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MY father always beat my mother, especially late in the night when he returned from his ritual visits to nearby pub or brothel. He would come home reeking of strong gin and cigarette. His gaits were always staggering at those moments, and his talks, nonsensical.

‘‘Nwanna, you have slept with those girls again?’’ My mother’s voice would tear through the stillness of the night, and our neighbours’ ears would become alert, waiting for the next action: the hot slap and beating from my father, and my mother’s screams. ‘‘Look at how you’re smelling.’’ My mother would seize her breath to keep off the pungent smell.

I and our last born, Ifedi, would be awake(we are the only light sleepers among our siblings), waiting for the worst to happen, while the others slept heavily, oblivious of the impending horror.

Sometimes, I wished I would be a heavy sleeper like they, so that I would escape those traumatic moments. Even though I was not the actual victim of my father’s bully, I was, and am, a victim. Whatever hurts you makes you a victim of it, notwithstanding that you didn’t receive any physical injury or pain. In fact, while the physical pains and injuries subside, emotional pains haunt you all the days of your life.

Tawai! Tawai! My father’s rough palms, which came as a result of his long job as a concrete mixer, landed on my mother’s cheeks twice, and she let out a shrieking cry.

My father did not stop there. He pounced on my mother, almost falling down, and punched her all over her bodies as if she were a punching bag. I wished I could help my mother, the only person that cared whether we ate or not, bathed or not, wore clothes or not.

Neighbours streamed into our house, like they usually did, and stopped the deadly attack. Sometimes, I pitied them for always being deprived of their peace in the neighborhood by my father’s constant bully. Sometimes I thought they would get tired and stop intervening, but they never did. Perhaps, it was because of my mother’s endearing attitude that made them vow to always save her from my father’s jaws of death.

This bully continued until, one day, one of our neighbours, Ejike, was forced to beat my father up. My mother reprimanded Ejike for his unsolicited action, and this surprised our neighbours. They all retired to their homes.

The next day, while we waited for my father to come home and see if he would still repeat his action, a man came and told us that my father had been killed by a harlot, because he refused to pay for ‘services’ rendered to him, and that his body was lying there.

My mother wept so much that I feared that she might not survive the sorrow. Her action was strange considering the fact that my father always bullied her. But my mother would always say that that was not the man she married. The man she married died when my father started visiting pubs and brothels. An angel becomes a demon when it visits a coven constantly for the purpose of learning their craft! So, my mother reminisced on their sweet moments of yesteryears and was always ready to forgive my father for his actions.

★

Though eleven years old, I look like a sixteen-year old girl, with protuberant breasts and large buttocks. My mother always said that I had a rapid growth. And so, men hovered around me like flies hover around dungs, and took advantage of my vulnerability.

It was on a rainy Sunday, while I was hawking the wraps of guinea fowl eggs that my mother had asked me to sell, that a red Toyota car screeched to a halt beside me, and two men in dark glasses jumped down and carried me into the car, my tray of guinea-fowl eggs crashing to the ground, like a kite or a hawk would carry its prey.

Next, I saw myself inside a dark room and on a bed. I didn’t and still don’t know where I am. But I heard screaming voices shouting that the pain was too much, that they were too young to bear the pain. Those screams reminded me of my mother’s scream each time my father beat her, but there was a distinct dissimilarity: what I could here were voices of young girls, and not those of women!

God! Where am I? What are these men up to? I wondered within myself.

My thought was cut short when a heavily-built woman came in the company of the bespectacled men who had whisked me away.

For a moment, my vision was blurred as the rays of light that streamed in through the door that was left ajar landed on my eyes.

‘‘Hmm.’’ The heavily-built woman nodded and smirked. ‘‘She’s sweet. She will make a good market.’’

At first, I didn’t understand what she meant by that, because I couldn’t see how I looked like a commodity that could be sold. But, in less than thirty minutes, everything was clear to me: I was brought here to be used as a sex object!

A man in only a pair of shorts walked in, his crotch bulging under his shorts, his eyes on my chest, probably sizing his ‘prey.’

To be continued…

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