THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Chapter 13: The Bricklayer

Morning came to No. 7 Chief Wopara Street with the sound of a wheelbarrow.

It was 6:40 a.m. The security light had just gone off. The cement before the weathered façade was still cool, holding the night's quiet. Amara was awake in Room 5, the ring on her finger catching the early light, the emerald dress still on its mannequin, now joined by the white dress she had worn the evening before.

She had not slept much. Not from worry, but from a fullness that made sleep feel unnecessary.

Outside, a voice called.

"Papa! Good morning, sir! The sand don—" The man stopped himself, cleared his throat. "The sand has arrived, sir."

Amara rose and opened her door.

Chief Wopara was already in the corridor, in his grey kaftan, his Bible not in his hand this time but a measuring tape. Beside him stood a lean man in a faded blue shirt and dusty trousers, his cap folded into his pocket, his feet covered in sand. Behind them, by the gate, was a tipper half-unloaded, its mound of sharp sand spilling onto the edge of the compound like a small hill.

That was the bricklayer — Pa Jonah.

He was not young. His hair was cut low and grey at the sides, his hands lined with years of cement. He had built three houses in Woji, and the fence of St. Jude, and the small extension behind Mama Nkechi's Room 1 where she kept her grinding stone.

"You are early, Jonah," Chief Wopara said.

"A man who wants to build before the rain must come before the sun, Chief," Pa Jonah replied, smiling, his teeth white against his dark skin.

Chinedu emerged from Room 4, still in his singlet, his eyes sleepy. When he saw the sand, his face woke completely.

"Papa, you called him already?"

"I called him at 5:30 a.m.," Chief Wopara said. "He said if I am serious about building by the mango tree, we must start today. The rains will come heavily in two weeks. The foundation must be set."

Amara stepped out fully, her wrapper tied neatly, her hair covered with a simple scarf. Pa Jonah looked at her, then at the ring.

"Ah," he said, with a nod that held understanding. "So this is the designer. The keeper of the white wall. Chief has told me. He said you will need a shop fronting the road, and a workroom behind, and a window high enough for light but not for looking in."

Amara felt heat rise to her cheeks, not from shyness, but from being spoken of as though she already belonged to the house's future.

"Good morning, sir," she said, her voice quiet.

"Good morning, my daughter," Pa Jonah said. "Do not call me sir. Call me Pa Jonah. I built your husband's room when he was still crawling. Now I will build your shop."

Chinedu glanced at Amara at the word husband. She did not correct Pa Jonah.

Chief Wopara unrolled the sketch he had shown the night before — the same rough drawing of No. 7, with a small rectangle behind the mango tree, marked in blue biro.

"Here," he said, pointing with his measuring tape. "The mango tree will remain. We will not cut it. The shop will start two meters from its trunk, so the roots will not disturb the floor. The front will face Chief Wopara Street, with a small veranda. Customers will not need to enter the compound. The back will have a door into the compound, so she can enter without walking on the road."

Amara listened, her heart steadying with each measurement spoken aloud. It was not an abstract promise anymore. It was meters, cement, sand, blocks.

"How many blocks, Pa Jonah?" Chief Wopara asked.

"For a room of this size — twelve by ten, with a shop front of six by eight — we will need four hundred blocks, if we use six inches. Cement — thirty bags for foundation and walls, ten more for plastering. Iron rods for lintel. Wood for roofing. Zinc —"

"Write it," Chief Wopara said, handing him a small notebook.

Pa Jonah wrote, his handwriting slow, careful, the handwriting of a man who measures twice.

While they spoke, Mama Nkechi emerged from Room 1, her wrapper tied, a kettle in her hand.

"Chief, you did not tell me you were building today. I would have made pap."

"You will make pap tomorrow, Mama. Today, let the work start."

By 8:00 a.m., the compound of No. 7 had become a building site.

The students from Room 3 carried blocks from the roadside seller. Chinedu, now dressed in an old polo shirt and shorts, pushed the wheelbarrow with sand. Chief Wopara supervised, his kaftan tied up at the knees, his measuring tape never leaving his hand. Even Mama Nkechi swept cement dust from the corridor with a serious expression, as if dust were an intruder.

Amara stood at first by her door, watching, unsure where to place herself in this new order. She was not yet wife. She was not still just tenant. She was something in between — a woman for whom a wall was being built.

Then Pa Jonah called to her.

"My daughter, come. You are the owner of this shop. Tell me — where do you want your window?"

Amara walked to the patch behind the mango tree, where Pa Jonah had marked the foundation with pegs and string. The earth was soft, dark, recently cleared of weeds. The mango tree above cast dappled shade, its leaves rustling.

She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined — not House 14, not Room 5, but a shop. A cutting table in the middle. Her mannequin by the window. A shelf for fabrics. A small chair for customers. Light falling from a high window, onto emerald, onto ivory, onto white.

"There," she said, pointing to the north side, where the morning light would come. "The window should be there. High, like you said, so the light will fall on the table, but no one can look directly in while I am fitting."

Pa Jonah nodded, impressed.

"You know light. Good. A designer who knows light will never sew a crooked hem."

He moved a peg, shifted the string.

"And the door to the compound — here?"

"Yes," Amara said. "So I can go from Room 5 to the shop without passing the front."

"And the veranda?"

"Small. Just enough for two chairs. So Mama Nkechi can sit when she brings me tea."

Chief Wopara smiled behind them.

"Write that too, Jonah. Two chairs on the veranda for Mama Nkechi."

By noon, the foundation trench had been dug — shallow, neat, rectangular, following the strings. Chinedu was in it, his polo shirt dark with sweat, helping Pa Jonah lay the first course of blocks, his hands covered in mortar.

Amara watched him from the shade of the mango tree. This was a new sight — Chinedu not in his office shirt, not in his father's blue suit, but in dust, building.

He looked up and saw her.

"Amara, is it straight?" he called, half-joking, half-serious.

She walked to the edge of the trench and looked down. The blocks were not yet perfectly aligned — one was slightly tilted — but his hands were trying.

"It will be straight," she said softly, so only he could hear. "Because you are holding it."

He smiled, his face smeared with cement, and adjusted the block.

At 2:15 p.m., Chief Wopara called for a break. Mama Nkechi had made jollof rice, and it was shared in the corridor — Chief, Pa Jonah, Chinedu, the students, Amara — all eating from plastic plates, the mound of sand behind them, the foundation trench open like a promise in the earth.

"This is how houses are built in Woji," Chief Wopara said, eating slowly. "Not with big money at once, but with small money every day, and people who hold the string straight."

Pa Jonah nodded, his mouth full.

"And with a good bricklayer who does not drink before noon."

Everyone laughed — even Amara, a quiet laugh that rose easily.

After the meal, Pa Jonah left, promising to return at dawn with two boys to help.

Chinedu remained by the trench, his hands washed but still grey at the nails. Amara joined him, standing at the edge where the foundation met the roots of the mango tree.

"Chinedu," she said.

"Amara."

"Your father said the shop will be called Amara's House."

"He did."

"I did not think I would ever have a house named after me. In House 14, my name was removed from a dress. Now a house will bear it."

Chinedu looked at her, at the ring, at the trench.

"It is not just a shop," he said. "It is your wall. The wall Papa spoke of. No one will write on it. No one will paste receipts on it. Only dresses will hang on it — yours."

Amara knelt then, not caring for her wrapper, and touched the first course of blocks — still damp, still settling, smelling of earth and cement.

She whispered, not to Chinedu, not to Chief Wopara, but to the foundation itself:

"Remain white. Remain true."

Behind her, the white wall of Room 5 stood in the afternoon sun, still white, still clean, watching over the new foundation behind the mango tree — the old wall guarding the new.

And in the quiet of No. 7 Chief Wopara Street, with sand on the ground and blocks by the gate and a ring on her finger, Amara felt for the first time that she was not just a girl who had left, but a woman for whom something was being built — block by block, day by day, in Woji, under a mango tree.