The First Wife

by Paulina Chiziane

  “A new wife. Who’s for it? Who’s against?”

  I miss having Lu there, for she’s a tiebreaker. If this vote ends up without a majority, how are we going to break the deadlock?

  “A new wife,” cries Mauá.

  “Agreed,” says Saly.

  Ju opens her mouth. She’s going to vote against it, we all know.

  “A new wife,” Ju says at last.

  We all look at each other, surprised.

  “Decided unanimously. Tony must get a new wife.”

  “So where’s this new wife going to come from?”

  “I don’t mind helping in the search,” says Saly.

  “Neither do I,” says Mauá, “there are lots of free Makua women around.”

  “Not a Makua,” Saly argues, “it’s got to be a different ethnic group from ours. It won’t be hard to find some nice young girl in this huge country.”

  I look around at all my rivals. Any enthusiasm for our common property has faded. They are cold and indifferent toward Tony’s existence. What is love unless it’s the grand dream, the great anguish, the never-ending wait? When love has been satisfied, it’s all over, just as it is for the ravenous eater, who casts aside his bowl of soup once his belly is full. Love’s only good when it’s incomplete. Ours is a love that is satiated, without desires, diversions, or jealousy. Ah, who would have thought our best times were when we were busy fighting over our love? Now that it’s all over, the magic has been lost. Each one of us is absorbed in our own preoccupations, our business ventures, our children.

  “Girls, I can see you’re no longer interested. You’re deserting Tony.”

  “No, never. We’re not going to abandon Tony,” Saly insists. He lives in us, and we live in him. We built our world with him. It was this polygamous husband who gave us these beautiful children. It was this polygamous husband who loved us and humiliated us. It was this polygamous husband who brought us together in friendship, in solidarity, in this wives’ club. And, my God, how good this union around a polygamous husband has proved to be!”

  “We are women like our mothers and grandmothers,” Ju argues. “We want to maintain the good name of our ancestors, but let us be clear, Rami, life has changed. The verb ‘to love’ has changed its meaning, and is no longer used in the same way, nor does polygamy follow the same rules it once did. Culture isn’t everlasting, although we do our best to preserve tradition. We’ll do everything we were taught to do, just as our ancestors prescribed. We are women of courage, of respect. It’s very hard to accept polygamy in an age when women are affirming themselves and conquering the world.”

  “Ju,” I ask suspiciously, “why the long speech?”

  “In polygamy, women watch over their man, you know this,” Ju reminds me. “When the older wives get tired, grow old, like us, it’s not because of their age, but because they are worn down, and so it becomes necessary to rejuvenate the home with the new blood of a virgin, as delicate as an egg.”

  I’m finding this meeting painful. I always believed love was forever. First it was Tony who shattered my beliefs. Now, it’s these bees, with their momentary loves. They’ve bitten their pollen and are now fluttering off elsewhere, abandoning the faded flower. And they say they know how to love more than I do.

  “Ju, I know you well, you don’t want anything to do with this polygamous husband anymore, and you’re claiming your right to do other things.”

  “When it comes to his presence, having a polygamous husband is exactly like having a lover. He comes, he goes, you never know when he’s leaving or when he’s coming back, a polygamous husband is like rain. But he’s worse than a lover. A polygamous husband is complicated, capricious, proud, idle. He sits on his throne all day long and issues orders like a king. After he’s had his food, he takes a bath, perfumes himself, and leaves. And we remain as beggars, our hand outstretched, and we organize ourselves in a club, join together in our weakness and insist on our rights. Am I claiming rights? What rights? What is a polygamous husband if not an errant creature who scatters himself across the world, like a cloud, a seed, a feather, a piece of air? Can you, by any chance, claim rights from the wind?”

  I look at Ju in surprise. Her words sound as vigorous as war-horses galloping into battle. From her mouth, a huge cloud of vapor billows forth, a hurricane of smoke and color. Of bitterness. Of the coagulated blood from all the wounds and knife thrusts she has suffered from the first moments of her first kiss right up until her current, thorn-filled love. The sentiment she expresses today is one of rebellion and refusal to submit. Of maturity. I see the firmness of the brutal wound in her soul that contains the breath of life which will propel her toward the final onslaught. I see a bright flash in her eyes. It’s good to see her explode, speak, may she free and purge herself, so that she can throw off her inner burden and go back to being a woman. A woman, purely and simply. Who laughs. Who dreams. Who raises her eyes to infinity and counts sheep among the clouds in the sky.

  “What’ll become of us when he’s all hunchbacked and holding a walking stick?” Ju moans. “The rotas will get longer, a month here, a month there. If a week’s wait is so painful, what will it be like later? He’ll most likely live with just one, and live with the others in his thoughts. Which one of us will be the lucky devil who’s going to inherit that heap of scrap metal when old age comes? Maybe Rami, the first wife and his owner, with her legally sanctioned property rights. Maybe Saly. Or maybe Mauá, whom he loves so much. The rest of us will live as solitary old maids and elderly widows. I don’t want to be an old maid any more than I want to be an old widow. In some corner of this world, there must be a man just for me.”

  “If we’d studied more, we would have had a different fate. We could have had the freedom to choose between love and a career. Between the cross and Calvary. Between the oven and the icebox. But as things are, we have neither one thing nor the other,” I say.

  “Study more in the village I come from? What for?” Saly comments sarcastically. “So as to count the number of birds pecking away at the grains in the rice fields? To count the missing teeth in the mouth of the old man you get given as a husband?”

  “Oh, it’s important to study, even if it’s only so you can read the doctor’s prescription, Saly,” I reply.

  “In our villages, life is pure, men and women are nature’s twins, governed by the sun and the seasons of the year,” Mauá confirms. “People are near to God. The hospital is twenty kilometers away, the school fifteen kilometers, there’s no road, no jobs, no prospects. People have never seen a car or electric light. The most important thing is to procreate. The more children you have the better, some of them die, but there are always a few left to provide support when you get old. If I completed sixth grade, it’s because my aunt was a teacher and lived near the school.”

  “You women in the south are luckier,” Saly says. “In our villages, girls get married when they’re twelve, as soon as they’ve completed their initiation rites. They stop school at third grade and have their first child before they’re fifteen,” she concludes in a doleful tone.

  “Isn’t school important then?” I ask Saly.

  “My God, of course it is! That’s why I’ve gone back to studying. I want to speak and write Portuguese well. I want to manage my business well. I even know a few words of Italian, but what I really want to do is to speak English too.”

  “Italian?”

  We all look at Saly in surprise and fire questions at her. She smiles.

  “I’ve bought a book …”

  She’s lying, and I know only too well why. Ah, fiery forty-year-old women. We women live in a deep, silent well and we think the sky is as wide as the hole we can see up above. But one day, we discover that the waters covering us have the color of the sky. Our dreams begin to soar as high as the stars. We discover that the shouts of men are the rustling of waves, and don’t kill. And the greatness of men is no more than a peacock’s crown. We discover that there are extraordinary things in the
forbidden world that deserve to be experienced. We discover that the lilies of the field have a divine scent and that true love has the taste of freedom. That’s why we become children again. Walking the sandy paths barefoot. Tasting the raindrops deep in our throats. The colors of the rainbow rising to the immensity of the earth and the sea. And we want everything. Love. Illusion. Dreams. The smell of the earth and the smell of the ocean united in one aroma. Old age and infancy at one and the same point. We seek in vain our lost youth. And we try to salvage what remains of life with the talons of a hawk. We like to write poems in the romantic style. To receive love letters. To go to the carnival and ride the roller coaster. Eat cotton candy and lick ice creams. Throw ourselves with all our heart into the sea of adventures. Exchange kisses under the light of the moon. Walk hand in hand with the man we love along the seashore and count the stars in the sky.

  “Girls, shall we go and find a wife for Tony?”

  “Let’s go!”

  We embark on a frantic search. We crisscross the country by car and by plane. Our love is made up of self-sacrifice and sharing. It’s altruistic and unselfish. We travel to the four corners of the world, seeking a beauty to charm our Don Juan. We’re looking for a young wife for an old polygamist.

  We’ve been looking for the ideal woman, the woman who agrees to stifle her young girl’s dreams without moaning or complaining. Who has a uterus disposed to give new life to the world. Who obeys and doesn’t protest, who volunteers herself for torture. The ideal woman is a comet, all men yearn for her but can never reach her, there is nothing more difficult than to search for the ideal woman. We have risen to the challenge and are seeking her wherever the wind blows. We start off in the south. Here, girls are all beautiful, elegant, and slim. No sooner have they got married than they begin to expand, to explode like balloons filled with oxygen. They’ve got more money, and enjoy all their meals: bread, sausages and ham for breakfast, chicken and fries, peanut curry and corn porridge for lunch, crackers and butter for tea, delicious candlelit dinners accompanied by wine, and, between meals, there are hamburgers, popcorn, and hot dogs of the type sold on every street corner. They eat too much and don’t do any serving.

  We journey on to the central region of the country. There, we find young girls of smaller build. Short. Dark skinned. Neat and tidy, pretty little things. We spend a lot of time trying to find one that’s worth the trouble. Some of them seem good and obedient, others more headstrong. They’re no use. We head off to the north. We rummage around. The young girls parade before us, like the jobless queuing up for work. Marriage really is a job, which is why the girls submit, obey, humiliate themselves, in the hope of being chosen for the position of wife to an old polygamist. I look at the poor teenagers walking, their eyes closed, toward the world’s traps. That’s how men want us: blind, ignorant, fearful, timid. I gaze at them from my lofty queen’s throne, my throne of straw, of fire, of tears, and of thorns. I demand the impossible from them.

  Open your mouth and show us your teeth. There’s one missing, you won’t do. Now you, get your clothes off. You’ve got blotches on your skin, you’re no good. And you, come here, walk. You plod along like a mule. You’re no good. Show us your hands, your heels, your fingers, the soles of your feet. You’re full of calluses, you won’t do. Show us your backside, your breasts, your belly. We would prod. Your tits are flaccid like sponges. You’re no longer a virgin. Your rear doesn’t have that ripe firmness to the touch, like that of a young girl. You’re too old. And you’ve got a good figure, okay, but let’s have a look at your fish scales and get the tape measure out. You’re fifty kilos and dried up. You’re seventy-five and fat, you’re no good. You’ve got a beautiful face, but you’re fat up above and skinny down below, you won’t do. African elegance is pestle shaped: a narrow waist, fat down below, and slightly skinny above. Now laugh, now sing. Now speak. You laugh like a witch, you talk like a donkey, and when you sing, it’s as if you’re buzzing, you won’t do. Say all you know about culture. General culture, the culture of love. You don’t know anything, you’re not prepared, you won’t do. Some of these girls smell of detergent. Others of soap. Very few of them smell of perfume and most of them just smell of women.

  The mothers have joined the procession in order to sell their daughters’ charms. I was delighted, moved, inspired by the look in their eyes. The looks those women gave were the world’s reflection. We ordered their daughters to take their clothes off and they gave their consent, their approval. That’s how women journey along their fateful road. Naked. Just see how they strip off for the beauty contest. Just see how they smile as they parade, like beef cattle on their way to slaughter. See how they seek their freedom and fame in the starkness of the catwalk. See how their perfect butts sway and how they willingly give themselves up to be prodded, assessed, tasted, and approved. The body of a beautiful woman is a detergent for the man to wash the dirt from his muddy eyes, the body of a beautiful woman is a good bit of flesh for a vulture to peck at.

  We travel up to the north of the country, where we eventually find the ideal woman. Can it really be that she’s ideal? To find the perfect woman, we need a magic mirror and the eyes of a clairvoyant. Popular wisdom states that any beautiful woman is a witch. If she’s not a witch, then she’s volatile. If she’s not volatile, then she’s lazy, dishonest, useless. Have all our efforts really been worth it?

  42

  My sitting room hosts the most important session of the conjugal parliament, which is why we’ve invited Tony. He’s late, but he’ll come. Leaders never arrive at the appointed time. While waiting, we’ve been talking in order to allay our anxiety. Today we’re not talking out loud. We whisper in each other’s ears as if not wanting to offend the air. We talk about modern marriages, and marriage in the old days. About feminist thought, which is changing the face of the earth. We talk about the rate of divorce, which is sky-rocketing. We talk about our man. We talk about ourselves. We chat, we complain. We miss Lu to sweeten the atmosphere. To breathe life into the conversation. To give us the joie de vivre that always springs from her inner being.

  Tony arrives and sits down in his favorite corner. He gives us his impassioned look. The look of a dreamer. Of a man fulfilled. He’s got used to the loss of Lu.

  “So, my little doves, are you going to tell me the reason for this meeting?” he asks, his voice as happy as it’s ever been.

  I begin to talk about little things. Flowers. Our children. I seem unable to talk about anything significant, and he doesn’t suspect anything. I pluck up courage and try to get to the matter in hand. I feel a stone obstructing the sound of my voice in my throat. Suddenly, I stop, I feel a loss of breath. My God, I’m suffocating. There’s no air in this room. There’s no air in my chest, I’m going to faint. I make an effort and say:

  “Well, we …”

  I stutter. Dear God, I feel as if I’m going to lose my power of speech. I panic. I want to disappear, leave the place. I want a Makonde chain to lock my mouth up for a while. But I haven’t got one. Even if I did, I haven’t got holes in my lips. Ah, Makonde women know all about life. They prepare their mouths so as to force themselves to be silent because they know that someone who is nervous or angry can say silly things. That’s why they have two holes pierced. One on the upper lip. The other on the lower. Then, they just buy a chain, padlock their mouth, and keep the key a long way away.

  “This meeting is the result of …”

  Oh, how I’d love to feel the silence of my speech. I yearn for a tiny drop of courage of the type that dwells in the bottom of a wine glass. I make an effort. I’m the first wife, I’m the main one, I must exercise my right to speak and set an example. At first, I only manage to croak. Dead syllables. I close my eyes. When I open them, my words sound like thunderous, destructive gunfire. It’s the start of the storm.

  “Oh, Tony,” I say, “we want you to know how much we admire you, and that without you, we are nothing. We want to safeguard the position you deserve, as a man.
”

  Tony’s looking out the window as the evening falls. Night approaching. He’s not paying any attention to what I’m saying. Of course. Women never have anything to say and when they do open their mouths, they only talk nonsense. I give my voice a much more serious tone.

  “In the olden days, women looked after the crops, the children took care of the livestock, while the sovereign husband rested on his throne. Nowadays, we also work and we often don’t have enough time to look after you, which is an impossible situation. It has always been like this. It’s nature.”

  My speech grows stronger, like a whirlwind. I feel its waves spreading concentrically. I sense its hiss. It’s full of obscure diversions, of the type that attracts disaster with the force of its suction.

  “Man is a great tree that lives for hundreds of years. And in order to preserve his strength, he needs sap, new blood. Woman is merely a fruit, she ripens, rots, and falls. We are old, Tony,” says Mauá, her head bowed, without much conviction in what she says.

  He sits listening to what we have to say, one after the other. He seems both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised. It looks as if there’s a conspiracy. He gets anxious. He gets up and goes over to the sideboard and pours himself a whiskey. Alcohol is a good remedy for the emotions. He has heard some wonderful, astounding declarations. Gradually, his face takes on a worried expression.

  “Looking after a man is a task for many women, we appreciate that fact,” Saly concludes. “We carry out our role, but our strength is not enough. All this work and childbearing has made us somewhat tired. You need human warmth. You need some more affection. New love.”

  Now the words sound like the clink of chains falling into place. He realizes he’s fallen into a trap. He looks at us one at a time, and begins to weigh up what each of us has said. Our finely tuned orchestra. Our well-rehearsed choir. We have become an army of conspirators about to deliver the final blow.

  “Being the wife of a polygamous husband is a huge responsibility,” my words carry authority. “We want to have the honor of demonstrating to the world that we are adult women and know how to share. That we’re not resentful. And I, in particular, wish to use the rights that polygamy has conferred on me, as your first wife. I’ve decided you must marry a new wife.