The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives (15 page)

“I should’ve told you earlier, Mama.” I didn’t want to upset her. I thought, given her illness, she might be inspired to forgive me.

“And now your sister has followed the path you opened for her. What is left for me to live for? You know, I
want
God to take me so I can look him in the eye and ask why he gave me such wicked children.”

“Mama, I do not want to quarrel.”

“Even if we lie to each other every week, there will come a day when we must look each other in the eye and speak the truth. Bolanle, you are the biggest disappointment the world has seen. You are ruined! Damaged! Destroyed!”

This time, she aimed well. She hit me in a soft spot. So painful was it that I raised my palms to my face and pressed out tears like pus from a wound.

She hadn’t finished yet. She stopped to catch her breath and continued. “Has it been so hard for you and your sister to honor me? All I wanted was for you both to do well. But no! You want your mother to die of sadness. Let me tell you, Bolanle, I don’t just sit here; I beg God daily to forgive my sins, even though I don’t know what they could be. I have asked myself a million times: what evil sins have I committed to bring curses upon myself? But hear this: a child who says her mother will not have rest will also be ravaged by insomnia. There is a punishment for wickedness and we will all stand before our maker one day!” Mama leaned her head back into the headrest.

My tears pleased her enormously.

“And now she cries. She cries but she doesn’t think to redeem herself. She cries but she will return to her copulation. Of what use are such tears when—”

“Mama, stop! Please! Stop!”

“Stop what? Does the truth deafen your ears?”

“I know I failed you but there is so much you didn’t know.”

“The truth has never said that it should not be uttered. Hear the truth now and repent. Reward your mother for all the hard work she did for you! Other than that, there is nothing more to know!”

The chipped skirting board caught my eye. There was a crack in the wall above it and a row of ants headed toward a piece of bread lying by the fridge door. I held on to the frame of the cane chair. The stuffing from the cushions brushed against the back of my hand. “I was raped, Mama! Did you know
that
? I was raped when I was fifteen years old.” I’d never shouted at my mother but I heard a strident tone I’d never dared use before.

“Raped? This is not a time to tell wicked lies. Such a thing could not have happened to
my
child.”

I took a moment to collect myself, knowing she was watching me, daring me to talk without first retracting my words. “You are right, Mama, I am ruined, damaged, destroyed. I am all those things you ever said. My life was wrecked and I didn’t know how to fix it. I
still
don’t know.”

“No!” She jerked her head from side to side. Her voice fizzled into a whisper. “You couldn’t have been raped. No daughter of mine could have been raped. That is not the way I brought you up.”

“No one brings their daughter up to be raped.” I closed my eyes and told her what happened. There was no point sparing her the details; it was time she heard them. When I reached the part where the stranger put a pillow over my head, Mama snatched her scarf from her head and began to
rock slowly in her seat. I didn’t stop; I wanted my mother to hear it all. I didn’t want to carry it alone anymore.

Tear after tear rolled down one eye alone. “Why didn’t you tell me so I could seek out this beast and cut out his insides?”

“I wanted to be your perfect daughter. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“Hush, child, what mother can hate the child she labored to bring to the world? Ah! The blood that runs through my veins is full of sorrow.” She paused to wipe her tears with her wrapper. “Was I so distant? Was I so deaf? Ah! This world and its violent surprises!”

It wasn’t the time to answer those questions. I wasn’t going to give her the chance to justify her behavior. I wanted to tell her about me. “Mama, you were living with an empty shell. Everything was scraped out of me. I was inside out.”

“Is this why you allowed yourself to be seduced by that buffoon?” Distraught though she was, Mama couldn’t cast aside her anger over my marriage. I didn’t expect her to; it wasn’t her style. She had to win.

“I wasn’t seduced.
That buffoon
was prepared to take me as I was. He didn’t ask me any questions. Neither did he know a past he could compare my present with. I was lost and didn’t want to do anything with my life. He was prepared to take me like that. All he wanted was for me to be his wife. Imagine how appealing that was to me!”

Apart from the business with Segun and the abortion, which was best not mentioned, I told her everything. I told her
about the wives and the rodent skull. I told her I was seeing a doctor because I hadn’t been able to conceive. Mama listened and nodded her head, all the time observing my face: the tiny crow’s-feet at the corner of my eyes, the shallow creases on the skin around my mouth. When I was finished, she asked me if I was hungry. She looked more sympathetic than I had ever seen her, but even so, the words “I told you so” were written all over her face. Only a fool would have expected reparation. Mama didn’t do things that way.

Before I left, I soaked all the dirty laundry. I made some
eba
and when I sat down to dish the food into separate bowls, Mama insisted that we eat out of the same one. When I returned to the sitting room after washing the dirty dishes, Mama was snoring quietly, so I looked into my old bedroom. It was a complete mess. Why did I expect different? I wasn’t there to clean up after Lara anymore.

The cardboard boxes in which I’d carefully folded my old clothes had been ripped open. Some of the contents were strewn around the room, others stuffed back in. She’d given the beautiful women on the Mills and Boon novels mustaches. One of my old diaries lay under the bed. Lara would have pushed it there. Perhaps she did that so Mama wouldn’t find it. It was carelessly hidden all the same. Thank goodness I had given the people in it the names of trees. I picked it up and put it in my bag; I’d throw it in the bin on my way out. Before I left, Mama gave me a firm one-armed embrace. It was awkward because I couldn’t remember that she ever held me with tenderness. There always seemed to be pain
involved when she touched me, so the feel of her arm on my back, the warmth of her cheek against mine, was memorable in its own way.

W
HEN
I
RETURNED TO
B
ABA
S
EGI’S
house that evening, I noted that it was that lovely phase of dusk when the sky filled with orange clouds as if a paintbrush had been rinsed in it. There was a looseness about my stride. At university, my friends had joked that I walked upright, to curb the tiniest provocative waggle. It’s true. I sucked my buttocks in and clinched my knees together, but for a different reason. I reasoned that if I strengthened my thigh muscles, it would make it difficult for anyone to force my legs apart like they did in my dreams. That evening, I let my arms dangle at my sides. I set my hips free and my neck sought the source of every sound, the way children did until their mothers slapped the backs of their heads into the direction they were going in. I saw the night guard approaching and greeted him before he got to me. He smiled but it disappeared all too quickly and a scrawny hand scratched a bald head. He was probably baffled by my lack of poise; I was normally so well pulled together.

The aroma of fresh palm wine was rich and intoxicating, so I looked in the direction of the nearby shack. I wanted to see the large pregnant gourd buzzing with the hum of inebriated bees as young men dipped into it, drowning themselves in its sweetness. Leaning and slouching over them were women who had braved neighborhood gossip to be there. They sat
there in the distance, laughing and sipping from halved calabashes. I smiled to myself and hurried on, tickled by the playful finger of young love.

I heard the footsteps gaining on me but I ignored them. I didn’t want to turn and find it was just some poor woman rushing home clutching a Bible and a toddler. Apart from that, I was determined not to let anything knock me off my high. I hadn’t felt such liberty in a long time. It was only when a voice breathlessly shouted, “Wait, please,” that I swung round.

“Good evening, Segi.” She didn’t just want me to slow down; she wanted me to stop.

She slowed down before she reached me, urging me to stop. “Auntie, please don’t tell. Mama will kill me.”

I exhaled. My exhilaration vanished and a sense of weariness came over me. Not more household intrigue! Could I bear it? “Don’t tell her what?”

“Don’t tell my mother that you saw me at the palm wine shed. Don’t tell my father you saw me with a boy.” Segi flung her fingers into the air as if to shake wetness from them. She was hopping from foot to foot and her mouth was open in supplication.

My heart went out to her. “I won’t say a word.” I must have given in too easily. Either that or she just didn’t believe me.

“Please, Auntie Bolanle. Please. I beg you, Auntie. I’ll do anything.”

“So now you want to bribe me?” I asked. It occurred to me that although Segi had always been civil, she had never addressed me as “Auntie” before. She’d always just blurted
whatever she had to say. And now, this rain of affectionate “Auntie”s.

“No. I’m not trying to bribe you. I’m
begging
you, Auntie. Don’t make my father disown me. Please.”

Maybe some other person would’ve derived joy from seeing her so distraught, but I didn’t. Neither, contrary to the young girl’s thinking, did I feel I now had a punch I could take at will. I felt sorry for her. Only eight years before, I’d have done anything to get to Segun’s room so I could satisfy the mysterious rush of blood to my groin. “I give you my word; I won’t tell anyone.”

Segi looked up at me and wiped away tears that had not yet dropped to her cheeks. “Thank you, Auntie. It was a silly mistake. I have never been there before but this boy has taken over my mind. When I sit down, I think of him. When I eat, he is there, on my mind. Sometimes I fear Mama will look at me and read my innermost thoughts.”

“What’s his name?”

“Goke. He is eighteen. He is a student at Ibadan Polytechnic, studying to become a surveyor.” She wanted me to be impressed.

I indulged her. “Really? Where did you meet him?”

“His mother sells snacks outside our school. Sometimes he comes to help her.”

“Is he handsome?”

“Well, you saw him, didn’t you? All the girls in my class are jealous of me.”

“He didn’t look bad at all.” I was by now too far gone to
admit that I hadn’t seen Segi nor the man she was with.

“But why did he invite you to the palm wine shack? Doesn’t he know how old you are?”

“I told him I didn’t want to go there but he said he wanted to show me off to his friends.”

“Did
you
enjoy being there?”

“Not particularly. His friends were telling very dirty jokes. I was just happy to be near him so I could look at his face.”

“And have you looked at more than his face?”

“Auntie!” Segi covered her eyes with her fingers. “I swear I have not seen any more. He said he would teach me how to kiss like a woman tonight but I left him and ran after you. I am sure all his friends are laughing at me now.” She sighed and looked over her shoulder.

“Then they are foolish. Anyone who laughs at you for showing your family respect is a fool. How would
you
be feeling now if you’d just sat there?”

“My heart would be in my mouth. I wouldn’t have been able to relax.” Segi put her arm through mine as the thought created new dread in her mind.

“Good. So even though you left him at the shack, you have peace of mind…which means you did the right thing. A real woman must always do the things
she
wants to do, and in her own time too. You must never allow yourself to be rushed into doing things you’re not ready for.” We stepped onto the veranda of Baba Segi’s house together, the same foot at the same time.

Iya Tope was the only adult in the sitting room. As soon as we strolled in, her nostrils flared like damp shorts on the washing line. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She just stared, forgetting to blink, then blinking a flurry. She turned to the children happily scoffing their food but it was clear that her mind was burdened.

Segi touched the forehead of each sibling she encountered. Most of them were sucking on chicken bones, their cheeks dotted with half grains of jollof rice. Akin looked up at us, smiled and returned to the sports column of yesterday’s newspaper. Ever since Baba Segi tried to strangle me, he’d flattened himself behind curtains and cupboards whenever I walked by.

“W
HAT SORT OF THINGS
were you talking about?” Segi asked as we walked through the corridor to my bedroom. Ordinarily Segi would have gone straight to her mother’s bedroom and then to the bedroom she shared with Akin to change her clothes, but on this occasion, she didn’t do either; she linked her arm in mine, determined not to leave my side.

The bedroom was as I had left it except there was a cream-colored bowl on the dressing table. The handle on the lid was a puckered rosebud. “Iya Femi has saved me some birthday chicken.” I fanned the aroma toward Segi with the lid and replaced it.

“Well, aren’t you going to eat it?” Without waiting for the go-ahead, Segi dipped her fingers into the bowl and lifted
out a peppered wing cut deep into the shoulder. A generous chunk of flesh half-covered by dimpled skin hung from it. Segi placed a palm underneath to catch the oil and sank her teeth into it. She closed her eyes so she could savor the stock trickling down her throat.

“I just had dinner with my mother. You eat it. It’s chicken and I’ve never been a fowl person.” I surrendered the entire bowl to Segi’s eager hands.

“There are three big pieces here. I could comfortably throw the lot into one nostril. I’ll finish it for you and lick the bowl. If only I’d known you were this generous—” Segi spluttered with her mouth full.