Red. Sharp. Piercing. This is how I remember the whooshh in my ear. Blood drip from my nose. It taste like suffer. What did I do? I forget to wash my husband work shirt. My brain is weak. I forget things fast. My ear will sing and cry for seven days, then forget. To calm his temper once in a while, my husband will say that had he not spend better part of his savings on my head, he would have traded me for a glass of beer. Not even a glass of red wine, I sigh. But that is for good days. Normal day, he bash my face.
That my husband, his temper is like gas; ‘e dey quick catch fire’. But my Auntie B said that husbands are like gift bags, anything you open is what you get. True true but God suppose know the kind of gift you need before giving it out. Like this my husband now, things like his sense, hygiene, happiness, and kindness, God measured it with a very small cup. And I don’t even know which good one He blessed him with, because I’m sure God doesn’t give bad.
After three years, I have learned to forget about all his bad characters and focus on myself. Aunty B said that if he is not good at all, he would have married another woman that will give him child but you know Aunty B can never see anything wrong with husband. Her own. My own. Like customers, every husband is right. Their word is law. What will my life be without a husband? And true true, I believe her. I remember that day I go to bank to open account and forget my date of birth, it is my husband I call and he supply me with it. Neat. He’s the one that keep all our documents in an envelope under the bed. Because of his clerk work in court, he can stay out too late. Sometimes, he buys dry meat or gala for me when he’s coming. And since the day he return without any and I ask him why and he dash me one thunder slap, I have learn to zip my mouth. Aunty B also said that marriage will teach me to stop talking too much. Men don’t like too much talk.
I make one mistake. That time when my mother was still alive, she tell me to join the rest of the girls to Senior Girls School at Mbaito. She buy sandals, fine skirt and Vaseline, plait my hair into three big zigzag. I agree. But when I wake up that day, I am not in the mood again. I follow her to the stall at Nkwo Market where she sell charcoal. That day, she bring all the women to talk to me. They say women are teachers, confidential secretaries, typists, surveyors, bankers, catechists, commissioners, plenty things they say. They say they want to be girls again because they will never miss the opportunity of attending Senior Girls School not minding that Mbaito is villages away. If the girls leave home by cockcrow, they reach after sunrise. They talk and talk. Some of them are happy their girls are not refusing like me; Ihechi, Nnenna, Amara, Nkiru and the rest of the girls. They talk and talk. When customers come, they leave to sell market only to come back again. My mind did not change. It wanted to change when my mother began crying the next day, because her tears be causing my own to fall too but I find the small shiny stone and put it in my mouth.
I soon become my mother second in the market. I wake up before cockcrow to put the house in order, then go to my mother’s stall to sweep and display our market. It take time, maybe a year or more. I don’t know how to calculate time, but it take time before my mother die. That day, the people who saw what happen say that the motor did not hit her too much, but blood was coming from her ear and after some days in Udoka health care, she stop eating, then she stop talking but her eyes are open like torch. She did not look like dead people at all.
I refused to close my mother’s stall until Aunty B came from Asaba. She said no fine man will marry me if I continue selling charcoal. And that even if my mother was alive, she will want me to marry quick quick. That is the only time she mention my mother. So because she mention my mother, I pack all the charcoal and sell it to Egodi, my mother’s friend, so it will not soak water, before I follow Aunty B to Asaba. The journey from Ogidi to Asaba is like going to Kafanchan. Aunty B buy me bole, fish and egg. I am eating like I fall from heaven. But when I get to Asaba, everything change.
Aunty B start teaching me how to be a woman. She said I behaving like small animal, the way I eat; licking my lips and pah pah my tongue. Disgusting. That is the word she use. I cannot forget this one, because I know it is insult. When she call me, I will open my mouth and answer, nodding my head like agama lizard will stop. Because is that how I will answer my husband after he pay my bride price. Aunty B say she will start teaching me everything afresh. From hygiene to housekeeping to cooking to pricing things in the market and mannerisms. I don’t have any choice. I learn.
So the first time my husband come, I don’t know how to behave. I don’t know if I should kneel or stand. Aunty B said he make small money from timber business before he become clerk. Aunty B is calling him sir so I start calling him sir. The next time I see him, Aunty B take me to his house. He is looking at me like I’m Udara. You know the way you look at Udara before you put your mouth and squeeze. I don’t like it. At all. But I smile because Aunty B say a woman who’s ready for marriage should never be caught frowning. Even when my chest is doing me like I swallow big stone, I smile.
That day, Aunty B told him I will come back and cook soup for him. When we were ready to go, he squeeze dirty one thousand naira in my palm and squeeze my shoulder. That squeeze pain me for ten days. The next day, I buy things from the market close to our house before going to his house. He was not at home so his houseboy let me enter. I cook soup and stew with big big meat. Since I come to Asaba, I have not eat that size of meat. But Aunty B say that is how you treat man. You give them big big meat. It makes them happy.
After cooking, I wash everything I use, clean his kitchen because it’s lacking the shine and spark Aunty B said a woman’s kitchen must have. It’s not yet my kitchen but my Aunty B will not agree. I dish the food in the flask and keep it on the dining before I leave. Two days later, he call Aunty B that he want to put wine on my head. Her joy was rushing like tap water. She buy me long flower gowns, the type that hold together my waist before falling to my bamboo legs. She take me to a big salon, where they rub white smelly something on my hair and it grow longer. I like to touch it but Aunty B will slap my hand and tell me to stop behaving like a village girl. They also do something to my eyebrows to make it slim and finer.
When my husband people come, they say I look more beautiful than Felix tell them. Felix is my husband. Aunty B pack my kaya before that day so when his people are leaving, she give my bag to them. I cry. I cry so much. My heart was rising like fresh ogbono and wanted to burst out of my chest. I cry until my husband start spraying me money, until they are throwing me wrappers, until all the men join in spraying me money.
It is one of the things I put on my mind that night when his stone hand started going under my wrapper. I remember everything Aunty B teach me but my chest was flying again and I start crying. My husband did not wait. When he enter, hammer hit my head and I shout. Aunty B did not tell me it will be like that. She did not tell me hammer will hit my head. My husband did not stop. I start thinking about the time everybody was singing for me, spraying me money and wrapper. I want to smile but I start shouting. All my tears finish before morning.
I make another mistake. After my marriage, I am very rich. All the money people give me and the clothes and the head ties. I put everything in a box so I can open it and look whenever I like. I was rich. So my husband start collecting money from me. He will tell me how he had to borrow from someone because of the ceremony, so me, I will feel bad. Two thousand, I will open my box and give. Three thousand, one thousand, five hundred, five thousand, seven hundred, I will open my box and give him. I give him plenty of my money until everything finish. He say he will pay me back when they pay salary. I did not see.
When he tell me to sell the wrappers so we can use the money, that is when I know I make a mistake. So I tell him to let the houseboy go. We can manage our life without extra mouth for food. He refused but later send him back to the village. I smile. Aunty B tell me about this one too, how men will not agree to what you say but will later do that thing you say.
I refuse to sell my wrappers. I lock the box and hide the key inside the container of my Maggi. If you don’t want your husband to find something, put it in your kitchen. Some of the advice Aunty B gave me really work o but some did not work at all. Like the big, big meat, the money Felix is giving me for food can no longer buy big big meat. And the day there’s no meat to eat, he will beat me and beat me until darkness cover my eyes.
I know when money enters his hand, because he cannot hide it. So I remind him about all the money he’s owing me. His eyes grow big and almost fall out. He says, ‘Aaahhhh, Elizabeth, you are ungrateful. I feed you, I clothe you. And you open your mouth to task me.’
I say, ‘No, I am not a task collector. I just want to use the money and start charcoal business so I can support you.’ He slap me. He say he doesn’t need help. That he rather enter under a tyre than let a woman support him. All the things he has been doing to me since I come to his house is painful but that one? E pain me well well. You see men? I don’t like their pride. Sometimes pride can block your progress. But I did not tell him. I did not talk about the business again.
They say a woman is nothing without a child. So anytime my husband is shooting his shot, I open my legs well. Even when it is hitting my head like hammer and making me want to run mad. I don’t want to miss anything. Aunty B say if I have a son, he will stop beating me. The last one he beat me left a big red mark under my eye and when I went to see Aunty B, she was rubbing my belly, praying for a child, instead of giving me medicine for my headache. I begin to cry. These days, my tears is all I have. I begin to carry children in church, in my yard, anywhere I see children. I buy them tom-tom, biscuits; I sing for them; I beg them to come to me before my husband will kill me. I don’t want to die.
There is hope when Aunty B take me to one man in Nkwelle. She had told my husband she was taking me to see my maternal grandmother. So that morning, I did not eat anything like she told me, I bath with a little salt in water and cover all my body with big clothes. Then I put bitter kola in my mouth to protect me from all evil.
The road to Nkwelle is very bad. Anytime I want to think about my husband, the motor will gallop, and my thinking will clear. Sometimes I will feel like I want to vomit, but because of the bitter kola, it will not come out. I don’t like our driver’s driving at all. It is too early to put our life in danger. But because everybody was discussing the politician they killed in Onitsha with his girlfriend, nobody is noticing his bad driving. I wanted to ask Aunty B whether it is not too early to talk about death, but she has already started talking about the girl they killed. What was she doing with somebody’s husband? With all her beauty, she cannot find her own husband? I wanted to cover her mouth because her voice, which is always Ogene, is sounding in my ear, and it is making my brain vibrate. Me, I bend my head and cover my ears.
When we reach Nkwelle, there’s a boy that is waiting to collect us. So we follow him to his master, who’s an old man. His teeth are brown-black, and I almost vomit when he open it. The house is like the kind of house Osu people live in. It was in the middle of nowhere. The cold from the bush is making my nose drop water. Pimples everywhere on my body.
The man look at me and ask why children are running from me. I tell him I don’t know. He say I know. I say I don’t know. He ask what I will give to the spirits if they find us the answer. Aunty B say she will buy the spirits one big cock. I want to ask if the spirit can eat chicken but I don’t. The man laugh and my stomach sing.
He say he will give me a baby, but first, I will learn how to accept children, I will learn how to take care of children. Aunty B get up and start dancing. The man smile before he tell her to sit down. He shout for the boy that brought us. He tell the boy to prepare water and clay. When he return, he tell me to follow him. He tell the boy to teach me how to mold baby.
We go to the back of the house where there’s small flowing water. I remove the scarf that I use to cover my head and tie it on my waist. The boy tell me to mold a baby the way I want my baby to be. I smile. It has been long I mold something but I did not forget. I try, even though the baby was not looking like a baby but I take it to the man. He laugh when he see the baby, only laugh. Aunty B laugh too. The man put the baby in the sun and started doing something with sand, stone and cowries. I tell him I don’t want a baby that is red but he don’t say anything again.
By the time he dismiss us, the baby has dried. He hand it over to me and tell me to take care of my child. Aunty B ask him when the real one will come, he say three moons if I take care of this one well. The boy bring us to the road again where we enter motor back to Asaba. My stomach is singing and singing. I ask Aunty B if I will breastfeed the baby. She say I don’t have milk yet. My stomach start singing again.
When I go home, I put the baby in my kitchen drawer, the one that is empty. I put it in a baby shawl Aunty B give me, I wrap it except the face so it can breathe. Everything I cook, I bring to it. I clean it with water, rub it Vaseline, and tell it to please stay with me. I wait days before I change the shawl.
Dry season is fast coming. I can smell Christmas so I tell my husband that I want to go and see my father’s people in the village. He say he don’t have money to give me. I did not talk again because my joy is full. Since I bring my clay baby, my heart is very happy. Even if my husband slap me, I say, ‘Thank you, sir.’ Even the day he pour my food because I did not put meat, I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ I don’t want anybody that will make me angry, and I will forget to care for my baby.
Three days before Christmas, I am picking Egusi when my husband ask me to give him knife from the kitchen. A line of ants follow through the door. I follow the small line into the kitchen, it lead me to the cupboard where my baby is. I open the door immediately, so much black ants on my baby, on the food I keep for him. I feel like crying. I open the shawl, lie my baby on the floor, before I pick broom from the corner and start killing all the wicked ants. I did not know when my husband enter the kitchen and saw me cleaning my baby, cursing all the ants. When he ask me if I am mad, I did not answer because I don’t want any ant on my baby at all so I was very busy cleaning and killing.
Everything happen like lightening, the slap, the sound of my baby crashing on the floor, his heavy leg jumping and jumping on my baby until it become powder. He ask me if I am mad again, and I jump and hold his shirt. I hit his mouth with all the power in my body. He open his eyes wide. He pushed me down, I fall and get tired. After some time, fire start falling on my body, my legs, my hand, my face, my head, and my back. I shout so that everybody that hear it will run and come. Nobody come. He did not stop flogging me. He flog me until his hand get weak. He throw the cane, bend to my face, drag my hair and slap me, again, again, again until my spirit fail me and I forget all my pain.
You will fail if you’re not spiritual. Aunty B tell me again in three minutes. I did not say anything. I have not say anything since my husband drag me outside the door with all my old clothes, and call Aunty B to come and carry me if she want me alive. I have not say anything since Aunty B told my husband that she don’t know where I get my baby from. I have not say anything because when I wake up, I was lying on the sand outside my husband house and black ants is biting my legs. Aunty B say it is because I don’t pray well, that I was careless, that I’m not praying at all, that I will rest for two days before we go and beg my husband.
I turn my face and look at the television. Small girls are dancing, twisting their waist this way and that way, shining teeth, singing ‘Merry Christmas’ and clapping their hands. I laugh.
Aunty B ask me why I’m laughing, that am I thinking I will live in her house after my husband chase me away. I laugh again. She ask me if I am mad. I laugh long, very long all my energy finish. She stand and tie her wrapper that is falling off. I wait until she reach the door before I tell her that I’m going home.
She ask me which home. I ask her how many do I have. She stand there looking at me.
We have electricity now. So after cleaning my mother’s house, I call Ikem to fix my light for me and I pay him small money. Rain has washed the mound of my mother’s grave, so I buy cement blocks and put around it. Somebody has taken my mother’s stall so I find another one down the line and buy. Everybody is stopping to greet me. They said my skin is fine, that my husband is taking care of me and why did I come back. I tell them that my husband died in fire accident in Onitsha last year. They fold their hand across their chest and shout ewuuuuu. The women tell me the place they buy charcoal but I buy from Asaba, from the man I wanted to be buying from if my husband agree. The charcoal burns like kerosene, and soon people start passing all the women at the front down to my stall to buy charcoal, I sell plenty bags in a day and make ten times profit. The women come to tell me that Ihechi married a big man in big city Lagos, that Nnenna is now accountant in Enugu, that Nkiru teach English in Government College. I wait until they tell me to show them what I’m using to sell my charcoal, why I steal all their customers. I laugh. I laugh. They say they hear my husband throw me away because I’m doing juju and because my stomach is too hot to hold baby. I laugh.
After they leave, I close my stall and go home. At home, I catch Ikem, my neighbor, stealing the block I keep on my mother’s grave. I shout. He say I am not supposed to leave my father’s grave and design my mother’s grave. He say that everybody knows why my husband chase me away, that nobody will believe me if I report him. I pick a rock, the one that my palm can cover and hit him in the back of his head.
The next day, the elders call me to a small meeting. Ikem is sitting with them with white cloth wrapping the large head. They say that a woman is not allowed to fight men. That a good woman will call her husband to talk to his fellow man, but I don’t have a husband. They say I am nothing without my husband. They did not ask me what Ikem do so I did not talk. When they finish, I tell Ikem that if I see his leg in my compound again, that I will make sure he die. The elder shout arụ arụ arụ while I gather my wrapper and go.
My business start growing too much. I hire a small girl to help me. And the day she say she doesn’t have mother again, I tell her, come and live with me. Before I wake up in the morning, she has open my stall and start supplying charcoal. Everybody is buying my charcoal. I bring down my mother’s house and build cement house. I fence it round, hire water drillers and they dig water, put tap outside my fence for everybody to be fetching water. Mothers bring their daughter to wash my clothes or cook for me but I tell them no. The one I have is enough. I hire a man from Mbaito to build my mother’s grave the way I see in television. He use fine fine marbles to do it.
After selling charcoal, I come back and sit there, because it is cold and it make me feel my mother is sitting with me. So I tell her I will not go back to my husband. That I will use my money and adopt the girl because I have hear people do it and I want somebody to look after the house if I die. She say I will not die. I laugh. I laugh well well. I tell her that I’m the number one charcoal seller in all of the three neighboring villages. She say she know. I was silent. I can hear the girl knocking up pots and plates in the kitchen. I can hear people fetching water outside the fat walls. I can hear the night coming and my mother will soon leave me alone. So I ask her what if my husband had killed me that day. She laugh. I laugh too. We laugh until the girl touch my hand and say that food is ready.
About the Author
Chizitere Madeleine Nwaemesi is the author of the novella Roses & Prickles. Her writing has appeared in Isele Magazine, African Writer, The Shallow Tales Review, Efiko, Akpata, Punocracy, Ink In Thirds, Afrocritik and The AprilCentaur Network. You can find her on Substack.
Feature Image by Earl Wilox on Unsplash