To Moult or Not

A story by CHIDERAA IKE-AKAENYI

On a torrid January afternoon, a harmattan wind shooed two sisters into a casket-maker’s workshop. Binyelum, the taller, with skin the colour of pawpaw, stood near the door, hiding behind dark sunglasses, while Nkeoma, the dark-skinned one, ambled to the casket-maker. As her sister haggled with him, Binyelum ran her hands over clothed arms, rebuking the chill in her body. Nkeoma had that effect, making her uncomfortable and unsure of what she was doing or thinking.

Nkeoma turned to her sister, “What colour?”

“Colour? Any one. The dead don’t mind,” Binyelum said.

Nkeoma drew a short breath before speaking, her voice laced with meaning, “I meant you. What colour do you want your casket to be?”

A stretch of silence. Binyelum looked up. Her elder sister’s face was set in that familiar scowl their father reserved for when they pushed his buttons. She shuddered. 

“I am asking so I can buy one and wait for Uzo to beat you into it,” she said. The casket-maker, a wiry man who had been smoothing wood, stopped. The sawdust from his smoothing swirled in the air to settle on Nkeoma’s wig, Binyelum’s sunglasses and to join the wood shavings on the floor. A stray particle hovered into Binyelum’s nose. She sneezed.

“Ndu gi. Your life,” Nkeoma and the man said, a reaffirmation that her life be spared, snatched from whoever it was that was calling her from the other realm.

“Nkeoma, let me be,” she said when her sister asked again.

Nkeoma pointed at a white casket with silver edges. The man told her what it was worth, and they paid. As they left, he hurried to his neighbour’s, to gossip about women who came to pick caskets for a burial. “Where were the men in the family?” He spat in disgust.

The sisters said nothing to each other during the drive home. It was hard to express the roiling in their bellies. Their Papa had just died, and now they were yoked by the flurry of actions that spelt preparations for a funeral. Shelving her reservations about Nkeoma telling her how to run her marriage a few months ago, Binyelum had agreed that they would buy the casket themselves. Their brothers, Ekene and Ebuka, lost more money than they kept.

“How are the children,” Nkeoma asked, dabbing the corners of her lips with a wipe. 

“They are fine. Uzo said Adanna will attend the public university in Awka.”

“Why? He can afford the private ones he put her brothers in.”

“She needs to toughen up. She’s smart. She mustn’t attend the best schools to do well.”

“What of the strikes? Won’t they slow her down?”

“Let her go and experience life. She is too sheltered,” Binyelum said, rolling to a stop before their parents’ house.

*

Her sister’s words slithered in and out of Binyelum’s thoughts as she marshalled instructions to her house help that evening. Nkeoma had always been the odd one of her four siblings, the one to give their parents migraines. She had slipped into the world so quickly, their mother had said; they believed she’d be the perfect child. Oh, how wrong they were. She would morph into a noisy urchin that went everywhere trouble called, or fashioned a basket to carry it with her. She picked fights with everybody, climbed trees, and refused to stop till their parents exhausted their voices on screaming and their pocket change on canes. It was said that the rich ebony of her complexion spared her from carrying evidence of her recalcitrance into adulthood.

Binyelum, on the contrary, delayed her entry into the world. Mama had not wanted her. After carrying five children and birthing four, Mama went to the health centre, asking the matron for pills. The woman refused. The parish priest threatened her with excommunication if she kept giving women pills to fight God’s will. “God will provide for any child He sends,” she assured a flustered Mama.

Four months later, Mama found out she was pregnant with Binyelum. And when the baby decided to exit her womb, it felt like she was sent to punish her for daring not to want more of God’s gifts. After hours of screaming and grunting, she’d said, a grumbling Papa paid for a caesarean, and Binyelum was carved out of her womb.

Unlike how much pain she’d sent before her, Binyelum caused them none of it as she grew. Like putty, she could fold into desired shapes on request. Mama said her agreeable nature made people assume she was the older of the two sisters. While Nkeoma breezed through life, Binyelum was the level-headed one who would bring respect to the family name. She had done well for herself, finishing secondary school and marrying the first chance she got. And yes, she had married well. 

As Binyelum tasted the soup, she hoped Uzo would return early tonight. They needed to talk. She picked a bowl and ogled the chunks of offal and beef Uzo loved eating with his egusi. Saliva pooled in her mouth. She dropped it, instructing the help to put it in the freezer. “Make me some fruit salad,” she said. 

She ate the salad sprawled on a sofa before the television. An hour glided by, and her stomach began to rumble. She ignored it.

10 PM. Uzo had not returned. Later that night, when claws raked her insides, she tiptoed to the refrigerator and grabbed a soda can. Plunking on the sofa again, she flipped the channels to a soap. Soon, she found her mind drifting to the tiny screech she’d silenced. What colour do you want your casket to be? 

It was a rather odd question, much like her elder sister’s. Still, as she drained the last drop from the can, she wondered what colour hers would be. Perhaps she’d like it to be teal, like the first dress Uzo gifted her after they were married. Or almost crimson like her cheek a year after their wedding as she recoiled from him in the kitchen. She remembered the crash of pots and pans as he threw his weight behind each fist aimed at her. She’d forgotten to refrigerate the expensive wine he bought for a party. Maybe gold, like her favourite bracelets, but gold was a bit over-the-top, too dramatic, the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who came into a lot of money and lived their life proving people who called them ‘poor’ wrong. Anyway, it didn’t matter, not like she’d care. By then, she’d be dead.

*

Binyelum awoke with a start. Uzo stood over her, aiming a flashlight at her face.

“You slept here,” he asked.

“You’re back. How did it go?” She sat up and stretched. It was dark. The generator had been turned off. Trust the security man to do it without telling her. In this house, all she received were faux greetings and exaggerated cowering. The now-empty soda can rolled off the sofa and clattered to the floor. She flinched.

“So, you have not stopped this bad habit. This woman, I don’t have the strength to take you to the hospital if your sugar spikes again.”

Binyelum sat up, trying not to look at the familiar sneer on his face. Ụzọ was a six-foot-three lanky young man when they’d first met. Over the years, luxury, money, and the ease of their lifestyle filled out the hollows in his cheeks, padded his arms and legs with muscles, and receded his hairline. He now walked with his arms a few inches away from his side, as expected of ‘big men’ like him. While his mates approached middle age with a softer midsection, Uzo’s remained firm, thanks to his gym obsession. When he left the house this morning, he wore a white shirt and black jeans. Now, he’d exchanged the white for navy blue— perhaps due to the harmattan dust or something else. She couldn’t tell. 

He headed to his study without a word. She moved her feet off the cold floor and into her flip-flops, reached for her phone, and put on the flashlight. Three fifty-three in the morning. It was too late to talk to him now. As she trudged up the stairs, she made a mental note to see the doctor about the creak in her hip.

*

Binyelum woke to an empty house. Ụzọ must have disappeared to one of the many meetings that dotted his new life as a politician. While dressing for mass, she took great care to cover the mottled skin around her eyes with concealer. Three days ago, he flung a ceramic plate at her. 

Church was a social event filled with praise and ass-licking. She clenched her teeth after mass when the horde came, fawning over her gold jewellery, her imported Swiss lace dress, and how her skin shone like a woman well-cared for by her husband. Her chest bloomed, and for a while, she walked with a sway. She finally excused herself from the crowd and asked to see Father Jude, the parish priest. When the rotund man came, his arms connected to his shoulders by damp sweat patches, face splitting in two to bare yellowed teeth, she stifled a grimace. She accepted his crushing hug, handed him a brown envelope, and said inane things about the day’s homily. As the driver revved out of the church compound, Binyelum wiped her hands with sanitiser.

She didn’t go home immediately, heading to her father’s house instead. Nkeoma texted her during mass, saying that some of the foodstuffs she’d bought for the burial were missing, and the cooks were being evasive. Approaching the gate, she smiled a little. Theirs was the only homestead with a tarred road that ended where their house gates stood. Theirs was the only duplex in the village and everyone's envy. As she floated up the staircase, greetings poured from the lips of all the women setting up the outdoor kitchen, the men chopping wood, and the children running errands. 

“Honourable’s wife, I am greeting,” the woodchopper said, his hands raised, his tattered shirt billowing around him in the harmattan breeze.

“How is Honourable?,” a woman asked.

“He is fine,” she replied, flashing freshly-veneered teeth.

She met Mama in the sitting room in Papa’s favourite armchair, wearing his favourite grey cardigan. On the stool next to her, a well-worn Bible lay open.

Binyelum greeted her. 

“Where is your husband? He has not stepped foot in this compound since this happened,” Mama remarked, gathering the oversized cardigan around her.

Binyelum’s heart skipped. She resolved to beg Uzo one last time. He had not come to see her mother since Papa died, save for the lump sum he sent Mama. Persuading him was hard, but she could try again.

Mama refused to touch the money unless he came to ‘greet’ her properly. It was disrespectful, this thing that he was doing, but who could question him? If the person who feeds and clothes you spits in your eye, you cannot complain.

“Mama, he has been busy,” Binyelum said.

“Even to call on the phone? No! Something must have happened. Did you people fight?” she sat up, rheumy eyes boring into her daughter. 

Binyelum shook her head.

“I don’t know you for troublemaking, but something must have happened.” she scooted to the armchair's edge. “Binyelum, why has my in-law not come to console me properly?”

“He has just been busy. I’ve not been seeing him as I used to.”

Mama sighed and slid back into the armchair. Binyelum excused herself and entered the room she used to share with Nkeoma.

She met her sister standing before the mirror, squinting at her reflection. Unlike her, Nkeoma was slim to her thick, dark to her light skin, with an oval face, deep-set eyes, and lips she loved to line in red. 

“Welcome,” she said, twirling the dress she was checking out.

Binyelum nodded and sat in a chair opposite her. Nkeoma turned back to marking excess fabric with pins. Binyelum slipped her feet from her slippers into the soft carpet before her. The bulb above them flickered. She walked to the light switch and flipped it up and down, but it remained the same. 

When she returned, Nkeoma had slipped out of the dress and sat on the only bed in the room. It was a sturdy one, one of those orthopaedic mattresses their parents gained a liking for as they aged. Today, it was covered in a plain white bedsheet, a boarding school habit Nkeoma still clung to.

“What did you say happened to the rice and spices,” Binyelum asked.

“Hmm, those women started bringing them out when I threatened them with your name. I put them in the store and locked it. Nothing is leaving there without my permission. They are all mad,” Nkeoma fumed.

Binyelum’s body eased. It was good to have Nkeoma. She had no idea how she’d have handled this. It was good that her name could do this.

“Are the children coming home?” Nkeoma finally asked, hugging herself. Shiny sequin specks dotted her arms. Her narrow forehead shone with sweat, and her hair hung limply around her shoulders.

“They will visit next weekend.” 

“Will he let them come?”

“He hasn’t said anything to me.”

Nkeoma raised her foot to the edge of the bed and rubbed her big toe. “So, you’re not sure your children will be allowed to say goodbye to their grandfather?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes burning, searching for what to focus on, and settling on the shrivelled bitter kola lobes Papa left on windowsills to repel snakes, the last thing Mama said he did before slumping a few weeks ago. 

Nkeoma stretched, revealing a barely-there belly button. Her tummy was firm as it’d always been, and for a moment, Binyelum envied her. After having the kids, her belly became a mound of dough that refused to thin or flatten. It stuck out, entering places before she did, making people believe she was pregnant despite secretly getting her tubes tied after her fourth child. At first, she had fretted, drank several slimming teas, and followed rigorous exercise regimens, but it hung low, taunting her. Once, she’d suggested getting surgery. Uzo called her vain, and she let it go.

“Binyelum, are you fine, really?” Nkeoma came to stand before her sister. Binyelum said nothing, reaching into her purse for a wipe and dabbing her face. Nkeoma inched closer, staring at the faint purple bruise around her eye. She flinched at her sister’s touch and looked up to see Nkeoma’s nose flare.

“Wipe your face,” she said and left the room.

She returned with a bowl of steaming water and a new towel. Binyelum knew not to ask questions. She sat on the bed next to her, and when Nkeoma motioned, she laid her head in her sister’s lap. When the towel pressed into her cheeks, forehead, and jaw, she winced. Winces segued into drawn-out hisses and, finally, sobs. When the tears came, she let Binyelum cry, dabbing her tears and patting her shoulder. Half an hour later, she left her parent’s house with a long scarf and larger sunglasses, new additions to her outfit. 

*

Binyelum’s stomach caved in when she saw Uzo’s car in the garage. She let herself into the house, paused to catch her breath, and rushed up the stairs to change, the silence in their home bellowing her into despair. Knowing not to delay the scolding that would follow, she went downstairs to his study.

It was an L-shaped room with floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves and a desk that he drank more than he read on. Uzo sat behind the desk, head thrown back, mouth slightly open. Save for the intermittent snoring, he could pass as dead. A few newspapers, a bottle of wine, and an empty glass lay on the desk. She tapped him, and he awoke with a start. 

When she said, “Good afternoon,” he grunted a reply, wiped his mouth with the back of a palm, then sat up and glared, “What did I tell you about leaving this house without telling me?”

“I went to see Mama. She is asking for you.”

“So, you decided to waste my petrol. I don’t blame you. You’re not the one spending thousands every week to fuel these cars.” He paused, “Drop your car keys here,” and pointed to the table.

“Why?” her voice broke.

“You don’t want to listen to me. You will learn the hard way. Drop that key and get out of here!”

It was there in the firm set of his jaw, the wildness that came into his eyes when he got angry. Binyelum knew better than to disagree. She dropped the keys and made her way to the door. She was staring at the staircase down the hall when it hit her. On impulse, she turned and muttered, “Uzo, what kind of man are you? Your father-in-law is dead, your mother-in-law asks about you, and you don’t care!”

“Kind of man?” He howled, “What kind of man is a father that sells his daughter to the next available buyer and taxes them? See who’s talking. Your people were nothing before I saved them.”

“Uzo, I was not starving in my father’s house when you came to marry me.”

He stood now, his fingers tapping the table before him in contained rage. “Everything you are today, I made you,” he said, hitting his chest for emphasis. Your father never let me rest in his lifetime. Every day I visited, it was one request or the other: Do something for this person. Do something for that person. I have sent him what I have. He can feast on that from the grave.”

“Okay, what of me? If you have done so much for the family you married me from, what have you done for me, eh?” she cried, “I have been with you for almost twenty years, with nothing but these children to show for it. I have spent these years giving birth and keeping your home intact. Is that not enough to make up for Papa’s mistakes?”

Uzo flung a newspaper at her. He missed. “If I meet you there, you will regret opening your mouth!”

Binyelum continued, “You see this evil thing you are about to do; somebody will do it to you!” She bent over, tapped her index finger on the floor, raised it to her lips, and pointed to the ceiling. She fled the study with brimming eyes.

*

Uzo was absent from the burial mass the following week. That morning, Binyelum arrived in a hurriedly sewn white lace dress, flanked by her children. During the interment, Nkeoma stood beside her and whispered, “Is he coming?” Binyelum nodded and flicked away a tear.

Nkeoma was aloof for the rest of that day, holding down the forte, organising, and yelling at ushers. As Binyelum safeguarded coolers of ukwa and noted which groups deserved one, she prayed that all would go well. Uzo entered her room two nights ago and tossed yards of her father’s burial lace at her. The following day, she called her tailor, yelled orders, called caterers, ordered food, asked her children to come over, and selected jewellery for the day. After mass, she sat in the kitchen, crowded with coolers, and waited.

Around 4 pm, when the sun did not burn so bright, and the people were more sated than hungry, Uzo stomped into the compound, a team of drummers following behind. He was dancing the egwu ngala, the dance of the wealthy and proud. He stuck his nose in the air, nodded his head to the beat of the drums, and took slow, measured steps forward. His right hand was raised over his head, clutching three large jute twines. Uzo’s aides shared the remaining seven twines between them. He had come to challenge the family, to bury his father-in-law with ten live cows. When the beats ebbed, he faced the drummers and broke into a mock run. They surged away from him when he stomped toward them and followed him when he faced the audience.

Upstairs, as Binyelum saw them, the apprehension in her chest distilled into pride. It was good that the people were here to witness this show. It was befitting that he came with several cows— the highest honour he could give his father-in-law in death. She touched up her makeup, picked a large horsetail, and went to welcome them as was the custom. Uzo struck a fine figure in his white robes, tall red cap, and fan. Seeing him dance smoothened the bumps in her heart and made her recall why she chose him.

She was barely sixteen when they first met in church after mass. In the following weeks, Uzo would share that he was intrigued first, by her voice, for she had sung the responsorial psalm that day. At the time, he was a twenty-five-year-old teller at a bank, with dreams and schemes. He had a polished air about him, speaking with conviction, offering aid and advice, and soon, she was sucked into living for him. On the days she had choir practice, he’d come to chat before she went home.

“See me as your big brother and ask me for anything. I will provide it,” he’d promised.

When she found out he studied physics at university, she brought her assignments to him after choir practice, and they solved questions in the dying evening light.

“You are eager to learn. More young girls should be like you,” he praised when she asked questions. When she was asked to teach catechism to the children, he’d watch and evaluate her with pride. “You’ll make a good mother. You were very patient with those children.”  

Binyelum smiled shyly and murmured her gratitude. Before that evening, she’d planned to give up teaching the catechism classes. Hearing Uzo approve of her efforts suffused her with joy. So, she did more of it: choir practice, altar decoration, teaching catechism, whatever service she felt he’d approve of. After each day’s session, she stood under the Gmelina tree and waited for him.

Binyelum sat for her WASSCE with rocks in her throat. She had turned the many stones she could find, burnt as many candles as her schedule allowed, and prayed. She’d not been the brightest in the family, registering average scores throughout school and often needing extra lessons. 

Uzo checked her WASSCE result first.

“You tried, but I expected better,” he said, handing her the sheet that day. Her throat collapsed into her stomach. She had ‘tried’. She had not been excellent or exceptional, just ‘tried.’ Taking her eyes off the blue-yellow ink, she folded and slipped it between the pages of her hymn book. At least you didn’t get a D, she consoled herself. After a while, he explained, “See, you can’t have it all in life. It is better that you are homely and respectful than becoming those girls who read too many books and start challenging their parents.”

“Let those who want to study, study; the one you have is greater.” To Uzo, she was perfect. Too much knowledge would muddy the waters for him.

Two months later, the wedding banns were read.  It didn’t matter that her parents couldn’t afford to send her to a university as planned. They had spent most of their money on their elder brothers while Nkeoma gained a scholarship. Since she wasn’t enthusiastic about going to university, she shelved the faint glimmer of hope she nursed.

*

Uzo’s entourage greeted her with cool-to-the-touch fabrics–Dutch wax, hollandaise, and lace—that entered the eyes and elicited hailing from the crowds as Uzo adorned her with them. For months, people would speak of this action with wonder, praying for an in-law like him.

It took pleas and a special praise singer for him to be led to the VIP tent erected for his people. As the dust clouds settled in their wake, Binyelum ordered servers to retrieve the coolers of ukwa reserved for them. She went upstairs to count the bundles of one-thousand naira notes he sprayed her and the fabric wraps. The children were halfway through this, when a flustered Nkeoma appeared at the bedroom door.

“We can’t find the third cooler of ukwa and chicken,” she gasped, wiping sweat off her face with her right sleeve. A round patch of brown now soiled the front of her dress. Binyelum’s head began to strum. “Are you sure?” She hurried past Nkeoma first to the store, then to Uzo’s tent. She placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered to him. When she left, his eyes were hard with seething.

*

The next afternoon, Nkeoma received a call. She swore and hurried out of the compound, cursing her brothers under her breath.

At the entrance to the hospital ward, she steeled herself for what was to come. When she looked up, her chest tightened. The right side of Binyelum’s face had ballooned to a ghastly size. Grey welts and scratches crept up her arms from the elbow, disappearing under the sleeve of her gown.

“You see this thing you are looking for; you will get it. If you continue like this, you will find it,” Nkeoma cried, tapping her hip.

Binyelum whispered, “It’s not what you think. I slipped.” 

“You slipped? Don’t lie to me, this child!”

“Please, lower your voice.”

“No, no, no! You must choose today o. It’s either we carry you out of that man’s house in life or death. You must pick one.”

“I told you I fell. Stop shouting!”

Perhaps it was the piercing note of her sister’s scream, or, because Uzo entered then, Nkeoma went silent. She watched Uzo fuss over her sister. As he left, she whirled and followed him out. 

She wouldn’t understand, thought Binyelum. She had her children to consider, and Uzo was not a bad man. It was the stress of his new job. Politics was hard. In Uzo’s words, he was always fighting principalities and powers. 

When they got home the day before, Uzo ordered her to relinquish all he had given her–the money, the expensive lace. “You and your family are leeches,” he had thundered. She’d wanted to give them back, but changed her mind. No longer would she take the blame for her people’s bad behaviour. It was her brothers who had not given him goats to appreciate the cows he visited with, as was the custom. It was her brothers who had stowed away the ukwa reserved for his politician friends. They were the ingrates, not her, and Binyelum told him so.

As her sister’s screeching filtered through the doors, Binyelum shut everything out and focused on the wall. It was a mellow dove grey, like the nightdress she had worn last night. There was too much on the line for a rethink. So, for now, she’d believe she tripped on that dress and hurtled down the stairs.