Please read this opening chapter of my novel-in-progress and tell me what you think. CHAPTER ONE When I opened my eyes, I was afraid I had gone blind. My only reassurance of vision was a streak of light stabbing through the broken top of the door. It seemed to light nothing else but the very hole that permitted it. I dragged myself up from the mat, my sense of geography of my inner house a faint piercing through a thick silk of mental confusion. I did not know the location of anything anymore. My hands became my eyes as they stretched forth before me to avoid collision with anything. A brief rattle on the floor informed me that I had kicked a bottle, bringing back memories of the night before. The night before! Something needed to be confirmed immediately. Patting the walls I located the shallow enclave which had the two wooden slabs hanging on rusted hinges to form windows. I fumbled on this wooden slab like I fumbled last night with her skirt and at last managed to locate the bolt. Somehow the bolt was too tight this morning. I put in extra strength to pull it open. Kpam. And the window fell open. Light speeded in like a snake would when you are after it and everything immediately fell into place right before my eyes. When I looked at the mat the memory followed into place like a piece of firewood thrown on the heap of others. Azuka. She was still there. She was still asleep. Her aka awusa hair style glittered with the tightness of its fresh weave, tracing her head from the tip of her forehead down to the back of her head- six of them meeting there like six rows of maize mounds, all of them flowing flawlessly like Ozizo stream. Her lips were pursed the same way they took shape whenever I threw a jab of joke and she tried her best not to laugh too much. I felt I was being drawn by these same lips once again. In the sweetness of the sleep she had forgotten to cover herself well. I could not resist the bubbly breasts she had standing on her chest. If one saw them at night, one who did not know that it belonged to a human could take them to be two smooth eggs laid across her chest by a giant python. They carried comfort for the eyes which intoxicated the hands and made them forcefully seize pleasure. Her pubic hair was neatly kept. On seeing it I realized that I had not grabbed visual knowledge of this endowment of hers last night. We had carried on in the darkness- her murmuring half-refusal to my ears and my pressing her closer and closer to me. When I had slipped a finger into the warm heaven she suddenly began to moan divine acceptance so loud that I feared Nne Odinaka, my mother, would hear and wake to see what was happening. I did not become apprehensive though. Instead I followed that single finger with another, then another and finally another. All the while she released herself to me, already beginning to slightly pull up and down, in and out. It was this trick that Agaba, my friend, taught me to apply. I was almost running mad with Azuka coming and going after giving “I don’t want to do it now. I am not ready” as answers to my erotic moves. It was last night that I had it all as I pulled myself up and down, in and out of her while she pinched my arms, my face and anywhere she could lay hands on in pleasurable ecstasy. I made a move to get a better view of her pubic. My hand stretched out first. Once it touched the tip of her skirt she adjusted her body with a sound heavier than a sigh from the softness of her nostrils. The air filled my face as though I was on a speeding bicycle. With her eyes still closed her face stood facing the roof. I could not look any longer. There was no denying that the sun was standing in my inner-house that early morning, facing the roof. Her beauty spread out and covered my face with the glory close to what was felt when one saw a spirit. I felt my head swell. Immediately I had forgotten what I wanted to do and I knelt still admiring Azuka’s face. The morning was growing old with every opening of a door followed often by Ị saala chi? “Good morning.” We had agreed to meet-- Agaba, Agwu, Chukwu and I-- that morning at Agaba’s. Among all of us, as young as we were, it was only he who owned an inner-house of his own. He paid two kobo every seven market days to the one he called his landlord. This was the only thing he told us about this inner-house of his. How he managed to convince the man to rent it to him was what we all wondered about, and he never told us. We all felt that Agaba must have used some extrahand from any dibia to get that inner-house because it was not thought of that in this town, a boy fifteen years old could ask an elderly man for space in his own house, no matter how much was promised, and he would give it out without asking such a boy to return home and engage in meaningful farming while waiting for his father to build his own ime ulo, an inner-house attached to the already standing structure, for him. What we knew was that Agaba’s father became tired of talking to this stubborn son of his who he later began to see as the cause of the many sicknesses which plagued him and so decided to let him keep on as onye nzuzu so that his own life would be for him. This bad reputation with which Agaba left his home to seek his independence was always the fire that fell on the thatch roof in my house anytime my mother saw him near, coming to see me. I knew what needed to be discussed. It was our latest commitment as a group of friends. One needed to make money and enjoy life in his youth. Chukwu acquired the tools from township where he said he had a lot of friends; and I was lucky to be given one which had a head coiled like a python. The resemblance which this tool owed the python was complete by a slight division of the coiled tip, making it look like the forked tongue of the serpent. Chukwu said it was used to remove nails from anything which was secured with nails so that one would get access easily. It worked when we first used it in Dee Sam’s shop. First we hacked his window open with the tool, jumped in and then hacked his wooden box open. We packed up every metal and paper of money that he had there. It was then that I realized that Dee Sam was not even rich enough to have big money like five naira in his shop. Agwu said he probably takes the big money home since he lives in a zinc house but I disagreed. “What is the use of owning a box when you don’t save all your money in it?” With our meeting in mind I went to the bottom of my clothes-basket and drew out the tool. It felt cold as it often feels every morning I touch it, reminding me more of the serpent. “Nnanna, Ị saala chi?” It was Azuka’s voice speaking sleepily as I made to wrap the tool with a cloth I picked out from the same basket. I suddenly dropped it on the soft heap of clothes and threw the cloth to cover it. “Yes,” I replied and turned to look at her. “Did I scare you?” She had noticed the sudden movement and had her lips pursed already in humor. I could only smile with the gratitude that she did not see the tool. When she saw me smile, she went out of control, chuckling. I was privileged to see her teeth once again. They looked as small and white as the maize seeds harvested not long ago. It was close to having an ozo shake my hand. “Let me start going or Mama Ogba will kill me.” She got up and started to dress up. I could only stand, looking at her, adoring her, wishing that Mama Ogba, her mother, and her strict vein never existed. Well, Azuka knew what to tell her to reduce the venom she was already storing up to pour on her. “I will buy you okirika soon.” Her clothes looked old. All she did was come close to me and touch my penis. A shiver of excitement almost crippled me. “Where will you get the money? Please, hold the window let me jump out and go.” I wanted to tell her that I meant it, that I now have a means through which I make my own money instead of setting useless traps and waiting for them to catch squirrels and bushrats- a kind of life meant only for ndi nzuzu. It was hard, but I managed to hold the window slab with caution so that the hinges made only a little noise. When she had looked out to the left and to the right with the conviction that no one was around she leaped out into the backhouse and began to slowly trace her way in the bush. “Be careful so that traps will not cut you.” She turned to me and feigned a frown. Maybe I had talked to her as though she was a child or I had lifted my voice above caution. Whichever it was, I smiled and she hurried on. I immediately went back to what I was doing before. With the tool with me, I picked up my chewing stick from the top of the cupboard and drove it in between my teeth; then I opened the door with all boldness. “Nne Odinaka, Ị saala chi? I have gone out o.” I did not care to know whether she heard it or not but I stepped into the cleared path to meet my friends-- my flip-flop beating on my heels like the wings of a great bird, the wet grasses brushing against my ankle.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:55:24 +0000
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