By Lechi Eke
I appreciate Richard’s admission of guilt, his request for forgiveness, and all that. But, broken promises cannot be fixed. What about broken trust, how does one put together pieces of broken trust? Oh, I admire Richard on his new found contrition, but not only is my heart broken, something has died in me. Dead things don’t come alive again.
“God will quicken it, He’ll give us a miracle, you’ll see,” Richard implored. He bought gifts. Hmm… Anytime Richard brought gifts… one of my friends said it’s a sin offering. My close friend heard and said, “You should be glad that he wants to make things right. Some men don’t care. Honestly, Sweetie, don’t opt for singlehood, it’s a lonely life. No one is perfect, not even you. ” But, I’m distraught. I don’t really know what to do, how to handle this fresh situation. In ten years of marriage to Richard Obembe, I’ve seen more aggravation to last me a lifetime.
The last time I visited my parents, my mum had stared into my eyes searching my face with a scrutiny that disconcerted me. “Sweet,” she said softly, “what’s wrong? Your eyes are hard, and your face…” Her voice trailed off with apprehension.
She had told me not to marry a southerner for whatever reasons she enumerated, I never listened as she pointed them out. Her experiences in marriage decided me on marrying a southerner. All that northern communal living depressed me. How could a woman share the love of her life with two, three other women? What would he be saying to each of them? It nauseated me. From a young age I decided on marrying a man from a culture of one man, one wife. Chikena! Hmm… Little did I know that it would be one wife inside, ten outside!
I had met some eastern girls in the Government College I attended and befriended some of them. I was struck that they had few siblings from one mother, not two, not three, not four. Thrilled by their stories of Easter and Christmas and New Year celebrations in a monogamist family, I pleaded with my parents to let me spend a festival time with one of them. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, marvelling at the civilisation I saw in the south, of equality in the home, freedom of two spouses, and love of siblings, as well as close bond between parents and children because they had manageable number. These decided me.
Once, I asked one of my eastern friends what would happen if her father married another wife. She said that would be unthinkable and unacceptable because her mother would not share her home with a strange woman. She said there are eastern families with poly situations, but it is getting rarer because according to her, one wife, one trouble; two wives… We laughed at the Math.
I met Richard Obembe at the tail end of my NYSC in Port Harcourt, the Garden City. He worked with a multinational company in Bonny and had come to Port Harcourt for a party Shell threw in honour of outgoing Corps members in River State. That should have raised a red flag, maybe it did and I was blind. I wouldn’t call it love at first sight, but we just clicked – talked all night and laughed at same situations and things. I felt like he was an old friend, a sibling and a lover rolled into one. Although I had wanted an Easterner but being a Christian Yoruba, I never gave it another thought. And it seemed like marriage was the natural conclusion to our meeting. He didn’t even ask me, will you marry me? – We just flowed into what did you study, what would you want to do, where would you love to live? His father was some top shot and he could pick and choose jobs and cities to live in. We planned our marriage with the simple understanding that that was a natural follow-up to our meeting.
Before the honeymoon was over, Obembe was philandering! I caught him several times. If he said he was going to the north, be sure to find him in the east! What about the phone calls? Richard Obembe will return home now, in another minute he’s hurrying out to see someone. “Something has come up,” he would throw at me on his way out, not giving me any chance to say anything. He would swear he wasn’t doing anything wrong, but the tale tales were there.
Oh, I know he has apologised. He came into the bathroom and hugged me tight in his Brioni suit pleading; that meant something because Richard loves his suits. Then, the following day he brought Rado watches he bought for us – His and Hers, plus a beautiful shawl. But Richard has hurt me to the bone marrow. He has been cheating and been stupid; fumbling, leaving substantiations. I found out it was like a game to him. His reactions exposed his inner feelings. I could hear his unspoken frustrations like, what harm does it do to you? I’m always around. I’m good to you? What are you missing?
I thought aloud that if I had married an Easterner, he would have behaved better. Obembe is a westerner. My close friend laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. “Didn’t Michael Jackson sing, ’People all over the world, are the same wherever I go?’ Westerner o, Easterner o, Northerner o, Southerner o – men are men!” she said.
“I told you to ask God for a good man, not an ethnic man from a geographical location,” my mother said to me one day when I mustered up enough courage to tell her about my husband, eating my humble pie. How come I heard her after almost eleven years with Richard Obembe? Oh, my God, that was what my mum had been trying to say to me all my growing up years! Why didn’t she speak up? She should have slapped my face! Or sat me down and screamed into my ears!
Should I just say Yes to my husband? I paced the floor and cried and patted my chest several times, softly for it was tightening up – this man will not kill me! Even in this contrition business, a woman is involved. Hmm… Richard started with, “This girl in Fela’s church invited me to a church programme, and …” I felt like screaming. He went on mindlessly, “She’s a good girl. She returned … she wants to meet you. She has a fiancé…”
“She returned what?”
“Nothing. Did I say she returned anything?”
“Richard, you said just now that she’s a good girl, she returned…”
“No. I said she’s a good person and wants to meet you.”
“You said she’s a good girl…”
“Person. A girl is a person, isn’t she?”
I got up to take some pain reliever because my head hurt, and my chest was tightening, needing oxygen.
I don’t really know what to do. We’ve been arguing for three days. We start as soon as I return from dropping off our daughter at school. I need peace and I need my space. I wish they could recall Richard to work. He’s been on leave and driving me crazy. I feel claustrophobic. He is in my space, pleading night and day.
“We’ll start going to church, all of us. He will help us, you’ll see. He helps people.”
“Who?”
“God, the Creator.”
I shook my head. Richard Obembe is a nominal Christian. Apart from going to church twice on our wedding day, and for Sunday Thanksgiving, we only attend on festival days like Easter, Christmas and New Year Day.
“You’ll see; you’ll love God. He’s explained how things run in His word, only we didn’t bother to read that’s why we’re stuck, in trouble. But now, we’ll read and understand. And He will help us.”
The pleadings are too much. I sighed. I’m not hardened, I’m distraught. This is a failed transaction. Richard and I have different ideas of what marriage is all about. It took me some years to realise that Richard thought that marrying a Northern girl with a poly background meant I wouldn’t mind philandering. I used to wonder at the shock in his eyes when I confronted him about his cheating. Also, he thinks me a treasure, acquired, polished and hung on the wall to be polished regularly, and shown off when occasions demanded, which are usually the owambes (parties), weddings, milestone birthday parties, housewarming, and so forth. To him, I’m an ornament who should be grateful for all the sex (which began to drop in frequency from the second year, and were mainly to settle quarrels!), all the gifts, and the excess food in the house, and the travels. I watched him enjoy life without me. If I say, “Can we go out, just the two of us?” He would be like (his index finger on his chin), “Hmm… go out? But, we’re always together. What do we want to go out for?” However, I’m good for rowdy parties and ceremonies. I must attend with him kitted up to the teeth, as a show off to friends and family – ‘See I married a gorgeous Northern girl, slim as a stick, flat stomach, high cheek bones, pointed nose… who did better than me, present your wife!’
What’s the essence of marriage if not for companionship? Alone in my room, my heart heaved a silent scream, and I tore at my uncombed hair, and paced my bedroom. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it! I screamed silently. This is why I never wanted anything to do with that communal union in the name of marriage in northern Nigeria. Marriage should be two people together, forever.
I remember growing up and getting concerned about my mother, watching her and my dad closely if I could see any display of affection, anything to show me these two cared for each other because the presence of the other wives confused me. I spent time trying to figure out how the marriage union between one man and four women worked. I spent length of time spying on them to figure out who my dad was in love with. I turned to my mother, asking her several times if she ever received a hug from my father. She would be evasive and I would press on. I was young and agitated. One day she flew up. “Whatever do you want to do with the information?”
I always thought she needed a hug, a cuddling from the back. So I hugged her a lot, just to make up for the lack of affection from quarters she needed it most. Once I had a dream that my dad cuddled her, and she broke down and wept. I knew she would do that if that ever happened. I prayed it happen, and I looked forward to that dream coming true, but I never saw it happen until I married and left home.
Oh, well, I have such romantic thoughts about marriage. My mum said I had a southern mind. That was when she told me that my dad’s grandma was a southerner. I think she reincarnated me. But, once, I mentioned it in class, at university, my lecturer, a fanatical Christian of the sect of Evangelicals, told me that there is no such thing as reincarnation, that anybody who dies is gone forever.
I heard Richard at my door, not again; not now! I quickly lay down and closed my eyes pretending to be asleep. I smelled some nice fragrance beside me and my eyes fluttered open. A beautiful bouquet of white roses lay beside my face. Richard is kneeling down with an open box of a gorgeous ring. The look on his face is tender, searching my eyes. I cannot remember the last time he looked into my eyes. When he started cheating, his eyes couldn’t meet mine anymore.
“Will you marry me again, Sweet Obembe?” he pleaded in a broken manner. The bitterness suddenly dissipated, melted away, like magic. Could this be the miracle Richard told me about? My God, I can feel my heart softening and tears stinging my eyes! Well, all is not perfect yet, but I trust that that God that brought Richard to his knees before me, He can help us work things out. Richard is willing to talk, and more importantly, to listen.
The end.
