“Afi, what did you bring for me?”
In the sitting room, I listened quietly as he complained about my neglectful in-laws and listed the many reasons why I had to give him money. I was wearing one of my mother’s voluminous boubous that made me look like a sack of flour. “Nobody has to know you are pregnant; there are too many evil eyes,” she had said earlier that morning while handing me a small pile of shapeless garments that could hide my pregnancy. Now I sat hunched over in the chair so that the boubou looked like a wearable tent that revealed only my toes. But Tɔgã Pious was not concerned about my appearance, he wanted gifts and cash and I didn’t want to give him either. I reasoned that he would eventually leave when he tired of talking; besides, I had nowhere else to be. However, I underestimated my uncle’s persistence and my tolerance for his relentless begging. Barely an hour passed before I went into the bedroom, fished some notes out of my bag, and gave them to him. The look on his face when I gave him the money was one of a child who was sent to catch a fat chicken but was only given a chicken foot after the bird was cooked.
“You will have to do something before you leave because this is only for wetting my throat,” he said as he counted the money for a second time, licking his thumb after counting each note. I glared at his back as he walked out; that money was almost as much as my mother earned in a month. I became angry with myself for losing patience and promised myself that I would be ready the next time he came.
I began to go out after Tɔgã Pious’s visit. I went to see my cousins in the early evenings when I knew Tɔgã Pious would be at a drinking spot or watching football with his raucous friends. I was happy to sit in a corner, away from the smoke of the coal pot, while Daavi Christy, Mawusi’s mother, prepared the evening meal and regaled me with the latest family gossip. Tɔgã Pious was now allowing the family to use his flush toilet but was charging everyone a monthly fee, which Daavi Christy had so far refused to pay. She was certain that her defiance would soon lead to a fight with her husband and she was ready for it. She clenched her fists as she described the impending battle. One of my cousins had gained admission to nursing school and would soon be coming to see me with an appeal for funds. The neem tree a few houses away, which was older than everyone we knew and housed a god in the hollow of its trunk, had fallen after a heavy storm a few weeks ago and left gaping holes in several roofs. The god was angry, and a fetish priest, his job to mediate the falling out between the gods and mortals, had to be called to perform a pacification ceremony. Now the god, and the clay pot he lived in, was housed under a hastily planted shrub.
Each of my cousins had a theory about who had wronged the god, but none of them was certain. No one in our community had died since the tree fell. No one had even had an accident. As far as they were concerned, I was a more interesting topic of conversation. Each of them wanted to know about my life in Accra. Tɔgã Pious had come back with a description of my flat that defied the imagination of many; they all wanted to come and see it, and possibly live in it. I told them I would arrange visits. They no longer called me Afi, I was now Sister Afi, even to the cousins who were close to me in age. It was nice to sit on the bench in front of the house, after the afternoon’s heat had subsided, and chat with passersby going about their day and with visitors who wanted to know what the rich woman from Accra had brought for them. Clara, one of Uncle Bright’s daughters, had set up a sewing shop in a kiosk in front of the house. She had two apprentices, and also my old Singer sewing machine that my mother had given to her. She even had a ceiling fan installed. I sometimes sat in her kiosk to escape the heat and to hide from my uncles. The whir of the sewing machines, the soft squeak of scissors as they cut through fabric, and the smoke emitted by the charcoal pressing iron reminded me of my days as an apprentice in Sister Lizzie’s shop. They also made me long for my life in Accra, Sarah’s workshop, my air-conditioned flat, my husband. I wanted to go home.
Eli came for me eight days after I had packed my bags and returned to Ho. My mother and I were having a quiet supper when he appeared at the door. He greeted my mother and reluctantly accepted the glass of water she offered, but refused to sit as I hurriedly stuffed my clothes into my bags. When I came out, he was still standing beside the door. My poor mother was trying her best to make small talk despite his stony face. He was dressed in work clothes, neatly ironed black trousers and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow; he must have driven here from the office. I was so nervous that I didn’t say a proper goodbye to my mother and I was in his car before I remembered that I had packed all of her boubous and brought them with me. I didn’t dare ask him to turn around, not when he looked like he wanted to slap me. Even though this wasn’t our first fight, I had never seen this side of him before: the clenched jaw, the flaring nostrils, the hand gripping the steering wheel so that his knuckles looked like they would pierce his skin, the eyes fixed on the road and the refusal to acknowledge me. All of this was new.
It was dark when we drove past the limits of Ho and I was glad for this. His anger was more bearable in the darkness; at least then I couldn’t see his face. He ignored me when I asked him to stop at Kpong so that I could buy abolo, boiled shrimp, and fried one-man-thousand from the hawkers who mobbed any car that dared to slow down after crossing the bridge. I wanted to lash out at him more than anything, but my anxiety about what lay ahead kept me quiet. I somehow managed to doze off as we neared Asutsuare Junction but woke up before we reached the end of the Tema motorway. When we made the right off the highway and into East Legon, I sat up straight in my seat and gripped the soft, tan leather of the door handle; we were a short way away from both the flat and his house. What would I do if he took me back to the flat? I would refuse to enter! I would sit in his car and refuse to enter! If he tried to pull me out of the car I would resist, I would make a scene so that everyone in the building, at least those who had their balcony door open, would hear us, as would the security guards at the gate. I would hit and claw at him and curse the entire Ganyo family. Anything but go back into that flat. My heart continued to pound and my hand remained tight on the door handle as he drove straight, instead of making the left turn that would take us to the flat. About ten minutes later, he made a right turn, and we drove past a series of homes that were big enough to house multiple families. His was smaller and located between two of these mansions. He pulled up in front of the wrought-iron gate and honked. A moment later, a security guard rolled the gate open and we drove into the compound. Eli had brought me to our house.
Ten
It was a two-story house with five bedrooms, a lawn in the front, and a small pool and garden in the back. One bedroom was on the first floor and the other four were on the second. While the décor of the flat, my previous home, was modern with clean lines and sharp edges, the décor here was more classical. Each room was furnished in the style of Louis XIV. The sitting room was all polished brown wood and ornate blue and green upholstery. The headboard in the master bedroom was covered with a pink fabric layered with a gold motif, and the bedpost and two bedside tables had claw feet. White area rugs softened the marble floors and heavy curtains gave it a regal air. Crystal chandeliers added glitz to the sitting and dining rooms, as did paintings in gold frames. Even the kitchen had paintings! The wood of the kitchen cabinets matched that of the dining table, which seated ten people and shone so brightly that I wondered if it had ever been used. The gardener, who came every weekday, carefully tended roses and orchids that added color to an outside seating area near the pool, which was four feet at its deepest end. He was only one of many people who worked in the house; there were two guards at the gate, a cook and her assistant, two housekeepers, one groundskeeper, and one driver, who sometimes drove Eli to work and brought him home in the evenings. Most of them lived in a row of rooms at the bottom of the garden, and the security guards were supplied by the same company that employed my talkative friends back at King’s Court.
A few days after Eli and I came back to Accra, Mensah had dri
ven me to King’s Court to pick up the rest of my things. Savior and Lucy, the most talkative of the lot, had insisted on helping load my bags into the car and hugged me goodbye. I could only imagine the stories that they were going to tell to anyone who stopped to talk to them. I went back to school the next day. Sarah had been very understanding, assuming my absence had something to do with my pregnancy. I was happy to be back at work and to be able to get out of the house where I rarely saw my husband. He left early in the morning, usually before I even came out of the shower, and often returned after I was in bed. I would hear him come up the stairs at night, enter the guestroom furthest away from the master bedroom, and shut the door. I’d been sleeping alone in the master bedroom since the first night. On that evening he’d asked one of the housekeepers, Hawa, to show me to the room; I had waited until three in the morning for him to join me in there. He didn’t show up that night or any of the ones after. My attempts to talk to him went nowhere. He complained of fatigue when I met him at the top of the staircase and didn’t respond when I knocked on the door of the guest bedroom. It was locked when I turned the handle. After the first week, I began waking up earlier than usual with the intent of making him breakfast, but the cook always beat me to it. The woman, Mrs. Adams, who was my mother’s age but twice her size, had worked for Eli since he returned from Liberia and bristled at my presence in the kitchen.
“Please leave it, we’ll do it,” were her favorite words, which she usually uttered while hovering over me in the kitchen and trying to snatch some utensil or ingredient from my hand. I had never encountered anyone so desperate to get rid of me.
“I’ll do it!” I finally snapped on the third day of our war. She froze. I guess she didn’t realize that I had a mouth. I wasn’t going to stand for this kind of treatment. This was my house, and it was my duty to take care of my husband. That morning, I beat her to the kitchen and was scrambling eggs in a bowl while she and her helper leaned against the marble island, glaring at me.
“Where is the salt?” I was sure that they had begun hiding utensils and ingredients from me; the salt wasn’t in the cupboard where I had seen it yesterday.
“It’s over there,” she said, pointing to a cabinet above my head.
“It’s not there.”
“It’s there.”
“I said it’s not there. Come and give it to me!” It took her almost thirty seconds to dislodge her feet from the floor.
I was fuming when I served Eli his breakfast, not that he noticed. His response to my greeting was curt and he asked how I was while looking at my stomach. He began to eat as soon as I placed the eggs, toast, and tea, before him.
“Is it okay?” I asked, nibbling on an almost-burnt piece of toast. I was sitting two chairs away from him at the huge dining table.
“It’s eggs and bread, Afi.”
“I know but is the salt . . .”
“It’s fine,” he said, cutting me off. He had a fork in one hand and a phone in the other and was scrolling through his emails and eating at the same time.
“What time will you be back this evening . . . so that I can have your dinner ready?”
“I have a dinner meeting so no need.”
“Okay, what time do you think you will get back?”
He looked up from his phone and frowned. “Why are you asking?”
“It’s nothing, I just wanted to wait up for you.”
“Is something the matter?”
“No . . .”
“Then don’t wait up for me.”
I was distracted at school that day. My stitching on a skirt was so crooked that Sarah made me redo it. I never made mistakes like that, even when I was a fresh apprentice at Sister Lizzie’s. When my mother called that evening, I convinced her that everything was fine. I told myself that I was lying because I didn’t want to worry her any more than I already had. I had already strained her relationship with Aunty. She told me how the woman had remained cold to her since she went back to work. She stopped inviting my mother to her office to chat and one evening left her standing in a heavy downpour after work, whereas before, she would have offered to give my mother a lift home. I didn’t want this treatment to get worse. Besides, I had gotten what I asked for: I was finally living in our home. Eli’s anger was something that I would have to deal with by myself, without the involvement of my mother and the Ganyos. Mawusi agreed. “You can’t go back and complain again,” she said. We’d been on the phone for more than one hour and it was almost ten, yet Eli had not come back from the office.
“Are you sure he’s at the office?” she said, expressing the thought that I had been too embarrassed to voice. Because what if he was with her now, as I lay alone in this ornate bed with this overheating cellphone pressed against my ear? Wouldn’t I be the biggest fool on earth?
“He says he’s at the office.”
“Okay.”
I tried to sleep after we hung up but I couldn’t. My belly was getting bigger and now sleeping on my back was the only comfortable position. When I tired of tossing from my back to my side, I called him. He picked up on the second ring.
“What is it, Afi. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just want to know when you will be home . . . where you are.”
“I’m working, Afi. Is there something else?”
“No.”
“Okay, goodnight.”
“We have to talk,” I said as he ate breakfast the next morning. The meal was the same as what I’d served him yesterday but I had added pineapple and watermelon slices.
“It’s too early, Afi, and I have to go to work.”
“So when, then? Because when you get back it will be too late to talk.”
He pushed his plate away, sat back in his chair, and folded his arms.
“I’m sorry about what happened, about Ho. It’s just that I became . . . I was very upset, I was very emotional. I’m very sorry, darling.” I was desperate enough to say anything that would get him to forgive me.
“Did I not ask you to be patient? But you refused to listen and preferred to force my hand.” A vein pulsed in his neck; I’d never noticed it before.
“I’m sorry.” I reached across and touched his arm. He glared at the offending hand but didn’t pull away from me.
“What am I going to do with your sorry?”
“I know. Please forgive me. I miss you. Your son misses you.” I stood beside him and placed his hand on my belly. I inhaled sharply at his touch through the thin fabric of my nightgown. How I missed him. How I wanted him. I was afraid that he would pull away but his hand remained still. Just when I thought we would stay frozen all day, he lightly pressed on the side of my stomach closest to him, as though he wanted to feel the baby inside me.
“He’s not moving yet,” I whispered as I placed my hand on his. He jerked his hand away. I wasn’t forgiven yet.
“I have to go to work,” he said, standing up.
“I will wait up for you tonight.”
“Suit yourself.”
I waited until two in the morning and finally succumbed to sleep. I woke up around 9:00 a.m. to the sound of laughter in the backyard. He was sitting in the garden with his brothers.
I quickly got dressed and hurried down the spiral staircase. How could I be sleeping when his family was visiting! I should have been up early enough to welcome them and prepare breakfast for them. What kind of wife would they think I was? When I entered the kitchen, Mrs. Adams was bringing in a tray stacked with dirty plates from outside. Her smirk told me that she relished this victory. I would have to deal with this woman soon but now I politely replied “good morning” and exited through the back door into the garden. The sun was out but still covered by enough clouds that it was possible to sit outside without becoming shiny with sweat. The white and purple orchids had already opened up and the fragrance of the roses was in the air. Droplets of water dotted the leaves and petals but they would soon evaporate with the rising heat. Even though we were located on a busy ar
tery, noise from the street barely reached the backyard. All I could hear was the sound of children playing behind the ten-foot fence of one of the neighboring houses.
Richard saw me first. “Mrs. Ganyo!” he said. I didn’t know what to make of his words. He hadn’t called me that before.
“Good morning,” I said, my hand folded atop my belly. I could deal with any of the brothers alone, but the three of them together was overwhelming. I was suddenly shy.
“Good morning,” the visiting brothers answered in unison. Eli said nothing. Fred stood up and gave me a side hug. “I heard you’re putting my brother through hell,” he said with a hearty laugh. Richard joined in while Eli looked on, his face devoid of expression. Fred pointed to an empty chair between him and Eli and I sat.
“Sorry I wasn’t up to welcome you,” I said. I didn’t add that it was because Eli had not bothered to tell me they were coming and that he had made me wait up until the early hours of the morning.
“Don’t worry, you need your sleep,” Richard said before asking me how I was. I told him I was well, no need to bring up the swollen feet, nausea, and constipation.
“I heard you went to Ho and shook things up,” Fred said, still mocking his brother. Or maybe he was mocking me.
“No,” my smile quickly faded and I glanced at my husband from the corner of my eye. But Eli wasn’t even looking at me.
“No? Well I heard differently,” Fred persisted.
“I went to Ho but I didn’t shake anything.” I let out a half-laugh, half-snort that made me sound like a choking person.
“Don’t be modest, you have done what Napoleon couldn’t do,” he said, before reaching over and patting me on the shoulder. Up close, he was a slightly older version of Eli, with a receding hairline. I hoped my husband’s hair wouldn’t follow suit.
His Only Wife Page 17