Chapter 06

Caro's movements were slow, deliberate and determined as she beat down the tall grasses in her path to make way for her to reach the main road. The path she had taken the previous night may have been better, but she feared that the second of the two boys who had come to 'hammer' her the previous night would be waiting on the road with a gang. She was now cutting out another path that would lead to a farther part of the road. She would have loved to sleep at the uncompleted building till the morning was bright, but nightmares inspired by the deadbody lying close to her drove her to her feet and forced her to continue her exodus to a Canaan she knew not. When she hit the main road, her next objective was finding the nearest water body before daylight. It was a difficult task. She was a stranger here and since her arrival in Lagos, she had not set eyes on any natural body of water whatsoever. How and where she was to begin her search, she had no idea. She simply walked along the road away from the area of the uncompleted building, keeping an eye out for a sign, any sign that might indicate the presence of a stream, lake, river... in fact, any moving water. As she walked, she could not help but feel the disadvantage of not having a watch. If only she was a boy, it would have been natural for her to wear watches. Her younger brother had a watch, bought for him by a visiting uncle and she would never forget how he checked and announced the time at every single opportunity. Eventually, he became the clock of the house, there being no other timepiece around except their neighbor's spider-resident archaic clock. They hardly had much to do with time anyway; her parents had lived and taught their children to live a life of routine and their very souls marked the time on their behalf. Their bodies were in sync with the clock of nature and they read as accurate a time from their surroundings as others did from clocks or watches. As these memories floated around her mind, she couldn't help but miss home. Home being her siblings, of course. She would never forgive her parents for selling her to Iron Fire like a bar of homemade soap. She wished she could have said goodbye to them (her siblings). She had to admit that she had been selfish when making her plans for escape, but it was necessary. If she had done any less, she would not have succeeded and that... wait! Was that the sound of falling water? Like a bloodhound on a strong scent, Caro followed the sound away from the road and found herself near a high-walled compound. The falling water was from an over-flowing tank beside the compound. She was about to thank her stars when she saw someone... a woman with some buckets, trying all she could to get them full with water as fast as possible. As she placed an empty bucket under the scattered flow, she turned her head and sighted Caro. She kept her eyes on her, staring at her with an expression that Caro could not see due to the darkness. The lights on the compound's fence were turned away from their direction. Caro knew that standing where she was was suspicious, so she simply continued moving, toward the woman. As she approached, she could see that she was not really a woman, but a girl like her albeit older. With a confident stride, Caro walked past her as if her destination was up ahead. "Aunty," the girl called. Caro turned. "Abeg you fit help me?" Caro was quite surprised that she wasn't addressed in Yoruba which was what seemed to be the first language of everyone in Lagos. She had tried to learn the language from her few Yoruba friends back at school, but she found it hard because she hated the sound of it. Recovering from her surprise, she went back to the girl and gave her a helping hand with the bucket. "Thank you," she said when it had been balanced on her head. Caro watched her walk off into the darkness. She had left two of her buckets behind, one of which was already getting full. She would surely come back for it later, but before then... Caro snatched the bucket's handle and rushed into the nearest bush. Doing things in bushes was one thing she was not a stranger to. Plucking several large plantain leaves, she flattened the grasses around her and laid them on the ground. Then she took off all her clothes, making sure to check that the little money she had left was intact, and rolled them into a tight bundle (ensuring that her underwear was in the inner core) and laid it on the leaves. She then proceeded to put a little distance between herself and the bundle to avoid getting it wet and then began one of the fastest baths of her life. She had had faster ones before. There was a time when she was in elementary school and she had woken up late and as a result had to finish bathing in record time before her mother would flog the living daylight out of her. She ended up going to school with soap on her head. As Caro bathed, her eyes were all but everywhere. She was not only afraid of getting caught by the owner of the bucket, but also by any attacker or even the compound's security guard. She threw the water onto her body using both hands, (another thing she wasn't a stranger to), focusing on washing her armpits and private part. It was easy since she had no hairs in those areas. She had not even started menstruating yet, but she looked like a grown woman except in height. She wasn't short for her age: 14. But she was short for the age she seemed to be: 18, 19. After her bath, she quickly shrugged into her clothes, again checking her money and thanking her stars that the bath had gone smoothly and uninterrupted. She picked the bucket, took it back to its position under the tank and with one last look around, smoothened her dress and made her way back to the road. *** Caro had walked till it was daybreak, keeping the same course until she came to another busy, market-like bus stop. She didn't linger and she didn't care for the name of the place. She could hear the bus conductors shouting the names of various unfamiliar locations, but her mind did not register any of that. All she thought of was how to get something to eat, preferably without stealing. She had remembered to wash her mouth with the water she had stolen earlier, so hopefully, her breath was not very foul because she just might need to do some civilized begging - the kind that got you more than some small change. She went on past the busy bus stop and made her way deeper and deeper into quieter and more civilized area. This was the kind of place where she could hope to find some help. She veered off the road and branched into inner streets. The environment was neat, but not high-brow. She could see houses, mostly bungalows and shops. Everywhere was calm and she unconsciously changed her stride and demeanor to match the civility of her surroundings. She was now moving like a city-bred damsel looking for somewhere or something in particular. She was glad that her footwear was extra hard otherwise she would have been barefoot by now. But speaking of footwear, she could see loads of them displayed outside a store just ahead of her. The owner seemed to be just opening up for business and she was still bringing out a lot of women's shoes and fancy slippers and arranging them in front of the shop. Caro could not help but wish that she had money enough to afford one of those slippers. She must have been staring too long in that direction because she could see the woman watching her from the corner of her eye. Making a spur-of-the-moment decision, Caro headed for the shop. The shopowner saw her coming and raised her head to look directly at her. She didn't know what to make of the girl, but she looked like someone in need of directions. "Good Morning, ma," Caro greeted as she reached the shop. "Good Morning. What can I do for you?", the shop owner asked. Caro was a bit taken aback by the woman's command of good English. She had expected a torrent of Yoruba or pidgin English. "Em... I was wondering if you need any kind of help with your shop. Like a salesgirl or something like that." "How old are you?", the woman asked, eyeing her up and down. "Sixteen," Caro replied, without blinking. "Have you done such a job before?" "Not really, ma. But I assure you, I'm a fast learner. I used to manage my neighbors' shops when they were away and they were always the happier for it." The woman's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She could not ever remember hearing a sixteen year old product of the current educational system speak in such a manner. "Who taught you how to speak like that?" "Miss Daniels... a teacher in my school." "Where do you live?" "I... ehh... actually, I used to live with my uncle." "Then what happened?" "He died a week ago," Caro replied quietly, looking down at her feet - the image of a mourning niece. "Oh! I'm so sorry about that. What about your parents? Are they alive?" Caro shook her head in response. "Oh poor child. Come, come. Come and sit down." She offered Caro a chair and the glib liar mouthed her thanks, still keeping her mourning expression fixed on her face. "So how do you survive now?", the woman questioned in genuine concern. "After my uncle died, his wife threw me out of the house..." "Ah! Some women are wicked! What about your other family members? Where do they live?" "I don't know any of them." "Oh!", the woman ejaculated like someone whose heart was already breaking, and Caro pitied her. If only she knew that the entire story was fabricated. "So," the woman said after thinking silently for a while, "didn't your uncle leave a will? What's your name, by the way?" "No, he didn't. My name's Caro." "Carol. Short for what? Caroline or Carolyn?" "Carolina." "Oh. Yes. Carolina. A beautiful name. So you can read and write, right?" "Yes." "And you have nowhere to stay?" "No." The woman sighed and then shook her head. "The world is wicked! So you've been moving around like this for the past one week?" "Yes," Caro replied and suddenly burst into tears. "Oh, poor child. Don't cry, my dear. Don't cry. Everything will be okay," the woman consoled, hugging her and allowing her to sob on her shoulder. Everything till this point had been faked, but when the woman said 'the world is wicked!', the full realization of what her parents had done to her (selling her off without her consent to a man older than her father) really hit home. The world was really wicked. The people who were supposed to care for her ended up selling her off like a slave. She remembered the night her father came back home and simply told her that she would have to be married to 'Iron Fire'. It had taken her a full hour to overcome the shock and when she finally did, she fell to planning her way out of ending up as a wife of that beast of a man. She had been so focused on planning and implementing that she had never really had the time to cry... until now. After she had exhausted her tears, the woman got her a bottle of Coca Cola from her little fridge and urged her to make herself at home while she arranged things around the shop. Caro sat meekly like a dove, sipping from the bottle and stealing sly glances at her surroundings. It pained her that she had to lie to the woman, but she had no other choice. For all she knew, the woman might be an advocate for child marriage or the 'obey your parents at all times' philosophy. For now, the lie would suffice and if the woman made up her mind to assist her long-term, maybe she would get the chance to find out more about her and perhaps trust her enough to tell her the truth. But already, she was feeling impatient. She was not one to not know where she stood at any given time. Was the woman willing to accept her or not? She had to know... now. When she was done with the Coca Cola, she held the empty bottle in both hands and counted from one to ten. Then she stood up. The woman was still busy putting in order her warehouse of a shop. "Thank you very much, ma. I'm very grateful for everything. I think I have to be going now before the sun gets too hot." "Go where?", the woman half-shouted in surprise. "I thought you had nowhere to go?" "Yes, but if I start early, I'll be able to find an uncompleted building t..." "Uncompleted what?! Sit down there! What do you take me for? A demon, like your uncle's wife?" "Ah. No o, ma. But..." "Oh shut up there. Now, listen and listen good. I'll employ you as my sales girl. We'll discuss your salary later, but..." "Don't worry, ma. I'll take anything you gi..." "I said, shut up! Now, what was I saying... Yes. Em... I can't really take you home, my husband will not be very happy with that, so..." "I can sleep in the shop. I swear, I'll not steal anything." "You're testing me, Carolina. If I hear your voice again, I'll prove to you that I'm the daughter of a soldier and the wife of a policeman." "Sorry, ma." "Now, as I was saying... since you can't stay with me, you'll have to stay with my niece... my late sister's daughter. She might give you some trouble at first, but if you're as tough as I think you are, you would be comfortable with each other in no time. So are we clear? Any questions?" "No ma." "Good. So come and help me carry these boxes."