“Then I woke up. The sun was shinning high. I was feeling very weak. I tried to get down from where I was lying and I screamed. The pain from my virgina was terrible. I fell then I looked. Some one has put on me a strange underwear and pampers like a baby. The whole thing was soaked in blood. I fainted”.
It was later that night that Mama Shade explained to me that I had been circumcised. Our husband demanded it and ordered it. My permission or knowledge of it is not necessary.
“Why? I had asked. Why has this terrible thing been done to me?”
“It is the law of the land’ the older wife had tried to explain”.
“But why such a law, it is not good’ I had insisted”.
“Oh, well, the men say that an uncircumcised woman is always feeling very sexually charged and therefore very promiscuous. As they want to be sure that all their children who will inherit their property and also their names are really theirs, they circumcise women”.
“I couldn’t believe it”.
“It was a week after this horrible thing that the old man started asking me how I was recovering. I had thought it was out of genuine concern for my health, but I was soon proven wrong.
The day I told him I was alright, that night he was on me. From that day onward, the old man did not allow me a night’s peace. If I refuse or complain, he will beat me cruelly”
They have come out of Anja’s car and were walking in the park. Then they sit on the park chair. Osareme continues with her story.
“I had been in this old man’s house for about three months the day auntie Vera came. Auntie Vera is the younger sister to Mama Shade. She has just come back from Europe where she lives. She seemed to be a very rich woman. She wears expensive clothes and costly jewelry all over her. Her ears, neck, hand and fingers and legs and she drives a big car”.
“It was I that Mama Shade had told to serve her food that afternoon. One time when I was alone with her, she had seen the bruises on my arm and face and had demanded to know what happened. I told her it was nothing. I was ashamed to tell anyone, especially a stranger of my unhappy life story. She however insisted, and wanted to know if it is Pa Osunde who is doing this to me. I shrugged, it doesn’t matter”.
“Then the woman became very insistent. Her eyes were shinning. I was nervous at her interest in me”.
“Look, you are a young girl, the woman had said, how can you want to stay here and be married to a dirty old man that is old enough to be your grand father. I can take you away from here if you want. I can take you to Europe”.
“At that time I showed some interest”.
“You will like to run away to Europe, won’t you”.
“Is Europe very far, will Pa Osunde come there to catch me?”
The woman had laughed.
“You don’t worry my dear he can not come to Europe to do anything to you. You are safe there. And by the time you come back here again you will be far richer than the stupid old man, you can buy him and his entire compound just like that”. She snapped her fingers.
“What do you want me to do? I asked her”.
“Tomorrow in the evening around six o’clock, pretend as if you are going to the out house, then slip into the bush and make your way to the highway intersection. I will be there waiting. You will see my car”.
I nodded.
“And my dear, better not tell anyone about this okay. I nodded again, and did as she said.
She picked me up in her Mercedes car and we drove that night to the big city”.
“All through the drive she had only asked, ‘You did not tell any one did you?”
