Everything Good Will Come (37 page)

“How can she tell me if she can't remember?”

“Eh?”

“If she kills people and can't remember, how can she tell me that she's killed them?”

The woman was silent for a moment, then she laughed. “Madam, you know too much. More than God, even. Holding cell must be full again, otherwise I wouldn't have to deal with the likes of you.”

She lay down and I shut my eyes. Who would know I was here? Who would think to look for me? All night here, by morning then what? I thought of Niyi at home, waiting.

Do-Re-Mi began to talk louder: “Fa So La. Ti Mi Re? La So La So... ”

“Do-Re-Mi, keep the noise down,” the loud woman ordered. “And you, fanner, face south again. The women over there need air.”

The fanner did an about turn. She was moaning that her arms ached.

“What is wrong with her?” Grace Ameh asked.

“She's lazy,” The loud woman answered. “She never wants to do her turn.”

“Do-Re-Mi, I mean.”

“She's a witch. She hears voices from the other world. They tell her what to do and she does it.”

“Schizophrenia?”

“Only you knows, madam. Skipping-freenia. All I know is she's a witch.”

Grace Ameh sighed. “I think you know.”

“All right, all right!” the woman said. “She's sick in the head. What am I to do? Half of them in here are sick in the head. Listen. Who art thou?”

A voice answered. “I am that I am.” “I say who art thou?”

“I am that I am?” the voice mumbled.

The loud woman laughed. “
In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti
. I call that one Holy Ghost. She thinks she's God, quarter to her grave, from the day they brought her in, old as a rag, soon to be six feet under. Looks like she really suffered. I mean under Pontius Pilate. But she obeys, she obeys... ”

Someone began to pee in the bucket. I heard her grunts, followed by a trickle. My stomach tightened.

“What are you here for?” Grace Ameh asked.

“What is your concern?” the loud woman answered.

“I only ask.”

“Don't concern yourself with me. Concern yourself with yourself. We've all done something. Some of us don't even know what, because they haven't told us yet.”

“They haven't?”

“Six years. Six hundred, even. Awaiting trial.”

There was mumbling and more slapping. Someone complained about the smell from the woman who had gone. Tears welled in my eyes. I sank lower. If I had been made to lick a toilet bowl, I could not feel sicker. The bile twisted my insides, shot up to my temples. My eyes criss-crossed.

I reached for Grace Ameh's leg.

“The smell... I can't... ”

She knelt beside me. “My dear, are you okay?”

“You think it smells of perfume here?” the loud woman said.

“She's pregnant,” Grace Ameh said.

The woman sat up. “Eh? What are you saying? The butter-eater is pregnant? No wonder she can't stand the smell of shit.”

“Try and keep calm,” Grace Ameh said.

“I've had a miscarriage before,” I whispered.

“Butter-eater,” came the woman's voice again. “Who impregnated you?”

“Enough of that,” Grace Ameh said to me.

“I thought you were too good for sex.”

“Don't mind her,” said Grace Ameh.

“What's going on over there?” came the loud woman's voice again.

“Nothing,” Grace Ameh said.

The loud woman laughed. “Is your pregnancy still intact? I hope so, because I know you butter-eaters, small thing and babies start falling out of you, plop, plop.”

In the dark, I despised her. Plop plop, she kept saying.

“Your baby dead,” she said between laughs.

I vomited, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sat next to my mess. My head felt clearer. I used my sleeve to clean my tears.

The first protest came from the far corner. “You don't have to speak to her like that.”

“Why not?” the loud woman asked.

“After all, she's expecting.”

“Is she the first to expect?” the loud woman answered.

“It's not Christianly,” came a whiny voice. “It's not Christianly. She doesn't deserve to be here, a pregnant woman.”

“Do I deserve to be here? Do any of us, bloody dunces. Fanner!”

The fanner had slackened again.

“Do I have to tell you again? Or do you need a slap to remind you?”

The whiny voice continued. “It's not Christianly what you do. It's not Christianly. You blaspheme... ” She sounded like a broken whistle.

The loud woman stood up. “Sharrap. Are we equals? Are we? I thought not. Christian it isn't, Shit-stian it is. Where are your best friends hallelu and hallelujah since you've been calling them? I don't see them here. On the day of judgment those who don't know will, so keep your trap shut until then. Thou shalt not speaketh unless you are speaketh to. Take that as your eleventh commandment and commit it to memory.”

The whiny voice continued. “It's ungodly what you do. You treat us terribly, as if we don't have enough trouble. We are children of God.”

The other women took up the chorus. Yes, they were children of God. They sounded wretched. Weak.

The loud woman stood up. “So. You have little loyalty to me in this place? Two new people and you begin to question me like this?” Her voice broke. “After everything I've done.”

She began to weep. The women protested. They were not against her. They only wanted her to show some sympathy for the pregnant woman. She stopped and cleared her throat.

“Where is she even?”

She made her way toward Grace Ameh and I. The smell of stale urine was stronger than ever as she stood over us like a shadow. I stopped breathing.

“You're turning everyone against me,” she said.

“She has a point,” Grace Ameh said. “We are in here together.”

“Born again? What does she know? Fertile and dumb. She has so many children she can't even count. Christian
ko
, Shit-stian
ni
. Before she came in here what was she doing? Prostituting herself to feed her family. Half a dozen men a night. Stinking crotch. If she scrubbed it with limes, it still wouldn't be clean. Now she says she's born again.”

She knelt.

“Butter-eater... ”

Grace Ameh moved her hand over my belly. “Don't touch her.”

Someone in the far corner shouted, “It's me and you if you touch that pregnant woman. You know you have little strength for fighting, only for talking.”

The loud woman slapped her head. “Ah-ah? You think I would do something like that? Do I look like an evil person to you? Let me speak to her, that's all I want, woman to woman. I remember when I was expecting.”

“You have children?” Grace Ameh asked.

“Twins,” she said.

Her spit sprayed my face. She stroked my braids.

“Butter-eater, you ever had twins?”

I gritted my teeth. Her breath was like a bad egg.

She laughed. “It is like shitting yam tubers. This one is a real dunce. Doesn't say much...”

“You think you're speaking to a child?” Grace Ameh said. “She's a lawyer.”

The woman's hand left my head. “A lawyer? And she's never seen the inside of a prison cell before? That's a focking lawyer.” She laughed. “A very focking lawyer indeed. I used to work for a lawyer, just like you. A proper African- European. She spoke like she had a hot potato in her mouth:
fyuh, fyuh, fyuh
. She was always afraid: I'm afraid this, I'm afraid that. She was even afraid she couldn't take a telephone call, bloody dunce. Em, my Lord, if it em, pleases the court, can you tell me why, according to articles my left foot, and my right buttock, why ‘whereas' a good woman like myself was living my life peacefully and ‘whereas' my life story was straight, all of a sudden my life story got k-legs?”

I blinked once, twice. She expected an answer.

“Monday morning,” she said, “my husband dies. Tuesday morning, they shave my head and say I must stay in a room. Alone. Naked. I can't touch my children. Twins. Twins, I had for that wretched family.”

She began to cry again. The women begged her to be strong. She cleared her throat and continued.

“They say I can't see my twins. Instead they give me the water they used to bath my husband's corpse, to drink, to prove I didn't put a hex on him. I say I'm a secretary typist. Qualified 1988. I'm not going to drink it. They say I killed him.”

“That's why you're here?” Grace Ameh asked.

“I didn't kill my husband. They said I did. The day I killed somebody, they said they were surprised. No one in their family ever did that.”

She laughed and rocked. “I had not bathed for days after my husband died. I was walking around in one dress. One dress on my back and nowhere to go. No food to eat. They had sent me out and left me with nothing. I was walking the streets. One foolish man approached me. He called me Hey Baby. I said I'm not Hey Baby. I'm a secretary typist, qualified 1988. Maybe he thought I was a prostitute like Born Again over here, or a crazy like Do-Re-Mi. You know some of these men will go with the crazies to get rich, and some of these crazies will go with men. Crazy in the head but not so crazy in the crotch. The fool touched my breast, I slapped his face. He pushed me to the ground.”

She cleared her throat. “I grabbed a stone, whacked his head. I couldn't stop whacking. He was shouting, ‘Help! Help!' Before I knew it, he died there on top of me. The police came and carried me to prison.”

“That is terrible,” Grace Ameh said.

She used her wrapper to wipe her tears. “Yes. What was I supposed to do but kill him? Answer me that.”

She reached for my braids again. Her hand felt rough.

“Doesn't this one speak?” she murmured.“ Or is she dumb?”

I cleared my throat and steadied my voice.

“I'm not,” I said.

“Eh? She speaks?”

“Yes, I do.”

I sounded calm. My heart was beating fast.

“So tell me why, according to your law articles, this happened to me.”

“You should not be awaiting trial this long,” I said.

She stopped stroking my braids.

“And only a court can decide if you're guilty.”

The woman started stroking my braids again. “That's very good,” she said. “That's very very good, indeed. You're a Yoruba girl?”

“Yes,” I said.

She began to speak in Yoruba. “A European one. I can tell. I never thought I'd see one of you in here. Smelling so clean, so clean... Your friend isn't Yoruba?”

“No,” I confirmed.

“You keep answering in English. You are not a lost child of Oduduwa, I hope. You can speak the language?”

“Yes,” I said in Yoruba.

“Tell me, since you've come in here, smelling so clean and speaking such good English, if I came to your office to see you, would you turn your nose the other way? Say that I smell? Ask someone to show me out? Would you drive past on the streets when I was walking and wonder? Had I eaten? Had I rested? Did I have a roof over my head?”

She tugged my braids.

“That is enough,” Grace Ameh said.

“Would you?” she asked.

“You have to let me go,” I said.

She released my braids.

“You see? You don't consider us your equals, you butter- eaters. You see us and you think we're no better than animals.”

“That is not true,” I said.

She turned to Grace Ameh. “You're saying this one is not a child? This one who can't even answer a simple question. Telling me only a court can decide and nonsense like that?”

Her saliva droplets hit my face again. I wiped them away. She got up and began to make her way over the bodies lying on the floor.

“You have not grown up,” she said. “You're still a child.”

“I am not responsible for your being here,” I said.

“Shame on you. Shame. Bringing another child into the world.”

“I did not arrest myself.”

I tried to stand, but Grace Ameh's hand came down on my shoulder. “Don't listen to her. Can't you see? It is how she has control.”

I stood up. It was not anger that propelled me, it was humiliation. She could be a client, and I would not allow her to ridicule me.

“What do you know about me?” I asked.

“I hope you're not trying to think you can follow me,” she said. “I sincerely hope not. You dare not provoke me. I'm not nice when I'm provoked.”

I climbed over another body. “I'm not scared of you.”

She laughed. “Shaking like a fowl from the minute you walked in. Ooo, Ooo. Can't take the smell of shit. Will your baby's shit smell sweet? Your baby's shit won't smell sweet. That's what I know about you.”