The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives (4 page)

Baba Segi looked at his watch one last time and lowered his arms to his sides.

A doctor was perched on the edge of a table in front. He turned linked fingers out above his head and yawned. Opposite him, a nurse sat upright on a plastic chair. The doctor yawned again and only made to cover his mouth as his lips were closing. One arm of his glasses was held in place with a Band-Aid and his beard was disheveled.

“So you are going home to sleep
all by yourself
?” The nurse placed her arms underneath her breasts so they jutted out. Her uniform was crisp and angelic.

They both turned when a well-dressed young woman approached, trailed by a huffing middle-aged man. The doctor scratched his head and headed back to his consultation cubicle.

“Can I help you?” The nurse’s tone was friendly despite her small frown.

There were voices in the background—other doctors holding consultations with their patients.

“Sister, it is this wife of mine who needs your help,” Baba Segi said.

“What is your name?” The nurse brought out a fresh pink folder from the desk she rested on.

“Bolanle Alao,” Baba Segi replied.

“Date of birth?” The nurse looked at Bolanle strangely.

“January 19, 1976!” Baba Segi blurted again.

“Sir, is there a reason why she cannot answer herself? Is she deaf?” The questions were directed at Baba Segi but the nurse looked past him at Bolanle.

“I am her husband.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to us, sir. We want to hear from the patient. How old are you now?”

Bolanle moved toward the edge of a blue plastic chair and whispered “Twenty-five.”

“And what brings you here today?”

She knew what Baba Segi wanted to hear. “I am barren.”

“Is this your first visit to a hospital about this matter or were you referred?”

“This is my first visit.”

“Address?”

“1 Saibu Street, Sango.”

“Religion?”

“Christian.”

“Level of education?”

“BA. University graduate.”

The nurse looked up at her and then glanced briefly at Baba Segi. “Next of kin?”

For a moment, Bolanle went blank. All her life it had been her mother—the one person who would drop everything and run to her aid. Bolanle remembered the last conversation they had before she left for Baba Segi’s house. “Have you lost your brain? After I scraped my salary together, month after month, to put you and your sister through university, you want to betray me?” her mother asked. It was four o’clock in
the morning and she was due to move to Baba Segi’s house later that day.

“Mama, I am doing what is best for
me
.” Bolanle had rehearsed her answer.

“Is that what this is all about? Is it the prospect of stuffing fat into your mouth that has led you into this? If that is so, Bolanle, remember all the days that I slaved for you. Cast your mind back to all that I deprived myself of, for you and your sister! Have you not learned anything from the words that have fallen from my mouth all these years? Is your back broken that you cannot sow what you seek to reap from this man’s table?”

“I’m doing what is best for me, Mama.”

“P
LEASE WRITE
M
R
. A
TANDA
A
LAO
!” Baba Segi shouted now. “
I
am her next of kin. You should have stayed in your father’s house if you wanted your mother to be your next of kin!”

Bolanle raised a palm to her mouth to prevent any more words from flying out; she hadn’t realized she’d said her mother’s name.

The nurse drew a line across what she’d written and started over. Her writing was swift yet leisurely, clear with no sharp angles. She handed the empty folder to Bolanle. “Go to cubicle five.” She pointed to the empty cubicle even though the number 5 was emblazoned on a white A4 sheet and tacked to the door.

Baba Segi kept his eye on the pink folder. “Hold it tight,” he mumbled.

The doctor’s eyes were bloodshot but they responded to every sound in the room. As soon as the couple walked in, he stood up to take the pink folder from Bolanle and offered them the seats on the other side of the table.

“I am Dr. Usman.
My
job is to try to understand the nature of your ailment so I can refer you to one of our specialists.”

“You mean we wasted our time coming here? Why can we not go straight to the special…special doctor? We…
I
am a very busy man, you know? And this is a very serious matter!” Baba Segi had jumped to his feet.

Bolanle put a hand to her face and kneaded her eyebrows with her fingertips. The doctor spotted it. She tugged at Baba Segi’s sleeve but he threw off her hand. Dr. Usman spotted that too. Baba Segi slowly sat back down in his own time.

The doctor wanted so badly to roll his eyes that he had to raise his eyebrows to stop himself. He didn’t want to appear condescending, if only for the sake of the young woman sitting opposite him. “I’m sorry, sir, but unfortunately, no specialist in this hospital will see you unless you’ve seen us first. That is why we are here and that is the way things work.”

Baba Segi folded his arms and rocked on his seat, all the time mumbling.

“I presume you are husband and wife?” the doctor inquired, preparing to scrawl across a blank sheet of paper.

A fist moved to Baba Segi’s waist. “Yes. She is
my
wife.”

“Very good. So, Mrs. Alao…?”

“Yes?” Bolanle responded tentatively. No one had ever called her that before.

“How long have you been married?”

“Nearly three years,” Baba Segi replied.

“Bolanle, how old were you when you started menstruating?”

“I was thirteen.”

“And how long do you normally menstruate for? How many days each month, I mean?”

“Four to five days.”

“Heavy? Light?”

Baba Segi couldn’t hold back. “Do you not know that you are talking to another man’s wife? All these questions you are asking are meaningless. She is bar-ren…”

“Mr. Alao, I am conducting a medical investigation on my patient. The only reason you are allowed to be here is that she has permitted it.” He shot Bolanle a sympathetic look. “If you cannot conduct yourself properly, I will have to ask you to leave.”

“Just remember that she is somebody’s wife.”

“Now, I was asking about your—”

“They are always heavy,” Bolanle replied.

“Very good. And are they painful?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good. Do you and your husband have regular coitus?”

“What is the meaning of
coitus
? Don’t think the two of you can bamboozle me because I did not go to university!” Baba Segi said.

Bolanle smiled wryly and shook her head.

“I was asking Mrs. Alao how frequently you have sexual relations.”

“She gets her ration on Tuesdays, and sometimes she gets an extra day. No less, no more than any of my other wives. It is her womb that is not working.”

“Co-i-tus, once a week.” The doctor pronounced each syllable, then looked long and hard at Baba Segi to emphasize that his embellishment was neither required nor helpful. “So, there are other wives. And you are wife number…?”

“She is number four.” Baba Segi held up four fat fingers. “Number four!”

“I take it there are other children? I know it is bad luck to say how many but perhaps you could tell me roughly how many children you have.”

“You dare to call my children rough?”

“No, sir, I mean approximately. An estimate. How many? Over fifteen? Over ten? Over five?” Dr. Usman exhaled sharply.

“Many more than five.”

“But fewer than ten?”

“I would have had more than ten now if this woman’s womb was not hostile to my seed.”

The doctor leaned back into the old leather seat. The fabric was cracking like shattered glass. “Mrs. Alao, how long have you been sexually active?”

Silence. Bolanle’s mind reeled. Did false starts count? Or was he referring to consensual sex?

“Mrs. Alao, when did you have your first sexual encounter?” the doctor asked again.

“I was…I was…the first? I was fifteen and eight months, four months before my sixteenth birthday.”

“Ah!” Baba Segi placed both palms on the top of his head and began to hum at an unsettling pitch.

Dr. Usman threw his pen on the folder and tightened his brow. “Listen, Mr. Alao, you are obstructing this consultation. Plus, I believe you are…intimidating my patient.”

“
Your
patient?” Baba Segi sneered. “She is
my
wife.
I
am the one who has married her. Why should
you
care?”

Dr. Usman often had to ask mothers, husbands, sisters to wait outside the cubicle, so he picked up the receiver of the phone and made to press a red button. “I’m afraid I am going to invite security to—”

“Please, Doctor, let us continue.”

It was not so much the sound of Bolanle’s voice but the volume that made Dr. Usman replace the receiver. “As you please, Mrs. Alao. Now, have you ever been pregnant?”

Baba Segi turned his entire belly toward Bolanle. A nerve shuddered down his leg and set his right foot in motion, making the sole of his slipper slap the linoleum flooring.

“Yes,” Bolanle said.

The slipper slapping stopped abruptly.

The doctor continued. “How many times?”

“Once. The pregnancy was terminated.” Bolanle stared ahead.

“Can you tell me where the procedure took place?”

“I don’t remember. It was done by a nurse, somewhere near Mokola. I don’t remember.”

Dr. Usman braced himself when Baba Segi raised his hand; he thought he was going to strike his wife, but instead the older man opened his mouth and bawled, “Where is your toilet?” over and over again. Dr. Usman shoveled him out of the cubicle and in the direction of the men’s room.

Back in the cubicle, Bolanle rummaged through her handbag and Dr. Usman pretended to read over his notes. Eventually, Baba Segi pushed the cubicle door open. He looked subdued and the strain was gone from his face. “I will be in the pickup,” he whispered. “Doctor, when you buy guavas in the marketplace, you cannot open every single one to check for rottenness. And where you find rottenness, you do not always throw away the guava. You bite around the rot and hope that it will quench your craving.”

“Mr. Alao, it is admirable that you have taken this attitude because this is by no means the end. We are hardly at the beginning. There is a lot to be done before you can even conclude that the ‘guava is rotten.’ There are tests we must do.” Strangely, his heart went out to Baba Segi; he looked like he had been struck with a big whip.

“Tell
her
what she must do next.” With that, he waddled out of the door and let it close by itself. The hem of his trousers mopped the length of the corridor.

“Mrs. Alao, I don’t want you to worry,” the doctor reassured Bolanle. “We haven’t seen anything conclusive yet. We haven’t even looked. But bearing in mind all you have told
me, I have a few suggestions that might bring us closer to a diagnosis. You will need to have a pelvic ultrasound. There is always the risk of damage to the wall of the womb if the procedure isn’t done by a qualified surgeon. This often leads to fibrosis—adhesions on the wall of the womb. As you can imagine, a scarred womb is not conducive to fetal development. Dr. Dibia is the gynecologist you will see. His clinics are on Mondays. I will give you a referral letter which you must take to the O & G department on your way out of here. They will check his timetable and book you in. When you return, be sure to bring the results of your pelvic ultrasound with you. You’ll also need to do these blood tests. Bring those results as well.” He glanced up from his form-filling to find Bolanle absentmindedly pressing a pimple on her face. “Mrs. Alao, there is no reason to be worried.”

“I’m not. I am listening to every word you are saying.”

“Good. Are you going to be all right? Your husband seemed a little agitated. Is there somewhere you can go?”

“I’ll be fine. What more can he do to me? He can’t humiliate me any more than he has done already. His other wives can’t be any more hostile to me. He is my husband and I will return to his house.”

“The environment you have described does not sound very healthy to—”

Bolanle didn’t let him finish. “It is good that he has heard the things I said today. Perhaps they should have been said before. The world turns and we do too, within it. Who can say what sins pursue us?” She took the referral letter and the
test request forms from the table. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Back at the car, Taju could see that his boss was not in the mood for talking and he couldn’t help but wonder why he was carrying the stench of loosened bowels. Bolanle, for her part, approached the vehicle with peace in her eyes.

“Take us home!” Baba Segi barked.

“I would like to be dropped off at Awolowo Road junction so I can visit my parents.”

“Then we will take you to your father’s gate.”

“I think it would be better if you went home to change first.”

Baba Segi looked at his trousers and shifted to the middle seat. He reasoned that it would be less irksome if he sat in the middle as opposed to sitting by the door. He didn’t want to have to stand up to let Bolanle out.

Bolanle pointed her nose outside the window for fresh air. They drove past Sango and stopped at Awolowo junction. As always, there were girls standing under the tree hoping to flag down a taxi. No one wanted to brave the sun and trudge to the taxi stand.

Bolanle reached for the handle. Not caring that Taju was listening, she turned to Baba Segi, one foot firmly placed on the cobbled pavement. “We are to go back next Monday. Our appointment is at ten
A.M.
and we’ll be seeing a different doctor.” She flashed the appointment card and the test requests.

“When will you be back home?” It was still too early for him to return to anything related to doctors and hospitals.

“In the evening, probably around six.”

“Do not be late for family time!”

I
SHUT THE VEHICLE DOOR FIRMLY
. I waited by the roadside until they were out of sight before crossing. I had no intention of going to see my parents at all; I wanted to see what the market had in store for me.

Sango market was a long, muddy street. Shielded from the sun, the colors under the stalls’ rusted iron sheets blended into a collage of dreary hues. The oranges dulled into maroon; the violets and greens smeared into navy blue. Wading through the stalls amid perspiring flesh was exhausting but I was not deterred. I strode directly to the crockery section. My little pleasures were of utmost importance now, since they angered Baba Segi and made him storm out of my bedroom.

It wasn’t always like this. In the early days, I used to look forward to Tuesdays. I would wash my hair on Monday afternoon, oil and divide it into sixteen palm-measured mounds, each furrow revealing fine lines of glistening scalp. Baba Segi
liked us women to look like the old Oyo goddesses: queens who contemplated the lifting of every limb; deities who, when they heard their names, didn’t just turn their heads in one brisk, carefree movement but lifted their eyes from the floor and let their faces follow their long proud necks by a fraction of a second. I’d wanted so much to please him then that I would rub myself with
osun
so that every strand of hair dissolved into my skin. I’d go to the market, buy the biggest snails and painstakingly rinse off their mucus with sea salt and alum. Fry him a feast and then submit to him.

Things had changed. There was no pleasure in the pleasing, no sweetness in the surrender. Baba Segi only comes to deposit his seed in my womb. He doesn’t smile or tickle me. He doesn’t make jokes about my youth; he just rams me into the mattress.

Just a month ago, he’d barged into my room. “Get dressed,” he yelled. “God has called a prophet to the mountaintop and he will only be there for four more days. Let us go so he will lay hands on your belly and perform a miracle.”

“One of those white-garment con men, no doubt,” I said. I told my husband that the only miracle the prophet would perform was relieving Baba Segi of his hard-earned money.

“Listen to yourself!” he shouted. “Does your blood not boil when you see other women carrying babies on their backs? Do tears not fill your eyes when you see mothers suckling infants? You of all people should be willing to try everything! Offspring make our visit to this world complete! Do you want to remain a barren maggot?” He stood
over me, all six and a half feet of him, both arms flailing.

I covered my ears with my hands.

It must have been my vulnerability that turned him on because he returned at midnight to hammer me like never before. He emptied his testicles as deep into my womb as possible. It was as if he wanted to make it clear, with every thrust, that he didn’t make light of his husbandly duties. He wanted to fuck me pregnant. If there was ever a moment when the memory of being raped became fresh in my mind, that was it.

I
WALKED THROUGH THE MARKET
and spotted the tiny secondhand bric-a-brac stall ahead. It was too small to have a decent roof so it was the only place in the market where vibrant colored wares could be honestly and accurately admired. My nose longed for the smell of old brass kettles, my eyes for the caustic stains at the bottom of aged bowls. As soon as my thighs brushed the table, I reached up for an old teacup and stroked the discolored cracks. I ran my knuckles along the chipped rim and felt the muscles in my neck loosen. Then my eyes caught an ivory bowl with embossed turquoise waves. Cherubs bearing goblets reached for the callused rim with stubby fingers. Their faces lit up as the waves washed them round the bowl’s belly. I caressed it and my sadness fell away. This was my secret reprisal.

“Dat one come all the way from Italy,” the bald crockery hawker shrieked. There were droplets of sweat racing down the sides of his face.

An irritable passerby pushed me toward him. “How much is it?” I asked.

The man swept his forefinger across his forehead. “I won’t take a kobo more than five hundred naira from a beetifu’ lady like yase’f.” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders so that his collar licked the sweat that had gathered around his jawbone.

I dipped my hand deep into my bag, doubled up ten fifty-naira notes and pressed them into the hawker’s hand. He looked around surreptitiously, nodded and handed me my prize in a black plastic bag.

When I first arrived in his house, I bought a large orange bowl and presented it to the wives. Iya Femi laughed when she saw it and said
their
husband only ate off white crockery, that he liked his food to supply color at meal times, that his food wasn’t worth eating if he couldn’t see the red of his palm oil and the green of his okra. I looked around the kitchen. True enough, it was filled with white plates and bland, gray dishes. But before I could snatch back the bowl, Iya Femi deliberately knocked it to the floor, breaking it in two. I picked up the pieces and rushed to my bedroom. Later that evening, Akin knocked on my door to call me for dinner. When I opened it, he handed me an envelope and walked off quickly. Inside was a tube of superglue.

B
ABA
S
EGI WILL HATE THIS BOWL
, too, the way he hates all the other ones. I give him an eyeful of my decadent colors. It’s the only way I get my own back.

I walked to the bus
STOP
on the far side of the market. Once on the bus, I opened the plastic bag and fingered the nail-sized stain at the bottom of the bowl. I poked it, pricked it and halfheartedly tried to peel it off. When it was clear that it was stuck fast, my stomach twisted with excitement.

Soon, I was on our street. It stretched before me like a lean arm and the Alao house waited at the end of it like a large muscular chest, the bamboo scaffolding flexed, dwarfing the puny lodges around it. As I approached the gates, I spotted an electricity pole that must have been felled by a rainstorm. A naked wire hung on a nearby tree like a stubborn strand of hair. When I get home, I must remember to slip Akin a note. If he comes to my room for help with his English homework, I’ll tell him to warn his brothers and sisters not to go near the pole. He always does what I ask him. I won’t say anything to the other children so Iya Segi doesn’t shout at me.