The First Wife

by Paulina Chiziane

  If only it had been so with me. I would never have chosen or approved of such a lusty rival as Lu. Saly, yes, she’s an ideal rival. She’s very impulsive and resorts to her fists to resolve problems. Tony would spend his time quarreling with her, and would end up weeping in my arms and sleeping in my bed. I wouldn’t choose that lazybones Mauá, who spends her life combing her hair, filing her nails, and preparing musiro to soften her skin. I’d choose unrefined women, good for scrubbing the floor and making the tiles shine like a mirror. I don’t really have a view when it comes to Ju, poor soul. A pretty face. But she’s disillusioned, embittered, humiliated. Tony consumed her completely and then cast her aside. She’s a figure of sadness. She’s like a living phantom.

  Ah, how I wish I had the privilege to choose my successors. I’d choose women uglier than myself. If he chose a pretty one, I’d invent some convincing story, and he’d end up agreeing with me. Oh God! What a fate! It’s been bad right from the start. Woman is cursed even before she’s born, and the curse doesn’t disappear even after her holy baptism. What’s the point of baptizing woman if she can’t free herself from perdition?

  “Stop crying because the world isn’t going to stop for us,” Ju shouts in a tone of utter scorn. “It’s obvious you’ve never experienced this before. Betrayal is a bitterly hurtful thing, Mauá.”

  Lu decides to elaborate on the subject.

  “Who does this Tony think he is? Just any old bachelor? Doesn’t he understand his responsibilities have just increased fivefold?”

  “We’ve really got to do something,” chips in Saly. “Polygamy gives us some rights, so let’s make the most of them. A polygamist can have lovers, and should have them on occasions when his wives are in a period of confinement.”

  “You’re right,” Lu adds. “None of us has aborted, nor are we lactating.”

  “I wasn’t even having my period, I was pure, completely pure,” Mauá says disconsolately. “He had no reason to do what he did to me.”

  “This is serious,” Saly remarks, “a person spends four weeks waiting just to watch the man sleeping like a cherub? A polygamist must inform his wives and explain the reasons for any new conquest. Have any of you received such an explanation?”

  They all confirm they haven’t.

  “Mauá, tell us the whole story. In every detail. What’s she like? Is she pretty?”

  “She’s no better than I am. Compared to me, she’s older, fatter, even ugly. Why does he like her better? Because she’s a mulatto woman?”

  Our enthusiasm vanishes. A mulata is a serious rival. Black men are obsessed with lighter skin, just as white men are obsessed with blondes. But the truth is that dark-skinned women are hotter, they know that only too well.

  “A mulata?” Ju asks, showing some curiosity. “I don’t like mulatto women. They’re our men’s perdition.”

  “Must be a third-class mulata,” scoffs Lu. “She’s probably the daughter of a horny-handed white, a slum shopkeeper, out there in the suburbs.”

  “Why all this racism?” I ask crossly. “Isn’t a mulata a woman?”

  “Mulatas are women and much more: They’re specialists in love magic. They’re temptation in the heart of paradise. You’ll see, we’re going to lose Tony. Tell us, Mauá, is she prettier than we are?”

  “I’ve already said, she’s no better than us,” Mauá snorts by way of reply. “And she’s older. Fatter, ugly. But she dresses well and she’s got a good car.”

  “Is she married or single, Mauá?”

  “Oh, it’s hard to tell from a distance.”

  “Polygamy is for black women, it’s certainly not for mulatas.” I allay their fears. “The woman only wants to have some fun at our expense, steal Tony for a bit, gobble up his money, and then let him go when she’s had enough.”

  “Poor mulatas are blacks and don’t mind polygamy,” Lu argues, “what they’re looking for is somewhere to perch, so that the world will say: She’s got a husband. It’s important we know whether she’s single or not. If she’s married, there’s no danger at all. If she’s single, she’s probably up to no good, a spinster with a polygamist can only be after a husband or she’s a gold digger. She’ll soon get pregnant and then demand recognition. And then we’ll be six. If she’s a widow, she’ll have inherited from her late man and is only after a bit of love. Divorced? You never know what a divorcée is thinking, whether she wants to pass the time, get her hands on his money, or just enjoy life to the full.”

  Man has wings, and flies. From perch to perch, kiss to kiss, enjoying the fun this life offers. And we women sow love, one grain at a time over every inch of soil, and when it germinates, along come other beaks to reap our harvest, leaving us with a hunger the size of the world.

  “But what does our Tony want with this woman?” Lu asks with interest. “Isn’t it enough for us to have to put up with this rota, all this horrible waiting? If she joins us, we’ll have to wait six weeks instead of five. We must avoid such a disaster.”

  I give the matter some quick thought. Five is the ideal number for a conjugal parliament. It’s an uneven number and therefore there’s no danger of a split vote. Six confuses things. We have to do something.

  “Mauá, this is your problem,” I say, “you’re the one who must solve it. You’ve got to find out more about this woman, get all her details: name, civil status, bank account, her aims in pursuing a relationship with our Tony.”

  “It’s no good asking,” says Saly, “she needs to be caught unawares. Take a photo of a furtive kiss and bring us a picture of this woman.”

  “What for?”

  “We’ll know when we get it.”

  We drew up our plan. We organized things between us. The following day, Mauá and Lu set off in search of a photo opportunity, which wasn’t hard. Knowing Tony’s tastes and his favorite places made the work easier. Mauá and Lu got a good shot of them in flagrante and brought photos of the wrongdoing. They paid for all the information they could get on her and came back with a full report.

  We had another urgent meeting. We studied the photos closely. God, the mulata looked superb. She had the beauty of a film star. Jealousy apart, she was much prettier than Mauá, she looked like one those goddesses that light one’s path. Her smile was one of love and total surrender. A smile of triumph over solitude. The photo was taken with such a magical eye that it even revealed the lovers’ souls. Tony’s smile was a daggerlike betrayal that made our hearts bleed with pain. Mauá couldn’t take it anymore. She wept like a widow. I wish the earth would swallow me up, she yelled, I want to die.

  But the reality of love is this. To love and be loved is a man’s thing. For a woman, the love she gets lasts a mere puff of air, a camera flash, the bat of an eyelid. For a woman, to love is to be exchanged like a piece of old cloth for another younger, more beautiful one – just as I was. It’s to be buried alive when menopause arrives: “She’s dried up, exhausted, sterile, she can produce neither children nor pleasure, and she no longer blossoms once a month,” men say.

  The image of this new Eve threw us all off course for a minute. A thousand questions arose in our minds. Might Tony wish to take that relationship to its uttermost term? What place would this woman command in his life, what gap would she plug that the five of us were unable to satisfy? What words did he whisper in her ear to produce that divine smile on her face? Did he say he loved her? Did he tell her she was the most perfect woman in the world? That he was single or only married to one woman?

  We needed to act quickly, my rivals concluded, we needed to wreck this love affair before the mulata usurped our places. We tried to discover the reasons that might lead Tony to seek another woman, and Mauá was submitted to a barrage of accusations. You didn’t take good enough care of Tony, you didn’t hold on to him. You fell asleep when you were supposed to be vigilant, and he went and hooked the other woman. But who were we to condemn Mauá, if we were all incompetent when it came to holding on to Tony?

  “Tony’s a catfi
sh,” Mauá defended herself, “he’s slippery. He slithers out of your hands, you can’t hold on to him. He’s faster than the wind.”

  “Ever since you entered our lives, we’ve lost space, status, our voice, everything,” Saly burst out. “We’ve been in the grip of a marital crisis. Tony didn’t even want to know about us. Now you’re the one crying. It comes to us all eventually, Mauá.”

  “The new rival is separated,” Lu explained. “She was a politician’s wife but was cast aside because she’s sterile.”

  “Sterile? Ah! Poor soul!” We all sighed and fell silent for a minute.

  We were swept by a momentary feeling of pity. A sterile woman is condemned to solitude and bitterness. What life does a sterile woman have? Being marginalized and forgotten. What feelings does she have? Pain and silence. What dreams does she have? Never-ending anxiety and despair. A sterile woman feels lifeless deep within her, that she is condemned to disappear without putting down the roots of existence in the soil. A creature who exists without existing. Deformed without being so. A woman who is expelled from everywhere, endlessly looking for a position, in a society where a woman is only considered as such if she can give birth. And who is it that makes her feel this way? Society, men, and women themselves, especially the mothers-in-law who decide the number of children who may be born in a household.

  “I was getting ready to give her the biggest slap ever seen,” said Saly. “But I pity her. She may have all the treasures this world can offer. But a woman without children, where’s the joy in that?”

  “You may feel sorry for her,” Lu argued, “but it’s a fact that polygamous men like to have a barren woman. It’s convenient. She doesn’t smell of milk. In the arms of a barren woman, a husband is a son, while when we hold him, he’s a father, a husband. A barren woman is always young and beautiful. A good polygamist always has a barren woman in his flock. While we divide our affections between our children and our husband, all she thinks about is her man. That’s why Tony sought her out. He must be tired of making children everywhere he goes. This woman is dangerous. Mauá, it’s your turn to do something to try to put a brake on this relationship.”

  “What else have you discovered?”

  “The woman’s got money and power. She’s got status. She’s a boss in her job. She tells men what to do. And she drives a flashy car.”

  “Did she buy it with her own money? Our Tony didn’t give her a hand, did he?”

  “It doesn’t look like it. It was probably bought with her old husband’s money. Or hers. But if she’s got so much money, why’s she getting involved with a poor devil like Tony?”

  “What shall we do now, girls?”

  We decided on a protest that would fall short of a sex strike, but a corrective measure, a demonstration of passive love that might help Tony get in touch with his own conscience.

  A polygamist’s first wife is this. She sits on a coveted throne. She wears a disputed crown. She controls the repressed desires of other wives when they feel horny, angry, dissatisfied. These women talk about their anguish and can’t even imagine the pain I feel because of all this.

  19

  We invited Tony for a family dinner. We explained that it’s good to be all together once in a while. He liked the idea and agreed. We dressed up to the nines and got ready for battle. We met together at Saly’s place in the early evening. Tony was sitting in the lounge reading the day’s papers. My little doves, he greeted us with the most candid smile imaginable, a breeder reviewing his females assembled together in the corral. He addressed us in honeyed tones, his words sweeter than sugar candy. The dinner was good, the atmosphere pleasant. We got him to drink enough to unlock his tongue.

  “Tony, we’ve always wanted to know why you like us so much. Pretend you’re our mirror and tell us: what do you see in us?”

  “Do you want to know?”

  “Yes, of course!”

  “You won’t get angry or be offended?”

  “Of course not!”

  Tony starts off by talking about the youngest one.

  “Mauá’s my little bantam,” he said, “she attended a school of love, and she’s the sweetest thing. Saly’s a good cook. Sometimes, I wake up in the morning with a yearning for her tasty snacks. But she’s also feisty, which is good for calming my nerves. On days when work goes badly and I feel like screaming, I seek her out just to have a row. We argue. And I shout good and loud to fill my lungs with oxygen and get rid of my tension. Lu has a good body and is very tasteful in the way she adorns herself. She radiates such magnetism that it’s a pleasure to walk down the road with her. Her company does me good. Ju is my monument to error and forgiveness. She’s the woman I deceived the most. I promised I would marry her, I changed the course of her life, I filled her with kids. She was a good student and had a promising future. She’s the prettiest of you all, and she could have had a good marriage. What of Rami? I won’t even comment. She’s my first lady. Through her, I asserted myself as a man before the world. She’s my mother, my queen, my rock, my pillar.”

  “Tony,” Ju burst out somewhat bitterly, “each one of us has a function. For you, women are objects to be used, a bit like toilet paper.”

  “That’s not quite true, Ju. I’ve got a lot of respect for women, a lot! Jesus, the son of God, was born from a woman’s womb. I’ve got great respect for all the women in the world.”

  He stumbled around between insult and gallantry like some Don Juan. He was unaware of the injuries he was causing. The idea of an insult never occurred to him, because he wasn’t in any danger. Danger of what? The women were his. They’d had their bride price paid. They’d been bought. They were in love. They’d given birth to children. They were safe, landed in the net. A caught fish is prepared, seasoned, cooked, and eaten. He could say whatever was on his mind without running any risk. The conversation was taking a rocky path and our faces were twisted with anguish.

  “You do feel fulfilled with us, don’t you, Tony?” Lu asked, her voice shaking.

  “Very much so!”

  “So why have you got yourself another woman?”

  “Another what?”

  “We’re talking about Eve, the mulatto woman.”

  He looked as if he’s been caught in a mousetrap, but he quickly regained his calm, and raising his voice he answered without batting an eyelid.

  “A desire for variety, girls. A wish to touch some lighter skin. You’re all dark, a bunch of black women.”

  “You filthy worm,” shouted Mauá.

  “It’s my business, don’t stick your noses in.”

  “We’re your wives and we need some explanations,” Saly replied.

  “Let’s take a look at your behavior recently,” Lu protested. “You make less effort as each day passes. Instead of putting right what’s bad, you go and get yet another woman. You’re good at getting women to fall for you, but you can’t seem to handle us. What do you want another one for?”

  Tony’s eyes revealed surprise, anger, arrogance. He answered with a rude remark and humiliated us with his usual macho talk. We were already expecting it.

  “Who do you think you are? I’m your husband, but that doesn’t give you any right to meddle in my life.”

  For the first time, we confronted him without fear and told him a few home truths. We told him why we were offended. We went wild. We’re tired of your love affairs, scratching around here and there, pecking away, letting go and hightailing it like some bird of prey. We’re full of children and deprived of any affection. In each of our houses, there are children shouting in chorus, where’s Daddy, when’s Daddy coming, where’s Daddy gone, I want Daddy. We want to make ourselves pretty. But who for, if we don’t have anyone to see us, to take us to the movies, out dancing, or out to dinner? We want to improve our cooking. But why if we just eat alone? You’re no better than a bee, a kiss here, a kiss there, so that you can produce your honey, spreading disease from one to the other, so that one day we’ll die from some incurable illne
ss. You’ve got a heart the size of a truck, to carry so many women at the same time. We’ve kept quiet for the last four weeks waiting for this to end. We’ve made sure we’ve been faithful to you. But listen carefully: This is going to end badly. No day is the same. Nature has other flowers, other perfumes, different honey. You are our star, but planets shine too, they have their own source of light and cause happiness as well.

  “Since when have you earned the right to insult me?”

  “From today, now, and that’s how it’s going to be.”

  “And what right have you got to do this?”

  “The right that polygamy confers on us. We could even summon a family meeting to declare your incapacity and request the freedom to have a conjugal assistant, are you aware of that?”

  “You are my wives.”

  “What wives, Tony?” Ju chipped in sadly. “We’re no one’s women, lone women with a cross to bear.”

  “What do you mean by this?”

  “Merely that we love your company, but solitude might be even better.”

  “I can abandon you to misery under any bridge, you should know that.”

  “Is that so?” Lu screamed. “Are we by any chance entered in any register of marriages as your possessions? Leave us if you want. We won’t weep over you, you’re not dead.”

  “I did you a great favor, get that into your heads. I gave you status. I made decent women of you, can’t you understand? You’re five fewer women selling your body and begging for love along life’s highways and byways. Each of you has a home and your dignity, thanks to me. And now you want to control me?”

  Dear God! For these men, to love a woman is to do her a favor. To lead her up the altar steps is to give her status. Oh, what a generous distributor of statuses my Tony has become!