Miracle in a Man: Part 1

Uche wanted to tear out her own ears. “What did you say?” She asked her daughter, Ifunaya. “Say it again, I did not hear you well.” 

“I said that. . .Uncle Frank entered my room last night.” Ifunaya’s lips quivered. Her shoulders shook as she stammered, “M-m-my body is p-p-paining me.”

The words rattled in Uche’s skull. Her knife slipped from her grasp, and she watched her blood pool into the tray of thinly chopped carrots and green peppers. Sucking on her injured finger, she stared blankly at the wall without really seeing it. 

“I have heard you. Go and drink Paracetamol,” Uche finally said. Rings of stars floated above her eyes as she trembled and rinsed her cut. She did not see Ifunaya walk away, because she had turned her back on her daughter. She should have known this day would come.

Yes, Uche knew that people had whispered about her and her husband, Frank. She too had acknowledged to herself when she’d stared at the ceiling in the unholy hours of night, that it indeed was unusual – no, a blessing – that Frank, with his Tech Director job and monster Range Rover, and words that rolled as smooth as honey off his tongue, had chosen a wife from the village. And not just any wife but she, a scarcely educated woman with a daughter out of wedlock. A now thirteen-year-old daughter everyone agreed held a promising future with men, with her wide hips and fish-shaped eyes and skin that glowed like polished stone. But a daughter born out of wedlock nonetheless. 

On their early dates, Frank had not frowned whenever she’d forgotten to lay eggshells over her daughter’s existence and walk over them. He had not said, “A child should live under her father’s roof, anyway,” like Ifeanyi had said. Ifeanyi who had told her, “We are just not working,” a few days later, as if their relationship was a TV or chest freezer that had whirred shut and refused to come back on. Shortly before that, Ifeanyi had asked if Ifunaya would remain with her Grandma if Uche moved away with him. Uche had perked up and answered brightly, “Yes. Mummy is not strong like before, but her cousins Nkechi and Ebuka can look after her. If that is how you will prefer it.” But Ifeanyi preferred that Uche had not carried another man’s child in the first place. They all did. They came and never stayed. 

But not Frank who looked at her with kind eyes and made her feel unjudged. He called upon the waiter to refill her glass of wine, and she felt heady. He fed her barbecue fish dripping in ketchup, and she felt desired. He enquired of Ifunaya, “What class is she in?” “How old is she?” He lavished Uche with goodies as he did with questions: silver jewellery, shiny purses. He replaced Ifunaya’s Grandma’s kerosene stove with a gas cooker, and got her a DVD player. 

Upon Ifunaya he bestowed the most expensive gifts. Boxes of dark chocolates that retained their lush smells long after the wrappers had been discarded. Perfumes in coloured glass bottles that smelled rich and naughty. An iPhone that earned the respect of Ifunaya’s Nokia-wielding peers. Uche watched Ifunaya’s Grandma envelope Ifunaya in a hug when she presented her latest gift from Frank. Grandma’s crooked smile split her face as she turned the phone this way and that, as she gasped and swooned like an actress in a Bollywood soap opera. She looked to the ceiling and cried, “I said it. I said that our God has not forsaken us.” Her wrapper drooped to the floor as she danced.

*

A year ago, when Uche had learned that Frank would be paying her mother a visit, she had scattered her wardrobe and put on a short skirt but not too short. A tight shirt but not too tight. One that strangled her breasts, made her cleavage spill. But not too much. Her late father had treated Frank’s late father’s rotting foot when foreign medicines had flopped. And so when Frank who’d been in California for over a decade relocated to Lagos, then visited his parents in the village, he stopped by to pay his condolences to the family of the herbalist who’d once saved his father’s life.

Uche’s heart had skidded across her chest when the knock came on the door. She smoothed a hand over her hair as she let Frank in. Her mother grinned and grinned as she placed a rickety stool before Frank, and atop it a tray of Banga soup and pounded yam that she had pounded herself, hunched over the mortar as she whistled Onyeka Onwenu and thick beads of sweat dripped down her forehead into the pulpy white meat. 

Grandma asked about the wellbeing of Frank’s family. His responses were simple and polite. He seemed like a simple and polite man. He complimented her soup, and Grandma thanked him. “Have you met my daughter, Uche?” she asked, waving her arm with a flourish in Uche’s direction, as if it hadn’t been Uche who’d let him in. 

And Frank, too, had turned to her as though seeing her for the first time. Uche did not imagine it: fire glinted in his eyes. He was so shiny, it was like looking into the face of the sun. “Uche,” he said her name as if he were tasting it like a spoon of jollof rice, observing for flavour. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

Uche smiled and curtsied. She asked if he had enjoyed his meal, if he wanted more, if he would like some water in a bowl to wash his hands. Her voice grew small, her throat itched as she introduced Ifunaya because she did not like to introduce Ifunaya to the men that she hoped would marry her. She nudged Ifunaya to speak up as she greeted Frank. “You cannot raise your voice, eh?” she asked her. She slapped Ifunaya lightly for not curtsying while thanking Frank for the bundle of 500 naira notes he gave her. “Is that how to thank your uncle, eh?” she scolded. 

And on their wedding day, Uche’s heart swelled with joy as she danced round in circles with her palm wine cup before presenting it to Frank on her knees, while men clapped one another on the backs, and women grinned and giggled. In the din of the festivity, as cutlery clattered and melded into one another and highlife blared from the speakers, Uche’s friend Obiageli had cupped her shoulder and said, “Miracle is not only when the blind sees, you know. Look at you. God has sent you a miracle in a man.” And Uche had giggled. A god-has-done-it giggle, a see-me-I-am-finally-a-wife giggle. 

Now, Uche slapped a plaster over her cut finger. She perched on the kitchen stool and dialled Obiageli. She drew circles on the countertop as the air-conditioning vent hummed above her head. She remembered how, the day she and Ifunaya had moved in, she had breathed in the scented plastic plants, and smiled at the sight of air-conditioning in each room including the kitchen, which she hadn’t believed until Ifunaya pointed wide-eyed at the rectangular mass fixed high above the microwave. She had been impressed, of course, although a part of her had found it a little unnecessary; an air-conditioned kitchen. But now, when the power supply was cut short she’d shout for Ifunaya, and if her daughter wasn’t home, she’d abandon the sweet potatoes she was peeling or chunks of chicken she was frying, to switch on the inverter or generator. She would not resume her cooking until the cold air licked her skin and made her feel like herself again.

Obiageli picked up on the fourth ring. “Obiageli,” Uche started, “Something has happened.” 

“What is it?” Obiageli sounded mildly curious but mostly distracted. Uche imagined she was stirring a pot of soup with one hand while she tucked her phone between her ear and shoulder with the other. 

Uche cleared her throat and started to say something, only to choke on a violently startling sob. It sounded like the roar of a wounded lion. 

“Why are you crying?” Obiageli asked. “Did Frank beat you?”

“No,” she managed in between dry, wretched gasps. 

“He has started to complain about your weight, abi?” She tutted. “It was only a matter of time.” 

“No, that is not it.” 

“Ah ah.” A pause. “Is he not taking care of you?”

It was a nonsense question, and they both knew it. At the start of each week, Frank granted her a sizable house allowance, and a personal allowance she spent on the make-up kits and accessories she featured in her Facebook posts. She would angle her camera so that it captured the sprawling interior of the living room, or Frank’s glassy rack of designer shoes. She would caption her picture, “I feel blessed #TGIF.” “Love has humbled me #ThankGodForGoodMen.” She did not have a degree. She had dropped out of junior secondary school when she was three months pregnant with Ifunaya, and garnered half-baked skills from short-lived apprenticeships; short-lived because she’d disappear from work (and home) each time a man in a nice car asked for her number. She’d become engrossed in her newfound lovers, devoting herself to them like a religion in bars, in hotel rooms, in their apartments. She’d buy Ifunaya nylons full of biscuits and sweets whenever she breezed back home to retrieve something – a beloved tie-and-dye scarf, an old, threadbare purse – and dole out to Nkechi and Ebuka, Ifunaya’s older cousins, a couple of hundred naira notes, saying, “I’m coming.” She would not come. She would not return until a few weeks, or months later, when her new love had wilted. 

“What is the matter, Uche?” Obiageli said. “Talk to me.” 

Uche heard the impatience in her friend’s voice, and she clenched her fists. Obiageli had no idea what this felt like, and she wanted to slap her for it. How would Obiageli feel if her husband did this to her? 

Uche dug her fingernail into her palm. She coughed sour, ugly coughs, like a cup of needles had been emptied into her throat.

“It is okay. Sorry, stop crying.” Obiageli paused. “Is it another woman? That is how men do, Uche.” 

Uche wiped at her cheeks. Was this cheating? “It is Frank,” she answered.

Obiageli fell quiet for a moment. The engine of a vehicle coughed to life in the background, and Uche realised Obiageli was driving. 

“Uche,” her friend finally began with an irritated tone, “Look at all that God has done for you. Small misunderstanding, and you are crying? What more do you want?” 

Obiageli honked her car. Uche knew her friend was shaking her head. 

Two honks. Obiageli had run out of patience. “Sorry eh,” she said. “You know that Frank is a good man. Whatever the issue is, I am sure you will sort it out.”