You recall the first day of your
arrival at your new home. You were greeted by a servant who avoided your eyes as
he bowed his head and said, ‘you are welcome, madam.’ You found it hard to
respond so a nod from you was enough. Were there no better jobs out there than
being a servant on the outskirts of town? Or had he been sold just like you? You
thought. The Master ordered him to walk you to your room. You saw his eyes
lowered to the ground with his head nodding at each word of command until you were
led away.
Your fear wears a crown at this point as you feel like tomorrow will never come. You
want to go back home. You want to be a teenager and not a wife. You want to
visit your friends; you want an education. You want to travel, to taste the
salt of the beach. But you hear that voice of order every day, especially in
the middle of the night when sleep is trying to creep into your bed. It slams your
doors open and closes them in the twinkle of an eye.
Again, you recall your first night
here and how the Master yanked the white duvet off your bed, revealing your
heart beating from your dress like a new drum. You tried to break free - you
punched, your kicked, you screamed like some women in labor, but the Master
pinned you down like a feather. With each tempo, the voice widened your thighs and
like a blunt axe cutting into a dry wood, you were pricked repeatedly but he kept
on grunting. After the show of red, you crawled to the edge of the vast bed
while the voice faded away leaving you thinking of a better time in your life. You
thought of when your father would bring home from work your favorite biscuits –
shortcake. Then he would ask you how your day was and give you a summary of his
day at work. You knew he lied about enjoying being a chauffeur, but you loved
him for trying to convince you anyway. You loved him for defending you whenever
your mother complained about you being lazy because you were the only child.
You loved him for not seeing you as a girl but as a human being. He bought you
your first pink dress when you were 6 years old. It had a bow round the waistline,
a darker shade of pink. There were soft ruffles by the neck side and a sprinkle
of white shimmering at the base of the dress. It was your favorite dress at the
time, and you would cry to wear it to bed most nights.
The roman clock hanging on the grey wall
reminds you of the present as it ticks 3:00 a.m. in your new room, and you
confirm it’s been a week since your arrival. Every night when the Master comes
to grunt, you hear the shifting of your hip joint. But you replay the last
words of your mother to you, to keep your mind far away from insanity:
‘Hope, I will never show you a
narrow path when there’s a simple and broader one filled with all the joys of
the world. Chief has promised to take care of us and all I ask of you is to
love and obey him. Soon, I will move into a new house in the city, and you can visit
me when he grants you the privilege. Everything will be all right.’
The words are fading away gradually.
You know everything is not all right, so you console yourself by eating like a whale
every morning, afternoon, and night. You read somewhere that a full stomach can
overcome the battles of the mind. So, you keep eating and eating and eating without
any weight gained. You know you have no privileges here and you may never see
your mother. You don’t care. There is nothing promising about the Master as
much as you try to hope. He would stink if he were poor, but he hides under
expensive perfumes that can never make his soul aromatic. He appears three
times your age in that plump body of his that resembles a bloated pregnant cow.
And his voice, there is this prick-like feeling to it. That’s why the doors
open at its sound. As for the paths, they are gradually tilting to nothingness.
Nothing’s alright. All you have left is Hope. When your father gave you that
name, his hair was already grey. It stirred up quarrels between your parents. You
once heard your mother shouting that she hated the name because it embraced too
much strife.
Now you hear the footsteps of the
Master drawing closer. But it is daytime, what does he want? Why is he even in
the house? Immediately, you run to the bathroom, bolt the door, and wait for
the next moment, holding your breath like it was a church bell that would give
you away. And then you hear the voice of order:
‘My wife, I know you are in there.
Why do you bother to run when you know you are all mine? Come out and let us have
a chat.’
You continue to hold your breath in
there, hands to your mouth.
‘Hmm, you can only avoid me for a
time, not forever. We will continue this child’s play some other time.’
You unbolt the door as gently as
possible to peep and confirm that the Master is gone. Such audacity, the sound
of the word ‘wife’ burns your skin. You want to hit your head on the wall and
end it all. At the same time, you want to believe your father would walk
through those doors and save you from this lucifer, even though you held his
hands in the hospital before the doctor and nurses pulled you away from him and
tried to win the fight against cancer but lost. You look in the mirror for
answers, but it stares back at you silently. You find peace knowing that the
Master is far away from you now until the night comes howling again.
In your imagination, the Master is done with his freak show
but returns for a rematch on your 18th birthday. It is meant to be
your year in college studying medicine. You are meant to be in your first
relationship – a calm fair guy with a soft voice, like your father’s.... But
you groom your mind to be strong. It is the only flaw you have that could cost
you your freedom. So, you tell it every morning, afternoon, and night to eat
along with your body; eat the food of courage; eat the food of confidence; eat
the food of endurance. Let the carbohydrates from rice give you will power. Let
the protein from meat give you strength. Let the vitamins and minerals from
fruits give you victory. You groom your mind every day for that one moment.
The first show of lightning flashes through your window and
it reminds you of the song you composed when it was about to rain, and you sing
and sing again, forgetting your prison. You sing:
Rain, visit us when the sun is not old.
Rain, sing for us when the moon is not young.
So that mother will open the door for us to play with you.
So that papa will come home dry and happy.
Rain, visit us as we sing to you.
Rain oh rain oh rain.
Suddenly, you hear the lonely roman numeral ticking away to
1:00 a.m. You replay the tape of your 18th birthday in your head and
are ready to die, living it. The voice of order is here. You let the axe cut in
and out of you and with a quick rush you hold it with firm hands like a baseball
player. The voice sends a hand that smashes your face into the mattress, but
you hold on still, your bones battling with blows, hurting from wild wrestling.
And then at the weakness of the voice, you bite straight through the cap of the
axe with gnashing teeth tearing half of a pound of flesh. When you spit it out,
there is no voice left, just a bloody piece of hairy body bleeding away until
death does its part. You look over the heap without blinking. Then you see
yourself floating, floating to a new home, a place where you belong. A single
bed awaiting you in a room with a clock of numbers and a mirror stained with
your lipstick and powder, and a door that plays with the breeze.
Photo
by Mariana Blue
Don’t
Forget to Be Honest!
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