Peace Adzo Medie - His Only Wife

His
Only
Wife

a novel by

Peace Adzo Medie

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL 2020

Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

2020 by Peace Adzo Medie.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009732 ]

eISBN: 978-1-64375-111-5

For my grandmother,
Madam Juliana Mansa Tsekumah

Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding. The ceremony was held on the third Saturday in January in the rectangular courtyard of my Uncle Piouss house, which was bordered by two-roomed apartments and a wooden gate that opened onto a busy footpath. Our relatives, stirring with equal measures of happiness, but for different reasons, sat opposite one another on rented plastic chairs that were neatly arranged in rows that filled the courtyard. The partly walled kitchen had been scrubbed and cleared of the cast-iron coal pots, on which my uncles wives prepared the evening meal, and of the enamel basins that they used for washing and storing dishes. My uncles sitting-room chairs, upholstered with a carpet-like fabric and polished so that the chocolate-brown wooden frames glistened, were also brought outdoors and comprised the front row where the elders of each family would sit.

Before the guests arrived, my Uncle Pious, who was my tg, my late fathers oldest brother, deposited his bulk into a chair, beaming, as though he was the one to be married. He was flanked by his two younger brothers, my uncles Bright and Excellent. Tg Piouss chiseled face, with bushy eyebrows that grew in every direction, did not match his soft body. His smile resembled a grimace. That morning as he sat in his itchy armchair, his blue kente cloth had come loose, slid down his arm, and pooled around the elastic waistband of his culottes so that his fleshy chest was on display. He didnt bother to pull the cloth back up. Other uncles and older male cousins, about fifteen of them, shoulders high with unearned authority, settled into three rows of plastic chairs behind Tg Pious. They all longed to be in his position so much that they had begun to imitate him. They copied his guffaw, which was usually accompanied by several thigh slaps and followed by a loud, drawn out, woooohoooo; they snapped their fingers like him when they wanted attention, and when that didnt work, they whistled. Today, they were ready to support him in executing his head-of-family duties, as though he would need help in stretching out his hands to receive the bottles of schnapps, cash-stuffed envelopes, and gaily wrapped parcels that my soon-to-be in-laws would present. The youngest and most inconsequential among the cousins would, of course, be displaced by my older aunties when the ceremony began.

But for now, most of the women were in my grand-aunts house, which sat opposite Tg Piouss. They were bustling around in her roofless kitchen, preparing the food that would be served after the ceremony. When I had visited earlier, there had been okro soup, reddened with palm oil, bubbling in a cavernous pot on a clay stove. My fathers sister, Sylvia, who lived in Togo and only visited on special occasions, shoved several twigs into the clay stove to turn up the heat and then scooted away with a yelp when sparks began to fly. The sparks still dotted the air when someone broke out in song, which the others picked up and sang, repeating verses until the soup began to boil over into the wood fire, the smoke sending everyone into a coughing fit. Despite the smoke, the air in the kitchen was thick with the aroma of spices and herbs that tickled my nose. The women shooed me out of the kitchen when I began to sneeze repeatedly, and I reluctantly returned to Tg Piouss house where the others were also hard at work.

A few of them meandered among the chairs, their hands heavy with branded handkerchiefs, bottle openers, mugs, and picture frames that had been stuffed into small, multicolored gift bags and were being lined up on a table draped in a white tablecloth. These were gifts intended as souvenirs for the wedding guests. My mother had selected Nancy, my ferocious cousin who had just completed secondary school, to oversee the souvenirs table. She could be trusted to drive away those guests who would tuck their gift bags into the folds of their cloths and come back for second, third, or even fourth helpings. It was also especially good that she could control the children who were always underfoot, no matter how many times they were shooed away.

I watched Nancy through the black window bars of Tg Piouss sitting room, her face a frown of concentration, as she carefully counted each colorful bag that was placed on the table. Id never seen her so focused on anything, but then, this was the first time that something of this magnitude had happened to us. Mawusi, one of Tg Piouss daughters and the cousin to whom I was closest, strode out of the bedroom and began dabbing my face. My eyelids fluttered closed as the white handkerchief, which she wielded like a surgical tool, migrated from the bridge of my nose to my forehead. It was immediately replaced by a sponge from a compact that she had fished out of a small rhinestone-encrusted clutch tucked into her armpit.

Its enough, I said in protest as she lightly brushed my checks. This was the fifth time that she had touched up my makeup in the last hour. I couldnt have been sweating that much; I wasnt nervous, not then anyway. I was mostly weary. Since my mother told me that I would be marrying Eli, I had felt as though I was balancing our two families like a basin of water, which was full to the brim, on my head. It wasnt easy being the key to other peoples happiness, their victory, and their vindication. I desperately wanted the wedding to be over because then I would have done my part. Or, rather, I would have begun to do my part.

Ah, its okay, youre only adding to my stress with all this makeup, I protested when Mawusis hand and the makeup sponge continued to hover in my face.

Stress? Havent I told you to relax? Theres nothing to be stressed about. You should be happy and smiling. She was glaring at a small pimple on my chin as she spoke.

You make everything sound so simple. I barely know the man. And what if things dont work out, what if this marriage doesnt make him leave the woman, what if it doesnt bring him closer to his family, what if I let everyone down? His family? My mother? This whole town? I couldnt sleep last night just thinking about this, I said in a whisper, because we werent alone.

Everybody says hes a good man so theres no need to be afraid.

I sighed heavily, not caring that she was standing so close that I was exhaling into her face. My cousin was obviously too overcome with excitement to have a proper conversation. In fact, it was as if she wasnt even listening to me. As soon as she freed me, I lowered myself onto a coffee table to give some relief to my feet, which were crammed into cream, pointed-toe pencil heels.