Tiwa's.......

TIWA’S…

4678 WORDS

1

There was something about the way Madam Baby held her koboko as she lashed at the unfortunate girl’s back. The sounds of the lashes, her hoarse cries and Edvard 

Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain” playing in the background bounced eerily off the walls of the room. It sounded like an unholy orchestra in my ears and I am sure the others felt the same. Madam Baby treated this activity with utmost severance; every time she felt the need to open an unfortunate soul’s back with her koboko, she would take us to that particular room and have us stand shoulder to shoulder along the walls of the room, leaving a gap only for the door. She would play something of 

Beethoven’s, Wolfgang’s, or Bach’s, as if to announce her sophistication, then she would go into a self-serving speech of “the power of a courtesan”. Courtesan, what a high rising word for a prostitute. She would ask the unfortunate soul to be dragged in and she would state the person's offence with conviction as if to convince us that it was actually heinous, all the while holding her koboko. She must have thought we were romans who enjoyed the torture of others. I, for one, didn’t enjoy it. I saw the whole façade for what it really was: a warning. A reminder that one day our backs will be opened at the lash of her koboko and our screams will echo in the room and probably fur ellipse will be playing in the background. 

“Sixty-one, Sixty-two, sixty-three…” I counted silently in my head as each lash broke the skin of the girl’s back. This girl's name was Softy. Softy was called Softy because of her supple dark skin, generous curves and the fact that every poke on her skin earned a laugh as she was a ticklish angel. That day, Softy wasn’t laughing but wailing. We all prayed that Madam Baby would stop at seventy, but she went on and silently, we all realized Madam Baby was going past seventy-five meaning which unequivocally meant that we would never see Softy again. Seventy-five meant your skin was useless and the only thing left valuable about you were your insides. 

Madam Baby always got her money's worth.  

2

I remember the days that led to my arrival at Madam Baby’s Brothel. It started much like any other day except it wasn’t just any other day. My mother was up before the cock’s crow as she usually did and had come to the room to wake my sister and I, leaving my brothers, much to my annoyance I admit. I remember I had asked why she always did that. She always gave me a certain look as if a stupid person had suddenly replaced her daughter. 

“They are men. They are not needed for household chores or cooking; it is a woman’s duty.” My mother had replied finally, resolute, like it answered everything. 

I remember I had laughed in my head because if I had laughed in reality it would have earned me a slap, which I didn’t want; her slaps were as bee stings. Her response was funny because I found it hard to picture my ten-year-old brother Ayo, who couldn’t strap his sandals on his own properly, as a man and because I was always made to chop firewood and that was definitely not a woman’s task. That morning, mother had thrust a fallen palm frond into my hands to sweep the compound and a haggard looking short broom to my sister for her to clean the latrine. Mother took another broom which was better looking in comparison to my sister’s broom to sweep the sitting area and unoccupied rooms. Together we had made breakfast of moimoi and ogi because mother made us tie knots with the remaining leaf wrappings and she placed them in the pot of boiling moimoi to make sure it would get cooked completely. 

I remember that day was the festival. It was the festival to worship all the deities in my village and our spiritual leaders would bestow honorary gifts on the common people like me. After we had eaten breakfast, my father took my brothers to blacksmith to get decorative swords while my mother had taken my sister and I to be dressed. I remember thinking that I might want a decorative sword too. My mother was rather particular about the festival. She had daughters who had come of age to get married and so finding suitors were of the utmost importance. So, she had massaged our caramel skins with ori, lined our eyes with tiro, adorned our necks and wrists and ears with the little jewellery she could afford then finally she dressed us in black and red gowns in honour of Shango and Oya. Our family was said to have descended from Oya and my family is blessed with twins – my sister and I, so we are protected by Sango. 

I remember people used to say we were blessed to have been touched by three gods. They never wasted time to say it or to shower us with attention anytime we were found at the market but they never gave us gifts even though they knew my family was poor. They hardly ever gave us a discount no matter how much my mother would haggle the prices with the sellers. Sometimes I loved the attention but that was all it was – attention, it was not something I could eat, breathe or drink but mere stares and words that disappeared with the wind. 

I remember I had taken my sister’s hands as we ran to the village square. My sister’s name was Taiwo and mine was Kehinde, but we preferred to address ourselves by our middle names. Hers was Titi, mine was Tiwa. I am older than she is though I came out after her; we believed I sent Titi to check the world out before I could step in. The square had lost its usual hollowness; it was like stepping into a rainbow of happiness as one could see the smiles on the faces of the people who were present, the vibrancy of the colours worn on their bodies, the swaying of hips and the stomping of feet to the music being played, the children creating beautiful chaos with their playful tantrums and the smell of the delicacies wafting in the air. A total contrast from the world I knew. The festival had progressed a lot slower than expected and my sister had wandered off when I met a boy called Tobi. Tobi was a typical Yoruba boy, with his dark skin, lanky build and handsomeness. We had talked about little nothings as we walked to the shrine to offer our prayer. 

I remember uttering prayers for peace and prosperity when I heard the first explosion. It was a loud huge reverberation that sounded like the wrath of Sango and the shattering of happiness. Sounds like the gods were talking with voices not meant for any human ears to ever hear. It was too loud and too deep that I cried aloud but couldn't hear myself anymore because I went deaf for a few seconds. I could hear nothing but a slight ringing in my ears. The world shook and the only thing that crossed my mind in that instant was my family. I dashed out of the shrine, immediately forgetting the handsome young man beside me, to find my family. The chaos I had seen was a deep contrast from the world I had left behind. Everyone was running; it was haphazard and uncoordinated, the directions in which they ran in. I saw strange men in strange clothes I knew I recognized from the peddlers that came into town, but they never carried guns that looked like that or fired so rapidly. People fell as bullets tore through their flesh and bones. A man flung his baby into a nearby bush as a bullet pierced his calf and brought him down to his knees. I ran back to the shrine to find weapons because the shrine was full of them but they were all consecrated. A commoner like me should never have touched them but it was war, a brutal and unprecedented war. I was pretty sure the gods would not mind but I guess they were petty after all. 

I remember I went to the alter of my patrons – Sango and Oya. It was a large hut built close to the end of the village, with nothing but vast forests behind it. I went in and I said a quick prayer for protection before I picked up Sango’s double headed axe. It looked like a silly little thing, but I had seen the priest perform miracles with it before, so I had faith. I picked Oya’s consecrated sword; I realized that it looked stupid, bringing knives to a gun fight, but I didn’t want to be unarmed. I took a piece of heavy string I found lying about and tied the sword to my waist while holding the axe in one hand as I ran back as fast as I could to find my siblings and my parents. 

The strange men were riddled everywhere like army ants invading a colony of termites. My people were dying every second. I saw men I had known all my life while growing up being gunned down and killed. Beautiful women being dragged away by what little clothing they had on them. As I moved closer to where they were, moving behind them as stealthily as I could while they continued to search for us like a hunter would with game, I saw a girl on the ground. Half of her head had been blown off in a gory chunk and her other eye lay open and bloodshot. I reached over with tears in my eyes, with agony deep in my soul, and closed the lid of the eye that was left and I prayed aggressively once more to Sango and to Oya for protection and for strength to kick ass. I was prepared to go down fighting. They didn't hear me coming. 

The first man I got to from behind will never forget that day for as long as he possibly lives. I didn't kill him. I took the axe in my right hand and slashed him across his Achilles tendon on both of his feet. He came down hard, screaming. Two of them turned back and began to shoot but without much effort I took an arm off of both of them. They died of blood loss. I took another man down with a slash across his neck big enough to be another mouth. He choked on his own blood and I loved it. The rapid fire started and bullets began to whiz past me as I managed to deflect some and get away before I was killed. I found my sister a few yards from where I had killed the men. She hid in one of the few places that we both knew about to look for each other whenever things got a bit messy. She was crying and defenceless when I met her. I hugged her tightly and assured her that everything would be fine. Then, I gave her Sango's Axe. She needed a weapon and I had a feeling she would be fine 

with it.  

Ahead of me I could see my brother and father fighting with swords they had crafted for themselves and practiced with a lot. They were good, and seemed to be handling themselves just fine. Taiwo and I went back to rescue the few villagers still unarmed and about to be killed. There was a young woman standing by the side of a hut that had been blown almost completely to smithereens. A soldier was about to take her out when I slid on the ground and slashed him across his back. The terrain was not stellar and my aim was off by a fraction so I only cut him a little bit. He felt it and brought an arm to his side to try to stop the bleeding. For just a moment it did, and a second after blood began to pour through his fingers. It wasn't a deep cut; I barely even cut him. But he bled and bled, losing blood as though I had cut the large vein on his neck. He stumbled a bit as the gun fell from his hands. Then he came crashing down. I raised Oya's sword up to my face and watched it glisten against the bright light. Inscriptions and weird symbols had been carved into the hilt and the blade of the sword. I looked over to Taiwo and saw the same inscriptions and symbols on the axe. She raised it over her head and struck one of the men over his head. What happened next, I have never been able to forget. A dim field of intense energy reverberated from the blade of the axe. It was bluish and looked like short bursts of the lightning that Sango sends when it is about to rain heavily. The man's head exploded and he flopped down to the floor like dead fish. Taiwo looked over to me and had the most childish smile I had ever seen envelop her face. She looked awed like she had just seen ten elephants stacked on top of each other. She threw the axe high in the air in a tight arc, caught it firmly in its hilt and threw it straight into another man about twenty feet from where she stood. It didn't move like it was thrown; it moved as though it had been shot from a cannon. The axe hit him in his midsection and went right through him, splitting him cleanly in two. Then it just stopped.  

One of the strange men who saw the other man split in two gagged and then vomited. The axe remained stuck on air like it was sitting on a table, and it was vibrating ever so gently. Taiwo shot her gaze quickly to me, not with awe this time but fear. She looked back at the axe and twitched her fingers lightly. The axe, as though retracing its steps, flew back with great speed into the hand of Taiwo and sat in her palm as she grasped it.  

I didn't know Ayo had found me. I didn't even know he was still alive. Not that I didn't want him to be but there was no way he would have been able to defend himself against the strange men. Taiwo and I were about to move on to the next area when there was heavy gunfire. One of the men who had witnessed what happened became mad with rage and began to shoot. He got to his knee, took aim and shot at me. He wasn't going to miss. I didn't see Ayo already in front of me before he took his shot. I would have shoved him aside. But I couldn't. I wasn't faster than a bullet. It pierced Ayo in his back but there was no exit wound. I caught him as he fell and tried to stop the bleeding. I looked into his eyes and I understood. He knew I was going to get shot and he stood before me to avoid that from happening. I wanted to hate him for it but I couldn't. He saved my life and he, in place of me, had begun to die. At that moment, Taiwo screamed. I looked back and saw that she had been detained by two men. She had dropped the axe when Ayo was shot and they jumped on her without hesitation. Then, a man came up behind me and hit me with the butt of his gun in my temple with all the force he could muster. I blacked out immediately. 

3

“I should have died” was the first thought I had, the moment I woke up, as the images of Ayo’s body losing warmth in my hands flashed through my mind, I did not know what else to think. He had protected me and died for me but I could not even give him a decent burial. I whispered Oya’s prayer for the dead, as I thought of his body, rotting under an afternoon sun. My thoughts wandered to the family I hoped might still be living, I thought of my mother and how her dreams of my sister and finding suitors may have turned to prayers for us to be alive. I thought of my father feeling regret as he usually felt whenever he thought he had failed. I thought of my eldest brother and his broad back that flexed every time he fought; they were probably flexing now. I thought of Titi, wondering if she was making people around her smile while she was scared shitless, she had a nasty habit of putting others before herself. I thought they could only feel these things if they lived, I prayed as well that ayo would be the only price I had to pay for my short stint with power.

“I am going to die” was my thought after a few days of starvation, I had begun to question the essence of my continued existence as I stayed in the small dark room, I woke in, counting the shadows that pass by and listening to voices on the other side. I tried to make up conversations from the sounds I heard, I ended up turning them into reminders to be fed but it never happened. I could feel myself slipping away as the smell of my mother’s moimoi filled my nostrils, the sting of hot ogi as it burned my tongue, and the laughter of my family filling my ears. It was a perfect moment, one I had hoped to be lost in, but Ori had other plans as it was that moment, they remembered I existed.

It was not the same vandals who taken me that walked into my dark room, but I suspected they weren’t any better. They were two women with perfumed smells and hairs too colourful to be real. “she no die” one said to the other with a tone a slight respect as they tried to lift me up. It made me realize that their actions were intentional, that this was not the first time they were doing such a thing and I was incredibly lucky to be alive. I was thrown into bath and scrubbed till my skin bruised, inspected thoroughly with fingers decorated with nail polish and fed stale bread and water; it tasted nothing like my mother’s cooking but I was grateful my belly was full for the first time in days. Finally, I was allowed rest.

4

It has been a year since the raid and a few short hours since the splitting of Softy’s back. In the past year, I had lived in madam baby’s brothel; a place that always had a sense of desperation, brokenness and despair that seemed to go well with the cacophonous laughter of the men and women who came for services. I usually wondered who created this atrocious blend in the atmosphere; were it the clients who are desperate for completion or the workers, madam baby had broken or was it just the general despair of the two? Whatever the case maybe, I had decided not to stay long at the brothel, I had planned to do a daring thing – escape. I had always planned to run mainly because it was the first step, I needed to take, to find my family but I must admit Madam Baby’s terrifying demeanour and her habit of splitting backs open with her koboko did provide extra motivation. 

The next day, while I prepared meticulously for my escape under the guise of working in the kitchen, I was called to madam baby’s room. To say I did not expect her to call for me would be a lie but I did not expect be called this soon. As I got closer to her room, I could hear the faint sound of classical music. I knocked on her room door and walked into the room which was surprisingly pink and prim unlike it’s owner who had a ruthless aura around her as she sat on her bed watching me.

“you asked for me?” I asked bravely, hoping she didn’t notice the tremor in my voice.

“yes, I did” she replied after taking a short sip of her tea, her lips kissing the rim of the mug delicately, her eyes staring at me piercingly, like she wanted me a hidden message. There was an uncomfortable silence and an intense staring contest till she stood up abruptly.

“do you know I chose you?” she asked as she walked towards me, her hips swaying slightly.

“I don’t want to be” I answered automatically assuming she wanted to turn me into some priced courtesan. “I will not sell myself for money, I am not like you” I said taking a step back after I noticed how close her face was to mine. She chuckled lightly as her eyes turned amusing and her laalied fingers traced a line on my cheek. 

“you are as peculiar as they say” she said pinching my chin “I heard you spoke of gods, swords and axes that bring lightening when you first arrived here, care to tell this old lady a tale” she said turning away. Watching her retreating back, I felt the need to speak, I thought I’d make her a little frightened, or maybe it was my greed for attention, to let people know what I had done, what I had been capable of. I told her things that I could remember, even things she did not need to know of, I spoke of the gods, swords, and axes. I spoke of mother’s prayers, father’s possible regret, my brother’s flexing back, and my Titi’s smile but I could not speak of Ayo, the memory of his blood staining my fingers was still vivid, I stopped talking and waited for a reply. I expected anything but the sound of madam baby’s laugh threw me off, her laughter was rich and amusing, definitely not the evil cackle I expected from her. I waited patiently to finish so I could ask what she found funny but I never got the chance because as soon as she was done, she asked a question that sent shivers down my spine “what about ayo? Did you conveniently omit him because of your guilt?”

“do not utter his name” I said in rage “you have no right to, he is more human than you will ever be” I continued at the top of my voice, disgusted by her audacity.

“is his humanity tied to the fact that he saved you from a bullet?” she asked, her chin resting on her palms, her eyes lighting up in sinister amusement. “I am surprised by how far you have gone to rid yourself of guilt, telling stories of a great battle and you becoming a great protector, forgetting you left him to die when you were told to watch him” she continued to say, her words stinging like a serpents bite, I had begun to forget who she was.

“what are you saying? You … you… you weren’t there” I stammered as new memories began to flood my mind. “what did you do to me?” I questioned as I fell to my knees, my head hurting.

“I was there” she said in a serpentine tone “I watched you leave your brother to run, you had not gone far when you turned back. I thought you felt some humanity but what you did after was even more surprising. You saw the shooter and then you used your brother as a shield” she said as she reclined playfully on her pink wall, watching me crouch as I fought the new memories that invaded my mind. “you held your brother in place. Quite scary honestly, I mean I have hurt people but I never hurt family. Tiwa you are like me” she said and smiled.

I sat there remembering all that really happened, there were no swords and axes that brought lightening, there was only chaos, blood and goods that didn’t answer prayers. I remembered my brother thrusting Ayo into my arms as I hid, saying he was going to find titi and my parents. I remembered we were discovered, so I started to run with him but he was slow and the vandals were close. I remember that he fell but I kept running, that he called for me but I kept running. I remember that I stopped running because and turned back to get him. I remember carrying him like I should have done before. I remember seeing the gun point at me, the vandal ready to pull the trigger and I remember putting ayo in between the trigger and I. As he hugged my neck tightly, I remember whispering into his ears “it will all be over soon” knowing fully well what I was about to do.

Madam baby must have had enough of my reminiscing because I soon felt the sting from her palm hitting my face. “do not act so remorseful, I don’t want you that way” she said as she wiped the tears, I didn’t know had formed on my eye lids. “get out now, I will see you again” she said opening the door of her room, ushering me out. The walk to my room had me thinking of things, I thought I did everything I could to protect my family, I thought I braved the wrath of gods, stained my hands with blood and fought a good fight – how delusional must I have been? To think I had carried on thinking of a glorious reunion with my family. I have no right to look for them, I had no right to think of leaving. I was right, I should have died.

5

Days rolled by as I laid in my room cursing my existence, thinking of death but never going through with it – Pathetic. Usually, there would be knocks on my door notifying me about work but now it was silent. I simply understood that madam baby had taken care of it; I didn’t understand what madam baby wanted, I didn’t know what she would gain from tell me the truth, all I knew was madam baby always moved her pieces with purpose and that is all I have become.

“madam baby wants to see you” a young girl said after knocking on my door “she said you should dress nicely” the girl said before leaving

“the devil has come to collect” the phrase laid heavily on my mind as I made my way to her room, I knocked lightly and was ushered in. the countenance of the room had changed, it oozed sexual appeal so intense only a fool would not understand Madam baby’s intentions.

“you have arrived” she said rising slowly from her bed, her translucent night robe leaving nothing to imagination, though I certainly may have imagined the strangeness between her legs, I wonder what osumare would think of her. Typical of madam baby, unrestrained as usual.

“Yes” I said.

 “come join me” she said patting the space on her bed. “you need consolation.”

I walked to her bed and sat down, I knew what she wanted, I also knew my answer, so I simply told her to get on with it. The look on her face made me realize that I probably was the first person in a long time to shock her and make her hesitate, so I kissed her before I hesitated as well. As our kiss deepened, I thought of the words I whispered to ayo, then I thought of words to say to myself.

“This is my punishment, since I can’t bring myself to die, I must not live as well.”