Today's Story - Untouched

I should be about fifteen when Paul came to live
with us.
My mother said he was from Ukpo, but he didn’t
speak Igbo like them. That their colliding accent,
each word knocking off the other before it was fully
out.
Paul was hardworking. I know this because my
mother said it one afternoon. Not to him, but to
her friend, Aunty Caro.
Aunty Caro was slim with a confusing skin color;
yellow in some places, brown in others and in a
few places very dark.
My mother called her ihu Fanta - okpa Coke [Fanta
face – Coke legs]. I wonder why they had
remained best friends. My mother hardly said
anything nice about her. I seriously doubt too, that
Aunty Caro in my mother’s absence said good
things about my mother.
Or just maybe that was what had sustained their
relationship all the while—they needed each other,
someone to pick apart whenever they are alone.
Many house-helps have gone before Paul came;
Nkechi, Etim, Ezekiel. Neither of them had stayed
more than six months.
I never imagined Paul would stay the full year he
did.
Nkechi slept a lot, and my mother always shouted
at her, demanding to know if she has become
pregnant. It was as though my mother knew that
she’d definitely become pregnant one day when
she came to live with us.
‘No, Aunty,’ Nkechi would say. ‘I am not pregnant,
Ma. I am still a virgin.’
‘Ive!’ my mother would say. ‘If they call virgins
now, you will come out, abi?’
One afternoon, my mother caught Nkechi sleeping
again. This time in the kitchen. She sat on the low
stool before the big mortar, her head resting on the
tall pestle as she snored. Beside her, the soup pot
was chanting away on the green stove.
‘Again?!’ my mother screamed. ‘Nkechi, again?’
That evening, she gave Nkechi N500 to go back
home. ‘Tell your mother I will come and see her
later,’ my mother told her.
‘It must have been this street boys,’ my mother
said after Nkechi left. She turned to face me. ‘You
must be wise,’ my mother told me. ‘Don’t ever let
any of these fools walking about the street touch
you, do you hear me?’
I nodded, but I didn’t understand well. ‘Mummy?’ I
called.
My mother turned back to me.
‘Will I get pregnant if a man touched me?’ I asked.
My mother stared at me with the corners of her
mouth depressed. ‘ Nwa, I bu anu—you are a goat,’
my mother said. ‘Come on, run inside, eneke!’
I walked into the house.
But we never heard that Nkechi has put to bed, or
that her stomach has swollen. We would have. It
was Aunty Caro that had brought her, and she is
far too loquacious not to mention of Nkechi’s
delivery to my mother, if it had happened.
It was also Aunty Caro that brought Ezekiel.
I was still getting to know him when my mother
sent him home. ‘He is just too lazy!’ my mother
told Caro. ‘His oyibo too much. Can you imagine
he washes my plates with his nose wrinkled,
plates he ate with, inukwa !’
Caro was humming and hey’ing.
The much I knew about the quiet boy the few days
he stayed was that he seemed to like his books. A
lot.
Etim came after him. He was tiny and spoke a
language I did not understand. He never really
liked me. I sensed this right from the very first day
he arrived.
He was looking prepared that evening, like he was
sure I was just another spoilt kid ready to order
him around.
My mother sent him away after he slapped me the
third time.
It took many months for another to come.
Paul.
He was different. Special.
He was tall and strong. He pounded fufu like fufu
should be pounded. My mother would touch the
smooth white mass in the bowl and nod fully.
‘ Nnaa, deme!’
Paul would smile. He strangely looked handsome
with his jutting front teeth.
Paul was also careless, with his body parts. He
wore skimpy shorts and most often walked about
the house shirtless.
I liked to stare at his broad chest, square
shoulders, vein-streaked arms and partitioned
thighs.
My mother screamed at him whenever she saw
him to go and pull something on, but he never
really listened.
Once, he dozed off on the long couch in the sitting
room with his third leg poking out. I stared at the
strange organ, long, thick and dark.
Very dark and surrounded by hairs that were even
darker.
I was tempted to go touch it.
I shut my eyes briefly and drew in a long breath.
Then I walked close to him. I had stretched my
hand to touch it when I heard noises at the gate.
‘Paul!’ my mother called. ‘Paul, where are you!
Come and carry these things!’
I tapped Paul gently at the shoulder. He rose with
a start. He saw his exposed organ and sprang up
to his feet.
‘Sorry, Madam,’ he said.
I stared at him as he rushed out to help my
mother, wondering what he was apologizing for.
That evening, I knocked on his door. He opened
the door and let me in. ‘Madam, what can I do for
you?’ he asked.
I was staring at him. I wanted nothing. ‘Nothing,’ I
said.
‘Nothing?’ I saw how stupid that might have
sounded on his face.
‘Ok, since you don’t want anything, can I go back
and sleep now?’
‘Yes, yes, sure.’ I left his room.
Two days after, Paul was in the kitchen fixing late
dinner. My mother had sent him to Onitsha in the
afternoon and he returned late, all drenched in
rain.
I walked into the kitchen and asked if he needed
anything.
‘No,’ he said.
He looked uneasy in my presence. Maybe because
I was wearing a short gown that stopped at my
thighs.
‘But I want to help you,’ I said. ‘You just came
back from Onitsha and I know you must be very
tired.’
‘No, Ma, I am not tired,’ he said. ‘I am just cold.’
‘The rain, abi ?’
He nodded. He was turning the eba faster than
normal.
I came close to him and he drew slightly back.
‘Please,’ he said.
I did not understand. He appeared to be shaking.
I wanted to touch him and he backed away. The
spatula fell from his hand. He quickly picked it.
The kitchen door swung open suddenly. My
mother walked into the kitchen. ‘ Nwokem , be fast
with that, wont we eat?’
She turned to me. ‘And you, what are you doing
here?’
‘I came to drink water,’ I lied.
Later that night, Paul knocked on my door to tell
me that the table was set.
‘I want to eat here,’ I said.
‘You want to eat in your room, Madam?’
‘Yes.’
I knew my mother might not agree, but soon
afterwards Paul knocked on the door again.
I opened it and he walked in with a tray.
He dropped my food on the table beside the
standing fan. ‘Has Mummy eaten?’ I asked.
‘She is sleeping already and I cannot wake her,’ he
said. He was hasty.
I caught him at the door. ‘You, what is wrong with
you?’ I asked him.
He put on a tiny smile. ‘Madam, how?’
‘Why do you suddenly start shaking in my
presence?’
‘Ha, shaking kwa ?’
‘Yes, you know what I am talking about.’
He was silent.
‘Tell me why.’
‘Madam, please allow me go. I am cold and feeling
somehow.’
I blocked the door. ‘Not until you tell me.’
I heard him take in air. And then he held me close
and planted his lips into mine.
I quickly took away his hands on me and held him
instead. I drew him to my bed. I beneath him, he
did so many things to me that night, things that
made to twist and turn uncontrollably.
But I never allowed his hands to touch me.
The next morning, Paul and I shared a smile as he
walked into the sitting room. My mother caught
us.
She eyed me, but said nothing.
When I came back from school the next day, Paul
was gone.
I asked my mother why.
‘He broke a plate and I asked him to go,’ my
mother said.
‘You sent him away because he broke a plate?
How many plates do we have in this house that
you have to send him away because of a mere
broken plate?’
‘Why are you so disturbed?’ my mother asked.
‘What did you say when Ezekiel, Nkechi or Etim
was leaving?’
I was silent.
‘I see you two were becoming very close. I have to
send him away before he touches you,’ my mother
said.


Translation:

Ihu Fanta - okpa coke = Fanta face – Coke legs
Ive! = An exclamation of disbelief
Nwa, I bu anu = This child, you are an animal
Eneke = An ugly African bird with wide ears
Deme = Good job!
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