“Not the first time I do two in one night.”
There he go, laughing again, though I didn’t try to be funny. He turn to leave when I say, “Hit me, or Yétúnde, or any of the children and I will kill you.”
“Look at you, the champion,” he say and close the door behind him. He did limp for sure.
* * *
—
So this also happen in the third year, the year where I stop counting years, for a year of moving forward also mean a year of leaving things behind, and the leaving behind feel like accepting fate, the times, cowardice, or just the slow move of days from dawn to dusk to dawn again. So I tell myself as year jump on top of year. But come to pass this do, near the end of Gurrandala, the tenth and second moon, and the first thing I remember was some years back when Yétúnde say to me, A little sicky-sicky is usual business. Morning malady that send me outside to vomit out breakfast, and evening malady that force back out dinner, and strange leaves which only old woman can name that Yétúnde have me eat. She look at me and say, I was starting to think you was one of them ill-equipped women. But see it there, look at what finally come over you.
“You with children,” she say.
“Children?”
“That is what I telling you. This man seed never breed just one.”
The news fill me with dismay, for how I was going to fight man with a bother in me belly. How was I going to fool anybody now that I really am No Name Boy? But it fill me with wonder too. After all, how could something growing in you, with little care for how you feel about it, not make you feel something? I start to sound like Yétúnde, wondering how it take this long to occur. Even Keme take the news with a face that said both Oh? and At last at the same time, which make me wonder if this is how he plan to imprison me. See him here in the welcome room, stretching on cushions and looking at me and my belly, and seeing himself. Seeing this man’s work.
“By the gods, you must be the first woman to see motherhood as a prison.”
“You lock me away inside for the whole spell, so what else I supposed to call it?”
“You could at least pretend this bring you some joy.”
It did bring not joy, but delight. Sometimes. Like those times when I catch myself rubbing my belly and grinning to myself. But it bring fear too, fear of almost everything. Fear of what this birth going to mean for me, and for this child, or children, as Yétúnde keep claiming. It leave me with waking dreams of running and dodging in the donga while two thin babies dangle from my two breasts, holding on with their sucking lips. The children take my swelling belly as some great illness or some massive, nasty bump about to burst, for they avoid me as soon as they wake and head to the mounds, where they play all day.
I know the way of mothers was nine moon, so it frighten me when on the third day of the seventh moon, wetness run out of me down my legs. Outside I stand, watching evening come, shelling peas and wondering if any man at the donga was asking what become of No Name Boy, when a shift happen in me. Shift is all I can call it, for everything that happen to me up till now I know of, or feel before. Every single thing that come next is a new thing and I hate it. I run to Yétúnde, for she is the only person I can tell.
“Go outside and walk around. The real business don’t even start yet,” she say.
She don’t tell me when to stop so I keep walking, and the children, liking any activity, start to walk with me. Later that same morning a horse kick me in my belly, a scorpion sting numb my legs, and a demon hand shove itself into my back, grab ahold of my backhole, and pull. So it feel when this child coming out of me. Children, this wife say to me again, and I scream at her, then say is the pain that make me do it. One everlasting pain that lead me to throw myself off the hill would be better. Better still to cut me open, take it out, and leave me to die. But this pain coming down like assault, then to retreat, only to come back again, make me want to search for Keme and kill him slow. This is when Yétúnde send for a midwife.
“She can’t speak,” is all she say.
Is not true when they say that all that come before the baby you forget after. I still remember the horse-kick pain, and my body screaming to push, and the midwife waving her hands to say not yet, not yet, not yet, and me howling at her, Then when, you shriveled, silent bitch! And I still remember each time Yétúnde and the midwife look at the time glass, then each other, then at the time glass again. And I still remember one of them saying that is not for the man to be here when me scream out for Keme to come so I can kick him in the face and knock out at least two teeth. That make the midwife laugh, but no sound come out of her mouth. Is total dark when Yétúnde shout that I must push for real now, and I scream, What in the fuck you think I was doing before, but my body start push without me. And the top of my belly want to rip open too, and I want to shit out the world, and my knees gone numb in this squat and everything is wet wet wet and red red red. None of this this bitch tell me, not even that moment when you head bout to tell the body to surrender only to see that it surrender long time, and all I can do is huff and puff while a voice that sound like me say, These are the things that must happen to you. I still remember how much I cry in front of this wife, and how she look at me blank like I was giving her a gift that she have no use for. And then one slip out and the mute midwife come at it with a knife and I slump over, but then Yétúnde say, Another one, and I think, Fine, if there is another one, so be it, and then though she don’t say anything more she reach under me to catch two times more.
And one have strong cry that would wake people asleep a day away, the other cry too, not as strong, but nothing coming from the other two and I shout, Is what? Is what? Tell me if they dead, tell me, you silent bitches. And there they go again looking at each other, then at the swaddling cloths.
“Is what?” I shout again.
“Trust the gods,” she say to me.
“I want my children. Give them to me.”
“Rest now, girl. You—”
“Give me my fucking children!”
Yétúnde give the midwife a look and she nod. I am on the floor, trying to sit up. They bring over first two babies all wrap up, one with eyes closed, and the other open but looking all over, for everything is new. Then the midwife bring over the other bundle, but walk so slow that it look like she about to faint. I yell at her again to bring me my children, and she hand the bundle to me. I had to pull it open and even then I nearly drop them.