Uncle Ifeanyi looked livid when I came into the living room. His singlet and boxers weren’t torn. He was holding a leather belt and beside him, Aunty Ifeoma stood, holding the belt too, as if trying to stop her husband from moving the leather up.
There were large red wheals on her arms. Tears on her cheeks. She was subbing. Quiet subs, her shoulders heaving up and down. It was instantly clear to me. They were fighting once again. Or so I thought.
Only that this scene was different from what I had become accustomed to since I started visiting now and again: Shattered glass, scattered rooms, torn clothes, voices rising to the heavens. This was a scene that had an air of absoluteness about it. It actually looked like one party had merely been beating the other. Because aunty wasn't shouting and wailing and trying in between sobs, to scream words like:
“You think I'll leave this place for you but, you're wrong."
"If you think that bringing other women will break me, you are wrong."
"You're a very stupid man...."
She was just sobbing, saying nothing. And her stare was so distant. So scary that I couldn't move to hold her as usual and help her out of the scene and her misery. For she was a lovely woman who'd raised me as her own when I was stranded in school.
She was the one who took care of grandmother when she was sick. Until her death. And everyone in the family loved her.
Except, perhaps, uncle who'd inexplicably gotten so violent and cold since they got married. I'd tried many times to find out from Aunty if she'd done something unforgivable to him but her answers had always been "all I've ever done to him was love him."
She'd say those words with overwhelming emotions. Uncontrollable tears and runny nose. Her face would become so gloomy it buried her fair skin and beautiful eyes and dimples.
Thing is that their marriage had started on something I'd call a wrong foundation. I remember because I was there when it all began.
Aunty Ifeoma had been uncle's side chick without knowing it. She's often repeated her ordeal to me. "I didn't know he had someone else. I thought I was the only one. So I gave my virginity to him. And that was the beginning of this very sad story. She’d often end up in tears. Who wouldn’t cry when they’re in pains?
She got pregnant for Ifeanyi shortly before he could get engaged to his then fiancée Amaka. A very beautiful lady who spoke English like a Brit. And had what an average adult would term a domineering personality.
Uncle was always going to marry her. But now, Ifeoma was pregnant and since everyone in our town loved Ifeoma, the pressure was on uncle to marry her.
“She’s a very good girl from our home,” grandmother often counseled. She’d also threaten in the same breath that there was no way she’d have let Ifeanyi marry a foreign girl from Mba Ise. “Never!” Grandmother had an air of authority around her.
The marriage would happen so fast and so sudden between Ifeanyi and Ifeoma that Amaka was so stunned that she left home and went to the UK. Never to return.
Aunty would have a child soon. A boy and his birth brought Ifeanyi closer to her. Or so it seemed.
Years strolled by with the changing seasons of rain and dust and with the fading of the white walls of their newly built house came a painfully sluggish fading of the love.
It came to a head when the boy died of leukaemia. A very sad event which took so much toll on Ifeanyi that he was sacked from his job in a bank. Sad events break people down, they say.
The boy had been so beautiful. I could remember him. He had curly hair like a little Jamaican.
As we walked out of the living room, Aunty broke free from my hold and went into the room. "Let me get my things, I'm leaving today." She sounded resolute.
I know I was supposed to have asked her to stay. To wait and pray, as her now late mother would’ve advised. That was my supposed role as a relative of her husband but, I wasn't surprised when I discovered that I couldn't say a word. That a part of me actually felt relieved that finally, without it coming from my mouth, she was beginning to see reasons to leave before she got killed.
My eyes went to my Uncle and found him leaning on the wall. Belt in hand. Eyes on the ceiling. Tears in his eyes. I wondered why he often cried each time he beat his wife. He looked pathetic.
Yet, I couldn't feel pity for him. For I'd tried many times to explain things to him: that Ifeoma was the pendulum of his life, that without her his new business would crumble especially with his excessive drinking and poor business ideals, that he was going to regret it for the rest of his life, etc.
“Remember what grandfather often said,” I often advised. “Do not let the light in your life go off.”
He'd often listen to me with a lot of remorse but then the cycle of violence would reoccur. Repeatedly. A vicious cycle. He appeared defeated, as if he could never be able to break free.
Ifeoma came out from the room, hauling two big trunks. "Help me. Nna, help me."
I looked at my uncle and then at Ifeoma and to be sincere, I was torn apart. Whom was I supposed to be loyal to?
Uncle suddenly jumped up, roused from stupor, and threw the belt away and came running towards us. "Ifeoma! Ifeoma! Ifeoma! Where are you going?"
His voice trembled. His knees quaked. He tripped and fell. But, he got up again and ran faster, fast enough to be able to get a hold on the trunks and on aunty before she could get them into the waiting taxi.
"Please don't go. Please don't go. I'm very sorry. I'll never do it again. Please, ifeee...."
“Please Ifeanyi don’t touch me. Let me go.”
“No I won’t. What will I become without you?”
“I never meant anything to you.
“Perhaps, you can find Amaka and be happy again. It’ll always be her. I’ll never mean anything to you.”
“I won’t let you go. Not while I’m still alive.”
I stood watching, listening to the emotional exchange. I felt sorry for them yet, a part of me wanted her to leave.
I watched them drag on for minuets. The wind was beginning to blow red whirlwind here and there. It was the beginning of rainy season.
I watched uncle move seamlessly between extremes of emotions. Sadness. Sorrow. Tears. Desperation. He had a tendency to always act like a man possessed whenever something deep hit him. I’d been observing ever since the violence Started. And at no time was it as apparent as now. Because for some inexplicable reason, he suddenly left the trunks and the hands of his wife and ran to the gate to lock it.
“I’ll have to die before I let you leave me.”
Just then Ifeoma asked me to go help her get her diary. She needed to call the police.
I found myself doing her bidding. She was irresistible when her emotions went full flowing. Tears seamed to magnify her beauty. And for someone who had been keeping her cool for years, her sudden cold resolve stirred up a certain fear in me. I knew it was best to just let her go.
I went inside her room and found the diary on the dressing table. There were blood stains here and there. On the walls. “They remind me of the pain and injuries my love for Ifeanyi has brought me. I’ll always look at them,” she often told me. The room got a little dim and I had to start walking outside . I hated darkness. They say that evil resides in it.
From the door I saw my uncle pick up the belt again and made for Ifeoma once more. I ran after him. But, he ran faster. A man possessed. A man rushing to his ruin.
The wind blew more furiously now, throwing a ballast of dust into our faces. The trees swirled as though about to break. The clouds got so dark at an Instant. The devil was out of hell.
And then, I saw it. The broken bottle. It was held firmly by Aunty Ifeoma’s left hand. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Until a few seconds Later, before I could scream with all the strength in me “Noooooo! Ifeanyi, stop! Ifeoma, don’t do it!” the bottle was plunged deep into my uncle’s neck. Blood, deep crimson blood shot up the Sky. My uncle let out a guttural moan. “Anwugo m. I’m dead!”
I shrieked. I screamed. I tried to run but my legs felt heavy. I tried to walk but, my knees quaked. My eyes went straight into Uncle Ifeanyi eyes as he fell. From the speed of blood flow one could tell that the bottle had gotten one of the Carotids. He could die in a matter of minutes.
Aunty Ifeoma still held the bottle. She stood at the same spot, astride her husband’s twitching body. “You brought it on yourself. I only wanted to love you.”
“Aunty he is dying. He is going. Let’s take him to the hospital.” It was the taxi driver. He was trembling too. An old man who had a face that told a story of a life time of deprivation.
He turned to me. “Nna, let’s get him into the taxi!”
***
I was trying to apply a greater pressure on the bleeding point on my uncle’s neck when I heard the Sirens. The police had come. Aunty had called them.
I watched them drive in. Over the blood stained sand. I watched them bring out the cuffs and walk towards my aunty who had her hands raised up.
The neighbors had started trouping into the Compound. And their screams drowned the howling of the wind and the sound of the engine of the Cab. I watched until all I could see was red whirlwind and bended trees.
©Nnaemeka Ugwu.
February, 2019.
