fire and hot oil, all for what? All for a profit of a half a penny, all for penny and half penny. Your life must not be like mine. You must not allow suffering to steal your beauty the way it stole mine. Any slightest opportunity you get you better start running far away from here, far away from all this suffering. Suffering and beauty are not friends, and never will be.”

“You are too hard on yourself,” Fuebi would say to her.

“What do you know? You are not a child anymore. You had better open your ears and listen very well to what I am telling you. The day you have the opportunity to run away to where suffering cannot reach you with her evil claws, run and run very far away.”

“Things can only get better, don't worry.”

“Before our own very eyes things are getting worse. Look at me, eh, just look at me. If not for the death of your father, I know this is not where I would be. Death has done its worst. The good die young.”

And then, one evening the answer to her prayers. Fide, the patent medicine dealer, pulled up in his car and asked to be sold some
akara
. Fuebi remembered the song that wafted from the car's speakers—it was “You're My Best Friend” by Don Williams. She would learn later that this was the only kind of music that Fide played. Fide called it sentimental music.

“I don't play with my sentimental songs,” he would say to her when they got to know each other better. Fuebi would never forget this song because it was also the song to which he would insist on fucking her without protection, insisting he wanted her skin to skin, which would eventually lead to her pregnancy. But all that was in the future. This night he wanted
akara
. Fuebi's mother wrapped a generous quantity of
akara
for him and told Fuebi to go give it to the man in the car. She could smell the air freshener in the
car from where she sat. By the light of the car, Fide looked at the beautiful gap-toothed face handing him the
akara
and he smiled and switched off the engine of the car. He brought out his wallet, protuberant, bloated, and overloaded almost to spilling with cash. He searched for the largest denomination and gave it to her. She went to bring back his change.

“Keep the change,” he said to her, and winked, and then he smiled at her and drove away slowly, trailed by the smell of his air freshener and the voice of Don Williams.

When Fuebi showed the change the man in the car had left for her to her mother, she stood up and danced wordlessly around the fire and the pot of boiling oil on the fire. After dancing she poured water to put out the fire and said they should go home.

“What about the customers who want to buy
akara
?” Fuebi asked.

“Give the
akara
in the basket to them but do not collect any money from them,” she said.

“But why are we closing so early tonight?” Fuebi asked.

“We are closing early because what I saw while sitting on this chair that I sit on every day to fry
akara
is indeed very marvelous in my sight,” she said, and broke into a Pentecostal church song.

“And what did you see?”

“You mean you did not see how that man was looking at you?”

“He was smiling and he told me to keep the change.”

“I can tell you today that things are not going to be the
same for us again. Soon, you will see, I will no longer need to roast myself on the fire in the name of frying
akara
,” she said, and began to pack her things. “Mark my words, you'll see, this is not the last time we will see him.”

She was right. The next evening he was back. His car stereo was playing Don Williams. He shut off the engine of the car and asked for
akara
. Fuebi went to hand the
akara
to him. Again the fat wallet appeared. Again, he handed her the fat denomination. Again, he asked her to keep the change.

That night when they got home, Fuebi was given a lesson by her mother.

“It is true you are young but you were not born yester night. The ripe orange fruit that refuses to fall off the tree to be eaten by a good man soon becomes food for the birds. That man likes you. He has shown that he likes you. Now, it is your turn to reciprocate, show him that you like him before he turns away. Men do not have lots of patience and are not good at waiting.”

The next evening Fuebi not only took the
akara
to Fide, but she also sat in the car with him and asked him how his day went.

“Fine, my day always goes well. Honor to Jesus, adoration to Mary,” he said, fingering the rosary that dangled from the rearview mirror.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“I do buying and selling.”

“What do you sell?”

“I sell medicines, capsules, tablets. You know, like Panadol.”

“That is nice,” she responded.

“Do you take medicines?”

“I never fall sick,” Fuebi said.

“I will come and take you out tomorrow evening.”

“I don't know. I'll have to ask my mother.”

“Don't worry. She is a good woman. I am sure she will say yes. Give her this envelope. Tell her it is from me.”

Fuebi felt the envelope. It was filled with money. As she made to alight from the car, Fide drew her closer.

“Please stop, people are watching us.”

“That is true. I will take you to someplace with fewer eyes next time.”

When Fuebi handed the envelope to her mother, she sang and danced and said that indeed there was a good God in heaven who answered the prayers of the poor and sent them kind people to save them.

The next day Fuebi dressed up in her best, which was not much, and waited for Fide near where her mother sold akara. He pulled up, looked around, and told her to get into the car quickly. His manner was abrupt and he did not smile until they pulled out of the street.

“Like you said, there are too many eyes watching. One has to be careful.”

He turned to her and told her she looked beautiful. He asked her if she was hungry. She said she was not hungry. He soon pulled up to a hotel and parked his car. The people at the reception seemed to know him very well and he took her up to a room upstairs.

“This is a good place for us to relax, away from all those eyes,” he said.

She sat on a chair beside the bed and began to open the pages of a green Gideon's Bible by the side of the bed.

“Come and relax with me here on the bed. I am not going to bite you.”

She joined him on the bed, and he wasted no time undressing her. As he took off her clothes he emitted a deep gurgling sound that seemed to emerge from some deep part of his throat. All the while he kept saying to her, you are beautiful, I am not going to bite you. With some force he pushed her legs apart and entered her. She felt a sharp pain. One moment he was in her and the next moment he was out. He looked down at her legs.

“This is your first time.” It was a statement; not a question.

She nodded.

“You are a good girl, you are a very good girl and I will reward you.” Once again he brought out two fat envelopes and gave them to her. “One for you and one for your mother.”

Fuebi felt a little dull pain and throbbing below.

“Don't worry, the pain will soon go. If you feel any more pain, take two tablets of paracetamol. You'll feel better.”

He dropped her off by the road near where her mother fried
akara
and drove off.

When she got home she gave both envelopes to her mother. Her mother opened them and began to dance around their room.

She told her mother that she was feeling a little tired.

“Don't worry. I'll boil you some warm water so you can take your bath and go to bed.”

She took her bath and went to bed and was soon deeply asleep.

Twice a week, Fide showed up and took her to the same hotel. He seemed to take less and less time, after which he fell into a short sleep and snored, then would jerk up suddenly awake and tell her to get dressed, that he had some urgent business to settle in his store.

When Fuebi began to look pale and vomit in the mornings, her mother said that this was another answered prayer.

“Your father's spirit is too strong. I know he has been itching to come back to this world that he left abruptly due to bad people. See, now he is going to come back through you. And you have found a good man too.”

When Fuebi told Fide her good news, Fide was angry.

“What do you take me for? Do you think I am an irresponsible man?”

“But what do you want me to do?”

“I am not the person who will tell you what to do. You are not a child. You know what to do.”

“I don't know what to do.”

“In that case, ask your mother, she will know where to take you.”

“She says I should tell you, that you'll be happy.”

“And what about my wife? And what about my daughters, will they be happy? And what about my reverend father, will he be happy?”

It was the first time Fide had ever mentioned a wife and children.

The next time Fuebi went to the store to wait for Fide, she spent the better part of the day waiting. She was told he had gone to the port to see to the release of his imported goods. When he came in and saw her his face changed.

“Take this note,” he said as he scribbled something on the back of his card.

“Take this,” he said, giving her an envelope.

He then directed her to go and see a doctor who would take care of her.

When Fuebi showed the note to her mother, her mother took the card with the scribbled note from her and said she was going to keep it as evidence. As for the money in the envelope, she said it was going to be used for baby clothes.

Fuebi eventually gave birth to twins. Two boys. The boys screamed lustily into the world. They were ravenous and began to eat as if they had been starving for the nine months that they had been in the womb.

“Look at their mouths, look at those greedy lips, just like their father's,” Fuebi's mother said.

Fuebi was tired and was lying weakly on the bed. She had not seen Fide since the last time he gave her the money to go see his friend to take care of the pregnancy.

Word soon got to Grandpa that Fuebi had delivered a set of twins and that their father had refused to show up. Grandpa summoned Fide.

“What is this I hear about you refusing to see your God-given children?”

“It is not me, it is my wife. She will kill me. She has two
girls for me, two girls
only
. She doesn't want to hear that another woman had children for me.”

“Are you a man or are you a woman who pees from behind?”

“And the priest will not be happy about it too.”

“Were you thinking of the priest when you were doing it with her?”

Fide shook his head from side to side and began making squiggles on the ground with his big toe.

“Tell your wife that children bring children. She will see, as soon as these twins are under your roof, she too will give birth to her own male children.”

And that was how it was settled. Fuebi moved into Fide's house. Just as Grandpa had said, Fide's older wife gave birth to a boy exactly one year later.