The First Wife

by Paulina Chiziane

  Ah! If these languages … could be spoken! They’d tell us extraordinary tales of the licaho, the chastity knife. What would … medieval women who experienced the chastity belt tell us? What would the women who’d been circumcised tell us? What would those who participate in the orgies of the Makonde, the Sena, and the Nyanja tell us? The women who defied the licaho have been reduced to silence, they’ve died along with their secrets. The Ronga and the Shangaan have astonishing tales to tell about the debaucheries surrounding the drinking of the juice of the marula, aphrodisiac of the gods, during fertility celebrations.

  Today, I feel like tearing the veil of ignorance from my eyes. I want to update all my knowledge about these … women. I sit down on a bench at the corner of the street. I want to listen to their silence as they whisper in my ear. Today, I want to listen to secrets. From afar, I manage to engage in a mute dialogue with each woman who passes by.

  Pretty woman, where are you going? I ask. They give me broad grins by way of reply, conveying happiness, bitterness, yearning, loss of hope, anxiety, expectation. I ask those who pass: Do you believe in platonic love? They all laugh and ask me whether I’ve gone mad. They want to know what planet I’m living on. Platonic love only happens on the moon.

  I ask them whether they’re happy with their lives. Each one of them tells me endless tales of love spells using witchcraft, salts, herbs, homemade remedies, tobacco smoke, cannabis, brooms, bottles, menthol, all just to make a man fall for her, lock, stock, and barrel. Make him think just of her when looking at other women. To ensure his passions aren’t raised with other women and that he will only sleep with her. To sharpen his sensations. Create a better impression. Make him stick. Hold him. Suck him dry. Make a man abandon his body and follow the route of the stars.

  I listen to this woman’s story, and then another. They all say the same thing. Women are all the same, aren’t they?

  The same? No, we’re not, they cry. I’m shaped like a squid. And I’m a half-moon. An octopus. As flat as a plank. A broken conch. A turkey’s beak. A clamshell. A cannibal. An anthropophagite. A deadly throat. The devil’s tunnel. A cavern full of silence and mystery. And I’m dangerous, whoever touches me dies.

  So then I ask: You, broken conch, who dwells hidden away in the middle of the world, have you ever seen the sun? Have you seen the moon? Do you know what a star is? Are you aware the sky is blue?

  Ah, she replies, I’m the one who blossoms in each cycle because I am the moon. I am much more than the sun because I offer the whole world a luminous, romantic glow. I am the most wonderful star in the firmament. Without me, there’s no beauty in the world.

  Presumptuous! Pretentious! Vain! Liar! Men say you taste of water after giving birth to so many children, and that’s why they discard you and go after much younger women!

  Oh, they’re the ones who are lying. I’m linked to water by fate because I belong to the ocean. My body, more than any other, is the one that dives into the water when it awakens, when it lies down, in the noonday sun. I contain the humidity of the shores and the banks of rivers. I’m a piece of the sea that can’t survive without taking a dip in its tepid waters.

  And you, my dear cannibal, have you had enough meat to eat?

  There’s hunger in the subterranean depths! There are tears, creams, lamentations. The earth is angry, it’s becoming a desert. Some species of animal are becoming extinct. There are few men left in the cities, in the forests, in the savannahs. They are being destroyed by wars, by bombs, by machines, and by the explosive devices that they sowed out in the bush when they were waging war for ideals that only they understood. There are few left to feed our cannibal appetites. That’s why we fight over them and the winner is the one with the sharpest claws. We who are less courageous in combat live in self-denial and abstinence, and suffer the martyrdom of sleeplessness.

  But the fault is all yours, strange, unfathomable appetite, I censure her, because you’re capricious, greedy, and because you vomit all that you eat.

  I go through years of abstinence, another one says. My companion is a miner in South Africa. He only gives me a sixty-day ration every other year. He comes home on holiday just in order to get me pregnant and then he’s off again. I feel I’m going to grow old without having lived. I console her, no, don’t despair, because your hunger makes you suffer but it doesn’t kill you. Let us light lots of candles and say a prayer so that God may bless you and let you have more bread.

  I’ve been tricked, despised, forgotten, another woman confides in me. I don’t know whether it’s because of the cold. I don’t know whether it’s the smell. I’m an uncultivated field abandoned to the sorrel. I hate this life. I’d rather die than live in this misery. I tell her in reply that suicide doesn’t solve anything, go to war and kill the beast, lamentations are for the elderly.

  And you, unrelenting octopus, where do you find so much prey?

  I’m an octopus, can’t you see? I suck up everything. I’ve got an endless pot of honey. My supplies are infinite, I give all wayfarers something to drink. I’m your ambushed enemy who provokes fires, explosions, sleeplessness, nightmares, and drives men mad.

  I look at her, and lowering my gaze, I say: You give all and sundry a drink, and in exchange for what? Be warned that your supplies are the sanctuary of life, and holy places should be kept pure. That little corner that is all yours is an altar that God created to demonstrate all his love. Don’t sully it. But if it makes you happy, then thanks very much! …

  I am obedient. I’ve always been faithful and have never sinned, not even in my thoughts. I always wait for my lord and master to give me the orders. I’m scared of the licaho, the chastity knife. You don’t believe me? Have you never heard of the licaho? Yes, it’s true, it really exists. It’s a magic jackknife. When an intruder breaks into another person’s premises, the jackknife snaps shut by magic and at that precise moment, the two lovers are stuck to each other, unable to move, and that’s how they remain for days on end, until death comes for them. Have you never heard it said that a man died on top of a woman or a woman under a man? It’s the licaho, my friend, it’s the licaho.

  I don’t answer, I merely sorrow: the poor dear woman! I grow sad and weep. This woman lives in a hermetically sealed compartment, where she can admire neither sunrise nor sunset. She can’t cry because there’s not enough air. She can’t scream because there’s no echo. She doesn’t know the breeze, or the blue of the sky, or the stars. She learned to say yes, but never to say no. She learned to say thank you, to say sorry, and to live humiliated. When her executioner says: Maria, come here, she replies, yes, master. Now lie down. Yes, master. Now open. Yes, master. Now eat. Yes, master. Thank you, master. Now get up, you’ve eaten too much today. Sorry, master.

  And you, squid, you, turkey beak, do you feel at ease with your image? I’ve heard it said that a Russian doctor cut off a woman’s squid when she was giving birth. The poor doctor had never seen anything like that and thought it was some malignant, foreign body that was entwined round the baby’s neck and placing the life of the child and of the mother in danger. When the mother learned of this accidental amputation, she committed suicide because she no longer felt a woman. Aren’t you afraid something similar could happen to you? Aren’t you scared of showing these anatomical alterations to a foreign gynecologist? Don’t you feel bad?

  What is there to be ashamed of? Of that which gives us pleasure? We explain everything before any type of procedure. Doctors are astonished, but they understand. It’s good to have a pair of squid. They protect us. Men invented the licaho, and we invented the squid. When there’s any risk of rape, we tuck the flaps of our squid inside and we shut the door against any ill intention, and nothing can get through, not even a needle. We are inviolable. We might get killed, but we’ll never get raped.

  Hello there! … You’re well dressed. Pretty. You drive around in good cars and you must enjoy the most refined food in the world. You’re the image of someone who’s living life to the f
ull and doesn’t need to ask any favors.

  Ah! How mistaken you are! You’re right in one thing though. I’ve got lace, silk, perfumes. My companion is well spoken and generous with his money. But … he’s an intellectual.

  So what?

  Educated men spend their time sitting on the sofa, their computer on along with the air conditioning. They eat yogurt, mashed potato, tinned food, and are as flabby as battery-reared chicken. When it comes to body-to-body activity, they’re feeble and lose the fight. They’re no use. My gentleman is like that. I began to ask for a light here, a light there, to make up for my privations. I specialized in responding to begging requests for love, and now there’s no holding me back.

  You hussy, you double-crosser. It’s because of … like you that men despise us, and tell us we’re worthless, I accuse her.

  Men lie. Oh, how they lie! They tell us we’re worth nothing? That we’re no use for anything? Poppycock! There’s nothing more miraculous than us in the whole human community. That’s why they hate us, fear us, mutilate us, rape us, torture us, seek us out, hurt us. But it’s for us they yearn their whole lives through. It’s us they seek, night and day, from the day they’re born to the day they die.

  I smile. This woman’s fantastic. She speaks all the languages in the world without speaking any of them. She’s a sacred altar. A sanctuary. She’s the nirvana where the just can repose from all of life’s tribulations. She’s magic, a miracle maker, tenderness. She’s the sky and the earth within people. She’s ecstasy, perdition, surrender. Ah, my friend, you’re my treasure. Today, I’m proud of being a woman. Only today have I learned that you reside within me, that you are the beating heart of the world. Why have I ignored you all this time? And why have I only learned this lesson today?

  25

  I have an intense desire to talk to someone who understands me. Who loves me and listens to me. My mother. I’m going to savor that fresh smile that placates me. I want to listen to a bedtime story. I want to bathe in the reflection of the few sad eyes that have the color of moonlight.

  I find my mother pounding grain in the pestle. She sings. She smiles. My father is talking with two friends in the shade of the mango tree.

  “How are you, girl? You’ve got your sad look. What’s happened?”

  I tell her. I tell her everything and start crying. I talk about the divorce he wants and doesn’t want. About my rivals. About my endless afflictions.

  “There’s no man without a woman. Nor is there a woman without a man. There isn’t one without the other.”

  “I doubt myself, Mother. Everything I do in life is wrong. I don’t know how to cook as I should. I don’t have any pleasing words to say. I’ve lost all my appeal, Mother. He criticizes me for everything and for nothing at all. Everything about me that he used to like no longer pleases him. I’m a disaster. A disappointment. His eyes have turned to other landscapes, I no longer mean anything to him.”

  “Ah, my beautiful girl!”

  “Just look at my body, Mother. My breasts were round like massala fruit, but now they’re like papayas. My backside was as smooth as an orange, but now it’s like a pumpkin. Look at my legs, Mother. Full of varicose veins, crinkled with cellulite that looks like cauliflower.”

  “My daughter! Motherhood has transformed you and made a woman of you. Do you dislike your body? Was growing ever a crime? Your body sports the signs of time, the signs of maturity and wisdom.”

  “He’s leaving me because of the spells put on him by the other women, Mother. Each one of them does everything in order to get rid of me so they can take my throne. The number of spells they tell me about, Mother, if you could only hear them.”

  “Lift your head up high and smile, my dear girl. You’re the one with the spell, in that heart of yours. You were a sweetheart, you had your bride price paid, you were married in accordance with the rules. You’re the one who can cast spells: you were a virgin when married and stained the sheets on your wedding night. These other women, what are they?”

  I gaze at her, astonished. It’s any woman’s dream to be led up to the altar. I fulfilled that dream. That man who is now abandoning me was once the most coveted of men. I conquered him. I had him. I consumed him. He gave me five children. I affirmed myself. I am protected by the law, and the other women have nothing. I’m certainly luckier than them.

  “Why did you never tell me about love spells, Mother?”

  “It was religion, girl. It was the city. Your father’s a man of the city and didn’t have any time for traditions. He had his principles and only spoke Portuguese.”

  “Teach me some secrets, Mother.”

  She starts to weep silently. Tears of moonlight and silk, that touch me, injure and inspire me. A vision of light opens in front of me like a mirror, in which my image is reflected. I see the sadness of this woman who stands before me. A sad woman like myself. My daughters will bear this sadness, just as we women of all generations and the whole universe do.

  I stop talking to spare her old heart further pain, and embark on a silent dialogue with her.

  I feel like telling you, Mother, that your problem is less burdensome than mine. You’ve got a brute for a husband. I’ve got a brute and a polygamist. A polygamist who said I was his darling and dragged me into perdition. He told me I was the only one, and now tells me that women are in abundant supply. I’ve got rivals, Mother, who get undressed before my very eyes and show off their honey sweet bodies to me, eat at my table and boast of their sexual pleasures with my husband. I know you’ve got tattoos, I’m familiar with all of them, the ones on your back and on your belly. I feel like asking: Do you also have those marine specialties on your body, Mother? Did you suffer some subterranean hunger? Father only had you, but see what I have to put up with. Suffering unhappiness that not even my own mother experienced. I understand the meaning of your tears, Mother. That’s why I’m not saying anything to you so as not to increase the burden of your pain, Mother. But, Mother, if you knew that life was like this, why did you bring me into the world? Could it be for the same reason that you never told me the reason why your dear sister died, Mother?

  26

  I leave home and set out for work. I go on foot, Tony never took me in his car. I walk. I sing. As I journeyed along I found love, I dreamed of treasure, but …

  An ambulance siren interrupts my song and I look left. There’s a river of red flowing across the asphalt, someone has been run over and killed by a truck. The man’s blood, released from his veins, has soaked the road, setting the ground ablaze with its scarlet flame. The passersby stand silently, bidding farewell to the soul that is crossing the frontiers of this life in flight. There are sighs. Bewailing, murmurs. When human life is struck down, all the living hold their breath. Even the stones are alarmed. Even the waters of the river offer a minute’s silence.

  He was an adult, strong, the appearance of a man of about fifty years of age. I sigh as well. In this inanimate bundle, I imagine a whole heap of commitments that have been interrupted and many bright hopes snuffed out. For him, all the channels for fulfilling his dreams and hopes have been closed. All his conquests, love affairs, his goodness and his malice, are over and done with. It’s the end of love. Of tyranny. Polygamy. Disharmony. Let his blood fertilize this unloving ground. Let the earth provide his final resting place.

  This time last year, at precisely this hour of the day, another man was run over here – some onlookers comment. This place is cursed, there’s a malign spirit at large on this stretch of road. Poor family. A wife is probably cooking lunch for her husband who will never come home. Children awaiting their father who is late. I stop for a moment, I look at the dead man, and I continue on my way, comforted by my own song until I get to my shop.

  I’m stalked by depression for the rest of the day, but my work goes well. Hardly do I begin to sing my song again than the image of the dead man returns to me. I go home exhausted after the day’s events and go straight to sleep. In the early hours, the
phone rings. Saly wakes me up, alarmed.

  “Saly, what’s wrong?”

  “Tony. I don’t know what’s become of him. He left home at about eight in the morning, saying he was going to buy some cigarettes, he didn’t come home for lunch or dinner, and he still hasn’t come back. It’s two in the morning.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I was just calling to see whether he was over there with you.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  “I’m really worried. He’s not with any of his wives.”

  “I’ll be over in a minute.”

  I get out of bed and start thinking. I get irritated. So much fuss over a good-for-nothing? I dress quickly and leave for Saly’s house in spite of the late hour, determined to put her mind at rest. When your husband’s a womanizer, you live in a permanent state of tension. We imagine him dead, murdered, the victim of an accident, arrested, when the simple truth is that he decided to hide away in a honey trap. When I get to Saly’s house, the other wives and Tony’s two brothers are already there. I involve myself in the search only to alleviate my conscience. We divide ourselves up to follow different possible routes. First, we go to places he often frequents. We search high and low, mountains and vales. We turn whole worlds upside down. We rummage through the underworld. When you lose a goat, you look for him on the topmost peak of the mountain range. On the conical roof of the grass hut. At the top of the tree. In the curve of the sun. In the flight of the clouds. There’s no sign of him.

  “Saly, what makes you think Tony’s got lost?”

  “He went out in his shorts and slippers. He left the car and his documents. He went out for a few minutes.”

  “But you know what Tony’s like. Here we are getting worried and maybe he’s sitting with his feet up in the home of some new conquest of his.”

  “That might well be the case, but I don’t think so. Something must have happened.”