The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

by Lola Shoneyin

  I walked to the bus STOP on the far side of the market. Once on the bus, I opened the plastic bag and fingered the nail-sized stain at the bottom of the bowl. I poked it, pricked it and halfheartedly tried to peel it off. When it was clear that it was stuck fast, my stomach twisted with excitement.

  Soon, I was on our street. It stretched before me like a lean arm and the Alao house waited at the end of it like a large muscular chest, the bamboo scaffolding flexed, dwarfing the puny lodges around it. As I approached the gates, I spotted an electricity pole that must have been felled by a rainstorm. A naked wire hung on a nearby tree like a stubborn strand of hair. When I get home, I must remember to slip Akin a note. If he comes to my room for help with his English homework, I’ll tell him to warn his brothers and sisters not to go near the pole. He always does what I ask him. I won’t say anything to the other children so Iya Segi doesn’t shout at me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHARING

  THEY SAY THE ELDER who soils the floor with shit immediately forgets, but the stench remains in the memory of the person who has to pack it. Some people are born to shit and some, like Bolanle and me, are born to pack.

  Bolanle should have known how much her arrival would change our household. I remember the very day she stepped her foot in this house because it was our sharing night—the night Iya Segi distributed the week’s provisions. That evening, our mother-of-the-home was quiet. The stone in her throat moved up and down like beads on a dancer’s hip. Iya Femi’s head was hot. She wanted the blood of this new wife who had taken her place as the newest, youngest, freshest wife.

  My only worry was that Bolanle’s arrival would disrupt the sex rotation. Baba Segi normally went from wife to wife, starting each week with Iya Segi. By Thursday, he’d start the cycle again, leaving him with the freedom to choose whom to spend Sunday night with. Baba Segi used this night to reward the wife who had missed her night because of her menstrual flow. Sometimes, a wife would have Sunday if he knew he’d been heavy-handed in scolding her.

  Most weeks, Iya Femi got Sunday because she enticed him with her groundnut stew, her ekuru with shrimp sauce, her yam balls, her asun. Baba Segi’s belly could not resist her. A more discerning husband would have been evenhanded with his Sundays.

  Now that a new wife had joined us, one of us would have only one night a week. Perhaps Iya Segi had many thoughts because she knew this mantle would fall on her. She was the eldest. She’d had him for fifteen years and was approaching the age when enticing your husband to your bedchamber was unnatural. It wouldn’t matter to her that she already owned his mind and did with it as she pleased. Some women just want everything.

  We all sat around the dining table and Iya Femi made us leap by slapping the wooden surface. Her hands had a horrible yellow glow and her knuckles looked as if they had been scuffed with a stone. I don’t understand why human beings are not satisfied with the color the gods have given them. A gold bracelet rested on the back of her hand. She wanted Iya Segi and me to see it so we looked away.

  “Is it that our food wasn’t tasty enough? Why would Baba Segi marry another wife? Has he condemned our breasts because they are losing their fists?” Iya Femi asked.

  Iya Segi clawed at the jar of Gaga’s Pomade and shook a dollop into three containers.

  “Please, Iya Segi,” I pleaded. “My daughters cannot sleep for dandruff. They scratch like lice-ridden dogs all night. Can you not spare me one more scoop?”

  “Who cares about your daughters? Do you hear me complain when Iya Segi takes more milk for her children when mine are younger and need vitamins?” Iya Femi rolled her eyes and jerked her head in Iya Segi’s direction.

  At first, the older wife ignored her brazenness and began to rummage through a tin of Bournvita chocolate powder in search of the token that would earn her son a free Nigeria football jersey. When her fingers reappeared, they were coated in brown granules. “Iya Femi, you are in the habit of saying things that are too big for that little mouth of yours. If you are not satisfied with the way I share provisions, take your ingratitude to another man’s house. Mind you, make sure you are the first wife and not a lowly third.” She tucked the token into her bra.

  “Who can tell what the future holds?”

  To this, the older wife burst into noiseless laughter and hummed as she closed her mouth. I reminded them that Baba Segi would take care of us all but my words may as well have been the bleating of a goat. The clock in the kitchen struck ten. Not to tell a lie, it seemed strange that the woman Baba Segi was lying with was not one of us.

  “I will not be cast aside because she is a graduate!” Iya Femi folded her arms over her bosom. “I do not want her in this house.”

  “You will trip over in your haste if you are not careful, woman. Your mouth discharges words like diarrhea. Let Bolanle draw on every skill she learned in her university! Let her employ every sparkle of youth! Let her use her fist-full breasts. Listen to me, this is not a world she knows. When she doesn’t find what she came looking for, she will go back to wherever she came from.” Iya Segi pointed to the door.

  “Iya Segi, your words are like proverbs,” I said.

  “Kruuk. Let me ask you this: what does our husband value more than what fills his mouth?”

  Iya Femi’s eyes widened. “Children!”

  “Ah! Wisdom at last,” Iya Segi said. “When she fails to give him a child, Baba Segi will throw her out! We know she will not give him children so we should watch from a distance. I don’t want to see anyone scratching her door frame with their toenails!”

  Both women turned to stare at me.

  THE NEXT MORNING, BOLANLE CAME OUT of her bedroom. The kitchen fell silent as soon as she cast a shadow on the door frame. She said good morning and winced as she curtsied.

  “Your legs resemble those of a collapsible chair.” Iya Femi pointed at Bolanle’s knees and laughed out loud. “You didn’t expect to get that sort of thigh thumping, did you?” She made her voice hoarse. “Tell me, does your back ache?”

  “Careful, Iya Femi. Baba Segi has not left the house yet.” Iya Segi couldn’t suppress the pleasure she derived from the taunting.

  The poor woman looked like she would faint with shame so I offered a bowl of beans. “I just cooked them this morning,” I said.

  Bolanle looked at the bowl and said she wasn’t hungry. She took a plastic cup from the drainer and filled it with drinkable water from a plastic kettle. I didn’t blame her. After a night with Baba Segi, the stomach is beaten into the chest by that baton that dangles between his legs.

  We all heard the yelp of excitement from the mat. Femi had found a stick and the object of his attention was a small wall gecko that was scrambling down the wall until it was less than a foot from Femi’s reach. In a flash, Femi split its head into unequal halves. The creature tumbled down the wall and lay belly-up on the floor. Never in my life had I seen such wickedness. The boy is truly his mother’s son.

  It surprised me that Bolanle could speak to us after Iya Femi turned her like a spinning top. But they say a child who will play in the dark must first learn how to close its eyes. Bolanle wanted to play in the dark. She did not let Iya Femi’s behavior move her eyeballs. The very next day, she came to the sitting room and asked if any of us wanted to learn how to read. Iya Femi stood up and hissed until she reached her bedroom door. Iya Segi’s knee began to shake as if she would kick a hole into Bolanle’s head but she just continued to count her money. I slowly lifted my hand. The look Iya Segi gave me could have thrown me from my seat. But what could I do? What would you do if you could not understand the words that your own children were reading?

  The first day, I sat at the table and watched her show me how to write “A.” Small “a” and big “A.” I copied the letter out myself. Even though she said it was upside down and not quite right, my stomach was swollen with pride. Me! Writing!

  That night, Iya Segi came to my bedroom and told me she would destroy my useless life if I ever sat to le
arn anything from Bolanle again. What could I do? On the right was the person who gave me provisions and held my life and the lives of my daughters in the middle of her palm. On my left was the wife who wanted to teach me to read and write, the wife who did not yet know that she could also be crushed by Iya Segi’s powerful fist. The choices we have to make in this world are hard and bitter. Sometimes we have no choices at all. I did not go near the dining room at noon. In fact, I did not answer when Bolanle came to knock on my room. What would I do with reading anyway? Even if I learned how to read, what would I do with it? How would I use it?

  That was how it was. Bolanle would bring suggestions. Iya Segi would listen and shake her knee and Iya Femi would hiss for the world to hear. I learned to keep my head down and sing in my mind so I would not hear the sound of their voices.

  After a few months, the same Iya Segi who said we should watch Bolanle from a distance started to boil. She called me and Iya Femi to a meeting, saying that there were words to be spoken. These words were curses and insults. You see, the more Bolanle puffed out her chest, the smaller Iya Segi became. Iya Segi told us she had changed her plan, that it was no longer enough to wait until Bolanle’s barrenness made Baba Segi chase her out. Iya Segi said we had to join hands and force her out. “Don’t you see her high brow and unconcerned eyes? She thinks we are beneath her. She wants our husband to cast us aside as ‘the illiterate ones,’” she said. “As a wife who has recently joined our household, it is her duty to submit herself useful to our wishes, not to think she can teach us!”

  I pointed out that Bolanle was kind to the children. What I really wanted to say was that it seemed Bolanle had learned to keep her suggestions deep in her stomach. In recent weeks, she had been keeping to her bedroom, only coming out when she was summoned. Was that not enough for them?

  “Iya Segi is right. She walks around as if she owns this house. Who made her queen over us?” Envy seeped through every word that came out of Iya Femi’s mouth. “And look at all the lace Baba Segi buys her! What has she done to deserve it?”

  “But our husband has always bought the same for us all!” I said. I was amazed that Iya Femi was still so bitter about Bolanle’s arrival. Iya Segi and I hadn’t despised her this way when she joined us.

  “Why are you defending her? Is it the same blood that runs through your veins? Is your allegiance faltering? Or have you forgotten that we are bound by the same oath?” Iya Femi asked.

  I opened my mouth but the words stuck to the walls of my throat.

  “Let us only speak words that will push this matter forward. This girl has already been here five months but I know there will be trouble if she stays.”

  “Iya Segi, you must have the gift of the Holy Spirit. In my church, just last Sunday, a prophet saw a vision while he was praying for me. He said he saw a dark cloud edging toward me, heavy with rain. He said the cloud would blow past but when he looked in my direction, I was standing without a thread of cloth on my body.”

  My hand flew to my mouth. Nakedness was never a good thing.

  “Now that we are all lying with our heads in the same direction, we must work together to blow this cloud away! These educated types have thin skins; they are like pigeons. If we poke her with a stick, she will fly away and leave our home in peace.”

  The first thing Iya Segi did was to talk to Baba Segi about Bolanle’s armchair. Baba Segi had broken his rule for Bolanle. The tradition was that the comfort of an armchair had to be earned, which meant that unless you were pregnant with edema, breastfeeding or watching over toddlers, you were not entitled to one. To impress his new wife, Baba Segi spent thirty minutes in the dimly lit storeroom dusting, slapping and wiping before finally pushing another armchair into the living room.

  Iya Segi and Iya Femi shook with anger when she sat among us. I asked myself: what is in a chair? Is it not just to sit down? Did she not have a chair in her father’s house? But Baba Segi soon started to grumble about the flatness of Bolanle’s belly and Iya Segi seized this opportunity to advise him that comfort made the female form complacent. She reminded him that she would know because she was a woman. Bolanle’s armchair was returned to the store the next day. When Bolanle came into the living room, Iya Femi could not contain her mischievous smile and offered her a cushion. Baba Segi avoided Bolanle’s eyes the entire evening.

  The second evil thing that Iya Segi did was banish Bolanle’s friends from our house. After Yemisi and other friends visited for the third time, Iya Segi told our husband that they were bad role models for the daughters in the family, especially her daughter, Segi, who was at an impressionable age. Baba Segi jumped at the notion as if he had been looking for a reason to keep Bolanle to himself. He told Bolanle that he didn’t want unmarried women near his doorstep. Bolanle received Baba Segi’s instructions without a word. She never once looked at our husband with annoyance in her eyes. She just said she had things to buy at the market and quietly slipped out of the house.

  IYA SEGI WAS WRONG ABOUT the skin of educated types. The more those two poked Bolanle, the more mercy her eyes showed, the more her hands opened to the children. I have never known anyone like Bolanle before. Even after two years of their wickedness, she still greets them every morning. What more do they want?

  Just two weeks ago, my stomach was as hard as a fresh drum. For four days, I had not relieved myself. The more I ate, the harder my stomach became. Iya Segi saw me that morning but she did not ask me about the pain that drew tears from my eyes. She looked away and walked past me. Iya Femi saw my bloodshot eyes too but she just hissed, like she always does, as if I was an animal by the roadside. If not for Bolanle, maybe my stomach would have split open that day. She waited for the other wives to leave the house and came to knock on my door. She said she had seen that I was walking around like a woman pregnant with a grown man. I told her what was bothering me and she ran to the kitchen to fetch three glasses of water. She told me to drink them and wait for her.

  I don’t know where she went, but soon after she ran back with a shopping bag. The two tablets she gave me chased me to the toilet. I thought I would find my intestines on the floor. I sat there for a whole hour, but when I finished I felt like a human being again.

  IT DID NOT SURPRISE ME when Iya Segi called a meeting on the morning that Baba Segi took Bolanle to the hospital. “That Bolanle is a troublemaker,” she said. “She will destroy our home. She will expose our private parts to the wind. She will reveal our secret. She will bring woe.” Bolanle always tied Iya Segi’s tongue in a knot.

  “What are we going to do?” Iya Femi asked. She locked her fingers over the dome of her head. “We must do something quickly!”

  “Have we not done enough already? I don’t think I want to be part of this anymore,” I said. I don’t know what came over me.

  Iya Femi picked me up with her eyes and threw me to the floor.

  Iya Segi shook her head and belched. “Listen to the fool who begs for crumbs from Bolanle’s table! The lickspittle! It is all right for you to say you do not want to be part of us, after you have benefitted from my wisdom all these years. Now you wish to remove yourself? Well, you can’t! You are bound to us. We are all bound together! And if you dare to open that stupid mouth of yours, I will ruin you myself. I will tell my husband things that will make him wring your neck in your sleep. Go! Take your small brain out of my sight. Imbecile!”

  I left them in the sitting room so I don’t know what they are planning. I fear for Bolanle but I am a coward. I know I should show Bolanle the arm of friendship. I should not pretend she is a stranger when the other wives are around. I should tell her to be careful but I can’t. I am afraid of these women. I will just keep quiet and watch. What else can a shit packer do?

  CHAPTER SIX

  RAT HEAD

  IF BOLANLE HAD KNOWN what lay in wait for her, perhaps she wouldn’t have ventured to spend so long in the market, wandering from stall to stall. Before she spotted the small crowd gathered in front of her home, s
he smelled Mama Elepa’s groundnuts burning. As Bolanle moved closer, she was sure she could make out Mama Elepa’s fragile frame on their veranda, bent over from decades of carting firewood. Most of the women she saw were standing with their hands clasped behind their backs. Some had their hands on their heads and were hopping from leg to leg as if their bladders held them hostage. Taju was leaning against a pillar scratching his chin.

  Iya Segi’s voice was loudest. “Woe,” she yelled.

  Iya Femi was screaming in tongues. Iya Tope had an arm around Segi but the arm was limp like a wet cloth. Segi’s eyes were red from weeping. Everyone looked around nervously.

  “She wants to kill him!” Iya Segi pointed when Bolanle was within a few steps of the commotion.

  “What did my father ever do to her? I am not married yet. She wants to kill my father with juju before he walks me down the aisle!” Segi flopped to the concrete floor and the spectators standing by rushed to her aid.

  “Of what use is she? She cannot have children. Her womb is dead. She wants to kill our husband to save herself from shame. I am too young to be a widow,” Iya Femi added.

  As soon as Bolanle stepped onto the concrete floor of the veranda, the crowd went quiet. The bystanders parted and created a path for her. When she got to the sitting room, Baba Segi was in his armchair. His arms were slung over the sides, his great legs stretched out in front of him like logs.

  “Good evening, Baba Segi. Why have you not changed your clothes?” Bolanle asked.

  “Where have you been?”

  “It is not even six yet. I am here on time like I said I would be.”

  “The question I am asking is: where have you been?” His voice was deep and hollow, like the aftermath of a drumbeat.