The Move
“Mother, how could you have done this to us? You just upped and left us as though we were sacks of potatoes you couldn’t afford to carry on your trip. You left us with this inhumane monster of a being– cos she simply can’t be human– that we call our stepmom, and now hell doesn’t seem like such a strange place anymore. You have shown us, hell mother, hell, here on earth.”
Aisha looked at her little sister sleeping peacefully on her laps with nothing but thin clothing covering her groin. It was chilly outside that night. Her stepmother had beaten them and sent them to sleep outside because she had asked for seconds when the first was less than a serving spoon’s ration. She was perfectly fine with it but Zainab had been complaining about her stomach too much for the comfort of late.
Many times like that, she would clench her tummy and roll from side to side, tears in her eyes. Aisha was strong-willed for a ten-year-old but she could not keep a bold front whenever her sister cried like that, so she had taken the bold and punishable step of asking for seconds after they were served dinner that night. She had thought even if she would get punished, at least her little sister would be out of it. She would happily sleep outside for a month if it meant getting her seconds every night.
“If only I could make that kinda bargain with that witch, Zainab wouldn’t have to cry anymore.” She blinked back the tears trying to force their way out of her eyes. If she had time to cry like a child, she might as well go to the village square and start dancing for onlookers to cheer her on.
She looked at little Zainab again and saw her drool stream down her left knee. She didn’t bother to clean it so she wouldn’t make the mistake of waking her up. She hugged herself and rested her back on the wall to sleep, “tomorrow is another day Aisha, it’s time to sleep now.”
As always, the ‘witch’ always came to send them in and tuck them into their beds once it was 4 am as their father returned from his night shift by 6 am. That was enough time to get them looking like they had spent the entire night asleep in their rooms. Aisha wanted to report the witch to her father but didn’t know how to. This was because this particular witch always seemed to transform into an angel when their father was around.
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She would treat them like angels, bathe them, plait their hair, and even give them three rations of food. Their father would then complain, “Sade, you spoil these girls too much. They will turn out to be fat and lazy if you continue this way oh.” Then she would laugh heartily and tell him that they needed it as girls.
“If we don’t treat them right inside, someone else will treat them ‘right’ outside. I’m sure you don’t want that for them right?” Father would always agree of course and she would always add as an afterthought, “besides I’m pregnant with a child too, for all I know it could be a girl child just like them. I’m only sowing seeds for the sake of my unborn child too you know?”
Their drama always intrigued her. How one character could take on two roles at the same time always baffled her. Though her father’s character always remained constant, the witch’s own always seemed to change depending on her mood. “I had heard that pregnant people had mood swings, maybe this was it.” Aisha thought to herself.
“Humans are such puny creatures. One minute they’re one person and the next they are another. Wait a minute, how do I even know the word ‘puny’?” After thinking for a while and biting her fingers till they were begging to still be seen, she remembered she had heard it in a movie the night before and checked the meaning in the dictionary her father had gotten her the previous week.
She shook her head for ten seconds nonstop, feeling very dizzy by the time she was done. “Yeah… This is exactly how they make me feel– out of place.” She was only ten but she felt like she was decades older due to the emotional and physical pain she had had to endure.
Father had gone straight to bed as he was entering the house. He would then sleep till noon, not bothering to have breakfast at all. It had been three months since “the move”, as Aisha liked to call it, but she never ceased to wonder why he did so. Since she had never gotten the opportunity to have a long chat with him (no thanks to the witch of course), she had never gotten round to understanding why he slept during the day when all her friends’ dads went to work.
‘All her friends’ referred to only two people though– Musa and Grace. Grace was the only Christian human she related with, rather, was allowed to relate with. She valued her friendship with them as though her life depended on it, as they were the only true humans she had ever known. “Father might have met the cut but he allows his witch of a wife to maltreat us.”
All her friends had gone to school when her father woke up to have breakfast. This was at 2 pm. She had rehearsed over and over again how to bring up the topic of her return to school to her father without having her stepmom interrupting and advising him against it. The witch had gone to the market to get some things to prepare dinner. This was her chance. It was now or never.
She had been away from school for three months and she feared that she would lose her star position if she stayed away longer. Father didn’t seem to have a problem with her going to school. It was the witch.
Every time Aisha brought up the topic of her resumption, the witch would remind her father that she was already betrothed to the village chief, thereby making resources spent on her education a waste.
Normal kids would cry when they didn’t get something they wanted but not our Aisha. She never cried; whether she was beaten, starved, insulted, nothing seemed to get her to cry. She had been refused so many times but she wasn’t going to give up. “Not now, not ever.”
She emerged from behind the dining wall attached to the sitting room where her father had just finished eating and flashed on her cutest smile. That particular smile had won her the dictionary she now showed off to all her friends, despite her stepmom’s stern refusal. She was going to win this war too. She would go back to school and become the lawyer she had always dreamed of becoming.
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“Good afternoon sir. How was work yesterday? You seem very tired, are you okay?” He waited to finish chewing the huge chunk of meat in his mouth, gulped down a cup of water, and picked his teeth before answering her. “My dearest daughter, why aren’t you having your siesta? You should be taking a nap right now.”
She used that point as her opening and decided to capitalize on it. “Baba….” Father adjusted in his seat because he knew that whenever she called him “Baba”, she wanted to say something serious. Eager to know what the problem was, he decided to ask her instead. “Yes, my child. What is the problem? Ask whatever it is you want from me and I’ll do it if it is within my power to do it.”
Pleased to know she had him on her side, she began her petition to return to school. “Baba, there is something I want to discuss with you. It has to do with my future and happiness.”
Excited to use every opportunity offered to him to finally bond with his long lost daughter, he jumped forward on his seat and put interlocked fingers under his chin. “Yes? What is this happiness about?” Following in his steps, she also sat forward in her seat and cleared her throat before speaking.
“Baba, I would like to go back to school.” She paused to allow the words to sink into the air before continuing.
“As you know, I am a very intelligent child and I have dreams and aspirations to become a supreme judge in this country. Baba, I know you have been told that sending me to school would be a waste of resources as I will yield you better profit by marrying the village chief, but I will have you know that you will be profiting more from sending me to school. I know you are a smart businessman and you will make the right decision.
You have a smartphone, you can check the average income a supreme judge earns annually. You will see that marrying me off to the village chief is good business but allowing me to receive an education will be a better business.” She paused to allow all her points to sink in.
She made sure to use all the big words she had learned in the past week. She had learned so many big words since she got the dictionary as that was all she could spend her day doing because the witch forbade them from watching television. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, he spoke.
“Aisha, I know you are a very bright child and I know you will do very well, but what happens to your engagement with the village chief? I have already collected your bride’s price. Your marriage is next month. Besides, shouldn’t you be happy to hear that you are getting married so early? It is because of your good looks my dear.”
He listened to himself and knew he sounded very absurd. He looked at her as if to say “I’m sorry” but kept his lips locked.
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Aisha fell back in her chair. She had hoped she would still have a few years to come to with a plan to stop herself from getting married to the chief set before her, she pressed forward on her argument. Only, this time, she opted for a different tactic.
“Baba, why do you hate me so?” The look of shock on her father’s face encouraged her to continue.
“Baba, I could never understand why you and mama hate me so much. Mama never loved me. I saw it in her eyes whenever she looked at me. At times I would catch her staring, but instead of seeing love and adoration etched all over her face the way I’ve seen mothers do, I would only find disgust. She didn’t allow me to meet you until six months ago. Before then, she said I didn’t have a father whenever I asked. I knew of course that I needed to have one to be created in the first place so I knew she lied about that. Why? What did I do so wrong to get this kind of treatment from my parents? Is there something I’m missing? Am I not your child?”
“Aisha, there is something I must tell you. Have you ever heard of the term ‘a love child’?”
She shook her head in the negative, so he continued.
“A love child is a child born out of wedlock; out of matrimony. In simpler terms, so you can understand clearly; A love child is the product of sexual intercourse of two people that are not married to each other.”
Recognition flooded her face as the weight of the words spoken by her father settled into her consciousness.
“You mean the two of you did it before you got married? I thought you were first married, then she left you. Wait the both of you were never married? Even after Zainab?” She couldn’t understand how they could have been so crazy, especially since their religion frowned strongly at immorality.
He then went ahead to explain how he and their mother were high school sweethearts while they studied in the city.
After conceiving Aisha, she decided to keep her but that put a very strong pause to her education. She didn’t want to marry him as she was from a respectable family of lawyers and that would hold her down. Her parents allowed her to keep the child and stay with them as long as she cut off all communications with him, but then, fate had a very strange way of bringing people together.
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They met again while they were serving in the Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and their old flames got rekindled. A few drinks at their send forth party had produced Zainab. Her parents couldn’t accept another embarrassment so they disowned her. She remained in the village where she served and raised both her daughters.
“Three years later, she appeared at my doorstep and said she couldn’t take it anymore. She told me about you and Zainab, you honestly don’t know how excited I was to know I had daughters. I was already married of course but I wanted to have a chance with both of you too. That was six months ago. Three months afterward, she dropped both of you at my door and never looked back, not even for a wave. I haven’t heard from her ever since and something tells me I never will till the day I die.”
Something like regret and a strong yearning flashed across his face and disappeared quickly. He looked at his daughter and waited to hear her response to her creation story.
“I and Zainab are forced to live like slaves every day because of the two of you.” She said matter of factly. Her face bore no emotion.
“Slaves? What do you mean slaves? Don’t I treat you right? Feed you, clothe you, and shelter you? Is there anything expected of a responsible father that I have not done for the both of you? Why would you say I treat you like a slave?”
Father was beginning to get angry, she had to set him straight and bring him back to her side.
“I didn’t say you treat us like slaves, I said we are treated like slaves. It is your wife that treats us like slaves.” It was out before she could stop herself.
Worried that she had destroyed her entire proposal to resume school by accusing his wife, she decided to remind him of the purpose of their discussion.
“See ehn, Baba, all I want is to become a successful career woman. I don’t care much for marriage or frivolities of that nature. I want to live well to take care of my baby sister. I don’t want to have to depend on you or any man. Please let my dream come true, let me go to school. You are an educated man yourself, you know the importance of education, your wife on the other hand isn’t, that is why she talks like that.”
“You know what? Let’s have a compromise. How about you get married to the village chief and then go back to school next month? I think the new term starts then.”
Glad that he was beginning to consider her proposal but hell-bent on making sure she didn’t get married off to the old dwarf of a chief, she tried to push her luck again. She got rejected.
“Aisha, understand me. I don’t want you to become one of those ‘independent women’ we see all over social media today. They call themselves feminists but they are just fools. Of what importance is a woman if she does not have a man she is backing? I want you to get married so you don’t become one of them. So you don’t become your mother.”
Aisha looked at her father hard. All those years she blamed her mother, was angry at her, maybe hated her a little bit because she had kept her and her sister away from their father. She didn’t know her story though, she had judged her by the cover. She was so wrong. Staring at her father she understood why her mother left. For one to find fulfillment, one needed a purpose and to feel relevant while fulfilling that purpose.
“Mother lost her sense of purpose when she had me. She needed to move. I understand it all now. If I will become the woman I aspire to be then I must take my future into my hands. I can’t wait for any man to help me or start my journey for me. I need to take my first step. I need to make the move.”
She walked out of her father’s presence that day determined to make her move.
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