She Is Blind

Chapter Twenty: Getting Around and Back

I was adapting to life in Lagos very quickly, starting from the house where I lived with Ayo, my mother’s cousin and teacher in the ways of Lagos. Within two days of my being in the house, I had wrought my changes with it one time that Ayo had gone out to work and I was at home waiting for my first lecture set for the following week.

He came back to meet the carpet a shade brighter, the television and speakers sparkling despite their dead state, the lonely white ceiling fan having a more immaculate tint, and the rooms more organized. I had also bought a bottle of Air Freshener from a kiosk a stone’s throw away and arranged the house so dutifully that he could scarcely believe it was his own house that he had left that morning, and he was so elated that we had gone out for roasted meat and drinks that night.

I had also tried my best to act nice to my new found neighbors, who lived with us in the compound, and had also tried not to be involved with any of them personally or in their hostilities towards each other. The man living opposite us was also known as Baba Ismaila, and although I had some respect for him when I newly came because he had the same title as my saviour, I had lost it all when to my horror I found out that every morning he beat his wife before going to his work as a taxi driver. I could only guess that his attitude towards the woman was because of the fact that she had given birth to three daughters and no son for him, and I always wondered why he could not be content with the fact that he had another wife somewhere else, one who had two sons and a daughter for him.

The rest of the neighbors also had their own daily theatrics. There was Mama Winifred, a widowed lady whose house was adjacent to ours, and never devoid of suitors who came to ask for her hand in marriage, but who were always turned down. Of course she was still young, and not too beautiful, her dark skin not much of a blessing, but what I thought attracted the men to her was her enormous backside, one that made me ask myself how she managed to live so comfortably with it.

She lived with her only daughter Winifred whose name she screamed out every morning as though she was at the point of death, a sound I had found initially useful when I had come to Lagos because it served me as an alarm, waking me up every morning for the usual busy day.

Winifred herself was a teenager of my age, and someone I would have loved to relate to if not for how she was always smiling and comporting herself more properly anytime she saw me, clear signs that she was into me, but I was unwilling to be involved with any girl, and definitely not one as unattractive as her. She had inherited her own impressive share of her mother’s enormous behind, and could easily have rivalled several women years older than her age. She had also always found ways to draw my attention to it anytime she walked past me and since I was not a saint too, I secretly liked when she did that, earning her quick glances from me in her direction. But her face was not a pleasing asset of hers, probably gotten from her dead father, a man now a shadow in their lives.

Then there was Benjamin, also called Benji, a young Pastor I thought needed food more than he needed God because of his extremely thin frame that would have done Ronke some credit. He served Jehovah Mighty faithfully, praying seven times a day, and distributing his church pamphlets every Sunday afternoon while wearing ill-fitting clothes that looked like they would fall and expose the bones they were hiding from public view at any minute. Of course he always looked pitiful, but he looked worse when he dressed like a pastor, and I was always amused when I saw him like that because with his oversized suit, a tucked in shirt and a trouser held by worn-out and loose braces, he reminded me of either a well-dressed scarecrow, or a tortoise in its shell. I also wondered how he still managed to serve God faithfully, because several times I had heard people mock him, telling him that he would have been richer and fatter if he worked with the same passion he used in distributing his pamphlets. He and Ayo were not friends too, and he always had a grim facial expression whenever he saw Ayo, as though he was condemning my relative to Hell. Ayo had no more love for the man too, for a reason I did not know and which I found more amusing with how they physically contrasted each other. I guessed it was probably because of an old squabble or because he disturbed us at night anytime he screamed his prayers, speaking in tongues and calling upon the Holy Spirit.