The first time I saw grief drive a person mad was in Amakohia, a small vicinity in Owerri. I had just gone from bathing in front of our house to putting Vaseline on my tiny lips as makeup. The person was Mama Uche. Some people had brought the news that her husband, a police officer who returned home every weekend with a gun strapped against his back, had been killed by kidnappers who invaded the house he guarded.
Mama Uche went from laughing loudly to stripping off her clothes, almost running into the street. Even months after her husband’s burial, you would still find her wandering around the Maami market. Grief.
It was the same grief that exposed Nani to Ephraim in Chika Unigwe’s The Middle Daughter. First, it was Udodi, her elder sister, who died, then Doda, her father. The once beautiful family of three girls and loving parents withered like the flowers in front of the house did when Nani wouldn’t return from Ephraim’s.
Grief sucks you into a place of darkness and breathlessness, making you blind to imminent danger—a danger like Ephraim, who is patriarchal, a religious fanatic, and a woman beater. He deceived Nani into marrying him, and her life spiraled into a world of gloom and doom. Number 47 in Enugu, where she once dreamed of going to America, becoming a doctor, opening a private hospital, and marrying the love of her life, became Obiagu a place where she merely fulfilled Ephraim’s demands and nearly lost everything.
I love how Chika Unigwe infused Igbo poetry and proverbs into her book. Udodi’s choruses were beautiful to read, and I appreciated how the characters told the story themselves. It was engaging. However, it was written in both first and third person, and if you’re not careful, you might not notice when the voices switch. I read the book in three days but almost abandoned it on the second day when I began to grow angry at Nani, and perhaps at the author.
Why would a girl who grew up in middle-class wealth in Enugu endure such maltreatment, all because her mother made money in a way she didn’t like? Her busy schedule? The day Ephraim branded her face with a hot iron after a brother looked lustfully at her in church should have been enough for her to return home. Ephraim raped her, got her pregnant, and all she could do was not run to Aunty Enuka but her abuser? Teenagers will be teenagers, but what about the adults? Her mother didn’t want to be associated with her, never looked for her, and no relatives questioned Ugo for information? How could an entire family let go of a young woman like Nani?
I finished the book because, despite my anger, my heart still ached for Nani. Three children later, her life took a different direction.
Grief sometimes breaks us into pieces we don’t recognize, makes us vulnerable, and clouds our vision. I’ve learned to anchor myself with loved ones. I may be in pieces in their sight during my grief, but no one will break any piece of me in such times. And when healing comes, they will help sculpt me back into shape.
Notes By Emmanuella 