She looked out the window and sighed deeply. Her thoughts weighed down heavily on her. On the busy street below, her eyes followed a water vendor passing by. In the afternoon heat, his shoulders strained visibly under a wooden staff with which he delicately balanced two heavy tin containers of water, one on either side. Beads of sweat ran down his face and neck, disappearing under his shirted torso. His formerly white shirt was now light brown and totally drenched in an admixture of sweat and water and heaven-knows-what-else. The sun blazed mercilessly on the earth as Amaka wondered how similar their circumstances were; the water vendor straining under a physical burden and she under an emotional one.
“This life…” she thought.
She caught a glimpse of her own reflection on the glass window as she stepped back from her favorite viewing post. Instinctively, she moved closer, using the glass as a mirror to inspect her face. She didn’t like what she saw. Worry lines (or whatever they called it) were beginning to appear, she thought. Plus dark sacks under her eyes.
Then, slowly, she began speaking to herself in the makeshift mirror; Expressing her deepest thoughts out loud. She needed to be heard. This had lately become part of her. It was her making her stand about her life and the choices she had to make. She usually found this relieving, if not refreshing, afterwards.
Chinedu interrupted what looked to him like budding insanity. She could see him standing at the door behind her without turning. He had pushed the door slowly and silently open as if hoping to catch her unawares.
“What is it?” she said sternly, addressing the glass window.
Chinedu was half-laughing, having overheard some of her speech.
“Chinedu, what is it?” she bellowed.
The look of amusement left his face immediately.
“Mama is calling you.”
Amaka flew downstairs, remembering she had not prepared lunch.
“This would be the last time I have to remind you to cook lunch or any other meal of the day,” said her mother. “I don’t know the kind of girl you are turning into, but you will surely not spoil in my hands.”
Amaka frowned. It was her mother’s favorite line when she was in a foul mood. She must have used that expression a million times before. And she would still use it again tomorrow – ‘for the last time,’ perhaps.
“That is all I do in this house. Cooking and cleaning…”
Her mother cut in sharply: “And what else do you want to be doing at your age? That is what every young girl your age should be doing in preparation for life in her husband’s house and as a mother. That is what I am raising you to be – a responsible woman.”
Amaka stormed into the kitchen. Her mother’s eyes followed her there, boring through her back as she noisily began her work. The older woman stood there for a while, finally clapping her hands twice in exasperation and walking into the sitting room.
Amaka was in the final year of secondary school and expected to take a series of examinations in just a matter of months. This was going to be a stressful year for her, she thought. Yet all she got from her mother was “Amaka do this, Amaka do that.”
She went upstairs to her room after lunch and sat down by her reading table to do her holiday assignment. Then she thought the better of it, stood up abruptly and lay on her bed. She was too tired after the fight and the meal for any meaningful brain work. That was what she had been trying to tell her mother but she wouldn’t listen. She was lucky that this particular holiday assignment was easy, and decided it could be done in a day, any day, before resumption.
When she woke up, the sun had gone down and it was drizzling lightly. She loved the cool breeze that drifted into her room and the scent of wet soil that usually accompanied it at this time of year. Not to mention the luxuriant, happy green look of the yam tendrils in the backyard which the family planted religiously each year.
But the last harvest was like a funeral. The family wept as they dug up the miserable rotting yams. It surprised her when she thought of it later that she did not sink under the load of despair. She knew she was a fierce fighter.
“My destiny is not in the kitchen or in getting good grades at school and becoming a glorified housewife. I have chosen to make the world a better place as an officer of the law; protecting the weak, restraining the strong, taking up difficult cases, solving crime riddles and making the world a safer place. I will do this no matter the ridicule I face, the obstacles on my way…”
Amaka was back at her favorite spot in her room, talking to her own reflection in the glass window overlooking the street. She had the silence of her room as her only companion; one which wouldn’t judge her on the basis of any stereotypes. She found peace in those silences, especially when Nneka, her elder sister with whom she shared the room, was not present.
A male usher welcomed the family to church. The Uchendus were very religious people. Nnneka, Chinedu, Amaka and their parents walked solemnly in a single file as they were led towards the brightly-lit part of the auditorium next to the choir. Once the usher gestured them to the pews and turned away, Chinedu and Nneka went further to their favorite part of the church. Their parents sat together where they shown. Amaka moved to the side of the pews where she was closest to the choir. She loved it here whenever she was not on traffic duty. It gave her a good view of the choristers in their red robes swaying to the melody of each hymn. It gave her an uplifting sensation.
Her mother often wondered why Amaka didn’t join the choir. She thought every girl her daughter’s age should ‘sing for the Lord’ starting at the choir. Once more, she was disappointed. No matter how melodiously they sang or how gracefully they swayed in worship, she knew she would never have the satisfaction of seeing her second daughter among them.
Instead, Amaka joined the traffic wardens at church! Mama’s shame about her daughter’s choice of ministry was obvious. It made her sad to see her pretty daughter dressed in the unflattering red and yellow jackets of traffic wardens while other teenager girls looked like angels in their Sunday best.
To be continued…
Raluchukwu Anazonwu is currently a Youth Corps member serving in Abuja. He wrote this story over two years ago as a student of Business Administration at Veritas University (The Catholic University of Nigeria) in Abuja. He makes music and writes short stories in his spare time.
