The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

by Lola Shoneyin

  After that, whenever my boss sent me to his home on various errands, I found myself sitting in that armchair being ridden like a new saddle. I don’t know what I liked more, the fan above our heads, my boss’s armchair or the riding I received in it. Within a few months, her belly swelled like a boil. Boils are very painful. Even after they have burst, they itch and itch.

  I don’t know whether the child, Segi, is mine. Only a mother knows who the father of her child is. All I know is that two years later, I found myself in the chair again. I swear, I should have been born a horse. I sometimes imagined that my boss’s wife was Latundun. Ha! Even now, when I stop at a beer shack to eat snail, I fork it and nibble gently, as a small tribute. Don’t mock me, please.

  Iya Femi asks me to deliver messages to a man in Bodija. The rich and their surplus! I didn’t even have to ask before Tunde stuffed my hand with money. Iya Femi couldn’t have felt worse than me when Tunde traveled. It was as if my own brother died. My boss is not that generous. After he gives me my salary, he removes his eyes until the next month. He doesn’t know that I eat freely from his kitchen. I eat his beef, his tripe, his kidney, his liver, his tongue—all the things that my wife’s pots dream of but never cook. My children think it is terrifying when stew is not riddled with small strips of cowhide. Maybe it is better that they do not taste what their mouths will never be accustomed to.

  Iya Segi’s second child was a boy. He does not resemble his father. Sometimes, when I look at him and close my eyes, I think my young son will grow up and look like him. If you think I care about that it means you have not heard a word I have said! What would I do with Baba Segi’s son when I can barely feed the ones I have? My life is simple and I want to keep it that way. The lot of poor men is to get what they can and go, quietly.

  Judge me if you want to. Call me disloyal! I think I have acted as honorably as a poor man could. If you can’t accept that, I leave you to your mischievous thoughts. When I tire of this job, I will leave. There are always adverts for good drivers. Like I said, my life is simple and I want to keep it that way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  FAREWELL

  TAJU HEARD THE SOUND of vomiting but only realized the source of it when Baba Segi staggered to the open door of the pickup. His breakfast had formed a colorful bib on his gleaming white shirt. “Take me to Teacher!” he ordered. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he’d been weeping blood.

  A few minutes before, Taju had seen Iya Segi leaving the building. Her feet were all over the place like an inebriated dancer’s; she blew her nose into the head scarf she clutched. Taju’s first instinct was to hide but he resisted and walked toward her. “Iya Segi! Are you not going back with us?” he asked.

  “No, I am going home by myself, Taju. My husband knows.” Her shame was complete; the mere sight of Taju made her filthy.

  “Your husband knows what?”

  “That his children are not his children.”

  “Did you mention my name?”

  Iya Segi stopped in her tracks and jerked her head backward. “Have you taken leave of your senses? I have one foot in my husband’s house and one foot out of it and all you can ask is whether or not I mentioned your name?” She resumed her usual matriarchal tone. “I told my husband about his children. How does that concern you?”

  “I’m sorry if I appear thoughtless but I also have a family to feed. I work in your household, so if there is something that could bring my employment to an end, is it not right that I should be warned? My boss has been good to me.” He knew she knew what he was talking about and he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of thinking he thought she didn’t.

  “Perhaps you do not understand me, Taju. The question of whether or not you will be relieved of your duties is between you and your boss.”

  “I was just thinking that—”

  “No, Taju. Don’t think. Face your driving. That is your job, is it not?” Iya Segi swung her whole body round and stormed off in the direction of the hospital gates.

  Taju scratched his scalp with his toothpick and headed back to the pickup. He felt exposed, like the skin of his stomach had been chafed away by the breeze. His innards were an unpleasant spectacle and he knew straightaway that it was not a sight he could live with.

  “SIR, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Taju inquired as Baba Segi collapsed himself into the window seat.

  “Just drive!”

  Taju waited for the wind to fill his collar. “There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He cleared his throat nervously. “I have to travel to Olugbon. My mother has taken ill; my relatives say there is death in her eyes.”

  “When are you going?” Baba Segi didn’t look his way. He remembered that he’d given Taju money for his mother’s funeral two years before.

  “I can’t say. I received the message this morning.”

  “I take it you want your salary early then?” So Taju was leaving.

  “Any financial assistance would be greatly appreciated, sir.”

  They say when one god is aggrieved he invites other gods to join him in seeking vengeance. Baba Segi felt as if ten winds were whirling in his head. He felt the force of wrath and wondered what he had done to make the gods smite him. “Just take me to Teacher. I will pay you when we get there, if you want.”

  “Thank you, sir.” There was no gratitude in his voice, just disquiet. He mulled over Iya Segi’s confession. Only a fool asks who struck a match when he sees billows of smoke on his rooftop. Iya Segi had brought an end to an eighteen-year companionship. He glanced at his boss, sitting there, stinking of vomit, but he did not feel any guilt. There was fear but no guilt. Baba Segi was twice his height and thrice his weight. He had seen him handle Bolanle; they didn’t call him a leopard because he had spots.

  In silence, they drove. Baba Segi ignored the flies that were drawn to the stench of his garments. Ordinarily, he would have slapped them off, but today he sat still and let them feed on him. Baba Segi was practicing being dead. He took intermittent deep breaths and wondered if life could drain from him if he drew one deep enough.

  When Baba Segi put the money in Taju’s hand, he clutched his driver’s small fingers and looked deep into his face. Taju flinched and pulled away but Baba Segi didn’t relinquish his fingertips. “Will you not give me my keys before you go?” He was completely unaware that Taju’s bladder was brimming. He took the keys and gave Taju his hand back. “Go well,” he urged.

  “Thank you, sir.” Taju did not look back but marched across the road with long, swift strides.

  Baba Segi returned to Teacher’s shack, wishing that his thick legs would buckle under him. He saw the ugliness of his surroundings: the bowed buildings; the shattered planks held together by moisture rising from festering gutters; the uneven roads that sighed dust clouds every time a car upset their calm. “No! This is not the place,” he repeated to himself.

  There was a woman outside Teacher’s shack. Her thighs were bandaged in a micromini denim skirt and her breasts bound in a fuchsia boob tube that matched her lipstick. Any other day, Baba Segi would have made a snide comment about the rigidity with which she paced. “Can you breathe all right?” he might have asked, feigning concern. Or he might have said, “If I didn’t have a home full of wives and children, I would make you my bride.” It would have been said with a trivial, superior air, of course. To this, the woman would have replied, “Is it the way I walk you are interested in or the way I fuck?” Or she might have responded to his condescension with a loud hiss that would pursue him all the way to his destination. Ayikara women were desperate but they spat in the face of insolence. Today, Baba Segi’s eyes were dim with melancholy; his wit would not be roused. He sniffed past the woman and bowed into Teacher’s shack.

  The small space was full of men eager to drink the afternoon away. Many of them were already well on their way. The night guards defied sleep. They leaned their staffs on the wooden walls and dipped their fingers into their glasses to remove dead insects. Som
e had made guzzling whiskey their purpose for the day, as it had been the day before, and the day before that. They were all huddled together on low stools playing checkers and laughing at unrelated anecdotes. Baba Segi was irritated by their disregard for life’s many tragedies. Angry beads of sweat collected at his brow, careered through the furrows and formed tears at the tip of his nose. Teacher rose and beckoned to him.

  “My life is ruined.” Baba Segi wiped his forehead with his palm. “I feel like I am in a pit of quicksand. All is dark, Teacher. All is dark.”

  “Where there is hope, there is life.” Teacher absorbed his tale with compassion and contentment. A sense of comradeship brewed within him; it was comforting to hear that another man had been stripped of his manhood. If he could live in the knowledge that his penis would never prise apart a woman’s lips, why couldn’t Baba Segi live with his predicament? At least he could soften a woman with his hardness.

  “Where is the hope?”

  “There is a rainbow at the mouth of every tunnel.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hmm.” Teacher got up and refilled the glass that Baba Segi had emptied. “What I will say to you will seem like the words of a madman, but you must consider them.” He cast his shimmering eyes on Baba Segi’s face and murmured, “It is time for you to let the deceivers who have brought bastards into your home return to their father’s homes.”

  Baba Segi clasped his hands together and bunched them under his chin. His head became heavy quite suddenly. “Just send them away like one shoos chickens?”

  “It is the only honorable thing to do.” Teacher continued, his eyes widening at the thought of Baba Segi frequenting his shack and spending his money there. “As you spread your mat in this life, so you must lie on it.” He paused. “Unless”—he pointed at Baba Segi until his fingertip was within an inch of his nose—“you want a home full of children that are yours in name alone.”

  “A curse! That would be a curse!” The thought disturbed Baba Segi greatly.

  Teacher raised his hands in triumph. “Listen to me. When the missionaries left me behind, the thing that made me bitterest was that I had taken them to be my fathers. They plucked me from my father’s home when I was a young boy and made me feel like I was their own. But when the time came for them to return to their country, they abandoned me here, like a cockerel casts the shells of groundnuts aside.” He sipped his whiskey and looked dismally at the clouds of smoke that blew upward from half-parted lips and partly extinguished cigarette butts. “For three years I despaired, unable to accept my lot. Orphans are miserable people, you know?” The rooftop of the next building caught his eye. “It was not until I returned to my blood father that my misery was washed away. What I am trying to say is that your father will always be your father, even when life forces you to find a father in strangers.”

  “Are you saying that my children will one day seek their true fathers? That all I have been is a temporary caretaker?” Baba Segi spat the last few words out as if they’d burned his tongue.

  “Indeed, my friend. You have been no more than a doorkeeper. The day those children can open doors themselves, they will depart and you will be left with nothing but your loss.”

  Baba Segi nodded. “Teacher, your wisdom humbles me.”

  “Don’t say that, Baba…er…my friend. Pride makes men tumble before they fall.” Mission accomplished, Teacher took a satisfying slug of his brew and scratched his chin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SILENCE

  WITH EACH PASSING HOUR, the silence in the Alao house grew until it was so sharp it stung the eye and drew saltwater from the nose. The wives sat in their armchairs, waiting for Baba Segi to return and determine their fates. Each one thought of words with which to blame the others but their throats were parched with worry. Every so often, their minds would stray to their children, tucked away in their beds, oblivious to the uncertainty of their futures, unaware of the possibility that tonight might be the last time they slept in their own beds.

  Bolanle sat on the floor with Segi’s head resting on her shoulders. She had seen Iya Segi return home with red eyes and a snot-stained head scarf but she couldn’t make sense of the grief on the other wives’ faces. There was regret and remorse, but why? Segi too had absorbed this air of dread. She had become perplexed and her temperature had risen briefly. Bolanle had swathed her all over with a damp cloth and she seemed more rested now. Still, she refused to go to bed. Every time a car revved up their street, she would lift her head and ask, “Is my father back?” at which the older wives looked at one another, unable to respond.

  Finally, just before the clock struck eleven, the pickup rolled into the compound. The engine stopped abruptly and the door slammed. Segi straightened her neck.

  “He has arrived,” her mother said, plugging her daughter’s mouth.

  The stones fled Baba Segi’s unsteady footsteps. He battled with the sliding door and stumbled into the building, carrying the stench of vomit and stale whiskey.

  Bolanle rose to greet him but Baba Segi didn’t see her or Segi. “So the witches have gathered for blood!” he slurred, glaring at the other wives, who were seated with their heads bowed. “Go back to tell the evil spirits who sent you and tell them I wasn’t home when you stopped by.” He tore off his soiled shirt and dashed it to the floor.

  “Segi has been waiting for you,” Bolanle entreated, hoping that talk of his sick daughter might sober him a little.

  “Is she? Tell me why she waits for me. You wives, tell me why!” he yelled, pointing his lips in the direction of his wives.

  “Baba Segi, let us not do it this way.” Iya Segi thought she might bring reason, the way she’d always done.

  Baba Segi was not having her reason tonight. He lunged at her and raised his arm until it almost touched the ceiling fan. Then, with one smooth sweep, he brought it down onto her jaw. Everyone jumped, including Segi, who was groaning. Her father hadn’t acknowledged her and she thought she might impress him by lifting her head off the floor.

  “May the dogs eat your mouth!” Baba Segi towered over Iya Segi. “What mouth do you have to tell me how to do anything? You, who have brought bastard children into my home! You have used me! Wounded me!” His voice lowered to a growl. “But let me tell you, the lion has roared, the dog has barked, the mouse has squeaked. Enough is enough!”

  Iya Segi’s face rested on the arm of her seat where the force of the slap had sent it. The other wives were silent, half-waiting for Baba Segi to turn on them as well.

  Then Iya Femi had a brainwave and decided to sing her signature tune. “It was the devil!” she proclaimed, kneeling in supplication on the cold terrazzo floor.

  “Yes, it was the devil, and I am tired of doing his job for him. He must come and take his offspring from my house!” Baba Segi straightened as if he dared the devil to disobey him.

  “Baba Segi, what has brought all this on?”

  Bolanle’s voice made him swing round. Surprisingly, his face softened. “What has caused this? I will tell you. In fact, I should thank you first, because had it not been for you, I would never have discovered the deceit I have been living with for all these years.” He winced. “It was revealed in the hospital today that none of my children are my children. I found out, just today, that the children I have nurtured and called mine were sired by men my wives lay on their backs for.” As he said this, he coughed up phlegm and aimed what he had collected at Iya Femi. He aimed well; it flew through the air and landed on her forehead with a splatter. She dared not raise her sleeve to wipe it.

  Baba Segi paced the room and returned to his chair, knocking the head scarf off Iya Tope’s head on the way. Her reflexes served her. Like a child who had spotted a snake on her beddings, she leaped off her chair and pressed herself into the corner of the room. “Harlot!” he said accusingly. He eyed her with disgust. Then, with one nod, he was dead to the world.

  Bolanle’s eyes were still traveling from wife to wife wh
en a thudding intruded on her curiosity. The back of Segi’s bald head was rhythmically slapping the bare terrazzo flooring. Her eyes had rolled upward, revealing ripe, yellow eyeballs. Her tongue hung out of the side of her mouth, clasped into place by clenched teeth.

  Iya Segi woke from her slap-induced slumber and raced to her daughter’s side. She wrapped her arms around Segi’s belly and hoisted her into a sitting position.

  “Segi! Segi!” Iya Tope yelled. It was a beseeching bawl to a child dancing on the rim of a yawning well.

  Bolanle ran to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of water and returned with trembling hands. Iya Tope dipped her hands into the bowl and sprinkled droplets on Segi’s face while Iya Femi rubbed the young girl’s left hand, hoping to restore warmth to it. The jittering eased into a rigidity that made Segi’s toes lengthen and spread like a rake’s fingers. Her arms straightened at the elbows and her neck extended out of her shoulders. Her face held a look of pain so glorious that it brought tears to the eyes of all four women. Then, after a long, deep breath, Segi exhaled all the life within her. All the tension and agony was suddenly gone from her face, leaving her slightly open eyes staring at the stool beyond her bloodless toenails.

  Iya Segi immediately withdrew her arm from behind her daughter’s neck. She rose slowly to her feet and stepped backward, her eyes never leaving her daughter’s lifeless body. Even when her back touched the wall, she was not convinced she couldn’t take another step back.

  “I have seen what a mother’s eyes must never see,” she gasped, as if someone had asked. She took a determined bow but before Iya Tope could restrain her, she slammed the back of her head into the wall. She didn’t blink. Nor did she flinch. She would have gone for a second slam had Iya Tope’s arms not held her in a headlock. Iya Femi joined in and before long, the three of them were rolling around on the floor in a tangled ball of arms and feet.