Caretaker’s Wife
The door swung open, I looked up from the guitar. Jókë strode in, a mischievous smile on her face, the leftover of many giggles.
“Is the coast clear?” I asked
“Not yet, their gate is still ajar. I don’t know what those people are awake for when it’s almost eleven pm. Is this Lagos?”
“And you nko? Are you not a people?” I hung up the guitar and grabbed my textbook.
“I have exams. It’s different”
“How do you know they don’t have exams?”
“It looks like I’ll have to take it all the way to Aja tomorrow and dump it there.”
I kept quiet, stared at the textbook as if I was seeing anything.
“But why would she demand that we burn it? Like she cares about neatness, and her compound is such a mess”
“But Jókë, won’t you like to just burn it and avoid trouble”
“Abeg I don’t have kerosene to waste. If I had kerosene I would use it to cook godi”
“Cook which foodstuff? — -” I was asking when an impatient rap came on the door. Before I could open my mouth to ask, the rap came again. Titi!
“I’m coming,” I said.
Jókë sneaked behind the door and signalled me to be silent.
I unlocked and Titi. burst in, “so if something is chasing someone she will be eaten before you open your yeye door?”
In pretend-worry I looked into the corridor, “what is chasing you?”
“Mtchew. Whose voice was I hearin — -”
Jókë snarled on her neck from behind and she jumped. She recovered quickly but Jókë was already out in the hallway and running.
So now my two neighbour-friends were running around the compound by eleven o’clock in the night, disturbing all the tenants. Sometimes I wondered how landlord merely kept giving them warnings and never asked them to pack out for their nuisance. Look at them squealing and cursing as if they don’t have exams tomorrow.
I turn to the textbook. It is still as boring as I left it, plain black and white fonts sprawled endlessly on every page, ambiguous words you need a thesaurus to understand, chapters carefully void of any illustrations because, the author forbid, the book should be any bit easy to understand.
The book seemed to say, memorize me and pour me on the exam paper!
And I am like, Why, of course!
Lord! My brain was in danger of leaving this school as coconut as it came.
“What is Jókë spying on?”Titi had come in.
“Care-taker’s wife”
“Why?”
“She wants to dump the refuse. Without burning it.”
Titi knelt down and joined her hands in prayer “Father Lord, may they catch her.”
She sat down and swung one leg over the other, her model’s shoulders standing bone-out, restless eyes roving about my room like two candle flames in the breeze. “What are we eating tonight?” she asked.
My God, not now. I AM TRYING TO CRAM SOMETHING HERE. Why does this girl want to punish me by making me think of food!
I roll my eyes upon her face and bare my teeth in a mockery of a smile “How about hunger? Hunger will do just fine”
Just then Jókë opened the door, “Titi! Always talking about food.”
Titi leaned back, cocked an eye and leveled a finger at her, “Don’t. Even. Start. And you!” she meant me, “You didn’t tell me she was behind the door!”
“But you didn’t ask” Jókë laughed
Titi drew out her lips like she would cry, “some Jókës are dangerous at night”
“Ha ha ha, dane-jar-rous ke? Ehen, what was chasing you, abi na the hunger?”
Titi rolled her eyes and snickered.
“Me, hunger is wiring me too o.” Jókë said
I peered from one face to the other, my tummy growled. I gave up. “Oya what are going to eat?” Our foodstuffs were long gone; money for proper groceries was still on the way, as if coming by courier.
“All the shops are closed by now”
“…And my garri is finished”
“None of us has sugar anyway”
An idea hit my tummy.
“We could go to Caretaker’s wife.”
They looked up at me like I was crazy. Jókë felt my neck with the back of her hand — maybe I was feverish.
“What, I go there sometimes. She likes me carrying her baby”.
“Hmmm… I’m in” Titi said
“Why won’t you be in!” Jókë growled at her, Jókë’s tummy growled back at her for signs of digestion leftovers. “…
“So you have a better idea?” Titi asked.
“She’s afraid that the woman saw her throwing away the waste.
Jókë pouted her lips like a baby, her hand feeling her stomach as if for leftovers of digested food.
“Burn something, burn something, you did not hear” Now you want to cast out food plan.”
I was just locking my door behind us when the electricity returned.
“Yay!!!” we went.
“Jókë!!!” a woman’s voice strangled the air in the hallway. At the gate stood the caretaker’s wife, holding up Jókë’s waste bag.
