bent.  As if by looking down at the red earth somehow the world would forget her sorrows; or better still change everything, and make everything good again.  What ever good was, for she had not known a good life, for so long; that it seemed as a reverie, an unattainable goal.

Or erstwhile a good life was a goal to be reached, by others, but never by her.

  The skirt rode up over her mid section as she walked and she pulled the skirt down yet again.

Dinnertime in Asata:

The evening had arrived suddenly while they were on their way home by bus.

 One moment, it was light and within the span of minutes the sun was setting over the Milliken hills which were standing tall and dark in the distance.  

 With the setting of the sun a nice cool breeze wafted in through the bus window; a welcome relief to all, after the stifling heat of the day.

 Comfort was in a good mood.  She had had a comparatively good day at her stall where she sold Ankara cloths.

 Business life had its ups and downs.  Christmas and Easter were the two boom periods, and in between there were a sprinkling of customers, which could be more irregular than regular.  Nevertheless, she was grateful to her dear husband for having set her up in business; as for the most part she could cover the school fees and incidental expenses from her business.

  Mrs. Eugenia’s mood had experienced no elevation whatsoever.  As the day had worn on, her depression had deepened even more.  More, and more, the gravity of her situation had become clearer to her.  To think, that she had given up so easily after so long tolerating the situation.   But then now it was too late, and nothing could change the present situation.

By the time they arrived at Comfort’s home it was pitch black.  From the main road there was no further lighting on the side street as they made their way down the unpaved road.  They progressed carefully, avoiding gutters that served as sewage drainage and jumping over gully’s left over from the rains, which had unrelentingly marked long and deep grooves down the hills.

 Within the house all were already seated at the table with Moses at the head and were eating garri with egusi soup from their individual plastic bowls.

 “Ndewo.” they greeted them. Moses stood up and welcomed his wife and her sister.

“Mrs. Eugenia, it is always a pleasure to see you.” He said hesitatingly, not knowing what really to say in the present situation.

“Dalu”, Mrs. Eugenia said. “Thank you Moses for your hospitality”.

“No need to say more right now,” he politely said motioning to the large audience at the table. He continued:

 “Don’t worry, Mrs. Eugenia we will discuss all this in private later.  Now is the time to eat.”

Mrs. Eugenia was grateful for this little respite, she waved at her nieces and nephews who sat at table and they waved back. “Good evening ma” they said in unison.

“Good evening children.  I hope you are all doing well and studying hard. How was school today?”

“Yes ma.” They responded in between mouthfuls, but they seemed more intent on eating at this time rather than discussing the progress of their studies.

Comfort sat down with Mrs. Eugenia by her side, and they served themselves of the steaming pot of egusi soup.

 Everyone got one small piece of meat of the well cooked soup.

 “Mmm, Comfort, this soup is nice today.  I think if ever you decide you are tired of running a cloth shop you might want to try a restaurant business.” Mrs. Eugenia said in all earnest.

Comfort laughed.

“Sister that is the last thing I want to do. Although, I do love cooking very much, but the thought of cooking day in and day out, I think would change my mind about it.  Right now I cook for pleasure. I do catering on the side; I have started cooking for weddings and for big parties.”

“You know I had no idea of that.” Her sister answered.

“Well, it is not long since I started it with some friends of mine.” She replied. “We do it on weekends when the market is slow, we contract out; and it is quite nice really because we go where the party is. We bring our big pots, and cook on firewood in the backyard.  But I have never thought that it could be my full time occupation.”

“I myself was hoping to start a cake business but I never got any customers you know, so that put an end to it.  But I bake for pleasure too or if any of my friends are having a party I can provide a cake for the occasion.” Mrs. Eugenia said, not altogether unselfishly; who knows, she thought, she might have to start contracting herself out to bake cakes to make ends meet.

At the end of the meal Comfort arose to put away the cups and plates which were to be washed in the back yard.

 The children were put to bed on their sleeping mats, and Mrs. Eugenia herself who had been up the whole previous night fell asleep on her own mat before she could relate to Moses her plight.

  Once all the lights were out muffled whisperings could be heard coming from the single bed in the room which was for the master and mistress of the house, as Comfort explained how her sister had left with all her load and that tomorrow she would be gone to the house of Mrs. Chijioke the widow.

 The newly wed Henrietta and Christian:

The day that Mrs. Eugenia unceremoniously moved out of her marital abode, without any further to do, Mr. Christian took the day off from work, and drove directly to the school where Henrietta was a teacher. Filled with excitement he could not contain himself, and he called her out from the staff room to tell her the good news.

“She moved!” He exclaimed excitedly. And he took her by the arm and brushed his hand over her pregnant belly.

“This very morning I woke up to find that she had packed all of her things; this is the day that we have waited for...”

“I told you Christian a long time ago, to tell her to go; and I cannot for the life of me believe that you never said this to her earlier.”

 Christian shrugged his shoulders in response.

“I thought that I would wait her out, but you can see we have waited a long time.”

To have described Henrietta as beautiful would have been an understatement.  She was above average height for a woman, and she had long slim legs.  Her face was oval and her eyes were large and always lined with a thick black liner which she also used to accentuate her eyebrows.  From the side she could have passed for an image of Cleopatra. She was fair skinned and her eyes were a hazel color.   Her hair which  was a nice brown color was always relaxed; and unlike many less fortunate than herself, her hair thrived despite the harsh chemicals this entailed and was long and thick.   Needless to say, her beauty was obvious, and it was this that had initially attracted Christian to her. However, it was in actuality her ease of manner and lightheartedness which had robbed his soul.  His wife was all boring duty and business.  For the most part she made him feel unnerved and took everything so seriously with no time for laughter.  With Henrietta his soul felt free and at ease.  It was only after he had been with Henrietta that he had understood what love really was; and he had felt like a fool for thinking that his feelings for his wife had once been love. 

As for Henrietta, indeed, if not for her undying passion for Christian, she could  probably have done very well for herself, and have married much earlier and much better.  She was a romantic of sorts, and against her families’ wishes, and even her own good sense, she had held onto Christian and the love they had for each other.  She had consoled herself with the fact that after all a marriage certificate is just a paper, and here she had Christian in her arms every night. So what difference did it make if she had the marriage certificate or not?  Moreover, since she had fears about her ability to conceive a child with her lover, she was even less likely to attempt to pursue another relationship. (There were many selfish reasons as well as unselfish ones keeping the relationship in check.)  As such, with the advent of her much longed for pregnancy, it seemed that fate had finally given the relationship its blessings, or at least condoned it.

A traditional wedding in Onitsha:

Henrietta’s family lived in Onitsha in a small bungalow in the G.R.A. Although they had lived in the town of Onitsha their whole lives, they were not really indigenes of Onitsha.  The family actually hailed from Owerri.  Due to the general insecurity in the east, it had been determined that the risks associated with a traditional wedding in Owerri were too high; and as such it was decided that the traditional ceremony should be much abbreviated and modified to be held in town.

 The town of Owerri had been the epicenter of many kidnap dramas, and not wanting to tempt fate, the patriarch Mr. Henry Okeke had decided to hold the wedding in town.  Mr. Henry Okeke was a wealthy trader in Onitsha, and had the means to secure the services of several armed guards who could be seen roaming the premises with their AK 47’s ready.  The security was tight, and the gate to the compound was kept closed. All the guests were rigorously checked against a guest list kept at the gate house before they could be admitted.  Overall, Mr. Okeke was not displeased at the wedding; on the contrary he was much relieved that his eldest daughter from his first wife was finally going to get married at the ripe age of 34 years.  Hypocritically enough he probably would have preferred for her to have been the only wife of Christian; but in this case he felt that as beggars, they could not really be choosers.  The cause of their beggarliness was multifold; for the first part, Henrietta was in years far beyond the marrying age for most people in their circles.  Secondly, her affair with Christian had been well publicized, all over Enugu and Onitsha, that no single man, even should he have found her desirable, would have dared to approach her.  Moreover, to make matters worse, it was not as if the girl was socially out there meeting people; unless, of course, Christian was with her.  In effect, she had been as a wife in all but name. 

Mrs. Clementina Okeke, the first wife of Henry, and the mother of Henrietta, was busy on the occasion.  She had arranged for the caterers, and was seeing to the arrangement of the chairs in the courtyard so as to allow the grooms family to sit on one side, and the bride’s family to sit on the other.  She was slightly out of sorts, as she had hoped for a white wedding; but it seemed as if that was not going to be a possibility, as the Anglican church had out rightly refused to wed a man, who was already married in church, to someone else.  But, she too was no fool when it came to matters of practicality.  It had taken sixteen years to bring Christian to the altar; although, in reality, it was no altar at all, but the courtyard of a bungalow in Onitsha.  The mother remained mystified as to the attraction her daughter had for this man Christian, and she failed totally to see what her daughter found so irresistible in him.  But, then they had long since learnt that Henrietta had a mind of her own, and any attempts on their part to dissuade her from the affair only served to reaffirm her love for him.

The outfits for the wedding had been carefully planned, and the color scheme had been diligently chosen to be a golden tone which so well complemented her daughters bronze skin.  A red head tie was to complement the out fit, and she had given her daughter a set of coral beads to wear on the occasion.  Her pregnancy was still too early to show, and she still looked trim and fit in her wedding regalia.

Christian was excited beyond words and sat in the front row with his people from Awka who were dressed in an Ankara of brown and green. In the presence of his mistress, soon to be wife, he was unrecognizable.  He was gentle, considerate, and soft spoken.  Gone were all the hints of irritation and the surly behavior he had so overtly displayed at home.

 He could be heard laughing gently and talking calmly to his brother beside him, telling him about how relieved he was that Eugenia had finally got the message and left on her own accord. 

His brother had laughed. “That woman!” He had said.  “Mama always wondered how you could have married someone quite so boring.”

Mrs. Christiana Nwafor sat with the women and had a smug look on her face.  She was much relieved that her son had finally had the guts to leave the horrible wife Eugenia whom she could not stand at all.

After the formal introductions and the breaking of the cola nut, libations were poured to the spirits of the ancestors by pouring drink to the ground by the elder in the group from Mr. Henry Okeke’s family. 

Then the haggling for the bride price begun, which was done symbolically with the men carrying pieces of broom stick back and forth trying to set a monetary value on the bride.  In the end the bride price was settled at a paltry sum of 10,000 Naira, and some goats and chickens and yams.  The bride groom also promised that all the girls in the bride’s home town would be sent little combs and mirrors and soap.

 The time came for the handing over of the bride, and Henrietta was brought out and she was carrying in her right hand a cup of palm wine which she was to kneel down and offer the groom if she accepted his hand in marriage. So she came out with her cup and with her following of her cousins and friends.  In her eyes could be seen a sparkling of happiness and on her lips lingered a soft smile as she strode out with the cup in her hand. but for all they looked they could not see Christian anywhere.   A murmuring of anticipation went through the crowd, as she searched row after row for Christian. Nearly giving up, they finally spotted him as having intentionally hidden deep inside the crowd.  The girls proceeded to where he was and she gave him to drink while kneeling down before him, and he drunk from the cup and then he stood up from his chair when she stood up, and in an uncharacteristic fashion he wowed the crowd by going down on his knee, something he was not supposed to do, and then he asked, out loud:

“My dear Henrietta, will you be mine forever?”

A hum of murmuring could be heard from the crowd.

 Finally an old man from the Awka group came over and started trying to pull Christian to his feet.

“Get up, Ogene ne me Gi?  What is wrong with you?  Don’t you know it is the woman who is supposed to kneel with the palm wine and for you to drink and not the other way?”

Christian refused to budge.

“Hapu makam. Obero new times, new ways? I want to publicly declare my love for my wife?”

“My friend don’t be a total fool.  Please get up and stop making a spectacle of your self.” His friends came over and forced him up to his feet.

Nevertheless, this public display of his love became the talk of Enugu, and Onitsha and even Awka.  Christian had inadvertently gone down in history as the first Igbo man who publicly prostrated for a woman at a wine carrying ceremony.

 Mrs. Oby Chijioke returns from her annual trip to Lagos:

 Mrs. Oby Chijioke had just returned from her annual trip to Lagos.  She had barely finished her bucket bath when her maid was knocking on the door.

“Madam! Please can you come to the parlor and see Mrs. Eugenia right away as she says she has an urgent message for you."

Mrs. Oby Chijioke was alarmed. She quickly put on a Boo boo and went as quickly as she could to the parlor. On her arrival she found Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor seated in the Love seat. Her hair was disheveled from the preceding day’s activities and she sat motionless with a dazed gaze looking into space, deep in thought.

 Beside her stood her trunk, suitcase, and carboard box, as telltale signs of her fate.

 Mrs. Oby Chijioke came in, and sensing that something must be very amiss she gently placed her hand on her friends shoulder before saying ever so softly. 

 “Tell me Mrs. Eugenia; is this all your load? What is the matter?"

“Christian has married Henrietta", was the simple reply given.

“I thought as much.” Her friend answered, “Oh dear! I must admit that for long I had suspected that something like that might happen." Her friend continued.

“Yet, Mrs. Oby, you never said this to me or anything even close.”

Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor burst into tears; a flood gate of tears poured down her cheeks, as all the emotions of the last few days finally overcame her.

" Ewo, Ewo me" Ka ngwa gi ! Chukwu na me, chukwu na me" She wailed.

“Why did this happen to me?  When I walked down the aisle I was the happiest bride east of the River Niger!  Then you know, I do not know or understand how or why this happened? But I can tell you for the last sixteen years we have lived under the shadow of Henrietta."

“Now tell me what exactly happened. Was it Christian who asked you to leave?"

“Actually no" She replied, not understanding the apparent relevance that everyone except herself placed upon this little detail.  For all she knew, or cared, the effect was the same, and that was that she was now no longer in her marital home, and in all probablity never would be again.

Then she continued,

 "I moved out without being asked to, when I found out that he had scheduled his traditional wedding to Henrietta."

Her friend's face lit up,

"How brave of you! I wish that all women could see this example of courage."

Her friend seemed surprised to hear this and asked shyly,

 "Do you truly think it a courageous act to leave your husband, or are you just saying so for my sake? What about it makes it courageous?"

“I think it is the courage to stand up for the truth and for your beliefs.  What beliefs? You may ask.  The answer is Christianity, of course.  And no matter how the men may want to tweak it, we repudiated polygamy with the advent of Christianity, no?  Yet so many of our men pick and choose what pleases them from Christianity and our traditional beliefs.  I think that is a sham."

Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor hears the reports second hand about the wedding:

The reports slowly filtered back through the grapevine to Enugu and even to Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor’s ears, through the belligerent reports from her enemies.  The rumor about town was that the wedding had been a spectacular success and that Christian had done the unthinkable act of kneeling down like an oaf before his mistress of sixteen years in public. He was alternately described as a desperado or as being deeply in love depending on who gave the reports.   The women folk were secretly impressed by the scandal; all except Mrs. Eugenia herself who felt ashamed to acknowledge that this oaf was once her husband; and the only reason she thought of him as an oaf was because he could never have done this for her.   However, the men were more scandalized thinking that this could lead to a near societal upheaval with the male superiority assured to tumble down.  To say the least, the action of Christian’s which had been on the spur of the moment was to prove to be near unprecedented in its scope.

The evening she heard of the wedding she had listened in disbelief that this cold fish she had been married to for so many years could muster up so much emotion and feelings for some one other than his real wife.

 Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor breaks down:

It was not long after this, that one day Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor had confided in her friend Mrs. Oby Chijioke:

"Sometimes, I feel like I have descended into this dark tunnel, or depression if you will.  It is a situation over which I am totally powerless.  My heart is broken.  I say to myself, ‘even in this rejection I must find my salvation’.  Like all trials sent by divine providence they are not ones of our own choosing; rather what God has seen fit to send us.  Of all the sorrows in the world, this was one I would never have chosen. So here I am in this deep dark tunnel, and all I know is that I must stay down here as long as He chooses; and at His pleasure I             will come out again. I try to be patient, and I try to be of good cheer; but the truth is that right now I can only be described as a most sordid and pathetic companion, and rightfully so.  Indeed, there can hardly be a more wasteful exercise than to be impatient with God.”

Mrs. Oby Chijioke could see the pain in her friends eyes and thoughtfully responded,

“It is amazing how painful rejection can be,” she said, “And to make matters worse the heart does not discern which rejections merit feelings of sadness.  It is one thing to be a child and rejected by your mother, and quite another to be spurned by an unfaithful husband. In the former case, the sadness is justified, but in the latter case, the feeling should be a reflection of an injustice. I know what sadness I felt after the death of my husband; there were days where I did not want to move, so deep was my sorrow.”  Then she pensively added, as if an afterthought,

“But we all are here now seeking to find a way to understand the incomprehensible, to make sense of the meaning of life, and love and death.” “ Yes, we will always be left to wonder, why one man who perhaps loves life dies young, and another lives to old age hating every day of it….”

 

The days turned to weeks and right on time, before the children were to return home for the holidays, Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor  was able, by luck, to secure a nice two bedroom apartment in New Haven.  Her friend, Mrs. Oby Chijioke, was sorry to see her friend go, but understood fully the need for Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor to try to reestablish her independence and to stand on her own feet.  It was not until her friend had left and Mrs. Oby Chijioke was sitting alone at dinner, that she realized how lonely she had been since the death of her husband two years earlier.  Paul had succumbed to what had been attributed to have been an acute cardiac event, when he had suddenly slumped over the dining table after dinner.  An ambulance had been called, but by the time the ambulance had arrived at the hospital there had been no life left in him.  Mrs. Oby Chijioke had been shocked beyond belief.

 It is one thing to be single and to have never married, and quite another to have been married, and then to suddenly find yourself a widow.  There is no state in life for which people are more ill prepared than this state, as all who marry, only think of the happy end, “and then they lived happily ever after”, and they forget the last part of the vow, the stipulation, “ ’til death do us part”.  In this way the advent of death is always a surprise. (For the vow does not have power over life and death.)

 “No”, she thought to herself as she sat alone at her dining table, and the thunder was loud, and the rain poured down in a torrent, as if God himself were angry.

 “We must seize what little joy there is that God allows us, and greedily hold this to our soul, for there is no guarantee of anymore.  There is nothing more to life.”

 She wished that she and Paul had spent more time doing nice things; instead it was as if they had worried every day, about everything, up until the day that he died.  The little joy that could have been gleaned out of the day was instead left to waste by the side.

   “How I wish that I had known better”, she said to herself, remembering the saying that was so often repeated by the priest at church, “ the cup is either half full or half empty. and , “Which one are you going to choose today?”  For it was a choice, a conscious choice, that had to be made everyday.

  Nay, happiness was not so much a state, as a decision; to be happy, with how ever little or much the day had to offer, to be happy and to learn to turn the little sorrows into joys. It was her own little attempt to “light the candle and not to curse the darkness”. 

Yet even in spite of all these gentle and noble thoughts her heart was often heavy with the sorrow of loss.  Even though it was two years since he had passed, each time she remembered, it was like a sword going through her heart.  How many mornings had she not awoken thinking he was beside her still? Only for the daylight to prove her wrong.  In her dreams, he was still alive, and now and then he would come to her in her dreams, and it would seem as if he had never died.  Yes, Mrs. Oby Chijioke was a Christian, and she believed in life after death, and it was this consolation alone which kept her going.  But, in her heart, she felt cheated by fate. She had married for companionship, and now this companionship fate had snatched right from her hands, unexpectedly and violently in complete disregard of her need.   In futility, her mind  would try to unwind the events of that fateful day, so as to suspend them in time, and to stop forever what had happened.  She would replay the events over and over again, trying to no avail to stop what had already transpired.

Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor the divorcee:

The town of Enugu, the ‘crown jewel’ of the pre- civil war era Eastern Region of Nigeria is a city located less than an hour east of the famous River Niger.  The city was originally constructed by the British colonialists in the Southern Protectorate of the Niger, when coal was discovered.  In it’s colonial hey day it was a city of two worlds which rarely if ever met; on the one hand there was the Coal Camp area of the town which was where the natives who worked the coal camps lived with their families. Then on the other side of town there was the Government reserved area which was a ‘white’s only’ part of the city, and indeed, if any native ventured into this area without cause it was punishable by a beating. The town had since independence become integrated, and there were newer areas within the city , middle class areas as New Haven, lying adjacent to the Independence Layout and Uwani on the other side of the town. The Independence Layout was initially sparsely developed with just a few ministerial homes, but had since become congested with a multitude of houses and apartment like dwellings.  The Government house, was the prize of the Independence Layout, and with it’s large imperious gates closed to the public at large.  In the forefront of the government house there was an area of land which had become converted into a park, with grass planted and trees, and flowers and this was open to the public and named Michael Okp[ara square.  For the most part Enugu had started out as a boring civil servant town, in direct contradistinction to the metropolis of Onitsha which laying beside the River Niger had been the economic capital of the East In between there was the region of the town called Asata which existed on the slope of a hill leading down to a small stream and this area was mostly unplanned buildings.  On the other side of the University Campus, the Kenyatta Market was surrounded by the township of Uwani, and further west of this was Awkunaw, and Agbani.  The Udi hills frame the city and the hills immediately adjacent to the city are named for a British settler, Milliken, and retain that name to this day.  Like many cities in the third world the town of Enugu had experienced a unprecedented  population explosion over the past twenty years with masses of young rural inhabitants of the surrounding regions migrating to the towns in search of work. This was mostly futile as there was no work to be found in the towns, and indeed the urban migrants would have most probably been better off farming in the villages, but this was not their preference. 

The flat in New Haven had been secured at the last minute right before the children were to return home for the Easter Holidays.   The flat was on

Chime Avenue

and was on the third floor of a nice building with secure high walls and a gate man.  Although it was only a two bed room flat ,she was excited to have her independence back.  Nevertheless, although outwardly, on the surface at least, everything had the appearance of normalcy, the truth was that for Mrs. Eugenia this all felt most unusual.  She had never lived on her own before, having gone straight from her father’s home into her marital home; and now she had been forced to see a different side of a world that she knew little of.

To make matters worse, there were the constant fears and insecurities that besiege all single women, that she now had to contend with.  The fact was that Chinedu was now the man of the house, a mere boy of the age of eighteen. 

Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor had to furnish the little flat, and she also had to put on some kind of face for her children, so that they would not be aware that her heart was really broken.  She felt that there was no need for her to plague them with her sorrows.  In any case, there was little she could say, that would be proper in the present circumstances.  For no matter what she would say, it would be hard to say anything positive about Christian to the children; yet it would be in poor taste to castigate him publicly while the children were there.  As such, she had decided upon the wisdom of silence on the matter of Christian and Henrietta as far as the children were concerned.

Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor at work:

The offices of the Department of Agriculture of Enugu state were located in the main offices of the state government.  This was on a side road, adjacent to Park lane, in G.R.A. Enugu.

 Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor had been most fortunate in securing her position.  She had been a complete unknown, and a newly wed, when the partition of the old East Central State government had taken place; first, into Anambra and Imo states; and then, a few years later , Anambra state had been subdivided into Enugu state and Anambra state. Likewise, Imo state had been divided into Imo and Abia states. With the new partition having taken place; all indigenes that “hailed from Anambra state”, had been relieved of their duties and forced to seek employment at Awka, the new capital of Anambra State.  Although, Christian hailed from Awka, his wife was an indigene of Udi; and as such, she was able to use this fact to seek for employment with the Enugu State Government.  Many positions had been open, and she had gladly taken up her position as head secretary and administrative assistant to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Emmanuel Udeh.  The process of gaining employment could not have been easier; all she had to do was to prove her hometown was in Enugu State, and that she had a degree from an institution of higher learning, and the job had been hers.

 She had studied and completed a course in business management at the Institute of Management and Technology in Enugu.  Whilst a student at IMT, she had met her future husband, Christian Nwafor.  Engineer Christian Nwafor hailed from the town of Awka, in the present day Anambra state.  Christian had been introduced to her by her cousin, John Onuorah, who had been a class mate of his, at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, where they had both been studying civil engineering.

 Christian had been quite infatuated with her at the time, and had boasted to his family that Eugenia had an education, and that her hips were designed for ‘childbearing’.

The courtship had progressed rapidly.  On certain weekends, when he could spare the time, he would arrive in Enugu for the weekend by taxi. And they would spend the weekend going to parties held at the Student’s union at Enugu campus. Or, go to a night club to dance for the evening.  Over a period of four months they had dated.  Then Christian had proposed.  He had never really dated any lady seriously before, and being a ‘religious man’, he could not anticipate staying in a dating relationship for an extended period of time without marriage. Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor’s family had been overjoyed at the occasion of his proposal.  Their oldest daughter had graduated from IMT, and barely six months after her graduation was to wed.

Soon after her wedding, she had been most fortunate as to gain employment at the Department of Agriculture of Enugu State; and she had held onto this job, through all the ups and downs of her marriage, and in the process she had outlived a succession of ministers, and permanent secretaries in her post.

Initially, out of shame over her condition ,she had said nothing about her divorce at work.  Her co workers had ,however, heard through the grape vine about the wine carrying ceremony that had taken place at Onitsha.  No one had dared to say anything about the second wife.  Judging from her sadness they had found it easy to conjecture that what ever Christian had done, it had not been entirely with his wife’s blessing.

  To further pique their curiosity Mrs. Oby Chijioke had come to pick her from work on several occasions.  On one of those occasions she had let it slip out that they were going home for supper; that the young ladies of the office were now certain that Mrs. Eugenia was in the middle of a ‘dreadful divorce’.

“Eya,” Ijeoma the junior secretary said to her friend Mrs. Janet Nwosu .

“I told you I was certain that she had left her husband. I told you I was sure two weeks ago when she came and went in the same dress two days in a row and her step was heavy.”

Mrs. Janet Nwosu who was a lady of the world was not too impressed.

 “It is not the end of the world.  But what can she do, after nineteen years of marriage? To get up and leave?  Surely that must be a sign of madness. If it is me, I no go go. Go for what?  When you leave you just are making it easier for the new wife.”

Ijeoma laughed.

“I think it is better to avoid this type of situation self.  Do not let your husband stray, for you can find it hard to regain lost ground.”

Mrs. Janet Nwosu who was several years older than Ijeoma shrugged her shoulders.

“All you young girls, who have never married, are always full of advice.  I don’t think any wife ever assisted her husband to stray.  I think the question is how do you stop him from straying? If there was a way to do this, I know Mrs. Eugenia personally, and I guarantee you, she would have found the way if this thing existed.”

Ijeoma smiled, “never mind me Mrs. Janet, I am always full of ideas and always looking for answers.”

The news spread through the department like wildfire.  It was whispered as she walked by, by all, from the messengers to the minister himself.  As she walked by, in hushed voices they would say. “ ne gu de ya,” “ Yes, that is the one who left her husband after nineteen years of marriage.”

Some pitied her, but by far the majority thought that the news was laughable and they sniggered behind her back.  To the men she was an example of a fallen woman; a woman who with education had become too big for her britches. She was a woman who thought she was a man and had left her husband.  After all was not polygamy as natural as life itself; it was in our blood, it was our blood, it was our culture, Christianity or no Christianity.  Or it was a ready excuse for society to fall back on to excuse the shortcomings of the men.

Home for the holidays:

Easter had come and the children were on holiday from their respective boarding schools..  Mr. Christian and Henrietta had traveled to Calabar to visit the sister of Henrietta; and the children Henrietta, Chinedu, Afam, and Christiana were at the home of their mother on

Chime Avenue

.  Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor had taken vacation from the offices of the Department of Agriculture, and was resting at home with her children.  The days went by quickly.  During the day they would take care of various chores, and then in the evening they would all try, as best they could, to amuse themselves by reading, or playing board games.  There was no chance to use the television sitting in the corner because there was never electricity in the evening.  The ceiling fans were of no use, and the heat was becoming oppressive.  The children were not amused by the absence of a generator.  At school there was a generator which provided two hours of precious electricity in the night; enough to allow the students to do their prep with light.  Here they had to read and do everything by kerosene light.

 The apartment at Uwani had been locked up for the week, and there was no chance for them to visit there, even during the day, and get some respite from the heat.  Mrs. Eugenia could not even store food in a refrigerator and as such each morning they would cook fresh food, and any food left over from the previous dinner  would have to be re heated meticulously, to prevent it from spoiling.. 

Miriam the maid was busy having to do daily shopping at the market AND THEN COOKING FOR THE FAMILY. 

Mrs. Eugenia enjoyed the company, she did not really mind the hustle and the bustle, and for this was what she lived for.

“Mother, tell me how do you survive in this place, with neither light nor water?” the oldest boy had asked his mother after observing her suffering.

“I survive because I have to.” She had replied,  “My dear, when I grew up we had no light at all, and we had no refrigerator in the village, and we survived very well.  It is only when you are used to light and they take it from you that it becomes hard to stand the heat and,..”

“ Well, in our school we have two hours of light every evening; and I try to do everything during those hours, to have my bath, brush my teeth and then study, and then we go to bed early because we are not allowed to be up with live candle light.  Oh, and God forbid you have to use the bathroom, and then you need a flash light to find your way.  It is amazing.”

“Two hours of light what a blessing! I would do anything to have two hours of light. I don’t even know when the last time I watched the television here. It is a cruel joke, to own a television and also to have a refrigerator! Never mind, my dears, Miriam has covered for all this by buying food in small quantities and cooking every day; we will get by.  Sometimes, I remember the big deep freeze we had in Uwani, and what a luxury that was.  I also remember sitting in the cool of the air con in the living room and saying to myself that I needed a sweater.  Those days are long gone.  Here I sometimes will have three showers a night to cool off.  One day in March I poured water on the cement floor to see if by allowing it to evaporate I could cool the room down.  I think the heat is getting worse, but I think I will get used to it.  Over the summer we will go to Lagos and stay with Aunt Margaret and she has a generator and an air conditioner which is on every night.”

‘Ah, mom, I look forward to that. Lagos is always interesting. We will be able to watch movies on the video player as well, that will be a nice holiday”

“Well if your father releases you, like he did this time.”

 “Don’t worry, mom, I think Henrietta is getting more tired of us by the day, and she has been on bed rest for the past two weeks. That was why they left town to go to her sister’s house for her to rest.”

“I wonder how she can be overworked.  It is quite amazing. What does she do any way?  It is not as if she holds down a job of any sort, because she stopped working the day she married your father.”

‘She is busy keeping house.  Donatus left after you left, he was too upset to stay with the new madam and he kept comparing you with her that it quite distressed dad and Henrietta and they had to let him go.”

“Oh, my dear faithful Donatus, I miss him so; but I could never have afforded his salary now on my meager income.  I know he will do well for himself. He told me he was saving to start a business for himself and that should be a good thing.”

Mrs. Margaret Obiora comes to Enugu on a visit:

Mrs. Margaret Obiora was the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Okafor.  She was two years younger than her older sister Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor and  two years older than the youngest girl Comfort. Of all the sisters, Eugenia and Margaret were the closest and they had each other’s confidences.  She had received a telephone call from Mrs. Eugenia relating how she had moved out four month’s earlier; and at the nearest opportunity she had purchased a bus ticket from Lagos to Enugu to check on her sister.

Mrs. Margaret Obiora was the wife of a successful trader by the name of Mr. Charles Obiora.  To his friends and business associates he was fondly known as ‘Charlie’.  He had a stall in Onitsha main market, and one in Lagos Island from which he sold Motor spare parts.  His younger brother Oke ran the Onitsha market end of the business, and he took care of the Lagos end of the business. A considerable amount of his time was spent in Apapa trying to clear his goods through the customs.  He had the assistance of several young men from his home town who were employed in the shop and ran it for him while he was away on business. The family rented a nice flat in Ikeja.

 The fact that ‘business had been good lately’, could be seen on the wrapper that graced the slim waist of Mrs. Margaret Obiora; and the bright yellow hue of the head tie which graced her beautifully coiffured hair, only served to reaffirm this fact..  In all things external she was the opposite of her sister Mrs. Eugenia.  Whereas Mrs. Eugenia was stout, and rather short and dark; her sister Margaret was tall, and yellow, and slim.  She walked gracefully with her spine ram rod straight; as if she had been brought up in the village balancing water bottles on her head. In terms of her wealth, she was the opposite of the sister Comfort.  She was educated to the level of the National certificate of education.  As her husband was so wealthy, she did not deem it necessary to work; and instead she stayed at home and toyed with various projects, sometimes attempting a shop, or a business which never took off.  In the end she had given up on being a business woman, and had resigned herself to fate, to just being a home maker.  Her five children were away at boarding school, and she had a period of one week to stay in Enugu whilst her husband was away in Cotonou on business.

From the motor park where the luxury bus discharged it’s passengers at 5pm, she was able to secure a taxi to take her to her sister’s new address on

Chime Avenue

in New Haven.  It was the middle of April, and the rains had not started yet; and everywhere was still brown, and dry, and dusty.  There was the smell of burning grass always in the air; and over the horizon could be seen smoke rising up in the sky as the farmers set their traditional fires to clear the forest, and burn the bush.

             The taxi let her off in the front of the store.  Not knowing the way into the building she asked a question of the store keeper, who knew Mrs. Eugenia, and directed her to the back of the compound through the gate, and past the gate man to the stairwell which led up the three flights of stairs to Mrs. Eugenia’s new flat.  At the top of the stairs she knocked on the door.  The new maid Miriam answered the door, and let her in, on ascertaining that this was Mrs. Eugenia’s sister.  She sat down in the living room and waited eagerly for the arrival of her sister.  As she sat she looked around the little living room which had now become furnished to a certain extent. There were some easy chairs arranged in a circle with a center small table.  Off to the side the little television sat on a cardboard box.  There was a small café style dining table with four chairs where the meals were served.  Mrs. Eugenia had even managed to put some curtains in the living room.  The ceiling fan sat stationary in the ceiling above..

                At a little after five thirty p.m. Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor arrived home accompanied by her friend the widow Mrs. Oby Chijioke. The sisters hugged each other and Margaret hugged Mrs. Oby Chijioke as well.

“Long time” They said to each other. 

“Well, you look well.”  Margaret said, she had feared the worst for her sister.  

Mrs.Oby Chijioke smiled.

   “You know now she looks fine, but I can tell you six months ago she was not quite herself.  She was exhausted and it was difficult.”

Margaret nodded her head.

    “I can imagine.  I came as soon as I could.  It has been one thing after the other; the children have been home or on their way to school, and Charlie would not release me until he went on this trip to Cotonou, and I insisted that as he was going to be gone there was no need for me to stay and looking at the walls.”

Mrs. Eugenia smiled.

    “You look well Margaret. What is this you are wearing?  Is this the latest wrapper from Lagos?”

“I don’t know Oh.  I found it at the shop where I buy my cloth, and I thought, well I will try it out. “

“Now give me all the gossip from Lagos. What is the latest there?”

“I am hardly the one to keep abreast of all these things. Lagos will always be Lagos.  There vanity has found a happy home.”

The ladies laughed.

    “Vanity and ostentation are the watch words of Lagos.” Mrs. Chijioke replied as she herself, knew Lagos very well. 

  “You must make an effort to stay out of the competition because you can easily get caught up trying to keep up with the Jones’s there.”

Mrs. Margaret opened up her suitcase and gave her sister a gift of white lace.

 “I bought this for you, thinking you might be able to sew a up and down for your self to cheer your self up.  And here is a head tie I bought for you in sky blue material.”

“I don’t need this “Mrs. Eugenia protested.

Mrs. Chijioke insisted.

 “Of course, Mrs. Eugenia, you must take this.  Is it because you don’t have a husband that you will no longer wear nice clothes? Then you will truly look like an object of pity to the entire world.  No my dear, you may be the rejected one.  It is alright, but you will hold your head up high once again, and say ‘that even in this rejection I shall find my salvation’”

Mrs. Margaret seemed to agree.

“Sister Eugenia, you need to come to Lagos and see for your self.  In Lagos, half of all the women have never married at all, and the other one quarter are the second or third wife of some body or the other. And they are all holding their heads up high, and not hiding their heads in shame.  In Lagos it is the divorced women who are the happy ones’.”

Mrs. Eugenia looked at her sister in disbelief.

“Here in the east it is like a taboo.  When I come in to the office, they all stop talking.  And when I walk past an Office, I can hear them asking, Is that the one who got divorce?”

“In fact the other day, Henrietta sent me a letter, as she was worried that she may have difficulty getting married in the future having come from a divorced home.”

Mrs Margaret Obiora continued:

“That is why I am so happy I have had the fortune of living in Lagos. Truly it has expanded my horizon, and has taught me a compassion for the human condition far removed from the narrow mindedness of the east.  That is not to say that I do not praise the institution of Marriage, nor to say that I am not appreciative of it.  No, but I think the problem is when we want to be married just for the sake of saying that we are married.  We continue in these unions only too often when they should have been repudiated out rightly in instances of physical abuse or mental cruelty.  Then we have lost sight of the goal of marriage, and are in it only for the sake of being married”.

“It is a weakness of our women this urge to be married.” Said Mrs. Chijioke with much introspection.

 Mrs. Margaret Obiora agreed,

 “I think you have put it right, a weakness in our women … and to make matters worse it seems as if there is no amount of education which will dispel this notion from their minds. Ah, our women are bound to their husbands for generations to come.”

Mrs. Chijioke nodded in agreement.

“There is nothing wrong in and of itself to be bound to one’s husband, Margaret.  If I must say so, I was very happily bound to My Paul, who treated me so nicely, may his soul rest in peace. Where I have a problem with this is where the husband takes upon himself the role of an abuser either physically or mentally, there we must use our reason and unbind the relationship.”

Mrs. Eugenia looked up at this point.

“Thank you Mrs. Chijioke, I feel redeemed now.”

“Of course you are redeemed my dearest, you who suffered so at the hands of Christian and for so long.”

Mrs. Margaret agreed, “You, my dear sister, are a saint.  Only a saint could have stayed on with such patience.  And mark my words, your children may not now understand the great sacrifice you made for them on their behalf, but one day I think they will. But, as I was saying in Lagos, this is the usual state of affairs.  I worry much myself, what will happen if Charlie continues to do so well with his business? Will he decide he needs another wife too, and maybe he will find one in Onitsha on one of his trips there.  For all I know he could have one there already and I am the only one who does not know!”

The ladies laughed.

“Margaret, I do not think that Charlie would do that.” Mrs. Eugenia Nwafor responded with all seriousness.

“You say this with such confidence that I myself could not use.  I will not vouch for anyone but myself.  I must confess that even Charlie has had his short comings that I have found out about.”

“But never of the magnitude or the duration of Christian and Henrietta.”

“The children tell me Henrietta is due in July, and that she has prepared a room and a crib.  John says that their father is talking continuously about the baby.  I found that slightly disconcerting because I remember when I was expecting he never even discussed one thing with me.  And he never assisted in the up bringing of the children; it sounds now like it is the opposite.”

“I told you before to not discuss the goings on at their father’s house. It serves no purpose other than to stir up your emotions.  Time will tell.”

Margaret was happy to be back in the East.  She enjoyed Lagos for all the amenities it had to offer, but she found that sometimes the traffic was tiring and the hustle and the bustle was a little more than she cared for.  The children had all been sent to attend school in the east, and over the next two days she prepared to go on a visit to the schools as well.  She went to the little store below Mrs. Eugenia’s house and bought cabin biscuits and dried milk and cornflakes and squash. The provisions were equally divided into three boxes.

During the day she stayed indoors and waited for Mrs. Eugenia to return from work, and then she would keep her sister company at dinner, and they would chat about the good old days when papa and mama were still alive.  These conversations usually took place after dinner when they used a small kerosene lamp that stood on the dining table to light up the room.  For the past three months there had not been more than one hour of electricity per night in the eastern part of the country.  Mrs. Eugenia had been spoiled at her husband’s flat by the use of a generator.  Over here in New Haven she had to manage with candle light and the kerosene lamp.