This is the second part of a four-part series. Find link to the previous part at the end of the story.
Content Warning: This story contains descriptions of physical abuse, emotional manipulation, and familial violence. Please read with care.
Justin had to step in and pleaded on my behalf, begging him to stop, saying he had done more than enough already. For a moment, the punishment paused. But as soon as Justin left the house, it started all over again.
I screamed louder, desperate for someone to intervene. He looked me straight in the eye and said no one would come. Then, he dragged me outside, into the compound and asked me to lie down on the stairs. And there, under the weight of his rage and the gaze of everyone watching, he continued.
We were living in a Police Post compound, with all the people living there, only the landlord’s wife came to plead on my behalf.
When my brother wouldn’t listen, I heard her say, “God know say I don do my part, if him like make him kill am. After all na their sister.” Since then, I knew I had no friend nor helper in that compound and I began to mind my business. I wouldn’t greet anyone. I wouldn’t play with their kids. I just stayed on my own.
Well, my brother asked me to go inside and lie on the floor with my head tilted back, facing the floor. He began to hit my head with his foot, over and over, until my head kept bounced against the hard floor like it didn’t belong to me. The slaps came next. Then the blows.
They rained down in a blur, too many to name. I couldn’t keep count. I could only feel. I know I ended up with a swollen black eye, swollen forehead, and swellings under my feet. And Pascal? He asked me to go to the chemist and buy medication for myself.
On my way to buy the drugs, I ran into my classmate’s mother, a matron at the clinic, and one of my brother Justin’s colleagues. I’ll never forget what the matron said. She looked at me, really looked, and said, “Whoever did this to you isn’t your sibling.” She asked me to go home and start asking questions.
She told me that with the kind of age gap between my brothers and me, I was supposed to be pampered. She spoke about her own daughter—my classmate—the only girl after six boys. “We treasure her,” she said. Her words felt like a mirror held up to my reality: the complete opposite. I should have listened. But I was too naive.
I bought the drugs. Mentholatum. I came home. He rubbed Robb on my forehead and dabbed an ointment around my swollen eye. Then he looked at me and said, “Now tell me the truth about the rice.”
I told him I didn’t know the rice was missing.
He called me a liar. He said that while I was gone, he questioned our neighbor, and after offering her N20, she confessed I had given her the rice when she said she was hungry.
I cried. I begged him to call her and ask again in my presence. He refused, called me a bloody liar, then told me to go and bring every single piece of clothing they had ever bought me.
I obeyed.
He poured kerosene on the pile and threatened to burn them all. At that point, I was too tired to cry. I just wanted him gone, dead and out of my life forever. But he didn’t burn them.
Instead, he told me to go wash everything because of the kerosene, that he wouldn’t destroy what he and “his brother” spent their money on. He repeated those words—his brother—with such emphasis. I didn’t catch it then. But years later, it came back to me with a different weight.
That morning, around 11 a.m., he packed his bag and traveled. I don’t know if it was always the plan or if he was running, maybe from Justin. Because when Justin came home and saw my body, my face, he was livid. He said he had begged Pascal to let it go, that he didn’t think it would go this far.
I laughed. Because really, that was the kettle calling the pot black.
Another incident happened when I was about to write GCE. That day, I was bathing to get dressed for my GCE lessons when the gate bell rang.
It was Justin’s girlfriend.
Pascal answered the intercom and went to the gate. When he came back, he was furious. I had barely left the bathroom when he stormed into my room and slapped me three times. I was stunned. I asked him what I had done.
He said that five boys were at the gate asking after me. Justin’s girlfriend was really disappointed. She began advising me to forget boys and focus on school. I tried to convince her that he was lying, that she didn’t really know Pascal, but it all fell on deaf ears.
I cried, got dressed and headed for my lesson. As I was leaving, Pascal told her that he knew I wasn’t going to any lesson, instead I was going to meet those boys. So I suggested they both follow me. They declined.
When I got to the lesson, some girl who lived in our estate came up to me and asked if the guy who attended to the gate was my brother. I asked them if they came to my house and they said yes. She and four other girls had stopped by my house. Five girls, not boys.
She said she had wanted us to go together, but the guy they saw told them I wasn’t ready yet and would meet them at the center.
When I told them what he’d accused me of, including the slaps, they were too stunned to speak. They apologized and promised never to knock at my gate again. From then on, we agreed they’d just wait down the road at a set time, and I’d meet them there.
Everyone, including myself, was baffled at why Pascal had to tell that lie. Was it really necessary?
Later that evening, when Justin returned from work, Pascal told him the same story he had told his girlfriend. He didn’t say much, just that I couldn’t join him and his girlfriend on their outing the next day.
The next morning, after they’d left for the pool, Pascal called me into the sitting room. He asked what my friends had told me.
When I told him, all he said was, “This would teach you a lesson to not invite friends to this house again.” He said friends were dangerous and I didn’t need them, that I should emulate him and his brother.
This time, I took note of the word HIS BROTHER because I was already 17.
But I couldn’t make any sense out of it.
Not yet.
To be continued…
This is the second part of this story. If you haven’t read Part One yet, you can read it here. Part Three continues here (link when ready). Stay tuned!
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