Chapter six
“I say where did you keep your salary, you crazy man?” Mama Adaobi roared at her husband another eventful evening, giving him a thunderous slap. This daily show of shame is one of the reasons Obinna and Adaobi find it difficult to visit home.
“Er…er...I told you it’s under the pillow…please, don’t beat me anymore, I’m saying the truth…” Papa Adaobi begged his hot-tempered wife. That was how things went everyday in the Obika’s family. She was the Lord of the house and a woman of valour. Almost five feet tall, fat, strong and stoutly-built, she towered over her husband like a giant does over a lilliputian fellow.
At home, she was always in command and her husband feared her so much and treated her like a demigod. Don’t blame him as no one would dare a lion in a jungle or do battle with a ferocious shark in the Ocean without ending up in their bellies. Mama Adaobi was not only feared by her thin, short, frail-looking and skinny husband who obviously had no strength to hurt a fly. She was also feared in the neighborhood.
For many, Papa Adaobi had chewed more than he could swallow, and whoever advised him to take Mama Adaobi as a wife did not wish him well. Whenever he collected his salary at month end, his wife would take it from him forcefully and if he dared show a little reluctance in the process, he would get the beating of his life.
On occasions like these fifteen years ago, Adaobi, their only daughter would cry and beg their mum: “Mama…Mama… Mama…please don’t beat Papa again…please don’t beat him again…You’ll kill him…” Even though she was usually in tears during these periods, her mother was usually never in the mood to have mercy on her weak spouse or care a hoot about the feelings of the sobbing little girl. Obinna would always watch in agony.
Expectedly, neighbours would always gather and plead on behalf of the unfortunate man. These interventions never yielded positive results as the insults and assault always continued unabated. Of course the poor man would cry like a child.
Once, the couple and children were invited to a naming ceremony. At the occasion, a bizarre drama unfolded when Mama Adaobi caught her husband admiring a pretty young lady. She gave him a dirty slap.
“What the hell are you doing? Why are you looking at that young lady that way?” she yelled.
“Er…er…I’m just trying to…” He stammered. Before he could complete his sentence the boorish and boisterous woman dealt him six thunderous slaps in quick succession. Thereafter, she dragged him up from the seat and declared it was time to go home.
“Nonsense! That’s how adultery and fornication start! Useless man!” she sputtered.
A thoroughly confused and embarrassed Papa Adaobi knew that it was only God’s intervention that could free him from the enslavement he had found himself in. His wife was also in charge of picking the friends her husband hung out with in order that peer influence does not come to his rescue.
As time went by, he meditated on a way out of the snare, “who would bail me out of this prison”? He asked no one in particular one morning. “God, please help me! Mama Adaobi is a terrorist! She is worse than Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers! In fact, only a masochist with an exuberant taste for violence will pick her for a wife. She is absolutely beyond redemption. Every single day of continued neglect brings me ever closer to the brink of the abyss. It calls for greatness!” He said to himself as he laundered her clothes. He had been washing her clothes ever since they got married. He suddenly got angry with himself for being too weak and lazy to defend himself against his troublesome wife.
Most times, he did the cooking and washed plates while the ungodly wife would just sit, relax and enjoy the food. That is why he kept on praying to God to free him from the shackle of slavery, as there was nothing he could personally do. On so many occasions, and at the height of his frustrations and perplexities, he would burst into tears and weep silently over the helpless and unlucky situation he found himself in. In some of those instances, the little Adaobi, would come to him; wrap her little arm around him while urging him to take heart, as he would overcome his travails some day. A once blissful marriage, now characterized by sorrow, hardship, and oppression and akin to hell. Sadly, she was getting more wicked and heartless.
“Is there God at all?” he questioned no one in particular one day, adding “truly if there’s God, he wouldn’t leave me at the mercy of this evil woman I married?” It was at that point that he concluded that he would run away and kill himself if the situation persisted.
Just this evening when he had closed from work, an old friend invited him out, for a beer-drinking spree. He objected at first, telling him that his wife must not see him taking alcoholic beverages.
“Hah, Chief Pius, that’s suicidal!” he exclaimed, “If my wife “catches” any alcohol stench in my breath, she’ll kill me!” “Why?” Chief Pius queried, “She’s your wife isn’t she? Why are you afraid of enjoying some bottles of beer simply because she would get angry or mad at you? Are you not a man? You are too soft for my liking. You got to be a man.” he further protested.
“Er…you don’t know her. But she must not see me drinking alcohol.” He begged. However, after much persuasion, Papa Adaobi agreed to spoil himself a little with some bottles of beer at the joint. After six hours, he was completely soused after taking eleven bottles of beer that eventful evening. By 6p.m, he was so drunk that Bacchus the god of wine would be green with envy on sighting him. As he staggered and tried in vain to control himself without success, something told him it was time to go home.
He stood up staggered and turned to his friend and said, “Chief…Chief…am…am…a family man…I have to…go home…”
“See you tomorrow, my…good…friend!” his equally inebriated friend replied. And continued with a great effort, “I will come to pick you up…tomorrow”.
While Papa Adaobi was on his way home, He saw a young female hawker selling sweets. He dipped his hand into his breast pocket and brought out his last money and bought “Tom Tom” sweets as he still had the ingenuity to come to terms with the fact that he would be in for some trouble with his wife for consuming beer. The confectionaries he bought were to help quench the stench of beer oozing from his mouth as he continued to stagger home. Although he was very weak and fell severally on the street, he continued to trudge home hurriedly. He was very happy indeed. Such was his mood and feeling whenever he was drunk. He had forgotten his sorrows and tribulations. Joy had taken over even if for a short while. He started humming an old song as he changed his steps to that of a seasoned dancer:
“I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting; I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting. I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting; I will love you form everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting. I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting; I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting. I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting; I will love you from everlasting, from everlasting…”
His voice was as tuneless as a bag of wool. Forty minutes after leaving the joint, he was back home. He knocked and staggered in. He was disappointed that only his wife was at home. Instantly his wife knew he was drunk. She was not only boiling with rage but was as hot as volcanic Lava.
“And where are you coming from?” She asked visibly annoyed.
“Why are you…you…asking me…stupid question?” he boldly answered. Now he had come to the bridge, he knew it must be crossed. There is no need to be on the horns of a dilemma today.
“Me!!! Ask you stupid question?” Mama Adaobi said furiously with her eyes dilating with annoyance.
“Hee! Hee!! Heee!!! Almighty God! They have taught you bad things. You are drunk. That is why you have the confidence to speak back to me in that manner. You are dead drunk! They have been teaching you how to fight and rebel against me. You will see hell today, just wait for me.” Like a rampaging bull, she turned and rushed inside the kitchen.
“You can do nothing….nothing…nothing…you can do just nothing. Look…look…. you are like a dead rat”. He replied with all his strength.
Within the twinkle of an eye, she returned with a big pestle in her right hand. She waved it wildly, aiming at her husband, but he dodged it and ran towards the balcony. She followed behind trying to hit him with all her might.
“I’ll kill you today” she roared like a wounded lion, “you’ve been taught very bad things recently, you stupid, nasty and rebellious man.” Holy Moses! Help him! She had now got him cornered at the balcony. She raised the pestle up angrily and was about bringing it down on her husband’s head when he moved swiftly. Thanks to alcohol. She accidentally lost her balance and crashed like a felled iroko tree. On the floor, she screamed heavily as she was in pains and agony. She had sustained a broken arm, as it had twisted in the great fall. She bled profusely. She was now occupied with how to walk with the aid of crutches and the plaster of paris. Obinna came back just in good time to behold the gory sight and rushed her to a nearby hospital.
Papa Adaobi was lost in thought as he watched his son drive out, “Will she become a totally changed woman upon being discharged from the hospital? Will the erstwhile cantankerous, boisterous, and quarrelsome woman turn a new leaf? Will she be very quiet, calm and no longer quarrel with me or anybody in the neighbourhood? Will she be gentle and peace-loving?