…Continuing from last week
Madam’s expression was deadpan as she took them and curtsied and thanked her employer. This was her personal effort for her family. She would gladly make it. If the Auntie knew how much those items meant to the family when madam got home that day!
That same day she took home the soap, cream and deodorant, she also got a toothpaste for Auntie at one point during the day had smelt madam’s breath and being one who could not stand bad odour, had cried, “Please, go to the kitchen, you’d find some unused tooth brushes and a paste; take one, go and brush your teeth, especially your tongue. Go, leave the baby!” Madam refused to be angry although she felt her face burn with embarrassment. All these went down as personal efforts.
Within a few days of working with the Smiths, madam’s body scent changed and her skin lost its dryness. Within a few weeks, because she was also eating food regularly at no cost at all to her, her body began to fill out and she began to look healthier. Her children and her husband were also affected. Meat returned to the menu of madam’s family as the Smiths always had leftovers whenever they ate and always insisted that they shouldn’t be returned to the pot.
The agency had asked her to always reply ‘yes, ma’ and ‘yes sir;’ she always did. Madam was also on bent knees. If she found the younger woman she worked for insulting and overbearing, her countenance never revealed it. Auntie loved her for that. She discovered that madam was a rare find, in fact an angel. She knew how to run a home and she willingly abandoned her home to this stranger whom she knew not from Adam.
As the days went by, madam found out that Auntie had no idea how to talk to people for she ascended the social ladder too early and too quickly in life. This made her acquire a false snooty disposition and talked down on people. Her driver was the most abused. She often yelled at him and called him all sorts of deprecating names.
The first time madam heard her say, “You foolish man, how many times have I told you to always take out the trash from the kitchen when we come back from work? The next time I smell decaying food from my bin, I’ll make you eat it!” – She froze. In all her former glory, she never spoke to anyone like that.
Another time, she heard Auntie call the driver ‘a senseless roach!’ One morning as madam was stepping into the house arriving at work, she heard Auntie’s shrill voice but couldn’t make out what it was saying, but her husband’s voice cut her short, “Enough Elisabeth! Enough!” Madam discovered that oga was not always pleased with Auntie. Madam also discovered that oga was trying to lose weight. He tried to pick what to eat only that he and his wife were so nescient about what is called good food.
Soon, the couple found out that madam was knowledgeable in the area of foods and nutrition. It happened by chance. Madam had overheard oga telling his wife that his blood pressure was high and that he had received medication that day for high blood pressure. The next minute, the troubled man called for tea and some full cream milk. Madam after bringing the tea things hesitated before voicing out to her employers that diary product would aggravate oga’s condition.
“How do you know?” oga asked.
“I know about food. I read Home Economics,” she said.
“O level Homec!” Auntie cried with disdain.
“No. I went to a College of Education but did not finish,” she said in a small voice.
When she left the room, Mr. Smith whispered to his wife, “Poor woman, she had no money to finish.”
They gave her a free hand to plan their menu. But Auntie would always crave for junk food. Once she asked her housekeeper when she noticed that madam roasted their meat in the oven instead of frying it, “What’s wrong with fried meat?” Madam rolled her eyes in her mind and said, “Everything. Any food prepared in heated oil has become junk and unwholesome. Heat changes some properties in the oil that could hurt the heart and could cause cancer.”
“See, this is low sugar!” Auntie said raising a small bucket of ice-cream that she bought on her way from work. “And it’s so tasty and has nuts. It’s Italian ice-cream.”
Madam often nodded in agreement. Auntie would eat a quarter of the ice-cream and finish the rest the day following. Oga had begun to go easy on unwholesome foods. Madam would down a jumbo bottle of fizzy drink and would cry, “See, it’s diet drink!” Auntie loved foods from fast food joints. Hamburgers and shawarmas, she ate with glee telling madam, “I made them add extra serving of vegetables.”
But she could not take vegetables at home. “They taste bland,” she often said.
Madam would carefully say, “All processed food is junk. Food made with white flour is junk.”
“Then what should we eat? Eggs are okay, abi?” she would ask her eyes pleading as if madam had the power to make food wholesome.
“Minus the yoke – don’t you feel the heaviness on your heart when you eat three eggs at once? The yokes make them too heavy for your heart.”
“Aah!”
Auntie continued to stuff herself with food while oga slowed down. He began to ask madam questions concerning food. Madam had introduced some diets hitherto missing in their food timetable and encouraged them not to eat heavy late meals.
Since madam took over, Mr Smith had begun to feel lighter and better in the morning. He soon added exercise, encouraged by madam. She had told him concerning exercise, to go for ‘nothing heavy, just be mobile, and try to be on your feet instead of sitting all the time.’ He began to make efforts to be on his feet instead of sitting down all day until it was time to eat. Now, he got up to do his errands within the office building instead of sending the messenger.
“Take a walk around the office during break time,” madam also counselled him. Once he got the knack of taking walks during his break, his employee encouraged him to hit the gym and engage himself in mild exercise. He hit the treadmill.
Presently, he stopped hanging out with the boys after work, and began to go home early. Madam took good care of him – giving him different light foods to eat in the evenings. Fish pepper-soup heavily spiced with effirin in the evenings; in the morning, hot bowl of oatmeal sweetened with honey and creamed with soy milk. And she made sure husband and wife never left home without fruits and vegetables packed for them in the morning so they could snack on wholesome foods. The evidence of good foods and exercise first showed in oga’s belt hole. It moved backwards. As the weeks passed, so did his belt hole’s move – back and back until he had to mend some of his trousers. Before long, he bought new size of trousers.
After a while, his shirts hung awkwardly on him like borrowed ones. They needed to be changed and he bought smaller sizes. Naturally, he was grateful to madam who at this time, was not doing badly with her own looks either.
Although it took a while, oga’s eyes finally discovered how good-looking madam was. He noticed that her figure was just perfect, then her face, her skin, her hair. By coming home earlier than he used to and having time to chat with her when his wife was not home yet, he got to know many things about her – and all of them pleasing to him. One of them being that he was about six months older than madam.
Auntie would not have cereal porridge in the morning, she said it made her feel sleepy in the office and she always brought her vegetables home: she forgot to eat them in the office. And since she came home late, worn out and ready to drop off to sleep most nights, it took her a long time to notice that something had gone wrong with her marriage.
“How do you handle erring husbands?” Madam repeated the question Auntie asked her, her eyes narrowing in thought.
In waiting for her answer, the younger woman looked up to her in expectation to receive solution to her budding marital problem but what she saw was how madam’s cheeks had filled out with flesh and how her face shone. She remembered how when she first came to her house, how hollow those cheeks were and how her eyes were sunken into their sockets and how yellowish red they were from suffering and starvation.
Her short and kinky natural hair was now relaxed. Her lean and gawky look had disappeared; her scaly skin creamed and moisturised until they shone. Her rough and coarse palms were now smooth; her once almost gnarled fingers and dirty nails vanished. In their place were clean beautiful hands and nails. Auntie noticed that madam wore new stylish clean clothes and her body odour was non-existent!
Madam radiated good health and inner beauty that shone through, giving aid to outer beauty. Life glimmered through her eyes and she wore light make-up. For the first time since she came to work for her, Auntie noticed that madam was a beautiful woman and perhaps not very much older than her!
The baby who was now a toddler whimpered in her sleep as she lay in her quarter of a million-naira cot in the living room. Madam turned and went quickly to her without answering that question. Auntie saw that madam had a good figure too. She was of average height and had a flat stomach. In that instant, like a flash, Auntie knew who her husband was erring with! Her body went cold but remembering who she was, she went to God in prayer. As she knelt down in brokenness, she heard, “It’s a pity it took this to get your attention. Welcome to battle!”
…Continues next week