I go to visit my parents. My father’s appearance is sad and ghostly. He lives in his world of solitude and silence. I look at him and see that he bears the burden of life on his shoulders. He lives with his eyes closed as if he doesn’t want to look at the world. Things must be very gloomy inside that soul. There must be many a wound in that heart of his. Scars. Cancers. There must be disappointments and frustrations the size of the world. There must be a burning passion for the death that won’t come. I greet him. He answers me with his slow, moribund, uninterested voice. Everything about him is a harbinger of death. I begin by telling him about trivial things and then deeper questions. I tell him about the children and my husband. I tell him about all that is happening. I complain. His lifeless eyes widen and he accuses me:
“If your husband doesn’t respond to you, the fault lies in you.”
“What fault, Father?”
His tone of voice is harsh and corrosive, like poison spread on the wind. He speaks scornfully, like someone saying: Look, girl, don’t bring me more problems. I’ve had so many in my life. And he continues his speech:
“Women nowadays talk a lot about this thing called emancipation. You talk too much, Daughter. In my day, women weren’t like that.”
I find it hard to accept what I’m hearing. My hopes have died, I’m a lost cause. How ashamed I feel. I’m desperately seeking help and I get a macho reaction by way of response. The problems of a woman are stored in the archive under the heading of trivia, whims, incapacities. That’s what parents are like. Always educating their sons to be tyrants and their daughters to accept tyranny as the natural order of the universe. It’s said that a father represents security. What security? My father doesn’t want me disturbing his never-ending meditation. I’m the gall he’s trying to expel from his heart. A thorn to remove, to cast aside, to whittle away. A daughter’s feelings are no more than grains of sand. Mere dust. Insignificant. Look, Father, I’m going, I tell him. God save me from having to spend another minute in front of this old man. I look for my mother to convey the secrets of my heart to her. I approach her.
“You’re as pretty as a flower, girl.”
“Yes, a flower,” I complain. “A cactus flower. A flower buffeted by a storm. A flower brutally pulled up by mischievous hands.”
“Why are you so sad, girl.”
I lose control and tell her everything.
“I’m so sad, Tony doesn’t love me anymore, he doesn’t pay me any attention. He doesn’t sleep at home, he’s got other women, Mother. Tell me, Mother, I’m not ugly, am I? I know I’ve got a great butt, good enough to charm any Bantu man. Julieta, the other woman, has a lighter skin than me, Tony must despise me because I’m dark. He’s even gone looking for Makonde women. He’s got this woman called Saly, and I don’t know what sweetness she’s got because she’s far uglier than me. He’s got a little Makua girl, Mother, who’s pretty and as light as a little bird. She’s called Mauá, Mauá Salé. She sings when she speaks, and her walk is like some graceful dance. He’s got a Sena woman, Luísa, who’s caused me some sleepless nights. Her breasts are larger than mine, Mother, why did you give me such small ones? This Luísa has got silky hair while I’ve just got hair like straw, but that’s not so bad. I’ll get myself some extensions at the beauty salon, Mother, that’s an easy problem to sort out. What do you think of my weight, Mother? Should I slim down like Julieta? That’s easy enough too, I can improve my body with massages and by doing some aerobics. But I’m scared of growing thin. Black men like chubby women, cushioned out both back and front, like me. It’s true, Mother, these women have all got a grip on Tony using magic spells that I don’t have. Why didn’t you make me prettier than them, Mother? Why didn’t you give me lessons in love, lessons to live without pain, dear Mother? These northern hussies have already given Tony children. One of these days it’ll be white girls bringing mulattoes home to my family, Mother.”
My mother answers me with a triumphant smile that sets my nerves at rest. She stretches out her hand and caresses my face gently.
“That handsome husband of yours is just grazing in other pastures, but he’ll come back. There are many women out there looking to be chewed by that old goat’s teeth. Hold on to your husband with both hands. A man has to be held on to, girl.”
She’s reproducing the same old litany and intoning the hymn to chastity.
“A husband is like a billy goat. He likes to graze far away, but he always comes home. Don’t be scared, hold him by the horns.”
“But how?”
“You understood what I said. Hold him.”
They all talk about holding. Always holding. To hold is to defend. To defend oneself. Holding on to the ball in a game and holding one’s course. Holding on to life. Holding on to love by one’s fingernails. Holding on to a rose and its thorns until one’s fingers bleed from the pain of it. How good it would be to hold love in a clenched fist. But love is a fistful of water escaping through the cracks in one’s hand. One of these days, they’ll ask me to hold the world by its reins. To hold the sun by its rays. Hold the wind by its gusts. The only advice women always get is: Hold, close, cover, conceal. For men, it’s: Let go, fly, open, show – can anyone understand this world’s contradictions?
I look at my mother. Dear God, how she’s weeping. Can it be that my story has inspired such sadness?
“What’s wrong, Mother?”
“Your voice reminds me of my sister, the one who died.”
“Which one, Mother?”
“The eldest. You never knew her. She died before you were born.”
“You’ve told me about her. What did she die of?”
“She died because of a chicken gizzard.”
“What?”
“The gizzard is for husbands, for sons-in-law, you know that.”
She tells me the whole story.
“It was Sunday and my sister cooked dinner. It was chicken. She carefully prepared the gizzard and put it aside in a dish. The cat came and ate it. Her husband came home and asked: What about the gizzard? She explained. It was useless. The man felt he’d been treated without respect, and beat her furiously. Go back home to your mother to be reeducated, he shouted. Now! She was so distressed that she lost all notion of danger and set off in the dead of night. Her parents’ home was about ten kilometers away. She was killed by a leopard out on the savannah. She died in the flower of her youth over a piece of senseless stupidity. She died and the cat survived.”
My mother’s tears glisten in the sunlight like crystal, and reflect the colors of the rainbow. In my mother’s heart, there’s a silver dagger stained with blood. An eternal volcano. All because of a chicken gizzard, a mere sump for collecting grains of sand. An insignificant muscle inside a bird. That doesn’t even fill the palm of one’s hand. That doesn’t even satisfy the hunger of a cat. The story penetrates me as if it were my own, for I’m a woman too, so help me God! I recall my love counselor and understand the incredible message about tyranny concealed inside a chicken’s gizzard. No woman has a home in this land. A woman is a passing phenomenon, she doesn’t merit any land. A woman is a piece of coconut fiber thrown on the trash heap. A woman is her own enemy, she invents problems that kill her. It’s a woman’s fault, she turns the universe upside down, and that’s why she may die because of a chicken gizzard.
“Mother, why didn’t you tell me this story before?”
“I wanted your world to be full of color. So that you wouldn’t have nightmares.”
The story has a therapeutic effect on me, my pain becomes insignificant. One rancor erasing another. One love curing the pain of another love. Oh, Mother! Thank you for telling me this story! Now I can see I’m not the only woman to suffer, and that there are far graver problems in the world than mine.
“Mother, how did the womenfolk react to this incident?”
“The only strategy we had in our existence was to obey all the whims of the menfolk to the letter.”
“So what was Father like?
”
“Don’t you know him? Didn’t you hear his answer to your problems?”
Mothers, women. Invisible but present. A puff of silence giving birth to the world. Stars glittering in the sky, smothered by loathsome clouds. Souls suffering in the sky’s shadow. The sealed trunk, hidden in this old heart of mine, has been opened today to reveal the mantra of past generations. Women of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, intoning the same symphony, without hope of change.
13
I went from house to house, from one person to the next. I tried to gauge what people thought of my story. I asked women: What do you think of polygamy? They reacted like gasoline set off by a spark. Explosions, flames, tears, wounds, scars. Polygamy is a cross to bear. A Calvary, a hell. A burning brazier. And each one told me her tragic, moving, incredible story. I asked men: What do you think of polygamy? I had to listen to laughter, as steady as water bubbling from a fountain. I saw smiles stretching their lips from ear to ear. Their salivary glands went into overdrive as if I were serving them some delicious tidbit. They applauded. Polygamy is nature, destiny, our culture, they said. There are ten women for every man in the country, polygamy must continue. Polygamy is necessary, there are lots of women.
Once again I asked women for their views on my story. Some of them said: That’s awful! If I were you, I’d kill all the concubines. I’d boil a pot of oil and put them in it one by one like the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Others said: Ignore those women and their children, and pretend you know nothing. Keep your status as a married woman, and just make sure your man doesn’t run away so that you can get your share of love, even if it’s only once a month. Yet others said: Make friends with them because that’s the only way you’ll get the better of them without resorting to blows and curses. They’re not the ones at fault, it’s men who are worthless rogues. Men said: It’s your obligation to accept all that your husband decides. These women are your sisters, and their children are also yours.
It was hard for me to take a stance in this forest of different opinions. The issue was more than my intelligence could take. What point was there in being drawn into wars and quarrels? Why ruin my already precarious state of health? Why try to erect walls of straw when the man holds his lance up and spreads like a bamboo root wherever he goes? I might shout and bluster all I liked, I’d never erase the lines that had already been drawn. That was why I decided to follow the time-honored formula: to make the pumpkin vine attractive because of its pumpkins. Aunt Maria said that when women agree with each other, men don’t abuse them.
I investigated Tony’s life. He wasn’t as loving as they said. He didn’t provide support as he should have done. He would turn up, take a plunge, and go on his way. He spent most of his time with Mauá. I pitied those women who sold love in order to buy bread and soap. When the charms they put up for sale grow thin, that’s when poverty will knock at their door. What future awaited them, without a job or any security? And what would become of their children, with neither name nor protection? There was no doubt that all they could expect was the shelter of the street. Hunger, disease, life’s dregs, that’s what awaited them.
I assembled Tony’s wives at a secret meeting. It was difficult, but I managed it. Mauá didn’t attend. She was in love and living her moment of romance. She was the chosen one, the queen of our man’s heart. Besides, the meeting was for the women who had been rejected, and not for sweethearts. Apart from this, that little Makua girl might betray our plan. I began the meeting by asking them all what they thought of life, the future, and whether they were happy.
“Ah, Tony, a honeyed tongue, a heart of gall,” said Julieta. “He’s responsible for my despair. He tricked me and left me in this sorry state.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” said Luísa, “it’s not all bad. He gave me wonderful kids. He pays me attention whenever he can.”
Suddenly, I felt happy. Fulfilled. It was a good feeling for me to be chairing this meeting when I’d never chaired anything in my life before. I felt I was the first spouse, the principal, senior wife, queen of all the others, a true first lady. But this term, first lady, doesn’t it conceal vestiges of traditional polygamy? There’s no first or second lady. The kings had a queen just for show, and smothered themselves in the pleasures provided by the beauties in their court, by their harems, concubines, and other similar categories of women. Who invented this term and first used it?
“Family?” asked Saly, furious. “A nest of birds, that’s what it is. Running around out of control. Eggs left unprotected. Eggs dropping out of the nest. Rotten, abandoned eggs. What future can we expect for these children of ours? They don’t know their aunts, grandparents, living as they do, hidden away like moles, their father never there, lacking any points of reference. Just people growing up to fill the world.”
I put my finger on the wounds of their souls and extracted their sorrows from them. Discontent. Angry outbursts. These women personified the world’s suffering. I imbibed their pain, their emotions. They wore a flower in their heart and gave themselves out of love. They opened up their bodies, that magical labyrinth, and allowed other flowers to germinate without nurture or hope. I suffer for these children. The situation of these concubines is far worse than mine. They have no legal or family protection. The houses they live in are the man’s property, it’s he who pays the rent at the end of every month. He can expel them when he wishes, he can cast them out into abject poverty. If he dies, they won’t have a right to anything, because they’re not an integral part of his family, they are mere satellites of the main family. The order of things needs to be inverted. But how? I brought together all the sentiments voiced by each of them and carried out a detailed diagnosis of love.
“Julieta, my dear Ju, you were deceived. You were torn from adolescence straight into old age, and enjoyed nothing in between. Your life is a never-ending summer. And you, Luísa, my dear Lu, will be the object of desire as long as you have fire in that beautiful body. Life is a never-ending process of change, one day is hot, next day is cold. What will become of you when winter arrives? Saly, you are the one who is used during quiet moments, you’re a snack, a light meal, an intermediate stage to break the monotony of his love menu. Mauá is the one he loves most, but only for the moment. Tony’s loves are ephemeral, we already know this.”
This conclusion churned up a torrent of hidden emotions. I saw tears flowing, frustrations swelling to bursting point, uncertainties reflected in the silence, a tenuous hope flickering on the horizons of this world.
“We are lost mares galloping across life, being fed crumbs, enduring vicissitudes, waging war on each other. Time is passing, and one day we’ll be forgotten. Each one of us is a loose branch, a dead leaf, at the mercy of the wind,” I explained. “There are five of us. Let us unite, and together form one hand. Each one of us will be a finger, and the great lines of our hand will be life, heart, luck, destiny, and love. We won’t feel so unprotected, and we’ll be able to steer our course through life and choose our destiny.”
They all looked at me in surprise, as if they hadn’t understood what I was saying. But they did understand. I’d thrown my dice. I had joined the women and children together to construct the patriarch’s family. I had gathered together the pieces and sculpted a monument held together with tears, and polished it with a luster that could reflect the rays of all the suns in the universe.
14
Tony’s fiftieth birthday was approaching. I prepared everything for a really big party, it was going to have to be a proper celebration.
The great day arrived. The wider family had already assembled. There were ministers who were godfathers to us and our children, and ministers who were friends of Tony’s. Our priest uncle was there to bless the party. There were many families, important families, conservative, Catholic folk. There were gossipmongers who frequent parties hunting for scandal that will then feed the coming week’s tittle-tattle. The cream of society was assembled there. The room contained only
perfume and silk. Good wine, good food, all top-notch of the finest quality available. My Tony was radiant, I’d never seen him look so happy. He hugged me. Kissed me. Showed the whole world how great our love was.
I was the mistress of ceremonies. I started off by saying a few light, hypnotic words. I spoke with an elegance that left me moved. I even shed a tear or two. I was thinking about my plan and my heart was throbbing. I began to tremble and could scarcely disguise my discomfort. It was the emotion of it all, forgive me, when one’s companion celebrates his fiftieth birthday, things get highly emotional.
A woman guest walked in. Ju entered timidly with a cortege of five children and with a baby in her arms. She was dressed exactly as I had instructed. I went over to greet her and took her baby in my arms as if it were a present. I offered her a place next to mine and tried to make space for her children. At this point, Lu arrived with her kids and I entrusted her to Ju to look after. Saly made her entry like a hurricane, a warrior amazon, ready to win any battle that came her way. Finally, Mauá Salé arrived, gentle as winter sunshine, a star casting its light upon the world. We were all dressed alike, just as a polygamist’s wives were supposed to present themselves. The children were also dressed the same, sheep from the same flock. And we chatted to each other in lively fashion, like sisters. I looked after them and their children to ensure that they had all they needed. I made all the appropriate introductions and played my role as first lady with distinction.
The First Wife Page 9