‘O si na Chi’
It has been a week since the death of Afusat’s husband. Everything happened so fast that she still thinks she’s in a dream. One minute he was with her and the next he was gone. Never to be seen again. She doesn’t know where to start or continue from. She had been married to a well-to-do man who spoilt her silly. He provided for her least need. She didn’t have to do any shopping. She went to the shops but he was with her. At the till, he brought out his card and settled the bill. He was a frequent air traveller. He brought back to her many latest dresses and accessories in vogue. She dressed much better than those earning salaries. She can’t believe it’s all over.
She’s there in her room going over her life and the latest episode when she hears a knock on the door.
– Come in.
The visitor is one of her aunts whom she hasn’t seen for a long time. Quickly Afusat gets off the bed and kneels down. The aunt lifts her up and says:
– It still is like a bad dream. I just have to be here to know it’s true.
Afusat bows her head. She claps her hands and slowly moves her head up and down.
– Please sit down ma.
Aunty sits on one edge of the bed. Afusat sits on the other edge.
– So what happened?
Afusat, once again, repeats the way everything happened that fateful day a week ago.
– Ha! Ha!! Ha!!!
This reaction made Afusat tearful again.
– Crying won’t bring him back. You should plan for the future.
That’s what everyone has been saying to her.
How does she plan for this future – she who never had to plan for anything?
Afusat believes that those around her don’t know what to say and that’s why they utter those words. She who knows where the shoe is pinching her feels the pain most. Alas, she doesn’t have any balm to rub on the feet. Not yet. People come with gifts – some food stuffs and others give money.
She’s aware that soon visitors will stop coming. She needs to have a Plan B. She has decided to get a job. Afusat has never worked in her life. She never went any further with her education after the secondary school. Her parents had decided that she should be trading. She wasn’t good at school. In fact she spent almost ten years in secondary school. She wasn’t a school material at all. It was while she was trading that she met her husband who was a cousin to another woman trader in Balogun Market.
Her husband ‘s people already said that he left no will. He never thought of dying in his late 40s. So the family had designated two people, a brother and a sister, to be in charge of his property. It’s this two who will manage his affairs and it’ s to them Afusat will be communicating her needs and her children’s. She and her husband have three children the eldest of whom is under 10 years old. He had sired a child, a boy, before meeting her. The boy is now in his teens.
The child has been living in the house since they wedded. Relatives hanging around her house now take this son to their bosom while they ‘banish’ her and her kids to the bedroom. What type of tradition is this? A tradition that has made her a lodger in her own house. Afusat feels like screaming at them all. They take control of her kitchen, her parlour and day-to-day activities in the house. She’s become a stranger. In her own house! What tradition is this, she screams inside herself.
– You have to come to see me.
Afusat hears her aunt say.
She’s been lost in her thoughts that she forgot that she wasn’t alone.
Aunty gets up to go. She presses some money into Afusat’s palm. Afusat sees her to the room’s door, kneels down to thank her and say goodbye.
Afusat starts to think again. She has been told by the family that she can’t go out of the house for a period of 41 days. The tradition forbids she even goes as far as the house next door. Afusat wonders why some tradition will keep her under house arrest for that period of time. Her house has been invaded by various in-laws in the guise of keeping an eye on her. Even those who were not close to her late husband have packed into the house. Afusat feels choked in her house. Her sister-in-law already takes charge of the house keeping. She calls the shots in Afusat’s house. And this will go on for 41 days, Afusat thinks.
The husband has been buried within 24 hours according to Mosley rites. Afusat expected the relatives to have returned to their bases and left her to continue with her life. She’s surprised they’re still in the house and, from the looks of things, will be there for ever in the guise of watching over her. Some of them say that it isn’t good for her to be alone. They say loneliness will lead to heaviness of the mind which will result in sickness. She wishes to tell them that it’s their presence that will hasten sickness. She’s sick of the noise they make when they’re in the parlor watching the TV. Their favourite channels are Africa Magic. The children often come to Afusat’s bedroom to watch the children’s programs. That’s not all. She can hear the squabbles over the in-laws’ choice of films – some want Yoruba films others don’t. Afusat has had enough of these in-laws whom she calls her emergency ‘Good Samaritan’.
Afusat know that she must do something and that really fast. She knows that to go through the 41 days period prescribed by the tradition would drive her insane.
