Sarah leaned forward and caught Jess’s hands, bringing her closer. “ Kilo de?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”
Jess tipped her head to the side and peeped shyly at Sarah from under her eyelids. The sun had struck her irises liquid gold again. She took a deep breath.
“Ko si nkan-nkan,” she replied at length, capturing the accent and even the lift in tone perfectly.
Ebun, Tope and Bose crowed in delight. “It’s nothing! She said, ‘It’s nothing!’ ”
Sarah nearly fell off her chair in bewilderment. “That’s wonderful!” she cried, once she’d taken a second to recover herself. “What else can you say? Go and say something to your father!”
She could just imagine Daniel’s face; his nine-year-old daughter picking up a language in minutes. It was so strange, though! But maybe Jess had picked up more language than she had been aware of on the last visit. Jess nodded at her suggestion, but first moved across the kitchen and climbed onto Aunty Funke’s lap.
“Aunty Funke, ẹ joo, mo fẹ akara,” Jess said to her aunt, who had a hand over her heart and was laughing fit to burst.
“Of course you can have akara!” Funke told Jessamy, before darting a triumphant look at Sarah and adding: “I have beans ready frozen!”
“Hah! But Jessamy, where is Iya Oyinbo?” Biola teased Jess, as Daniel came into the kitchen, sleepily rubbing the back of his head, to find out what all the commotion was about.
Before Sarah could explain properly, her father added his part to the enquiry.
“Ah-ah! Is there a party? Are musicians coming to town, or what is it?” Gbenga called grumpily from the kitchen doorway. No one had heard him coming. His steel-grey hair was flattened to his head, and he had a red-and-yellow towel wrapped with a thick loop around his waist, cutting off the rough shirt that he slept in so that it bulged outwards. Jessamy slid off Funke’s lap and crawled quietly under the table as everyone in the room strove to be the first to tell him.
“I taught Jess Yoruba,” Ebun said, proudly, pushing Tope when she disagreed, clamouring, “No, I did, I did!”
Jess’s grandfather moved into the kitchen, and Biola vacated her chair, which was nearest to the door, so that he could sit down. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Eh-heh, so you taught Wuraola Yoruba. Let her come and talk to her grandfather then!”
“Good point. Where is she?” Daniel asked, leaning heavily on the back of Sarah’s chair as he yawned.
The cousins looked at each other, nonplussed, but Sarah bent a little in her chair as her eyes swept the darkness under the table set against the wall; she could see Jess’s bright eyes peering watchfully at her.
“Hmmm,” she said, motioning to Funke to pull her daughter out from under there, which she did with difficulty due to Jess’s subdued protestations and struggle.
“Ah-ah! What’s wrong with you?” Funke asked, presenting Jess to her grandfather. He watched her calmly, his chin in his hands.
“Fi mi silẹ, Baba Gbenga, fi mi le, ẹ joo,” Jess moaned faintly, still writhing in Funke’s firm grip, before Gbenga had even said anything. She fell silent when he started back in his chair and then looked around the room at everyone — at Ebun, who was saying, “Ha! I hadn’t even taught her that yet,” and at Sarah, who was now mystified and slightly uneasy, and even at Daniel, who was gazing at Jess with mixed pride and concern. Then he stood up and shook a finger at Jess with an expression of anger crossing his face, one familiar to Sarah (You this girl! I know what to do for you!) and left the room, hastily retying his towel as it began to slip around his hips. Sarah had to hold herself down in her seat to prevent herself from running after him, propelled by her sudden, unjustifiable but implacable fear that he was going to fetch his belt (Ah he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, not to his granddaughter?) and when she looked around at Biola and Funke, she saw with part relief and part dismay that she wasn’t the only one who was forcing herself to stay still.
“Why did you tell your grandfather to leave you alone, now?” Funke was asking Jess, holding on to her shoulders and looking keenly into her face.
“We never talk to our elders like that, Jessamy,” Biola added, as Tope, Bose and Ebun fled, giggling, to spread the word to the other cousins. “It looks as if Iya Oyinbo has not gone too far away after all—”
Sarah couldn’t restrain herself any longer and hurried out of the kitchen to knock on her father’s bedroom door.
“Eh,” he said, by way of an invitation for her to enter. She opened his door to find that he had speedily dressed, Western-style in brown, belted trousers and a white shirt and was now putting his shoes on. He grunted but didn’t say anything when he saw her, instead picking up his wallet from the dresser and putting it into the pocket of his trousers. She spoke to him in English, trying to calm him down. He looked impassive, but his movements told her that he was agitated. Why?
“Daddy. Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
“Daddy—”
“Why are you asking me where I am going? Are you now my parent, or what is it?”
“I just—”
“I am not old enough for those roles to change, Bisi. O ya, move aside.”
She trembled, but stayed where she was, and he drew back in disbelief.
“I don’t want you to be angry with my daughter. I don’t know what’s the matter with her, but. .”
“Bisi.”
“Daddy!”
“Where is your daughter?”
“Daddy, what do you mean?”
“Bisi.”
“Daddy?”
“I said, where is your daughter?”
She knew better than to answer “in the kitchen”—his temper was beginning to sound clear in his voice. She hovered in front of him, buying time.
“I’m going to find Iya Adahunse,” he said.
“Iya Adahunse! Why?” Disbelief rang high and loud in Sarah’s voice.
“For Wuraola.”
“For—?”
“Who’s Iya Adahunse?” Daniel said from behind Sarah, stumbling awkwardly over the name. Sarah didn’t look at him, maintaining fierce and steady eye contact with her father as she tried to understand his concern.
“She’s. . kind of. . traditional. . like a sort of medicine woman.”
Daniel paused.
“What d’you mean, traditional? D’you mean a witch doctor?” he asked, turning Sarah around to face him. His expression was incredulous, his eyes thinning to blue-green slits as he looked at her askance.
Sarah didn’t reply but tried to twist out of his grip as she reached out to her father, who had by now strode out of his room and was heading purposefully down the stairs. She was conscious of Biola and Funke standing in the kitchen, unsure whether or not to intervene.
“A witch doctor? My daughter isn’t having anything to do with a witch doctor,” Daniel insisted, now letting go of Sarah and starting after Gbenga. “Jesus, what’s going on? She learns a bit of Yoruba and now she needs to see a witch doctor?” he shouted after Sarah’s father.
“Don’t follow me!” Gbenga warned him loudly.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is something that you know anything about. Bisi, warn your husband, oh! Warn him not to follow me!”
“Don’t you warn me! I’m warning you! You’re insane! INSANE! One minute you’re telling her to think on Jesus and the next you’re calling a witch doctor!”