The First Wife

by Paulina Chiziane

  No one answered, in order not to sour the atmosphere even further. We looked at him with hurt expressions on our faces, but we forgave him for the cruelty of his words. He spoke until he was foaming at the mouth. Then he threw us a deadened glance, like a tired old bull chewing the cud. But why was he getting so worked up? In polygamy, the wives cater for their master’s sentimental life. They give their opinion. They defend the interests of the household. A new wife must contribute prosperity and harmony, and not conflict or differences, which is why the opinion of the other wives is considered important. On this occasion, Mauá, the latest wife, must provide the defining view.

  “Mauá, you’re the latest wife: what have you got to say about this relationship?”

  “I don’t accept it. I’m very young and I’ve got a lot to give: love, children, joy. And wealth too. My business is going really well. I’ve managed to attract good-quality clients. Ministers’ wives, Makua deputies and their friends, businesswomen, all come and have their hair done in my salon. You don’t need another woman, Tony.”

  Saly was perspiring. She stared at Tony, and then threw us a conspiratorial glance. Suddenly, she got to her feet, bolted the doors, and hid the keys. She’s a woman of action, not words. She called Lu and together they went into the bedroom. We could hear furniture being moved around. Maybe they were looking for something. They reemerged. Saly issued her invitation.

  “Let’s not prolong this conversation. It’s bedtime. You’re all invited to sleep here.”

  It wasn’t in our plans to sleep there. What was Saly up to? Tony was taken by surprise.

  “All of you sleep here?”

  “Today, Tony, you’re going to show us what you’re worth,” said Saly, fuming. “If each one of us gives you a bit of satisfaction some of the time, then get your satisfaction in one go with all of us, if you are able.”

  Tony didn’t know what to do. We were five against one. Five weaknesses together become a force to be reckoned with. Unloved women are more deadly than black mambas. Saly opened the bedroom door. The bed had been dismantled and the floor covered with sleeping mats. We thought it an awesome idea and got into the spirit of it. Tony needed to be shown what five women together can do. We went into the room, pulling along Tony, who resisted us like a billy goat. We got undressed as if doing a striptease. He looked at us. His knees began to tremble slightly.

  It was very hot in the room, but the windows were open. There was a cool breeze, but the room was hot, where was all this heat coming from? Ah, it was the heat of perspiration. It was the flame of anger leaping from the human body. I looked at my stark naked sisters. All of them were well endowed. The floor would surely cave under such weight. I looked around and got a shock. My God, there was a lot of backside, a lot of bosom here. All this for one man alone?

  Tony raised his hands to his head and then to his face to shield his eyes, and then he shouted:

  “My God! Please, stop this, for the love of God, what torment are you trying to heap on me now?”

  He gave us a frightened look. None of us could possibly imagine the sensations, the complications, and the confusion generated by what we’d done. He held his breath, pretending to smile. He tried hard to convey the superiority of a cowboy before his herd. Saly undressed him. He lay down in the middle of the five of us. He quivered. What can a man do with five women?

  A hostile silence descended upon him. The world had just fallen on his shoulders. A woman’s nudity is a bad omen even if it’s only one wife’s expression of anger. It’s the ultimate protest, the protest to beat all protests. It’s worse than passing a famished lion in the remote savannah. It’s worse than the conflagration of an atomic bomb. It brings bad luck. It provokes blindness. It paralyzes. It kills.

  I examined the room. The walls painted blue. The light shining on the ceiling like a sun keeping the night away. The floor without a mattress as hard as stone. Skirts, blouses, panties in little heaps here and there. Surrounding Tony, five bodies covered by white sheets, like corpses in a morgue. He moved his arm to turn to his left. He bumped into a human rampart, there was no room to maneuver his body. He said a polite excuse me, and then got up, his face covered in tears. His bravado had been broken.

  “Can it be my mother’s going to die?” he raved. “Can it be I’m going to lose my job? Am I going to have some accident? Am I going to lose one of my children? What disaster is coming my way, dear God? Not even my grandfather, who was the most polygamous of all polygamists, went through a marital experience like this. You’ve lost your senses. You could have shown your displeasure in some other way. And you, Rami? You’re siding with these sluts in their conspiracy? You’re not like these other women I picked up on the street corners of life. You’ve got value. Dignity. You’re of good birth and morals. Ju as well. You’ve changed a lot, Rami!”

  “You’re the one who’s changed, my love. You left me and preferred other women, Tony. I’m just following in your footsteps. I’m obeying you. I’m satisfying your desires, a slave of every moment.”

  “You’re my real wife. You shouldn’t get involved in this type of thing, Rami.”

  “Tony, look at the field you cultivated. Is the love you sowed growing or not? Are the wounds you caused in each of our hearts healing or not? Why are you accusing me?”

  He looked at me intensely. In his startled expression, he seemed to be asking for help. He shuddered violently and revealed the terror embedded in his soul. We remained motionless, surprised, awaiting the outcome of his madness. We were all completely astonished as we contemplated this new, unknown image of a blubbing husband. He said his throat was dry. He went to the kitchen and drank a little whiskey, but derived no pleasure from it. It wasn’t that type of pleasure he sought. He was trying to get from alcohol the strength he didn’t have. Our attitude pointed to a war he couldn’t win. He decided to confess everything.

  “Eve is just a friend, she’s not what you think she is.”

  He told us the whole story. She wasn’t illiterate, he explained, but had studied to an advanced level, she was a graduate. She was the director of a firm, she was rich. She doesn’t take anything from me, on the contrary, she gives. But she’s an unhappy woman. Because she doesn’t have a husband. Because she has no children. Unhappy, her soul adrift in the sea of life. Anchorless. No father or mother. All she has is money, lots of money, and that’s why I gave her a bit of my company.

  “Sometimes, we offer our friendship out of generosity,” he commented. “As women, you will never understand that.”

  In our eyes, he was no longer a man. He was a superman, a legendary hero, a defender of lost souls, who gives of his oxygen so that the plants don’t die. We listened, hovering between truth and lies. His version of Eve’s story might well have been true. But it might have been untrue. Men are specialists in covering up their extramarital deviations. It was because we believed his lies that we eventually fell into this trap. But all women like a good lie. You’re the most beautiful, the best, they tell us. And we believe them. I’ll give you the sky. And the sun. We close our eyes and open our arms and our heart to receive the sun and the sky, which will be given to us as a present. You are the only one. We open our mouth, and swallow the bait and behave like the only ones, carried along in the ritual dance of coupling, until the illusion is lost.

  We were all there, five women, five heads, five judgments, accusing him, demanding from him, punishing him. We were the fertile soil left untended, devoid of fertilizers or irrigation, where the sower had once cast his seed before abandoning it in search of new conquests. When one can’t have a man to oneself, then it’s better to share him than lose him completely. Oh, my good Lord Jesus, you who performed the miracle of multiplying the loaves of bread, come back again and multiply men as well. Multiply Tony too, by five, one for each of us. Scientists of the world, clone my Tony so that he’s no longer just a divided portion, shared out like a crust of bread.

  Tony began to despair. He lay down on his back. The
moment inspired him to feelings of light-headedness. The moonlight must be lovely outside. It must be a beautiful night outside. The air must be cool outside. Ah! It must be nice outside. He got up again and went to the kitchen. He downed half a bottle of whiskey in one go. He came back to the room and shouted:

  “Rami, let’s go home.”

  I hoisted the heavy burden onto my shoulders. We left. We arrived. Suddenly, I was overcome by a huge sense of pleasure. How good it was to arrive home with my husband next to me, even if he was drunk. The lights were on in the bedrooms, the children were studying, listening to music, relaxing. I made him a strong coffee. He drank it. He was sick. I took him to have a cold bath. He felt refreshed. I put him to bed and he pretended to be sleeping quietly, hugging his pillow as if his mother had left him an orphan. I could see his heart beating strongly under the sheets. I could see the flames devouring his soul, terrified at the prospect of the reverses that morning would bring. His disproportionate greed had caused a love blockage in his tiny stomach. Poor mite! He thought he could herd his wives to pasture without any trouble or sacrifice.

  I looked through the window. The night was dense and cold, the moonlight had gone. I thought. I suffered. But what was so extraordinary about nudity? It was beyond comprehension, dear God, beyond understanding. Tony trembling with fear at his wives’ nudity, filling his dreams with phantoms. I lulled him in my arms. Sleep well, my husband, my frightened little boy, let your little soul rise and be purged, let it soar courageously!

  Nudity. Wicked nudity, sacred nudity. Nudity that kills, nudity that delights. Miniskirt. Striptease. Nude carnival. Carnival buttocks, fatal attraction. Mermaid’s nudity, in the aquaria of the finest brothels. Pornography in films, in vaudeville, in peep shows. Pornography perambulating down the city streets as night falls. Nudity inspiring wondrous flights and apocalyptic disasters.

  A friend of mine once dreamed of a nude woman. That woman was me. He was so disturbed that he summoned his whole family to share his misfortune. He invoked all the spirits and carried out rituals to protect himself. He spent a fortune having spells cast on my shadow and on my luck, because he thought I was bewitching him. He was so desperate that as he drove his car around a bend on the marine boulevard, he crashed through the wall and plunged into the sea. He escaped by the skin of his teeth. He later confessed to me: I dreamed of you naked because I desired you so much and you, quite simply, took no notice of me.

  A woman’s nudity is a blessing, a curse, a protection. There are many stories of nude women accompanying warriors in times of war. They say that during the civil war, fierce commandos, armed to the teeth, always had a nude woman at the head of the platoon, with only a string of beads round her waist. She would advance, fearless and brazen. On seeing her, the enemy would lose all courage. They would become demoralized, because the sight of a nude woman before a great battle meant defeat and death. The end of the world. In their advance, the naparamas, or suicide squads, always have a nude woman at their head, to serve as their protective shield.

  A woman is a curse even when dressed. Hunters stalking wild beasts halt their advance toward their prized prey when they’re unfortunate enough to pass a woman on her way to work. But a woman may be a blessing as well. A great xylophone player can only receive inspiration and transmigrate over to the other side when a woman sits down beside him, like a goddess, like an inspirational muse. Many footballers receive their blessing from a naked woman before they leave for an important match. Women dance naked in a hidden place on the day of a funeral in order to reject death. The mbelele is danced by naked women to bring rain. Dancing naked next to someone dying attracts death.

  African people, naked people. People dressed in loincloths, in poverty. Humble people at one with nature. In Africa, heat comes from the sun and from the soul. That’s why women strip and cool off in the rivers when they wash clothes. Out in the fields, they work, their breasts loose, while they sow, reap, and hoe. Oh, Mother Africa! Naked mother! How can your daughters’ nudity be more shocking than your own, Mother Africa?

  There was once an African king. A despot. A tyrant. Men tried to resist him. The rebellion was crushed and the men flattened like fleas. The women wept for their misfortune and conspired together. They marched to demonstrate their discontent before the king. The king answered them with high-flown words. They turned their backs on him, bent over, lifted their skirts, showed His Majesty their backsides, and beat a retreat before he had finished his malevolent tirade. The king couldn’t take such an insult. He had a heart attack and died that same day. The target that the warriors’ bullets couldn’t hit was brought down by a whole multitude of backsides.

  A naked wife only in the dark or half-light, because she’s the center of life, the point where it all started. It’s just a short step back to paradise. Man and woman lived naked before they sinned.

  What an insomniac I am! I crossed myself and begged God to bless me with some sleep. God didn’t pay me the slightest attention and let me wallow in my despair. I went to the lounge and drank a glass of wine to make me merry. And to make my merriment complete, I needed to break the silence. What I decided to do was listen to some nice music, to the grave, masculine voice of a good ballad singer. But no. Then I felt like listening to the gentle, aureate voice of Rosália Mboa. But before that, I needed to take a bath to cleanse my body and my soul. I went to the bathroom. I submerged myself in the white froth of my bath salts. I washed my hair with cold water. The shampoo smelled good, it smelled of orange blossom.

  I had a terrible fear of presenting myself in front of my mirror, but I went. I needed to. I wanted to see my body in all its nudity. Would I get a shock? I also wanted to see my soul in all its nudity. I glanced at the mirror, which looked back at me disapprovingly: Can it be that you’ve got to this point purely for the sake of love? And what type of love is it that robs you of your dignity and decorum to the point of displaying your bare body in front of your rivals?

  I shielded my eyes from the mirror’s glare. This love was smothering me in unseemliness, to the point where I let myself be persuaded to commit shameless acts. What sort of woman am I, so lacking in self-esteem? What sort of a person am I who tramples on her sense of decency and her jealousy and turns her body into a weapon of revenge? My God, save me from this charade, this hypocrisy, this veiled malevolence!

  I returned to the bedroom and lay down next to my husband. He turned over in bed. He must have been having a nightmare. In his dream, there must have been a whole throng of naked women, continuously multiplying. Maybe his dream was identical to the one that African king had had. There must have been a whole succession of misfortunes, accidents, terrors, mysteries. He was tossing and turning under the sheets like a snake. I thought of my own story. I thought of the millions of women imprisoned in the seraglios of this world, and asked God for forgiveness for the evil that life does them.

  20

  Tony has summoned a family meeting to complain about our bad behavior, and makes a great fuss as if this was a huge problem. He needs this meeting in order to gauge ideas. To gain witnesses to his misfortunes and so alleviate his conscience. He’s trying to gain allies in order to keep a better grip on his flock, which is slipping from his control. He has summoned fathers, mothers, uncles, who have all turned up with scrupulous punctuality. My father refused the invitation, but my old mother has come. All these strangers have crowded into my lounge, invading my privacy. Violating me.

  “Welcome,” Tony addresses those present, “please be seated and listen carefully to the ingratitude of these women. Their malevolence. Their witchcraft. They have united and have conspired against me, they have brought me bad luck, and things aren’t going well in my life.”

  My mother reacts angrily:

  “For twenty years, there was never a family meeting in this house, because you only had my Rami, who is a woman of sound principles. Everything went well. You decided to become a polygamist and you’ve brought these problems upon yourself,
so now take it, accept it, the spell’s on the other foot and you’re the one who’s the witch doctor, Tony!”

  I feel dizzy. I have a tight feeling in my throat, but I resist the strong temptation to open my mouth for fear of letting fly all the insults I’ve been forced to swallow throughout my life. My angry breath is a dragon’s fire, and I feel capable of setting everything alight. All I want to do is cry.

  “They don’t respect me, they won’t stay in their place, they don’t obey me, but confront me, they don’t treat me as they should.”

  He speaks, but doesn’t get to the crux of the matter. He’s very tense. Then he falls silent and is unable to utter any more words. An angry aunt fires a salvo of questions at us:

  “Have you cooked his food for him?”

  “Yes,” we reply in unison.

  “How do you serve it?”

  “On our knees.”

  “Do you prepare the chicken?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “What bits do you serve him?”

  “The thighs, the breast, the gizzard.”

  “Can you confirm this, Tony?”

  “Yes, I can. But I don’t remember ever having eaten a gizzard.”

  Murmurs of censure and disapproval can be heard. They’re used to eating the good bits of meat, while the women eat bones, feet, the neck, and wings. They are disgusted by the fact that their male descendants are losing their privileges, and try desperately to erect a barrier against time. But traditions are born and die, like life.

  People prepare for a pitched battle. On one side, there’s the man’s family, on the other the women’s. Our enemies hurl javelins against us, shout insults at us, and even humiliate the men in our family. They think they’re winning, because we’re not retaliating in kind. They want to destroy us, while we want to build, which is why we fight with our weapons laid down. Mighty fighters can be defeated with silence.