Obìnrin Gidi (A True Woman) - by Eyitoluwase Soyinka

This man I was going to finish him.This same man whose dirty boxers I washed, scrubbing through baskets of clothes every weekend, so much detergent that even the omo sellers would shake their heads and say, “Ah ahn, madam… ehn ehn. You are a very hardworking woman o. Many women would choose to sell their bodies, but you chose to wash clothes to earn your livelihood. Your parents would be proud.”Me, who perfected my cooking skills in his kitchen, filling his rickety fridge (the one that only worked when we pulled two wires together at the back) with soups that could last a month. While he slapped my bum playfully and said, “The man who marries you will be very lucky.”This same man back in my hundred level days, had hiked up my skirt and teased my legs apart while I endured his searching fingers, despite the pain, until he was satisfied. Then he whispered in my ear, “Deal with this frigidity. You’re meant to beg me for it.” since this was the only way to please a man, I pondered on those words and made him my first, all while the scripture " Marriage is sweet, with the bed undefiled " taught by my late mother rang in my ears.I would finish him. The night before our wedding, I overheard him telling my best friend how much he loved the body-hugging clothes she wore, asking if she did it purposely to entice him. I heard her slap him, because yes, Kenny was a faithful friend. And yet, I pretended confusion when she told me what had transpired. I even went ahead to dispute her claims. Because she had a mother who would take her in if she showed up with a positive pregnancy test...Mine was dead. And so the popular mantra was spoken " He can NEVER, NEVER do such a thing "When he needed money to start his business, he watched me beg for loans, using my clean, debt-free account at every United Bank of Africa branch, in hindsight, that bank will not prosper, amen, cajoling every uncle and auntie with means to invest in him. Why?Because i believed in him.He wrecked my body day in and day out until it yielded a child, and then suddenly found my postpartum body disgusting. He took up the mantle of disparaging me on how careless and unattractive I had become. Worse still, he found joy in parading himself with his model-bodied female friends to events , women with firm calves, upright breasts, bodies that had not known childbirth, delighting in the quiet cruelty of it, because he could not be seen with a wife who resembled a hippopotamus.“H-I-P for the hip, P-O-P-O for the ipopo and T-A-M-U-S for the hippopotamus.” My sister-in-law’s five year old chanted the rhyme with innocent glee, the same enthusiasm my husband apparently had whenever he wanted to describe me in public.And yet, this same man looked at me in frightening realization as he placed his spoon, laden with hot, smoky jollof rice, the type with panla and pomo, beside the brown envelope he had quickly shuffled the contents into after taking peeks at it, as I explained that it had been delivered to the house that day.“I hope you didn’t go through my mail,” he said.Foolish man...I hesitated, just long enough to watch his face grow pale.“Honey, I’m unconcerned with your work gibberish.”He didn’t touch his food again.Ah!! So now he feared what a hippopotamus could do to his food.Dressed in a white agbada laced with the finest embroidery Mai Atafo could create, he stared at me as if I had given him the world as he held his second child, a son, and chorused to the gathered crowd " Obìnrin tí ó bí ọmọkùnrin ni obìnrin gidi " A true woman is one who bears a son.So when I gave birth to Adejoke, I was what? A counterfeit?He rushed the stage in exuberation, tears streaming down his face, twisting and turning his body to the rhythm of King Sunny Adé’s Ja Funmi, then collapsed.I would finish him.This woman, dressed in black , hysterical to the point of madness, bloodshot eyes blazing , gripped the soil covering her husband’s body and bellowed his name, begging him to return and stop joking.She heard the whispers:“Ah, Jumoke really loved him o.”“How will she live without him?”“She will run mad.”“What will happen to the children?”“The doctors said it was a stroke.”“So bad things can happen to good men.”Thank God for the acting classes she took in secondary school. How else would she not have laughed when her mother-in-law pulled her close and whispered, “Your makeup is smudging.” Of course the woman would notice , she who had taught her how to expertly apply concealer to hide swollen eyes and bruised jaws. Even now, the evidence of his last handprint upon her cheek still ached.Honestly, this woman did not kill her husband. Which woman would be foolish enough to poison food she cooked after placing an envelope containing pictures of her husband’s infidelity before him?Oga had wasted a perfectly cooked smoky jollof.If anything, he should have checked the large stash of condoms he kept in his office. He would have noticed the tiny injection site on each one, as she slipped something colourless into the latex.And truthfully, it wasn’t murder. If he hadn’t used them, he would never have died.Turning away from the casket, she sighed." IT IS FINISHED "

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