Not even the Sun could stay away today. From all indications it was
already getting ready to step out of the clouds and dominate the day.
Today will definitely be sunny if not hot.
Julie made a mental note to increase the order for ice as she walked
down the dusty street with the sort of grace and surefootedness that
only time and age can bestow. Her hips were wide and her buttocks swayed
as if remembering the old days when heavy and tightly packed ileke used to adorn her waist. Her hips
were much slimmer then, and her buttocks were firmer and saucier of
course, but they had widened seven times to accommodate the four sons
and three daughters she had borne for Isola. Time had taken a large
swipe on her now ample form.
The years had however been kind to her dark skin shiny skin, even
though her neck had gone soft and the folds were deeper and less elastic,
she could still pass for late fifties or early sixties at least. Her
skin was dark as palm kernels and just as shiny in the sun. Her eyes
had become weaker over the years but they still had that twinkle in
them when she smiled or laughed at something funny. The laugh-lines
around her eyes and mouth had become more pronounced as she got older.
She did not believe in rationing laughter, she would open her mouth
wide after a quick pause to fetch a lungful of air and she would let
out an airy laugh. The sound was similar to the gurgle of a river over
rocks after a July rainfall.
People loved to make her laugh just to delight in the experience.
She had followed her eldest son Ige as far as the first junction from
their house at seven o’clock this morning and then she had told him
to drop her off so she could walk back home. Ige wasn’t at all surprised.
His mother loved to walk. It kept her healthy, and he had figured out
years ago that walking was his mother’s version of therapy.
Her walk today had no particular hurriedness about it. There was purpose
to it, but it was also obvious to anyone watching that her feet were
on auto pilot; they knew where they were going and she let them do their
thing while she followed her mind back into time. To a day like this
one, 45 years ago, when the crowing of the cock told her she had slept
and woken up for the last time as a maiden in her uncle’s house. She
remembered how of all thoughts that could have entered her head that
morning, the one that got there first was how she would not be the one
to eat the wings and feet of the cock that just crowed. Tawa or Shade
would probably now have to continue with the household tradition of
getting the much coveted-among the children at least- parts of the birds
in the compound. She knew which Cock it was. There were three cocks
in the compound, and she could tell each one apart without having to
see them, by their crowing. They would usually do it by hierarchy, as
the oldest rooster was fiercely protective of his rank. The younger
cocks dared not even crow in their dreams before the rooster does. He
would peck them to bleeding point if they did.
She had fed them all from chick-hood and settled cockfights on various
occasions with a well aimed throw of whatever was nearest to her, broom,
slipper or even fistfuls of sand as they grew. It was part of her daily
duties as a young orphan living with uncle Shofoluwe and his wife.
They were good to her, and she had often wished God had been kinder
to them and blessed them with children of their own.
As it was, she and the other cousins and wards who always came to
live for different lengths of time at the large house were all the Shofoluwes
ever got to call children.
“Mummy ekaaro ma, a ku ayo oni o” the greeting snatched her away
from the past and deposited her smack in the middle of the present without
ceremony. “Ose iya mi, good morning to you too, thank you for the
kind wishes, you turn will come soon too ehn…” she responded in
greeting to Tina, Iya soji’s second daughter. “tell your mother
not to forget about the cooking pots, emm, you can even help her carry
some on your way to our house abi…? It was a matter of course that
Tina would be coming to the house, all the young girls in the neighborhood
were surely going to be trooping to the house today to offer help in
one way or another.
“Haba, mommy you know she won’t forget. She has called Supo, he’s
bringing them from the shop.” Iya Soji sold food to the entire neighborhood,
and it was a given that her cooking pots would be required today.
“Very good, see you later then” as she walked away, she wondered
randomly if anyone knew her name anymore. Those who needed to be formal
called her Mrs. Atinrira. No one called her by her first name, not even
her friends. They referred to each other as “iya..;” ‘mother of..;’
and would add the name of each woman’s first child as suffix. To her
friends she was “Iya Ranti.” The younger generation just called
her mummy.
As she ambled along she said her name softly to herself almost like
she was invoking the woman she had been before all this. Before the
wedding that pulled her, roots and all, from Sango in Ogun state and
replanted planted her in the hot, dry, red earth of dusty Kaduna. “JULIE.”
She giggled to herself. She did not say the name like her children had
taught her to say it after they become old enough and schooled enough
to know how the “oyibos” pronounce it. She pronounced it the way
her Uncle and Aunt used to pronounce it so many years ago. “Joo…lee”
the last vowel would be elongated or shortened to suit their mood. Depending
on how good or bad she had been perceived to be at the time. The giggle
threatened to turn into good natured laughter as the memories teased
her, but she smothered the laughter. Today was not the day to be seen
laughing out loud on the street at no apparent joke, especially as one
was walking down the street alone.
She looked around to see if anyone had been watching, but save for
the nanny goat bleating animatedly at her kids, there seemed to be no
one about on the usually mildly busy street. Children were getting the
usual Saturday break from morning school rush, and mothers were probably
getting ready to come over to her home. She sobered at the thought.
Today wasn’t ordinary by any means. Her daughter’s engagement was
today. This was it. Bolanle would soon be leaving home. She knew she
was supposed to be thrilled. It was every mother’s dream to see her
daughter get married, and she had been thrilled when Ranti and Ibukun
got married, but this time, she just wasn’t so sure.
Bolanle the favorite child of the house. This daughter was the one
who looked the most like her. She was easy to love. The most affectionate
and the cheekiest of her seven children, if Bolanle wished, she could
get away with anything from her father and especially from her. She
wondered if that was why she wasn’t too eager to see her go now, but
shook her head as soon as the thought formed. No, that wasn’t it.
The problem was she had a feeling that Bolanle wasn’t quite sure
she wanted to be married yet. Never mind the fact that by the time she
was Bolanle’s age, she had already had five of her seven children.
At 35 her last daughter was a strong, fiercely independent no-nonsense
type woman. Truth be told however, the woman hadn’t said anything
or done anything to cause the niggle Julie been unable to shake for
the past few weeks now, but she knew her children.
She was so connected to them she could always sense when there was
trouble. And this time, the bells in her head were clanging away. They
were telling her things were not all good. She however knew better than
to ask her daughter what the problem was. Bolanle would just smile and
tell her nothing. That was one other annoying trait she got from her
father. Isola was a fiercely independent man who was unshakable in his
belief that he could handle whatever life threw at him without help
from anyone. He believed other people had enough of their own issues
and he didn’t need to add his burden to their load.
So Bolanle would almost certainly die first before confiding in anyone,
before first exhausting all the avenues within her power to solve her
issues. She was her father’s daughter when it came to that. The best
way to handle the matter was to just pray and be there for her.
She walked into her compound to find her husband unfurling tarp and
muttering to himself. He looked quite miffed; “Woman where have you
been all morning? The canopies need erecting, and these bumbling so-and-sos
have got absolutely no clue…”
Most times when she looked at her husband of 45 years she just saw
the man he was several years ago when they were both younger. She saw
him as a total experience more than just as a man. It was a full experience
of laughter tears and anger. He was a lot more than the rock she had
clung on to as a new bride who had to move with her husband to a strange
land of people with a different culture, religion and ideas. These people
spoke a totally different language from what she was used to. He had
told her then, that the language was called Hausa and encouraged her
to learn it as fast as she could, as the markets were filled with them,
and she would have to speak the language if she wished to be understood
when she went shopping.
She felt lost and desperate so far away from home and wept herself
weak most of the time. Especially as she had to stay home and await
her husband return from work each day. There was nothing to do, and
no friends to visit or who would visit her. She cleaned and washed the
house over and over in order to keep herself occupied, but how much
mess could two people create? Especially when one of them was a husband
who left home at dawn and almost never came back till dusk six days
a week? She’d finish cleaning and have enough time on her hands to
get bored and weep. She would look forward to the evenings with unparalleled
eagerness. She loved the evenings. They were kind to her, they brought
her husband home. Tired yes, but she always had hot water waiting in
the aluminum kettle for him to take a bath with.
As soon as she heard his motorcycle revving into the compound, she
would grab the iron bucket and head to the kitchen to turn down the
knob on the blue and white double burner butterfly stove he had bought
for her as a wedding gift a week after they got to Kaduna. The stove
he had been using before their wedding had rusted and peeled. It was
a small green stove that had seen better times. It was charred and leaking
and she kept is as ‘back-up’. The one he bought for her was the
sort that had a compartment which held a glass bottle for kerosene storage.
She had felt envied by their neighbors back then, because her stove
was the only two burner stove in the communal kitchen. It was also the
newest.
As soon as she lifted she kettle off the stove, she would place her
pot of soup on the fire to heat while she prepared his bath water.
She knew how hot he liked his bath after a long muscle testing day
at work as a carpenter. His work often included stints as a mason, climbing
up and down scaffoldings to work on roofs for new buildings or to fix
old leaky ones.
She was the carpenter’s wife. They were not rich, but there was
always something to eat. And she made sure she kept him fed and there
was always hot water waiting to wash the red dust off his tired body
every evening.
By the time he finished having a wash, she would have his dinner ready.
Usually, dinner was Eba with stew and okra soup with an assortment of
beef cuts and fish. The weekends were days to cook rice and black-eyed
beans with chicken in stew.
She would serve him food in transparent glass dishes the color of
watered down coffee. She loved those dishes. They came in a complete
set of 24- tea-cups, Saucers, Plates, Soup bowls, Mugs and Side plates.
She loved counting them and rubbing her fingers over the embossed clover
petals and groves on the outside if the glassware whenever she was bored.
She only took out two sets of the entire lot. The rest she kept tucked
away under her “Hausa bed”. That bed was the type every Amariya or ‘new bride’ got in the north.
It resembled something from an Arabian night’s tale. It had long poles
of about five feet protruding from all four corners. The tops of each
pole had carved cones covered in gold paint screwed on to each of them.
The bed itself had springs over which a heavy mattress was placed.
She looked forward to the evenings every day. They brought her husband
back to her, and after a hot bath and hot food, she knew the evenings
usually ended nicely in that “Hausa bed”. Oh how she loved the bed’s
springs then, the way they gave with each urgent thrust from her husband’s
waist, sending her deeper into the folds of the mattress, then pushing
her right back up against his exquisite turgidness. There was nothing
quite like it.
It was much better than the bed they had shared on that first night
after all the noise and merrymaking of their wedding had died away with
the night. Her train had escorted her as was the custom, to the home
where she was to give herself to her husband. They would go with her
to her husband’s house ordinarily, but, in this instance, they couldn’t.
He lived in “Ile Awusa” the Hausa man’s land. So they followed her
to his uncle’s house instead. His uncle had a large house, and a ‘boys-quarter’
had been made available for the occasion. It came with an invitation
for them to stay as long as they wished.
She was terrified out of her wits, and her train, comprising of her
mates from standard six to the cousins she had lived with at her uncles’
house- did not help calm her nerves. They terrorized her with horror
stories of how much pain she was about to suffer, as her hymen would
first have to be cut with a pocket knife by her husband “so that he
can pass…” they advised her to have a swathe of clean cotton nearby
so that she would have something with which to mop up the blood she
was sure to shed. On and on went the tales until she fairly burst into
terrified tears at the ordeal she knew she couldn’t get out of.
When the time came for her conjugal duty, she was as spooked as any
horse could be. Isola was so eager to consummate their union he cut
straight to the chase upon getting into the room having successfully
shooed her friends off amidst giggles and advice to “take it easy
o…”
He promptly took off his shirt and undid his Sokoto, shrugged off the indigo dyed item
one leg at a time and stood before her in his Y-front BYFs. She couldn’t
swallow the lump in her throat. Her eyes darted over his pelvis in one
anxious sweep and her heart almost deafened her ears with the thudding.
She broke out in cold sweat and her armpits began to itch. She stared
at him transfixed and he looked at her with the first half of an anticipatory
smile. Totally mistaking her trepidation for awe, Isola tucked both
of his thumbs in his BYFs and promptly pushed it down revealing himself
fully to her for the very first time.
She had never seen a grown man naked before. Worse, no one ever prepared
her for the sight of a fully aroused one.
She burst into tears.
He moved towards her to reassure her but she ran to the side of the
room furthest from him and cowered against the wall with a strangled
shriek.
“Okay, calm down. Julie..? Julie I said calm down. I’m sorry I
frightened you. I’m going to put my clothes back on…” She did
not lift her head from where she had hidden it under her left arm. Her
right arm protruded from under the left and her hand stayed stiff as
the fingers splayed out as if warding off something feral.
She heard his footsteps recede as he walked back to where his discarded
clothes lay. He smiled wryly at the forlorn looking heap as he picked
up his clothes one after the other and quietly put them back on.
When he was done, he turned around and saw her watching him. Her breasts
where heaving, and her nostrils where still flaring as she struggled
to calm her nerves.
His heart constricted at the picture. He grabbed the only chair in
the room; a hard, high-back ‘student’s chair’ and turning it in
her direction, he sat and just watched her.
They stared at each other like that for what seemed like an interminably
long time. Eventually a part of her mind told her her leg was cramping
so she uncurled it and sat down with her back against the wall, her
legs spread out in front of her.
She kept him in her line of sight all the while, not quite sure about
how capable he was of lunging at her at any moment.
Isola didn’t move. He just watched her. When he was sure she was
calm enough to hear him, he got up and headed for the door. “Where
are you going” her voice was a mixture of relief and befuddlement.
“I’m going to sleep in the parlor. You’re obviously not ready
to be my wife yet”
“That’s not t..t..true,” stuttered, “… I’m your wife already”
“You know what I mean Julie” his voice had a hint of disappointment
in it, and curiously, the sound of it hurt her. “What do you want
me to do?” there was fright in her voice again.
“What do you want to do?”
The pause that followed was long as she contemplated the question
and the possible consequences she’d have to face depending on what
her answer turned out to be. “I want to undress you.”
His heart began a slow thumping. He let her undress him as he focused
desperately on reigning in his arousal. He knew he was going to lose
the battle; still he tried like his life depended on it. His wife was
a beautiful woman, and the smell of her up close as she pulled his dashiki
off him was doing his head in.
She kept her eyes averted as she reached for the ropes that held his
Sokoto tightly tied to his waist. When her fingers touched his stomach
he trembled. His sharp intake of breath startled her and she froze.
His jaws came down hard on each other and he cursed himself in his head.
‘Calm down you fool, before you scare her off again’
“Did I hurt you?” her question was raw in its simplicity. Her
eyes were round Kobos. “No…no you didn’t hurt me…are you sure
you want to take that off? You know what it means if you do?”
“I’m not sure.., but I’m your wife...” He smiled at that.
“Yes you are, and I’m a lucky man to have you as my wife” she
glowed at that, and her fingers seemed to find a stash of fresh confidence.
In no time, he was standing before her, naked. She looked at her husband.
Her eyes travelled shyly from his face down his torso, further down
over his belly, lower… He thought he’d burst and when she asked
in a voice half curious and half afraid; “Can…can I touch you there?”
He did burst. He burst out laughing. “Yes dear wife, yes you can touch
me there, in fact I intend to insist upon it till the day I die, but
not tonight”
“Ha? Not tonight? Why not?”
He couldn’t control his laughter anymore, and the sight and sound
of him laughing lifted her spirits and squared her shoulders. Everything
was going to be alright with her as long this man was with her. “Woman
you can’t touch me tonight, because if you do I won’t be able to
control myself. I’ll have to make love to you like you know I’ve
wanted to do for a very long time...” His voice had lost all mirth.
There was a hunger in it that had her melting and turning warm in primal
places. “So, who’s stopping you?” it was whisper, but it was loud
enough. He took her hand and placed it his most pressing need.
She did not need the swathe of cotton her friends had told her about
after all, and he did not cut her hymen with a pocket-knife…
In the morning he went to the main house and asked his uncle’s wife
for a pair of scissors. He came back; cut off a part of the bed sheet,
folded it neatly and walked out. She opened one lazy eye and watched
his bare back as he walked out the door. She knew he would give the
piece of cloth to his uncle along with money to replace the soiled sheets
and enough to buy a spotless white ram which would be sent along with
the cut piece of bedding to her uncle’s house with gratitude, for
the gift of a virgin bride.
As she looked into his eyes now the memories threatened to drown her
as they glided past in full color. She had inherited a photographic
memory from one or both of her parents so recalling the past was easy.
She had often driven her family close to crazy with her total recall
skills as she would announce dates and times of events that everyone
else remembered as chunks of memory. All her children except Bolanle
would remember events in summary or highlights whereas she would irk
them with total recall of how much Naira and Kobo was spent by whom
in which year, Month and date. ‘That was when Mrs. So-and-so had just
given birth and so and so’s car was given a fresh coat of green paint.
She smiled at this man who had been her friend, enemy and tutor over
the years. She wanted that for her daughter too. Marriage was meaningless
if to people couldn’t quarrel as often as she did with Isola safe
in the knowledge that they would resolve it, no matter how dirty the
fight got.
“Woman, did you hear me?” she liked it when he called her “woman”
the word was an entire book as far as she was concerned. It had several
chapters with detailed description of the different places life together
had taken them.
Yes, yes, I heard you, I haven’t gone deaf yet. I will attend to
it. But please make sure those butchers do not make a spectacle of killing
that cow. I don’t want any child below fifteen at the site either.
It’s not the sort of experience a child should be exposed to.
Things went into overdrive from that point on. People literally started
stepping on each other’s toes as preparations for her daughters engagement
party went into full gear. The in-laws were due to arrive by 4pm. They
had about six hours to get ready.
She went in search of her daughter and after conducting a search around
the house eventually found her snug under the duvet not in her room,
as for some reason, Bolanle had found a need to curl up in her mother’s
bed.
Julie didn’t need any more proof; something was wrong. She burst
into the family Oriki- the praise chant of her husband’s people. “Bolanel
mi, omo agbegi gberekete. Omo awodi jeun epe sanra omo awodi jeun epe
ma ru. Omo asojo koto sakin omo asalo saaju ija. A jeji ko gbudo wo
‘gbo baba re ajeji to ba wo’gbo babare a fi se’bo. Ikereku merin
tutu nene. B’ikereku kolowo b’ikereku ko la, ola merin to je.
Bolanle, talk to me now? It’s true I’m don’t know the way things
are run in your generation, but I’m still your mother. You know anything
that hurts you hurts me in four places my child. Ki lo de? So fun mi?
“Mama what are you talking about? I’m fine, nothing’s wrong.”
“And nothing will be wrong by the grace of our God, but I’m insisting
there’s something heavy on your mind. Bolanle, I know you. She let
out a short chuckle; I know you like the wrinkles on my face. Dear child,
there is something behind your eyes…”
“Mama that is emotional blackmail. Bolanle’s chuckle was a younger
version of her mother’s; “I can’t believe you’re pulling that
card right now.”
“Well, is it working?”
The younger woman just smiled. “Maybe, but I don’t want to talk
about it right now, I just want you to hold me like you used to Mama.
Can we just stay here a while? Do we have to rush?”
Julie did the only thing a mother with a distressed child could have
done at that point. She walked to the door and locked the rest of the
world out. Then she got into bed and pulled her daughter to her breast.
As she stroked her hair, she sang the same song she had used to lull
all seven of her children to sleep when they were babies. “ijo ki’mba
ko w’omo o? ara ki’mbada ko W’omo..?” The world shrunk for them
at point. Only two people existed then; a mother and her child. The
only sound that mattered was the sound of a mother’s velvety voice
singing away the shadows.
They lay like that for all of one hour while the world outside the
room carried on with preparations for the engagement. The search for
mother and daughter had started about fifteen minutes after Julie locked
the door. Several calls had been made to Julies’ phone, but she had
set it to silent just before she dozed off. When she woke up, she picked
up the phone, and called her husband first.
“Isola, you called me?”
“Of course I called you.” His voice was exasperated. “Where
are you? And where is Bolanle?”
She’s with me in the bedroom. Did you need something?”
“Not anymore, the women wondered where you both were. Shouldn’t
she be dressing up by now? You know how long you women take to dress
up. I don’t want to drag anything for longer than is necessary you
know?”
“She will be ready when she’s ready. There’s no need to rush
anything. Please don’t stress yourself out; we paid professionals
to take care of this for just this reason, so that we don’t end up
overly stressed out.”
After that conversation she turned to towards the reason for the small
tornado ripping through her home and saw that Bolanle must have woken
up during the phone conversation.
“Mama, did you have second thoughts about getting married?”
Ah! Her child was finally ready to confide; “my dear, I had second
and third thoughts. I knew I was going to have to leave my life as I
knew it and follow your father to a place where he would be the only
one I would know for a long time. I was a basket of confusion long before
and long after I married your father”
“And yet you went ahead with it? What convinced you to do it?”
“For one thing, your father was a handsome man…” she said with
a laugh. “... He was what your generation would call a ‘catch’
at the time, and I loved him almost as soon as he came with his uncle
to my uncle’s house to declare his intentions. But over and above
that, I had to settle within my heart that I was going to try and make
us work. I was 22 when we met; he was ten years older, and wiser too!
When after almost one year he came from Kaduna and said he was ready
for marriage, I set my heart on being as good a wife as I could be,
and jumped. I’m glad I did.”
She could tell her daughter was in distress and her heart ached with
the urge to make whatever it was go away and stay gone.
“What do you want to do my child? We can cancel this wedding if
you’re not sure?”
“But the people…”
“Which people? The people can eat the food and drink all they can.
We’ll hold a party all the same, and tell them this is a rehearsal
and we will invite them again when we are ready.
Marriage is not about the people. It’s about two individuals and
how resolved and ready they are within their hearts to walk through
life together. You will be happy and you will be sad. You will be angry
and there will be times when you will both hurt. The thing that will
keep you in it is love, your mutual resolve, and what you do with it.
So, what do you want to do my dear?”
“But I’m 35 years old!” she almost wailed.
“But you are still and will always be a child to me. Besides, it’s
not as if you’re calling off the wedding permanently…” it was
both a question and a statement.
“No mama, I love Chimdi to bits and I know he loves me too. I just…”
she faded off and looked around the room as if the answer to her quandary
was hiding in a corner.
Julie took her daughter by one hand and with the other hand she turned
her face around with a gentle tug on her jaw. She looked in her eyes;
“Bolanle omo Isola, what do you want to do?”
The hand against her cheek felt rough and moist at the same time.
Age and time had turned it from the soft moist hand of a young woman
into this texture that spoke of dedication and duty. This hand had cradled
and spanked in turns. The hand nurtured and carved character into her
home through dry and wet weather. Bolanle wanted her hand to tell this
kind of story too. She lifted her right hand and placed it on her mother’s.
“Mama, I think we should have a party…”