NAMEH: A young girl's tale

 NAMEH

Red dust rose as her feet hit the ground with the ferocity of a giant in haste. It joined the foundation of dust that had made her white school socks their home. It would be their home until she washed her socks that Saturday in the stream, Ereshia. 

Her feet were heavy, or was it her Aba-made Cortina shoes that made them so? She quickened her pace into a full jog, defying the weight that pulled her legs to the ground. The sounds as the soles of her shoes hit the ground and her bag on her back had a similarity to the percussion of ukpe drums.

She could not remember the exact words the principal used. You won the scholarship? No. You were awarded the scholarship? She remembered exactly how she felt when he spoke these words to her. It was the same exhilaration she was feeling now. The words did not matter.

She veered to Ileteju Road and moved even faster as she came closer home. She could see people in front of her house; about five seated figures. She turned from the road to the frontage of her house and reduced her speed as she approached the gathering of people. 

They stopped whatever amusing discussion they were having; Uncle Ogborio stopped his raucous laughter. Mama, Uncle Meje, Pa Ogbe and the other man—she didn't know him—also shifted their attention to her.

She let her right knee touch the ground respectfully. 

"Good evening Uncle Meje. Good evening Uncle Ogborio. Good evening Pa Ogbe."

Uncle Meje and Uncle Ogborio’s reply came simultaneously, and the only word she could make out from the jumble was ‘welcome’.

“My daughter, how are you?” Pa Ogbe’s voice was creaky.

She looked at the strange man. "Good evening sir." The man smiled at her.

"Mama. Good evening."

Mama raised a brow and pouted her lips. What had she done wrong again?

"Nameh, don't you know you're a girl? See how dirty your uniform is."

I was running, she wanted to say but decided against it. Uncle Meje would spank her as he had done years ago when she greeted him without kneeling.

"I'm sorry, Mama."

Mama sighed. "Go inside and take your bath."

Mama would have something to say about this later, Nameh knew this. She walked in as much a creep as she could into the house; she had been noticed and there was no point trying to escape attention. She was the centre of it until she was completely out of the sight of the visitors.

Uncle Ogborio’s laughter still found its way through the tiny cracks that ran along the mud walls of the house. So did Mama’s soft voice, her respectful voice, the one she used when talking to men, the one Nameh did not know how to use.

'Nameh, you talk too loudly. Your voice should not be louder than your uncle’s voice when talking to him. People will think I did not raise you well, Nameh.'

Nameh stood in the living room for a while and strained to hear some of what they were saying, to grasp the topic of their discussion but she had shut the door and their voices were incoherent. She gave up and went to her room. She dropped her bag on the raffia carpet of her room. Then she took off her uniform—the white shirt with colour rings of dried sweat under the sleeves and the navy-blue skirt—and threw them on the mat. She wouldn’t need them again, but she’d still wash them.

Her dust-coated socks joined the uniform on the mat.

This would be the last time she’d put on socks. Campus girls did not dress with socks. They wore shoes that had heels the height of kitchen stool legs, just like the one Chief Okogbe’s daughter wore when she came back to the village for the holiday.

Nameh’s lips stretched into a smile. So, she’d be the second girl in all of Makeke to attend university! She’d wear high-heeled shoes like Benedicta, Chief Okogbe’s daughter?

Realisation hit her heavier than Uncle Meje’s hard palm. Benedicta was the daughter of a rich man and she was the daughter of a dead man. 

Still she’d attend university. She never thought it was possible; without the scholarship, it couldn’t be. She picked the bag she’d dropped on the floor and went to sit on the stool beside her bed. She took the two sheets of paper inside the bag. They were very slight, thin sheets of paper but they held great value to Nameh. One was the results to her final examination and the other was the scholarship letter.

Her eyes went over the words on the scholarship letter. Her full name was written on it. It was hers. In her hand was her ticket out of the village.

…covers your tuition….

This is a blessing. Her hands brought the letter to her lips.

“What are you kissing there, eh?”

Nameh shifted her attention to her mother who was now walking towards her and smiled.

“Mama, it’s a—”

“Nameh. How many times have I told you not to place your clothes as if they’re rags?”

So many times, Mama. So many times! Nameh held her reply and stared at Mama.

“Am I talking to myself?”

I can’t count.

“Will you pack the clothes now and put them in a bucket?!”

Without a word, Nameh rose from the stool and made to pack the clothes up.

“Sit down; I have something to tell you.” Mama’s voice came out softer.

Mama and her trouble. Stand! Sit! But Nameh sat back down on the stool, without a word.

“Do you know that man that was talking with me and your uncles?”

“I don’t.”

“Do you have an idea of why he came?”

Marriage. That was what brought city men to see the family of ripe girls. Many had come to see Mama and she’d always rejected their offers.

‘She isn’t ripe,’ Mama used to say. Nameh hoped she still thought so. 

“He is a bachelor and he needs a good village wife?”

Mama laughed. Tiny creases formed at the corners of her eyes. “Are you a good village wife?

“I’m not a wife.”

Mama grinned. Her teeth were yellowing with age. “But you will be.”

“When I’m ripe.”

Mama’s smiling face morphed into a smiling-amused one. “Have you not seen your red?”

It was four years since she bled first. She’d run scared to show her mother that she was dying. More than once within the course of the four years, men had come to seek her hand, but Mama had always said no. It wouldn’t be different this time. She was unripe.

“I have.”

“You’re a woman now.”

What was different? What had changed in the two years since Pa Unugbe’s son came from Benin to find a wife? Why was she a woman now?

“Or don’t you think so?” Mama said, a smile was still on her face.

How Nameh hated that smile at that moment. This wasn’t funny. 

(to be continued...)

Written by Seven Wraps of Eba