“Let us bring you some water,” my mother said. I was thankful for her words because I would have otherwise just sat and stared at him like a fool. I followed her into the kitchen as though we both needed to carry a glass of water. I decided at that moment that I hated the open floor plan of the flat because I really wanted to say something about the situation to her but Eli could see and hear me from the sitting room. So instead I took a jug of water out of the fridge and she a glass out of the cupboard, all without speaking to each other. I set the two items on a small silver tray and carefully walked back to the sitting room with my mother behind me. I placed the tray on the side table closest to Eli and poured the water into his glass. He lifted it to his lips and I went back to sit on the edge of the couch with my arms folded in my lap.
“Woezor,” my mother said when Eli set the glass down.
“Yoo.”
“How was the journey?” she asked him in Eυe.
“It went well.”
“Your siblings?” she continued.
“They are well.”
“Woezor,” my mother said.
“Yoo.”
“You are the ones looking after people,” she said, nodding her head.
“You as well.”
“You are the ones who have worked so, so, so, hard,” she said, still nodding, as though agreeing with herself.
“You as well.”
“Are you well?” he asked. He looked at my mother, then at me, as he said this.
“We are well,” she replied. I remained quiet like a child in the presence of two adults having a conversation. “Well, I brought your wife and decided to stay with her as she waited for you,” my mother continued.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Are you well?” he asked again, this time looking directly at me. I nodded and managed a weak smile. He nodded as though satisfied.
“Your wife cooked something small for you,” my mother said.
“Oh, thank you,” he said, his eyes on me.
“Please, you are welcome,” I said.
A moment later I felt a sharp pinch on my back. It was my mother. She swiveled her eyes in the direction of the kitchen when I turned to look at her. I shot to my feet.
“Please, I’m going for the food,” I mumbled and hurried to the kitchen. He chatted with my mother as I heated the stews, but twice when I looked over at them he was staring at me. I lowered my head and only looked at him again when I went to announce that the food was ready. I noticed how tall he was when he stood up. I had been too flustered when he first walked in to note this. He was taller than six feet, which when compared to my five-feet two-inches was a lot. He seemed bigger than when I last saw him, his chest and shoulders broader, but unlike Richard he did not have a paunch. He moved easily, like a much smaller man, but when he sat at the table, he was imposing. Maybe it was because he was sitting at the head of the table.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked me when I remained standing.
“Please, I’ve already eaten,” I lied.
“But I can’t eat alone so come and sit with me,” he said, pointing to the chair nearest him.
“Yes, sit with your husband; I’m going to my room,” my mother called from the sitting room. When I turned to look at her she was standing out of Eli’s view and was blinking rapidly. I knew that she was warning me not to do anything that would displease him, or her, or Aunty, or everyone in Ho who had chosen me as the solution to the problem. The sweat from my armpits began to drip down my sides.
I sat on the edge of the dining chair and began to take slices of yam out of the Pyrex bowl and place them onto his plate as I had seen my mother do for my father when he would come back from work.
“That’s okay,” he said after I had placed the fourth slice on his plate.
“Please, do you want garden egg or kontomire?” I asked in a small voice, suddenly worried that he would not like either.
“I will start with the kontomire,” he said.
I quickly began to scoop the greens onto his plate, careful to drain the excess palm oil out of the spoon before serving him. I hoped that my fast movements would prevent him from noticing my shaking hand. He began to eat as soon as I finished. He smiled after swallowing the first mouthful.
“Very good,” he said and dug in again.
I beamed, pleased with myself. I wished my mother had been there to hear him, and Aunty as well.
“So how are you liking it here?” he said to me in English.
“Please, it’s fine.”
“It’s quiet, ehn, not like Ho?”
I nodded and then smiled, but my smile faded as I began to believe that he would take offense at what I had said. I didn’t want him to think that I was complaining about Accra.
“But I like it very much,” I said quickly.
He looked up, his eyebrows arched. I think he was surprised by the force with which I spoke because I had been whispering and mumbling since he came in.
“What have you been doing?”
“Please, walking around the area, going to the market, housework.”
He was quiet for a while and then asked me, “Isn’t there anything else that you want to do?”
“Anything else?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes, to keep busy.”
I paused as I remembered my mother’s rapidly blinking eyes and her suggestion that I wait a year before starting my training. But I really wanted to start, and Richard hadn’t discouraged me when I told this to him. In fact he had said that it was a “great idea.” Why would his brother react any differently?
“Please, I want to go to fashion school . . . sewing school.”
“That’s good. Which one?”
“Emm . . . please, I’m still thinking about that.”
“Okay. I will ask Yaya to help you look.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved. It was only after this that I realized that we, as husband and wife, had just had a conversation. My relief disappeared when he insisted on helping me take away the dishes and leaned on the counter beside me as I washed them. His presence was disconcerting and made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“Why don’t you use the dishwasher?” he asked.
“Please, it’s faster this way,” I said. I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t tried to use the machine before—mainly because my mother thought we would break it—and was embarrassed to try to figure it out in front of him.
We went back to the sitting room after this but he didn’t sit down. Instead he picked his phones off the center table and told me that he was leaving.
“Now?”
“Yes, I have a meeting. Please call your mother so I can tell her bye.”
I wanted to ask him if he would be coming back later but I didn’t dare. I rather went to get my mother and stood behind her as they spoke.
“Afi, thank you for lunch,” he said.
“Please, you are welcome,” I responded. I didn’t follow him out into the hallway to wait for the lift despite the jerky movements that my mother’s eyeballs were making. I needed to sit and think. I needed to make sense of the afternoon. Was this it? Was this my marriage? The short visit, the awkward conversation? This wasn’t what I had imagined; it certainly wasn’t what I wanted. It is true that I was afraid of messing everything up but I also wanted to be given the chance to try to make it work. How else would I repay Aunty and create the life I dreamt of?
Five
I did not see Eli again for two months, though he called every day, even when he wasn’t in the country. The day after his first visit, he called me around noon as I stood at the guard post listening to Savior and Lucy describe an attempted armed robbery that occurred during the night at one of the big houses on our street. The robbers had thrown poisoned chunks of meat over the fence to the owners’ Boerboels but had underestimated the dogs’ resilience and the security guards’ level of commitment to their job. It was while Savior described, with exaggerated facial expressions and ha
nd gestures, how one of the security guards had aimed and fired his unregistered hunting rifle at the robbers, that my phone rang and an unknown phone number appeared on the screen.
“Afi?”
“Yes?” I answered.
“It’s me, Eli.”
“Oh! Please, good afternoon, Fo Eli.”
“Good afternoon, how are you?”
“Please, I’m fine.”
“Good. I’ve spoken with Yaya. She gets back from Tamale today and will come to take you to see the fashion schools tomorrow. She knows some of the owners.”
“Thank you very much.”
There was then a short silence during which I briefly thought that he had hung up. I wanted to ask him where he was or what time I would see him at King’s Court that day but couldn’t gather the courage. I had cooked for him again—this time omo tuo and groundnut soup—and needed to know when he would be coming to eat. But how could I ask a man like Elikem Ganyo to answer to me? And even if I could, the last thing I wanted was for him to feel like I was nagging. I imagined him complaining to his mother: “I’ve only seen her once and she’s already demanding to know my every move.” But at the same time, the food couldn’t be left on the stovetop indefinitely in the hopes that he would eventually show up and eat it.
“Please, I have prepared omo tuo for you.”
“Omo tuo? Thank you. But I’m sorry I can’t make it today. I’m very busy at work; things are hectic. You know I just returned so there’s a lot for me to do here. I’m really sorry I can’t come.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice flat. I was disappointed. Disappointed and worried about what my mother and Aunty would say.
I think he sensed how I was feeling because he quickly added, “But I will call you when I’m coming. So don’t bother to cook for me until I call to say I’m coming.”
“Okay,” I said, even though that promise didn’t make me feel better. In fact it made me feel worse because he was indirectly telling me that we would not be living together; that I wouldn’t be seeing him every day.
“But expect a call from Yaya soon.”
“Okay. Please, is this your number?”
“Yes, it’s one of my numbers. You can call it if you need to get a hold of me.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“And no need to call me Fo Eli, just call me Eli.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
As expected, my mother blamed me when I told her that Eli would not be coming that day.
“What did you do yesterday when I left you with him?” she asked, while stabbing at a button on the remote to mute the volume on the TV.
“Nothing, I didn’t do anything,” I said, my voice tight. It seemed like the tone of our conversations was getting more strained by the day. If things continued like this, we would soon be screaming at each other.
“Then why isn’t he coming? How can a newlywed man say that he won’t come and be with his wife?”
I shrugged and went into the kitchen where I began to loudly scrape the still-warm food out of the pots and into plastic containers. I could feel her eyes on me as I did this but refused to look up at her.
“But won’t we eat?” she asked when I opened the fridge, a plastic bowl in hand.
I slammed the fridge shut, tossed the bowl on the island, and walked out of the kitchen and to my room, all without looking at her. I came out after a long nap to hear her telling someone on the phone that Eli wasn’t coming that day. I only had to listen for a few more seconds to know that it was Aunty.
“What should we do?” my mother asked, her voice shrill with worry.
I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation because I went back into my room and locked the door.
Yaya came to pick me up the next morning. She had called the previous evening to say that we would be visiting four fashion and design schools. I hadn’t told my mother because I didn’t want to hear more of her thoughts on my decision to start training immediately. In fact, I knew she would say that it was this decision that had caused Eli not to come yesterday; never mind that he had prodded me to tell him my plan and seemed pleased with it. I also didn’t want her accompanying us, something I knew she would offer to do so that she could keep an eye on me and police my every word and action. So I had breakfast and showered as usual and then put on a pair of jeans, a three-quarter-sleeve shirt, and black, flat shoes. I only came out of my room when I heard the doorbell.
“But you didn’t tell me Yaya was coming,” my mother said accusingly. Yaya was standing beside her in slim-fitting trousers made out of a Woodin fabric, the type with gold motifs superimposed on it. On top she wore a fitted black T-shirt and a multi-colored, multi-strand beaded necklace, and her red wedges matched her tote bag.
“Woezor,” I said to her but did not respond to my mother’s accusation.
“How are you?” Yaya asked, stretching out her arms for a hug.
“We are going out,” I said to my mother before she could invite our guest to sit.
“Oh! To where? But why didn’t you tell me? I’m not ready,” she said, looking down at the cloth around her waist and her rumpled blue-and-white Women’s Guild T-shirt.
“I thought you would want to watch TV instead,” I said, evading her questions.
She furrowed her brows so that folds were added to the lines on her forehead. “No problem, I can bathe quickly,” she offered, already walking toward her room.
“Ma, it will take too long. And then you will have to get dressed and eat; it will take too long. Why don’t you relax? We will return soon,” I said and then looked to Yaya for support. The impassive look on her face told me that she didn’t care either way. Before my mother could utter another word, I opened the front door.
“Oh?” my mother said. The sharp look she gave me told me that she knew exactly what I was trying to do.
“We are going and will return,” I called over my shoulder. Yaya said the same and began following me. I didn’t wait for my mother’s response.
Yaya’s car was a silver Camry, the same model as mine. How many of these did the family own? I was surprised to see no driver in it; she drove herself. I hadn’t even known that she could drive. In Ho she always sat beside her mother or in Richard’s car. But now she was overtaking cars on single lane roads and stubbornly refusing to give way to the trotro drivers who tried to force their scratched and dented bumpers into our lane after picking up passengers on the shoulder of the road. I was in awe and a little bit afraid. She laughed when she noticed my hand gripping the door handle.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to Accra driving.”
I managed a close-mouthed chuckle.
“So, how is it going?” she asked.
“Everything is fine.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Yes, it’s nice.”
“How did it go with Fo Eli?”
“Oh, it was fine. He liked the food I cooked.”
“That’s good,” she said and fell silent.
I was thankful for this because I knew that she had not simply been making conversation, she had been assessing my performance and my mother had already done enough of that.
The first school was in Dzorwulu, less than thirty minutes away from King’s Court.
“This is one of the best,” Yaya told me as we climbed out of the car on a side street. I was surprised to hear her say that because the place was not impressive. It didn’t look anything like the images that I saw on the style channels that I would watch when my mother released her hold on the TV’s remote. In fact, it was somebody’s house that had been converted into a place of business. We entered through a small gate and onto a flowerpot-lined walkway, shaded by mango trees that led to a large shed where a hive of people was measuring, cutting, pinning, sewing, ironing, and hanging fabric. Several headless dummies lined one wall and a variety of electric sewing machines, button makers, and pressing irons sat atop tables that were lined up under the shed. Yaya said, “Good morning,” a
nd those standing closest to us responded. The familiar whir of the sewing machines became louder as we weaved through the tables to enter the house. We bypassed a kitchen and came to a small room that had been converted into an office. In it was a large woman whose face broke into a smile when she saw Yaya.
“Atuu,” she said and stretched out her arms.
Yaya bent over and hugged her.
“I can see that you are doing well,” Yaya said to the woman.
“By God’s grace,” the woman said, pointing to chairs that were piled high with swatches of every color and pattern imaginable as well as with fashion magazines. Yaya introduced me after we had transferred the fabric and magazines from the chairs onto a table and sat down.
“Sarah, this is my sister-in-law, Afi. She’s the one I told you about.”
“Ehn hehn, ehn hehn,” Sarah said, nodding her head, which appeared to be attached to her shoulders instead of her neck.
She was a jovial woman who had been two years ahead of Yaya in secondary school—which meant that she was much younger than she appeared—and had been trained at a fashion school in London. I sat up straighter at this bit of information; this woman had been educated abroad, in London. I didn’t even know that Ghanaians went abroad to study fashion. I knew that people traveled to study medicine and such, but not fashion design. Sarah was impressive! Although hers was a relatively new establishment, she had already begun to make a name for herself, Yaya told me. To confirm this, Sarah handed me glossy magazines that featured a host of famous people wearing her designs: Ghanaian and Nigerian actresses and musicians, CEOs and important women in government, a South African TV personality, our First Lady! She showed me a picture of the outfit she had sewn for the vice president’s daughter’s traditional wedding ceremony. I don’t think I had ever seen a piece of clothing fit a person as perfectly as that blue-and-white kaba fit the second daughter. You couldn’t see a fold, caused by poor cutting and excess fabric, anywhere on the bodice. By the time I finished looking at the pictures, I was in awe of Sarah.
His Only Wife Page 7
