KIMBERLY PART EIGHT.

Aunt Lola traveled through the desert to Libya. 

(Continued from the previous part)

One Monday morning, when Aunt Lola was preparing to go out to sell, she took Kim along and both of them had to jump on a moving bus to their destination. At their destination, Kim was given a bowl filled with chilled satchel water to sell. Her aunt carried another bowl filled with bottle soft drinks.

“Follow me” her aunt said as they walked into the middle of the congested road, vehicles moving on either side of them. Kim’s heart was beating madly for fear of being crushed the reckless Lagos drivers.

“Buy mineral, buy coke!” her aunt hollered, shoving the drinks through the half opened windows as some drivers and pedestrians bought her wares. “Rose, don’t just stand there like a statue, move and sell those things or do you want to drink everything by yourself?” her aunt shouted at her and Rose began moving, dodging the reckless cars and barely selling anything in the process because she reaches a car, it would have moved on and another one would be in its place.

She was aching all over when she got home that night.  As if that was not enough, her aunt was mad at her for not selling enough.

“I don’t know her problem” she had heard her aunt complaining bitterly to her husband who was too drunk to understand anything she was saying. “She just stood right there in the middle of the road like a stupid dummy all day without selling a satchel of water. Where does she expect me to find money to feed and clothe her?”

Her husband said nothing. He barely says anything when he is in his cups, at least, nothing sensible except curses and ridicules. That night, Kim had slept fitfully, tossing on the floor where she slept.

Early the following morning, she was up again to fetch water from a public borehole far away from their house.  By 7AM, she was done fetching water and her aunt was done cooking, so they had a rushed breakfast and set out to sell again.

For the next six months, Aunt Lola said nothing about Kim’s return back to school but she never failed to take her along to the highway to sell each day, neither did she fail to nag and complain bitterly whenever she did something wrong. Each time she brought up the topic, her aunt always feigned boredom or pretended not to hear at all.

One Tuesday morning, they were on the highway as usual, this time, they were selling boiled corn in their husks. Selling corn was more tasking than selling other miscellaneous goods, Kim found out because by 5AM that morning they’d left home to Oshodi where they bought the fresh corn from the farmers who brought them to Lagos then they’d gone to the highway, cooked it and started selling it. It was a arduous task and one that Kim found extremely irritating. Most buyers would want to sample the corn before buying it. Of course, most people who tasted it would not buy eventually and the gaps that the missing grains left could never be fixed and no one would buy a corn that has been eaten. Aunt Lola didn’t make it any easy for her either. She had once told her to use the leftover corn as breakfast. That was the previous week.

“Kim, I want to see you” her aunt said suddenly from behind and Kim had to swallow several times. Whenever her aunt says that, she knew that something bad had happened and that she, Kim had done the bad thing and was about to be chastised. Mercifully, her aunt had not started physically hitting her yet but sometimes when she was in one of her rages, she would throw whatever she found at that moment at Kim. Kim shuddered whenever she thinks of her aunt deciding to throw a knife at her in one of her rages.

So by 11AM, the traffic reduced and it was a perfect time for talk. Kim was taken aside by her aunt under the big umbrella that served as their shop, her hands tightly balled into fists, waiting and expecting the blame and accusation for whatever she had done wrong.

“I am travelling” her aunt said without preamble. Kim almost shouted for joy but she checked herself and pretended as if she was pained to learn that aunt was travelling. “You are happy, right, don’t deny it, I can see it in your eyes that you are happy. Anyways, I am travelling and I don’t know when I am coming back”

“Ah, to where?” Kim asked, she was really surprised this time. She thought that the travelling was just for some days, a week or two weeks at most, but travelling indefinitely was beyond her imagination and expectation.

“Where I am going shouldn’t concern you much for now” her aunt said. “I just want you to know that I am travelling out of this country. Nothing works here, look at me, working from dawn till dusk, yet I have nothing to show for it. I wish I could take you along but I can’t and I am so sorry about that because no matter how bad you are, you are still my family and my blood but I can only take my daughter along on this journey. When we get there and settle down, then we will send for you but until then, you have to stay back here in Nigeria…..”

“Who will I stay with here?” Kim asked, knowing and dreading her aunt’s response

“My husband of course. The fact that he drinks and is rarely sober doesn’t mean that he is a bad person…”

“Nnnnever” Kim said.

“You listen to me this brat, you will do what I tell you and you dare not disobey me. You are still a child…”

“I am FOURTEEN, almost a adult grown”

“Till you are twenty, you are still a child and you will be obedient like one otherwise you won’t like what I’ll do to you. I know why you don’t want to stay with my husband, you want to run back to live with those rich people so that you could put our family in shame that we cannot take care of ourselves….”

“Can we?” she retorted indignantly. She was burning with anger for all those times that aunt Lola had lied to her. Kim was mad at her for topping her education when she could have finished secondary school and start thinking of going to a college or a university. She wished she could hit her aunt to let her know how mad she was with her and she would hit her if she had made an effort to beat her as she spoke rudely to her. Kim knew it was bad to be rude to an elderly person but she couldn’t keep the anger and disappointment out of her voice and expression. It dawned on her then that while she and her aunt had been slaving inside the rain and merciless sun day and night; she was never for once part of her aunt’s plan for a better future. She was too angry to cry or utter a word but the hatred her aunt saw on my face was enough to let her know that she might be young but she was not too naïve or stupid to know that she had cheated her. For two years since she left the Smiths, she has served her faithfully even when it was most inconvenient for her.

That night, Kim knew where she was travelling to. Her aunt didn’t tell her directly, she told her husband when she thought that Kim was sleeping and dead to the world. As usual, her husband was too drunk to fully grasp the gravity of what her aunt was telling him. Instead of listening to her, he was complaining about someone who cheated him at work and how he needed money badly to do some ‘very important things’. Her uncle always has an important thing to do and he was always short of money and if her aunt refuses to give him, he would take her money by force until she was forced to safe whatever little amount of money she makes in a day in the bank. When hers uncle asked her aunt if he could get some change from her and she said she had none, he blew over his top and began calling her names and threatening to divorce her if she didn’t cooperate.

When Kim first arrived at their home, she always wondered why her aunt always subscribed to the threat. To be sincere, Uncle Sam was a liability. He contributed nothing meaningful at home except beating and curses that he spared no one. So she always wondered why her aunt always gave him money whenever he threatened to divorce her but on that particular night, she understood the reason perfectly.

Her aunt was in her forties and she was rather big with a belly that contains many folds that always move whenever she walks. Besides, she was so dark and masculine whereas Uncle Sam was still in his early thirties, he good looking with an athletic body that was the envy of all the single ladies in their neigbourhood. Her aunt was a sharp contrast with Kim’s mother whom everyone says Kim resembled. Her mum was soft and delicate in a feminine way and there was a beauty to her that looked ethereal. People always assume that they were rich even when they were starving.

Uncle Sam threatened again but this time, her aunt laughed in derision.

“Yeah, you can go ahead and impregnate all the ladies and married women in this neighbourhood, I don’t care anymore. I am going away to create a life for me and my daughter. Away from you and all the problems of this country, I am going to a better place”

“Where is this place that you are yabbing about since?”

“Libya” she said quietly. As she said it, she glanced over at Kim where she was sleeping on the floor, to make sure that she didn’t hear her. Kim closed my eyes and pretended to be snoring.

“Libya, are you out of your mind? What are you thinking? Didn’t you listen to the news? What about hundreds of Nigerians that were departed from Libya who were free from forced prostitution? I don’t blame you; the problem is that you don’t listen to the news….”

“If you think you can dissuade me from going from all these talks you are mistaken, I won’t change my mind…”

“I don’t care if you changed your mind or not but do not take my daughter on this suicide mission”

“Oh, she is more my child than yours. What responsibility have you taken since she was born? How many cloths have you bought for her? Have you ever given her anything?”

“What about your niece, where will you put her?”

“She will stay here with you of course or are you too poor to feed her?” she asked in derision.  She hissed and that was where it ended that night

            For days neither of them spoke about it. It was a week later before the matter was raised again in the family. By then, it was evident that Aunt Lola was fully committed to the cause and was not ready to entertain any contradictory opinion about the journey. The last night at home together, Aunt Lola was on the phone, speaking with the agent who seemed to be the only one that she trusted enough to speak with regarding her travelling. From the conversation, Kim learnt that the agent had secured visas for her and her daughter and that they would travel through the desert to reach Libya. She also learnt that they would only stay in Libya for some months before they travel through the Atlantic Ocean to Spain and finally United Kingdom. The whole travelling was estimated to take about one and half years before she finally settles down in the United Kingdom.

            The following day, Kim approached her and tried for the last time persuades her from the suicide mission but her aunt was not even listening. Her aunt and her daughter by 12 noon. Dawn and her uncle saw her to the bus stop where she boarded bus to the airport. When Dawn and her step uncle got back home,  the once crowded room was almost empty and there was a forlorn, nostalgic feeling that pervaded the emptiness.

            Kim stood in the middle of the room, gazing with nostalgia at the place where her aunt’s and cousin’s bags used to be. She sat on the bed and held her head in her palms. She didn’t know when she started sobbing.

 After her aunt’s departure, Kim and her uncle rarely talked except on some occasions. Her uncle was not a great talker even if she talked, he rarely replied except to grunt a reply or pretend he didn’t hear her. Soon, she stopped trying. In order to survive, she had to keep doing her aunt’s business because her aunt left her nothing except few bags of satchel water.  The following day after her aunt left, she had left home the usual time and went to the main road to sell the water.

She got home that evening, hungry and tired, but she had to prepare the supper for her uncle. When she got home, he was not around, so she waited few minutes for him to come but when he didn’t come back after thirty minutes, she went down the streets to buy a satchel of spaghetti and began cooking. Her uncle met her few minutes later. She tried to apologize to him that she got home late because she was unable to sell all the bags she took to the road but he was not listening, he was busy threatening her that the next time he comes home without meeting food  would be a day she would never forget. He didn’t mention the fact that he had not given her money in the first place to prepare any food but Dawn didn’t want to bring up this issue while he was still angry, it would only worsen the situation.

( to be continued)