We Are Able

Episode 36

Since the day I was allowed to see Biodun, I had my
freedom again, but I was never returned to school,
despite all the pleadings of Mrs Omotayo. When I
begged Toyosi to allow me see outside the compound
occasionally, she pondered over it and later said that
she had a better idea.
Toyosi and John colluded together and arrived at the
conclusion that I should become a hawker. I was
surprised at their decision. How on earth would I hear
customers calling me? I thought. Maybe it was another
way of punishing me. I blamed myself for asking for
freedom. I should have let sleeping dogs lie, I thought.
I sat down and began to think of what to do if I could
just be allowed out of the gate. I would flee the house
permanently, I thought. I would begin to search for my
mother. I would visit my school and tell them
everything, perhaps they could help me out. While still
lost in my thought, I felt a hand on my body. When I
turned my face up, it was Toyosi standing there.
“Rose, don’t ever think of running away from the house
when you step out of the gate,” she said as if she was
living right inside my heart. I was shocked and
dumbfounded. How did she know? I thought. Rose, the
same way I saw you on the road with a boy that day,
that is the same way I will monitor you everywhere
you go.

My mind began to thump. Is Toyosi a witch or what?
Perhaps she is just trying to scare me by playing on my
intelligence. Perhaps she has something she was using
to read my mind; alright then, I was going to be doing
things without thinking about them as from now, I
thought. By so doing, I wouldn’t have any problem. She
would not detect what was going on right in my mind, I
thought childishly.
It was eggs I would sell. Toyosi had given me a target
I must meet daily. It was a scary one. I must sell all my
eggs before returning home every day, and I mustn’t
stay longer than 6pm.
Mrs Omotayo had found someone else to stay with her
children. The nanny would be with them after the taxi
driver had brought them back from school. It took Mrs
Omotayo a whole month to make the decision, having
obtained a compulsory leave in her workplace to stay
with her children while I was not allowed to step
outside. She would now return to work since Taiba, a
young girl of around eighteen would now be staying
with the children. As for me, I would be too busy
hawking.

I summoned the courage, believing that I was able.
Expectedly, I sold nothing on the first day, after
trekking about for hours under the angry sun. When the
sun was in the east I was under it, yet I remained until
it had travelled to the west. My head ached greatly.
How would I have heard people calling for my service
when I was deaf? I thought. Those who even came
close to buying got frustrated when I couldn’t tell them
the price. Some people even seemed to be having
phobia for the deaf and dumb. They just walked away,
pushing their lips out, maybe hissing at me or not, I
couldn’t tell.
I walked on and on, never wary of vehicles passing by.
I couldn’t hear their horns, so I just moved on like I
didn’t care. I wanted to cross to the other side of the
road when a car screeched to a halt before me. My
heart had gone. I thought it would hit me. It was indeed
a miracle that the car didn’t gore me down, but
unfortunately, I staggered and the whole eggs went
crashing at the floor.
Toyosi came around and discovered that I hadn’t sold a
single egg. She beat me up.
“Where are my eggs?” she signed. When I told her that
everything got smashed, she raged.
I wondered when all these tortures would end. I began
to think of telling Mrs Omotayo my true life story,
perhaps she would pick up interest in my case. If she
knew I was not a housemaid as she thought, she would
have fought for my freedom to the last.
Toyosi didn’t give me time to recuperate. She had hurt
me internally. I was feeling some pains right inside my
heart. Perhaps something in me had snapped. Maybe I
had even damaged my organ, I wouldn’t know.

I coughed blood when Toyosi hit me hard on the chest.
I felt my life was over. I couldn’t bear the pain any
longer. It was time to die.
That night, I wept bitterly, asking God to kill me within
one week or allow me kill myself and still make it to
heaven. I slept that night and dreamt. It was a sweet
dream. When I woke up, I had much strength. The heart
pain had vanished.

I wondered why each time I prayed at night I always
slept well and in the morning after it, I always felt light
and happy. If it was God helping me get such comfort
each time I prayed, why couldn’t he wipe off all my
troubles permanently once and for all? Perhaps God was
trying to prolong my life for more troubles, I thought.

The next day, the tray was set on my head again. How I
wished I could raise up my voice to advertise what
was on my head? I had no voice. Who would be a voice
to my voiceless self? I thought. No one.
I had only sold six eggs the next day after walking up
and down the streets from 8am to 3pm. As usual, those
who wanted to price my eggs got pissed off whenever
they discovered that I was deaf and dumb. Only the
very patient ones would wait for me to write my
responses into a note.

My head began to force itself into reasoning out a way
of bridging the communication gap between the deaf
and dumb and the normal people. I pondered so much
on the thought that I forgot that I was hawking.
“How can one easily bridge this gap?” I thought on and
on again. No way!
I returned home and got enough slaps to my shrinking
cheeks as expected. It seemed as if I had committed a
very big crime for selling just twelve eggs out of forty
for the whole day.

I kept getting slapped and kicked and punched on the
face by Toyosi and her son each day. Bode would do to
me exactly what Toyosi was doing.

John wrote a note to me as usual:
Can you now see that I was right by saying that you are
a useless person? You can’t successfully sell forty eggs
in a whole day. I am happy that I have stopped
spending on your education for more than a year now.
Useless daughter!
I was not moved by his insult. I was used to such and
much more.

A thought suddenly pierced through my mind. Is my
mother really still alive? Isn’t Toyosi telling a lie that
she is back in the prison? My heart thumped at the
thought. She must have been killed by Toyosi that day
they went shopping. All indication was pointing at that
fact–the fact that she was no more on earth.
I had seen her three to four times in my dream, telling
me that I should fight hard not to come to the grave
where she was. She assured me that I could make it
despite my disabilities. She told me that I was able.

Toyosi kicked me. It was time for me to go hawking. I
knew it was time.
I set the tray on my head and began to make for the
gate. Taiba came close to me and delivered a thick
note to me, it was written in Braille by blind Biodun.
When I read it, my heart went in pieces. It was
heartrending:
Rose, why did you leave me alone all these days? Not
even a visit anymore. What is my offence so high like a
mountain that you can’t forgive? What is my fault so
sharp like a sword that you can’t overlook? You are the
only angel I know, not any Angela in the world. Rose,
you are my angel, the flower of my life. Please reply
my letter and tell me if you still love me or not.
I wept and smiled all at once. How could a blind folk
compose a letter as wonderful as this? I thought. The
Biodun I knew earlier was a shy type who wouldn’t
even want to punch any writing into paper. How did he
change drastically as this?

I could remember challenging Biodun and la!de
sometimes back when they were getting frustrated. I
told them of Nick Vujicic, the torso who could do
everything a normal person could do. I told them of
Akin, the blind drummer boy in a fiction I read. I also
challenged them with something Mrs Oyindamola my
classteacher used to say all the time:
How many medals have our normal people won in the
Olympic games? Rose, if you know how many gold
medals the normal people have won for this country,
please tell me because the last time I checked it was
three or four; ask me what our Paralympics athletes
have won and I would say it is countless! YOU ARE
ABLE, ROSE, BOSE, ELIJAH, EMMANUEL, JOY, FATIMA,
JOSHUA…

Those days whenever she was signing our names, I
would be the only one who wouldn’t shed tears of
emotion because I found it very hard to believe that I
was indeed able. Now I needed no one to tell me that I
am able.
Since the day I told la!de and Biodun these, the latter
had grabbed his writing materials, making much effort
to develop himself. It really affected his overall
performance in school such that he became the best
overall in his class after that school term. Maybe that
was one reason Biodun couldn’t stop thinking about me.
My heart lurched at the conclusive part of Biodun’s
letter. How on earth would I tell him that I no more feel
romance love for him when I was actually the one who
began it? Wouldn’t I be breaking a heart at my tender
age?
I was soon on the street, hawking. As usual, nobody
cared, perhaps many have called for my service but I
didn’t hear them. I held tight to my crates of eggs to
avoid losing them.

I saw a crowd. What an interesting sight to behold!
Somebody was performing magic at the centre of a
gathering. I wanted to feed my eyes, so I fell in after
dropping my crates of eggs somewhere around. Amidst
the gathering, a young boy of around sixteen years saw
me and began to glance at me on and on. I didn’t know
why he was making me the cynosure of his eyes
instead of the conjurer at the centre of the gathering. I
felt uncomfortable and began to leave the crowd.
As I turned to leave, I sighted him turning too, from the
corner of my right eye. He began to move close to me.
I hasted towards the culvert where I placed my crates
of eggs. He drew close too.
I halted, perhaps he would just pass by me. He didn’t.

The boy reminded me of Moses in his outfit. He was 5
feet 8 inches as I perceived. His eyes were narrow on
his face as well as his nose too. He had a curly hair and
a dark skin. His teeth appeared square in shape when he
opened his mouth and said something I didn’t hear as he
extended his right hand for a shake.
My inferiority complex came to play. I shrugged my
shoulder and moved away from him. Just then, a little
boy of around seven years fled from my crates of eggs.
He had picked like six eggs and was running away with
it. I screamed and pointed at the boy who was
escaping. He ended up in the grip of the other boy who
was following me.
I became more and more ashamed as this saviour took
each step towards me with the nylon of eggs he had
just retrieved from the thief. My heart pounded because
I felt the boy was getting sexually attracted to me.

The teenage boy handed over the eggs to me. I
collected it and bent to lift my crate of eggs to my
head. He held my hand and began to speak to me
tenderly. He was shocked when I didn’t respond. Tears
rolled down my face.
“Let’s be close friends,” the boy uttered and I
understood him by the movement of his lips. I
summoned courage to communicate in the only way I
could–through sign language.
The boy was confused when I signed to him that I was
deaf and dumb. However, he understood me with the
way I kept touching my mouth and my ears to signal
what I was to him. He frowned and spat on the floor.
Then his lips protruded as other people’s too. He turned
and left me in haste.
I clutched my chest in my hands and wept on the spot.

Now I thought my future had just been played to me–
no normal person will propose to me. They will all run
at first sight.
I lifted my crates of eggs to my head and headed
homeward.