“I saw him with my two kolo-kolo eyes”, a feminine voice, whose voice seemed thirsty to let out all the gossip contents it knew in one gossip session, narrated from the other end of the phoneline. Nnenna listened, still trying not believe what she was hearing. It was Nkechi, a friend of hers, who called. Nnenna was not so fond with associating the word “friend” with Nkechi. Sometimes, she felt she was a stranger who called and visited her only to lay out contents of her gossip. Once, Nkechi had to follow a complete stranger to her home in a bus going from Nteje to Onitsha, when she heard the woman narrating to the other that sat beside her, her experience dating a married man. That night, as Nkechi began to re-narrate the story to Nnenna, Nnenna at some point busted out all sort of insults, because she did not understand why a woman in her mid-thirties would not mind her business, and for displaying the height of her foolishness by following the two women down to the last bus stop.  Nkechi ended the call, owing to anger, murmuring something about Nnenna not being a “real woman” – for it was in their gene to love gossip.

              She was now scratching her thigh – something she did each time she heard bad news, so hard, as though a bed bug had bitten her. She wasn’t listening to Nkechi anymore, she had heard enough, and she sensed that Nkechi knew. Her mind lost connection with the discussion she was having at that moment, she was taken to another land, one filled with a lot of sweet memories she had been creating with her husband, Ikemma. She wished she could go back. She was awakened by the metallic voice on the line, “your account balance is low, please load a recharge card to continue your call. Thank you”. She didn’t seem to care. She simply heaved a sigh, one she would use as a sort of emblem to remember that day, one she would first recount the first time she wishes to tell the story.

              How would Ikemma do such a thing, why would he consider me as nothing. She had sensed something was wrong from the time Ikemma began giving her some show of attitude. He would keep mute to certain remarks she made, like I love your scent or I love the dress your wearing, unlike before when he would pull her closer to himself and say a lot of beautiful things about her. She became really concerned the night when Ikemma chose to work all through the night over sleeping with her on bed for few hours. Nnenna called Nkechi the next day, narrating to her what had occurred the night before. She wasn’t ready to hear anything negative, she wanted someone to console her, to simply tell her that all was well – probably he was stressed. Nkechi, after listening to the distressed and sorrow-like story of Nnenna, simply laughed – which made Nnenna a bit jumpy, and made her remember the different dramas she watched on African Magic, about evil spirits who laughed at the burdens of humans. She made it clear to her that her “dear husband” had a mistress.

              Nnenna stood up from the couch steadily, as though she would fall. She dipped her phone in her pocket as she casually went towards the wall where a painting of a woman holding a child was hung. She carefully ran her hands across the painting, its sensation was rough, though it looked smooth from afar. The carpet she stood on felt feathery that in a brief moment, she felt like lying on it. she sighed as she ran her had continuously over the painting. It was funny sometimes to watch Chinedu, her only child, flee away from the image at seeing it in the dark, which looked surreal when clouded by darkness – like an aggressive mother trying to strangle her child.

              She tried to distract the thoughts of what Ikemma had done or has been doing at her back by picking up frames, vases, and cushion pillows in the living room and placing them down just immediately. She walked steadily towards her room, their room. The thought of what to do to Ikemma immediately came to her, it clung to her as the clouds kiss the sky, she often wondered as a child why the sky did that. The thoughts became heavy on her. Go and fight with his mistress and break her head with a heavy stone; put a whole bottle of insecticide in his next meal, he will never know. The thoughts kept on coming. She became afraid. She had heard stories of women who found out that their husbands had mistresses, and the horrible things they did, and how they ended up. She didn’t want to be like them, she didn’t want her emotions to be dictated by a stupid man’s action, yes, she now considered Ikemma to be stupid. She chuckled a bit by her new courage. She went towards her trunk, the only thing that reminded her of her late mother. It was one of the things as child that bewildered her: the reason her Mama called it Akpati, the reason why her Mama kept the things that where dearest to her in it, the reason why she gave Chukwuneke, her junior brother a permanent scar by whipping him hard with the palm frond they used in sweeping their compound back in the village because he broke the trunk’s key. It was the only “obsolete thing”, as Ikemma would, say that was in their apartment. She opened the trunk. It made a squeaky sound, gotten from its use by past centuries, as it revealed what was within. There, old photographs of her wedding laid. She picked up one, the size of the small pamphlet she was given in church two Sundays ago. The photograph showed the picture of Ikemma and herself in their wedding outfits: Ikemma in his tieless or bowless suit, looking all rangy; she, in her snow-white wedding dress with a veil that masked her face. She remembered that day, the day she was so happy to have now belonged to the association of WOMEN WHO HAVE RICH HUSBANDS THAT LIVE IN THE CITY. She gleamed then, not only over the thought of her successful marriage, but on over the thought of when she would get a car. Now, Ikemma happened to have inaugurated her into the association of WOMEN WHO MARRIED RICH HUSBANDS THAT CHEAT ON THEM. She sighed again.

              Her phone began to ring again. It made a buzzy sound down there on her laps. She quickly slipped it out. It was Nkechi who was calling. Nnenna picked the call about to layout her apologies, even though they were not sincere, for not calling back, before Nkechi began to narrate in that rage-triumph tone of hers; of how she approached Ikemma and his mistress when they returned, of how she dragged his mistress out of his car, of how she tore the mistress’s tight dress, of how she wooed her and called her an Ashawo, of how Ikemma tried to separate them, of how bystanders hailed her when she left the scene. Nnenna laughed. She was so happy that at least someone gave the woman a piece of her tongue. She could reimagine the scene: Ikemma, standing there looking helpless. She thanked Nkechi, praising her with her praise name, and simultaneously begging her not to show up in that place again.

              It was 2:15pm. Chinedu would be home soon. She quickly closed the Akpati. She thought of what to give Chinedu when he returns, and of how to act in pretence of not knowing what Nkechi had done or to pretend not to know of Ikemma’s mistress when he returns.

 

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