The Bride
When he comes I let him, when he calls I follow without question or thought
It is the way of things
These small acts, my acquiescence they are the bricks of me
Who I am with my people, to others, how I am perceived my standing, the respect endowed on me through what we have, through him.
He calls me I answer when he angers me I raise not my voice, I swallow the heat within me down to my belly and feel it travel inside me. My eyes dry and hot, I lower them, with my voice as balm I soothe his ego until he calms or storms away.
She came to visit his cousin the wild one, almost forty and not married. Wild and childless, without standing without a man, loud, brash, upsetting, she speaks like a man, carries herself in that ugly manly way. She is my husband’s cousin, his older sister and I but his wife.
I but his wife! She is here for the wedding for little Maimu to Hassan, Maimu was an orphan her mother died at her birth, her father had many children but not enough wives. His cousin, her mother’s sister took her and raised her for Hassan, her son. She is twenty and one and he has sowed oats. The time has come for Maimu to fulfil the contract to her mother aunt.
The wives all gather by age, length of marriage and husbands’ status to delegate the wedding work.
Times like this I love, I sit by the edge of a group picking stones from rice half listening to the latest gossip or scolding all family politic. My mind may wander anyway it pleases I am here but not here.
Who are those who must go to the market? Hajia Ladi collect your group the market does not wait, the bride’s trousseau is incomplete, as are the pots, pans and cloth owed by the bride to the groom’s family. Collect yourselves the market ends with day.
We usher ourselves like livestock into the minivan I am squashed to the window with the flurry of scarves and wrappers. Rahila is at the wheel, God save us! Where is the driver I shout out looking at my sister wife always an ally she carries the baton, Rahila God save us you will not drive, where is the driver! Where is the driver? Slowly like sheep we bray together. Rahila ignores us, the engines roars, the tyres squeal and we all hold on to what we can.
Rahila is daughter of the house, her father though not the first born is close enough in wealth and status. She has 9 before her and 11 after. She is loud and brave and crazy. I sometimes wonder how this family, so strict on order and place have let their daughters go untamed and bossy. You know she is the husband of her husband my sister wife reminds me. I smile and nod in the style of a perfect wife.
My sister wife loves me for I have no children and she has 5. Five children and 6 daughters her place in our husband’s family secured. She has no qualms having her children sleep over in my rooms. In her heart she believes the noise of her brood is good for me. 11 variations of my husband all demanding and opinionated like their father and mother. I have no use for the gifts she gives me, encouraging me to spend more time with him least he brings another. My place is here what does it matter if he brings another, younger and lighter.
He has never a quarrel with me, when he calls I answer, what he requests I give it is not unpleasant. My husband is a pleasant man.
It is the way of things
These small acts, my acquiescence they are the bricks of me
Who I am with my people, to others, how I am perceived my standing, the respect endowed on me through what we have, through him.
He calls me I answer when he angers me I raise not my voice, I swallow the heat within me down to my belly and feel it travel inside me. My eyes dry and hot, I lower them, with my voice as balm I soothe his ego until he calms or storms away.
She came to visit his cousin the wild one, almost forty and not married. Wild and childless, without standing without a man, loud, brash, upsetting, she speaks like a man, carries herself in that ugly manly way. She is my husband’s cousin, his older sister and I but his wife.
I but his wife! She is here for the wedding for little Maimu to Hassan, Maimu was an orphan her mother died at her birth, her father had many children but not enough wives. His cousin, her mother’s sister took her and raised her for Hassan, her son. She is twenty and one and he has sowed oats. The time has come for Maimu to fulfil the contract to her mother aunt.
The wives all gather by age, length of marriage and husbands’ status to delegate the wedding work.
Times like this I love, I sit by the edge of a group picking stones from rice half listening to the latest gossip or scolding all family politic. My mind may wander anyway it pleases I am here but not here.
Who are those who must go to the market? Hajia Ladi collect your group the market does not wait, the bride’s trousseau is incomplete, as are the pots, pans and cloth owed by the bride to the groom’s family. Collect yourselves the market ends with day.
We usher ourselves like livestock into the minivan I am squashed to the window with the flurry of scarves and wrappers. Rahila is at the wheel, God save us! Where is the driver I shout out looking at my sister wife always an ally she carries the baton, Rahila God save us you will not drive, where is the driver! Where is the driver? Slowly like sheep we bray together. Rahila ignores us, the engines roars, the tyres squeal and we all hold on to what we can.
Rahila is daughter of the house, her father though not the first born is close enough in wealth and status. She has 9 before her and 11 after. She is loud and brave and crazy. I sometimes wonder how this family, so strict on order and place have let their daughters go untamed and bossy. You know she is the husband of her husband my sister wife reminds me. I smile and nod in the style of a perfect wife.
My sister wife loves me for I have no children and she has 5. Five children and 6 daughters her place in our husband’s family secured. She has no qualms having her children sleep over in my rooms. In her heart she believes the noise of her brood is good for me. 11 variations of my husband all demanding and opinionated like their father and mother. I have no use for the gifts she gives me, encouraging me to spend more time with him least he brings another. My place is here what does it matter if he brings another, younger and lighter.
He has never a quarrel with me, when he calls I answer, what he requests I give it is not unpleasant. My husband is a pleasant man.
My husband is a pleasant man, a pleasant man with pleasant ways. Let me get that for you a cousin’s friend smiles at me. The cousins and their friends swarm the market in their hordes.
What pretty manners, my sister wife whispers loudly for all to hear. Nothing like our girls, so demure, so nice, such a pleasant smile the last thought I had as the market enveloped us in its noise and chaos.
Chaos! The wedding week was cheers and noise, with mischief and colour, pride and envy, drama with the main players jostling to hog the light. Away from the men the bride and her friends danced, the bride and her siblings danced, the bride and her mothers, aunts and great aunts danced. Frenzied dance, elated dance, relief dance, merriment and food ever where, come and dance with us pulling me up to my feet, no I just want to watch.
No, you must dance, dance with us, dance a little. Holding hands we laughed together, we must look so silly women of all ages dancing like crazed toddlers, the only male around were the children hyped on excitements. Stamping feet, screeching joy
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