Counting my Blessings
By Chika Unigwe
The Mother-in-Law
She looked like the mirage of the girl she must have once been. Her cheeks seemed to be disappearing into her face. Her lips were thin, and her nose a small pert thing in the middle of her face. This girl was ready to vanish, right there in my presence.
Another thing I noticed: she was used to waiting. You could see it in her eyes. The way they settled on a single object in the sitting room and then stayed there, as if hypnotized, under the spell of some powerful ogwu.
She never looked at me, but I could tell that she was calculating. Totaling up what this arrangement was worth to her. It was not easy to tell her age, but she was definitely no spring chicken. Thirty? Twenty seven? She was one of those women who always look young, but the enthusiasm with which she embraced this arrangement made me suspect that she was years older than she looked. If only I could get a good look at her ankles. My mother always said it was easy to tell a woman’s age from her ankles. No matter how young the rest of her body looked, a woman’s ankles never lied. But she had gray pants on. There was something about the way the gray, somber as an unhappy cloud, blended into her dark complexion and seemed like a part of her, not just an item of clothing. I could not ask her to raise them up for me to get a good look. My head would not permit me that trespass. Not that it mattered. Perhaps it was to be desired that she was not very young. The young are fickle and vows mean nothing to them. Everywhere one looked, women were leaving their husbands’ homes. But what if she was past child bearing age? What if age had cooled her womb? A child would come in handy, would keep her bound to us, especially if it were male.
“Are you hungry?” I asked her. All the while, the urge to trespass, to go beyond that gray and onto her ankles had my head whirling with tactless suggestions. Perhaps, I could ask her, her age. What if I did ask her? She might not think it was decent. She might put it down to the tactlessness of an ageing woman. If she thought age had made me tactless, she would forgive me, surely? No. I couldn’t possible ask her, could I? But I so wanted to know.
She drew her eyes from the table standing in the middle of the sitting- room and settled them on me. No, not exactly on me. She was not looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on a spot between my eyes and my lips. My nose?
“No. Thank you, Ma.” Her voice was timid. A slight quavering tone that I had to strain to hear. “I’m not hungry, Ma. I just ate before I came, Ma.” She had her hands folded on her laps, one palm resting on the other. There was something elegant about it. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and tucked into the space between the sofa and the brown rug.
I had insisted on that rug. Papa Eze had wanted a green one. I thought it was hideous. Green, the colourcolor of grass on my sitting room floor. I told him it would give me nightmares. I would see snakes slithering on it. He had laughed and called me a silly woman. Then I had told him that brown would hide dirt. Especially the shade of brown I wanted: dark and rich. It was the sort of brown that somehow looked lusher the dirtier it became. Not that I would ever let it get dirty but it just meant I would not be in a hurry to clean it. Or have to make guests remove their shoes to walk in. Enugu, especially in the dry season, is very dusty and guests dragged the dust wherever they went. I hated going to my sister, Beatrice’s house. She had a beige rug that showed every spot of dirt. So, of course, when she had guests, they had to remove their shoes at the door, the shoes piling up as a new guest arrived, making it look like the entrance to an aladura church building. One almost expected to see a congregation of shouting, singing church goers clad in white. I hated having to remove my shoes at the door.
I looked at the feet of the girl before me. Her shoes were sensible. Black, low heeled, comfortable looking. The chunk of heels I saw young girls of nowadays wear. It was amazing that they could lift their legs and actually walk in them. In my days, we wore shoes that did not wear us out. Shoes like Ebele wore. She would do. Oh yes, she would definitely do.
Ebele_- Mercy–_ was a name that went well with her: a short, sensible, ordinary name. It was the sort of name you would expect someone like her to bear. Nothing ostentatious. None of these new fancy names, Rudi and Charlene, which put people above their stations. Names picked out of the foreign sitcoms that people sat down to watch every evening. Names without meaning. Her parents named her well. And to all intents, raised her well too. In her ears, she wore studs that sunk, hardly visible, into the holes made for them. Her hair was permed, but held in a strict pony tail. There was not a single hair out of place. She reminded me of Sister Patricia, the Irish nun who taught me Home Science at the Teachers’ College in Awka. Her hair was always held in an orderly bun. She exerted the same authority on them as she did on us_– adolescent girls on the cusp of womanhood_ — with our raging hormones. Of all the teachers, she was the strictest. I could still hear her voice, “Head up, stomach in and no dawdling girls!” That voice had us hurrying to class or whatever activity we had.
“What do you do? Do you work?” Forget about her looks. If she was employed, she might prove difficult. Especially if she was a bank employee. Those bank-girls were wayward. They might look innocent on the outside, but from what I have heard, not a single bank-girl was morally fumigated. It was the nature of the job. They had to lure clients, to reach targets; rich business men who owned a fleet of cars, the way ordinary people owned slippers. To keep their jobs, the girls had to sleep with the men, catching what nots and spreading them. I would not have a bank employee in my house. Not under my roof.
“No, Ma. I don’t.” The same subservient, friable tone. She kept her head lowered this time, like she was ashamed. Or embarrassed. “I did Philosophy at the university. I graduated four years ago, Ma. I have no job.”
Philosophy! No wonder she had no job. Although come to think of it, I have heard that to work in a bank, all a girl needed was to be in possession of butter-legs; easily spreadable. But still, with a degree in philosophy, how did she expect to get a job? The way I saw it, it was a waste of money sending children to school to study courses that did not equip them for life. Philosophy. Sociology. Political Science. English. My sons had brains. They had brains and Papa Eze and I had foresight. Eze is a dentist. Tobe had failed at his first attempt to get in for engineering, so we kept him at home and hired a private tutor. Second attempt, he passed. Eloka got in straight from secondary school. No hanging around for him. He has a degree in medicine. Debechi wanted to study French. Papa Eze told him he would not pay his school fees. I asked him with which mouth I would tell my friends that my son was at the university learning French. It took time and lots of studying from him, but he was now a lawyer. More respectable, I told him. He was a lawyer in America. Washington DC. He won the green card lottery and left four years ago. He flew the nest. I hated that expression. It makes a home sound like a coop, children jam-packed like chickens waiting for nothing but the day they could break free. It does nothing to capture the smells and sounds of a home, especially one as loving as ours was. My boys were happy. They had their fair share of quarrelingquarrelling; which siblings did not? But they were grounded and happy and supported each other. Even their marriages had not come in the way of their bond. I missed them. At the thought of all four, a sigh involuntarily escaped me. Now the house was empty. That is what happens when one has no daughters. Daughters remember and come home, even when they are married, but sons? Oh no. They build their own homes. Still, it is said that a man without sons is a man without a future.
What sort of a future did Papa Eze have bed-bound all day?
“So, what do your parents do?” I could not remember that they did anything. Or perhaps that detail had escaped me. Things, information, objects were always escaping me these days. I no longer had the agility of my youth. I was getting old. How old was I? If I were to guess, I would say between sixty and seventy. I did not think I was younger than sixty; my bones were too stiff to be that, but I could not be older than seventy. I was not that old. What did it matter? I was becoming a foolish woman, worrying about age at this time of my life when I had grandchildren. Age was no longer of use to me. I did not need it to be young enough to bear children. And what if I forgot things occasionally? It is what happens in old age. And old age is a blessing.
“Sorry, I did not hear what you said. Speak up a bit.” I gave her a smile I hoped she would know was genuine. I remembered that my mother-in-law hardly smiled at me. She had a permanent scowl, like I was not good enough for her youngest son. Truth be told, I had found it difficult to cry when the old woman passed on ten years ago.
I began to ask myself if Ebele always spoke like this; this low flustering, brittle tone, like a ghost not wishing to disturb the living.
“My father is late. My mother used to be a nurse. She used to work at St. Patrick’s maternity.” She still did not look at me. I started to think that maybe I had a huge pimple on my face that she was fixated upon. Her concentration was intense, it was becoming uncomfortable. I wished she would stop.
“I am sorry to hear that. What did he do before he died?” A widow. Hm. They usually required a lot of help. Financially that is. And this one no longer worked. Did the father leave them anything before transiting?
“He was a civil servant. Worked with the Ministry of Finance.” Civil servants. The very lowest on the financial ladder. I hoped she did not have too many siblings, especially younger ones who needed looking after. That would be too much of a burden for Debechi to carry.
“So, how many siblings do you have? Are you the oldest?”
“We are eight.” Eight! The number made my heart jump. I kept my fingers crossed that she was one of the youngest and that the rest were settled and married. But if they thought she had landed an away husband, a lawyer in America, it would not matter that she was the youngest. She would still be hassled for money. Every week, there would be requests for her to send money home. For school fees. For food. Hospital bills. Electricity bill. House rent. Thinking of these made my head swim and I resolved to tell Debechi to be strict with her; give her a not too-generous allowance and nothing above that. One had to be strict about such matters.
“I am the fifth. Our youngest is still in secondary school. The 6th and the 7th are twins. They are at the university. Ekene is majoring in Banking and Finance. Ogedi is in Geological Sciences. ” I did the math in my head. Three children needing school fees. I tried to smile at her. Three was a lot, but it could have been worse. Imagine if she were the first? Seven more mouths to feed and clothe. And with degrees in Banking and Geological sciences, how were the younger two going to get any jobs? With some luck, they would get snapped up by husbands before they were through with school.
Once she started having her own children, her priorities would definitely change. Again, I wondered how old she must be. I was worried that I could not tell her age. What if she was like a piece of land, too cultivated, too old to be anything but barren? I tried again to smile at her but it hurt to do so. I gave up.
“So, you have known Nkiru for a long time?” This time, she looked at me and gave me a full blown smile. For the first time, I noticed that she was somewhat beautiful. I had not thought anything of her looks before now.
“Yes, Ma. I have known Nkiru since primary school. We were classmates, Ma”
If she was Nkiru’s classmate, then it was likely they were age mates, was it not? If they were, then she was young enough. Not too young, but, she was definitely not too old to bear children. Nkiru was born years after Debechi. Was she not born just before or after FESTAC 1977? I gave her another smile. This time, it came easy. Now I thought of it, she seemed to have hips made for bearing children. Not too wide, but not slim either. I hoped she would give us sons. Sons to bind her. And sons to continue the legacy of our family name. I already had five grandsons, but one could never have enough. And Debechi ought to have sons too. He came from good stock. That ought to count for something, I thought.
It’s a good thing that her stature was not as fragile as her voice. I could never tell how those stick-thin girls carried pregnancies to term and gave birth to healthy babies. Eloka’s wife was so thin at the beginning, she looked like she could be carried by the slightest wind, like the girls one saw in magazines; the models. I had worried about her until she started having babies. Thankfully, with each of her five children, she had added some weight and now looked like a properly married woman. Her mother often joked that Eloka was feeding her a lot better than she ever did. Anyway, there was some truth in that. Eloka earned well and his wife had a retinue of servants. I was sure she never did anything besides supervise the helps. And their house! That was a wonder to behold. A huge white mansion, rugged from top to bottom. Fully air-conditioned. Why would she not add weight, mistress of such a domain? My sons had done well for themselves and any woman who was lucky enough to get them was indeed blessed.
“What do your older ones do?” I noticed that she had left that out. I wondered why.
“Ejike is an Engineer.” I could not help but notice the pride with which she said this. Her voice rose a notch and for an instant seemed confident, sure of itself. It was the first sign of life that voice had given the entire day. “He works with Chevron” she added, quite unsolicited. I realized she was offering me this information so that I would know that they had somebody of worth in her family. That was a relief. It meant that my fears about the entire family having to depend on Debechi was unfounded. Those Chevron engineers were paid well. That woman in St. Anthony’s, Mrs. Owo, had a Chevron engineer son too. And if her stories were to be believed, he was practically swimming in oil money and he was not even a big oga, the boss at work.
“He lives in Lagos. He is married, Ma.”
“That is nice. And after him?”
Izuchukwu, our second boy. He works in Port Harcourt. He is a businessman. ” Her voice had dropped again to the tone I was used to. I was suspicious of that term, businessman. It was an amorphous one that could mean a number of things. A fraudster, a 419er who spent his days in cybercafés concocting letters on the internet to gullible westerners. Or a shop owner with a hastily built store. Or a taxi driver. It was not easy to discern what she meant by that. I could query her, probe deeper but I decided to let it go. She had at least one brother who was doing well. And he was the first son, so he could not shirk from his responsibilities. It did not matter what the rest did, they would not be Debechi’s problem.
“Mmachi is our first girl and she is married. She lives in Aba. After her is Ekechi. He is a businessman in Cotonou.” I had stopped paying attention. I had heard enough. I was satisfied. She would definitely do. No argument about that. I settled back into my chair. At last, I could begin to rest. Things were starting to fall into place. She would marry Debechi and look after Papa Eze until he died. Debechi had to make sure he got her pregnant when next he came on holiday. That way, no matter how long Papa Eze lived and no matter how tired she got, she would stay. She would not abandon her own child, would she? Or live the life of a single woman? Debechi would come home often enough to visit her and whatever children they might have. They were still young enough to have a life together once papa Eze passed on. And Debechi told me he was in no hurry to set up home with a bride. America was hard he said and he barely had time to breathe. This arrangement suited him well. And of course it was for the good of his father. Debechi had always been selfless. Always putting others before him.
Ever since Papa Eze’s stroke, I had been his sole carer. You could not trust a hired help with your sick husband. He needed help these days with everything: bathing and brushing his teeth. Even going to the toilet. One could hardly ask a stranger to do that. He had become infantile in his ways and I was getting on in age. I could no longer cope. And with my hips starting to feel like they were carrying sacks of cocoa, I needed someone reliable to take over. And a daughter-in-law, Ebele, she would do the job brilliantly. Ebele would do. Oh yes she would. I settled into the chair and counted my blessings. A song we always sang at church wriggled its way into my head and I hummed it to myself: Count your blessings; list them one by one…
The Bride
Once Nkiru asked me, I never doubted for a second that I would agree. The first person I told was my mother. And of course she had no problem with it either. She knew Nkiru well and liked her. “If Nkiru says he is a good man, then he must be a good man.” Those had been the only words she said. I knew that my single status had been worrying her, even though she remained stoic about it. I knew she worried that if I was approaching my sell-by date. If I entered my thirties without a husband, it would be a stain on the family name. Nkiru was offering me redemption. All I had to do was impress the man’s mother.
I wondered which one he was. They all looked alike in the framed picture hanging above their mother’s head. You couldn’t tell a man who lived abroad just by looking at a picture taken years ago. It was not like he would have a halo around his head to mark him out. How old did Nkiru say he was? She said in his late thirties. That could mean anything between thirty five and forty. Still, even forty is not bad. Men do not age. They can marry at any time.
What did I make of his mother? My mother always said that the best mother-in-law was a dead mother-in-law. Not only was this one alive, she looked like she could eat fire. I supposed I would not have to live with her for long. Only for as long as it took for my papers to be ready. America! I would move to America with a lawyer husband.
When I was young, I had this notion of marrying for love. But love is just not enough is it? Especially when one was getting on in age like I was. The longer one stayed single, the less likely one was to make a fuss over love. So, when Nkiru told me about her cousin who was looking for a wife, I did not need any convincing.
I hoped he was not the balding one. Not for my sake, but for my children’s. I did not want to have children who would go bald prematurely. With some luck, it would be the one in the gray suit. He was the best looking of the lot. Could I ask her to point him out without seeming rude? These old people were touchy and I did not want to get on the wrong side of this one. Oh no, not at all. I had to play my cards rights. There was too much at stake.
The old woman seemed to have settled deeper into her chair. Done with the questions. For a while, it seemed like I was in a police interrogation room. The things we women do for marriage! “What do your parents do? What do your siblings do? Do they have cars? Do they ride on bicycles?” All the time, she droned on and on, giving me a frightful headache. I wished I could shut her up, I swear. Still, I would not have to live with her. At least not for long. She would drive me mad if I did, the way she was probing and prying, like her son was God’s gift. Still, I knew I had to get her on side. She was the son’s eyes here. If I passed her test, then I would be as good as married to Debechi. The earlier it was the better so I could leave this godforsaken country where nothing worked. I could not even get a job in the bank and banks were offering women jobs left right and centre. Truly, I was born to bad luck. And now a mother-in-law like her! Still, it would only be for a while.
A few times she smiled at me and it looked like she was struggling with the smile; as if the very act of parting her lips was an effort. Who did she think she was? If not for those blasted nurses who had suddenly become hotcake, I was sure I would have found a husband by now. But eligible men were rare and the ones who lived abroad and did not mind a non-nurse spouse were rarer still. I was lucky, I must not lament. What was that song about counting one’s blessings?
Count your blessings
List them one by one
Count your blessings
See what God has done
Count your blessings
List them one by one
And it’ll surprise you what the Lord has done.
I was aware that it was not everyday that a lawyer, legally living in the United States asked his family to scout for and choose a wife for him. He must be a very easy going person and what more did one need in a husband? I would give him children and he would give me a life.
Perhaps, I could get him to help build up the house in the village that Papa had been building before he died. He had just laid the foundation when death found him. Even though Ejike could finish that project single handedly_ we all knew he had money and lots of it_ his wife was a witch and would not let us partake in our own brother’s wealth. Even Mama did not get much from him. His own mother. Anyway, God will judge his wife. A wife who turned her husband’s eyes away from his people was galloping headfirst into hell. The deepest and hottest part of hell Mama said. I would make sure Debechi remembered his family although it did not look like they lacked for anything. The rug under my feet was lush. The furniture looked solid and store bought, not knocked together by a neighborhood carpenter. By the door was a TV set proudly sitting atop an oak cabinet. And Debechi’s mother had the look of settled wealth on her. She did not look like she had ever suffered poverty. She reeked of old money: from her earrings _ understated gold dragons_ to the leather slippers on her mannish feet.
I still had not met the father. Nkiru had mentioned that he was ill. A stroke that left him paralyzed and in bed most of the time. I would have to meet him at some point if I was going to marry his son.
Was the wife always like this? Or had the fact that she had become the man of the house made her such a fire eater?
She offered me food. Did she think I was going to fall for that old trick? Accept her food the very first time I met her so that she would say I was greedy or came from a hungry home? What did she think I was? A six year old with no sense of appropriate behavior? The woman amused me. My mother raised me well. She did it alone, but she did a great job. None of us fell by the wayside and until Ejike married that woman, he had been a perfect son too. We were sure she held him with some powerful juju. Her people were known for that: strong medicine that binds their men to them and blinds their eyes to their wives’ excesses. Ah, but it it’s only God that will judge her.
Why had I not thought of asking Nkiru to get me a picture of Debechi to see? Maybe I just ought to bite the bullet and ask his mother. How would I phrase it so I did not seem too forward? How could I? “Ma, could you show me Debechi’s picture please?” No. I thought not. That sounded too familiar. It might have given her the wrong idea. It might have made her think that I was a loose girl, the sort of girl who had sugardaddies while still at school. So, I kept quiet. I did not ask but hoped instead that she would raise the topic herself. I hoped that she would maybe ask if I wanted to see Debechi’s picture, or a family picture. Did I not have the right, if I was going to be married to him, to at least not know what he looked like? Not like that was going to make much of a difference anyway, even if he turned out to be the one with the Sahara desert at the front of his head. There were fates worse than having children with thinning hair. Now that I thought of it, what were my choices anyway? What were my options? To sit at home and live off the handouts that Izuchukwu and Ekechi sent home? Things were not easy for them either. Ekechi in far away Cotonou where he dealt in second hand clothes shipped in from abroad. His business was seasonal. Around Christmas, it boomed and he made some money. The rest of the year he struggled to make ends meet in a country where he knew no one. Where Africans like him spoke French and were suspicious of Nigerians. He said they did not treat him well, but God was keeping him well and safe. Izuchukwu’s business was better but only marginally so. He dealt in car spare parts and cars always broke down. He always had buying customers. But the scale of his business was not large enough to make him a millionaire. Plus he was saving to get married next year. Mama is already fasting: eating nothing between 6 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, so that her flesh was mortified enough as to be spiritual. She was asking God to provide Izuchukwu with a good wife, not one like Ejike’s. She felt guilty that she did not pray enough for Ejike’s choice but left it up to him. Now, she was leaving no stone unturned to ensure that she got the type of daughter-in-law that a widow who gave her all to her children deserved. Sometimes, I pitied her. No woman deserved a daughter-in-law like Ejike’s wife. She was a witch minus the broomstick. How did she sleep at night?
What sort of daughter-in-law would I, Ebele, be? I would be a good one, because I was raised well, but I would not let this woman walk all over me. I would encourage Debechi to look towards home but I would make sure that this woman sitting opposite me, her eyes fierce and her hands folded into her laps in such a way that the gold rings on four fingers on her right hand showed, did not use me as a foot mat. Oh, while I lived with her, I would be obedient and docile but once I moved to America, into my own home, I would start to assert her independence. I would not be one of those women whose mothers-in-laws dominated their marriages even from far away.
The thought of living in America filled my chest like an aria only I could hear. That was everybody’s dream: to go and live in America. Nkiru had told me it should not take long for Debechi to get my immigration papers ready seeing as he had a green card and a legitimate job. He was a lawyer! A year, tops, Nkiru had assured me, laughing at my impatience. Why should I not be impatient? I had waited long enough for a husband. IT was not like there was anything wrong with me. I was not ugly. Even ugly girls found husbands. I was educated. I was well-mannered, yet men seemed to pass me by. The only boyfriend I ever had, Uwe, whom I had dated in University, got married last year to a girl whose parents had better prospects than my widowed mother. And that girl was as ugly as sin. I would not even spit on her if I was paid to do so.
By this time, next year, I would be an Americaner! The thought cheered me up and made me willing to forgive even Uwe and his ugly wife. I was moving on and they were stuck in Nigeria.
I stole a surreptitious look around the room. One year tops and I would be living in America. A girl could not ask for more, could she?
Count your blessings
List them one by one
Count your blessings
See what God has done?
Count your blessings
List them one by one
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done
I was truly blessed.
Chika Unigwe is an Afo-Belgian writer of Nigerian origin. She is the author of ficion, poetry, articules and educational material. Her award-winning first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch.