The American Life Sef - Chapter 2 Saving Mama Udoka

The two of us waited outside his o ce for over half an hour. She did not say a word to me despite three attempts on my part to start a conversation. Not even when I dropped the ultimate discussion generator: this country sucks. She looked timid in her owery gown. The gown was sewn in an obsolete Nigerian fashion. She appeared to be in her early 20’s and very weary of the American society. I could see that from the way she reacted when he walked out of his o ce to peek at those waiting for him. She quickly jumped out of her seat and sent out a loud “Good Morning, Sir.” Looking at her, it was obvious she was very anxious. More than thrice, she adjusted her gown to make sure she looked good. Once she brought out a pocket mirror from her handbag and checked her face. With a trembling hand, she applied light make-up to spots she felt hadn’t received adequate make up. Merely observing her gesture, it was apparent this meeting was very important to her.

I was there to nd out from him how the Nigerian community was doing in his city. I was doing an informal study on love and marriage the trends and travails. He is a well-respected community leader; the type people at home call “big man”. He owns an employment agency that employs a lot of immigrant workers. Men and women searching for a start in the New World always accost him. His position gives him a pivotal insight into several issues a ecting the lives of people. He does not just manage a business in the human services, but he also manages people. And that was why I chose him for this study.

She went in rst to see him. Twenty minutes later, she walked out with a wide smile on her face, her anxiety all gone.

She waved goodbye and walked away quickly and happily.

When I went in to meet him, I asked him what he did that put a smile on the woman’s face.

“I o ered her a job,” he answered.

“Why would a job be so important to her?” I asked.

“Because she has never worked in this country for all the three years she has been here. Her husband kept her at home and turned her into a baby-making machine. She has given birth to three kids in three years. She doesn’t go anywhere with her husband and she doesn’t participate in community activities. She just stays home with the babies. She does not drive, so she cannot go out alone. There is no reliable public transportation system where she lives, so she is more or less dependent on her husband who works at night and comes home tired. For three years, she has depended on her husband for everything. Now, her mother-in-law has come to live with them and she is

stepping out for the very rst time.”

“The coming of her mother-in-law must be a great relief for her and her husband,” I said.

“Not really. It is now the beginning of a new con ict. Her husband is threatening to send her and the children back to Nigeria if she de es him and goes out to get a job.”

She was a college student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), when he came from America and asked her to marry him. She was 22 years old, while he was 38, though at that time, he told her he was 33 years. She

wanted to come to America, even though she did not know why. All her beautiful young friends were marrying young men who lived abroad and she too wanted to marry one. The alternative she knew would have been to marry a trader, the idea of which she hated. She had resisted marrying other men from her ethnic group who were based in other foreign countries, and her parents had begun to panic. She had been told repeatedly how di cult it would be to nd a husband after she graduated from the university. Her mother had warned her about many young girls who were coming of age and would soon steal the spotlight from her. “You see Aunt Ebele,” her mother was fond of saying, “she used to be stunningly beautiful. She made inyanga for all the men who came to marry her. Now, see how miserable she is.” All these stories scared her. She capitulated.
for visiting.

To say that her husband is insecure is an understatement. He rmly believed that if he let her step out, there were young men who would take her away from him. So he vowed to keep her away from public view. To keep her busy, he made sure she was pregnant almost all the time. To his friends who showed concern for her, he would remind them that he has been taking care of all her needs without complaints.

“When the kids are grown, then you will complete your education.” That was his standard answer to her demand to nish college. Privately though, he would tell his friends that her schooling would only resume when she got older and less attractive. She yearned to understand the society she found herself in. She was eager to make her own money, no matter how little, and be able to assist her parents and siblings without having to beg. “You should be happy you have a husband who hasn’t turned you into a money making machine. Haven’t you heard of other men who speci cally married nurses and brought them to the US to slave away? I provide you with all your needs and this is how you show your gratitude?” her husband would scold.

The rst time he came to visit her at Zik’s Flat hostel at UNN, she was rehearsing her lines for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. She was Juliet in the school play. Four years later, she wondered how she seemed to have abandoned all her ideals, her vision of life, love and happiness. Her dream of a young Romeo who would love and cherish her had since been turned upside down. And even the ‘bliss’ of being in America, she could not lay claim to. She thought of her fall from a bubbling chickito to Mama Udoka and could not fathom what had happened to her. One morning, after a talk with her Nigerian neighbour in their dilapidated apartment, she decided to nd herself a job.

Thirty minutes later, I stepped out of his o ce and found her by the bus stop waiting for Bus 261. I walked up to her and introduced myself. And she began to talk.

I am a girl trapped in a woman’s body. My life is what some will call ‘girl, interrupted’. When I was a teenager, I believed I had star qualities. I was exotic, sprightly and inviting. I envisaged myself being something more than just the woman next door. It was my dream to contribute to my society. I grew up playing up my best features and ignoring the worst. I modelled my life principles after my makeup regimen. I blurred and bled my makeup layers. I avoided strokes, swipes and straight lines. I used a little of the same blush; I gave drama to the eyes. I avoided black eyeliners and mascara. When I applied makeup, I did so in natural light.

His idea of fun on a weekday after work is to sit in front of the television with the remote control, channel sur ng and on weekends lie on the couch all day long snoring. After the kids go to bed, he would watch Girls Gone Wild videos. For me, not being able to go to the theatre or see a movie, I would sit and read Dame Barbara Cartland romance novels. He hardly reads. I believe the last book he read ( ction or otherwise) was in college in the early ’80s. He has this bookshelf at home lled with books on business and nance, knowledge he is yet to put to use; that is, if he ever acquired it. When he sees me reading, he feels threatened. “Don’t get yourself worked up over things you read in books,” he would say, “reality is very di erent from what the books say.”

When he is done watching naked women ouncing around, he would come looking for sex by asking if I wanted some. I do not mind sex if only he would be romantic about it and a little adventurous. But what I get is the same boring thing night after night, year in and year out. He would not even make love in the morning or afternoon. It was always at night with the lights turned o . Woe betides me if I sought out sex from him. He did not think good Igbo women asked for sex. He also thought it very disrespectful for a wife to initiate any sexual contact. But, if there is anything I have learnt from all the years of sitting at home watching soap operas, Jerry Springer and Oprah, it is that talking about one’s emotional anguish is the rst step in healing. I have tried to get him to loosen up, but he is so set in his ways. When would he realize that there are other ways of making love besides the ‘missionary style.’ Things he loved for me to do for him and to him before we got married, all of a sudden are taboo in this house. Now when I do those things for him he says “only prostitutes do things like that.” I feel so sexually frustrated. Love making in this house seems to be only for procreation.

As a young girl, I dreamt about marrying a man who would show me love. A man who would take me on long walks along narrow paths, hold my hands, caress me softly and rub my hair, lay with me on green grass, whisper sweet nothings into my ears, kiss me passionately under the full moon and make me his princess. I dreamt of being a valued member of my family, a voice in the decision making process. I had thought that my husband and I would be partners in life’s long journey. Little did I know that I would be turned into ‘that woman’ or just ‘Mama Udoka’, whose only life function is to clean the house, take care of the kids, pick up after my husband and have sex when and how he feels like it. I waste away without being appreciated or respected. In short, I am just a doormat.

I love theatre. I love movies. But since I came to this country, I have not had the opportunity to explore any of these interests. He would not let me. He frustrates all my attempts to maintain friendship with other women my age. He claims they would spoil me. He would not even let me watch BET or listen to Hip-Hop music. He says Tupac, Destiny’s Child, TLC, Ja Rule and other similar artistes promote decadent forms of entertainment. Mind you, this is the type of music I grew up on. He listens to Marvin Gaye, the Cool and the Gang, Osadebe, Sir Warrior and other musicians of the ’60s and ’70s. We would ght in the car when I tuned the radio to more modern and contemporary channels. A break from his Osadebe cassette tapes would not be permitted.

Once in a while, I like to eat out, or order in. When I rst came to the US, he took me out every other week. Now, like my sex life, that is a thing of the past. Even when I am ill, I still have to cook for the family, while he lies on his couch with his remote control. It is bad enough that I have to cook when I am ill, but he still has to make outrageous demands, like saying he would not eat any soup that is more than two days old, or that he would not eat rice kept in the fridge. I also want to try other kinds of food, like American dishes, Chinese food and even Thai and Indian food. But oh God, he is so xated on his African dishes. When I prepare anything other than Nigerian food for the kids and I, he is quick to remind me that I am wasting money. “Where a poor girl like you picked up this sweet mouth, I do not know, and it is not like you are even bringing any money to this house,” he would grumble.

I know there are many in our community who would say I am a bad woman when they hear me talk like this; that I am badmouthing my husband. But mine is a cry for help. My mother’s generation was brought up with the notion that silence in the face of emotional abuse and unhappiness is a virtue. I owe it to myself and to my children’s generation to begin the process of changing all of that and healing. I don’t think my husband is necessarily a wicked or evil man and that he is doing all of this just to punish me. I think that our con icts are a result of a generational gap and the way males are brought up in Nigeria. My decision for now is to put my foot down, do what I know is right and get him to take a whole new look at life.

People who have known him for a long time have told me he was not always like this. They said he was a kind gentleman when he rst came to America. I tend to believe them for he is nothing like his parents, which is a story for another day. I was told that his rst wife whom he married in order to get his green card really dealt with him. She literally made him use his toothbrush to clean the toilet, I hear. On a daily basis, the two of them fought themselves to a standstill, but he put up with her for fear of not getting his green card. The six years they were together totally transformed him, a classmate of his revealed. Now, he is a shadow of his former selfdrainedemotionally and psychologically. He is absolutely afraid of anything that reminds him of her.

Yet, I do not think I should let myself be a punching bag for whatever ashback he is experiencing. I, too, have my life to live. The sins of another woman should not be visited on me. I have tried to be as di erent from his rst wife as possible in order to make him feel secure and comfortable. I have even given up wearing any decent clothing. He calls them provocative dressing and un t for a married woman. Even the negligees I wear just for him are evidence of low moral standards. One summer day, on the anniversary of our wedding, I wore a strapless dress and he freaked out. He ordered me to remove the dress. I resisted. That was the rst of many times that he hit me. Previously I would just sit there and cry. These days, I hit back.

Over the weekend, as I push my Stop and Shop carriage lled with dirty laundry in a black trash bag to the local Laundromat, I hear a car horn. I take a quick glance from the corner of my eyes and quickly see a rather handsome black guy in the car. He looks vaguely familiar, but I don’t stare or stop to speak with him for fear either my husband or one of his friends would see me. My heart is thumping and I cringe at the thought that perhaps this guy knew me in Nigeria in my ‘babe days’. To think that anybody who knew me from my University days would see me pushing a shop cart with Udoka sitting in the carriage, his nose dripping with mucus sliding towards his mouth and both hands stu ed with fried plantains, I cringed.

As soon as I start working, I will pay for driving lessons and get my driver’s license. No need asking him to teach me how to drive for that would be like knocking on the horn of a toad. When I earn a little money, I will buy myself a used car. Only then will I be truly free in this land of the free and the home of the brave. In the meantime, I will continue to sit here and wait for Bus 261.