Second Class Citizen

by Buchi Emecheta

  She sat there. No train, but more nudges. The crowd started to drift away. One or two keenies went on peeping and peeping into the dark tunnel as if to conjure up the train. But no train came.

  Adah knew by then that the railwaymen had been on strike that day for her sake. The pushes, though not constant, were too determined to be ignored. But what would Francis say? she wondered with fear. He would accuse her of laziness and would remind her that they needed her money. Oh God, she prayed soundlessly, please give Francis a sign, any proof to make him believe me. As you can see, dear God. I am in pain. Not just shy of work, but in real pain. Then she started to think again. Supposing she played it up. Started to scream as if the devil was burning her insides. That would be nice. She would get the sympathy she wanted. She decided that that was what she was going to do. Francis would be given the most terrible proof he had ever seen. Well, he was asking for it, and she was going to give it to him. She felt happy. God had heard her prayers. With that thought in her mind, she felt happy. The little person inside her seemed to be happy with her. It seemed to have forgotten how to kick. It seemed to be having its elevenses or something like that.

  But how was she to start screaming when the baby was having its elevenses and she was feeling no pain at all? Should she start the pain, just to give herself something to scream about? Another fear gripped her. She suddenly remembered that with the other babies she had had, screaming was as exhausting as having the child itself. She could hear the voice of her mother-in-law who kept telling her, when Adah was in labour with Titi, that women who screamed were cowards, that the more they screamed, the less energy they had left in them. So when it came to having their babies, they were sapped of strength, because they had drained all their energy away screaming like mad. Adah knew this to be true somehow. When she was pregnant with Titi, she had just left school and though they had taught her some health science, nobody warned her that first births take such a long, long time. That time she had screamed, not with pain, but with fear, because it was taking so long. And when the baby was actually born, she was completely unconscious. But with Vicky she knew better. She read and read, as if she were going to study medicine. So she knew what it was that was happening in every stage. All that knowledge seemed to have evaporated, somehow, because there was no mother-in-law to tell her what to do. Because, from what she had heard, in London the midwives gave mothers drugs and gas. The gas affair worried her somewhat. It surely could not be the same gas you use on yourself when you want to do yourself in? If it was, how would they know when she’d had enough? That would kill her, no doubt. Then she would not see the little person inside her, then she would not see Titi and Vicky grow and go to school. Oh, no, it is all so unfair. When do they give one the gas? she wondered. She thought again. It’s probably when you scream too much. England is a silent country; people are taught to bottle up their feelings and screw them up tight, like the illicit gin her parents drank at home. If you made a mistake and uncorked the bottle, the gin would bubble out. She had seen English men and women behave like humans once or twice, but why was it that they only behaved like humans when they were straggling out of the pubs on Saturday nights? Well, if they would give her gas to shut her up, then she would not scream. She would face Francis and have it out with him. She knew Francis, she’d rather have a fight with him than with a god or goddess she did not know. Because how was she to know where the gas thing would send her?

  She went home. She told Francis why she could not go to work, how the railwaymen had gone on strike for more pay. She knew it was for more pay, because she had heard the angry murmurings of the impatient crowd of innocents on the platform. She told him how the man with the umbrella had vacated the wooden bench for her and how the slats of the bench had hurt her posterior. She told him how they had all waited hoping that by waiting they would somehow conjure up a train from its tunnel hole; she told him how it had all come to nothing, for there was no train, and everybody had gone home, including herself. She had had to come home.

  Francis was still in his pyjamas. He heard her out, with his brow arched like a wicked spy in a James Bond film. Then he asked Adah how she knew that everybody had gone home. Did all the passengers tell her that, or was she making it all up? Was the story of the strike what she was cooking up when she looked down at him that morning when she thought he was asleep? He had seen her then. He thought at first that she was going to smash his skull into a pulp from the way she was looking at him with thick hatred. She should have thought of a better story. She should know though that she would make all of them suffer, including the person inside her and herself too.

  Adah could not say anything. She did not know whether she had been wise in not choosing the other alternative. She ought to have decided on screaming and faced the gas and Jupiter or Lucifer or even the angels. The angels might even have welcomed her singing the Alleluia Chorus which she loved very much. Then the nagging constraint came again. What of Titi and Vicky? Well, the angels could wait. For now she was sure she was going to the angels; had not Jesus said that those who suffer here on earth would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven? She would like to go there sometime, with her children. Francis could go where he liked. He could take care of himself.

  The nudge came again, followed by the determined kicks and she felt like screaming, but she told herself not to, because the English midwife might give her gas and that might send her, not to the beautiful angels singing the Alleluia Chorus, but to Lucifer with his horns of fire. Then, when Vicky got into a temper and spat out his Rice Krispies, and Titi went as silent as the tomb, refusing to talk, who was going to tell them that they were beautiful children? Who was going to tickle them till they laughed, and Vicky spat out more Rice Krispies all over your face, and Titi started talking, non-stop like a bad radio that had lost its switch? The angels could keep their heaven, and she, Adah, was staying right here by her children. Because, even though the baby was lying in a funny way, she was going to live to see not just her grandchildren, but her great-grandchildren as well. At least, if they were not all blown up to pieces by the bomb!

  Then came the sermon. Francis was a great one for preaching sermons. It was always Jehovah God said this, Jehovah God said that. Adah was having a rest after the last onslaught from her baby, so, with eyes glazed like the eyes of the pig’s head at the butcher’s, she watched and listened to her husband preaching to her about the diligence of the virtuous woman, whose price was above rubies. This virtuous woman Francis was yapping about would wake with the first crow of the cock. Adah wondered where she was going to find a cock that would wake her up. But on went Francis, on the morning of that second of December. Jehovah God would bless such a woman. Her husband would be respected outside the gates. Adah wanted to ask which gates, but she was too numbed by the whole show. Fancy, she said to herself, Francis preaching to her the sermon of diligence at half past ten in the morning, when he was still in his pyjamas. She started to curse her mother-in-law for spoiling all her sons. There were so many girls in the family that the boys grew up thinking they were something special, superhuman creatures. Adah went on hearing about this virtuous woman whose price was above the rubies, but the sermon went in through one ear and came out of the other.

  At least the joy of his listening to his own voice would let him leave her alone to ponder what it was she was going to do about this baby, whose legs seemed to be kicking not her front, as other babies did, but her ribs. This was making it difficult for her to breathe. She imagined the baby lying across, in the little cage made by her ribs, kicking away with careless abandon. Francis had said only two days ago that he had more ribs than she had, because Jehovah God took one of his own ribs and broke it into seven little pieces and made her own cage from them. That was why she was called “wo-man” because she was made from the ribs of a man, like himself. It made some sense when he was talking, “woman” being an English word which may be regarded as a compound word, “wo” and “man”. What would be Francis’s inte
rpretation of the Western Ibo word for woman, opoho which had no relevance to the word for male okei? Francis would have to build another story for that, because the explanation for the rib structure would not apply at all. But he went on and on, about how Jehovah was going to bless the virtuous woman.

  Adah had probably made a mistake, and allowed her disbelief to show on her face, for Francis accused her of not believing him. Did she think he was lying? Why was she looking at him like that? He got quite excited by this religious fervour. He would show Adah that it was all written in the Word of God. The Word of God was a book whose cover was of that cheap type of cloth which binders used in Lagos to bind children’s ABC books. The pages of the book were made of paper the likes of which one would use for blotting paper. The difference between the leaves of that book and blotting paper was that blotting paper was bleached white, but the pages of this book were not white, nor yellow but were criss-crossed with brownish fibres like the veins of a hand. Inside this book were pictures of Adam eating the apple and Eve talking to the snake. They both had fig leaves covering their sex. They did not look too unhappy after eating the apple, though Francis said they were, otherwise they would have been without the fig leaves. Covering themselves like that proved that they had known good and evil. Adah did not know what she was supposed to do now. Strip herself? Refuse to eat any more apples from the Crescent? Francis himself was clothed in pyjamas, which needed washing. The trousers were as big as the baggy trousers worn by Nigerian drummers, and his sex was inside these baggy trousers, dangling this way and that like the pendulum of Big Ben. She had never seen Big Ben, but she was sure that a big clock like that would have a pendulum. Francis’s sex was dangling just like that.

  It dangled much more furiously now, this way, that way, and back again, because he was excited. He was going to show Adah proof of what he had been saying about the virtuous woman. He was going to get the book called The truth Shall Make You Free. He could not find it quickly enough. Adah knew he would start another sermon on Paradise, then he would ask her to read a passage, then he would ask her if she understood, and she would have to say, yes, she did understand it all right. He would then call her “Sister”, not wife, because Jehovah God ordained it so. Every female believer was to be called a sister and every male believer a brother. It did not matter whether the female was your wife or mother. It did not matter whether the male was your husband or father. All believers were brothers and sisters. Sometimes Adah used to wonder whether God really said all that. One thing she did know was that the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in society, you could always say, “My kingdom is not of this world.” If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD, you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband, but didn’t she wash the feet of Our Lord? Wasn’t she the first person to see our risen saviour? If, in the other hand, you believed in the inferiority of the blacks, you could always say, “Slaves, obey your masters.” It is a mysterious book, one of the greatest of all books, if not the greatest. Hasn’t it got all the answers?

  But the one thing Adah could not stand was when a group of people took a portion of the Bible, interpreted it the way that suited them and then asked her to swallow it like that, whole. She became suspicious. She did not mind it if Francis believed it, except when it disturbed his studies or if either of the children needed a blood transfusion and he refused. The thought of this made her smile, because when she had needed blood, when she was having Titi, Francis forgot the Word, and gave it. Francis was not a bad man, just a man who could no longer cope with the over-demanding society he found himself in.

  He bent down double now, looking furiously for The Truth Shall Make You Free, throwing the children’s clothes this way and that. Adah saw her scarf, made a dive for it and walked quickly towards the door. She heard Francis shouting, calling her back, because he had found the book. She must come back, he commanded, because he had not finished having his say. To Adah he sounded like Nero in Quo Vadis who accused his courtiers of dying without his permission.

  Adah hurried, wobbling, to Dr Hudson’s surgery at the Crescent. It was a horrid day; grey, with the sparse snow of the night before, clinging to the ground. It could not melt because the ghostly sun that shone from among the heavy clouds was hazy; too hazy to have any effect on the stubborn snow. It made it very dangerous for Adah to walk. But, anyhow, she padded just like a duck, first to the right then to the left.

  Maybe people passed by her wondering. They maybe wondered what it was that was the matter with her, walking like that, like a duck. Perhaps one or two people would have liked to ask her if she needed any help but got scared off by the determined look she gave them all. She walked on, and did not see the people.

  She found a corner in the surgery and sat down. At least if she really felt like screaming here she could and nobody would think it odd. The thing that troubled her was that she had this pain which, disturbing though it was, was not bad enough to be the real labour - those hot ones that make a mad person of any woman. She did not understand it. The person inside her kept pushing her this way and that way, so that to sit down was trouble; to stand, trouble; to walk more trouble. So she sat on the metal chair in the surgery shifting her bottom about the seat like someone sitting on thorns. She fixed her eyes on the poster on the wall which said “No Smoking” and explained how smoking causes lung cancer. There was a drawing of the ribs showing the fluffy lung inside it. Adah wondered whether that was the drawing of a man or woman. How could one tell? Francis had said that men have more ribs than women. And not only did they have more ribs, but that one of a man’s ribs makes all the ribs of a woman. Adah peered again at the drawing of the ribs and concluded that they must be those of a woman. The ribs were too fine, too regular to be a man’s. Fancy a woman having to work, having to carry babies who kept pushing their mummies about and, on top of it all, having to have cancer as well. Was Eve the only person who ate the apple? Did not the man Adam eat some too? Why was it that women had to bear most of the punishments? It was not at all fair.

  The patients started to trickle out one by one. She was not in a hurry to go. All she would hear at home would be Francis and his sermons. She was better off where she was. A woman who came after her with a baby as red as new carrots nudged her to go in. She replied by telling the woman to go before her. The woman with the baby told her that she came after her, not before. Adah told her to go in all the same. The woman was about to start her own sermon about Adah needing the doctor urgently. Adah ignored her, and started to puzzle out all over again whether the ribs opposite her belonged to a man or woman. The woman stared at her, just as if she were a crazy woman let loose from an asylum. She thought better of it and decided to take her red baby up to Dr Hudson The waiting-room was now empty except for the domestic woman. She, too, had a red face, and a big stomach. She was not pregnant, because her hair was white and fluffy like cotton ready to be spun into thread. She smiled at Adah. The teeth were too close, too regular to be hers, but anyhow, the smile was nice. The charlady wanted to talk. Adah would have liked to talk to her, but how was she to know whether the lady had heard of a baby lying across the mother’s tummy before! She decided against telling her anything. But the woman went on talking of this and that. Like Francis’s sermon, it went into one ear and came out of the other.

  The charwoman stopped talking because they could hear voices coming down the stairs, the voices of the doctor and that of the woman with the baby like a carrot. The woman with the baby must have alarmed the doctor no end, for she dashed to Adah calling her “dear”, leading her up just like a big egg that might break and mess the stairs all over She led Adah into the surgery, and motioned her to climb onto the bed. Adah could not climb, and she was examined on a chair.

  “Your time is too near to be comfortable. You should have phoned for the ambulance straight away. You need a bed to rest now. I am sure you’ll hav
e your baby in less than twenty-four hours, if all goes well.”

  Adah looked at her, scared now. Why must she go in an ambulance, when she had told her that she and Francis had decided that she would have the baby at home? Had not the hospital given them a list of what she was to buy for the confinement, and hadn’t Francis demanded angrily whether she was preparing to get married, buying all that stuff? Hadn’t Francis decided that the six pounds they would give her if she had the child at home would be useful? Adah had agreed with him. She would have the child at home and earn six pounds. There would not be any need to buy two or three nightdresses, no need to buy a housecoat, or bedroom slippers, and no need for a toilet bag. Yes, the six pounds would feed them for a week.

  She told the doctor she was not having the baby at University College Hospital but at home in their room at Willes Road. The doctor asked her why she had changed her mind, seeing all the trouble she had taken in booking her in at that particular hospital because the waiting list was long. Did Adah not know that the food was perfect there, and that she could do with a bit of a rest from her family? How was Adah going to cope anyway? She only had one room, didn’t she? Then what had got into her head to make her refuse to go into the hospital? Did Adah not know that many women would jump at the chance?

  The doctor went on talking. She was a great one for talking, that doctor. She was angry now, washing her tiny hands, wishy, wishy wishy, squeezing one small hand against the other, wishy, wishy. Adah followed her movements with her eyes. What a day for sermons, she thought. But the doctor’s sermon did not go in one ear and out of the other. Adah Listened and allowed the words to sink down into her mind. How was she to tell Dr Hudson that she had to have the baby in their one room to earn them six pounds, because the six pounds would feed them all for a week, maybe for eight or nine days? The doctor would only ask her why it was that her husband did not go out to work and earn the six pounds. And to answer that, Adah would have to tell the doctor woman that her husband believed in Armageddon. So there was no need for him to exert himself too much in this world, otherwise he would lose his share of the kingdom. The tale would be too long, and the telling of it would make her cry. So she let the story be. She just told the doctor that she would rather go now, since she had to get Francis to phone the midwife. The doctor sighed. She told her to hurry home. She would do the phoning.