I once saw at the top— Those with crisp loins, buttered tongues, and pride sharp as blades, They, who made it seem like my first-generation self would stretch too long to get here.
Hah!
Pintrest
Me? Emmanuella. My name, so long, surprises you I stuck around? I stayed, pushed hard until my knowledge became so palpable, You couldn’t turn a blind eye.
I stuck around for a day like today, Where I wear my grandmother’s name with pride—Affymma, Affiong ete! Affymma, from generations rooted in life and immortality, Sprouting breaths of beauty and vitality.
Me? Affymma, who danced kokoma on bare feet, Swung her waist to the dim dim drums made of leopard skin.
Now, I sit at tables once reserved for those I admired— Bold. Rich. Audacious. Intelligent. I occupy spaces once unwelcoming, And I crush the tables of restriction.
Remember I came home with emotions flagged red from your microaggressions, Questioning myself, doubting if how you treated me was right. I beat myself up for not standing firm, Never see it coming when you pour out your maltreatment. But see me now— Triumphing, one day at a time.
I am the woman who now sits beside you in Ankara dress, Capped in a black bob wig, draped in the richness of my skin. I am Affymma, the risen star. And just like you, I am now at the top.
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.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to have my fingers master the art of brow drawing when girls clustered in circles, having their brows carved and learning the tricks of perfecting angles and curves.
Try as I try, e no gree me learn.
Emmanuella.
That morning, two hours before the start of an eight-hour shift, I sat in front of my mirror, ready to wear a near-perfect brow. They say it is best to start drawing from below, that the arch is easily formed that way. So, I plunged, holding my breath and rolling my face to the drive of the eye pencil.
With every draw came a wipe. I saw my mistakes, and my mind said: “No too draw am fast, take am sofrisofri.” Time was ticking, just as it was ticking for Mama Bomboy. What she didn’t know was that, for every minute she wiped her vagina, I wiped my brows too. While it was ignorance for her, it was just a mistake for me.
I sharpened my eye pencil more, peeling height from it and wishing the tip would do the magic. Mama Bomboy was home, dripping wet from the flow of amniotic fluid and wishing it would stop. She poked her hand into her vagina and noticed green stains.
“Na shit be this?” she wondered.
The baby was in distress, just like the skin around my brows.
With 20 minutes to work time, I dumped my eye pencil. I no gree die. Wetin street no tish you, YouTube dey. Brows unfresh, I walked into the labor unit. On the couch was Mama Bomboy pushing an already blue baby.
She spent time. She wasted time. I spent time. I wasted time.
It cost me redness around the skin that holds my brows. It cost her Bomboy.
Dear Amara, It’s been just four days since your social media break, and I miss you greatly. How is my boy Chibuike and your husband, our Jay? Nne’m, I have gist for you.
My husband, Dr. Obeten, is just an inch away from becoming a pastor. Do you see his head? He scrapes it bald and empties two palmfuls of Soulmate hair cream on it. Then, when he steps on the altar and stands by the chandelier, his skull reflects the ceiling lights and enunciates his facial features boldly. I am forced to think, every dark, tall, and handsome man should go bald.
Dear Amara
By my calculations, he would jump from being a dedicated brethren who works in the tech department, skip deaconship, and go straight to becoming a pastor. He seems to be very serious about it. Last night, we woke up to pray for a brother who’s going through some crisis. It was 3:00 a.m., that time of night when your sleep is drifting into sweetness, your consciousness is gone, and life feels like you have a big pant that you have to secure to your waist with your left hand while you jump about with friends, building mud houses, and playing hide and seek. No regular brethren would sacrifice coupling up with his wife for such intercessory ministry.
Amy, I see myself as a near-future mummy G.O. Okay, maybe not G.O.-G.O., but at least an assistant pastor’s wife. Not like the regular ones I meet at conferences with baggy dresses and a silent love for dull colors and poor color coordination. I want to be the kind that inspires teenagers to righteousness, wears some stilettos, and marches the devil on his head with my heels, with a face beat that speaks of grace, intellect, and strength. Omooooo!
My husband loves the Lord, and his heart is out in service to Him, but he doesn’t see what I see. Our pastor thinks he will do well in shepherding a flock and has asked him to register for the pastoral course. But the man I am married to shies away. He says his ministry is backstage, arranging and setting up for service, and interceding for the church, the brethren, and our pastors. I see him ready in a blazing suit to take on nations and slay kingdoms with me on his side. My koi-koi shoes and pleated skirts are ready for the day he answers the call. I think my ministry is to become a mummy G.O., a wife to the pastor, a mother to the brethren, and a great support to teen girls and boys alike.
Until then, I will keep serving in the choir and honing my skills for the day the office of mummy G.O. becomes available to me.
Don’t laugh too much when you read this, and don’t bother advising me, nne. Give all my love to Chibuike, and roll some remnants on you and our Jay.
I refuse to die again, but the searing pain from the tablets she swallowed is targeting my left groin. It feels like a bulldozer tearing through everything in its path, squeezing the very soles off the foundation of muscles that support me. Breathing is difficult, so I crawl silently, one tiny step after another, to hide behind the fundus of the uterus, at the junction where it connects with the fallopian tube. I am determined to survive.
The last time I died, I was naive and ignorant. I didn’t put up a fight; I surrendered after just one pill, causing her to almost spill her intestines into the toilet. She defecated until I became dehydrated.
Last night, before she took the “termination” pills, I overheard them say, “We are not ready for a baby.” But even though I heard their words, nothing prepared me for the ruthless severing of my budding life, the violent uprooting from my implanted spot, and the blows I received from a certain drug I would later know as mifepristone. What a brutal fate.
There’s a rule that says we must wait two years if one of us dies at the hands of our parents. But Mother Nature had other plans, punishing me by exposing my convalescing self to the world too soon.
Who would want an ugly baby with burnt hair and dark lips? I haven’t yet recovered from my first death. I needed time to heal, to bloom and flourish, but who am I to defy Nature’s commands? I found my way back into her womb after an intimate night with her partner, the one she calls “babe.”
Mother Nature says I have a purpose to fulfill on earth, and my arrival will happen through this couple who seem to always blame each other for my presence.
“Why didn’t you take emergency contraception?”
“But I insisted you use a condom!”
“I pulled out!”
“…Your pull-out game is weak.”
Two strange people.
Here I am, again, holding on for dear life to the myometrium. It’s a better choice, even though the muscles slap my cheeks and pummel my heart when the uterine contractions begin. It’s still better than having Mr. Mifepristone and his accomplice misoprostol tear me apart and drag me out disgracefully.
I am hanging on because Mother Nature says I have a purpose. Please, pray for me.
Notes By Emmanuella 