When I told Eugene by phone that I was pregnant, already four months gone, there was no scepticism on his end. Instead, he thought I should have stayed home rather than take the study leave, so his sisters could look after me. I assured him that I would be fine with the help of British doctors and nurses. I was just as quick to tell him that I wanted the news kept quiet until the baby came, since I’d lost the last one. I told him the doctors said that I needed complete bed rest throughout my stay in London, no visitors, nothing that would agitate me in any way, and that it was either that or lose the baby. He was understanding; he sent me money often and asked me to rest. He said I should write to the Ministry and resign. Nothing, it seemed, would be allowed to jeopardise the well-being of the prospective heir of Eugene Obiechina. Some important business deals came his way too, preventing him from coming to London against my wishes. Someone upstairs was working to give my boy the home he deserved.
No, I had little motivation to tell Eugene the truth when he finally visited and exclaimed at how big Afam was. Nor when he proudly compared Afam with his daughters, telling me that this baby was already showing that he was going to be a tall Obiechina man.
I extended my leave and stayed in England for another year, until Eugene insisted that I return home. London was not the place to raise an Obiechina boy.
Upon my return, his sisters looked askance at Afam. ‘He doesn’t really look like us,’ Adaku volunteered. Maybe she was talking about his black, shiny skin, or his lips that were delicately sculpted, unlike their larger-than-life mouths. I ignored her, pretending not to hear.
‘His feet are planted more firmly on the ground than a fifteen-month-old,’ Chinyere, the second sister, said one day.
Eugene laughed and said, ‘That is my boy. Why wait when the world is waiting to be taken?’
I sneered inwardly at all of them, especially his sisters who could not live through an entire minute without thinking of their brother’s money and how to spend it. Once I made the decision to take Afam as my own, I was resolute in going all the way. I told the lies that needed telling, maintained silence and made the omissions where nothing needed to be said. My sisters-in-law bit their lips and fell into line. With the birth of the long-sought son, their brother would not have it otherwise. My resolve was strong and stayed so through the ensuing years; I had done what I needed to do. Any guilt was long ago blown into the four winds. Obiageli kept our secret well, sometimes I thought even better than me. To her, Afam was my child and no one could believe differently.
And nobody – not me, not Eugene, not Afam – had suffered from it. Eugene had raised a son, and he had died proud. There was a son in the house. The obi of the Obiechinas would not close up. And love lived with us. Even though Eugene’s relationship with Afam had been rocky at times, there had been love between them. As for Afam, would the motherless babies’ home have been better than the love, the luxury in which he had been raised?
I had been given the opportunity to be a mother. Thank God I took it, for I never got pregnant, not even when Eugene took it into his head that we needed more children and sent me to England for those new-fangled, terribly expensive technologies that came out in the Eighties.
What was a mother really? True, Afam did not slip out from between my legs, like Ifeoma, Obiageli’s second daughter, all wet and gooey with slime and blood. I caught that girl myself, her mother screaming enough to wake up the entire neighbourhood. Yes, it was true that I suffered no labour pains, no recovery from a caesarean section. But that was not all that made a mother. I held Afam when he was little. I remembered the day he went to school for the first time; I remembered the song he sang the first day at nursery. I remembered how he would always ask for me when malaria struck. Me, not anyone else. I remembered the first tune he ever hummed, the shine in his eyes when he smiled. I remembered his first letter from boarding school, the first dream he remembered on waking up.
I had known the greatest earthly love a woman can know, loving a child and being loved in return. Who could say I was not worthy? The girl in the news the other day, the girl whose baby was picked up at the dumpster in Ogui – she was worthy. I did not judge her. I wished she could have told someone, had someone she could lean on, someone who would have been happy to take that child and raise her. Perhaps that was what had happened to Afam. Perhaps Mama Nathan had picked Afam up in a dump somewhere. Yet I, who raised a child who would have had a miserable childhood, a difficult life – who could say I was not worthy to be called a mother?
When I finally slept that night, I did not dream of the child who had been abandoned in the dump, as I had feared. I dreamt of Eugene rising from his grave to point accusing fingers at me. I had no fear, but only wondered why he had left his bed so late. And then I dreamt of Nwabulu, the tall, black tailor.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NWABULU
I tapped my feet impatiently. I did not like to waste time where there was work to do in the shop. I should simply have told Mrs Obiechina that I would buy the fabric myself. I knew, with no sense of pride, that she would like any fabric I chose; I was good. Instead, I had – foolishly – agreed over the phone that we could go to the market together. I could have gone and come back in the time I had been waiting.
Thirty minutes later, when I saw her climb down from the Mercedes, her movements slow and cautious, I knew it had been a mistake. With a sigh, I resigned myself to not finishing the school costumes I had planned on completing that day.
When she came in she said, ‘I am really sorry for keeping you. I had to stop at the pharmacy to get some prescriptions and it took longer than I expected. Gbahalu, inugo.’
With those apologetic words, how could I continue to nurse irritation? I smiled and said, ‘Nsogbu adiro, Ma. It is no problem at all. I was just wondering if everything was all right.’
She suggested that we use her car, which was a good suggestion; the air conditioner in mine was broken. Besides, it would be uncomfortable for her because of her size. I waited for her to get in the back and then went to the front to sit beside the driver.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Please come and sit beside me so that we can talk as we go.’
‘Yes, Ma.’ It did not matter to me where I sat, though society said big people sat in the back behind their drivers. I obeyed and we drove off.
The scents of her car, her person, all said luxury. In my next life, I mused, I would be sure to come as the child of a rich family. I smiled to myself at this thought. My husband would say, ‘You have to be patient; this life is not yet done.’ I often told him that, in my next life, I would be a man. My emphatic tone would make him laugh. ‘It is not easy to be a man, you know,’ he would reply. ‘It is easier to be a man,’ I would inform him. ‘Okay,’ he would say, conceding defeat, ‘but you have to finish this life first with me as your husband and then I can come back as your wife.’ I smiled again.
Mrs Obiechina looked at me, a questioning smile on her face. What was I smiling at, her own smile asked.
I said, ‘I like your car, Ma – it is very comfortable.’ Comfortable was not the right word, especially if you compared my old Honda with this Mercedes.
‘Hmm,’ was her response, as if this was not important. ‘Will the market be very full? I sometimes get very hot there.’ As she said this, she fumbled in her big black bag for what turned out to be a beautiful red fan, the type that society ladies fan themselves with at weddings.
‘It is always full,’ I said. ‘But I know a shortcut to the shops I want us to visit. It should not take us long.’
‘Do you go often?’ she asked.
‘No, I am often too busy to go myself these days. I usually send my girls to buy the things I need. Unless there is a special reason.’
She smiled. ‘So I am a special reason?’
‘Of course you are special, Ma,’ I laughed, going with the flow. ‘It is not every day that one’s son gets married.’
‘That is true.’ She continued to smile. ‘And how ab
out you? Are your children grown?’
‘They are growing, Ma. My son just entered the university.’
‘Hmm. How many do you have?’
‘Two. Son and daughter.’
‘Oh, two. At least that’s more than one, which is what I have.’
‘Oh, you mean your son is your only child?’
‘Yes,’ she said, but her smile was warm, as if she did not mind that she had just one child.
‘Eyaaa,’ I said. She and her husband must have waited for a long time; she was not young and, in her days, women married early.
‘Hmm,’ was her simple reply.
‘We must make sure you look gorgeous that day, then.’
‘Careful, you don’t want me to outshine the bride. She may never let me near my son again.’
We both laughed. And then we talked about mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, and I told her that I had been lucky in that regard. My husband shielded me from all interference, especially because I had only two children, which my mother-in-law was not too happy about. I did not add that my husband was not too pleased with that either – not in the beginning. She said she had not been so lucky, even though her mother-in-law had died when she married her husband. Her eight sisters-in-law had been more formidable than any mother-in-law. She had promised herself that she would not be an interfering mother-in-law, and she hoped that she could keep to that. In any case, her son and his fiancée lived in Lagos, so it was unlikely she would see them that often.
‘Is it not strange,’ Mrs Obiechina mused, ‘that you have a child, you feed him, wash his buttocks, wake up with him at night, listen to his bad dreams, and wipe his tears. And then one day, the child grows up and belongs to another, and tells those dreams to another?’ She paused, then answered her own question: ‘It is strange, but it is the cycle of life. If the child does not do this, you would be worried, and would consult pastors and wonder what was wrong with him.’
I hoped one day to be at the point when I could give out my children in marriage. It would be a major achievement. I did not add that no one had given me out, and I hoped to be alive to do that for my children.
And so we chatted until we got into the hot, busy, overflowing market. We walked past other goods on the narrow roads, avoiding barrow pushers and people walking briskly in search of what they came to buy. Traders called out to us from their shops.
‘Madam, come, I have the best cosmetics.’
‘Aunty, bring Mummy here now. I have a nice seat on which she can be comfortable.’
‘Aunty, Mummy is sweating o. Come in now, my fan is working.’
We were slow. I matched my impatient legs to Mrs Obiechina’s shorter strides until we found the cluster of shops that sold fabric. There, we focused on finding the best cloth and not being stolen blind by traders who could smell money from thousands of kilometres away.
We chose the fabrics together. Mrs Obiechina was leaning towards a red lace, but I thought that a deep blue cord would be slimming and look regal on her. I also got a white lace for a blouse. Though she said she had lots of whites, I said I would make this in the simple, elegant style that was now in vogue. In the end, she agreed with me. She smiled indulgently at my enthusiasm. I would have got better prices if she had not come with me, but I did the best I could and she settled the bill. Then she said she wanted some ukpaka. I said that I could get the oil bean cuttings for her. So she stayed in the shop with the fabrics, talking to the trader, while I dashed to the other side of the market to get some of the items she wanted – ukpaka, ogili Igbo, some okporoko, and abacha. Her thanks were effusive when I returned.
Back in the car, she asked, ‘Tell me, how did you become a fashion designer? Since my friend Mrs Nwajei found you, she has been spending all her money on clothes.’ She laughed, her tone suggesting that I was about to draw her in as I had her friend.
I noted that she did not say ‘tailor’, which often connoted a smaller kind of dressmaker.
‘It is a long story,’ I said simply, although I could have said that it was the only trade open to me at that time or that I loved making clothes.
‘I would like to hear it one day,’ was all she said, her eyes lingering on my face. Mrs Obiechina had a way of making you feel that she was really interested in getting to know you, the real you, not the dressed-up one you presented to the world.
When we got back to the shop, I said goodbye to her, urging her not to get out of the car.
‘Are you sure I should not come in?’
‘Mba o, I have got your measurements, Ma. I will go in and start cutting immediately. You know that this can take time. I want everything to be ready for the wedding.’ I could see that the trip to the market had tired her. But there really was no need for her to come into the shop, and I had a lot of work to do – I had spent too much time in the market.
We waved goodbye as the Mercedes drove off.
Chidinma came by the shop one day. I was surprised to see her. She often complained that Trans-Ekulu was too far a distance to travel just to see a friend. I laughed. It was only a thirty-minute journey from Uwani on a slow-traffic day.
She came in, her buttocks jiggling in her long skirt. She was still fleshy, as she had been when we were housemaids on the same street over thirty years ago. But now she had four children to show for all that flesh, I teased. With my non-existent backside, I would have been perfect to strut about in a bikini on TV, she teased back, except that my ambitions had always been too low.
It was interesting how life wended its way to unexpected destinations. I, the would-be government secretary, was now the tailor. Chidinma, whose sole ambition in primary school had been to do the work of a tailor, instead ran a hairdressing salon. She sent some of her clients to me, though I could not always return the favour because salons were plentiful in Trans-Ekulu, and where women were willing to traverse the continent for well-made clothes, the pull was not quite as strong for hair.
I would never forget standing on our street in Independence Layout so long ago, begging her to let me go to her people. They took me in, Chidinma’s people. Those people were my saviours, and I owed them my life. Over time, when I thought about it, I glossed over what it had been like to search for the house in Abakpa after Chidinma left me, how I had slept under a tree in front of another house that night, praying that no evil marauders would come upon me, that no animals would eat me. I glossed over their exclamations at my bedraggled, hungry state when I eventually located the house the next morning. Instead, I thought how Uzoamaka and her husband let me stay to take care of the baby she had just borne so that she could go back to her shop. Their accommodations, as Chidinma had told me, were constricted and they lived within a very limited budget, Uzoamaka’s husband, now of blessed memory, being a plumber who only got work from time to time. They could barely afford to feed themselves, let alone another mouth. Yet they took me in and treated me as one of their own.
It was very difficult at first – tending another baby, soothing him when he cried, wiping his bottom when his gut emptied itself. A baby who was not Ezinwa. But when I started to pretend that he was Ezinwa, it became easier, and it was not long before I began to love that boy. Obinna, Uzoamaka’s first boy, now lived in Lagos and never came home to see his widowed mother.
It was from Uzoamaka, watching her while I tended the baby, that I learnt the basics of sewing and tailoring. I was surprised that I was good at it. I was even more surprised that I liked it. Sometimes I chose the styles. When Uzoamaka’s husband brought back an old black-and-white television given to him by a rich man he worked for, I watched the presenters on NTA, and improvised and made suggestions. I found that I had a knack for fashion and for business.
After I had lived with Uzoamaka for seven years, she called me one day and told me that it was time to set up my own shop. By that time, we had moved from Abakpa to Uwani. And, by the Nineties, my shop had grown. I had three tailors.
I never went back to school. But books remained my fri
ends. I learnt things on my own. I broadened my reading as best I could, knowing that one day it could be useful.
When Ifechi came for my hand, I told him that Chidinma’s sister and her husband were the family I had always known. Although he insisted on going to Nwokenta with his people, he respected my wishes and paid them the same homage that the parents of a woman are due when she is to be married in Igboland.
Now, decades later, Chidinma and I sat in the shop, teasing each other. That was what we had done since we were girls. We poked at each other’s soft places. We shared a bond greater than mere sisterhood, a bond of shared pains and laughter. Our love was strong and would always be.
She made a joke now about one of my young seamstresses in the shop and I laughed.
‘It is good to see you laughing,’ she said. ‘That last time you came to my house, you looked like a boiled rat.’
She was referring to my visit weeks before when I told her that I’d run into Urenna. If I expected comfort on her soft shoulders, I came to the wrong place, she had told me in no uncertain terms: ‘You are worked up over that irresponsible boy? That boy that kept calling you “the housemaid”, who kept saying “I don’t know the housemaid”?’
‘I don’t think I will ever forgive him,’ I had said. Did he even want my forgiveness, someone inside my head had asked.
‘Look at you. Do you have nothing more important to do or think about?’ she’d asked. ‘Continue to throw a tantrum like a child. See if it helps. Someone told me that he is on marriage number three. Yes, I did not tell you,’ she’d continued. ‘What good would that piece of information do you? That his parents are tired of him?’
I had known she’d maintained some contact with Urenna’s sisters, whom she’d raised, but she had never mentioned Urenna to me.
The Son of the House Page 20
