Read Online The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin - Free Book Online Page B

to clear her throat. “I have nothing to say, Baba Segi, except that I do not know where these things came from. There must be some mistake. I have never seen anything like this before.”
    To the small crowd that had gathered in the sitting room, Bolanle said, “I say, I have never seen these things before in my life. Neither do I want to, ever again. Why would I want to kill my husband? If I become tired of my husband, there isn’t a policeman in the world that can force me to stay with him. I am here because I want to be here!” She exhaled long and meaningfully. “I have lived in his house for two years and I want to continue to stay if my husband will have me. Only today, we went to the doctor to see how I could bear his children. I do not want to die barren. How is it profitable for me to become a young widow? Why would I want my child or any of these young children to be fatherless?” Her hands reached to brush Femi’s head but he ducked.
    Everyone looked on in sympathy and Segi wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. Iya Segi read the situation and stole into the crowd like a giant hen skulking to a secret stash of corn.
    Just over his breath, Baba Segi said, “Bolanle, you can go to your room.”
    To everyone’s surprise, Iya Femi catapulted herself toward him from the edge of the crowd. “Go to her room?” she shrieked. “Is it after she has killed us all that you will do the right thing? If this woman is allowed to sleep in this house, I will sleep outside with my sons. I will hold a night vigil and pray her out.” She bounced on the balls of her feet, her upstretched arms exposing clumps of armpit hair.
    “Iya Femi, you can sleep in the gutter if you want to.” Baba Segi’s voice was calm but anger had returned to his eyes.“That is where you came from. My sons were not born to sleep in the gutter so they cannot follow you. Iya Tope, take my sons to bed. This woman’s mouth will soon get what it deserves.”
    “Anyone who touches my sons may not live to tell the tale!”
    “Has this woman’s head scattered that she now scrubs my mouth? Have my words become so insignificant that they can now be contested?” He opened one of his hands to the crowd as if they would deposit the answers to his questions into his palm. “Iya Segi! Iya Segi!”
    Perched on a crumbling concrete block by the side wall, Iya Segi remained still until several voices echoed her husband’s call. “I am here, my lord!”
    “This house is a mess. Clean it!”
    “Right away, my lord.”
    Their voyeuristic thirsts quenched, everyone got the message and began to agitate for a speedy exit. The spectacle had been gratifying, the outcome glorious.
     
    B ABA S EGI COULDN’T BEAR to stay at home that evening so he drove himself to Ayikara. “I could have killed her with my bare hands. My own wife! It was as if a wild beast from inside me wanted to suck blood from her throat.” Baba Segi didn’t want the three men in the far corner of the shack to hear him. It didn’t matter that there was an empty bottle of Teacher’s whiskey on the table in front of them or that the few phrasesthey exchanged were slurred and incoherent. This was a matter Baba Segi did not want to discuss with strangers.
    “And you say she did not fight back?”
    “No, she was calm. What fight can a fly fight when it is in the clutches of a tarantula?” Baba Segi muttered and looked away.
    “Calm is not the reaction of someone who has been caught red-fingered. Remind me. How did your other wives react to this discovery? You mentioned that—”
    “That is what I don’t understand.” Baba Segi cut him short. “Apart from one of them who seemed as perplexed as I was, the other two were adamant that Bolanle had planted the juju . They were convinced that she was guilty.”
    “Hmm.” Teacher smirked and nodded knowingly. “What are relations like between Bolanle and these other wives? There must be a reason why they were fighting tongue and