One Two Three
by Hannah Onoguwe
“When we get to heaven… at the marriage supper… all the saints shall gather… at the last assembly…”
The words trip off Perpetual’s tongue as she struggles to match the fervency of the other women’s clapping, if not their dance steps. But she feels somewhat removed from all this, her surroundings often acquiring the qualities of the surreal. She might be forgiven for that, having only moved to Ibadan about six weeks ago, in theory still a newlywed. This is her second meeting with the other pastors’ wives for their monthly prayer and fasting, and she is hosting.
Perpetual peeks out from under her lashes. Only now is she beginning to tell one modest suit or fascinator from another. There is Kiki Arudese of Holy Ghost Light and Power Embassy—glasses, killer wigs—and Yemisi Gbenro of The New Redeemed Faith Tabernacle—light, embellished skin like butter, expensive jewelry—then Irene Igho—accent imported straight from 10 Downing Street, the eternal scarf knotted at her neck—of the International House of Glory and Praise—
“In Jesus’ powerful name we have prayed,” Ebele Eze of the Episcopal Church of Christ booms, her makeup these two-hours-plus as fresh as when they began. Perpetual lends her amen to the chorus and then rises as they say the grace and the announcements are made. In the kitchen, Rose the help is tap-tapping her phone, snapping her gum.
“Time to serve the refreshments,” Perpetual says. They were used to a balanced spread, the Secretary of the Association of Pastors’ Wives had stressed, especially after fasting all day. This was following the three-course meal after the meeting at Grace Ufodike’s house. Today it was drinks and fruit first, then offals pepper soup, followed by fried rice and turkey which was packed for them to take home.
Rose tucks her phone away sluggishly and Perpetual bites back the words flooding her lips. The girl is apparently from the village but has more airs than any celebrity. Perpetual steps aside as Rose finally moves with a tray and comes out with a smile pinned to her face.
“A baptism by fire,” one wife chortles later. “And you were up for the challenge. Well done.”
Perpetual smiles a thank you, turning as the front door opens. It is her husband, Charles, dressed in a rich brown up-and-down native attire, wreathed in smiles for the women in his spacious living room. This was one reason, Perpetual surmises, that she had been asked to host the women so quickly after barely settling down. Because some of these women have never stepped their foot here and for others it has been too long since they have, seeing as the man had been alone for a couple of years.
“Welcome, Pastor.”
This is a page of her life, Perpetual thinks as she watches the women simper when he exchanges words with a few of them. Not long after he excuses himself, the women begin to depart, and Perpetual can breathe easy again.
Thinking Charles is halfway through a shower by now, she heads to the bedroom. Surprised to find it empty, she makes her way to the study.
Charles is seated, fingers splayed on the leather-topped table, their tips tapping out a rhythm. His eyes lift to her as she enters.
“Your food’s ready,” she says. Then tacks on, “How was your meeting?”
He leans back in his seat and appraises her, eyes settling on her skin like shards of ice. “Perpetual. I think almost two months is enough time for you to figure some things out.”
She stares, her heart thumping with a dread she doesn’t understand. He isn’t the lovey-dovey type, their marriage after all wasn’t based on any profound emotion from either party, but they get along quite well, can sustain conversations about different topics. If the sex is somewhat stilted due to a dearth of attraction on her part, that’s on her. She doesn’t think it’s her place to direct him in certain aspects of foreplay; he knows some of her pretty experienced past but somehow in this space where she’s now a pastor’s wife, she feels it must be her cross to bear. But this…
“I don’t understand.”
He stands and comes around to her. “I mean that when your pastor husband with the biggest congregation this side of the country—and one of the richest—comes home, his wife had better welcome him at the door with a curtsey and carry his fucking bag.”
Perpetual takes a step back, but he follows so they’re toe-to-toe. “But—”
“Especially before a crowd of idiot women, most of whom are married to wannabe pastors who don’t know the first thing about church building.”
She blinks, but she is still here. And yes, that is her husband. “I was just preoccupied with making them comfortable.” Her voice has a pleading note. She doesn’t know any of those women well, but most have been genuinely nice to her. “And I meant no disrespect. Usually, your assistant is right−”
“Well, you didn’t see Ehis anywhere, did you?”
She shakes her head, her insides shriveling at his hard smile.
“Is there an apology seeking to emerge from that brain of yours?” he asks.
“I’m… sorry,” she gulps.
“You can do better than that, Perpe.” It’s the first time he’s using any sort of nickname for her and she goggles for a moment before his words sink in.
“What—how?”
“Get into the room, take your clothes off and wait for me.”
It sounds so absurd that Perpetual laughs. Then as his gaze hardens, she sputters, “You can’t be serious.”
“Read my lips. Get into the room.”
There’s such an authority to his voice that Perpetual immediately turns around and retraces her steps back to the room, her thoughts in a whirl. The bed linen is smooth, the air conditioning a tad too cold, the pine scent of the electric diffuser calming. She perches on the edge of the bed, frozen. Waiting. Is this some kind of joke? Or maybe some kind of surprise role play? She breathes a little easier then, cocks her head as the door opens.
“You didn’t obey me,” are his first words. “Wives are to submit in everything to their husbands.”
Her mouth opens, purses. “Charles, what’s going on?”
“I gave you an order.” Anger stiffens every line in his body as he steps to the bed. “Take off your dress.”
Perpetual scoots back towards the headboard, her throat closing on a shriek as he lunges at her ankle and drags her back to him. It becomes a tussle, his hands rough as he yanks her dress up to her waist. Then he’s unzipping himself and she’s horrified to see him erect and raring to go. Panicking, she tucks her knees in towards her chest and aims her feet at his belly, pushing out with all her might. Charles lands on his backside, releasing a string of curses. She leaps off the bed and yanks the door open, only belatedly realizing that unless she’s leaving the house there’s really nowhere to go.
Nevertheless, Perpetual dashes into the kitchen, startling Rose, who quickly hides something behind her back, something evidently for which permission was not sought and approved. Their room door is thrown open, spilling a sound like a roar, and heart thumping she decides maybe it’s better to head outside. She can appeal to someone to talk to this man, someone he respects—but it dawns on her that maybe such a person doesn’t really exist. Besides, she has no purse, no phone, is barefoot. And has forgotten that the distance from the kitchen to the front door is about the same as from the bedroom door to the front door—a near perfect triangle—and the man coming almost parallel to her, breathing harshly, has longer legs, longer arms, and when he grabs her and swings her round to face him, his face is a mask she doesn’t recognize, and her body goes limp.
His eyes are feral. “Where do you think you’re going? Oh, you want to shame me? Are you mad? What goes on between a man and his wife should stay between them.” Without any care for what might be in her way, he begins to drag Perpetual back. She suspects his aim is to bring his original intention to its logical conclusion.
Rose gapes at them but Perpetual spares her no thought. Instead, she is grabbing onto whatever she can—the arm of the sofa, the edge of the wall—but her hands slick with perspiration eventually slide off and she is being inexorably drawn back towards the bedroom. No, no, no. She is aware that she has been repeating that word as Charles yanks her behind him.
Tomorrow no doubt she will have bruises from his handling. Perpetual suddenly twists her body at an angle, wrenching her arm enough to dislodge his. But the move is miscalculated and awkward, so she falls, the edge of her face glancing off the side of the wall. When Charles lunges for her again he inadvertently shoves her so that her forehead makes full impact with the wall instead. And everything goes black.
***
Perpetual wakes up in a bed she recognizes as being in one of the spare rooms. Her head is splitting and as she raises a hand to it, her fingers come in contact with the bandage that has been swathed around it. Wincing, she attempts to sit up, but swiftly gives up at the resulting agony. Her heart skips as the events that led her here rush through her head. And where is Charles? He ought to be here, attentive, contrite, fucking promising her paradise. Because her thoughts shy away from giving the whole episode a name. Without fists, classification-wise, this couldn’t actually be spousal—her mind leaps away from the word “domestic”—violence?
As if in response to her thoughts, the door opens, and her pulse kicks up. But it isn’t her husband who comes in. It is two women she hasn’t met before. One, tall, with luminous cocoa skin like in those advertisements, has a pronounced limp and appears to be in her forties. The other is a few years younger, shorter, curvier, has her hair cut short, her round pleasant face punctuated with dimples. They are dressed simply, but there is no getting around it: “Clergy wife” might as well be emblazoned upon each forehead.
“Mrs. Obasi, good evening,” says the first. “We apologize for being unavoidably absent at the meeting earlier.”
Perpetual does not recognize them. Had they come despite the meeting long being over? Maybe they’d wanted to use the opportunity to meet her.
“We heard you were in here,” the second woman says. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Perpetual’s brow furrows. Heard? How long has she been here? Unaware that she spoke aloud, she starts when the woman answers. “Not long, don’t worry.” They draw chairs up to the bed, their manner somewhat calming her.
“How are you feeling?” The taller woman asks, her eyes boring into Perpetual’s suddenly, although her voice is gentle.
“Umm… better,” Perpetual murmurs. Is it true, though? Or is she just building an alternate world in her mind where she does not have to take out its parts to scrutinize them, because if she does she will have to admit that there is a problem? If she assigns labels and names and tags, then she will have to confess that nothing is in her control.
The second woman smiles, and Perpetual is distracted for a moment by those dimples. Then she jerks slightly as the woman touches her arm.
“It’s okay.” Her voice is deeper than Perpetual would have expected. She holds up a flask that she sets on the bedside table, which already has a glass and bottle of water sitting on it.
Perpetual is glad for the company. Being so new, there are a number of the pastors’ wives she is yet to meet. Although these two faces don’t ring a bell, within her she feels some sort of kinship with them. Maybe it is the shared “woman-behind-every-successful-man” mantra which is especially true of women who have pledged their lives and loyalties to men of the cloth.
“What happened?” Woman Number One asks, and Perpetual stiffens, immediately rethinking her prior affinity towards them.
“An accident,” she says. The two women look at each other knowingly. Openly, zero tact. Irritated disbelief lances through her. Just who do they think they are?
“What church did you say you’re from?” she asks, trying to be polite, still. After all, they had made out time to see her.
Their eyes move to hers as one as they chorus, “Assembly of the Firstborn.” The look on their faces is chiding, like she should know. She gulps. That is their church, of which she is now the Senior Pastor’s wife.
She is mortified. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m still trying to recognize−”
“Oh no.” From the second woman, shaking her head sharply. “Don’t apologize. You’re still new.”
“Which is why we’re here,” the other chimes in.
“O-kay…” Perpetual’s head is beginning to pound, and she glances around for a painkiller. The second woman leans over to open the table drawer. There are packets of Paracetamol, and she pops two tablets out as her partner pours a glass of water. It’s so near choreographed that Perpetual feels a chill race over her skin. But she swallows the medication quickly, wipes the excess moisture from her lips.
“How did you— You said you heard I was here?” They nod, but don’t explain.
“Where is Charles?” the first asks, just when Perpetual is wondering how she is here alone with these women—no Charles, no Rose, only water and a bandaged head. The two women then nod at the door, and as if on cue, the handle turns. Relieved, Perpetual exhales. She will show her displeasure with the man, but she is eager for the world to right itself. The door doesn’t open, though. The handle turns again, then a third time, followed by an impatient knock on the door.
“Perpetual.” Her husband’s tone is testy, not cajoling like she imagined, and she frowns, her question emerging tardily as she looks at the women.
“Did you lock the door?” she asks.
They bestow a smug look on her. “Like we said, we are here for you.”
“I don’t un—”
“Perpetual!”
She holds her head as if to contain its contents. “Yes?”
“Open the door.” The handle turns again, rattles. “Let’s talk.”
The first woman shakes her head. “Don’t agree. He’s not even apologetic.”
“Exactly,” the second says, affronted. She expels a sound absent of mirth. “Typical Charles.”
“Who are you talking to in there?” he says.
“Some of our church members.”
“Who?”
“Two ladies.”
She hears him kiss his teeth. He bangs on the door. “I was just angry, come on. Let’s settle this.”
But she doesn’t know how much “settling” she wants done before other people. Okay, if they were pastors’ wives, she should know them. Deacons’ wives, perhaps, from their easy familiarity. But even then, she has witnessed the reverence members have for their Senior Pastor. None would be caught dead using his first name so casually. “What are your names?” she asks them.
They had been watching the door fixedly, still as statues. Now they turn to her. The older one says, “I’m Ngozi, she’s Happiness.” Happiness nods with a serene smile.
“Okay,” Perpetual says, then calls out to Charles, “Ngozi and Happiness.”
There is no response so that for a moment Perpetual thinks he has left in annoyance. But then, she jumps at the sound of the flat of his hand slapping the door. “Nobody entered this house, Perpetual. Stop playing games with me.”
“I’m not!” She lowers her voice to talk to the women. “Could you please open the door?”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” says Happiness. Something flickers in her narrowed gaze which seizes the ready Yes from Perpetual’s mouth. It is like looking straight into a peephole where someone looks out and then withdraws. Charles’s huff from the other side of the door pulls Perpetual’s gaze there.
“Are you all right?” he asks, not with concern, but with the tone of, Are you mad?
Shame drenches her, but she cannot stop herself from seeking these women’s reaction to his words. Looking from one face to the other, she finds only pity and a certain empathy. Glad that the medication has begun to kick in, she struggles to sit up and Happiness jumps up to help. But as the woman arranges the pillows behind her, Perpetual nearly gags on the cloying smell that suffuses her nostrils. Smells of sulphur and camphor and old wrappers kept covered, of unaired things and unwashed hair and stifled hope. She holds her breath and manages a thank you as Happiness resumes her seat.
Perpetual steadies herself, deciding to face Charles once and for all. It’s no use prolonging matters. After all, these women will soon be on their way to their homes. But when she throws her legs over the side of the bed, Ngozi reaches out with both hands, grabs her feet, and places them back none-too-gently on the bed.
Affronted, Perpetual says sharply, “I want to get up.”
Ngozi and Happiness look at each other, laugh without mirth, and then stare at her like she is indeed mad.
“No, you don’t,” Ngozi says, and the conviction in her gaze floors Perpetual.
“Do you think that man is going to kiss your feet and weep over what has happened?” Happiness says bitterly. “That he will say it is the work of the devil and vow never to lose control again?”
“You think it was an aberration? He didn’t hit you so he never will?” At Perpetual’s look of guilt, Ngozi shakes her head. “You’re wrong.”
Happiness sighs as she looks at Perpetual. Then she perks up. “You should eat something.” She reaches for the flask they brought, produces a bowl, a spoon. Steam curls from the lip of the open flask, the aroma it emits not one she can nail down. “Pepper soup,” Happiness says, ladling some out. The bowl is placed in a saucer with a spoon, the heat embracing her fingertips making Perpetual feel cared for. She can’t help but contrast this with the clergy women of earlier who came expecting a three-course meal.
She blows on a spoonful and sips. The flavours of pepper, onions and local spices explode on her tongue, but there is a disharmony somewhere. The meat is similar to the offals she’d prepared earlier, but spongier. “Interesting taste. What is this?”
When the answer comes it is discordant, sounding like the reply to some other question, so Perpetual doesn’t immediately recoil. Then it suddenly clicks, and her eyes fly to the person who had spoken. “What?”
Ngozi repeats the word patiently. “Placenta.”
The meat, the broth and sparse vegetables are instantly at war with her tongue, bile rising swiftly and flooding her mouth until she retches, turning her head to spew everything over the floor and the side of the bed.
Ngozi frowns. “That was a waste of essential nutrients.”
“What?” Perpetual sputters, unable to stop herself from spitting over and over again on the floor.
“I used to be a nurse, you know,” Happiness says proudly. The women have busied themselves cleaning up, and she wields a mop taken from the bathroom. “I’m used to even worse.”
“The placenta isn’t from a patient—”
“No, nothing like that. This was Ngozi’s.”
Ngozi stares fixedly into midair for a beat as if something is etched in the space before her, then continues briskly cleaning the bed frame, the sheets. Matter-of-factly she says, “My last pregnancy was almost full term. Before he did his abracadabra.”
Perpetual watches them finish up and go to the bathroom. Over the sound of running water their conversation in there is cheery, expressions at ease as they come back into the room. Her breathing is uneven, heart burning. What is this? But she fears one part of her knows already; the other wants to pretend a little longer.
She clears her throat, forcing the words out. “It must be getting quite late. Won’t your families be expecting you back?”
Happiness touches Perpetual’s hand. “Your concern is touching, but we’re right where we need to be. No kids—you’re acting like you didn’t hear what my senior said. You are our only family.”
“Your… senior?”
“Sorry, we didn’t introduce ourselves properly. I’m Ngozi Obasi, she’s Happiness Obasi.” Ngozi sticks a thumb to her chest. “One.” Points an index finger at Happiness. “Two.” Clasps Perpetual’s hands in hers with a nod. “You’re Number Three.”
Perpetual escapes the woman’s cold, damp hands and jumps up—headache be damned—retreating to a corner. “This makes no sense. He’s a—Charles is a widower.”
Happiness nods. “Yes.”
“But you— you—” She looks from one woman to the other. “You’re not… dead?”
“We’re certainly not quite alive,” Ngozi chortles. “Sit down. Relax.”
She doesn’t budge. “You said sorry you’d missed the meeting.”
“Yes. We’re always around to keep abreast of things.”
“Usually around,” Happiness corrects.
“Oh yes. Thanks for the correction. This was our home, we lived here.” Ngozi’s eyes find hers. “This is our home. We died here.”
Perpetual leaps towards the door and yanks at the handle. It doesn’t open so her hand slides to the lock. But there’s no key. Then a hand comes over hers, another clasps her shoulder. Both women pull her away and steer her back to bed, tuck her in firmly. Ngozi’s face is right up to hers and Perpetual is only now seeing the emptiness in her eyes when she says, “Show some respect.”
“You should be grateful,” Happiness says, her dimples not so evident now. “We saw how he treated you, how you tried to run away. We’re saving you!”
“How?”
They exchange a glance. “Just follow our lead,” Ngozi says.
“This makes no sense.”
Happiness’s smile is beginning to lose its cuteness. “And marrying him did?”
The throbbing in Perpetual’s head now has nothing to do with her injury. She just needs to wake up from this clearly pain-fueled nightmare. Her head snaps up at the banging on the door. Bam-bam. The women are gazing fixedly at her.
“Perpetual, come out, let’s talk.”
“I can’t,” she says. Happiness gives her a thumbs-up.
“Stubbornness will get you nowhere. Let me in.”
“I can’t!” she yells. “Ngozi and Happiness are here.”
“Who told you about them?”
“They did. They’re here.”
“Bullshit. Open up.” Bam-bam-bam.
Ngozi pulls out the flask again. “This will help to keep your strength up.”
“No.” Perpetual would rather die. Eyes round, she’s shaking her head even as it’s being opened.
“Just a little.”
Bam-bam-bam. “Perpetual. Come on.”
Happiness tucks a napkin at her neck. Perpetual rips it out. Happiness strikes her face without hesitation, snapping her head back. “Behave yourself.”
In shock, she cups her throbbing cheek, stupid tears filling her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Ngozi’s voice is sharp.
“Sorry.” Those dimples wink. “You know my temper.”
“Control yourself.”
“Yes, yes.” Happiness tucks in the napkin again. “We went to great trouble to make this,” she says softly, as if to a child. Ngozi nods in agreement.
The door again, rattling, bam-bam-bam. “You leave me no choice, Perpetual!” Charles is shouting.
The bowl approaches. Perpetual turns her face away. Ngozi grasps her head to keep it in place. “Come on, just a little…”
“Perpetual!” Bam-bam-bam-bam.
She is struggling against Ngozi’s vise-like grip, the spoon at her lips. She screams, “Nooooo!” jutting her head forward sharply so the spoon and bowl are knocked out of Happiness’s hands, the hot soup spilling over the covers this time, scalding the skin beneath. She barely feels it. Happiness is staring at the flecks of gray protein and greens everywhere, some on the floor, fury distorting her face. “You ungrateful ashewo!”
Before the blow can connect this time, Perpetual blocks it. Enraged, Happiness doesn’t let up so Perpetual fights back yelling, screaming, flailing her arms, using nails, elbows, teeth, everything she can to defend herself. “Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop—”
There is an almighty crash as the door splinters. She jerks at the sound, her eyes popping open. An enraged Charles is breathing hard, not a scintilla of sympathy in his stance. “See what you made me do,” he says in a quietly controlled voice. Perpetual’s gaze roves the room, but Ngozi and Happiness are nowhere to be found. She looks behind her, hops down from the bed to peep into the bathroom. Nothing.
“They were here,” she insists.
“Get her to the room,” Charles says, and she sees Rose behind him. She takes Perpetual’s arm and leads her out. As she passes him, Charles scrunches up his nose. “You stink.”
The placenta soup, she wants to say, only now it smells like faeces. Rose takes her to their bathroom and flees. Stripping down, Perpetual runs a hot bath while she unwinds the bandage from her head and drops it on the pile of filthy clothes. There is still a bump the size of an egg on her forehead. She soaks for a few minutes, trying to blank out her thoughts of the last—minutes, hours?—then climbs out, pulling on a robe. Charles is sitting as she re-enters the room, patiently waiting. He runs an eye over her, curls his lip. A sudden exhaustion drenches her and she stumbles to the bed and sinks onto it, lying on her back.
“You will never fucking disrespect me like that again,” Charles says. Every word throbs with anger.
She is too tired for a riposte. She stares at the POP ceiling. I have to get out of here. But no way will her parents take her back. “God hates divorce,” Mummy always says.
“Do you hear me?” His voice is a near octave higher.
“Yes. Sir.”
His eyes haven’t left her, the air between them seething, but Perpetual keeps her gaze on the ceiling with the tiny grooves of its design. His phone rings and rings until he finally answers. “Yes?” Listens for a few seconds. He stands. Perpetual flinches as he touches her hip. “Prepare for me,” he whispers before leaving, still talking on the phone.
Perpetual lets out a breath, closing her eyes on fresh tears. She has to be going crazy. When she opens her eyes again, she is shivering in the damp robe, obviously having slept off. She jumps as the door opens.
Ngozi peers around it, smiles to see her awake and then steps in. “How are you feeling?”
Perpetual’s heartbeat is deafening, a certain despair squeezing her insides. “Happiness?” she croaks, ignoring the question.
“I told her not to come until she can control herself.”
Perpetual shuts her eyes, wishing she could be transported to her bedroom in her parents’ home, even if it’s minutes before the dreaded 5 am morning devotions. She opens them to see that Ngozi has settled on the stool at the dresser. She is casting a look around the room, then catches Perpetual’s gaze.
“I always liked this room,” she says with a nostalgic smile on her face. “So restful.”
Perpetual finds the strength to push up onto her elbows and glare at her. “Really?” Unlike what she intends, her voice is barely a thread of sound.
Ngozi’s hands fiddle with the hem of her respectable blouse. “Well… more in the beginning.”
Beyond exhausted, Perpetual flops back on the bed, this time shifting until she can drape the duvet over her body and turn her back on Ngozi. She closes her eyes, willing herself to empty her head of everything, but Ngozi’s words from earlier won’t let her be.
She opens her eyes. “You said I should follow your lead,” she begins, somehow positive that Ngozi is still there.
There is a shuffle of feet on the tiles, and then Ngozi’s form comes into view via the end of the bed and she perches on the end of it. “When my life ended here, somehow I couldn’t… transition. I had given up so much of my ambitions, myself. I couldn’t believe that was it. Then he married Happiness and I knew what my purpose was: to make sure she survived it, survived him. To warn her to do whatever it took not to let him win.”
“So how come she’s stuck here with you?” Perpetual’s tone is droll.
“It’s hard for us women to admit we’ve made a mistake.”
“For anyone.”
“Us most of all. We try to fix it by trying to fix ourselves. We think if only we adjust something, our behaviour, our appearance, our words… our very essence… we think that way because that’s what we’re told. Happiness saw me as an evil spirit and by the time she was convinced, it was too late and she was stuck here with me.”
“And you think I’m the one that can get you and Happiness unstuck? How?”
Ngozi is silent, seemingly focused inward, the moment swelling so that Perpetual thinks she hasn’t heard her and is about to repeat the question. Then Ngozi says, harshly, “By killing him.”
Perpetual’s heart jumps as Ngozi smirks at the expression on her face.
“An eye for an eye, no be so? Fitting. We’re unstuck, you’re free, no other woman will fall into his clutches, and the world will be rid of one more demon.”
***
Perpetual is twinning with Charles in a maroon-toned suit with a midi skirt and jacket, frilled ivory silk blouse matching her fascinator and kitten heels. His maroon suit is custom-made, matching the silk tie and pocket square. The cynosure of all eyes when they had walked in, by all appearances they go together like akara and pap. She is scheduled to take a Bible reading and goes to the podium at the appropriate time, squaring her shoulders. Her stomach always curls with the same sickening anxiety, that feeling of being evaluated, judged. Will she ever truly feel like she fits in?
“Verse 19: ‘Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: It is mine to avenge…’” And here the words strike her like a bolt, and a prickling on her skin forces her head up. Ngozi and Happiness are leaning against the wall near one of the air conditioning units, dressed in wrinkled suits.
But as Perpetual falters, everyone’s gaze sharpens on her. She clears her throat. “Sorry. ‘…I will repay…’” Perpetual tries to ignore the previous Obasi wives, but her gaze strays to them again. This time, some of the congregation try to follow her line of sight to see who or what is distracting her.
“Don’t imagine that Scripture is meant for us,” Happiness says with a knowing gaze. “Well-intentioned, I’m sure, but not very practical.”
Overwhelmed by their appearance here of all places, confused by Happiness’s refuting of the verse, Perpetual doesn’t know when she says, “Stop,” sharply. The whole congregation first freezes before animated whispers begin springing up until it is a discordant buzz. She chances a glance at her husband. Legs still crossed elegantly, mouth pursed with a thoughtful fist half-covering it, she can tell he is furious. She hurriedly tries to find her place in the open Bible but the words swim and sway illogically. And over the din in her head are the voices:
“What’s she looking at?”
“Is she okay?”
“Na so craze dey start—”
“Shut up—don’t be disrespectful.”
She jumps slightly at a light touch on her back. One of the assistant pastor’s wives is behind her, a plastic smile on her lips but a certain snideness in her eyes. “Ma, Daddy said you should take your seat. I’ll finish the reading.”
Another appears at her elbow, brushing aside her insistence that she can—will!—finish it, and, suddenly tired, she allows herself to be led back to her seat. But compulsively, helplessly, Perpetual can’t prevent herself from looking back at Ngozi and Happiness, Ngozi looking a little remorseful, Happiness with a smirk on her face. And when she swings back around, she jumps as she meets Charles’s gaze. It is official, she thinks numbly. His expression needs no interpretation: she will be visited with righteous retribution when they get home.
After the service, Charles still has meetings to handle and sends her off immediately. Perpetual is blind, deaf, where previously she had drunk in every new change in Ibadan, the sprawling city she had grown up in, every bit of expansion. She barely hears the driver announce their arrival at home. She starts when his voice finally penetrates, and from his expression, it is not the first time he’s spoken.
Rose emerges in some off-shoulder Ankara dress, breasts trussed up impossibly high underneath the fabric. She collects Perpetual’s leather purse and Bible bag. “Welcome, ma.”
Perpetual murmurs a thank you and heads straight to her room. Rose attends a native-speaking church not far away, although Perpetual suspects she spends more time with a boyfriend than worshipping. Always, a hint of some musky masculine cologne clings to her.
In their bedroom, Perpetual is just taking off her fascinator when Rose knocks and comes in to drop her things.
“Ma, food is ready.”
“Thank you.”
Stripping off her clothes as the door closes behind Rose, she washes her hot face and pulls on a cotton jellabiya that whispers comfort over her skin. She blocks the thoughts tripping over themselves in her head and huddles under the covers. She has seemingly just shut her eyes in fleeting relief when Rose’s knock wakes her.
“Ma… Daddy said I should call you.”
She tenses at the news that he is back, sits up, smooths her hair. Charles is in the living room, absent his suit jacket, with two assistant pastors and two deacons. Just coming up behind them is the president of the women’s group, Mrs. Turayo Oluyide, a svelte fashionista who, with the benefits of her deceased husband who had worked in oil and gas, can send her grown children to school abroad. By rights that position belongs to Perpetual, but the woman had been filling it for years before she came, and Perpetual was reluctant to cause waves by insisting she step down. In a more balanced world, wouldn’t Mrs. Oluyide sit down with her to put her through some things and step aside willingly? But no. Here she is, looking smug.
“Welcome, Daddy,” Perpetual says humbly. She greets the rest, and their responses are jumbled.
“Sit down,” Charles says to them, and then to her, “Sit.”
After they all do so, Perpetual looks up and sees Ngozi and Happiness.
“Sorry,” Ngozi says. “We waited to see what all those meetings were about.”
The shame that had drenched her like a consuming fire in church still fresh, Perpetual averts her gaze from the hovering Obasi wives. When she calls Rose to bring drinks, one of the assistant pastors says, “No thank you, ma,” to which she insists, “No, sir. Have something,” so that he falls silent.
They all wait in prickly silence for the drinks to arrive, Perpetual venturing a glance at her husband’s face. A hint of a puzzle perches between his brows, and her spine straightens further. In this moment she is like a queen whose subjects are before her and she watches with a small smile on her face as Rose goes round, asking what they want. For a few moments there is only the pop of bottle tops and the hiss of cans being opened, the clink of glasses.
The assistant pastor who had spoken earlier—Hanson she remembers his name is—clears his throat. “Thank you, ma… although we are here for more serious matters. Following today’s… erm, incident… ah, we met after church and discussed the way forward. Daddy shared with us your family situation, the pressure you are under, coupled with your trying to settle in—”
She considers “Daddy” who sits there coolly, eyes vigilant. Oh yes, she can picture it all in her mind, the sharing. Her “family situation”? She wants to laugh. Even she is in the dark about what that might be. Charles is pulling all the strings here, the others are just there for the show.
“—it has been decided ma, that until you are able to sort out… your mental health… you will be suspended from officiating in church activities until further notice.”
Perpetual freezes. The mental card, is it? To be fair, though, when one leaves the duty before her and starts speaking to someone who is or isn’t there, what else are they to think? What is she to think? Hanson’s voice drones on and she belatedly sees the letter he proffers. She scans it quickly. She can only attend weekly activities, if necessary but, to protect her health she is prohibited from attending major services or programmes, and starting from Monday, she will be registered with a psychiatrist. Following therapy and successful treatment as evaluated by the psychiatrist, she will be issued another letter clearing her to rejoin the local assembly and, after a further period of evaluation by the elders, to resume officiating in whatever capacity is required of her.
“Is everything clear, ma?”
She raises her gaze first to Charles whose hands are steepled over his mouth, steady in the face of his wife’s predicament, then to Mrs. Oluyide who stares back with a banked triumph in her eyes, then the rest. Their eyes slide away from hers, only Hanson looks back with some regret.
“Ma?”
Perpetual nods. “Very clear. Thanks for coming.” And the confusion that temporarily suffuses them makes her smile genuinely. She keeps sitting as they leave with murmured farewells to their Daddy, then stands, turning to see Ngozi and Happiness seated at the table.
“Everything looks so good,” Ngozi says. “In my time there was no house help o.”
“Hmm. I had quite a few,” Happiness muses. “They were aways leaving, though.”
Ngozi chortles. “Why stay when you can beat them to within an inch of their life?”
“I wasn’t always like this,” she shoots back and Ngozi rolls her eyes.
Perpetual opens the serving dishes of white rice, chicken stew, fried plantains, peeling back the cling film from the potato salad. The steam curling into the air combined with their sweet and savoury aromas calms her somewhat. She is smiling as Charles returns from seeing his church members off. “Shall I serve?” she asks.
For a moment he stands in place, staring at her. She cocks her head. “Or not,” she says softly.
He begins pulling off his cufflinks. “Serve.”
His plate is ready when he returns from their bedroom and they eat, surrounded by Ngozi and Happiness’s chatter.
“Almost like old times,” Happiness says. “Ask him something for me,” she tells Perpetual who gives her a quelling look. Charles’s movements slow as he notices her glance to the side.
“No,” Happiness insists. “I always wondered about ‘Madam President’, even though I never had the boldness to ask.”
“But her husband was alive then?” Perpetual asks, causing Charles’s head to snap up, fury spilling from his eyes.
He scrapes back his chair abruptly. “Are you mad?”
Perpetual chuckles. “I guess we’ll know tomorrow, right?” Then goes right to the question, “Did you… no, were you ever…”
Ngozi kisses her teeth. “Who knows if he’s not still doing the woman now?”
“Are you sleeping with Mrs. Oluyide?” Perpetual asks, throwing all caution aside. The blow, when it comes, jolts her head to the side, some of her teeth bruising the tender flesh of her inner mouth so that she tastes blood. The sound brings Rose out, although she only peeps around the kitchen door wide-eyed.
Charles grits, “I was going to let you get your therapy with some dignity, but I don’t think you deserve it. You take the things you enjoy for granted.”
Perpetual lets out a breath, tasting the saltiness of her sore inner mouth with her tongue. That he thinks there is enjoyment to be gained from this mess shows how delusional he is. But… seeing a therapist is one thing, being eventually admitted as an inpatient at the Psychiatry Ward at the University College Hospital is another. It dawns on her. “You don’t have to kill me to get rid of me, do you?”
Charles shoots to his feet. “Stop your nonsense. You will get ready tomorrow morning, and I will take you to the psychiatrist personally.”
She nods. “Seems wise.”
With an unintelligible sound, he storms away to his study, the door slamming. Ngozi props her chin up in her hands, one side of her mouth curved. “You’re getting bolder. I like it.”
Perpetual feels it, too. Those minutes she was unsubordinated before Charles and his people sweeten her mind. That is her aim now, to feel as strong as in those moments, as in control.
“So how did you end up with this man?” Happiness asks. She reaches over to take some fried plantain, chewing with enjoyment.
Perpetual sighs. “The short or long version?”
“Short, please. We have a demise to plan.”
That brings her up short. Is she really agreeing to this? Is there a way to end this sorry excuse of a man of God without bringing harm to herself? If she runs away afterwards, can she stay hidden? And then what? Her thoughts take her one step here, two steps, and she retreats. One step there, two steps, and there is another wall. No matter how she looks at it, the last final step eludes her. There is no step that spells freedom. Her head begins to throb.
Happiness’s voice resituates her. “Are we going to hear this gist today?” Ngozi is waiting expectantly as well, seemingly taking in every expression flitting across her face.
Perpetual shrugs. “I was pretty wild at the university. The freedom, you know, after coming from a sheltered home, uber-conservative home… the freedom did me in. I think I must have tried everything, you name it.”
“Drugs?” Ngozi looks horrified.
About to vehemently deny it, Perpetual relents. “Not hard stuff.” Happiness makes keep-it-going motions with her hands. “Somehow, kids from church also in my school reported to their parents, the news filtered to mine… drama. I became the church slut-prodigal in need of redemption.”
“Did you find it?”
She scoffs. “I calmed down. The truth was I wouldn’t—couldn’t—have kept up that lifestyle anyway. I rededicated my life at the altar, became more modest, used the right lingo. Redemption ultimately came when one of the richest pastors in Ibadan, Nigeria really, came to Benin for a conference and showed interest in me. I wasn’t really ready for marriage but… he was well-spoken, didn’t care about my past…”
“Your parents wanted it.”
Ngozi’s flat words were the final summary and Perpetual nodded. If they hadn’t seen it as an answer to prayers, and a subversive way of being victorious over their critics, she would have politely turned him down.
“And now you will stop him from doing this to another woman ever again,” Happiness said. “It’s perfect. After seeing the psychiatrist for a few weeks, no one will bat an eyelid when you plead ‘Guilty by reason of insanity’. We couldn’t have written this script better.”
Happiness is facing Ngozi now and Mrs. Obasi Number One has something like tears in her eyes. Seizing Number Two’s hands, she says, “And we can finally be free.” A breathy laugh escapes her. “Everything we went through…”
Happiness squeezes Ngozi’s hands once and then lets go, clearing her throat as if in warning. She turns to Perpetual once more. “Barring this, he’ll never let you go. It’s you or him. The earlier the better. Afterwards, if you’re on your best behaviour at the psychiatry ward, you pretend you’re better and will be let out early. It’s not like they have an abundance of bed space.”
Perpetual stares at them, images kicking to life behind her eyes. Of her being arrested, the inevitable uproar in the media. Oh, maybe her parents might finally reach out to her then, she thinks snidely. Then months, maybe years in court. Then, assuming the plea is a success, more months, maybe years in the psychiatry ward. And then— At this point, she doesn’t see anything, can’t imagine anything, because in all the ways that matter, she will be lost. To her family, to society. More importantly, to herself.
She opens her mouth to voice her reservations, but when she looks up Ngozi and Happiness are gone. Just up and left in the middle of the conversation. Her lip curls. Even in this matter, there is little consideration for the youngest wife.
***
When Perpetual wakes the next morning, her mind is inexplicably clear despite the restless night. Beside her the bed is empty and she shuts her eyes for a moment. Although bereft of the right words, she opens herself to heaven. Jostling around in her mind are words from Scripture she must have committed to memory once. “God is faithful… but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape.” Her heart lifts. It has been too long since she has attempted personal prayers and she sighs, opening her eyes. She’s woken up much earlier than usual, the day is still in that gray limbo before sunrise. Charles must be in his study, praying or studying the Bible, although she wonders what he truly prays about or studies in his alternate universe.
She remembers he’s taking her to the psychiatrist today and a rock sinks her stomach down to her feet, her breath coming faster. She tries some deep breathing and then gives up when nothing seems to work. She pushes back the covers and makes her way barefooted out of the room, stifling a yawn. There is a sound in the kitchen. Rose must be up and putting breakfast together. She steps into the kitchen and halts at the entrance, her eyes widening. Charles is crowding Rose at the counter, his chest to her back, fingers just brushing the curve of her buttocks. Her heart seizes in her chest, her mouth opening to warn him not to invite a lawsuit on his head when Rose’s giggle escapes.
Perpetual sees red. She must have made a sound because Charles leaps back from Rose as the girl turns simultaneously with wide eyes. “Ma, please I—”
But Rose is the least of Perpetual’s concerns. She narrows her gaze on the mad he-goat who is at this moment telling her to calm down. He has the nerve to talk about her mental health? Fury rushes to her throat so suddenly that for a moment she can only see their mouths move but hears nothing. As the sound rushes back in a torrent, she is taking in breath in huge gulps even as her eyes scan the room, selecting and discarding suitable items.
“Nothing has really happened between us, Perpe,” he is saying with a cajoling smile. “She’s just a temptation—I’ve warned her not to go around wearing these skimpy things. It won’t happen again.” He’s walking towards her, his confidence all but restored. “We should start getting ready to see the therapist. I’ve called her—what are you doing?”
Perpetual has walked past him, heading for the sideboard where Rose was hunched over. There’s a chopping board there, carrots and bell peppers half-julienned. She grabs the handle closest to her, vegetables scattering every which way. Putting her elbow into it, her back is still to Charles when she swings in his general direction, arm at an angle to make up for the height differential, hips and foot cooperating as if the move was rehearsed. Her heart is hammering in her ears, bottled up fury and fear and disappointment erupting in a cry torn from her throat as the edge of the cutting board claps the side of Charles’s head with an ominous crunch. He had taken a few steps towards her, and that was her saving grace, or she might have missed altogether. The mix of surprise and puzzlement on his face just before he crumples in an undignified heap on the ground gives her such satisfaction that a grin splits her face.
Rose has escaped and Perpetual is staring down at her husband, chest heaving, the haze slowly clearing from her eyes.
“Look at you now, Daddy.” She steps over him. Maybe rearrange those arrogant features a bit so that even his staunchest supporters won’t recognize him. The handle of the chopping board in her hand is smooth, warm. Effective. She tightens her grip on it and raises it again.
“Perpetual!”
Ngozi and Happiness are at the door and the fact that she has managed to shock them also brings her to her senses. Of course she cannot take a life, no matter what her seniors expect. The chopping board clatters to the floor.
“Why couldn’t you just stick to the plan?” Happiness is seething, her features unrecognisable. Her hands are fisted as she steps right up to Perpetual, trembling with anger.
“This is premature, Perpetual. We don’t have the results from the psychiatrist yet,” Ngozi muses. “But it could still work…”
Happiness glances back at Ngozi. “This is too easy for this beast. Something long and protracted is what he deserves.”
“Yes. However, we might not get everything we want, but if he’s dead and gone, it’s a victory for us,” Ngozi says, trying to soothe the younger wife. She looks at Perpetual, tacking on belatedly, “For all of us.”
Perpetual watches them detachedly. A glance at the man at her feet galvanizes her into action. This “way of escape”? She’s taking it. She wipes her palms on the fabric of her nightgown and heads towards the door.
“Wait!” Ngozi’s voice is shrill. “You have to finish him off!”
Perpetual turns around slowly. “If you want it so badly, why don’t you do it yourself?” Ngozi and Happiness stare back at her dumbly. Perpetual cocks her head. “Oh, I forgot; if you could have, you would have. You know what I think? This is all about you two. No one is keeping you here against your will. And from today on, no one will keep me here, either.”
From a drawer in Charles’s study, she takes a stack of money. She finds more in his wardrobe in the bedroom, stuffs the bills at the bottom of an overnight bag, and tops it with some lightweight clothes. Bidding goodbye to the closets of designer clothing, she dons dark jeans and sneakers, borrowing one of Charles’s baseball hats. She pauses just before she opens the front door, but the house is deathly still. For an anxious moment, she wonders if she overdid it with the chopping board. What if Charles…? No. He will live.
The day is just breaking as she opens the pedestrian part of the gate. It’s too early for the driver to be here and for that she is grateful. The stars seem to align in her favour, as the gateman is nowhere in sight either. The farther she gets away from the house, the quicker her feet move until she is almost running. She hails an okada and is about to clamber on when she hears, from somewhere behind her, “Mrs. Obasi?”
The driver of the okada meets her panicked gaze strangely, no doubt wondering at her hesitation. He points behind her. “Dem dey call you.”
A quick glance reveals her worst fears: two women, fast gaining on her. Perpetual’s breath is tripping again and she is feeling lightheaded.
Fear is returning in a sickening tide. Will she never be free of these women? Decisively, she jumps on the motorbike. “Let’s go.”
He doesn’t budge though, twisting to look at her. “Collect your thing na.”
There is the patter of footsteps hastening towards them and Perpetual shuts her eyes in defeat. It has to be Charles, with those women in his wake. Because it’s wherever he is that they have chosen to remain. She jumps when a hand touches her shoulder.
“Ma?”
Defiantly, she turns to look, and her shoulders deflate. Two women, younger than her. Likely university students making an early start. “You dropped this,” one says, irritation lacing her voice, proffering the purse Perpetual had pushed into the side of the bag at the last minute.
“Oh.” She takes it. “Thank you. You… called my name?”
The girl exchanges an eloquent look with her friend. “No, I said ‘Excuse me’.” Already she’s turning away, her friend giving Perpetual one last weird look.
The okada driver kickstarts the bike. “You been dey fear?” He is laughing at her, but somehow she doesn’t mind, so she speaks lightheartedly.
“Yes o. You don’t know who is who these days.”
“Na true sha.” The wind begins to rush in her face as the bike gains speed. “But when God dey everywhere, why you go fear?”
And that comment from a stranger is her undoing this cool morning, the wind in her face drying the tears as fast as they come.
Hannah Onoguwe’s stories have been published in Imagine Africa 500, the Strange Lands Short Stories and African Ghost Stories anthologies (both by Flame Tree Press), as well as in PerVisions, Eleven Eleven, Omenana, Timeworn Lit Mag, The Newlyweds’ Window (Mukana Press), and Mysterion, among others. Her story “Yellow Means Stay” was shortlisted for the 2020 Afritondo Short Story Prize. She is one of the editors of the anthology An Adventure Through Wonders, and a Climate Imagination Fellow at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.
Author’s note: “There is this fascinating quote by Sigmund Freud: ‘The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.’ While it’s obviously no hard and fast rule, there is a measure of truth to it. This story outlines the discrepancies we often have between the face we show the world and the personal torments we grapple with. While this encourages us to work to be at peace within and with our situation, it’s also a warning to be cautious about whom we revere, because they might be wolves.”
Hannah lives in Yenagoa, Nigeria, with her family.
“One Two Three” by Hannah Onoguwe. Copyright © 2024 by Hannah Onoguwe.
“When we get to heaven… at the marriage supper… all the saints shall gather… at the last assembly…”
The words trip off Perpetual’s tongue as she struggles to match the fervency of the other women’s clapping, if not their dance steps. But she feels somewhat removed from all this, her surroundings often acquiring the qualities of the surreal. She might be forgiven for that, having only moved to Ibadan about six weeks ago, in theory still a newlywed. This is her second meeting with the other pastors’ wives for their monthly prayer and fasting, and she is hosting.
Perpetual peeks out from under her lashes. Only now is she beginning to tell one modest suit or fascinator from another. There is Kiki Arudese of Holy Ghost Light and Power Embassy—glasses, killer wigs—and Yemisi Gbenro of The New Redeemed Faith Tabernacle—light, embellished skin like butter, expensive jewelry—then Irene Igho—accent imported straight from 10 Downing Street, the eternal scarf knotted at her neck—of the International House of Glory and Praise—
“In Jesus’ powerful name we have prayed,” Ebele Eze of the Episcopal Church of Christ booms, her makeup these two-hours-plus as fresh as when they began. Perpetual lends her amen to the chorus and then rises as they say the grace and the announcements are made. In the kitchen, Rose the help is tap-tapping her phone, snapping her gum.
“Time to serve the refreshments,” Perpetual says. They were used to a balanced spread, the Secretary of the Association of Pastors’ Wives had stressed, especially after fasting all day. This was following the three-course meal after the meeting at Grace Ufodike’s house. Today it was drinks and fruit first, then offals pepper soup, followed by fried rice and turkey which was packed for them to take home.
Rose tucks her phone away sluggishly and Perpetual bites back the words flooding her lips. The girl is apparently from the village but has more airs than any celebrity. Perpetual steps aside as Rose finally moves with a tray and comes out with a smile pinned to her face.
“A baptism by fire,” one wife chortles later. “And you were up for the challenge. Well done.”
Perpetual smiles a thank you, turning as the front door opens. It is her husband, Charles, dressed in a rich brown up-and-down native attire, wreathed in smiles for the women in his spacious living room. This was one reason, Perpetual surmises, that she had been asked to host the women so quickly after barely settling down. Because some of these women have never stepped their foot here and for others it has been too long since they have, seeing as the man had been alone for a couple of years.
“Welcome, Pastor.”
This is a page of her life, Perpetual thinks as she watches the women simper when he exchanges words with a few of them. Not long after he excuses himself, the women begin to depart, and Perpetual can breathe easy again.
Thinking Charles is halfway through a shower by now, she heads to the bedroom. Surprised to find it empty, she makes her way to the study.
Charles is seated, fingers splayed on the leather-topped table, their tips tapping out a rhythm. His eyes lift to her as she enters.
“Your food’s ready,” she says. Then tacks on, “How was your meeting?”
He leans back in his seat and appraises her, eyes settling on her skin like shards of ice. “Perpetual. I think almost two months is enough time for you to figure some things out.”
She stares, her heart thumping with a dread she doesn’t understand. He isn’t the lovey-dovey type, their marriage after all wasn’t based on any profound emotion from either party, but they get along quite well, can sustain conversations about different topics. If the sex is somewhat stilted due to a dearth of attraction on her part, that’s on her. She doesn’t think it’s her place to direct him in certain aspects of foreplay; he knows some of her pretty experienced past but somehow in this space where she’s now a pastor’s wife, she feels it must be her cross to bear. But this…
“I don’t understand.”
He stands and comes around to her. “I mean that when your pastor husband with the biggest congregation this side of the country—and one of the richest—comes home, his wife had better welcome him at the door with a curtsey and carry his fucking bag.”
Perpetual takes a step back, but he follows so they’re toe-to-toe. “But—”
“Especially before a crowd of idiot women, most of whom are married to wannabe pastors who don’t know the first thing about church building.”
She blinks, but she is still here. And yes, that is her husband. “I was just preoccupied with making them comfortable.” Her voice has a pleading note. She doesn’t know any of those women well, but most have been genuinely nice to her. “And I meant no disrespect. Usually, your assistant is right−”
“Well, you didn’t see Ehis anywhere, did you?”
She shakes her head, her insides shriveling at his hard smile.
“Is there an apology seeking to emerge from that brain of yours?” he asks.
“I’m… sorry,” she gulps.
“You can do better than that, Perpe.” It’s the first time he’s using any sort of nickname for her and she goggles for a moment before his words sink in.
“What—how?”
“Get into the room, take your clothes off and wait for me.”
It sounds so absurd that Perpetual laughs. Then as his gaze hardens, she sputters, “You can’t be serious.”
“Read my lips. Get into the room.”
There’s such an authority to his voice that Perpetual immediately turns around and retraces her steps back to the room, her thoughts in a whirl. The bed linen is smooth, the air conditioning a tad too cold, the pine scent of the electric diffuser calming. She perches on the edge of the bed, frozen. Waiting. Is this some kind of joke? Or maybe some kind of surprise role play? She breathes a little easier then, cocks her head as the door opens.
“You didn’t obey me,” are his first words. “Wives are to submit in everything to their husbands.”
Her mouth opens, purses. “Charles, what’s going on?”
“I gave you an order.” Anger stiffens every line in his body as he steps to the bed. “Take off your dress.”
Perpetual scoots back towards the headboard, her throat closing on a shriek as he lunges at her ankle and drags her back to him. It becomes a tussle, his hands rough as he yanks her dress up to her waist. Then he’s unzipping himself and she’s horrified to see him erect and raring to go. Panicking, she tucks her knees in towards her chest and aims her feet at his belly, pushing out with all her might. Charles lands on his backside, releasing a string of curses. She leaps off the bed and yanks the door open, only belatedly realizing that unless she’s leaving the house there’s really nowhere to go.
Nevertheless, Perpetual dashes into the kitchen, startling Rose, who quickly hides something behind her back, something evidently for which permission was not sought and approved. Their room door is thrown open, spilling a sound like a roar, and heart thumping she decides maybe it’s better to head outside. She can appeal to someone to talk to this man, someone he respects—but it dawns on her that maybe such a person doesn’t really exist. Besides, she has no purse, no phone, is barefoot. And has forgotten that the distance from the kitchen to the front door is about the same as from the bedroom door to the front door—a near perfect triangle—and the man coming almost parallel to her, breathing harshly, has longer legs, longer arms, and when he grabs her and swings her round to face him, his face is a mask she doesn’t recognize, and her body goes limp.
His eyes are feral. “Where do you think you’re going? Oh, you want to shame me? Are you mad? What goes on between a man and his wife should stay between them.” Without any care for what might be in her way, he begins to drag Perpetual back. She suspects his aim is to bring his original intention to its logical conclusion.
Rose gapes at them but Perpetual spares her no thought. Instead, she is grabbing onto whatever she can—the arm of the sofa, the edge of the wall—but her hands slick with perspiration eventually slide off and she is being inexorably drawn back towards the bedroom. No, no, no. She is aware that she has been repeating that word as Charles yanks her behind him.
Tomorrow no doubt she will have bruises from his handling. Perpetual suddenly twists her body at an angle, wrenching her arm enough to dislodge his. But the move is miscalculated and awkward, so she falls, the edge of her face glancing off the side of the wall. When Charles lunges for her again he inadvertently shoves her so that her forehead makes full impact with the wall instead. And everything goes black.
Perpetual wakes up in a bed she recognizes as being in one of the spare rooms. Her head is splitting and as she raises a hand to it, her fingers come in contact with the bandage that has been swathed around it. Wincing, she attempts to sit up, but swiftly gives up at the resulting agony. Her heart skips as the events that led her here rush through her head. And where is Charles? He ought to be here, attentive, contrite, fucking promising her paradise. Because her thoughts shy away from giving the whole episode a name. Without fists, classification-wise, this couldn’t actually be spousal—her mind leaps away from the word “domestic”—violence?
As if in response to her thoughts, the door opens, and her pulse kicks up. But it isn’t her husband who comes in. It is two women she hasn’t met before. One, tall, with luminous cocoa skin like in those advertisements, has a pronounced limp and appears to be in her forties. The other is a few years younger, shorter, curvier, has her hair cut short, her round pleasant face punctuated with dimples. They are dressed simply, but there is no getting around it: “Clergy wife” might as well be emblazoned upon each forehead.
“Mrs. Obasi, good evening,” says the first. “We apologize for being unavoidably absent at the meeting earlier.”
Perpetual does not recognize them. Had they come despite the meeting long being over? Maybe they’d wanted to use the opportunity to meet her.
“We heard you were in here,” the second woman says. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Perpetual’s brow furrows. Heard? How long has she been here? Unaware that she spoke aloud, she starts when the woman answers. “Not long, don’t worry.” They draw chairs up to the bed, their manner somewhat calming her.
“How are you feeling?” The taller woman asks, her eyes boring into Perpetual’s suddenly, although her voice is gentle.
“Umm… better,” Perpetual murmurs. Is it true, though? Or is she just building an alternate world in her mind where she does not have to take out its parts to scrutinize them, because if she does she will have to admit that there is a problem? If she assigns labels and names and tags, then she will have to confess that nothing is in her control.
The second woman smiles, and Perpetual is distracted for a moment by those dimples. Then she jerks slightly as the woman touches her arm.
“It’s okay.” Her voice is deeper than Perpetual would have expected. She holds up a flask that she sets on the bedside table, which already has a glass and bottle of water sitting on it.
Perpetual is glad for the company. Being so new, there are a number of the pastors’ wives she is yet to meet. Although these two faces don’t ring a bell, within her she feels some sort of kinship with them. Maybe it is the shared “woman-behind-every-successful-man” mantra which is especially true of women who have pledged their lives and loyalties to men of the cloth.
“What happened?” Woman Number One asks, and Perpetual stiffens, immediately rethinking her prior affinity towards them.
“An accident,” she says. The two women look at each other knowingly. Openly, zero tact. Irritated disbelief lances through her. Just who do they think they are?
“What church did you say you’re from?” she asks, trying to be polite, still. After all, they had made out time to see her.
Their eyes move to hers as one as they chorus, “Assembly of the Firstborn.” The look on their faces is chiding, like she should know. She gulps. That is their church, of which she is now the Senior Pastor’s wife.
She is mortified. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m still trying to recognize−”
“Oh no.” From the second woman, shaking her head sharply. “Don’t apologize. You’re still new.”
“Which is why we’re here,” the other chimes in.
“O-kay…” Perpetual’s head is beginning to pound, and she glances around for a painkiller. The second woman leans over to open the table drawer. There are packets of Paracetamol, and she pops two tablets out as her partner pours a glass of water. It’s so near choreographed that Perpetual feels a chill race over her skin. But she swallows the medication quickly, wipes the excess moisture from her lips.
“How did you— You said you heard I was here?” They nod, but don’t explain.
“Where is Charles?” the first asks, just when Perpetual is wondering how she is here alone with these women—no Charles, no Rose, only water and a bandaged head. The two women then nod at the door, and as if on cue, the handle turns. Relieved, Perpetual exhales. She will show her displeasure with the man, but she is eager for the world to right itself. The door doesn’t open, though. The handle turns again, then a third time, followed by an impatient knock on the door.
“Perpetual.” Her husband’s tone is testy, not cajoling like she imagined, and she frowns, her question emerging tardily as she looks at the women.
“Did you lock the door?” she asks.
They bestow a smug look on her. “Like we said, we are here for you.”
“I don’t un—”
“Perpetual!”
She holds her head as if to contain its contents. “Yes?”
“Open the door.” The handle turns again, rattles. “Let’s talk.”
The first woman shakes her head. “Don’t agree. He’s not even apologetic.”
“Exactly,” the second says, affronted. She expels a sound absent of mirth. “Typical Charles.”
“Who are you talking to in there?” he says.
“Some of our church members.”
“Who?”
“Two ladies.”
She hears him kiss his teeth. He bangs on the door. “I was just angry, come on. Let’s settle this.”
But she doesn’t know how much “settling” she wants done before other people. Okay, if they were pastors’ wives, she should know them. Deacons’ wives, perhaps, from their easy familiarity. But even then, she has witnessed the reverence members have for their Senior Pastor. None would be caught dead using his first name so casually. “What are your names?” she asks them.
They had been watching the door fixedly, still as statues. Now they turn to her. The older one says, “I’m Ngozi, she’s Happiness.” Happiness nods with a serene smile.
“Okay,” Perpetual says, then calls out to Charles, “Ngozi and Happiness.”
There is no response so that for a moment Perpetual thinks he has left in annoyance. But then, she jumps at the sound of the flat of his hand slapping the door. “Nobody entered this house, Perpetual. Stop playing games with me.”
“I’m not!” She lowers her voice to talk to the women. “Could you please open the door?”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” says Happiness. Something flickers in her narrowed gaze which seizes the ready Yes from Perpetual’s mouth. It is like looking straight into a peephole where someone looks out and then withdraws. Charles’s huff from the other side of the door pulls Perpetual’s gaze there.
“Are you all right?” he asks, not with concern, but with the tone of, Are you mad?
Shame drenches her, but she cannot stop herself from seeking these women’s reaction to his words. Looking from one face to the other, she finds only pity and a certain empathy. Glad that the medication has begun to kick in, she struggles to sit up and Happiness jumps up to help. But as the woman arranges the pillows behind her, Perpetual nearly gags on the cloying smell that suffuses her nostrils. Smells of sulphur and camphor and old wrappers kept covered, of unaired things and unwashed hair and stifled hope. She holds her breath and manages a thank you as Happiness resumes her seat.
Perpetual steadies herself, deciding to face Charles once and for all. It’s no use prolonging matters. After all, these women will soon be on their way to their homes. But when she throws her legs over the side of the bed, Ngozi reaches out with both hands, grabs her feet, and places them back none-too-gently on the bed.
Affronted, Perpetual says sharply, “I want to get up.”
Ngozi and Happiness look at each other, laugh without mirth, and then stare at her like she is indeed mad.
“No, you don’t,” Ngozi says, and the conviction in her gaze floors Perpetual.
“Do you think that man is going to kiss your feet and weep over what has happened?” Happiness says bitterly. “That he will say it is the work of the devil and vow never to lose control again?”
“You think it was an aberration? He didn’t hit you so he never will?” At Perpetual’s look of guilt, Ngozi shakes her head. “You’re wrong.”
Happiness sighs as she looks at Perpetual. Then she perks up. “You should eat something.” She reaches for the flask they brought, produces a bowl, a spoon. Steam curls from the lip of the open flask, the aroma it emits not one she can nail down. “Pepper soup,” Happiness says, ladling some out. The bowl is placed in a saucer with a spoon, the heat embracing her fingertips making Perpetual feel cared for. She can’t help but contrast this with the clergy women of earlier who came expecting a three-course meal.
She blows on a spoonful and sips. The flavours of pepper, onions and local spices explode on her tongue, but there is a disharmony somewhere. The meat is similar to the offals she’d prepared earlier, but spongier. “Interesting taste. What is this?”
When the answer comes it is discordant, sounding like the reply to some other question, so Perpetual doesn’t immediately recoil. Then it suddenly clicks, and her eyes fly to the person who had spoken. “What?”
Ngozi repeats the word patiently. “Placenta.”
The meat, the broth and sparse vegetables are instantly at war with her tongue, bile rising swiftly and flooding her mouth until she retches, turning her head to spew everything over the floor and the side of the bed.
Ngozi frowns. “That was a waste of essential nutrients.”
“What?” Perpetual sputters, unable to stop herself from spitting over and over again on the floor.
“I used to be a nurse, you know,” Happiness says proudly. The women have busied themselves cleaning up, and she wields a mop taken from the bathroom. “I’m used to even worse.”
“The placenta isn’t from a patient—”
“No, nothing like that. This was Ngozi’s.”
Ngozi stares fixedly into midair for a beat as if something is etched in the space before her, then continues briskly cleaning the bed frame, the sheets. Matter-of-factly she says, “My last pregnancy was almost full term. Before he did his abracadabra.”
Perpetual watches them finish up and go to the bathroom. Over the sound of running water their conversation in there is cheery, expressions at ease as they come back into the room. Her breathing is uneven, heart burning. What is this? But she fears one part of her knows already; the other wants to pretend a little longer.
She clears her throat, forcing the words out. “It must be getting quite late. Won’t your families be expecting you back?”
Happiness touches Perpetual’s hand. “Your concern is touching, but we’re right where we need to be. No kids—you’re acting like you didn’t hear what my senior said. You are our only family.”
“Your… senior?”
“Sorry, we didn’t introduce ourselves properly. I’m Ngozi Obasi, she’s Happiness Obasi.” Ngozi sticks a thumb to her chest. “One.” Points an index finger at Happiness. “Two.” Clasps Perpetual’s hands in hers with a nod. “You’re Number Three.”
Perpetual escapes the woman’s cold, damp hands and jumps up—headache be damned—retreating to a corner. “This makes no sense. He’s a—Charles is a widower.”
Happiness nods. “Yes.”
“But you— you—” She looks from one woman to the other. “You’re not… dead?”
“We’re certainly not quite alive,” Ngozi chortles. “Sit down. Relax.”
She doesn’t budge. “You said sorry you’d missed the meeting.”
“Yes. We’re always around to keep abreast of things.”
“Usually around,” Happiness corrects.
“Oh yes. Thanks for the correction. This was our home, we lived here.” Ngozi’s eyes find hers. “This is our home. We died here.”
Perpetual leaps towards the door and yanks at the handle. It doesn’t open so her hand slides to the lock. But there’s no key. Then a hand comes over hers, another clasps her shoulder. Both women pull her away and steer her back to bed, tuck her in firmly. Ngozi’s face is right up to hers and Perpetual is only now seeing the emptiness in her eyes when she says, “Show some respect.”
“You should be grateful,” Happiness says, her dimples not so evident now. “We saw how he treated you, how you tried to run away. We’re saving you!”
“How?”
They exchange a glance. “Just follow our lead,” Ngozi says.
“This makes no sense.”
Happiness’s smile is beginning to lose its cuteness. “And marrying him did?”
The throbbing in Perpetual’s head now has nothing to do with her injury. She just needs to wake up from this clearly pain-fueled nightmare. Her head snaps up at the banging on the door. Bam-bam. The women are gazing fixedly at her.
“Perpetual, come out, let’s talk.”
“I can’t,” she says. Happiness gives her a thumbs-up.
“Stubbornness will get you nowhere. Let me in.”
“I can’t!” she yells. “Ngozi and Happiness are here.”
“Who told you about them?”
“They did. They’re here.”
“Bullshit. Open up.” Bam-bam-bam.
Ngozi pulls out the flask again. “This will help to keep your strength up.”
“No.” Perpetual would rather die. Eyes round, she’s shaking her head even as it’s being opened.
“Just a little.”
Bam-bam-bam. “Perpetual. Come on.”
Happiness tucks a napkin at her neck. Perpetual rips it out. Happiness strikes her face without hesitation, snapping her head back. “Behave yourself.”
In shock, she cups her throbbing cheek, stupid tears filling her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Ngozi’s voice is sharp.
“Sorry.” Those dimples wink. “You know my temper.”
“Control yourself.”
“Yes, yes.” Happiness tucks in the napkin again. “We went to great trouble to make this,” she says softly, as if to a child. Ngozi nods in agreement.
The door again, rattling, bam-bam-bam. “You leave me no choice, Perpetual!” Charles is shouting.
The bowl approaches. Perpetual turns her face away. Ngozi grasps her head to keep it in place. “Come on, just a little…”
“Perpetual!” Bam-bam-bam-bam.
She is struggling against Ngozi’s vise-like grip, the spoon at her lips. She screams, “Nooooo!” jutting her head forward sharply so the spoon and bowl are knocked out of Happiness’s hands, the hot soup spilling over the covers this time, scalding the skin beneath. She barely feels it. Happiness is staring at the flecks of gray protein and greens everywhere, some on the floor, fury distorting her face. “You ungrateful ashewo!”
Before the blow can connect this time, Perpetual blocks it. Enraged, Happiness doesn’t let up so Perpetual fights back yelling, screaming, flailing her arms, using nails, elbows, teeth, everything she can to defend herself. “Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop—”
There is an almighty crash as the door splinters. She jerks at the sound, her eyes popping open. An enraged Charles is breathing hard, not a scintilla of sympathy in his stance. “See what you made me do,” he says in a quietly controlled voice. Perpetual’s gaze roves the room, but Ngozi and Happiness are nowhere to be found. She looks behind her, hops down from the bed to peep into the bathroom. Nothing.
“They were here,” she insists.
“Get her to the room,” Charles says, and she sees Rose behind him. She takes Perpetual’s arm and leads her out. As she passes him, Charles scrunches up his nose. “You stink.”
The placenta soup, she wants to say, only now it smells like faeces. Rose takes her to their bathroom and flees. Stripping down, Perpetual runs a hot bath while she unwinds the bandage from her head and drops it on the pile of filthy clothes. There is still a bump the size of an egg on her forehead. She soaks for a few minutes, trying to blank out her thoughts of the last—minutes, hours?—then climbs out, pulling on a robe. Charles is sitting as she re-enters the room, patiently waiting. He runs an eye over her, curls his lip. A sudden exhaustion drenches her and she stumbles to the bed and sinks onto it, lying on her back.
“You will never fucking disrespect me like that again,” Charles says. Every word throbs with anger.
She is too tired for a riposte. She stares at the POP ceiling. I have to get out of here. But no way will her parents take her back. “God hates divorce,” Mummy always says.
“Do you hear me?” His voice is a near octave higher.
“Yes. Sir.”
His eyes haven’t left her, the air between them seething, but Perpetual keeps her gaze on the ceiling with the tiny grooves of its design. His phone rings and rings until he finally answers. “Yes?” Listens for a few seconds. He stands. Perpetual flinches as he touches her hip. “Prepare for me,” he whispers before leaving, still talking on the phone.
Perpetual lets out a breath, closing her eyes on fresh tears. She has to be going crazy. When she opens her eyes again, she is shivering in the damp robe, obviously having slept off. She jumps as the door opens.
Ngozi peers around it, smiles to see her awake and then steps in. “How are you feeling?”
Perpetual’s heartbeat is deafening, a certain despair squeezing her insides. “Happiness?” she croaks, ignoring the question.
“I told her not to come until she can control herself.”
Perpetual shuts her eyes, wishing she could be transported to her bedroom in her parents’ home, even if it’s minutes before the dreaded 5 am morning devotions. She opens them to see that Ngozi has settled on the stool at the dresser. She is casting a look around the room, then catches Perpetual’s gaze.
“I always liked this room,” she says with a nostalgic smile on her face. “So restful.”
Perpetual finds the strength to push up onto her elbows and glare at her. “Really?” Unlike what she intends, her voice is barely a thread of sound.
Ngozi’s hands fiddle with the hem of her respectable blouse. “Well… more in the beginning.”
Beyond exhausted, Perpetual flops back on the bed, this time shifting until she can drape the duvet over her body and turn her back on Ngozi. She closes her eyes, willing herself to empty her head of everything, but Ngozi’s words from earlier won’t let her be.
She opens her eyes. “You said I should follow your lead,” she begins, somehow positive that Ngozi is still there.
There is a shuffle of feet on the tiles, and then Ngozi’s form comes into view via the end of the bed and she perches on the end of it. “When my life ended here, somehow I couldn’t… transition. I had given up so much of my ambitions, myself. I couldn’t believe that was it. Then he married Happiness and I knew what my purpose was: to make sure she survived it, survived him. To warn her to do whatever it took not to let him win.”
“So how come she’s stuck here with you?” Perpetual’s tone is droll.
“It’s hard for us women to admit we’ve made a mistake.”
“For anyone.”
“Us most of all. We try to fix it by trying to fix ourselves. We think if only we adjust something, our behaviour, our appearance, our words… our very essence… we think that way because that’s what we’re told. Happiness saw me as an evil spirit and by the time she was convinced, it was too late and she was stuck here with me.”
“And you think I’m the one that can get you and Happiness unstuck? How?”
Ngozi is silent, seemingly focused inward, the moment swelling so that Perpetual thinks she hasn’t heard her and is about to repeat the question. Then Ngozi says, harshly, “By killing him.”
Perpetual’s heart jumps as Ngozi smirks at the expression on her face.
“An eye for an eye, no be so? Fitting. We’re unstuck, you’re free, no other woman will fall into his clutches, and the world will be rid of one more demon.”
Perpetual is twinning with Charles in a maroon-toned suit with a midi skirt and jacket, frilled ivory silk blouse matching her fascinator and kitten heels. His maroon suit is custom-made, matching the silk tie and pocket square. The cynosure of all eyes when they had walked in, by all appearances they go together like akara and pap. She is scheduled to take a Bible reading and goes to the podium at the appropriate time, squaring her shoulders. Her stomach always curls with the same sickening anxiety, that feeling of being evaluated, judged. Will she ever truly feel like she fits in?
“Verse 19: ‘Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: It is mine to avenge…’” And here the words strike her like a bolt, and a prickling on her skin forces her head up. Ngozi and Happiness are leaning against the wall near one of the air conditioning units, dressed in wrinkled suits.
But as Perpetual falters, everyone’s gaze sharpens on her. She clears her throat. “Sorry. ‘…I will repay…’” Perpetual tries to ignore the previous Obasi wives, but her gaze strays to them again. This time, some of the congregation try to follow her line of sight to see who or what is distracting her.
“Don’t imagine that Scripture is meant for us,” Happiness says with a knowing gaze. “Well-intentioned, I’m sure, but not very practical.”
Overwhelmed by their appearance here of all places, confused by Happiness’s refuting of the verse, Perpetual doesn’t know when she says, “Stop,” sharply. The whole congregation first freezes before animated whispers begin springing up until it is a discordant buzz. She chances a glance at her husband. Legs still crossed elegantly, mouth pursed with a thoughtful fist half-covering it, she can tell he is furious. She hurriedly tries to find her place in the open Bible but the words swim and sway illogically. And over the din in her head are the voices:
“What’s she looking at?”
“Is she okay?”
“Na so craze dey start—”
“Shut up—don’t be disrespectful.”
She jumps slightly at a light touch on her back. One of the assistant pastor’s wives is behind her, a plastic smile on her lips but a certain snideness in her eyes. “Ma, Daddy said you should take your seat. I’ll finish the reading.”
Another appears at her elbow, brushing aside her insistence that she can—will!—finish it, and, suddenly tired, she allows herself to be led back to her seat. But compulsively, helplessly, Perpetual can’t prevent herself from looking back at Ngozi and Happiness, Ngozi looking a little remorseful, Happiness with a smirk on her face. And when she swings back around, she jumps as she meets Charles’s gaze. It is official, she thinks numbly. His expression needs no interpretation: she will be visited with righteous retribution when they get home.
After the service, Charles still has meetings to handle and sends her off immediately. Perpetual is blind, deaf, where previously she had drunk in every new change in Ibadan, the sprawling city she had grown up in, every bit of expansion. She barely hears the driver announce their arrival at home. She starts when his voice finally penetrates, and from his expression, it is not the first time he’s spoken.
Rose emerges in some off-shoulder Ankara dress, breasts trussed up impossibly high underneath the fabric. She collects Perpetual’s leather purse and Bible bag. “Welcome, ma.”
Perpetual murmurs a thank you and heads straight to her room. Rose attends a native-speaking church not far away, although Perpetual suspects she spends more time with a boyfriend than worshipping. Always, a hint of some musky masculine cologne clings to her.
In their bedroom, Perpetual is just taking off her fascinator when Rose knocks and comes in to drop her things.
“Ma, food is ready.”
“Thank you.”
Stripping off her clothes as the door closes behind Rose, she washes her hot face and pulls on a cotton jellabiya that whispers comfort over her skin. She blocks the thoughts tripping over themselves in her head and huddles under the covers. She has seemingly just shut her eyes in fleeting relief when Rose’s knock wakes her.
“Ma… Daddy said I should call you.”
She tenses at the news that he is back, sits up, smooths her hair. Charles is in the living room, absent his suit jacket, with two assistant pastors and two deacons. Just coming up behind them is the president of the women’s group, Mrs. Turayo Oluyide, a svelte fashionista who, with the benefits of her deceased husband who had worked in oil and gas, can send her grown children to school abroad. By rights that position belongs to Perpetual, but the woman had been filling it for years before she came, and Perpetual was reluctant to cause waves by insisting she step down. In a more balanced world, wouldn’t Mrs. Oluyide sit down with her to put her through some things and step aside willingly? But no. Here she is, looking smug.
“Welcome, Daddy,” Perpetual says humbly. She greets the rest, and their responses are jumbled.
“Sit down,” Charles says to them, and then to her, “Sit.”
After they all do so, Perpetual looks up and sees Ngozi and Happiness.
“Sorry,” Ngozi says. “We waited to see what all those meetings were about.”
The shame that had drenched her like a consuming fire in church still fresh, Perpetual averts her gaze from the hovering Obasi wives. When she calls Rose to bring drinks, one of the assistant pastors says, “No thank you, ma,” to which she insists, “No, sir. Have something,” so that he falls silent.
They all wait in prickly silence for the drinks to arrive, Perpetual venturing a glance at her husband’s face. A hint of a puzzle perches between his brows, and her spine straightens further. In this moment she is like a queen whose subjects are before her and she watches with a small smile on her face as Rose goes round, asking what they want. For a few moments there is only the pop of bottle tops and the hiss of cans being opened, the clink of glasses.
The assistant pastor who had spoken earlier—Hanson she remembers his name is—clears his throat. “Thank you, ma… although we are here for more serious matters. Following today’s… erm, incident… ah, we met after church and discussed the way forward. Daddy shared with us your family situation, the pressure you are under, coupled with your trying to settle in—”
She considers “Daddy” who sits there coolly, eyes vigilant. Oh yes, she can picture it all in her mind, the sharing. Her “family situation”? She wants to laugh. Even she is in the dark about what that might be. Charles is pulling all the strings here, the others are just there for the show.
“—it has been decided ma, that until you are able to sort out… your mental health… you will be suspended from officiating in church activities until further notice.”
Perpetual freezes. The mental card, is it? To be fair, though, when one leaves the duty before her and starts speaking to someone who is or isn’t there, what else are they to think? What is she to think? Hanson’s voice drones on and she belatedly sees the letter he proffers. She scans it quickly. She can only attend weekly activities, if necessary but, to protect her health she is prohibited from attending major services or programmes, and starting from Monday, she will be registered with a psychiatrist. Following therapy and successful treatment as evaluated by the psychiatrist, she will be issued another letter clearing her to rejoin the local assembly and, after a further period of evaluation by the elders, to resume officiating in whatever capacity is required of her.
“Is everything clear, ma?”
She raises her gaze first to Charles whose hands are steepled over his mouth, steady in the face of his wife’s predicament, then to Mrs. Oluyide who stares back with a banked triumph in her eyes, then the rest. Their eyes slide away from hers, only Hanson looks back with some regret.
“Ma?”
Perpetual nods. “Very clear. Thanks for coming.” And the confusion that temporarily suffuses them makes her smile genuinely. She keeps sitting as they leave with murmured farewells to their Daddy, then stands, turning to see Ngozi and Happiness seated at the table.
“Everything looks so good,” Ngozi says. “In my time there was no house help o.”
“Hmm. I had quite a few,” Happiness muses. “They were aways leaving, though.”
Ngozi chortles. “Why stay when you can beat them to within an inch of their life?”
“I wasn’t always like this,” she shoots back and Ngozi rolls her eyes.
Perpetual opens the serving dishes of white rice, chicken stew, fried plantains, peeling back the cling film from the potato salad. The steam curling into the air combined with their sweet and savoury aromas calms her somewhat. She is smiling as Charles returns from seeing his church members off. “Shall I serve?” she asks.
For a moment he stands in place, staring at her. She cocks her head. “Or not,” she says softly.
He begins pulling off his cufflinks. “Serve.”
His plate is ready when he returns from their bedroom and they eat, surrounded by Ngozi and Happiness’s chatter.
“Almost like old times,” Happiness says. “Ask him something for me,” she tells Perpetual who gives her a quelling look. Charles’s movements slow as he notices her glance to the side.
“No,” Happiness insists. “I always wondered about ‘Madam President’, even though I never had the boldness to ask.”
“But her husband was alive then?” Perpetual asks, causing Charles’s head to snap up, fury spilling from his eyes.
He scrapes back his chair abruptly. “Are you mad?”
Perpetual chuckles. “I guess we’ll know tomorrow, right?” Then goes right to the question, “Did you… no, were you ever…”
Ngozi kisses her teeth. “Who knows if he’s not still doing the woman now?”
“Are you sleeping with Mrs. Oluyide?” Perpetual asks, throwing all caution aside. The blow, when it comes, jolts her head to the side, some of her teeth bruising the tender flesh of her inner mouth so that she tastes blood. The sound brings Rose out, although she only peeps around the kitchen door wide-eyed.
Charles grits, “I was going to let you get your therapy with some dignity, but I don’t think you deserve it. You take the things you enjoy for granted.”
Perpetual lets out a breath, tasting the saltiness of her sore inner mouth with her tongue. That he thinks there is enjoyment to be gained from this mess shows how delusional he is. But… seeing a therapist is one thing, being eventually admitted as an inpatient at the Psychiatry Ward at the University College Hospital is another. It dawns on her. “You don’t have to kill me to get rid of me, do you?”
Charles shoots to his feet. “Stop your nonsense. You will get ready tomorrow morning, and I will take you to the psychiatrist personally.”
She nods. “Seems wise.”
With an unintelligible sound, he storms away to his study, the door slamming. Ngozi props her chin up in her hands, one side of her mouth curved. “You’re getting bolder. I like it.”
Perpetual feels it, too. Those minutes she was unsubordinated before Charles and his people sweeten her mind. That is her aim now, to feel as strong as in those moments, as in control.
“So how did you end up with this man?” Happiness asks. She reaches over to take some fried plantain, chewing with enjoyment.
Perpetual sighs. “The short or long version?”
“Short, please. We have a demise to plan.”
That brings her up short. Is she really agreeing to this? Is there a way to end this sorry excuse of a man of God without bringing harm to herself? If she runs away afterwards, can she stay hidden? And then what? Her thoughts take her one step here, two steps, and she retreats. One step there, two steps, and there is another wall. No matter how she looks at it, the last final step eludes her. There is no step that spells freedom. Her head begins to throb.
Happiness’s voice resituates her. “Are we going to hear this gist today?” Ngozi is waiting expectantly as well, seemingly taking in every expression flitting across her face.
Perpetual shrugs. “I was pretty wild at the university. The freedom, you know, after coming from a sheltered home, uber-conservative home… the freedom did me in. I think I must have tried everything, you name it.”
“Drugs?” Ngozi looks horrified.
About to vehemently deny it, Perpetual relents. “Not hard stuff.” Happiness makes keep-it-going motions with her hands. “Somehow, kids from church also in my school reported to their parents, the news filtered to mine… drama. I became the church slut-prodigal in need of redemption.”
“Did you find it?”
She scoffs. “I calmed down. The truth was I wouldn’t—couldn’t—have kept up that lifestyle anyway. I rededicated my life at the altar, became more modest, used the right lingo. Redemption ultimately came when one of the richest pastors in Ibadan, Nigeria really, came to Benin for a conference and showed interest in me. I wasn’t really ready for marriage but… he was well-spoken, didn’t care about my past…”
“Your parents wanted it.”
Ngozi’s flat words were the final summary and Perpetual nodded. If they hadn’t seen it as an answer to prayers, and a subversive way of being victorious over their critics, she would have politely turned him down.
“And now you will stop him from doing this to another woman ever again,” Happiness said. “It’s perfect. After seeing the psychiatrist for a few weeks, no one will bat an eyelid when you plead ‘Guilty by reason of insanity’. We couldn’t have written this script better.”
Happiness is facing Ngozi now and Mrs. Obasi Number One has something like tears in her eyes. Seizing Number Two’s hands, she says, “And we can finally be free.” A breathy laugh escapes her. “Everything we went through…”
Happiness squeezes Ngozi’s hands once and then lets go, clearing her throat as if in warning. She turns to Perpetual once more. “Barring this, he’ll never let you go. It’s you or him. The earlier the better. Afterwards, if you’re on your best behaviour at the psychiatry ward, you pretend you’re better and will be let out early. It’s not like they have an abundance of bed space.”
Perpetual stares at them, images kicking to life behind her eyes. Of her being arrested, the inevitable uproar in the media. Oh, maybe her parents might finally reach out to her then, she thinks snidely. Then months, maybe years in court. Then, assuming the plea is a success, more months, maybe years in the psychiatry ward. And then— At this point, she doesn’t see anything, can’t imagine anything, because in all the ways that matter, she will be lost. To her family, to society. More importantly, to herself.
She opens her mouth to voice her reservations, but when she looks up Ngozi and Happiness are gone. Just up and left in the middle of the conversation. Her lip curls. Even in this matter, there is little consideration for the youngest wife.
When Perpetual wakes the next morning, her mind is inexplicably clear despite the restless night. Beside her the bed is empty and she shuts her eyes for a moment. Although bereft of the right words, she opens herself to heaven. Jostling around in her mind are words from Scripture she must have committed to memory once. “God is faithful… but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape.” Her heart lifts. It has been too long since she has attempted personal prayers and she sighs, opening her eyes. She’s woken up much earlier than usual, the day is still in that gray limbo before sunrise. Charles must be in his study, praying or studying the Bible, although she wonders what he truly prays about or studies in his alternate universe.
She remembers he’s taking her to the psychiatrist today and a rock sinks her stomach down to her feet, her breath coming faster. She tries some deep breathing and then gives up when nothing seems to work. She pushes back the covers and makes her way barefooted out of the room, stifling a yawn. There is a sound in the kitchen. Rose must be up and putting breakfast together. She steps into the kitchen and halts at the entrance, her eyes widening. Charles is crowding Rose at the counter, his chest to her back, fingers just brushing the curve of her buttocks. Her heart seizes in her chest, her mouth opening to warn him not to invite a lawsuit on his head when Rose’s giggle escapes.
Perpetual sees red. She must have made a sound because Charles leaps back from Rose as the girl turns simultaneously with wide eyes. “Ma, please I—”
But Rose is the least of Perpetual’s concerns. She narrows her gaze on the mad he-goat who is at this moment telling her to calm down. He has the nerve to talk about her mental health? Fury rushes to her throat so suddenly that for a moment she can only see their mouths move but hears nothing. As the sound rushes back in a torrent, she is taking in breath in huge gulps even as her eyes scan the room, selecting and discarding suitable items.
“Nothing has really happened between us, Perpe,” he is saying with a cajoling smile. “She’s just a temptation—I’ve warned her not to go around wearing these skimpy things. It won’t happen again.” He’s walking towards her, his confidence all but restored. “We should start getting ready to see the therapist. I’ve called her—what are you doing?”
Perpetual has walked past him, heading for the sideboard where Rose was hunched over. There’s a chopping board there, carrots and bell peppers half-julienned. She grabs the handle closest to her, vegetables scattering every which way. Putting her elbow into it, her back is still to Charles when she swings in his general direction, arm at an angle to make up for the height differential, hips and foot cooperating as if the move was rehearsed. Her heart is hammering in her ears, bottled up fury and fear and disappointment erupting in a cry torn from her throat as the edge of the cutting board claps the side of Charles’s head with an ominous crunch. He had taken a few steps towards her, and that was her saving grace, or she might have missed altogether. The mix of surprise and puzzlement on his face just before he crumples in an undignified heap on the ground gives her such satisfaction that a grin splits her face.
Rose has escaped and Perpetual is staring down at her husband, chest heaving, the haze slowly clearing from her eyes.
“Look at you now, Daddy.” She steps over him. Maybe rearrange those arrogant features a bit so that even his staunchest supporters won’t recognize him. The handle of the chopping board in her hand is smooth, warm. Effective. She tightens her grip on it and raises it again.
“Perpetual!”
Ngozi and Happiness are at the door and the fact that she has managed to shock them also brings her to her senses. Of course she cannot take a life, no matter what her seniors expect. The chopping board clatters to the floor.
“Why couldn’t you just stick to the plan?” Happiness is seething, her features unrecognisable. Her hands are fisted as she steps right up to Perpetual, trembling with anger.
“This is premature, Perpetual. We don’t have the results from the psychiatrist yet,” Ngozi muses. “But it could still work…”
Happiness glances back at Ngozi. “This is too easy for this beast. Something long and protracted is what he deserves.”
“Yes. However, we might not get everything we want, but if he’s dead and gone, it’s a victory for us,” Ngozi says, trying to soothe the younger wife. She looks at Perpetual, tacking on belatedly, “For all of us.”
Perpetual watches them detachedly. A glance at the man at her feet galvanizes her into action. This “way of escape”? She’s taking it. She wipes her palms on the fabric of her nightgown and heads towards the door.
“Wait!” Ngozi’s voice is shrill. “You have to finish him off!”
Perpetual turns around slowly. “If you want it so badly, why don’t you do it yourself?” Ngozi and Happiness stare back at her dumbly. Perpetual cocks her head. “Oh, I forgot; if you could have, you would have. You know what I think? This is all about you two. No one is keeping you here against your will. And from today on, no one will keep me here, either.”
From a drawer in Charles’s study, she takes a stack of money. She finds more in his wardrobe in the bedroom, stuffs the bills at the bottom of an overnight bag, and tops it with some lightweight clothes. Bidding goodbye to the closets of designer clothing, she dons dark jeans and sneakers, borrowing one of Charles’s baseball hats. She pauses just before she opens the front door, but the house is deathly still. For an anxious moment, she wonders if she overdid it with the chopping board. What if Charles…? No. He will live.
The day is just breaking as she opens the pedestrian part of the gate. It’s too early for the driver to be here and for that she is grateful. The stars seem to align in her favour, as the gateman is nowhere in sight either. The farther she gets away from the house, the quicker her feet move until she is almost running. She hails an okada and is about to clamber on when she hears, from somewhere behind her, “Mrs. Obasi?”
The driver of the okada meets her panicked gaze strangely, no doubt wondering at her hesitation. He points behind her. “Dem dey call you.”
A quick glance reveals her worst fears: two women, fast gaining on her. Perpetual’s breath is tripping again and she is feeling lightheaded.
Fear is returning in a sickening tide. Will she never be free of these women? Decisively, she jumps on the motorbike. “Let’s go.”
He doesn’t budge though, twisting to look at her. “Collect your thing na.”
There is the patter of footsteps hastening towards them and Perpetual shuts her eyes in defeat. It has to be Charles, with those women in his wake. Because it’s wherever he is that they have chosen to remain. She jumps when a hand touches her shoulder.
“Ma?”
Defiantly, she turns to look, and her shoulders deflate. Two women, younger than her. Likely university students making an early start. “You dropped this,” one says, irritation lacing her voice, proffering the purse Perpetual had pushed into the side of the bag at the last minute.
“Oh.” She takes it. “Thank you. You… called my name?”
The girl exchanges an eloquent look with her friend. “No, I said ‘Excuse me’.” Already she’s turning away, her friend giving Perpetual one last weird look.
The okada driver kickstarts the bike. “You been dey fear?” He is laughing at her, but somehow she doesn’t mind, so she speaks lightheartedly.
“Yes o. You don’t know who is who these days.”
“Na true sha.” The wind begins to rush in her face as the bike gains speed. “But when God dey everywhere, why you go fear?”
And that comment from a stranger is her undoing this cool morning, the wind in her face drying the tears as fast as they come.
Hannah Onoguwe’s stories have been published in Imagine Africa 500, the Strange Lands Short Stories and African Ghost Stories anthologies (both by Flame Tree Press), as well as in PerVisions, Eleven Eleven, Omenana, Timeworn Lit Mag, The Newlyweds’ Window (Mukana Press), and Mysterion, among others. Her story “Yellow Means Stay” was shortlisted for the 2020 Afritondo Short Story Prize. She is one of the editors of the anthology An Adventure Through Wonders, and a Climate Imagination Fellow at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.
Author’s note: “There is this fascinating quote by Sigmund Freud: ‘The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.’ While it’s obviously no hard and fast rule, there is a measure of truth to it. This story outlines the discrepancies we often have between the face we show the world and the personal torments we grapple with. While this encourages us to work to be at peace within and with our situation, it’s also a warning to be cautious about whom we revere, because they might be wolves.”
Hannah lives in Yenagoa, Nigeria, with her family.
“One Two Three” by Hannah Onoguwe. Copyright © 2024 by Hannah Onoguwe.
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