The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

by Lola Shoneyin

  The aroma of fresh palm wine was rich and intoxicating, so I looked in the direction of the nearby shack. I wanted to see the large pregnant gourd buzzing with the hum of inebriated bees as young men dipped into it, drowning themselves in its sweetness. Leaning and slouching over them were women who had braved neighborhood gossip to be there. They sat there in the distance, laughing and sipping from halved calabashes. I smiled to myself and hurried on, tickled by the playful finger of young love.

  I heard the footsteps gaining on me but I ignored them. I didn’t want to turn and find it was just some poor woman rushing home clutching a Bible and a toddler. Apart from that, I was determined not to let anything knock me off my high. I hadn’t felt such liberty in a long time. It was only when a voice breathlessly shouted, “Wait, please,” that I swung round.

  “Good evening, Segi.” She didn’t just want me to slow down; she wanted me to stop.

  She slowed down before she reached me, urging me to stop. “Auntie, please don’t tell. Mama will kill me.”

  I exhaled. My exhilaration vanished and a sense of weariness came over me. Not more household intrigue! Could I bear it? “Don’t tell her what?”

  “Don’t tell my mother that you saw me at the palm wine shed. Don’t tell my father you saw me with a boy.” Segi flung her fingers into the air as if to shake wetness from them. She was hopping from foot to foot and her mouth was open in supplication.

  My heart went out to her. “I won’t say a word.” I must have given in too easily. Either that or she just didn’t believe me.

  “Please, Auntie Bolanle. Please. I beg you, Auntie. I’ll do anything.”

  “So now you want to bribe me?” I asked. It occurred to me that although Segi had always been civil, she had never addressed me as “Auntie” before. She’d always just blurted whatever she had to say. And now, this rain of affectionate “Auntie”s.

  “No. I’m not trying to bribe you. I’m begging you, Auntie. Don’t make my father disown me. Please.”

  Maybe some other person would’ve derived joy from seeing her so distraught, but I didn’t. Neither, contrary to the young girl’s thinking, did I feel I now had a punch I could take at will. I felt sorry for her. Only eight years before, I’d have done anything to get to Segun’s room so I could satisfy the mysterious rush of blood to my groin. “I give you my word; I won’t tell anyone.”

  Segi looked up at me and wiped away tears that had not yet dropped to her cheeks. “Thank you, Auntie. It was a silly mistake. I have never been there before but this boy has taken over my mind. When I sit down, I think of him. When I eat, he is there, on my mind. Sometimes I fear Mama will look at me and read my innermost thoughts.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Goke. He is eighteen. He is a student at Ibadan Polytechnic, studying to become a surveyor.” She wanted me to be impressed.

  I indulged her. “Really? Where did you meet him?”

  “His mother sells snacks outside our school. Sometimes he comes to help her.”

  “Is he handsome?”

  “Well, you saw him, didn’t you? All the girls in my class are jealous of me.”

  “He didn’t look bad at all.” I was by now too far gone to admit that I hadn’t seen Segi nor the man she was with.

  “But why did he invite you to the palm wine shack? Doesn’t he know how old you are?”

  “I told him I didn’t want to go there but he said he wanted to show me off to his friends.”

  “Did you enjoy being there?”

  “Not particularly. His friends were telling very dirty jokes. I was just happy to be near him so I could look at his face.”

  “And have you looked at more than his face?”

  “Auntie!” Segi covered her eyes with her fingers. “I swear I have not seen any more. He said he would teach me how to kiss like a woman tonight but I left him and ran after you. I am sure all his friends are laughing at me now.” She sighed and looked over her shoulder.

  “Then they are foolish. Anyone who laughs at you for showing your family respect is a fool. How would you be feeling now if you’d just sat there?”

  “My heart would be in my mouth. I wouldn’t have been able to relax.” Segi put her arm through mine as the thought created new dread in her mind.

  “Good. So even though you left him at the shack, you have peace of mind…which means you did the right thing. A real woman must always do the things she wants to do, and in her own time too. You must never allow yourself to be rushed into doing things you’re not ready for.” We stepped onto the veranda of Baba Segi’s house together, the same foot at the same time.

  Iya Tope was the only adult in the sitting room. As soon as we strolled in, her nostrils flared like damp shorts on the washing line. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She just stared, forgetting to blink, then blinking a flurry. She turned to the children happily scoffing their food but it was clear that her mind was burdened.

  Segi touched the forehead of each sibling she encountered. Most of them were sucking on chicken bones, their cheeks dotted with half grains of jollof rice. Akin looked up at us, smiled and returned to the sports column of yesterday’s newspaper. Ever since Baba Segi tried to strangle me, he’d flattened himself behind curtains and cupboards whenever I walked by.

  “WHAT SORT OF THINGS were you talking about?” Segi asked as we walked through the corridor to my bedroom. Ordinarily Segi would have gone straight to her mother’s bedroom and then to the bedroom she shared with Akin to change her clothes, but on this occasion, she didn’t do either; she linked her arm in mine, determined not to leave my side.

  The bedroom was as I had left it except there was a cream-colored bowl on the dressing table. The handle on the lid was a puckered rosebud. “Iya Femi has saved me some birthday chicken.” I fanned the aroma toward Segi with the lid and replaced it.

  “Well, aren’t you going to eat it?” Without waiting for the go-ahead, Segi dipped her fingers into the bowl and lifted out a peppered wing cut deep into the shoulder. A generous chunk of flesh half-covered by dimpled skin hung from it. Segi placed a palm underneath to catch the oil and sank her teeth into it. She closed her eyes so she could savor the stock trickling down her throat.

  “I just had dinner with my mother. You eat it. It’s chicken and I’ve never been a fowl person.” I surrendered the entire bowl to Segi’s eager hands.

  “There are three big pieces here. I could comfortably throw the lot into one nostril. I’ll finish it for you and lick the bowl. If only I’d known you were this generous—” Segi spluttered with her mouth full.

  “You can have them all!” I laughed.

  “You were saying earlier not to rush things…?”

  I watched Segi wolf down the chicken. She didn’t appear to chew at all. For someone who rarely spoke to me or sat with me, I was amused by Segi’s disregard for protocol. I wondered if she’d be as friendly when her mother was around.

  As if Iya Segi had heard my thoughts, her voice suddenly rang through the walls. She inquired if Segi was back from her walk and Femi eagerly informed her that Segi was locked away in my room. Eager to get to the bottom of the unfathomable intercourse, Iya Segi went to the mouth of the corridor and yelled her daughter’s name.

  “I’d better go now,” Segi said, steeping each finger into her mouth and swiveling her tongue around it. I passed her a paper napkin.

  “Please say thank you to Iya Femi for me. And give this birthday present to Kole.” I handed her the colorfully wrapped box and flopped onto the bed. I arched my back and tried to find sleep but I couldn’t. My mother’s face kept inching before my eyes. Besides, the silence was unsettling, there was a backdrop—a long whistle somewhere beyond my window, beyond the garden and the fence.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NIGHT NOISES

  IT WAS JUST LIKE it was when she slept in the same room as Lara. She’d lain there for what seemed like hours before she realized she was being kept awake by the night’s
noises. The air was steamed with an aphrodisiac. Every toad for miles was croaking its finest woo song, and in the Alao house, crickets serenaded one another in harmonized duets. It was the exact location of this noise that Bolanle was trying to decipher when she realized she was fully clothed. She changed into her nightgown and got on her knees. As she crawled along the walls, she pressed the nozzle of the insect killer at the narrow gap between the wall and the wooden skirting board. She could taste the insecticide at the back of her throat.

  Iya Segi’s room was just a few yards down the corridor and Bolanle could hear her voice filtering through the walls into her room. It was angry, like the buzzing of a frustrated bee against a closed window. Bolanle heard her name each time Iya Segi accused her daughter of shamelessness. Equally aggravating was Segi’s silence at the end of every question, which seemed to cause her mother much frustration. It was only after her mother told her to go to her room that Segi opened her mouth. “Do not be annoyed, Mama,” she said.

  The words did not carry the remorse her mother was looking for. “Just get out!” Iya Segi snapped.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Bolanle heard Segi shuffle out of her mother’s bedroom.

  Around two A.M., a chilling scream pierced the silence in all the rooms of the house. It wasn’t high pitched—more like the sorrowfully low notes of a trombone—but it went on for an uncomfortable length of time. Bolanle sat up with a jolt and leaped off her bed. She wrapped her cover cloth around her shoulders and raced out of her bedroom.

  Baba Segi, Iya Femi, Segi and Akin were all in the sitting room. Iya Segi was there too but standing in the far corner, with her fist in her mouth, shivering. Black bra straps had fallen onto fat upper arms and her wrapper was bundled together around her waist.

  From where she was standing, all Bolanle could see were Segi’s feet lying on the floor. They flexed and contracted as if she was in the throes of an epileptic fit. Her father was on his knees next to her, staring at her as if to absorb her pain. He kept touching her legs and arms, addressing her in a mix of prayers, pleas and promises. “Don’t leave me, my daughter. Don’t let me mourn you. It is not the order of things in our world. Tell the gods you want to stay here with me. Tell them you are not ready to walk the path of the ancestors. Tell them there are those who love you here, in our world. Tell them your father loves you. Tell them for me, Segi. My daughter, I will buy you gold. I will buy you the finest lace. First fruit of my loins, do not disregard my words.” It was a pitiful sight. He tried to blink back his tears but they created dark spots on Segi’s nightdress. Iya Segi kept peeking at Segi from behind the head tie she had draped over her face.

  Iya Tope ran into the room carrying the shirt that matched the trousers Baba Segi was wearing. Her entire front was covered in undigested chicken streaked with blood. A stench pursued her but she wasn’t bothered by it; she was entirely focused on retrieving the keys of the pickup from the nail.

  Bolanle scanned the faces of all those present but not one pair of eyes responded to her inquiring brow. Instead, they were wet with foreboding. Iya Femi sat in her armchair jiggling her foot. Her eyelids were heavy with sleep and resentment. Her children didn’t get this much attention when they had a fever. Why did the entire household have to be disturbed on account of Segi’s vomiting? She ate far too much anyway.

  It was when Iya Tope and Akin carried Segi to the pickup that Bolanle got a chance to see her face. She looked like she was sucking her cheeks in, like they’d been deflated. Every so often, a torrent of toddler-like gibberish escaped her throat. Her crooked fingers were drawn into semi-fists. Her palms looked as if the blood beneath the skin had receded into her wrists. Just before they bundled her into the pickup, her body was wrenched by a sudden urge to vomit. The force of it was so overpowering that she soiled herself.

  Baba Segi settled himself into the driver’s seat. Opting for lucidity over maternal unpredictability, he commanded Iya Tope to get in and sit next to Segi. “Watch over Iya Segi and the children!” he shouted to Iya Femi before he drove off.

  Bolanle went to the kitchen to fetch Iya Segi and Iya Femi some cold drinking water from the fridge. She brought out two glasses on a tray and presented one of them to Iya Segi. Iya Segi slapped saucer and glass onto the carpet and pulled Bolanle’s face close to hers.

  “What have you done to my daughter? Answer me, witch! What have you inflicted on my daughter?” Iya Segi grabbed Bolanle by the sleeve, knocking the tray to the floor.

  “Mama, no!” Akin shouted.

  Iya Segi turned to her son. “If you don’t want your mother to curse you, find your way to your bed. Now!” With the boy out of earshot, she burrowed her nails deeper into Bolanle’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t do anything to her,” Bolanle shouted. She didn’t know whether to wrench herself from Iya Segi’s clutch or offer herself as a sacrifice. Iya Femi lay her head on the headrest of her armchair, put her feet on a footstool and folded her arms, watching.

  “What did you say to her? What curses did you put on her?” Iya Segi’s words were laced with garlic. She chewed six cloves every night as part of her constitutional maintenance.

  “I didn’t say anything to her!”

  “Why did you force her into your room then? My daughter has never kept secrets from me but tonight she behaved as if she was born without ears! Tell me what you did to her!”

  “Iya Segi, please, you are hurting me. Let me go to my room.”

  Iya Segi pushed Bolanle with all the strength in her muscular arms. The smaller woman fell backward and landed bottom-first on a stool before toppling over and knocking her head on the cold terrazzo, just missing the edge of the rug. Although Bolanle heard the sound of bone grazing stone, she jumped to her feet in case Iya Segi decided to pounce. Unstable on her feet, Bolanle touched the back of her head and brought her hand within view; it was moist with blood. “Look what you have done to me!” she whispered.

  At this, Iya Femi pointed at Bolanle, threw her head back and burst into peals of laughter. She held her belly and rocked on her seat. Then, as suddenly as she started, she stopped. “What she has done to you? How lucky you are that Iya Segi did not decapitate you and pound your head in the mortar! You are indeed an evil spirit. Get thee behind us, Satan! Leave our home!” Iya Femi flicked her wrists and shooed her.

  “But what have I done to make you hate me? What have I ever done to hurt any of you?”

  “Ha! The exact words of the witch who was caught drying her hands after her neighbor’s child was found floating in the compound well.” Iya Femi paused. “Sooner than you think, we will be rid of your evil spirit.”

  Bolanle raised her hands. “I don’t understand this! One minute you are giving me generous portions of chicken from your son’s birthday celebrations, the next, you call me an evil spirit. What am I to make of all this? Which is it exactly?”

  “You will know soon enough! Don’t be in a hurry, evil spirit.” Iya Femi let her laughter loose again.

  “Then it is good that I did not eat it. I’m glad it was Segi who ate it all. I am glad my lips did not touch food that was offered to me from hands that hate me. I am glad that—”

  Iya Segi, who had slipped back into her trance, sat up. “Did you say Segi ate your chicken?”

  “Yes, she wanted it and I let her have it. I am not full of hate. Why should I deprive her of anything when she is a child, and my husband’s daughter?” Before they could humiliate her further, Bolanle ran to her bedroom and locked the door behind her.

  After a few moments of silence, Iya Segi sank into her seat as if she was being softened, feet first, in a pot of boiling water. She only stopped when her back was where her bottom should have been. “Ah! Iya Femi, what have we done with our own hands?”

  “I told you the woman was a witch. Why was it tonight of all nights that Segi went to her room? She must have used spiritual water to wash her eyes. She must have known and forced Segi to eat the chicken.”

  Both women lo
oked at each other. They both knew no force was required where Segi’s appetite was concerned. “Did you use all of the powder? Perhaps it will not have the potency Taju said it would have.”

  “Every grain of it. As you instructed. Don’t worry, I know what to do. Early tomorrow morning, I will go to the prophets in my church. They will fast and pray for three days. I am not a prophet but God does not fail me. We will not lose a child in this household!”

  “Did you say lose a child? Do you realize what has just come out of your mouth?” Iya Segi grabbed a stool by the leg.

  The veins around the older wife’s grip were set to burst; it looked like Iya Segi might hurl the mahogany stool. “I spoke foolishly, Iya Segi, like a child without wisdom.” Iya Femi said a hurried good night and locked herself in her bedroom.

  When morning came, the younger children sat around the corridor and didn’t seem to know if they were awake or sleepwalking. They’d woken to find Iya Segi there as if she wasn’t, head on fist, watching white clouds discolor the darkness. Iya Femi’s room was locked, as was Bolanle’s. Iya Tope was nowhere to be found. And to top it all, their beloved Segi was gone too.

  Akin tried to persuade them that all was well and offered to make breakfast, but the corn pap he cooked was riddled with raw pellets and swam off the spoon. The children didn’t complain; they sucked it off the spoon and sieved with their teeth. After a few minutes, Akin threw down his spoon and ordered them to pour it down the sink. It was Femi who saved the day. He sat by his mother’s bedroom door and yelled until his throat hurt. For once, Akin didn’t try to stop him, running to his own bedroom to pull a pillow over his head. Before long, an anxious Iya Femi surfaced and appeased the children with hot loaves of bread and tinned sardines.