Sara

Chapter Four

The two weeks passed like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

Every day I sold water. Saved whatever I could. I even stopped eating lunch. Then I stopped eating breakfast. By the end of the first week, I was surviving on only one meal a day, a small plate of rice from the buka down the street that Chioma would sometimes buy for me when she could tell I was about to collapse.

I sold and sold and sold. I walked miles in the hot sun. I counted my money every night, praying for a miracle that never came.

The day before rent was due, I sat on my mattress and counted for the last time.

Four thousand seven hundred naira.

That was all. Four thousand seven hundred, when I needed fifteen thousand. It's not even a third. Not even close.

I put the money back under the loose cement bag and lay down on my mattress. I didn't cry. Because I don't have any tears left. I just stared at the ceiling and waited.

The landlord would come tomorrow. And then I would be homeless.

---

He came in the evening, just as the sun was starting to set and the sky was turning orange. I heard his footsteps in the corridor before I even heard his knock, heavy and slow, like someone who believes he had all the time in the world.

I opened the door.

Mr. Adebayo was an old man, in his sixties. He had a big stomach that hung over his trousers and a face that was permanently shiny with sweat.

His teeth were yellow and crooked, and when he smiled, which he did often, there was a flirty look in his eyes that made my skin crawl.

"Good evening, Sara," he said, his voice oily and sweet.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Good evening, sir," I said quietly. "I know why you're here."

"Ah, good. Then we can skip the small talk." He stepped past me into the room without waiting for an invitation, his eyes moving around the space as if he owned it. Which, I supposed, he did.

"The rent. It's fifteen thousand naira right? Today is the deadline."

I swallowed hard.

"Sir, I don't have the full amount yet. I've been trying to save, but things have been very hard. I have four thousand seven hundred. I was hoping... I was hoping you could give me some more time."

Mr. Adebayo turned to look at me.

His eyes moved slowly down my body, and I suddenly became very aware of how thin my dress was, how the fading light from the window was outlining my shape.

"More time," he repeated.

"You know how many tenants ask me for more time? And if I give everyone more time, tell me, how will I pay my own bills?"

"I understand, sir. But I'm not asking for charity. I'll pay. I just need... another month. I can give you the four thousand seven hundred now, and then..."

"Four thousand seven hundred," he said, cutting me off.

"That's not even upto half of what you owe."

He took a step toward me. I took a step back.

"But maybe," he said, his voice dropping lower, "we can come to an arrangement, you know. Something that works for both of us."

My heart started beating faster. "What kind of arrangement?"

He smiled again, and this time there was no hiding what was in his eyes. It was hunger.

The same hunger I'd seen in the faces of the men on the street, the ones who looked at me like I was meat on a butcher's table.

"You're a beautiful girl, Sara," he said.

"Very beautiful. And I'm a man who appreciates beauty. If you don't have money... there are other ways you can pay me."

The room suddenly felt very small. The walls seemed to be closing in, and the air was thick and hard to breathe.

"I don't understand," I said, even though I understood perfectly well.

"Yes, you do." He took another step toward me. I backed up until my back hit the wall. There was nowhere left to go.

"One night. That's all I'm asking. One night, and I'll forget about the rent for this month. Maybe next month too. We can be... friends you know."

"Please, sir," I whispered. "Please don't do this."

"Shhh." He reached out and touched my face, his fingers rough and hot against my cheek.

"Don't be scared. I'll be gentle. Just relax."

But I didn't relax.

His other hand grabbed my waist, his fingers digging into my hip, pulling me toward him.

I could smell him now, sweat and cheap cologne and something sour underneath. His face was coming closer, his mouth opening, his yellow teeth...

"No!"

I shoved him. Hard. He stumbled back, surprised, and for a moment I thought I could run. But he was faster than he looked. His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, yanking me back, his grip so tight I could feel his nails pierce my skin.

"You little rat," he hissed, all his pretense of gentleness gone.

"You think you can say no to me? Oh, so you think you have a choice? You have nothing. Nothing! You hear."

"I'm the reason you have a roof over your head and I am the one who decides whether you stay or go. So you will do as I say, or I will throw you out tonight. Tonight! You understand?"

I was crying now, tears streaming down my face, my whole body shaking.

"Please... please, I'm begging you..."

He shoved me toward the mattress. I tripped and fell, my back hitting the thin foam, and before I could get up he was on top of me, his weight crushing the air out of my lungs.

His hands were everywhere, grabbing, pulling and tearing at my dress.

I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could, but the room had no real windows, just those wooden shutters, and the generator outside was roaring so loud there's no way anyone would hear me.

And then I had a thought and went very, very cold.

I stopped fighting and screaming. I let my body go limp, and for a moment, he thought I'd succumbed, causing his grip loosened just a little.

And that was when I brought my knee up as hard as I could into the space between his legs.

The sound he made was not human. It was a high, wheezing squeal, like a pig being slaughtered.

His body convulsed and rolled off me, his hands clutching at himself, his face purple with shock and pain.

I didn't wait.

I scrambled off the mattress and ran. I ran out of the room, down the corridor, into the street. I didn't stop running until my lungs were burning and my legs gave out. But I didn't look back.

---

I stayed away for hours.

I wandered the streets of the neighborhood, walking in circles, not knowing where to go.

The sun set completely, and the darkness came, but still I walked. My dress was torn at the shoulder, my wrist was bruised where he'd grabbed me, and my mind kept replaying what had happened, over and over, like a memory I couldn't turn off.

I thought about going to Chioma's place. But what would I tell her? What could she do? She couldn't fight the landlordpay my rent. All she could do was watch me fall apart, and I couldn't bear to put her through that.

So I just walked.

The rain started around midnight.

It came suddenly, the way Lagos rain always does, a drizzle quickly turned into heavy downpour. Within minutes, the streets were flooding and the gutters overflowing with dirty water.

I was soaked to the bone with my dress clinging to my body.

I thought about my small property.

And I knew, with a cold certainty, that I had to go back.

It took me almost an hour to walk back to the house. The rain was still falling hard when I turned onto my street, the water running like a river over the broken asphalt. The compound was dark, and the generator long since turned off for the night.

And then I saw it.

My things. All of them. Thrown out into the open compound, exposed to the rain.

My mattress was soaked through, the thin foam sagging and ruined. My clothes, the few I owned, were scattered across the ground, trampled and filthy. My gas stove was lying on its side with the burner snapped off.

And there, in the middle of it all, was the loose cement bag, pried up and tossed aside. The bag was empty. My money was gone.

I stood there in the rain, staring at the wreckage of my life.

Everything I had worked for. Everything I had suffered for. Gone. Just like that.

I fell to my knees in the mud.

The rain beat down on my back, cold and merciless. My hair came loose from its scarf and plastered itself against my face. Water ran into my eyes, my mouth, mixing with the tears I didn't even know I was crying anymore.

I opened my mouth, and a sound came out that I didn't recognize.

It wasn't a scream. Not a cry. It's something in between... Something that had been building inside me for years, since the day my mother died, and I understood that the world didn't care if I lived or died.

I knelt there in the wreckage of everything I owned, and I let the rain wash over me, and I wondered if this was it. If this was the moment the universe finally broke me for good.