Hem of His Garment
“A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away.” Eccl. 3:6
As the sun paled, falling deeper into the clouds, I counted time by tapping my feet. The streets were quiet, a consequence of the recent cult clashes in town. I listened again: the slightly audible taps of my own feet were all I could hear. I took another walk around the house and inspected the fish pond one more time, lingering to watch the fish come alive.
When I went back into the house, the small pot of stew simmered on the stove. In three hours, it will be ten nke anyasi. I will eat my small bowl of garri, sitting on the floor of my parlour, chewing the okporoko in the stew with studiousness, trying to discern if the egusi still had one more day in its lifespan. The pepperiness of the stew made my nose bleed—pepper masks waning tastes. As I made for a clean handkerchief, the bowl of stew fell off my hand, spilling on the wooden table. This was one of those days. I cleared the table and turned the lights off as I made for the bedroom. Everything was as it should be, perfect.
I shimmied out of my skirt and lay under the covers, half hoping that tonight would be different. That he would appear, stretch his petite frame on the other side of our bed, and fall asleep. That I would awake and find his lips pressed together firmly as they did whenever he slept. He need not caress me—yes, I wanted—only lying next to me as it should be. As man and wife. I heard my mother’s voice pulling my ears, willing me awake: Every woman must do anything to keep her husband, else she is no woman at all. So, I jumped up, dialled his mobile, and waited for the line to click. Dead. Two, five, six times. Left messages that would not be read. It felt like the premature grieving stage of a widow-in-waiting.
In the early days of our union, when my husband went to Community High School and principalled them for a living, I had laughed and reminded Mama how men hated to be kept and fought to be free. That no woman really had any man, unless Chukwu himself tied a man’s satisfaction to one woman. And Chukwu has tied Ekene’s satisfaction to me. That Ekene’s desire for me could suffice for seventy years, and we would still have more left. Because the beginning of his sexual affections began and ended with me. We had sat on low stools behind the house, throwing feed into the fish pond and watching the animals skid.
Now, I laid on our bed; the other half empty of the man I had sworn would be with me for life.
* * *
“Every wise woman builds her house; the foolish . . . ” Prov. 14:1
The foul smell emitting from our backyard woke me up that morning. The pond needed freshwater quick, else I’d have dead fish for dinner. I moved my head away from dampened pillows, blew my nose into an old wrappa, and knelt close to God. For a long time, I had stopped speaking to him, moved my praying materials farther away from easy reach, and wearied church mothers that visited our house. The words usually coursed through my brain but halted just on my tongue. This began a few days after Ekene did not come home for a week-long stretch, claiming to be coaching the senior boys for WAEC. Once, he flew with the Science Team to Germany for a competition and seeing them come second place pulled him further into work. But Ekene had a degree in human psychology and not chemistry. Something was wrong; maybe Chukwu could see it and mercifully tell me. I was too depressed to speak.
“Who is here?”
Mama’s clapping and forced entrance—as I called her visits—startled me out of any futile conversations I was attempting with God. I scrambled up.
“Morning,” she said, searching my eyes for tears. She scanned the house. “I see he is not back. Brush your teeth and wear your sandals. We are going somewhere.”
Although she limped, Mama walked faster than anyone I knew. It was how she dragged herself from my father’s clay house all the way to the hospital when her water broke. I had slipped out of her hole with ease, as though exhausted from the long walk. Mama often recounted this tale, sometimes in praise of the many things she’d done for the family. The things she braved for us, like this one—leading me someplace I dared not inquire about.
“That Ekene, I knew he was the loose kind.” She spoke as she spat chewing stick from her mouth, brushing away thistles on our path with one hand. “To even think that he would leave you, when everything is his fault.”
“Mama—” I started because I did not want to sob on our way, and Mama’s words were capable of making that happen.
“Leave me to talk,” she hushed me. “If not that we were designed to protect our men, to cover their shame, I would have brought this matter to his umunna. Just look at you, Omalicha nwanyi tozuru imu nwa, a woman in her prime, yet nothing.”
She said we, and I wondered what Mama was protecting about my late father. What dirty linen had she discovered and hidden before anyone came across it? I knew what she believed I was protecting: in her mind, Ekene was at fault for my childlessness and should be ashamed of his inability to impregnate me, not punish me.
“This man of God is most powerful; I have heard nothing like it.” Mama broke the silence as the sunrays streaked our faces. “Nwunye Okeke, the one that has been barren for years—even though we all know who was responsible for the barrenness—mysteriously took in after visiting him. I, your mother, personally sat her down to be sure it was her husband’s seed growing in her. Even Nwunye Okeke looked dumbfounded that day. She says it is truly God.”
“Mama’s clapping and forced entrance—as I called her visits—startled me out of any futile conversations I was attempting with God. I scrambled up. ”
I shook in my steps. “And what did Okeke say?”
“What would he dare? He even sent a large goat to the man of God.”
“I am not desperate for a child. All I want is for my husband to come home.”
She snapped her fingers in irritation. “You should be happy that God can do all things. Because if you ask me, that Ekene does not deserve a woman like you. And how could he never have mentioned this to you before you married him?”
I did not respond. There was no answer.
* * *
And Peter answered and said, ‘Lord, if it be thou, bid me to come unto thee on the water.’ Matt. 14:28
“The man of God lives offshore,” Mama said when I got tired of waiting at the shores. She told me other things. When he came out from his mother, sickly and dying after several days of birth, she was instructed to wrap him in swaddling clothes, place him in a basket and lay him on the river. No one knew if this account was true, but that was the only thing that could explain his habitation on water. Day and night, he slept onshore, praying away evil spirits from the territory. Some days, he came out from the water and met with other humans. On one of such days, Nwunye Okeke conceived. Mama even offered that he could have been gifted by God to silence Maami Wata powers, to prove where all power belonged. I nodded and shifted my weight to my other leg. This was one of those days when he tarried on the water: I didn’t know how to feel about this.
The canoe that would take us to him finally approached, and we jumped in. I tried to ignore the whistles of water creatures swimming underneath the canoe and remembered that I hadn’t tended to the fish pond before setting out. I imagined my husband watching me from the shores. What would he think? Would he shake his head and bite his lips silently? Would he slap his palms together and exclaim, “Ifunanya, gracious me! gracious me!” I silently prayed the catfish would stay alive till we returned.
“Tell him everything he asks of you. Say no more or less.” Mama said under her breath as we switched canoes.
The figure in the other canoe was taller than any man I had met, including Ekene. His long robe flapped around him as the sea breeze fanned about, showing his leanness. He reminded me of Jesus, a thin version. His canoe felt holy, and there were no unchristian objects littered about to puncture his credibility. For now. I knew how Ekene hated all of them, prophets who insisted on using things to heal. But I believed it was only because they all failed to restore him to perfect condition. The prophet had not looked our way yet, but I suspected he had seen us. Mama nudged me to take a seat on the wooden planks, and I did.
“This is my daughter, man of God.” Mama’s voice was calm, the exact way it usually was when she replied policemen, strangers, or rich people.
“Daughter, what want ye?”
“My marriage, man of God,” I said, following her lead. “It is sick. My husband has not come home in weeks. I think he is planning to leave me because he cannot give seed.”
The man did not turn around, still. “Ekenenna by name. I see him now. He likes book.”
I shivered. I started to believe. “Yes, man of God. Pray to God to make him come home.” My voice thinned at this point. “Let him be able to make me pregnant.”
“That is a small matter. There is nothing God cannot do. But do you know where he is?”
I shook my head.
“I will make a prayer for you. He will return. But you must make him stay.”
And when he turned around to meet my gaze. “Give me your right hand.”
His hand was surprisingly warm, and I watched as he muttered things to God shutting his eyes tight. I was the only one who wasn’t in prayer mood because Mama’s eyes too were closed and her lips were moving furiously.
“Go. It is done. You must make him stay.”
These words filled my chest as Mama and I walked home.
* * *
Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Ps. 127:3
When he saw my bulging stomach, he intensified his concentration on cleaning his shoes. The tray of hot tea was in front of him, but Ekene pretended not to see it. Community High School was expecting the Governor’s entourage today to unveil new classroom blocks, and my husband would be welcoming them as part of the day’s programme. I was proud of him; he was the only man in our community that could pull this off.
“I’m not hungry.”
I pretended not to hear. “Let us tour the town tonight, baby. It’s been a while. Perhaps visit one of those caves we used to go to when we were little.”
“Not interested.”
“I’m sure you’d like some catfish peppersoup for dinner. It’s been long you ate mine.”
Ekene pulled his suit jacket over him.
Had I wished for something unrealistic in my marriage, or did I stupidly believe that all would be well? Later, I would eat his abandoned breakfast—some bread slices and a hot chocolate drink—as I rubbed my stomach. After two months of his return, I wondered why I didn’t fight for him to stay in the first place, why when his large encyclopedia, his diary, and his copy of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run went missing, I looked the other way and assumed he was decongesting the bookshelf.
“You should eat, you know. We need all of our strength for when our baby comes,” I said.
“Your baby, not mine. I don’t know what you have in there.”
“Ekenenna, this is our child! The Lord’s doing.” I was not sure of my words, but I spoke them anyway. Because exactly two days after Mama dragged me to the prophet, Ekene returned and slept on his side of the bed. The next night, he made love to me, clutching my bosom as he muttered other women’s names. As clumsy as it was, although Ekene reeked of infidelity, I remembered the words of the man of God and persisted in belief. And I saw him too—the prophet—not in an abstract way like a woman’s wandering mind when her husband is not the man she wants that night. In a concrete way, as if I was transported to him.
“The next night, he made love to me, clutching my bosom as he muttered other women’s names.”
The dance began slowly. The waves were violent and tossed around me, probably watching in wonder. He stood in the midst of the sea, barefoot as if on dry land. By his outstretched stick-like hands and bodily garment floating all over, I already knew who he was. When we began to dance, I heard no music. He simply took my hands into his soft ones, causing me to twirl. His garments kept interfering as if trying to create an impression of its presence. Multiple twirls, and I got dizzy. He released me to rest a little before we resumed dancing again. This time, I reached for the interfering garment—just the hem—hoping for a miracle. By the time we finished dancing, Ekene had fallen asleep with his lips pressed tight.
“I hope you’ll come home early for dinner.”
I knew I should visit Mama and tell her of my troubles—something I never run out of these days. This human within me seemed to be growing faster by the second, and I could push him out before the ninth month. I could picture Mama running around town, seeking a solution to the problem caused by her solution.
“The pond also needs draining.”
“You have been doing a great job with it, Ifunanya. It’s best you continue,” he offered, grabbing his bags.
“At least consider my condition, Ekenenna. I am pregnant with our child, maka Chukwu!”
“That thing inside you is a demon child!”
I grabbed one of his books and flung it at him; I ran up to him, grabbing the tucked-away thing that was tearing us apart. “Coward. Do those women make you cum faster? How can you even be doing other women? If there is any room for misbehaving, it should be for me.”
I gripped it harder and caused a groan to escape his lips. I saw the pain when he looked at me for the first time in a while. “I cannot give you seed,” he muttered.
* * *
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Heb. 11:1
This is how I seared my ego and materialized in church on a Sunday. Ekene had stopped eating my food, and Mama had warned me to stop reporting evil to her. Because I arrived late and the church was already littered with women and children—hardly any men—the warden could only find a seat for me at the rear.
“I have a testimony,” I muttered to the warden, before settling down. “My name is Mrs Ifunanya Umeaku.”
It seemed like a special Holy Ghost Service because everyone was alive with expectation, interrupting testimonies with screams. As I settled down, memories of attending countless services, expecting my breakthrough to drop in my palms after each one, clouded my head. How I wrote cheques of several thousand because they were “sweet savours that propelled God’s countenance towards men”. How Ekene almost dumped his teaching profession for missionary service because a prophet had told him God incapacitated his reproductive organs. How in the process of doing the Lord’s work, Ekene got caught up in debts.
“It’s your turn now.” The warden nudged me.
I remembered the prophet’s words: “Go. It is done.”
The podium felt higher than normal, and my stomach bulged like a new burden. Pastor Mrs had to help me onto the stage. My four-month-old pregnancy kicked! Saddled with hundreds of eyes, I scouted for Mama while squeezing the microphone.
“It all began in 2008.” Leaving out most details like the visit to the prophet, Ekene’s troubles, and my fatigue towards things, I narrated my story. “I believed God for a miracle and kept praying. My brethren, I am here to testify. God has put the devil to shame after six years. You can see for yourselves—”
The Pastor’s Praise the Lord drowned out any further speech. The crowd erupted into a crazy din as I waddled to my seat.
At the end of the service, the Pastor called me to pray for my baby. “His name will be Isaac, laughter.”
* * *
“The same was in the beginning with God.” John, 1:2
When I saw the blood, I was hardly surprised. The doctors hovered above me, attempting to save a life that I knew had escaped the open windows and disappeared. Even as they spoke, their voices dimmed in my ears like they were far away, such that when they asked about my husband, I did not hear them.
“Another one will come, nwa m,” Mama said, rubbing my wrists. “Your womb is opened and in no time, you will have another.”
I knew she said this for the benefit of the medical strangers around, to suppress the shrieks which she would let out afterwards, to resist the urge to slap the stupid nurses that delayed in admitting me. When she had brought me home and put some water to boil, she paced around demanding answers from God.
“My own cannot be different. Satan will not mock me. The man of God said it was done. I know it is. We have to go back to the man of God.”
In her monologue, she had not observed the handwritten letter on the table. As I opened it and read, Mama continued to chant in strange tongues, quoting Isaiah the prophet and mixing it up with Davidic psalms. Her prayers transmuted into a weird fervency that even when I dropped to the ground and wailed, she did not notice me. I wanted to grab the wedding portrait he left lying on the table and smash it against the wall, hoping the impact will affect him wherever he stood. I wanted to make more excuses, offer more explanation, for the six years I had endured in shame, but no words came forth.
“Mama, stop praying. He is not coming back.”
“Isi gini? What do you mean?”
My eyes darted to the bookshelf now void of many books that had once stood there. I handed her the letter, awaiting her outburst.
She followed my gaze. “He dares not. Not after—I am calling the umunna immediately.”
I would have told Mama the dreams: how each time my husband laid on me I was catapulted to sea, into the arms of the prophet. I would have told her the pregnancy was an illusion; at best, it marked the final chipping away of my marriage. All along our childlessness in marriage, all I touched was the hem of Ekene’s garment, where he would not notice, where he would never look and recall his shame. I moved about, invisible, so he could keep his sanity as we navigated our marriage. I could not speak of the pain that stuck to my tongue, words that should have flowed easily whenever I feigned a lack of concern. I should have told Mama that she was right all along, that I was not woman enough to keep Ekene because he could never be kept.
“I am selling the fish pond. There’s a fine school in Nnewi open for a headteacher position.” I stood up, walked over to the kitchen, and brought down the dried-up water kettle.
“You must fight for your home, Ifunanya. His umunna will hear this.” She shook her head in resignation. “You little children never learn.”
About the author
Favour Iruoma Chukwuemeka is a creative writer and poet from Eastern Nigeria. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Conscio, Cypress Journal, the Shallow Tales Review, Kalahari, and the African Writers.
She is an Alumnus of the Creative Writing Cohort with Chigozie Obioma. Find her on Twitter @heeruomah
