By Lechi Eke
“No, I don’t need an accommodation. I came for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Her brows went up in surprise and the frown deepened then she shook her head. Jamin knew she had dealt with situations of this nature several times. She looked comfortable like the merchant that sold his goods in cash.
“They’re all married,” she explained, her voice kind, informative. “Except for the last one but she is a little girl, she’s in school.”
“That’s the one I came for,” he replied shocking her.
“She’s in school; a very young girl.”
“I came to ask you to give her to me in marriage.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“She’s still a child,” she said.
“Mum,” he said surprising her further for he should have called her ‘madam.’ While it may be appropriate in Yoruba land to call young-looking women mummy, it is not so in Igbo land. Only very old women are referred to as mma which means mother here, not even mummy and least of all, mum.
“I’m a Christian, born-again. I was waiting on the Lord for whom to marry, fasting and praying and at the end of it the Lord showed your daughter to me.” He felt dry lacking grace. If he couldn’t convince himself was it this contented woman he would convince?
“The Lord?” she asked her face clouding as if she knew no one by that name. “She’s a child – doesn’t even know her left from her right. She hasn’t grown up, still in school (soliloquizing). I…I…don’t think she would like to marry anyone now (she began to talk to him). Besides I’m not in a position to give her away. Her father went to the village for a burial but even he too may not (shook her head unable to continue. Something in her voice said, end of discussion).”
Jamin saw he had lost her. The smile had gone.
“I promise to treat her right. I love her very much,” he said trying hard.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Ulari is not ripe for marriage. We’re not Hausa that give out little girls in marriage.”
She was displeased now, her countenance lengthening loosening the skin around her chin. It was possible that the picture of Ulari trapped in her mind was Ulari as a child. She had no idea that her daughter was ripe and quite desirable. Her eyes were shifty now, avoiding his eyes- looking down, looking elsewhere. Jamin noticed how her lashes were not as long as her daughter’s but she looked good for a woman in her late fifties who had gone through the rigours of child-bearing eight times.
“But have you considered her opinion? She may want to marry me too.”
She raised her eyes to look at him, dark piercing and suspicious. He did not flinch.
“Ulari? Have you spoken to her?” she enquired.
“Yes. I came from Lagos, ma. She gave me her address to come and talk to you,” Jamin explained.
However Ulari’s mother soon forgot this bit of information only to remember it later. She was silent for a while then, Jamin could see her take a decision. She looked like a woman who made decisions after due consultations with others. Jamin faulted Ulari for insisting that he should see her mother alone. He believed it would have been different had the two of them seen her together. But none of them had been this way before. They knew not the way to contracting marriage. Nevertheless, Marfi had been in agreement with Ulari about seeing her mother first before proceeding since he was determined to proceed without his parents.
“I bu onye e bole?” she asked studying him with new interest.
Jamin was lost. “Pardon?” he said cocking his head. He could speak only central Igbo; Ulari’s mum spoke a dialect he wasn’t conversant with.
He saw the quick look of trepidation in her eyes.
“Where’re you from?” she repeated the question in English with voice filled with real fear now.
“Benue State. I’m Tiv.”
Now he saw her visibly shaken. She said rapidly almost panicking, “Now, young man, I think you should go. Ulari’s father is hypertensive and nothing of this discussion should get to him. I think you should look for a wife among your own people.”
“But God sent me to Ulari. He told me she’s my wife,” he said in a steady voice looking into her beautiful almond shaped eyes that had become incurious.
She possessed looks you could not help but stare at just like her daughter. He sensed that she had dismissed him. Her frame leant forward tilting towards the table her palms resting on the arms of the lilac leather-bound upholstery office chair ready to lift her body up, to go away leaving him in that clinical office. His visit and its purpose were clearly unacceptable to her. An oppressive silence pinned them to their seats for a while and they regarded each other then he saw her pull herself together. Her body language saying let me get this over with and get on to something else. She said in a gentler voice, the kind one uses to talk to a naughty child that one wants to placate, “I’m a Christian too, the daughter of an Anglican clergy man. I know I can go to God in prayer concerning this but believe me, I think in our best interests, it’s not necessary. I advise you to drop this issue. It’s mission impossible.”
“Why?” Jamin wanted to know but he saw her eyes lose their softness and her face lengthened some more. He perceived she was a big woman whom not many people questioned her decisions.
“I’ll tell you,” she said in a tone revealing a condescending generosity. “You’re a Northerner and my daughter’s too young.”
“I’m from the middle belt, not up North…”
“They’re all the same to us here.”
She sounded irritable now, glancing at her wristwatch; an action clearly unnecessary because on the wall beside the examining bed was a lilac wall clock. Jamin made no move to stand. He came for result and not to be turned down. Her cell phone began to ring. She picked it up from somewhere unseen by Jamin and began to speak. Jamin listened to a one-sided conversation entirely in Igbo. Her short fingernails were vanished in pale pink. He thought digressing that Ulari’s fingers were more beautiful than her mother’s- they were long and tapering but Ulari’s mother was a woman that took care of her outward appearance.
“I want to ask you a second favour,” he said in a polite tone when she finished.
“Go ahead,” she said her voice still generous, still condescending, kind of weary and her face, wooden.
“Would you go to God and talk to Him about this matter? We can’t lay claim on Him without including Him in all our businesses. And if the earth is His as Psalm 24 says, and the whole world and all those in it, don’t you think (he hunched forward, his right hand lifted, looking directly into her eyes) He has a say in our affairs?”
He saw that she thought him rude; he had said too much. He would not be surprised if she said, are you preaching to me? –and got angry. But she said nothing. She considered it for a while and then nodded.
“Okay,” she said, “but stay away from my daughter and don’t try to see my husband until you hear from me. He loves Ulari dearly, she’s his special baby and he has high hopes for her.”
Jamin wondered what child his or her father did not love dearly but he nodded and smiled. She managed a smile too. They had a truce: don’t come and see the girl’s father and I will go to God in prayer. But she had no intention of making any such prayer.
“Please, make the prayer tonight,” he encouraged her. “I want to marry her quickly- in a month or two.”
Her eyes told him that she thought him unstable. There was an awkward silence. End of discussion. Her body language conveyed a shrug. She said nothing. There was nothing more to say. He got up to go. She too got up hesitated and turning to the door she came from, disappeared.
Jamin felt a sour taste in his mouth and a terrible hollow feeling. He had been fasting. A certain corruption rose from the pit of his stomach as he stumbled out of the inner office to the outer one. Two or three customers were now being attended to by the salon girls. They looked at him with some interest but quickly dismissed him when he stepped outside. Obviously, he was not a client and they were busy. Instinctively, he swore under his breath as he stepped outside, ‘This house would be stirred for me the next time I appear here!’ But he had lost his energy.
Culled from The Girls Are Not To Blame by Lechi Eke