Women Of Steel | ✔

VI

The sun settles deep into the clouds, sleepily like a tired child, I raise a hand to cover my eyes from the glares and try not to think of the giant man walking breezily as if he has no worries in the world.

I shake my head in thought and wonder how such a man could be my father. I am nothing like him, but then again, I am almost nothing like my mother, I have never quite fitted anywhere like a thin weed in the middle of a corn field. I sneak a glance at his back and wonder what this makes me, what do they call the daughter of a god?

Esu — I'm not quite sure if I'm allowed to call him that — keeps walking, never turning back to see if I'm following although it would be foolish to try running now. As we walk down the dunes of sand, he kicks up a dust of them  and I turn down the corner of my lips at the pungent smell in the air, like animal droppings and the smell of the bazaar behind us.

The camels at the tents come into sight, all ten of them drinking from a small oasis that is in the middle of the tent. About fifteen men are gathered outside, some of them drinking from bowls and chatting in a language I don't understand. They barely look up from their game to throw a greeting at my father.

He replies merrily in the same tongue but doesn't stop to talk to any of them. When a sudden scream that sounds feminine pierces the air, it seems I am the only one jumping at the sound, the other me explode in boisterous laughter.

"There's a woman screaming, what is amusing about it?" I ask bitterly, it seems my real father is no better than my dead one.

He pauses and turns to fix his strange eyes on me, this time, they are normal brown, like my eyes. It makes me wonder if they are his natural colour.

"The sheikh of the desert has many concubines in his harem, this one particularly likes to scream and everyone is used to it." He says.

I am sure that if I were any fairer like the women of the Igbo kingdom, I would be as red as my favourite soup.

I splutter something out in reply but I have lost this god's attention. He reaches one of the last tent and one of the largest in this camp and ducks beneath the flaps so he can enter. After a moment of hesitation, I follow.

The inside is much bigger than it appears on the outside and dimmer. I blink several times to adjust. There is a simple mat and a washing calabash besides the mat, other than that, the room is bare.

"Will this do?" It takes a moment for me to realise that my father is talking to me and when I do, anger wells up in my chest quick and burning.

"Prisoners don't have choices, slaves have no choices." I say tartly.

He nods.

"Then maybe you will find the outside more pleasing,"

My glare doesn't seem to startle him, he just stares unblinkingly at me.

"Say what you will, Omolara," he begins. "But you are not a prisoner here, if you choose to leave then you can do so — and find your own way out of this desert, alone,"

When I say nothing, he tilts his head to stare at me, too big to be sitting under this tent.

"Why do you think I bought you out of that place?"

"I don't know," I tell him, mulling his words. He says I am free to leave, but on my own knowing very well that I would die trying to find my way out of this place and that is even if someone doesn't find me and do worse.

"I have watched over you for most of your life, even if you were not aware, I know all the eighteen years of your life, I know every memory, every bad or good one, every scar," when he says this, his eyes flicker to my branded wrist and it feels like it burns under his gaze so I shift it behind my back until he cannot see it again.

"Then why didn't you come then?" I ask, hating that my voice sounds like a childish cry.

"gods do not interfere in the ways of mortals, I knew you would find me yourself when it was time — and that time is now."

"Why am I here?" I ask, when he doesn't answer, I repeat it, my voice cracking with every word. Suddenly, I feel nothing like the girl who wanted an adventure, the world is too big for me and I want nothing more than to be back home, in Ile Wura — in all its hostile glory, hostile but familiar.

I don't like this new world, this world without my brother in it, he was my shield and now I am bare without him.

"You should ask yourself that," the god of mischief says. "Not me,"

"I don't want to be here," I tell him, my voice growing desperate, whiny even and I don't care if he thinks me spoilt, I just want to be under the warm protection of my old chambers, I want to wake up to the smile my brother reserved just for me even though he wasn't a warm person, I want to wake up to my mother's constant nagging, I want her to insult and curse me for not being enough. I want to wake up to my father ignoring my existence.

I want everything but to be here but at the same time, when was the last thing I have been allowed to think for myself? To decide what I want? Not what I have been expected to want.

"Then, leave,"

Leave Omolara, you're not welcome —

Leave Omolara, you're not loved —

Leave Omolara, you're not needed —

Leave Omolara, you will never matter —

I curl up on the mat after he leaves, I lie there, aware of the laughter and chatter and contentment in the air and then I think of those women in cages and feel my suffering pales in comparison. I might have grown up with a family scarce of warmth but I grew up with a roof under my head and with everything I wanted in the palm of my hands and more. These women have suffered more.

I gather my body close to my face, arms wound tightly around my legs and I stare at the dark, I don't cry.

I don't deserve to.