Lola Shoneyin - The Secret Lives of Baba Segis Wives: A Novel

W HEN B ABA S EGI AWOKE with a bellyache for the sixth day in a row, he knew it was time to do something drastic about his fourth wifes childlessness. He was sure the pain wasnt caused by hunger or trapped gas; it was from the buildup of months and months of worry. A grunt escaped from the woman lying next to him. He glanced sideways and saw that his leg had stapled Iya Tope, his second wife, to the bed. He observed the jerky rise and fall of her bosom but he didnt move to ease her discomfort. His thoughts returned to Bolanle and his stomach tightened again. Then and there, he decided to pay Teacher a visit. He would get there at sunrise so Teacher would know it was no ordinary stopover.

As soon as his driver parked the pickup truck by the gutter that circled Ayikara, Baba Segi flung open the passenger door and reinflated his large frame. Without a word or a backward glance at his driver, he dashed down a narrow alleyway. If his eyes hadnt been entirely fixed on Teachers shack, he might have noticed that his driver had scrambled after him. Baba Segi stepped aside to make room for the schoolchildren on their daily pilgrimage. These children went to great pains to bid Teacher good morning, just to see him steam up the louvers with his response. God mourning, the smoky-eyed sage hummed. The children waved happily and toddled off to school. Baba Segi shook his head. If their parents ever discovered that they had strayed from the dusty road that led to wisdom, stepped wide-legged over spluttering gutters and shifted between random buildings, those children would be in grave trouble. Teachers shack was in Ayikara and Ayikara was not a place for children.

It wasnt a specific place but when you asked for directions, people looked away from their twirling wrists. There were three reasons for this. First, absolutely no one wanted to admit to knowing where it was, in case their neighbors were listening. Second, Ayikara didnt have distinct boundaries. Last, Ayikara was more than four or five parallel streets laced by lasciviousness: it was a spirit. The dark buildings were full of women whose faces glowed under ultraviolet lights. These women lived for other womens men. They cooked for them. Drank with them. Fought over them. Fucked them. Nursed them. Slapped them and loved them. And when the longing love caused made them ill, they surrendered their lives and died for them.

Teachers shack, with its shiny glass windows and gleaming shot glasses, was sandwiched between two brothels. Mostly, the skimpily dressed women brought their clients to drink of the shack-made whiskey, but on certain days they would get to the doorway and retrace their steps. These were the days when men glared at them through squinted eyesthe days that men came to meet men, to talk about women and the evil that they did.

These meetings were not prearranged; they just happened when two or three men were gathered. They started with one man lamenting his travails with a quarrelsome wife. And as more men ducked through the door frame, solutions were proffered: what worked wonders; what didnt work; what was worth trying; and what, if the man concerned wasnt careful, would eventually kill him.

Every man had his say but Teacher always had the last word. He was impressive; there was no doubt about it. Even as the men sat curling at the ears from the heat, enveloped by the miasma of both human and animal waste, Teacher would busy himself with his windows without breaking a bead of sweat. Gradually his eyes would smoke up and become teary. Only then would he speak, and only in the Queens English.

Baba Segi was first warned about Ayikara when he was a young apprentice but the cautioner was female and unconvincing. Besides, he had just moved to Ibadan and his innocence had become a burden, the very kind Ayikara women helped to relieve. Four wives and seven children on, hed grown weary of the stench and his visits had dwindled to once or twice a month. Still, these men had helped him through his darkest days.

Sixteen years before, when he was an impatient twenty-six-year-old husband, Baba Segi had sat with Teacher and two other men to discuss a predicament that was similar to the one he was in now. He had been eager for his sick mother to see the fruit of his loins but his wifes menstruation persisted. Teacher had suggested that he visit an herbalist and Iya Segi had lapped up the dark green powder her husband sprinkled on her palm. The medicine worked swiftly. Baba Segi cried with both grief and gladness at his mothers burial, six weeks after the birth of his daughter Segi.

T HE DOOR OF THE SHACK stood ajar so Baba Segi entered the small room. He frowned. It annoyed him that Bolanle was the reason he had come, when just two years before, he had boasted of his conquest: how Bolanle was tight as a bottleneck; how he pounded her until she was cross-eyed; and how she took the length of his manhood on her backsplayed out and submissive. He didnt quite know how he would tell the men that all his pounding had proved futile.

Inside the shack, Baba Segi was confronted with the same men who had pumped his hand when he first announced his intentions to marry Bolanle. They were talking to Teacher at a table by the window so Baba Segi dragged a stool over and joined them. They asked him what had brought him there so early in the morning and he told them of the agony that Bolanles barrenness caused him. Teacher closed his eyes and shook his head while Olaopa, whose lips were perpetually browned from kola nut, let out a long breath. Although he also had four wives, he couldnt help remembering how the educated wife affair had overshadowed his own libidinal feats. None of his wives knew which end of a pencil to set to paper.

Baba Segi, I think you should drag her to a medicine man if she doesnt follow you. You are the husband and she is a mere wife, and the fourth one at that! If you drag her by the hair, shell follow you anywhere, I swear it! Atanda licked his forefinger and pointed it in the direction of his maker. Even as he pinched a half-smoked stick of Captain Black from a tattered snuffbox, the expression on his face was unforgiving.

Atanda! You want to land Baba Segi in jail? Who would dare to drag a graduate ? When she opens her mouth and English begins to pour from it like heated palm oil, the constable will be so captivated, he will throw our friend behind bars! Olaopa was a retired police sergeant and he knew, more than anyone else, that domestic violence was widely perceived as a waste of police resources.

You are quite right, Olaopa. Baba Segi saw right through him. Besides, these educated types were fed on cows milk. We, as you know, didnt have that luxury. We suckled our mothers breasts. If I lift my hand to her, the next thing I know, I could be conversing with Eledumare. No, we must never manhandle our women. Especially not someone like you, Olaopa, slight as you are.

More men had ducked through the low door frame into the crowded room. Everyone chuckled.

Yes, but whose wifes belly is as flat as a paupers footstool? I may be slight but I get the job done. Olaopa was a sore loser.

Thank you for returning our mouths to the matter at hand, my friend. Baba Segi thrust the back of his head in Olaopas direction and turned to the other men present. They stared back at him with sympathy in their eyes. An old night guard scratched away at the print on his T-shirt. It said 2001 IS MY YEAR OF INCREASE .

Why are you running skelter-helter, Baba Segi? Teachers voice rang through the silence. The sunlight ripped through the torn mosquito net, hit a glass and shone a halo on the wall near his head. You are running from post to pillar when the answer is there in front of your face. Since the woman is educated, she will only listen to people from the world she knows. The place to take her is the hospital.