MY MOTHER WARNED ME

Her throat was so raw all sounds that came from it were almost whispers, intense whispers wracking through her body as tears overtook each other running down her cheeks. Inside, she was shouting but all that came out were intense whispers. She was almost naked, the light cotton kanga she had used to wrap her body was torn in more places than one and her dark, taut skin was exposed and sticky all over. Sticky from sweat, saliva, tears and red, hot, unrefined, animalistic emotion. She just kept talking, unaware of the night’s breeze on her stripped thighs, back and nipples, she just kept talking and trying to shout.

“Kill me if you want Abdul! Kill me!! But your mother had warned you about me! Kill me if you want!” She said just as her body was taken by a coughing feat. She coughed and covered her mouth with her left hand but held on to his arm with her right hand using all the strength she could muster.

He looked down at her, it was almost as if all the energy she was using wasn’t from her but from a strange force within her. She was too intense for her petite frame, if it was solely up to him he’d easily push her off of him and walk away but he just stood there. It was the strength in her every word, the passion that he knew resided in them both that kept him standing there, silently watching his mad woman. Abdul’s eyes were red and his head was beginning to ache, controlling his temper was getting more and more taxing but he took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to man handle her again.

“Abdul! You are a man today! You want to kill me today?? Kill me!” She said in her hoarse voice, tears still flowing relentlessly down her face. He needed to make her stop shouting and crying before she made herself sick.

“Mulenga, please shut up, please. Shut up,” he said.

“Or what? You will beat me again??” she said.

“Mulenga you know I didn’t beat you,” he said.

“Then why am I naked? Why is my chitenge torn? Why am I hurting?” she said.

“Mulenga, please. It is either you let me leave or you reason with me.” he said and pushed her off him.

 He hadn’t realised how weak she had become or how much force he used and the shove sent her falling to the ground. She fell in with a disgraceful thump and started wailing immediately. He needed to leave, she was toxic and he needed to leave her but he couldn’t, her wails struck his heart and he sat on the floor next to her, taking her into his arms. She only cried louder and he rocked her like a child.

“Sshhhh…” he hushed her and didn’t relent in rocking her until her loud wails became silent, she resorted to crying silently and her tears pooled on his shirt.

Their small house saw the first silence it had seen in hours, he looked around him and his wife and saw all the damage they had done. Broken plates, overturned furniture and a shattered mirror; most would say breaking a mirror was seven years of bad luck but to him he had already lived seven years of terror, what was a little bad luck? The shattered mirror reminded him of his wedding day to the tiny woman now crying in his arms. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t the happiest day of his existence. He loved Mulenga with everything that he was made of, he loved her with his heart, his passion, his wealth and even his honour and loyalty. Indeed his mother had warned him about her. He didn’t listen.

When he started the topic with his mother about getting married, her face glowed with excitement but all it took was an introduction to his bride to be and his mother changed. First it was the fact that Mulenga was not Nigerian that caused the most havoc, then when she got tired of complaining about that she stated the fact that Mulenga had a wild streak and they were young, they didn’t know each other that well. Abdul was aware of all this. The simple fact that Mulenga was not an Ibo woman would have made his father roll in his grave. But he didn’t care, if Mulenga didn’t care as well he had a plan. He addressed his mother’s concerns with Mulenga and her response was just a sentence that he still hadn’t forgotten, “Your mother has warned you. I love you, you are my heart and I am yours, listen to your heart. But your mother has warned you”

He didn’t care, he had a plan. He got married quietly in Zambia and his mother attended the marriage ceremony with a frown on her face, now when he looked back he recognised that it wasn’t a frown but the look of a mother who sensed danger. His mother warned him but he didn’t listen. His marriage was extreme in most senses; they were never happy, they were ecstatic, they were never just laying down they were making hot, sweaty love, they were never having reasonable conversations, they had outrageous fights. He should have seen that as a sign that something wasn’t quite right. However he was overwhelmed by the closeness of their bond, the sweetness of her disposition and how she treated him like her king. He should have known that a relationship that had no calm had a problem but he didn’t care, he loved her.

He heard Mulenga was sleeping with her boss, he ignored it. There was no smoke without fire but he believed and trusted his wife. He heard her relatives saying “Mulenga alimu lisha umulume wakwe.” He didn’t care what it meant, he loved his wife. He escorted Mulenga to a work dinner and saw how her boss gazed at Mulenga, it was a look he knew too well, it was a look he had on his face all the time after they made love. The very thought of having another man’s hands on his wife made him lose it. But he kept his composure. After the dinner they went home and as usual they started to make love, kissing just as erotically as always, embracing each other as usual but Mulenga insisted that she showers first. He didn’t mind her natural scent, they had been married for seven years, her natural scent had become familiar and a kind of aphrodisiac, she didn’t need to shower, she knew that. He watched her walk into the shower and heard the water running. At first he waited eagerly in bed but he started thinking. Was she trying trying to wash her boss off her body? She kept insisting on showering and that set him off, it made everything people had ever said run through his mind. It made him feel like a fool and in anger flooded his mind making it impossible for him to think of anything else. He followed her to the shower and pulled her out while shouting accusations. Abdul couldn’t recall the exact order of events after that, rage could cause amnesia in cases like his. He remembered her screaming and saying she hadn’t done anything wrong. He remembered her trying to cover her nakedness with a chitenge before he tore it angrily. He remembered shaking her fiercely until she got dizzy. He remembered her screams of terror and her pleas, he remembered the desperate look in her eyes. But he didn’t remember her saying she had never cheated on him and that is why he was still angry. He was even angrier at the fact that if it turned out that she was indeed sleeping with her boss he loved her with every part of him. He was angry that he couldn’t go to his mother for advice about the issue, he was angry that all he had in his situation was his immense love for his woman.

He checked and found that she had stopped crying, but he could hear her teeth chattering, perhaps it was shock, or just the cold. He kissed her forehead, took off his shirt and put her in it before holding her even tighter. She didn’t protest, she just clung to him like a baby and eventually her shivering stopped. Abdul had no idea what to do, he had no plan and he was sure of absolutely nothing, and all he could remember was that his mother warned him.