After we freshened up we found
Grandpa already feasting on roasted yams. Mom had been preparing them all
evening. He invited us to table.
“The
girl is pleasant,” he said, struggling to chew.
I smiled.
On the graph of life, we were still
rising to the curve… Grandpa had made the bend. He was way downhill already…
back to pap and ‘swallows’ these days. He was being stubborn by asking for
roasted yam instead of something easier for his old mouth to handle. What age
does to us…
“What
if you have to live together like this?”
“Like
how?” I asked.
“You
young people in big cities don’t have the full picture of marriage. Your father
wanted you to see this as well… Marriage could be this way too: Two people,
living alone…in a village somewhere, old and without help, but still together.
Add it to the picture you have.”
Hmm.
“We haven’t always been here. I
lived in the city too… long ago. When circumstances forced us to come home, my
wife followed me. Marriage is for all times, all seasons – the good, the bad,
and the ugly. Add that to the picture you have.”
I took note of that too by nodding
pensively.
“Many young men from this village
are living and working in different cities in this country. Some marry the
women then meet there, some come home to marry… there are others who do not
marry at all...
“A calamity befell the Igbos some
years ago, and today we’re wiser and more cautious. I’m sure you had reached
the age of discernment when the Kaduna Riot happened… it’s not up to… say…
fifteen years now…” he cast his gaze in the distance and took on the story.
“Young men from here – and other
parts of Igbo land – who were plying their trade in Kaduna were succeeding in
business. They saw no problems whatsoever in marrying pretty wives from any
Igbo State... Anambra, Imo, and Abia. And erm… Abakaliki – or even from other
parts of the country. Any girl comfortable with their trade was made a wife,
and life went on. The couples lived happily and were producing bright children.
All was well. But then the riot broke out... Kaduna burned! Lives and property
were lost. So, people that survived fled to their villages. Our sons came back here
with their families. Most of the women they brought back found the new
circumstances unbearable. On our part, we tried to be reasonable… knowing that
all cultures aren’t the same. We cut them a lot of slack. But at every turn,
these women were getting in their mothers-in-law’s hairs, and arguments were erupting
from every home stead. Their husbands’ presence seemed to douse the tensions,
though. But the time came when, after the mayhem, the men had to venture out,
back to the desolate streets of Kaduna, to see if they could pick the pieces of
their lives back together. It is said that only a fool tests the depth of water
with both feet… for, if the water be deep and dangerous, then the fool is
doomed; whereas only one foot would suffice to learn of a shallow river. The
men went back to Kaduna alone. Stepping cautiously into territories that had
been fraught with terror... but leaving behind them, in the village, a fresh
colony of flames. Some found glowing embers of war, and concluded that their
sojourn in Kaduna was over… they retired and came home, picked up their hoes,
and followed us to the farm. To adapt to the new reality, their families went
through turbulence, to say the least. Others found stumps that were still alive
in Kaduna, and knew that their lives could grow back – with the requisite patience
that was. So those ones came home to strategize and head back. But one thing
was, each time the men came back, they rarely found things the ways they’d left
them. Some found not their wives whom they left in their mothers’ cares.
Mothers told them things like ‘she said she wanted to go to Nnewi; that she’d
only be two days...’ That was a month ago! In some cases they’d taken the
children dearest to them and vanished... flouting the duty given them by pastors...
to love and to hold their men forever, in good times and in bad.
“This is just one scenario. Most young men based in
Kaduna were devastated all round by the war. The worst case scenario was...
that some men died in the violence, and their parents back home couldn’t tell
if there were survivors from their sons’ families or not. The women disappeared
with everything, children and all. Perhaps an Alhaji took a liking to the woman
and orchestrated the chain of events that left her gasping for breath like a
choking fish on a dry lake. He scoops the nymph and adds to his invincible
harem a cikin daki – as they say!
Such was the cataclysmic reach of the Kaduna riot. This story, amongst other
experiences, taught us a bitter lesson: to marry from home, so that if anything
happens, man and wife are both coming back here. So add this to the picture you
have as well.
“During the mayhem in Kaduna, some of our sons ran
home alone. Some of our daughters too. Their marriages had borne no fruits, and
were only hanging by threads. The violence provided the snap, and they fell
apart. So, one question you must ask yourselves: are you friends enough to live
for many years without children? Or will you just be hanging on, waiting for
the arrival of children to legitimize your distraction from each other?
“One good picture you have in the city is that… there
are many successful men, and more beautiful women… more than yourselves… so
it’s very fascinating when you forsake all others and pick each other. Not like
here in the village where options are few. I am far from rich… even after more
than ninety one years on this planet. Yet, at the time, I was all the heroes in
the world put together to my wife. There were hardly any contests… hardly any
rivals. Now I know the few things that belong to me: my name, my children, my
patches of land, my house, and, most importantly, my wife – the woman who has
made this journey with me. She’s mine; always has been… for more than sixty
years. While my children have all gone on their own, she remains… And I’m quite
sure that only death can take her away from me. Mind you… it’s not a… a…
miserable… assurance; I’m as sure now as I was sixty five years ago.
“So add these to your pictures and determine if you
like the resultant mosaic.
“Nor is divorce easy… People who marry, and then part,
open up wounds that never heal. If there was love, and you marry on account of
it, and years down the line you can’t find it anymore, while there are lots of
possibilities, that the love you seek has gone into a total stranger outside
your marriage is not one of them. Second marriages are, therefore, often more
catastrophic than first marriages. Moreso because, those who have divorced
their wives in pursuit of better options outside, are convicted by guilt, and
so cannot scream or divorce again when things with their new wives do not work
out. Therefore, they stomach their discomforts, thereby treating the second
ailment with therapy that would have worked for the first. The second ailment
becomes incurable. No, divorce doesn’t help. Lost love can be rediscovered…
only except if it wasn’t genuine love in the beginning. That is why there is
music in this life; that is why there is smell, pictures, places… all to remind
you… give you clues… on where to find what you lost.
“Of course some young men came back here from Kaduna
with women we hadn’t been party to them marrying. When we asked them about the
women we watched carry wines to them, they never quite came up with any cogent
explanations. It made us realize that the lot of you have no real understanding
of the marriage covenant. So, your father sent you here for a reason. After this,
of course you can go on and do as you please, but you’ll be more likely to know
where whatever decision you take will lead you to.”
Our
attention was rapt; we sat enthralled by his delivery – especially his
gesticulations and facial expressions. Occasionally, I took a bite of the
roasted yam we were having – just it and red oil; but Laide had been done a
long time. Her face was sober, and I thought maybe Grandpa was scaring her.
He continued…
“Your
Grandma and I… we’re old, but we still remember some moments in our lives that
make us smile.
“Build a collection of these pictures and more, and
make your decision. Life is not a bed of roses; happiness is supreme, but there
are a lot of things waiting to destroy it for you: race, tribe, religion,
social condition, distance… you name it. And you must take them seriously, or
they will destroy your happiness. Your decision is yours. You have a right to
it. After all, you’re the one to live with it. But it’s important that we guide
you. Our people say, ‘you must learn from the mistakes of others, because you
won’t live long enough to make them all yourself’.”
He beamed a rickety smile at us and said, “Going to
the farm, cleaning, and doing things in unison… you get a pass mark there.”
What was left of his teeth were a mess – brown initially, but now had red oil
on them.
I felt fulfilled.
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