My new husband carried the suitcase out of the taxi and led the way into the brownstone, up a flight of brooding stairs, down an airless hallway with frayed carpeting, and stopped at a door. The number 2B, unevenly fashioned from yellowish metal, was plastered on it.
“We’re here,” he said. He had used the word “house” when he told me about our home. I had imagined a smooth driveway snaking between cucumber-colored lawns, a door leading into a hallway, walls with sedate paintings. A house like those of the white newlyweds in the American films that NTA showed on Saturday nights.
He turned on the light in the living room, where a beige couch sat alone in the middle, slanted, as though dropped there by accident. The room was hot; old, musty smells hung heavy in the air.
“I’ll show you around,” he said.
The smaller bedroom had a bare mattress lodged in one corner. The bigger bedroom had a bed and dresser, and a phone on the carpeted floor. Still, both rooms lacked a sense of space, as though the walls had become uncomfortable with each other, with so little between them.
“Now that you’re here, we’ll get more furniture. I didn’t need that much when I was alone,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. I felt light-headed. The ten-hour flight from Lagos to New York and the interminable wait while the American customs officer raked through my suitcase had left me woozy, stuffed my head full of cotton wool. The officer had examined my foodstuffs as if they were spiders, her gloved fingers poking at the waterproof bags of ground egusi and dried onugbu leaves and uziza seeds, until she seized my uziza seeds. She feared I would grow them on American soil. It didn’t matter that the seeds had been sun-dried for weeks and were as hard as a bicycle helmet.
“Ike agwum,” I said, placing my handbag down on the bedroom floor.
“Yes, I’m exhausted, too,” he said. “We should get to bed.”
In the bed with sheets that felt soft, I curled up tight like Uncle Ike’s fist when he is angry and hoped that no wifely duties would be required of me. I relaxed moments later when I heard my new husband’s measured snoring. It started like a deep rumble in his throat, then ended on a high pitch, a sound like a lewd whistle. They did not warn you about things like this when they arranged your marriage. No mention of offensive snoring, no mention of houses that turned out to be furniture-challenged flats.
My husband woke me up by settling his heavy body on top of mine. His chest flattened my breasts.
“Good morning,” I said, opening sleep-crusted eyes. He grunted, a sound that might have been a response to my greeting or part of the ritual he was performing. He raised himself to pull my nightdress up above my waist.
“Wait—” I said, so that I could take the nightdress off, so it would not seem so hasty. But he had crushed his mouth down on mine. Another thing the arrangers of marriage failed to mention—mouths that told the story of sleep, that felt clammy like old chewing gum, that smelled like the rubbish dumps at Ogbete Market. His breathing rasped as he moved, as if his nostrils were too narrow for the air that had to be let out. When he finally stopped thrusting, he rested his entire weight on me, even the weight of his legs. I did not move until he climbed off me to go into the bathroom. I pulled my nightdress down, straightened it over my hips.
“Good morning, baby,” he said, coming back into
the room. He handed me the phone. “We have to call your uncle and aunt to tell them we arrived safely. Just for a few minutes; it costs almost a dollar a minute to Nigeria. Dial 011 and then 234 before the number.”
“Ezi okwu? All that?”
“Yes. International dialing code first and then Nigeria’s country code.”
“Oh,” I said. I punched in the fourteen numbers. The stickiness between my legs itched.
The phone line crackled with static, reaching out across the Atlantic. I knew Uncle Ike and Aunty Ada would sound warm, they would ask what I had eaten, what the weather in America was like. But none of my responses would register; they would ask just to ask. Uncle Ike would probably smile into the phone, the same kind of smile that had loosened his face when he told me that the perfect husband had been found for me. The same smile I had last seen on him months before when the Super Eagles won the soccer gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics.
“A doctor in America,” he had said, beaming. “What could be better? Ofodile’s mother was looking for a wife for him, she was very concerned that he would marry an American. He hadn’t been home in eleven years. I gave her a photo of you. I did not hear from her for a while and I thought they had found someone. But …” Uncle Ike let his voice trail away, let his beaming get wider.
“Yes, Uncle.”
“He will be home in early June,” Aunty Ada had said. “You will have plenty of time to get to know each other before the wedding.”
“Yes, Aunty.” “Plenty of time” was two weeks.
“What have we not done for you? We raise you as our own and then we find you an ezigbo di! A doctor in America! It is like we won a lottery for you!” Aunty Ada said. She had a few strands of hair growing on her chin and she tugged at one of them as she spoke.
I had thanked them both for everything—finding me a husband, taking me into their home, buying me a new pair of shoes every two years. It was the only way to avoid being called ungrateful. I did not remind them that I wanted to take the JAMB exam again and try for the university, that while going to secondary school I had sold more bread in Aunty Ada’s bakery than all the other bakeries in Enugu sold, that the furniture and floors in the house shone because of me.
“Did you get through?” my new husband asked.
“It’s engaged,” I said. I looked away so that he would not see the relief on my face.
“Busy. Americans say busy, not engaged,” he said. “We’ll try later. Let’s have breakfast.”
For breakfast, he defrosted pancakes from a bright-yellow bag. I watched what buttons he pressed on the white micro wave, carefully memorizing them.
“Boil some water for tea,” he said