UMAR
When I left my wife’s sickbed, I was scared. What did she mean, she was not gong to be able to do “this” anymore? What in the world was “this”? I have never felt as helpless and out of control of my life as I did then. Everything was spiraling out of control. What was I going to do without her? What had I done wrong? Had I shown weakness? I had to fix this. I knew what I had to do!
I took the next u-turn and swung into Ceddi Plaza, once in there, I headed straight to the flower shop. As I was entering the shop, I saw a younger couple walking, the girl’s expression was that of one who was struggling not to cry and the man had a defiant, slightly guilty expression on his face. I stopped cold as a memory invaded my senses, I felt like I was literally being sucked into the past…
TWO YEARS BEFORE
UMAR
Tayo was shedding serious tears. We had been dating now for a little over five months, and I realized, early on, that the woman had no idea what respect for the man in your life meant. There were days when we were going out and she would wear clothes which I really did not consider appropriate for the occasion, but she never asked my opinion before she put them on, and she seemed to expect me to be impressed when I saw her. At first I all I had done was hint to her how I thought a woman ought to present herself. Not that I particularly cared what she wore; she looked great in anything, but I can’t go around telling her that. No, then she would be almost impossible to control and one day she would just walk out on me. So on our third date, I told her that we were going to grab a bite at Barceló’s and then, maybe, catch a movie after work. She decided to wear a pair of jeans and a well –fitted long tee and she looked great, but, she had not asked me what she ought to wear. I would not stand for that and so I told her that if I had wanted to be seen as a pimp, I would have hired an escort. When I saw the dumb look that crossed her face. I said, “Not only does she dress like a prostitute, she acts like a dumb, crack-loving prostitute.”
The expression on her face at those words was one that I have never seen before, she looked simultaneously angered, shocked, dismayed and hurt. The shock and dismay I could live with, the fear was perfect because fear breeds respect and fear births total obedience, but the anger! I knew at that moment that I would have to teach the lady standing before me that when I corrected her I expected her to be grateful. Anger indeed. What right did she have to get upset because I told her what was what? Why should I give her the impression that she could get away with any thing just because I was beginning to love her? At this point I realized that the dummy was talking to me so I turned my attention to her words.
“… wearing.” This was all that I heard so I asked her to repeat herself, “What is wrong with what I am wearing?” The fool had guts, I had to hand it to her, she might be dumb and might come across as a bit shy, but she certainly had guts. I smiled, I knew how to handle guts, “What is wrong with what you are wearing?” I repeated, inflecting a tone of incredibility into my voice and grabbing her arm as I spoke, “I’ll show you what’s wrong with it!” I dragged her back into her room and stood her in front of the full length mirror attached to the back of the door. “First off, I think we should start with the make up; any of those sluts standing outside Ibiza at night would be pleased if they could paint their faces as well as you do.” I tipped my head to the side, “but then again, maybe not! You have more powder on than a circus clown, and the shade of lipstick on your lips? It makes your already too large lips look bulbous! Let me tell you something, you are lucky I even deigned to look twice at you, you ugly swine. The sight of you makes me sick”.
The trick here was to make her feel worse about herself than she already did on a good day. Mina had told me that Tayo was the exact duplicate of her mum, it was as though they had put her mum in a Xerox machine and Tayo was the result, or as Mina colorfully put it, it was as though her mum had vomited and, boom, there Tayo was. Her dad, however, was a hopeless drunk who, every chance he got, did not hesitate to tell her mum, that she was uglier than hope. The man was a verbal genius! According to Mina, he had once told her mum that she looked like a cross between a pig, a dog and a bull. Tayo grew up hearing these things about her mum, and her dad never noticed her except when he was yelling at her mum to come pick her dirty dog out of his way, before he kicked it. Worst of all for Tayo, according to Mina, all her life, my girlfriend had been hearing how much she looked like her mum. So calling her an ugly swine, was reinforcing inner fears, I amaze myself sometimes!
When Tayo heard those words, something interesting happened, she changed somehow. It was as though she visibly deflated, all the animation went out of her face, all the fight went out of her and it was almost possible to see a withdrawal. As though some part of her had just retreated into an invisible shell. But I was not done yet, far from it in fact. She had turned her head away so that she would not have to look at her image. I took her chin in my hand and forced her to look. “Not only are you ugly, you are getting fat, and the tight shirt just helps us see all that. Who told you I want to be reminded every time I look at you just how hideous your body is. And skinny jeans? Honey, the operative word is skinny, and that is so not you right now. What you should be wearing is those long sleeves office shirts that hide all your uncomfortable places and slacks, because they are neither tight nor loose. That way no one can see how hideously huge you’ve gotten, and you have the added plus of always looking, if not smart, then at least business like wherever you are.” She nodded lifelessly at the end of my speech and turned to go to the bathroom. “I assume you are going to go change?” At her nod I smiled and said, “good girl”.
That had been a while ago. Today she was crying, and I was inwardly jubilant because I had been able at last to bring her to such remorse. She finally realized that I was always right. Triumph flared in my heart causing my blood to flow a little faster and making the world spin out of perspective. The world was small, and I was big. So big! Ha! This is the way it was meant to be. a woman ought to submit before her man. Even if it takes tears to do it.
The reason for her tears was
TAYO
really simple actually. I remember it vividly. It was about five months after we had started dating. Umar had just moved out of his parents’ home and I had just moved in with him. The apartment was a two bedroom luxury, with a lovely sitting room and a well equipped kitchen. There was a little room to the left of the sitting room with a washing machine, the laundry room. I remember that apartment vividly, it was the first time I had ever lived with a man that was not my late father. When we went shopping for furniture, Umar had turned down every choice I made. I remember a beautiful sitting room set that I pointed out , at least I thought it was beautiful until Umar pointed out the fact that it was imitation leather. He said I had the fashion sense of a dog and that I am useless without him. How true that is.
I was on leave the month we moved into the apartment, so I had time to really clean up. The house was so clean you could even eat off the floor of the bathroom… you know… if… that is… you know… your thing. I prepared egusi and pounded yam for Umar and then went upstairs to have another bath.
When Umar got home, I was curled up in a chair reading a novel.
“Oh! Hi honey”, I said, getting up to hug him, but he was on the phone and he turned back to close the door. I went into the kitchen to warm his food and set it out. By the time he made it to the dining table, there was a steaming dish on the table. He kissed me on the forehead and sat down to eat. One taste was all it took. The food was all over the walls, the plates had become shattered fragments of a wasted day, and Umar… Umar looked like he was about to burst.
“I have never tasted such rubbish in my life”, he roared, “Yes, rubbish”, he reiterated when he saw me cringe away from the word. “I am sure that the food in the rubbish cans outside tastes better than this trash! Who taught you how to cook? Or did you just wake up in the morning and decide that you knew what to do with the pots and pans? You waste of woman! I mean, I understand that you are fat and ugly! I mean I’ve survived that these past months, but to add to the assault of my essence, the sloth can’t cook!” then he spat in my face. All this time I had stood woodenly, facing him with my head bowed. My late mother had been a fabulous cook, and she had taught me how to cook, so, naturally, I had assumed that my cooking was good too. I was grateful to Umar for disabusing me of this notion, but I also wished that he had done it a bit more gently. But to voice this out was to risk Umar’s fury, and further upbraiding. When he called me a sloth, I looked up so that his spittle entered straight into my right eye. That was all it took! I began to cry. Loud wailing sobs that I am sure the neighbours could hear. He took me by my shoulders and shook me, “Shut up you great fool! Why are you crying? I told you the truth. If you don’t want me to tell you the truth with my fists you will reduce the pitch, tempo and volume of those tears. What do the tears do? Will they teach you to be a better cook? Come on will you stop that noise?” At the last command he raised his hand as though he was going to hit me. that action stunned me into silence for Umar had never raised a hand against me before this time. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he yelled a lot, but that was only to correct me. I mean, I made him so angry sometimes, but to hit me? Who was this man standing before me, gripping my shoulder so hard that I knew that spot was going to hurt till Wednesday? Who was this monster with its hand raised to hit me?
For the first time since I met this handsome man, I felt the first stirrings of fear in my stomach. The next second the hand dropped and the one gripping my shoulder fell to my waist as he pulled me in for a quick embrace. “What would you do without me dummy?” he asked affectionately as I hugged him back fiercely. The fear had dropped out of sight as soon as the hand had dropped. As I turned away to fetch a broom and rags to clean up the mess, he asked me one final question, “You know you’re nothing without me, right?”
TODAY
TAYO
I jerked awake and realized that I had been dreaming about my past with Umar. I was drenched in sweat and the fear that pervaded my heart actually caused it to stop beating for a while. I was depressed and filled with hate. I wanted to lash out, I had to destroy something. I was filled with rage, I wanted to make the whole world feel the way I had felt for so long. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to kill, I wanted to heal. I ended up sleeping. I had a funny dream that night, I was a little girl again and I was sitting on my grandmother’s laps. Grandma was telling me another story and I was listening intently. I cannot remember now what the story was about, but the end of the story will forever be with me. Grandma turned me around and said softly, “But he said that vagrants put you in the hospital. That can’t be right, Tayo. Your husband beat you up hard enough to puncture your lungs. As though that were not bad enough, he lied to the doctors about how you got into that condition. He said thieves put you in the hospital. What thieves? The one thief that refused to steal a thing from your house? The one that did not have to break into the house?” She snorted in disgust and said, holding my chin tight and looking me dead in the eye, “Love is not supposed to hurt. Do you remember me telling your mother that? Love does not hurt, instead it heals and strengthens and makes whole. Do you hear me child? Love is not hateful! Do you hear me child? Do you hear me? Do you…”
“…hear me?”, the hand shaking me awake was very small. I woke up, groggy from my drug induced dream, already forgetting the first half of it. Disoriented, I looked at the tiny hand shaking me awake, trying to figure out why the doctors hand was so small. Bit by bit, I began to get my bearing and I realized that a child was shaking me awake, even as I reached that realization, the absurdity of it hit me. I turned my head to look into the grinning face of a cute little girl. She had to be ten if she was older than eight, trying to smile in reply, I said, “Hello, how did you get here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” came the prompt reply, “So I took a walk from the children’s section. I was passing your room when I heard you talk and sleep”
Her choice of words moved me to laughter, that is, until the pain in my side reminded me how dangerous laughing could be. “So while I was talking and sleeping what did I say?”
She frowned as she said, “ ‘Love does not hurt?’ That’s what you kept saying. What does hurt mean?”
“Pain”, I said absently, thinking about my dream.
“Oh!” she said thoughtfully, “Pain is bad, love is good, so love does not pain.” She smiled brightly again.
“What do you know about pain?” I smiled back at her.
“Aunty, I’m tired can I lie down with you?”
“Of course darling.” I moved a little so she would have space to lie down. Laughing a little I told her to make sure she doesn’t kick or move about as my whole body was aching.
UMAR
I could not sleep! I kept asking myself what games Tayo was trying to play, this was all wrong, where was the little kitten that I could toss around at will? I knew she was still there because she had been willing to listen to me at first. What had come over her, and, more importantly, how was I to regain control over my wife. Then I got angry, who did she think she was, playing these games with me? Am I not the man in my house anymore. If she were here, I would teach her a lesson or two about the person who is really in control in this house. After a while, fear came calling again. I hope Tayo did not tell them what really happened.
The rate the thoughts were running through my mind meant that sleep was surely not far off so when I dozed off I was not surprised. What surprised me was the succession of dreams which I was subjected to. In all of them, Tayo was superior to me in some form or the other. In the first one she was my boss and she was in the process of firing me when the dream dissolved into another where she was a queen and I was a lowly subject being dragged off by her guards. On and on the dreams washed over my subconscious and even though deep down I knew I was dreaming, I could not help the feeling of worthlessness that washed over me. My idiot wife had managed to emasculate me even in my sleep.
I woke up the next morning in a bad mood and drove down to the hospital without taking a bath. I meant to have her cooperation if it was the last thing I did…
