January 2008

The Pink House

By Ola Awonubi

My mother always used to say that we lived on the decent part of the street where the houses had larger yards and cars but smaller families. The other side was for those whose social standing meant that they had no choice but to pack themselves and sometimes their extended families into a rented room and trust God to provide their needs. Such houses might have ten such rooms facing each other in a little bungalow. I was always amazed that little houses could pack so many people into one room but then I was not aware of the ingenuity of the Lagos landlord.

Sandwiched in between these ramshackle houses was a house painted the exact colour of my favourite bubble gum. Its window shutters and doors reminded me of an old woman’s mouth; an odd selection of different colours thrown together like odd shoes. My Dad was an architect and believed that the Town Planning people should pull it down and build a decent house. He said it was an eyesore; a boil on the face of humanity and an absolute monstrosity.

My Father loved big confusing words.

My mother was a governor at my school, a teacher and lay preacher at the local Anglican Church and she believed that the house’s presence on the street was like the serpent in paradise, a cancerous legacy that lay dormant threatening to destroy decent families and ultimately the whole society.

“I don’t know why we stand for it. We complain and complain and the police go and there and say they will deal with them and they go in and never come out. “I was eight years old then and wondered why she felt so strongly about the house across the road but I had long learnt that when children asked questions adults did not want to answer they got sent off to their studies. So I decided to watch the house and make up my own mind.

Our sitting room had large French windows that opened onto the street and let in the noises, the music, laughter that spilled out into the street. I used to spend hours looking out of the window at the pink house and wished I could go inside to see why the place made adults so angry.

About ten to sixteen women lived there. I had counted and even though I didn’t know their names I knew their faces and I had given them all names. There was the dark smiley one I called Fatty, and the tall slim one I called the Mermaid because she always wore her hair in long plaits. I called one the Jackson girl because she wore her hair in a big Afro like the Jackson’s did on their latest album.

There were always visitors coming and going, lots of cars and loud music. Especially in the evening. I asked my mother why they only had male visitors and she sent me off to my books. In the afternoons it was quieter and they did not have many visitors. Except those who my mother said were shameless bachelors. I went to the dictionary to look up both words but could not understand what they meant.

The women who lived there always looked pretty. Their hair would either be pressed straight until it shone or they wore it in a huge Afro with the latest style caftans, short skirts or trousers. There lips were red or sometimes bright pink, the same colour as the house and their eyelids were painted green sometimes blue. Some afternoons they would bring out a radio onto the front veranda and dance to the music. I remember the first time I heard Fela and his Afro-beat, I was ten and I remember the words very clearly.

“If you tell African woman come and dance she go say o she go say I be lady o.” Then they would sway and jiggle, and lose themselves in the drumbeat pointing their heads high and strutting about like society madams. Mother would hiss and tell me to stop watching them but I was always drawn to look across the road even if it got me a slap.

At the peak of the heat the girls would enjoy the cool shade of the big tree that hung over their veranda, sleeping, plaiting hair or just talking. I couldn’t hear what they were saying unless they were shouting but it must have been funny because they always seemed to be laughing. I did catch a couple of them crying one day and I was surprised because they were all so beautiful and had many friends and admirers and couldn’t understand what they had to be sad about.

Mother ran out of pepper for the stew she was making one early evening and she asked me to go down the road to Mama George who sold everything from buttons to Kerosene and get some. I saw the Mermaid getting out of a big dark green car driven by an army man, another older army man his uniform covered with badges of some sort sat at the back. I saw her wave as they drove off but the man did not respond.

I can still remember what she was wearing. A sea-blue caftan embroidered down the front and a pair of white jeans that had gigantic flared bottoms. The painted toes that peeked out of white platform shoes were the same shade as her lips and she had added white beads to her plaits. She watched the car until it disappeared and I could see her eyes fill with tears.

Safely secure in the knowledge that my mother couldn’t see me I asked what was wrong.

She dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t want you talking to me.” The large gold hoops in her ears fascinated me.

“She’s not here so you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand. You are young and have no need to know how this evil world works.”

“What evil has happened to you? Is it that man?”

Her voice lowered as if she was talking to herself. “He wanted to marry me last week. I would have left this terrible place; I would have had a whole house, a car, my own driver and a houseboy to myself. I would have been a big Madam. Now he says he can longer marry me because his wife will not allow him to take another wife. The Bastard. I don’t even know if he will come to see me anymore.”

“How can he marry you if he has a wife?”

She glared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time and hissed. “I must be mad talking to some small girl. You better go on the errand your mother sent you. I don’t want any trouble from any woman accusing me of corrupting her daughter”.

I remembered that my mother had spat on the red sand in front of our veranda before I left and told me to be back before it dried. Not wanting a beating I sprinted off to the shops.

The next and last person I saw cry in that house was the Jackson girl.

My parents had gone to a party and my aunt was looking after me and baby brother so I had the freedom to sit in the sitting room and resume my usual hobby. Several cars were parked outside and people were coming and going as usual. James Brown blared from the loudspeakers and the women were buying peppered chicken, soft drinks and beer from the street traders that set up their wares in front of the house every night.

I saw a car draw up and three people get out. A man and a woman of about my parents age in traditional clothes and a younger man wearing a shirt and trousers. It was strange because I watched the place most days and I never saw any women go in apart from the ones that lived there.

These people marched to the house and knocked on the door. One of the women came to open the door and they pushed past her and went in. Then I heard shouting and screams. Some of the men in the house rushed out, got into their cars and drove off. I saw the Jackson girl run out of the house onto the street screaming, pursued by the younger man who was carrying a big stick.

The middle age woman stood outside the house shouting. “You Jezebels! Spoiling families for money! It is you lot that have corrupted my child. She was a good girl before she came to Lagos! The older woman screamed her hands on her hips. “I will call the police immediately! If they don’t come and shut this den of iniquity down I will burn it to the ground myself! This place is worse than Sodom and Gomorrah!”

My aunt was upstairs with my baby brother so I let myself out of the house, stood at the gate and watched. Already there was a crowd of petty traders, self righteous housewives and jobless youths forming in front of the house. The more educated peered through their curtains and shook their heads.

I could sense this was going to be better than TV.

The older man was holding the younger man with the stick and preventing him going to Miss Jackson who stood at a safe distance, weeping, hands on her head.

“Let me alone old man!” The young man cried, “If not for the respect I have for you I should spit in your face. Are you not ashamed to have fathered such a child! I paid bride price on her head and a week after the engagement she leaves town and runs to Lagos to sell herself. What about the money I paid for her to learn dressmaking, what about the money I gave your family for her dowry eh?”

“I am sorry. Please I use my white hairs to beg you. I’m not too proud to kneel before you; you are like my son...forgive her and take her back. The good book says if you forgive, God will forgive you.”

The young man broke free. “With all due respect how do you think I can take that thing back into my house after she has slept with half of Lagos? The whole town is laughing at me already. Do you think my family can survive any further shame? Let God not forgive me if he likes as from today I am no longer a Christian. Let the ancient laws of our land condemn me if I don’t make her pay every penny back!”

The crowd cheered and supported him.

“Yes sir. Get your money back from the wicked girl!” someone yelled.

“Such a disgrace to her family!” a woman cried.

“She deserves to be stripped naked and made to walk down the street” said one man hopefully.

“Burn the place down – it is a den of iniquity!” one of the housewives screamed.

Miss Jackson had stopped crying and started laughing.” Hypocrites! You condemn me by day and pay homage to me at night. Stupid women – if you were looking after your husbands do you think they would be coming to us.” The crowd quietened and seeing that she had caught their attention she became bolder. “As for him ...” She pointed to the young man. “What do you think made me come to Lagos? It was when I saw him with my elder brother’s wife. Yes. The youngest one. I said to myself he likes her because she has pressed her hair, speaks English and wears nice clothes. I thought to myself - I deserve better than a liar who would betray me with a woman who would sleep with anybody! At least I get paid for it. She jeered and hissed at him.” You had better kill me because it is only my dead body that would follow you back to our village.”

Just as I thought the young man was going to chase after her again I felt someone pull me up by the ear.

“What are you doing outside? You nosy child! If your mother...” My Aunt pulled me inside and sent me off to bed and made sure that the house maid kept me there. I was annoyed at missing the rest of the drama and when she came up a long time later to check on us- I just had to ask before I fell asleep. “Who is Jezebel?”

“Go to sleep and stop asking questions.” She sighed.

“So what happened outside?” I could not see her face because the light was dim but I heard her sigh.

“The police came but they were too late. Now go to bed.”

The next morning I woke up and saw that the palace had been boarded up and the girls were sitting outside with their suitcases and bags. Some were crying.

“Why are they going?”

My mother’s eyes were strangely red. Her voice heavy.

“It’s a sad story child. The whole street wanted them to go- well at least we women did but not in these circumstances. Apparently one of the girls died last night. Her fiancé came to get her and when she refused to go back with him he stabbed her many times until she died.”

I couldn’t sleep for days after that.

Some people on the street said that at night they kept seeing a girl with a huge Afro sitting on the veranda plaiting her hair and singing a Fela song. I was scared and made sure that I never ran errands that would take me past the empty house after sundown.

Soon after, they pulled the place down and built a house like ours there. My father was happy that the Town planners had finally seen sense and done the right thing. All that was needed now was for all the other houses on that side of the street to be taken down as well. Then the street would be decent for all good people.

My mother, well when I got into my teens a few years later she got extra strict and said if she even saw me talking to a boy she would kill me.

“That’s what probably got that girl along that terrible path. Her mother wasn’t strict enough. Well I won’t make that mistake”. She would tell me as she brandished a cane. Through all the tough years that accompanied growing up I often thought of the girls in the pink house fondly even when I understood what they had really been up to. I wondered where the other ones had gone, especially the Mermaid and wondered whether she had got her man, her big house along with cook, maid and driver in the end.

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