As Taju drove past the cemetery gates, the clouds gathered into fists. Baba Segi, who had stopped to gape at the mourners, spat out of the window. “So it is the specialist who wants to see me?”
“Yes,” Bolanle said.
“Now, that is a man who has sense in his head. He understands that a woman must have a master that she submits to. Unlike that imbecile we saw the other day, he clearly understands the significance of a husband!”
Bolanle decided it was better to leave things vague. It had been hard enough summoning the courage to invite him. In fact, the telling was only made possible by Baba Segi’s late-night visit to his daughter.
“Is she sleeping through the night now?” he’d asked as he swung the bedroom door open.
Bolanle was wiping beads of sweat from Segi’s forehead. “Speak quietly, please; she has only just fallen asleep.”
Baba Segi lowered his voice to a whisper. “Is she sleeping through the night now?”
“No. She wakes up every few hours, when the pain is unbearable.”
“Is the medicine not working?” He reached out to touch his daughter’s head but snatched back his hand, afraid he would upset her slumber. “Perhaps we should take her back to the hospital.” He looked to Bolanle for an answer.
“You could, but you yourself said that the doctors predicted her recovery might be slow. Speaking of which, Dr. Dibia has asked to see you. He’s the doctor I saw when I went for my appointment at UCH. He said it’s important that he speaks to you.” It went down perfectly.
“So you went for the appointment?” He hadn’t expected that she would take the initiative.
“Yes, and I took the results of the tests. He said it was important to see you. Tomorrow, in fact.”
“But why didn’t you tell me before?”
“What sense does it make to treat ringworm when the body is consumed with leprosy? Segi’s condition has overtaken all our minds.”
Baba Segi exhaled deeply. “You are right. Well, if the doctor calls, then I must answer. All the diseases of the body must be treated.” He tiptoed toward the door.
“The appointment is at ten thirty.”
“May we wake well!”
A few half truths, a few untold truths, and the deed was done.
Dr. Dibia was not in a hospitable mood; when Baba Segi and Bolanle walked into his consultation room. He was digging the lid of his pen into his ear, as if something had jumped in when he wasn’t looking, just to annoy him.
“Good morning, Doctor.” Baba Segi hoped to impose his high spirits upon him.
“Please sit. I take it you are Mr. Alao?” He looked at the clean pen top with disgust and threw it in the bin.
“Yes. I am the husband.” He drew his hands to his bosom. “And this is the wife who cannot conceive.” He pointed two forefingers at Bolanle as if there was a slight chance that the doctor might mistake one for the other.
“Good, good. Now that I know who’s who, let me tell you why you are here. Now, in order to arrive at a conclusive prognosis about your wife’s inability to conceive, it’s important that couples hoping to become parents are examined together. We’ve already administered some tests on Mrs. Alao, so now you need to do some initial tests too. This will help us determine how we might overcome the difficulties.” He avoided using the word “problems.”
“I hope you’re not insinuating that I might be the cause of these difficulties.” Baba Segi glanced at Bolanle, then moved his face as close to the doctor’s as the table would allow. “Listen, Doctor, I have many children. I have sons; I have daughters. The only thing God has not blessed me with is twins. Mind you, there is still time. So, tell me.” He paused. “Are the tests you want to do on me not a waste of time?”
Dr. Dibia reclined into his seat and took off his glasses. He looked intently at Baba Segi while his glasses swung from his finger like the wand of a metronome. “Mr. Alao, did you see that queue out there?”
“Yes. There are many people waiting outside the door.”
“Good. Do you know why they are there?”
“Is it not to see you?” Baba Segi didn’t know where he was going but he was suspicious all the same.
“Indeed they are. But they are also there because they have a common belief.”
Baba Segi opened his mouth to talk but the doctor raised a solitary finger and stopped him before he started. “They believe that I know what I am doing. They believe that I don’t just sit here making things up. They believe that when I ask them to do something, it is because I believe it is for their own good. After all, I did not drag them here from their homes, did I?”
“Well—”
“There are no wells, no buts, no arguments, no questioning of my understanding of obstetrics and gynecology.” He turned to Bolanle. “Mrs. Alao, if you seek a solution, perhaps you can advise your husband. A sperm count has to be done. This involves us taking a sample of your husband’s sperm and examining it in a lab. The hospital labs are open until twelve. The sooner the sample is taken, the better.” He scrawled on a yellow form and handed it to her, together with a small transparent container. His whole manner made it clear that he’d appointed her as the go-between.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“And how is the head?”
“Much better.” She patted her scarf discreetly and flashed the doctor an embarrassed grin.
The harmattan winds had been brutal the year before and the walls were smeared with a film of warm terra-cotta. The windows were so high that even the exceptionally tall Baba Segi couldn’t survey the hospital grounds. But then, like the room, they’d been glossed over with dull, off-white paint. A twenty-inch TV/video combo sat on a mobile stand; there was a large tub of Vaseline on a shelf beneath it.
Baba Segi held his penis in his hand as if it was a hefty bill he had not expected to pay. His eyes were on the man in the video who was dipping his tongue into a woman’s pubis. He was both surprised and disgusted that his member responded to what looked alarmingly like taboo. As his member grew in his hand, he squeezed hard to admonish it. But the swelling didn’t stop, so he didn’t stop squeezing. He watched the blond woman gag on her partner’s penis.
“Unthinkable!” Baba Segi’s mouth filled with saliva. He looked from his penis to the small container. He examined his testicles and gave them a gentle prod, hoping that something would make its way out but there was nothing but a clear trickle. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he zipped up his trousers and unlocked the door. Bolanle was still sitting on a bench at the end of the corridor, her chin pressed into the crook of her palm. A nurse sitting nearby blew gum bubbles as she thumbed her way through a pile of forms.
“Sister!” Baba Segi called, decidedly opting for the less awkward conversation. Bolanle looked up but Baba Segi pointed to the nurse and motioned for her to come over.
“Can I help you, sir?” The nurse cautiously held the door open with her foot.
“I can’t do this! There is only one way a man should shed body water, and that is the way I have done it all my life. I don’t understand how to do it like this. I don’t even know how to hold it!”
“Sir, it’s easier than you think.” The nurse wondered how it was that men, with all their talk of conquering women, had not mastered the art of pleasuring themselves? You’d think women were their dustbins. “Did you watch the video? It helps.”
“I couldn’t bear it. How can anyone respond to that filth?” He inhaled sharply and suppressed his urge to spit.
“Then maybe it will help if you see how it’s done first.” She wedged the door open with a metal Coke top and marched toward the TV. She stopped the video and pressed rewind. “All you have to do is copy everything the man in the video does. Try not to think too much about what you are doing. Let your mind go to…yes…let your mind go to that young wife of yours. Imagine you are with her.”
Silence.
She pressed play and the video started. The nurse averted her eyes and made to leave th
e room but before she closed the door, she turned and said, “Mr. Alao, there is some Vaseline under the TV. Some men say it happens quicker when they use it.” As the nurse walked back to her desk, she popped a small pink bubble with a click of her tongue.
The Vaseline was full of holes where it had been poked by desperate fingers. Baba Segi scooped a little less than a handful and smeared it over the fat flap of flesh that floundered at his groin. There was a naked Chinese man in the video and as he watched a woman dancing around a pole, he grabbed his penis and stroked it. Baba Segi followed suit. When the woman at the pole approached him, he pointed his penis in her direction and massaged firmly. Baba Segi too pointed his penis in her direction and mimicked the man’s movements. Before long, Baba Segi’s toes began to curl. He felt like he was lying on a mattress on wheels that was zooming down a steep hill. The wild and wonderful buildup to the orgasm made him shudder.
The man in the video told the woman to kneel down before him, at which point the expression on his face changed and he became enraged. He thrust his member into his half-open fist and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Baba Segi would have emulated him had his own eyes been open. He had dreamed up his own fantasy: Bolanle naked, on her knees, begging for his seed. As the man in the video erupted all over the dancer’s face, Baba Segi, who had never had the need to aim, added his own splodge to the far wall while the container lay patiently beneath his testicles.
As his breathing returned to normal, he looked around, not knowing what to do. If it is seed they want, they will get it, he said to himself. He waited for coordination to return to his fingers and then used the rim of the container to scrape the last dribbles of semen from the tip of his penis. He secured the lid and sat back down. What would Teacher say if he saw me here, heaving like a pursued duiker? What would Taju say if he heard that I, Chief Alao, was filling a plastic container with my body water? What would Iya Segi say if she saw me whipping myself? One by one, the looks of disappointment on the faces of family, friends and employees tormented him. When he’d worked his way through everyone, he straightened his clothes with moist palms and fled the room, the video, the dancer and the memory of what he had done there.
Just outside, Bolanle was pacing the corridor. “Is it done?” she asked, more concerned about the sperm sample than the patches that had merged into one at his crotch.
“I have done the best I can do.” Baba Segi couldn’t look her in the eye; his fantasy clung to the walls of his mind and embarrassed him.
When they returned to Dr. Dibia’s consultation room, Bolanle knew there was something going on. The bubble-blowing nurse had rushed the results back to the doctor in a sealed envelope. But rather than invite his patients in, Dr. Dibia scurried out, open envelope in hand, forcing his arms into the twisted sleeves of his lab coat.
A few minutes later, he returned with the better-groomed Dr. Usman in tow. It was the look that Dr. Usman gave her that gave it away. He may not even have known that a look had passed between them. All he’d meant to do was glance at her but he squinted and rearranged his lips so they formed a straighter line. It was definitely a look, a sympathetic one.
Back in Dr. Dibia’s consultation room, the debate on Baba Segi’s fate was well under way.
“I think telling him would put the women in his household at risk. She came in with a nasty gash on the back of her head last week.”
“But we don’t know he did that. I didn’t pick up on any domestic violence. He seemed more possessive than aggressive. You know? More of a lover than a fighter?”
“As far as he’s concerned, it’s his wife who’s got serious problems. It would have been a different matter if he had low sperm count, but there’s nothing! Not a solitary sperm swimming around!”
“Probably had mumps in his teens. I’ll bet any money he’s never had a vaccination in his life.”
Dr. Dibia rapped the table with the tips of all eight fingers. He wasn’t interested in Dr. Usman’s betting; he wanted to know where to go from where he was. “This just doesn’t add up. I think I’m going to need to talk to his other wives.”
“Yep, that makes sense. Just say it’s part of the investigation. He can’t argue with that.”
“So you agree that I shouldn’t tell him the results yet?”
“I think that’s reasonable.” Dr. Usman stood up, eager to return to his own department.
“But what about the girl? Doesn’t she deserve to know?”
“A few more days won’t do her any harm.” With this, he waved and shut the door behind him.
Bolanle and Baba Segi found themselves in the same chairs they’d sat on that morning, except now the air conditioner was on. The smell of the cheap lemon air freshener filled the room. Bolanle immediately noticed that there was a marked difference in Dr. Dibia’s demeanor: he was now disturbingly well mannered. As soon as Bolanle saw him stand up to receive them, she expected the worst. She looked at Baba Segi to see if they were thinking alike but he was sleepily scratching dry saliva from the corners of his lips; he’d nodded off outside Dr. Dibia’s consultation room.
The doctor flashed eight small teeth. “The investigation is incomplete,” he began.
Baba Segi was immediately riled by this statement: his nostrils flared and his eyes resembled overpowered torches. “Even the gods could not make me repeat that…that…immoral act. I will not!” He snapped his fingers over his head in defiance.
“That’s quite all right, Mr. Alao. I’m not asking you to provide another semen sample. In fact, I don’t need anything else from you, not for now at least. It is your other wives we need to see, or maybe just one of them. You choose.” Maybe he’ll respond to empowerment, Dr. Dibia thought.
“Why? You have seen Bolanle. You have seen me. Why do you need to see another wife?” Baba Segi decided to play hard-to-get; he wanted to get his own back for the doctor’s earlier discourteousness.
“Well, you know, before you wrap leaves around liquidized beans, one must ensure that the ingredients are complete.”
“Indeed! Or you would be left with a plain lump of moyin-moyin.” Baba Segi completed the saying.
Dr. Dibia smiled. The traditional shit always worked on the older farts. “Well, exactly. Consider the invitation I am extending to your wives as a boiled egg, not half, not quarter, but a whole one which will complete this bounteous recipe.”
“Ha, Doctor! I see you like good things. I too like the very best for my stomach and I will bring you the wife who sees to it that that is what I get.” Baba Segi beamed. “Write down her name—Mrs. Labake Alao.”
“Perhaps on Wednesday? I normally teach on Wednesdays but I could squeeze her in at nine thirty.” He handed the appointment card to Baba Segi. “See you on Wednesday. And, please, don’t leave that wonderful wife of yours at home!” It was meant as a joke and it was received as one.
Baba Segi guffawed all the way down the newly mopped corridor, all the way down the narrow stairs and all the way back to the pickup.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BABA SEGI
I REMEMBER A SAYING from my childhood: only a foolish man falls into a trap prepared with his own hands. It is because of what happened to my father that these words were on everyone’s lips. My father was a hunter and he caught his foot in the snare he’d laid for an antelope. They say he heard the squawk of a wild guinea fowl and ran after it, forgetting what was before him. His ear led him to an early death; he was barely twenty. He didn’t wait to see my face or hold my little feet. He died lashing about at the bottom of a burrow. They say he was already buried when they found him; there was no point in digging him up to bury him again so they just shoveled more earth onto his body.
No other man would marry my mother for they feared that they might also die in a grave intended for a lesser beast. But they were all lesser beasts, all unworthy of her. My mother tied fabric and dyed it indigo. The soles of her feet were always black and as a child I would sit for hours removing the black residue from her to
enails. By the time I was twelve, I wished she would cut off her toes. Not because I hated her but because my arms ached and Mama was never satisfied. I think she just liked me to touch her feet.
When I was seventeen, I prayed that the gods would forgive me for all the evil thoughts I had ever had about my mother, because without her I would not be here today. She was a mother of mothers to me. She nursed me through an illness that reduced me to an infant—I lost my ability to walk or talk. They said it was my father’s spirit, that it had come to take me, but I knew that was a lie. Why would any father want to do that?
It all started with a headache. I was fetching firewood from the forest one day, when my head started to throb at the ewuje. It was as if the bones that had merged were being forced apart. I managed to stagger home. My mother had her hands deep in dye but when saw me coming, she ran to my aid. If she hadn’t, I would have broken my skull on a stone. She carried me into our house and lay me down on a mat. My body was covered in dye but I didn’t know it. It was as if a witch had set my belly on fire. With every hour that passed, the flames rose to my throat. They say I screamed “fire” until sleep smothered it.
It was when I realized my trousers had been changed that I knew another day had dawned. My T-shirt had not been touched and it was when I looked in the small mirror in the corner of the room that I understood why. It looked like I had stuffed two mangoes in the curve where my neck meets my face. So swollen was my neck that my mother sighed every time she laid eyes on me.
The way my daughter is now, that was the way I was for weeks: of no use to myself or anyone. There were days when my eyes would close from pain, rendering me deaf and dumb. My legs would curl like caterpillars and my arms would have nothing to do with me. My mother would frantically bathe me in cold water only to stand and marvel when steam began to rise from my head.
I have been where Segi is now and I know the only thing that will save her is the arm of one that she chooses. That was how it was for me. It was my mother I wanted. I hope you understand why I didn’t discourage her from sleeping in Bolanle’s room. True, no one can love a daughter like her mother, but illness is not only about motherly devotion; it’s about the choices of she who ails. Anything different could hasten Segi’s journey to the gods. I will not bury my own child. Help me say amen.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives Page 17