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Photo by Ikenna Ogbenta |
We were saving money for the bride price. We
were slipping it into the slit of the iron safe hidden under the bed. It was
better to have it within reach than in a bank where we would live in
constant fear of liquidation. We harboured no fear of people tampering with our
bank verification number, then debit alerts. It was the trend in town. We had
heard tales of white collar scammers, with a foreign accent, calling to say
one's credit card has issues before demanding for the last four digits on
it.
We started saving after Kalisia was made to
kneel before the Umuada during her mother's funeral. They were the
daughters of the land. Women with flappy chicken arms and stomachs gone large
from excessive consumption of funeral food. They said she was a disgrace.
‘How can you live with a man that has not placed
a single wine on your head?’
‘How can you beget children for him when
you're still unmarried?’
‘Do you know we can take the children away from
you?’
‘Twelve years! Tufia. We doubt you are
one of us. Aguleri women don’t behave like this'
Their phlegm landed close to the spot where she
knelt, tap tap, on the little pool of murky water.
They ignored me until I felt invisible. More
like the fly perching on the leftover abachawhich had been their
appetizer.
Kalisia, alone, bore the shame on her shoulder,
her eyes a reddish hue that spoke of anger. Later when the canopies were bare
and the plastic chairs stacked to a side, she let out her fury, slamming
the hired stainless plates on tripods, kicking the empty gallon of Kings oil,
her temper was a blazing inferno.
‘what do they know about marriage? What do they
know apart from demanding for this and that during a funeral. Egbeenuigwegbagbụkwe
fa. They should pay the bride price themselves '
But when we returned to Lagos, to our one room
apartment, she painted the humiliation a shade darker, her eyes glistening with
tears.
‘I can't take it anymore. Mba’.
‘imagine me been made a laughing stock n'irụọhanile’
Later, She bought the iron safe herself, from
the welder at Ayetoro. A thin gangly man who became a topic of discussion that
night.
‘He was just looking at me with his frog eyes.
His kind can even trail you to your house, then carry the safe away months
later’
‘That’s how they used jazz on Mama Nkechi.
When she broke her safe, she only saw white papers’.
The first two months, we speculated that the
money we saved was enough for the mmanya ajụjụ, the introduction which
entailed few crates of beer and malt. We planned to present these items
to her brother and the few Lagos based Umunna on an agreed date, in his
sitting room. But Chiluba's hernia had to be operated. It was sore and painful,
right above his penis, causing him much discomfort and torture.
We borrowed from the bride price fund to solve
the immediate need by hammering the slit into a larger hole and shaking the
money out through it. We were hoping for a better tomorrow, you see. It
became a step we took oftentimes to solve our urgent needs. Like the children
school fees, Chiluba's common entrance fee and even the standing fan in our
home which replaced the faulty ceiling fan.
With each need meant, the slit became more of a
hole, and the money fell out more easily. We promised to save more for the
bride price. More and more, no more borrowing. But our promise was a lie that
laughed at our faces, eyes tickling in scorn.
When Kalisia became ill and was diagnosed of
cancer, the words that left her mouth as we left the doctor’s office, hands
held together, were:
‘When I die you'll be coerced into paying double
bride price. We need to pay my bride price before I die'.
Chinwendu Okafor calls herself a free spirited being, who laughs and writes all the time.
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