my precious daughter!’ Iya Martha grinned, cupping my cheeks with moist and fleshy hands.
I grinned back and knelt to greet them. ‘Welcome, welcome. God must have woken up thinking of me today-o. That is why you are all here,’ I said, bending in a semi-kneel again after they had come in and were seated in the sitting room.
They laughed.
‘Where is your husband? Do we meet him at home?’ Baba Lola asked, looking around the room as though I had stashed Akin under a chair.
‘Yes, sir, he is upstairs. I’ll go and call him after I serve your drinks. What should I prepare for food? Pounded yam?’
The man glanced at my stepmother as though, while rehearsing for the drama that was about to unfold, he had not read this part of their script.
Iya Martha shook her head from side to side. ‘We cannot eat. Get your husband. We have important things to discuss with the two of you.’
I smiled, left the sitting-room area and headed for the staircase. I thought I knew what ‘important things’ they had come to discuss. A number of my in-laws had been in our home previously to discuss the same issue. A discussion consisted of them talking and me listening while on my knees. At those times, Akin pretended to listen and jot notes while writing his to-do list for the next day. No one in the series of delegations could read or write and they were all in awe of those who could. They were impressed that Akin wrote down their words. And sometimes, if he stopped writing, the person speaking at the time would complain that Akin was disrespecting him or her by not noting anything down. My husband often planned his entire week during such visits, while I got terrible cramps in my legs.
The visits irritated Akin and he wanted to tell his relatives to mind their own business, but I would not allow it. The long discussions did give me leg cramps, but at least they made me feel I was part of his family. Until that afternoon, no one in my family had paid me that kind of visit since I’d got married.
As I went up the stairs, I knew that Iya Martha’s presence meant some new point was about to be made. I did not need their advice. My home was fine without the important things they had to say. I did not want to hear Baba Lola’s hoarse voice being forced out in between coughs or see another flash of Iya Martha’s teeth.
I believed I had heard it all already anyway and I was sure my husband would feel the same way. I was surprised to find Akin awake. He worked six days a week and slept through most Sundays. But he was pacing the floor when I entered our room.
‘You knew they would come today?’ I searched his face for the familiar mix of horror and irritation that it wore any time a special delegation came visiting.
‘They are here?’ He stood still and clasped his hands behind his head. No horror, no irritation. The room began to feel stuffy.
‘You knew they were coming? You didn’t tell me?’
‘Let’s just go downstairs.’ He walked out of the room.
‘Akin, what is going on? What is happening?’ I called after him.
I sat down on the bed, held my head in my hands and tried to breathe. I stayed that way until I heard Akin’s voice calling me. I went to join him in the sitting room downstairs. I wore a smile, not a big one that showed teeth, just a small lift at the corners of my mouth. The kind that said, Even though you old people know nothing about my marriage, I am delighted, no, ecstatic, to hear all the important things you have to say about it. After all, I am a good wife.
I did not notice her at first, even though she was perched on the edge of Iya Martha’s chair. She was fair, pale yellow like the inside of an unripe mango. Her thin lips were covered with blood-red lipstick.
I leaned towards my husband. His body felt stiff and he did not put his arms around me and pull me close. I tried to figure out where the yellow woman had come from, wondering for a wild minute if Iya Martha had kept her hidden under her wrapper when she came in.
‘Our wife, our people say that when a man has a possession and it becomes two he does not become angry, right?’ Baba Lola said.
I nodded and smiled.
‘Well, our wife, this is your new wife. It is one child that calls another one into this world. Who knows, the king in heaven may answer your prayers because of this wife. Once she gets pregnant and has a child, we are sure you will have one too,’ Baba Lola said.
Iya Martha nodded her agreement. ‘Yejide, my daughter, we have thought about and slept on this issue many times, your husband’s people and me. And your other mothers.’
I shut my eyes. I was about to wake up from the trance. When I opened my eyes, the mango-yellow woman was still there, a little blurry but still there. I was dazed.
I had expected them to talk about my childlessness. I was armed with millions of smiles. Apologetic smiles, pity-me smiles, I-look-unto-God smiles – name all the fake smiles needed to get through an afternoon with a group of people who claim to want the best for you while poking at your open sore with a stick – and I had them ready. I was ready to listen to them tell me I must do something about my situation. I expected to hear about a new pastor I could visit; a new mountain where I could go to pray; or an old herbalist in a remote village or town whom I could consult. I was armed with smiles for my lips, an appropriate sheen of tears for my eyes and sniffles for my nose. I was prepared to lock up my hairdressing salon throughout the coming week and go in search of a miracle with my mother-in-law in tow. What I was not expecting was another smiling woman in the room, a yellow woman with a blood-red mouth who grinned like a new bride.
I wished my mother-in-law were there. She was the only woman I had ever called Moomi. I visited her more often than her son did. She had watched while my fresh perm was washed off into a flowing river by a priest whose theory was that I had been cursed by my mother before she died, minutes after giving birth to me. Moomi was there with me when I sat on a prayer mat for three days, chanting words that I didn’t understand over and over until I fainted on the third day, cutting short what should have been a seven-day fast and vigil.
While I recovered in a ward at Wesley Guild Hospital, she held my hand and asked me to pray for strength. A good mother’s life is hard, she said, a woman can be a bad wife but she must not be a bad mother. Moomi told me that before asking God to give me a child, I must ask for the grace to be able to suffer for that child. She said I wasn’t ready to be a mother yet if I was fainting after three days of fasting.
I realised then that she had not fainted on the third day because she had probably gone on that kind of fast several times to appease God on behalf of her children. In that moment, the lines etched around Moomi’s eyes and mouth became sinister, they began to mean more to me than signs of old age. I was torn. I wanted to be this thing that I never had. I wanted to be a mother, to have my eyes shine with secret joys and wisdom like Moomi’s. Yet all her talk about suffering was terrifying.
‘Her age is not even close to yours,’ Iya Martha leaned forward in her seat. ‘Because they appreciate you, Yejide, your husband’s people know your value. They told me that they recognise that you are a good wife in your husband’s house.’
Baba Lola cleared his throat. ‘Yejide, I as a person, I want to praise you. I want to appreciate your efforts to make sure that our son leaves a child behind when he dies. This is why we know that you will not take this new wife like a rival. Her name is Funmilayo and we know, we trust, that you will take her as
