The young wife

Two hours of the sky crying and little boy street was a bloated road of sticky sand.

Little boy street was a road with sand choking every area, despite the letters written by the district leaders to the local government to tar the road, the road still boasted of tiny sharp crystals that would jump into your slippers without your consent.

Especially with the constant rain. Anytime the sky decided to express its dissatisfaction at being laden with heavy grey clouds, little boy street bore the brunt of the torrent.

The alleys would soak and sop with thick mud that climbed up your Dunlop slippers or if your parents were well to do, your rain boots.

And the outside world was a testament to what was happening inside the building.

The building itself was a square shaped house with 11 rooms.

It had a single flimsy gate standing on sandbanks that had almost been decimated by the constant outpour of affection from the sky. It had no fence... Like a single patch of clothing to cover your breasts but the rest of you was laid bare to public scrutiny.

A public compound, a face me I slap you, such was the name of a building with rooms that faced each other in a long row.

A front entrance where you would walk through the hall to the backyard where women would gather to wash their husbands clothing or young children the dishes.

A big enough Sandy area with green patches of slimy moss, the rain itself giving food to these miniature garden.

A big enough recess area for the children of the compound to play and fight.

Nnenna, like the rest of the children in such a town with red rust roof drowned by dense green patches of foilage, was born in such a house.

In towns where the money flowed as stagnant as the gutters that adorned their streets.

Nnenna was the last child out of three brothers born before her.

A source of succor to her mother. A reason you would come to understand soon.

Her mother, Juliet Adora was just seventeen when her mother had told her one particular day when she had come back from Hawking matches,

"The bus driver down the street likes you. I think it's a good thing because I've never been close to a bus before. I think  it's a thing of pride to be wed to such a man. "

The bus driver was thirty eight but you wouldn't believe it because years down the road and fussing with the Yoruba thugs on the streets of Lagos sapped every bit of youth from his wiry and limp veins.

Her mother continued talking, the girl she was addressing sitting on an upturned mortar, her slack singlet hanging off her dark shoulder from where she had been trying to escape the curious hands of the boys in the town. They had been interested in the pointed swell of her breasts... Juliet had taken too long to develop... It was just last week, the tiny protrusion had poked through her cloth.

"His first wife is dead. She was a dead hole because nothing came out of her. What a waste. But you... I hope will be otherwise."

Then gesturing to the small containers containing a cream used to bleach wrapped in newspapers, she says,

"He even got you some cream for your dirty skin. I've been telling you. You're too dark. Courtesy of your useless father. Why? I was quite the child of the sun, you would think I was white."

With a giddy smile on her face, she stands up from addressing her mute child and then picking up the container to give to her child,

"He paid your bride price... Next week, go to him"

Now Juliet's mother was happy, her husband was dead and her only surviving child had paid her dues after a whole decade of feeding.

She would spend every bit of her sweat and more.

The added bonus was that her daughter's husband was just down the street too. So yes, in time Juliet would learn how to cook rice and cream custard soup and then she would come to eat.

The man, her daughter's husband, drove a bus, a vehicle with eighteen seats collecting money everyday, she was sure her daughter would be swimming in expensive lappas and coral beads.

Her daughter, as was the norm did not say anything. She had... Juliet never recalled a time in her life when she had ever said anything other than yes or no or ok.

Since she had no words to utter, she picked up the container and went inside her shack.

The next week, she was in the square shaped house with its single gate held up right by sand bars.

There was no wedding, no rituals, just an exchange of envelope that had occurred prior to her knowledge of her new lot in life.

Her new husband, a tall fair man with a beard that bore a strong resemblance to a deranged clump of squirrel tails was waiting inside the two rooms building. He was the only tenant with a room and a parlor... The rest had one room to themselves.

The house had one communal kitchen and also every weekend the women scrubbed the toilets and the bathroom which also was public.

At the backyard was a well.

Juliet was brought into the compound at seventeen wearing a gray potato sack and in her left hand a poly bag containing the cream given to her and a shriveled tuber of yam.

Her husband, Rufus, had quickly ushered her inside, away from the prying eyes of the nosy neighbors inside his room.

In the usual fashion of a man with no wife, all he had was a mattress with no bed beam to support.

On the wall, a plank was nailed there to act as a support to his clothes attached to a hanger.

A big box with his little tokens he had accumulated in his life, the parlor had no rug or carpets, but it had chairs fashioned with wood and a red and brown cloth, the design on the chair clothing was a red cloud motif on a black base...

Tiny red clouds floating on a black Sea, a ceiling fan and to Juliet's delight a small box TV with knobs to turn it off or on... A small brown radio and a faded calender.

Just the basic necessities for a bachelor, not too much, not too small, just bare space painted  in a light orange that had begun to grown mold.

A brown cupboard that contained the kitchen utensils stood near the wall in the bedroom and beside it, a big black drum containing water.

"Drop your bag. I'm sure you're hungry. Cook. I have to go for the evening run." Rufus says to her and without so much as a grunt, he turns around and walks away.

She drops her nylon and sits down on the cold hard ground.

Then she waits for her husband to come.