The Second Wife – Episode 16

The Second Wife – Episode 16

© Onyinyechukwu Mbeledogu

Saturday, 24th April 2004
Oroma Estate

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ Soki asked her husband of two weeks. ‘We have been married for two weeks and you have called me Nengi how many times?’

‘It wasn’t intentional, babe.’

‘Not intentional? Haba! Nengi has been dead for four years! That’s a long time ago.’

‘It wasn’t intentional.’ Dienye repeated.

He couldn’t believe that he had called her Nengi. What was he thinking?

‘I heard you the first time. I’m just wondering why you keep doing it.’

‘It was a slip of the tongue, babe. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it.’

‘So being called by another woman’s name isn’t a big deal? If the roles were reversed, would you have found it funny if I called you by my ex-boyfriend’s name?’

‘That’s different. Besides, you never had one,’ he reminded her.

‘Oho! Well, this is a big deal unless it formed part of the silent terms and conditions for helping me out when I came to you. You should have at least put the damned thing in the prenuptial agreement we signed.’

‘Soki, let it rest. It won’t happen again.’

‘I don’t like keeping things bottled up inside so I need to get this out right now.’

He rolled his eyes.

Only last week, Soki had complained about the life portrait of Nengi she had seen in the large sitting room her first visit to his home. She had expected him to remove it after they got married and had been surprised to find it still there after she returned from school. Nengi’s pictures were still around the house including pictures taken with Dienye. He even had a room he kept locked!

‘What’s in that room?’ She had asked him last Saturday.

‘It’s my room of wealth,’ he had responded. ‘You don’t want to go in there.’

‘Why not? What’s in there?’

‘A gruesome sight, that’s what. In it is a young man sitting on a box with money dropping out of his open mouth.’

‘Be serious, D.D. What’s in there?’

‘Some of Nengi’s things. I had to move them from the master bedroom and adjoining room.’

She shouldn’t have taken the fact that he had reserved a bedroom in their home for Nengi’s things for granted. Having his late wife’s things around the house was clearly messing up his mind. What other justification could there be for calling her by the woman’s name?

‘Perhaps the reason you why you keep making that slip is because there are so many pictures of her around the house. I feel like she follows me into every room I go to.’

‘Nengi and I built this house together,’ he bit out.

‘And I just waltzed in to take over. This is also meant to be my home, meaning I need to feel comfortable here. It was different when I came around as your fiancée but I am your wife. I don’t think it is right for you to keep her pictures lying around the place. They are in the smaller sitting room and-’

‘It doesn’t mean anything. I am married to you!’ he reminded her, exasperated. ‘You’re the woman who shares my bed and…’

‘Yes we are married but you still keep her pictures around the place. I won’t be surprised if it’s her pictures you have framed in your different offices.’

Dienye didn’t bother denying it. What was the use?

‘I know you loved her and all but I’m here now. Me, Nwasoka. It isn’t cool to keep on showing me your undying love for another woman.’

‘I admit that I’m still in love with Nengi, but I am trying my best to make this marriage work. You are not helping matters at all by blowing things out of proportion.’

‘Me, ke? Maka na m si na m agaghi aza afa nwunye gi nwulu anwu (because I said I wouldn’t answer to your late wife’s name)? If I let this continue, it won’t be long before you find yourself asking me to loose weight, undergo a cosmetic surgery and stretch my limbs further just to look like her..’

‘You don’t have the same facial or bone structure,’ he reminded her.

‘And if I did, would you have recommended the surgery?’

‘You are the wrong size and height, babe. Besides, this conversation is becoming too ridiculous for my liking.’

‘I look nothing like her.’

‘No. She was very tall and very beautiful.’

‘And I might as well be a plain Jane compared to her, abi?’

Dienye sighed deeply. ‘That was uncalled for. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’

‘But you were being truthful. Remember I have seen her pictures. You need to deal with the fact that Nengi is dead and buried. And I don’t want to fit into her shoes.’

She could tell from the way he tensed that her last words had hurt him.

‘This conversation is over.’

‘Nengi-’

‘Leave my wife out of this.’

She drew back her head.

‘Your wife? Then who am I?’

That was when Dienye realised what he had said.

‘I am exhausted. This confrontation has given me a headache.’

‘And what do you think it’s given me?’

She walked away, expecting him to call her back but he didn’t. She showered and changed into her pyjama top and shorts. Dienye came to the bedroom later in the night but he lay on the bed with his back to her, instead of cuddling her as he usually did.

___

Sunday, 25th April 2004
Harold Wilson Drive,
Borokiri, Port Harcourt.

Soki had Sunday lunch with her parents-in-law. She first stopped at the ‘Heart of the Child’ and stayed long enough to visit with the children who were Dienye’s second love. She had first visited as his fiancée and presently noticed that two of the children she had seen back then were no longer in the orphanage. She was informed that they had been adopted.

According to Dienye, he had conceived the idea of having a decent orphanage at the age of nineteen after he and Belema had rescued a baby they had found in a carton in the midst of a refuse heap on their way back from a party at a family friend’s home.

She dropped the gifts she had come with before heading to town to see Dienye’s parents at their home in Harold Wilson Drive. She had established a good rapport with them and so didn’t have to be anyone other than herself around them. After all, they knew their son hadn’t married her for love.

‘How are you, my dear?’ Nkemdilim Daniel-Hart asked her daughter-in-law while the younger woman helped her in the kitchen.

‘I’m fine, mum,’ Soki responded, grating the carrots for the coleslaw they were making. She had chopped the cabbage into short slim pieces. Done with the carrots, she found the salad cream and mixed the contents of her bowl together.

‘And your marriage?’

‘So far so good, we are trying to make it work.’

Nkem watched her daughter-in-law recalling the day Dienye had called to inform her and her husband that he was getting married again. She had thought he was joking because everyone knew he was yet to get over Nengi. Dienye was close-lipped about his reasons for getting married once more but it was clear that it wasn’t for love.

Soki found herself wondering what Nengi had been like as a daughter-in-law. During the introduction, Dagogo and Nkem Daniel-Hart had been amiable but the atmosphere had been a bit tense.

‘Mummy,’

‘Yes dear?’

‘What was Nengi like?’

That was the least question Nkem expected her to ask. She dropped the knife she using and turned to face Soki.

‘Let me give you an advice dear: don’t ever ask about the other woman. What you hear will hurt you especially when your marriage is not founded on love.’

‘I can’t help it mummy. I feel like I need to know more about her in order to be able to able to properly understand my husband.’

‘I’ll advice that you ask Dienye what he wants, instead.’

‘He won’t tell me.’

‘And as his mother I would tell you that he wouldn’t appreciate your snooping around for information about Nengi.’

‘Who’s going to tell him?’ Soki returned.

‘Who indeed?’ Nkem laughed. ‘Are you sure you really want to know about Nengi?’

‘Yes I do. What was she like as a daughter-in-law?’

‘Every prospective mother-in-law’s dream come true,’ Nkem replied. ‘Nengi, bless her soul, was family long before she got married to my son. They had been friends since forever. She was his dearest friend. They were so close that there were times she spent the night over here but never in his bedroom. She usually spent the night Ibierefagha’s bedroom. She was a good girl and well brought up.

‘When Dienye told me at 23 that he was ready to settle down with her, it didn’t come as a surprise. We felt he was too young but Dienye has always had a mind of his own. She was with him when he started the home and his businesses. She made a room alive just by being in it.’

Nkem paused with a smile on her face, obviously thinking of Nengi. ‘There was no dull moment with her. My husband adored her so much that you would think she was his first daughter. She frequented this place with Dienye and they were inseparable.’

‘How did she die?’

‘She was involved in an accident. She put herself in harm’s way in order to save a child who had been about to be knocked down by a clearly drunk driver. In the course of her fall, she hit her head on the side of the culvert and suffered severe trauma to the head. Her death was hard on Dienye but it’s been four years now. The consolation we had was that she died doing what she loved most – helping others. Unfortunately she died without a child.’

And I had to ask, Soki thought. They were talking about a saint here. One who was breathtakingly beautiful from the pictures she had seen of her and who had an easy smile. Had she been anyone but Dienye’s first wife, Soki would have wished she had met and known the woman. She had clearly been the perfect wife and the perfect daughter-in-law.

‘It’s too early in your marriage to start finding faults in yourself and in your marriage,’ a voice inside her head advised.

The voice was right. She was new to this. Circumstances beyond her control had led to them being together before either of them was ready. They no longer enjoyed that easy communication they had enjoyed before they got married. Reality had set in. Perhaps if they had gone on their honeymoon that would have helped. She had heard that honeymoons gave the newly married couple the opportunity to bond and in the absence of distractions.

The lovemaking was great and one of the things she looked forward to each time. She was financially stable thanks to him but she needed the Dienye she had known before her father’s problem with Nze.

‘Don’t let any of this bother you,’ Nkem told Soki. ‘The fact that you are different from Nengi is not a bad thing. No two people are the same just as no two marriages are the same. Every distinguishing characteristic is in itself an advantage. You just have to find out what works for you and Dienye and hinge on that to make your marriage work.’

Soki thought of telling Nkem about the pictures of Nengi which still could be found in different parts of the house. The wedding albums from 11 years ago were still in their small sitting room for anyone who cared to look. He hadn’t taken down their wedding pictures but had the ones he took with Soki enlarged and also placed on the walls in the sitting rooms. Dienye obviously didn’t see anything wrong with this!

Soki got recipes of his native food from his mum in order to prepare them for him. One thing he couldn’t fault was her cooking. She was a great cook who loved to practice new meals. Give her any ingredient and she would come up with a meal that would make you lick your fingers and moan with pleasure. She’d scored an A1 in Foods and Nutrition with the invigilators almost eating up her food. She had prepared goat meat pepper soup as an appetiser, ji akwukwu nni (yam and vegetable) with ugba, and pounded yam with ofe onugbu (bitter leaf soup) for the two main dishes that had been requested for, and the sweet for the day had been sweet pancakes. She had effectively managed her time and come up with the best dishes for the day.

She held back a laugh as she recalled the reaction of the students when she used ogili which she had gotten from her aunt in Obosi. According to her mum any ogili besides that of Anambra state was fake. The smell of the ogili had filled the food and nutrition lab to Soki’s joy and pride as an Anambra girl.

That evening, she had pounded yam and bitter leaf soup waiting for Dienye. They hadn’t spoken much after the confrontation of yesterday and she was tired of the silence.

To be continued

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