Silence is not always golden, sometimes. It is plain yellow and it demands that one should speak up and not remain silent. Cheta was not silent after Anthony, her Madam’s husband, raped her repeatedly. This is her story.
At the first thrust, Anthony froze, time seemed to suspend itself as he remained motionless, perhaps lost in thought, contemplating the intensity of the moment. He soon let it go and started moving. He went faster and faster and closed his eyes to savour her sweetness while Cheta’s cries and pleas faded into the background.
He liked her, he had always liked her from the very first time his wife brought her in. Her innocent face was the first thing that caught his attention that cold Saturday morning.
Her “Good morning, sir” while kneeling to greet him melted his heart and when she tried to stand up from the respect-induced position, his eyes rested on her cleavage. He nodded in answer and watched her follow his wife into the narrow passageway leading to the bedrooms. His eyes lingered on her backside, watching the swaying of her hips.
Anthony wanted to resist the temptation like any other responsible man would, he told his wife to take her back to her parents but his wife went on and on about how useful she was, her ability to do house chores well, and cook good food.
“Cheta is well-behaved,” his wife had said.
His wife said “well-behaved” like those elderly people who know nothing else about you, just that you walk alone on the streets, dress properly and greet them is enough to earn the title of a well-behaved child.
Cheta is indeed well-behaved, enough to beg him when he locked the door that fateful day after asking her to come in and pull her clothes.
“Please sir, I can do anything you want but not this.”
Anthony was taken aback at her guts, the ability to tell him what she could and couldn’t do, and well-behaved enough to add “please”. It infuriated him and he landed her a slap which made her fall, he wanted to remind her that she was their maid, his maid. He has the right to tell her to eat faeces and she would obey because he feeds her and pays her parents in the village monthly salaries for her service.
But he didn’t say a word, he lifted her from the floor and threw her on the bed. He undressed her roughly, his long fingers inflicting pain on her as they scratched her body.
“You will tell no one of this, am I understood?” he asked.
She nodded in tears, too tired to speak from his attack on her member. Anthony opened his eyes when she started wailing loudly in Igbo and saying “Nnem, bia zọpụtam (Oh my mother, come and save me)!”
“Shut up!” he yelled and forced his sweaty singlet into her mouth to muffle her cries.
He held her hands above her head and dug further into her body smiling devilishly to himself. Each thrust caused her more pain, filled her with hatred for him, and helped her nurse the desire to poison him.
He felt fulfilled as he collapsed on her body, grunting as his fluid filled her up. He rolled off her and got up quickly.
“Get up and go clean your body,” he commanded when he finally let her go.
Cheta was lost for some seconds before she came to. She stood up slowly feeling her entire body on fire with tickling pain running through her abused female organ. She tried not to allow her thighs to rub against each other to avoid more pain so she walked with her legs apart.
Anthony called her back to take the blood-stained sheet warning her to wash it before her madam returned. Her tears ran freely as she removed the sheet from the bed. This is her being asked to wash away the proof of her virginity which was taken away by a monster. The world just lied to her, she knew it wouldn’t be easy but it never told her it would be this bad, she was being asked to cut her heart out and remain alive without it and to be silent.
She didn’t say a word, she only nodded in agreement as usual in her well-behaved way.
******
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” the woman from the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency asked. “You can have more time if you want.”
“I am,” Cheta replied, her hands clasped together for warmth and support.
“The recording will start immediately, and many people will see this, know you, and hear your story. Are you sure you’re ready for this to happen?” the woman asked again, trying to convey the gravity of the situation.
“I am, “ Cheta repeated, this time more quietly.
Her strength seemed to come from an unknown source. She had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, not thinking as she left the house through her room’s window to avoid the locked main door. Wearing her slippers would make her go out through the main hall and opening the door would wake someone up, so she decided to wear the only good shoe in her room, a wedged heel, and trekked the distance to the agency.
She didn’t want to think about life after speaking up, about people knowing she had been raped and abused repeatedly, or about her madam’s husband being arrested or fined; or her madam calling her a liar and slapping her in her usual way. She looked every inch a mad woman, trekking in a nightgown and heeled shoes. Who cares anyway? She is ready to damn the world and all its standards.
Anthony did it again after the first time.
And then a second time too.
He said he was getting addicted to her body and couldn’t control himself. He paid no attention to the fact that she no longer talked much or answered questions thrown at her quickly, that she only nodded or shook her head to indicate a yes or a no; that she now walks with a limp and carefully too as one would nurse a wound.
He also did not notice that she carried out her chores around the house with a new kind of slowness leaving her doing one thing for a long time and that she had this faraway look in her eyes making her forget what was said seconds after it was said.
Anthony wouldn’t know. He just wanted to use her body to satisfy himself and he gets just that, jerking off to a satanic rhythm each time.
And again the third time.
It was getting messier as he held her down in the bathroom while she was about to take her bath. Her back was on the cold slippery bathroom floor while he grunted away on top of her. She remembered holding her breath for seconds to whisk away the smell coming from the toilet bowl just a few steps from her head.
The woman from the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency covered her eyes, signalling the camera operator to stop recording. She looked at Cheta telling her story without a drop of tears. She might be sixteen the woman guessed using a womanly eye, the one used to know secrets and see things unknown to others.
“How old are you? “ the woman asked still wanting to be sure.
“Sixteen,” Cheta responded.
The woman expressed her sorrow, “I’m so sorry you had to go through this. This is a crime against you, your family, all girls and women, and the state. We won’t take this lightly, and he will pay for everything he did wrong to you,”
She reached out to hold Cheta’s hand but Cheta pushed it away and frowned.
“Thank you,” Cheta said and got up “Thank you for believing me, it means a lot to me.”
The woman looked deep into her eyes, seeing a need for healing. Cheta buckled her shoe strap and followed the security agents out to their car, she got in with them and they made their way back to her house, her madam and the husband would be awake by the time they got there.
The state would see to his arrest.
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