Lies, Igbos And Husbands

It was in the murky shadows of my dreams that I first heard my name.

First faintly, then harsh and insistent like someone trying to water unfertile ground.

The tension in the house was becoming irresistibly annoying. I stirred in bed and began again to feign sleep. Mama would tire of yelling unnecessarily and quit the unbearable chatter. Or so I thought until she yelled my name again at the top of her voice.

“Bisi…..” Her voice bouncing off the walls of our small apartment.

I jerked and flipped my eyes open involuntarily. Her voice, startling me out of my make-believe sleep.

“Oh, God!” I grunted loudly and forced myself to steal a glance at the wall clock. It was only 2 am, and I wondered why mama would be yelling my name at such an auspicious hour. A time that most living creatures had gone to rest their heads. I wondered what she could want from me.

Every normal individual would be fast asleep given the hectic workload of adulthood shenanigans that lay ahead in the day, but here I was, suddenly having to go deal with my overbearing mother in the dead of the night. My mother always seemed to behave like the ghost of weather land who never sleeps.

I loved my mother, truly. But at such moments, I couldn’t help but wish she’d just go away. Somewhere else, where she would be unable to bother me again.

Mama’s feet shuffled against the hard floor as she hurried into my room. Her weight bouncing off the sides of her body like a dog flapping out after a marathon.

I made a mental note to book an appointment for her with the doctor sometime in the future when I had enough money. Maybe when I got a new job like the one I had just applied for, it’d be one of the first things I would be mandated to do as the sole breadwinner of the family. Mama’s weight was fast becoming unhealthy. She’d have to cut down on the food she ate all the time.

She called my name again, this time to ensure that I was fully awake. Again, I couldn’t help but wonder what she wanted at such an odd hour of the night.

“Bisiliope?”

“Bisilope?”

I watched Mama enter the room and sit heavily on the bed. Her weight causing the bed hinges to creak in a riot. Mama was a heavy woman, and wherever she placed her weight always gasped for a breath of fresh air, to breathe for freedom. While I noticed my mattress sink lower than it ever had under mama’s weight, mama did not seem to notice at all.

The room was dimly lit, and mama’s body cast long eerie shadows on the wall.

“Hmmm…mama, why have you been yelling my name, that too, in the dead of the night??” I requested yawning.

For the first time, the possibility of bad news crossed my mind.

“Mama, did someone die?”

I asked almost immediately, searching her eyes for any hint of sadness, anything that could reveal the truth before she broke the news to me in words.

“God forbid! Nothing of such has happened,” mama retorted almost immediately.

“Aren’t you the one always chastising us whenever we call out our names in the dead of the night?”

I asked, mildly inflecting my voice to show my irritation at the circumstances surrounding our conversation. How I wanted to be back in bed with the covers soothing me back to sleep was something that mama would never understand.

“Bisi…surely, by now you should know that a lion does not go around seeking for grass to eat, especially at such a deadly hour of the day.”

“Mama, you’ve come with all these proverbs and paradoxes…I want to sleep mama. Surely you did not wake me to flex your artistic and proverbial muscles before me at 2 am!!”

Mama looked at me comically like she wanted to thrash my mouth shut. Instead, she reached for my face and dragged my ears forcefully.

“Ouch! Ouch! Mama, you’re hurting me!”

“Children of this generation. You all have no patience at all with life. If you’re not in a hurry to live life, you’re always in a hurry to go back to sleep. What happened to the proverb: slow and steady wins the race?” Mama retorted at me. I could tell that she was tethering towards the edge of mild irritation. She was not angry yet, but my responses could enable her to throw a fit at once.

“There’s always something to keep y’all occupied,” she continued. “Do you even take out a moment for reflection?”

“Mama, Mama..my ears are hurting me,” I mumbled softly trying to avert her mind from her obnoxious theories about youths and their busy lives.

“Silly girl,” she chided as she stood up from the bed and walked to the farther end of the room.

The bed squeaked in relief, and the foam that had been squished by mama’s bottom appeared to begin to breathe again.

Within seconds, she pulled along a big white plastic chair towards the bed and sat down.

The smile was no longer on her face. I could tell that it was time to discuss something delicate, I couldn’t help but feel the loud thumping of my heart as anxiety washed over me.

The last time we had this kind of conversation in the dead of the night was the day she had come home to inform me of my father’s death. Papa had been sick for months, and that night his condition had deteriorated seriously. After rushing him to the clinic, mama had to remain by his side to tend to his needs, leaving me and my sibling alone in the house to fend for ourselves.

That night, she’d stolen into the room in the dead of the night to inform me of his passing. It had been sorrowful news and we’d both listened to the cricket cry, a force of sorrow as we comforted ourselves in silence. Even though papa’s death had come as a relief to us all, there were no tears left in our eyes. Only silence. Only relief.

Today, I knew this was supposed to be something as equally important as papa. Only serious matters were left to be discussed in the dead of the night.

“Bisi…this is the third time I’ve called your name this night…” mama’s voice reverberated soundly through the room drawing me into reverie.

I looked at her, searching for hints on what she was going to discuss with me. Her eyes were blank and impenetrable. I could not read her thoughts.

“Mama, I’m awake now. I’d listen patiently to what you have to say.”

Mama shifted on her seat, moving her weight from one bottom to the other…

“My daughter. You know I am getting older by the day, and there is nothing tangible left in this world to fill me with joy except you and your younger brother. Before I go on to visit my ancestors and join your father, won’t you at least let me hold my grandchildren in my arms, and give me a reason to smile again?”

My mind disconnected into an overdrive of confusion with mama’s pronouncement, as I thought of the process that was involved in producing a grandchild.

First I would have to start dating somebody seriously, then I’d go on to get a proposal, then engagement, then marriage, then childbirth.

The equation was too complex and long to solve mama’s pressing problem of getting a grandchild. I couldn’t believe my ears. My mother wanted a grandchild. What in God’s name was the craze behind this new midnight resolution? It is okay to avoid pleasing people, but everything takes a new turn when it’s suddenly ‘Mother-pleasing’. Especially when you’re that mother’s only grown daughter, and she is your only parent.

I couldn’t give her a solid explanation to calm her nerves down, so I blurted out the first thing that entered my mind.

“Mama, but I’m just 24!! What’s this new talk of grandchildren suddenly?”

“24?! What do you mean by ‘I’m just 24?’” She scorned mimicking me derisively. That’s an absurd thing to say. Most of your mates have long been married off at age 18. You’ve been to the university, you’ve got a job already. One gives you everything that a girl should require from her parents. So, why are you hesitating to play your part to make me happy?”

“I married your father at age 22! Did I die? No. I had a good marriage. I even had a better marriage than most of my educated friends who wanted to get married at 28 and 29. Or is that your plan? You want to seize my joy until my eyes are too old to see my grandchildren right?”

At this point, mama’s voice had pitched loudly, and she sounded like she was on the verge of crying. She was using the emotional card on me. Those tears, she knew, were my soft spot. I could never see mama shed a tear and be at peace with myself. I disliked it. I despised the pressure.

“Mama, what’s this now? Why have you suddenly started to cry?” I rebuffed her slowly. “Mama, it’s okay, I’ve heard you and would take your words very seriously. Please clean your tears. This matter does not call for tears na…”

“Is that all you can say? You’d think about it? No. No. I want an answer now. Assure me now. Not later, not in the future….Now.”

“Besides, don’t you even have a boyfriend? Why don’t you bring him home, let’s start with the formal introductions?”

“But mama….” I wanted to retort back in anger, but suddenly, an idea like a lightning bolt hit me hard. Kunle and I have been in a relationship for a while now. I loved him dearly, and he loved me too. But he was not ready to visit my parents yet. Mama would never accept him for all the qualities I saw in him. For mama, a good husband material was any man who was financially capable to provide for me, and any man who could give her the grandchildren she so heartily desired.

At that moment, I knew exactly what I had to do; What I had to do to stave her off for a while.

“Mama, I do have a boyfriend, and in fact, we have been making plans to come home to see you soon.” Even if this was a lie, I hoped it would suffice.

Mama’s response was spontaneous as she broke into a song of joy as if she had only just won the first phase of a long impending victory.

“Bisi my daughter, this news brings me great joy. I’m so proud of you. So, what’s his name? When are you guys coming? What’s delaying you? I hope he has a big jeep too? Which of the Yoruba states are his parents from? Sorry, which state did he grow up in?”

Mama was making emphasis on the jeep and other monetary insinuations again. For the longest time, she had conjured up make-believe pictures of how she intended to pepper members of the neighborhood with her Big-Man-son-in-law. Now it appeared she wanted it all to come to reality.

“Sorry, my dear, I’ve been asking too many questions at once. Answer one at a time.” She gushed enthusiastically. Within seconds, mama had gotten up from her chair and broken into a dance for the second time.

This was the time to bring my plan to fruition and get mama harmlessly off my heels for a long time.

“Mama” I started. “His name is Dozie, and his parents are from Anambra. He does not have a lot of money too. He runs a start-up, but he’s the one I love mama. He’s IGBO too.” I stated intentionally as I watched mama’s eyes widen in shock. Her pupils dilated like she would recede into a coma from the shock of my words.

“We’ve not been able to come because we were worried about what you’d say about his tribe and monetary status. But we love each other deeply.”

“OMO Igbo….OMO IGBO…” mama continued to repeat the words herself.

I smiled silently to myself. I could almost see her next reaction. She’d get into a fit and threaten me not to bring an Igbo boy into her house or else the heavens would fall.

Don’t I know that the Igbos are fair devils? Satan’s incarnate themselves for that matter! Who the hell do I think I am to want to bring shame to her before her friends?

Did I not know that Igbo people do not know a single thing about respect, and didn’t I know that Igbo men killed their inlaws to make evil money? On and on she’d rant and say she was not even that interested in a grandchild. I should get a rich Yoruba boy or somebody else from another tribe. But not Igbo. Igbo people are the devil’s scum themselves.

She would bury her head in sand the day she’d let an Igbo man into her house.

I watched her take it all in and process the gravity of the matter at hand seriously. If there’s one thing I was sure of, it was her staunch hatred for the Igbos. If I couldn’t vouch for anything else, I could tell that mama would never compromise her long term beliefs and ancestry notions. Yoruba’s like mama believed one thing and only one thing: Igbos were the sworn arch age-long enemies of the Yorubas. Yorubas and Igbos were two tribes that were far distinct from one another as light and darkness. So please tell me, what has light got to do with darkness?

I could almost hear her pronouncing and ending her obsessive notions about grandchildren immediately. While this would come with it’s future consequences, I would still have enough time to save up strength for mama’s husband shenanigans.

“OMO IGBO, OMO IGBO!” mama was still ricocheting to herself as I pictured the next turn of events in my head.

To my greatest surprise, none of these things happened. She made the pronouncement that I least expected at once, sending my mind into a beehive of unhealthy activities.

“You can bring him tomorrow to the house. Let me see him.” Mama immediately answered. Her reply threw me off balance at once.

“What… .hmm…I mean….When…… I mean ….why… hmm… mama..what did you say?” I stuttered profusely in confusion.

“Yes, you heard me.”

“But mama he is I-G-B-O…” I tried to pronounce the word loudly. Making emphasis, subtly trying to convince her, to remind her of the gravity of what she was saying.

“I don’t care if he’s Igbo or Hausa or Ijaw. I just want a grandchild before I die! That’s it!” Mama declared as she walked out of the room, her curves flapping alongside.

“Bring him tomorrow, I’d put a call through to invite the elders today. We’d all be waiting. You said you loved him and that’s all that matters to me.”

I watched as mama shut the door firmly behind her, leaving me alone with my lies in the darkness. Now I was in big trouble. Where would I find a husband, who happens to be Igbo too, that’d fit the description of our imaginary Dozie to present before the elders tomorrow?

I was done for. Finished, cooked, and meat for the dogs already.

My lies have caught up with me, and now I had a heavy price to pay. A price heavier than sleep. I stole a glance at the wall clock. It was still 2:30 am. With the sleep gone from my eyes, I knew this sleep would never return.

I had just booked up an imaginary Igbo husband for my mom. As the clock struck 2:30 am, I realized that the least of my problems were yet to begin.

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