What happened to me is not my fault.
I came to live with Aunty when my mother’s sister, who was the one looking after me, died. This aunty I am talking about, I mean the one I came to live with is not my aunty by blood, she is a woman that I met while working at our canteen. She was good to me. She would leave me her change after she finished eating. You know, some customers would say, “give me my change, don’t let me forget it,” but this Aunty Vero would tell me, “take the change.”
One day, she saw me crying in the backyard of the canteen. My madam had used burning firewood to beat me because one customer reported that I did not give him his change. I didn’t even remember the man. He said he came to our canteen the week before and I deliberately let him forget his change.
I denied it because I did not even remember seeing him. We have plenty of people who come to eat and many times, I try to give them their change, sometimes, they forget, and sometimes they remember.
So, my madam beat me. She called me a thief trying to make her lose her customers.
That day, when Aunty was leaving after eating her food, she came to meet me behind the canteen. Maybe she heard my madam beating me and she must have heard me crying because I was loud.
That’s how come, whenever she came to eat at the canteen, she would give me extra money, sometimes, N200 or N500. Then one day she gave me N1000. She said I could come and live with her. I could not immediately because I was then still living with my mother’s sister. Later, my mother’s sister died. She fell from okada and the injury was plenty and she later died because of the injury at the general hospital.
I could not pay the one room rent we stayed at and so, when the aunty came, I told her that I would like to come and live with her.
She gave me her address and that’s how I found her and began to live with her and her husband.
Yes, she has a husband.
I did not know until that day.
You will not believe that very night that I came into their house. They live in a room and parlour but they don’t have children. I slept in the parlour. That very night. Maybe around 2 am or so, because I got up to ease myself outside. Their toilet is down the corridor where everyone on that floor used. I came back to the parlour; the husband was there.
He put his finger on his lips meaning I should not talk. He held my neck and told me he would kill me if I talked or shouted. He raped me that very night. I am not saying I was a virgin, no. I am 23 years old and I am not a virgin but this kind of thing should just not happen to you like that.
After he did it, he said, “if you tell Vero, you will die. If you tell anybody, you will die like your aunty.”
Tell me, what was I to do?
I had no one to turn to. This Aunty Vero is the only one who had been good to me apart from my aunty who died.
I did not know what to do. The following day, I got up, cleaned the parlour and wanted to go and take my bath. There were many people already in the queue at the bathroom side, I dropped my bucket and went back into the parlour, I had tied a wrapper on my chest to go and take my bath.
Will you believe that this man came out of the bedroom, his wife was there and he began to touch me? I was trying to avoid him, and he told me I should not forget he could kill me or send me out of the house even with Aunty Vero. He said he would send both of us out of the house.
Aunty Vero was kind to me, why would I bring trouble on her head? So, I made up my mind to leave the house and go and find another place because if the man could do this to me on the very first day, then, he would be doing it every day.
You will not believe, when he went out, maybe to use the toilet or whatever, Aunty came out and told me, I should not worry, that whenever her husband comes to me, I should allow him…I was shocked because I didn’t even know that she knew!
I had to leave their house after almost one week. I stayed for that long because I couldn’t find anyone who would help me with accommodation. I endured one week of this useless man coming to me every night…I cried every night, too.
Then one of the girls that worked at the canteen with me said I could come and stay with her, but she was living with her boyfriend. I said I did not want to go because they were living in one room. But she said they would put a curtain and I would be ok.
I was surprised because, I mean, did she trust her man that much?
But if she trusted him, then I should try it.
I went to stay with her.
True, it was one room but it was even bigger than Aunty’s own. And they put a curtain to demarcate the room. The only thing with this arrangement is when my friend and her boyfriend are “doing” their thing, I hear everything!
Things were ok for some time until after like two months or so, I felt dizzy.
I thought it was just malaria and on my way from work that day with my friend, I asked her to stop with me so I could buy malaria drugs at the chemist.
As for Aunty Vero, I did not see her again!
Anyway, I stopped and bought the drugs, thinking I would take them and be well.
I was not well. The dizziness did not go.
No, I did not vomit, and I did not even have any kind of unusual sickness. Just dizziness. When I went back to the chemist three days later, he said maybe it was having malaria and typhoid combined, so he gave me stronger medicine. But I was not feverish, you know, no headache or any such thing.
I felt a little better and was still working at the canteen. You know you can’t be dizzy if you are turning amala or pounding yam or cooking over an open fire…ehen, if you fall into hot soup…ha!
Then one day, we were cooking, and I suddenly vomited!
The smell of ogbono just turned my stomach.
Everybody thought it was the typhoid still worrying me. But my madam dragged me aside, she looked at me, pressed my stomach and said, “You don carry belle!”
I said, “No ma.”
She slapped me, twai, she said again, “Who gi you belle?”
That was when it came to me, I was carrying Aunty Vero’s husband’s child! But my stomach was still looking flat.
That horrible man! Me carry belle for him! God forbid bad thing!
I didn’t say anything about Aunty Vero’s husband. I just told my madam that I was not pregnant. She said, “Ok, weda you carry belle or not, nine months, we go know.”
My friend, too, was surprised. I mean the one I was living with. She asked me, “you get boyfriend wey I no sabi?”
That was when I then told her everything about how Aunty Vero’s husband raped me.
She was very angry and wanted us to go and report at the police station.
I said, “who dem go believe me or the man… tell dem say e happen three months ago? Biko, leave am.”
Then she asked if I wanted to keep it, I said, “keep what? God forbid.” We went to the chemist guy and told him what we wanted, to remove the pregnancy.
He said I should go to one lab to do a test first. After the test, he said it was too late to do anything, and that I had to keep it.
I said, No. I will not keep this one. Even my friend became afraid, she said, “maybe if you try to remove it, you will die. Why not have the baby and take it to those motherless homes, just drop it in a carton and leave it there. They will carry it”.
And that is what we were planning to do when Aunty Vero surfaced again. She said she wanted to buy my baby. She said she would take care of the baby. But I didn’t want to give them my child. I didn’t want the child to have a horrible man like her husband as a father. I told her the pregnancy was for another person. Even so, she kept calling, kept sending messages and I kept saying, no, no, no.
It was a hard one for me because by the time my stomach began to show and I felt the baby kicking, I fell in love with it. I began to attend antenatal at General.
After I gave birth to the baby, I now realised I did not want to give him up. He was a fine-looking baby.
I took care of him for like three months but I could not do much. You know. He fell sick and would not take breast milk again. He was always crying and my friend, I know she tried for me, she told me I had to go because the baby was always crying and disturbing them.
That’s why I put him in a cartoon and dropped him at the orphanage on the way to my canteen one day. I watched from afar to see the gateman open the gate and carry the carton inside. I knew my baby would be safe.
I knew they would take better care of him than Aunty Vero and her husband.
Yes, that’s what I did.