Chapter 22: Chapter 22

CHAPTER 19

It was a question of why she had changed her mind to wear the same Ankara instead of her skirt and blouse which she had chosen at first. He was surprised. He wondered if the answer to that question was positive. If she had planned to reconcile with him in this fashion, it would be the most awe-inspiring reconciliation gesture. But observing her demeanour towards him, it was not different from that of yesterday. In fact, it was worse.

She still kept mute. She still refused to look into his eyes. She acted as if he was invisible; as if he no longer existed. She still acted as though she was the only one in that house, like a spinster. Teju watched her iron the clothes in her sleeveless green-coloured gown for a minute. He watched her muscles tensing up and relaxing as she pressed the clothes against the table. He noticed for the first time that she was not wearing her ring. It was like a confirmation that he was six feet below the ground or he was one million miles away from her. She had moved on with her life without him.

He recalled she had thrown the ring to his face on Jumia Black Friday night. He had picked it up, but where it was at that time, he could not remember. As she gripped the iron by the handle, guiding it to and fro on her cloth, her hand seemed amputated without the ring. Teju wished he was the iron, that he was rather the one in Simi’s grip. She had become more petite. She had become thinner. It was puzzling that she had lost weight within the two black days she had had with him, maybe he had also become thinner too.

Teju opened his mouth, to ask why she had changed her mind but as an afterthought, he closed his mouth. He took the Ankara clothes on the smaller table, replaced them with Adire clothes and disappeared into the kitchen. He went to the kitchen to see what he could prepare for breakfast. Though he had woken to the feeling that sliced bread, omelette and café au lait would be the best breakfast for the Sunday morning; he could not concentrate on the crate of eggs, the bottle of vegetable oil, the gas cooker or the frying pan in the kitchen. His mind was completely upstairs.

He waited in the middle of the kitchen with his hands on his waist, trying to recollect what he came to the kitchen to do. He went to the cupboard and opened it. Instead of the provisions in the cupboard, it was Simi ironing the same type of Adire clothes that he had seen. He closed the cupboard immediately. He was restive. He went to the sitting room and he heard the slamming of the door upstairs. Soundlessly, slowly and carefully, he mounted the stairs, as though he wanted to catch his wife unaware. When he got upstairs, he saw Simi ironing the same type of Adire clothes.

“What are you up to, Simi?” Teju said. Simi was startled by his voice. She seemed not to have heard him come upstairs.

“Must you sneak up on me like that?”

“Answer my question Simi, what are you up to?” Teju said, looking hard at her.

“As you can see, I’m ironing the clothes I want to wear to church”

“Well, I’m not blind,”

“Look, hubby, don’t get scared. I’m only going to wear the same match with you to make you look stupid before the pastor today,” Simi said, turning to continue ironing her clothes. She said it as though it was a normal thing to do. It was normal to make him look stupid in front of someone.

“What do you want Simi, what do you want exactly?” Teju fumed

“I want justice, okay? I want you to get what you deserve. I want you to find what you’re seeking for” Simi barked back at him

“I don’t seek this, and I don’t deserve this!”

“You do, you do, you gauche oaf!” Simi said raising her voice. She had stopped breaking into tears amidst their arguments on the matter. She was not sorry for herself anymore. She was ready to fight. She had become unbreakable.

It had become tense. Teju decided to keep his peace. It was not right to be contending with one’s wife on a Sunday morning. He could not tell how he felt. He had to go through the torture of listening to Simi’s rant, calling him strange names that completely alienated him from human existence. Her invective-laced words had a phenomenal way of making him feel like a wayward child. Though he disliked insults being hauled at him, he preferred callous words than callous actions from Simi. He had no humanity again, even with Simi. In fact, at the end of it all, his pastor might distrust him. He quietly turned to the stairs and descended. When he got to the middle of the stairs, he heard Simi saying behind him.

“We’ll ride in the same car too, to make it look perfect” and then she laughed. A peal of cold laughter that pinpointed the fact that he was in for the trouble he had not envisaged.

He turned and saw Simi at the top of the stairs looking at him blankly. Her folded clothes were in her hands. Teju slowly nodded and went to the kitchen without a word. It was becoming tougher than he had ever expected. If his wife took his love and commitment with resenting ribaldry, then the worse had come to the worst in its real face.

He discarded his plans as briskly as deleting a file on a computer. He went to his ‘recycle bin’ and repeated his deleting exercise just to make sure. He doubted if he could ever atone for a sin he had not committed. He wondered if everything could be right once again. It seemed the more he strived to get the knot loosed, the more Simi made the knot enmeshed. But he was suspicious. Something decisive and dominating but also external was controlling all that was happening. He did not know what exactly it was or what he expected it to be. It could be the handiwork of a spiteful spiritual enemy who had targeted their marriage with an arrow of dissension. Or probably it was a bogeyman that had possessed Simi. Probably it was the bogeyman that had manufactured the warped situation.

In such a mysterious situation, there had to be an invisible hand smacking him violently through Simi. Even if there were no invisible hands, he had to fabricate them in order to give an explanation to his woes. His own wife, Simi, to whom he had been engaged for over five years, could not be that sadistic and unfeeling on her own. It was almost evident that she was not acting of her own accord. It was like she had been acting in obedience to a script.