The Madam

A short story about complicated relationships and memories — by Omotoyosi Salami

When Madam came, I saw her differently from how I knew her when she left. I had never even envisioned that Uncle was married, talk less of to that woman. I couldn’t believe there were real, authentic Naija — Yoruba for that matter — men who would actually have that for a wife.

Although I probably should have. Uncle was one of those Oyinbo men — the ones who speak English as if hot yam is in their mouths, the ones who walk so fast, their legs hardly even touch the ground before they come back up, the ones who answer questions on politics and racism and tribalism that nobody asked. Uncle was a building engineer and contractor, he did not tell me this himself but I gathered that he was given a contract to build a small primary school here by the state government. He had moved here about three months ago to monitor the project and we hadn’t seen even the shadow of any feminine being in his flat until this woman came. Although I wished we had. That would have brought her high-as-heaven shoulders down and clipped her wings. Ha.

And then Madam came in June and everything changed. Till today, I do not understand how the presence of just one person can change so much.

Ordinarily, I would have been calling her “Aunty”. But when I saw her, there was something so intimidating about her that “Madam” slipped out of my mouth without even realising it — and I couldn’t take it back. That was what I had to be calling her from then on. It was as if I was under a spell.

Despite the fact that he had only moved here three months ago and was a temporary resident, Uncle occupied the most beautiful flat in the house. It was by far the biggest one too. Our landlord had been living there before he carried all our rent money and relocated abroad.

Madam, his wife looked like one of the girls whose faces are plastered on bottles and cups of creams and lotions. Her light skinned face had no flaws. When I saw her, the day she came, when Uncle’s black Toyota car rolled into the compound and they came out, I couldn’t stop looking at her, knowing I was probably embarrassing myself. She looked like a model — and maybe that was her profession, but I couldn’t possibly know for sure, because she didn’t work here. Oddly, as beautiful as she was, Madam wore her natural hair — a long, full crop of very dark, straight hair that contrasted beautifully against her light, paw paw coloured skin. She was slender — slim torso with full, round breasts — I wondered if she had fed children with them…or even her husband — with a small waist and a sizeable behind. Madam was tall for a woman — while her husband walked as though the earth was hot beneath his feet, her legs ate up the ground.

I felt a certain way about her striking beauty. I wasn’t jealous of it…no, but I… I wanted it. But not in the sense of having it on my face.

The way she talked — fast English words, quite like Uncle — and the way she raised her shoulders (or maybe that was just because she was a tall woman), there was something arrogant about even her gait.

There and then, “Madam” dropped from my mouth and I couldn’t take it back.

But then she greeted me politely, a little too politely, calling me “Ma”. I suddenly didn’t want her to call me that — to give me the title one would give an older woman. Yes, I knew I wore iro and buba and sometimes tied the wrapper up on my chest and also tied scarves but I wasn’t that old.

But I couldn’t do anything about it, so I decided to despise her.

One night, there was no power and my husband was sleeping. I woke him up to go and turn on the generator (as I didn’t know how to work it) but he was so sleepy, he kept saying rubbish. At long last, he asked me to go and check outside if other houses had electricity or if we were alone in our plight. We weren’t alone, but I went to check anyway, because he wouldn’t stand up until I did.

When I got outside, I was met with quite a sight. I saw Madam grinding pepper on a grinding stone. She sat on an apoti, her back resting against the building. By her side laid a small bowl containing tomatoes, bell peppers and tatase. She worked with the light from the fluorescent bulb that was installed outside the building. I couldn’t believe it. For a moment I looked on behind her, knowing she couldn’t see me. This Oyinbo woman, grinding pepper with her hands? I was certain she could afford a blending machine. This had to be out of her own free will. I was amazed.

Upstairs, I heard what was unmistakably her husband’s voice making excited noises. He was watching football. He had stood up to turn on his generator.

At least she cooked for her husband, I thought. She wasn’t so above us after all. She was a wife, just like the rest of us. She knew her place.

She turned — she must have felt my presence. “Good evening Ma,” she greeted. Ma again, I thought, feeling irritation brim in my chest.

Still, I was happy she greeted me.

I moved closer to her. “Good evening, Madam. Well done.” Then I saw something.

Madam was wearing a plain white round-neck top, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. There was a small logo on it, just above her chest. Her nipples were protruding through it — I could see the black colour of them.

“Aunty…”

“Ma?”

“Your…are you wearing a bra?”

“No…?” she answered, looking as if she didn’t know where our conversation was going.

“I can…I can see your breasts, you know?”

I heard a sound from Mama Amarachi’s apartment. Her family lived in the other flat. Somebody was coming outside.

Madam didn’t even flinch. She didn’t immediately try to cover her chest or turn away, she just continued grinding, without even meeting my face.

Her husband was at home and awake. He let her step out like this?

“And?”

At this point I knew I had fallen into disgrace. I stayed mute, standing before her like an employee waiting to receive reprehension from her employer. I found that I was, without knowing it, holding my hands at my back, and let them drop. She was not superior to me.

There was no electricity anywhere and I knew other tenants’ husbands would soon come out to turn on their generators — we all did so at eight o’clock. But I didn’t want them to, not now anyway. Especially my husband. Not because I didn’t want him to see another woman’s nipples, but because I wanted to be the only one to see them.

That night as I slept on our bed with Daddy Owolabi, I felt a strong wave of nostalgia. Madam reminded me so strongly of something from my past, but I couldn’t place a finger on what it was.

Few days later, the soup Madam made with the pepper she was grinding the other day must have finished, because as I came back from church one evening, I saw Uncle grinding pepper downstairs too, in broad daylight.

This was even more shocking for me than Madam grinding pepper with her bare hands. Uncle, an educated man, grinding pepper? I knew some men were kind enough to help their wives out once in a blue moon, but this man was grinding pepper. Wasn’t he afraid that people would see him doing a woman’s job?

I reluctantly removed my hand from the gate, pulled my wrapper on my chest and greeted him, standing there.

“Uncle, good evening sir.”

“Good evening Aunty.” He called me Aunty.

As I started to move towards the place he was working, I couldn’t stomach my curiosity. Uncle had been living here months before his wife came and he had never grinded pepper on a grinding stone before.

I didn’t know when I blurted out, “You’re grinding pepper.”

“Ah, yes.” He looked up at me with his handsome face and bright eyes. “My wife likes having her soups cooked with thick pepper. An electronic blender would not give me the texture I want.”

I had never seen something like this before.

“Nice,” I choked out.

Later that night, my husband returned from his office, where he worked at a small hotel. I served him his dinner of hot amala and efo riro, but only after he turned on the generator.

After eating, he sat on the chair in the room, sweat dripping down his dark chest. He eyed me intently.

I stood up from the bed where I was sitting to pack away his plates but he motioned for me to sit back down.

“Are you your grandmother that came back?”

“Ehn?” I did not understand what he meant.

“I’m asking, Mummy Owolabi. Or are you an old woman in a young woman’s body?” He fanned himself with a hand fan.

“Why all these questions now?” I was feeling a little irritated. I just wanted to wash his dishes and sleep.

“Because you dress as though you are old. Like a grandma. And you’re not even old, ehn.”

Annoyedly puzzled, I said, “Daddy Owolabi what do you mean by that? I’ve always dressed like this.” I was starting to flare up — I felt a surge of annoyance course through my body. Here my husband was, confirming the insecurities that bubbled in me ever since Madam arrived.

“Why can’t you dress like…for example, see that woman now.”

“Who?” My chest grew tight.

“Mr. Alade’s wife.”

I was exasperated because through the course of this conversation, he was acting as if this was a normal thing to say to one’s wife. As if he could not see that he was hurting me.

“I’m sure she’s your age mate — ” He saw my “really?” look — “And if not, she can’t be younger than you with more than a few years. Try to emulate her. There’s nothing there.”

I wanted to truly feel insulted, but I knew all he was saying was true. I aged myself. But what choice did I have? I wasn’t very educated. I wasn’t as exposed as all these new age girls. I just wasn’t.

Daddy Owolabi had risen and I rose too and carried his tray away to the kitchen. Apart from our bedroom, the house was silent. The children had slept. But inside me, a storm was brewing.

I did the dishes with my hands shaking. Daddy Owolabi did not see Madam’s husband grinding pepper outside. I bet he wouldn’t have wanted me to emulate her if he had seen that.

When I went back into the room, Daddy Owolabi was lying on our bed, clothed in only his underwear. He had set the ceiling fan to the highest intensity. I knew what this meant and sighed inwardly.

He demonstrated with his eyes for me to turn off the lights (he liked fucking me with the lights off) and remove my clothes, and I did as he said.

Minutes later, as he kissed my neck and face, his penis dangling between my thighs, my eyes were wide open. In that moment, I finally realised who Madam reminded me of. I saw her face, but her body was replaced with Madam’s. I shut my eyes tightly. And then, for the first time in a while since Daddy Owolabi has been using my body to pleasure himself, I climaxed, too.

I stopped going to school before my mother even died. I came all the way from Ekiti to marry a man here. My mother was the only parent I ever knew and she was poor. She did her best to educate me, and she did very well. I completed Senior Secondary School One.

Only a few houses from mine lived a very pretty girl. Her name was Adunni. She was light skinned and tall, much like Madam. She had very long hair which she plaited in fancy styles — Adunni never plaited shuku, koroba or patewo — such as waterfall, two steps and valentine. She also had dimples, two cute depressions in both her cheeks. She was easily and by far the most beautiful girl in the whole district.

We seldomly talked, only heys and hellos occasionally, but I found her very beautiful. I was friends with everybody in the neighbourhood except her and she was friends with everybody in the neighbourhood except me too.

When my mother died, none of my friends could handle me. They had never seen a grief like mine before, so they made sure to keep their distance away from me. Some thought I was going mad. My mother’s death tore me apart. Some of her relatives called after the burial and sent messages to me via her phone, offering to come and take me to their homes, but I refused them all because I did not know them well — or want to live with them. I could handle myself, I told them. But I couldn’t. With everyday that passed, I almost collapsed the walls of my mother’s house with my silence. I didn’t know I could survive without my mother until Adunni came into my life.

While everybody I thought to be my friend left me to my misery, Adunni came closer to me. She was very friendly. Her smiles made me smile weakly too. How could one sight her dimples and not smile. She just was a bundle of joy. Everyday, she would cook food and bring it to me. We would play games like Ludo, “name of names” and Elewenjewe . I didn’t even know her mother well, yet I wanted to thank her for birthing Adunni. Gradually, I started coming back to life again.

Then, I started realising something that scared me. I knew I liked Adunni — why wouldn’t I like her? She had helped me a lot — but I also knew, deep in my heart, as much as it frightened me to admit, that I did not like her normally. Not as a simple friend.

I liked her face a lot — I really liked looking at it. For a sixteen years old, Adunni’s eyes were very bright, white and innocent. She had a very defined Cupid’s bow, and whenever she bit on her upper lip, I wondered how it felt to do that. I liked her dimples too, sometimes I dipped my finger into them. I could do that because I knew that wouldn’t be weird, it wasn’t a sexual act, and she wouldn’t be able to guess my feelings for her from that simple action. I liked Adunni…I loved her.

I could not believe it when she told me the news: Adunni was travelling abroad to attend an American university. Her uncle who lived there had sent for her and her mother, who recognised a good opportunity, agreed. She was going to Lagos first, to process her travelling documents, before leaving for America.

I felt as though air was knocked out of my lungs. Here I was, still trying to cope with the loss of my mother, and the one person who was helping me in this difficult time was leaving me.

Adunni was as sad as I was. She had come to my house to tell me, and my stomach sank into the ground. I knew my face bore what I was feeling inside. If it wasn’t that I was sitting, I would have fallen down.

We cried, Adunni and I. I started it and she joined me, and we both shed silent tears, our voices the only sound we could hear that cold night.

“I…I’ll be going home now,” she told me afterwards. She didn’t say it, but I could read what she added on her face. I still have two weeks before I leave. Today doesn’t have to be the last day we see.

I nodded, trying to pull myself together. I looked at her again. It felt as though she was going that night. Her face glistened in the dim light. The sun had set, but outside was still a bit light.

“Okay.” I did not offer to see her off.

“Right. Um, goodnight. Sleep well.” As she turned her back to me, I knew we would not see each other again until she left for Lagos. I would avoid her until she left because this was the only way I could cope with her leaving, and she knew it too. This was her coming to tell me goodbye — forever.

She had walked a few steps from me towards the door, when she turned back. “Wura?”

“Ye — ?” But I couldn’t finish the word. Adunni had rushed to hug me tightly. I heard her sob.

I tried so hard to keep my own tears at bay, but I failed. I sobbed too, against her neck. I felt her warmth on my body and it completed me.

Adunni released herself from the hug, looked at me for a second, and then, pressed her lips against mine.

I felt her tears and my tears become one. I did not have time to be shocked because only seconds later, she ended…whatever it is we were doing. Adunni wiped her eyes with her palms in one swift move, looked at me fixedly again, and left the house without a sound. It was as though she glided away, as if her feet did not even touch the ground. After she left, I pressed my thumb to my lips. I felt her lips against mine even weeks after she had left Ijero Ekiti.

Since I had nobody to perform my grief to, it may have seemed to outsiders that I was not devastated by Adunni’s absence, but I was. There was a constant heaviness in my heart. I could almost physically feel it.

I continued to go to my mother’s stall in the market where she sold fruits, groundnut oil and palm oil before her passing. I usually averted my gaze before anybody could try to empathise with me or give me their condolences. I did not need any of it.

I still thought about Adunni a lot. I thought about her with lust. I was already forgetting the feel of her lips on mine and how they even looked. It made me deeply sad. I wanted to preserve my memory of her forever. When I turned seventeen, few months later, I snapped myself out of it. What is all this? I asked myself. I was loving a woman like me. Surely, this was a sin.

So I went to church, prayed for forgiveness, and God washed my sins away. I forced Adunni into the back of my mind. I had bigger things to worry about now. I was a growing woman, and I knew I didn’t want to sell fruits for the rest of my life. I was sure even my mother in heaven didn’t want that for me — it is every mother’s prayer that her child surpasses her.

Few months later, my mother’s “sister”, who was really only her close friend, reached out to me and implored me to come and live with her. At first I was going to politely refuse, but I thought about my situation. Although God had washed me of my sins, sometimes, I had to admit to myself, thoughts of Adunni still flickered in my mind. I occasionally wondered how she was faring, if she was already accustomed to the cold weather in America, if she had already grown a new tongue.

I knew getting away from here would be the best thing for me. A change of environment would do me immense good, and that was what made me lock up the house, sell the stall in the market and move to Lagos to her house.

It was in Lagos I met Daddy Owolabi at twenty and got married to him. Mummy still lives in Ikorodu today. I occasionally go to see her and bring her things. Mummy did a lot for me and I will be eternally grateful to her.

I had been avoiding Madam since that day because she brought back the memories I had tried so hard to forget since all these years. Not only that, I found myself feeling about her, the way I felt about Adunni. I was so confused and distraught. This isn’t happening again…

It wasn’t even as if she looked like Adunni that much. She didn’t even have dimples like her. Yet…

Since she was a housewife like me, I knew her movements. I knew when she came out of her flat and when she didn’t. And those were the times I came out. I didn’t want to see her because her presence gave my stomach a funny feeling. She made me nervous, even shy too. I didn’t understand, but I knew that these were the feelings I should have ordinarily had for Daddy Owolabi when we got married. Yet I was having them for…women.

I was so caught up in avoiding her that I did not realise how fast the days were passing by. July flew by quickly, and August came. One day in the middle of August, Madam came to knock on my door. Daddy Owolabi was out. I opened and my face met with her yellow one. She was wearing blue shorts and a yellow shirt — she wore a bra this time.

I invited her into our living room and she sat on a chair opposite me. Her shorts rose even higher, and her yellow thighs were exposed even further. I looked at them for one fleeting second. I pressed my thighs together and looked at her face.

“Madam, I can’t believe you’re in my house o. Please, what can I give you? — Owolabi! — I can send him to go and buy a bottle of Coke — ”

“Ah don’t worry, Ma,” she said. “I just came to tell you something.”

“Ehen? What’s that?”

“My husband is done with his job, so we are leaving tomorrow.”

Suddenly, I felt nauseous. For a moment I could not seem to speak real words. I stared at her. She stared back. I composed myself.

“Oh — oh — okay — alright — ” I paused, then started again. “Th — that’s good. But, we’ll miss you oh,” I said, though really, choked. Because I really would miss her. I suddenly felt a wave of melancholy.

“We too,” she said, smiling.

The next day, Madam and Uncle packed out of their flat and left. I can’t describe how lamentable I had felt that day. I walked around and did chores like there was stillwater trapped in my stomach. My whole body felt too heavy to drag about. My spirits were severely lowered, and even the children noticed.

It was Adunni’s departure all over again.

Sometimes, I wondered if Madam was secretly Adunni. But the logical part of me knew she wasn’t. Yet, it was strange how both women made me feel exactly the same way.

Women shouldn’t even be making me feel anything.

Here I was, slipping back into the sin I had prayed so hard to be saved from…

Fortunately, I had something to take my mind off her. My daughter was starting summer lessons — she would be going into Senior Secondary School Three and she needed extra preparations for the external exams she would take in that class. Her school wasn’t too far from home, so she went and returned herself.

One day, I saw her in the living room, buckling her sandals. I looked at her, stunned.

“Eyitomilayo, where did you get that top?”

If I wasn’t mistaken…the white top my daughter was wearing was the same one Madam was wearing, that night I saw her grinding pepper on a grinding stone. The one her nipples were protruding through…

“Ah Mummy, it was Madam that dashed me. I told her I liked it and…”

But I wasn’t listening, I was thinking. “Madam…?”

“Yes,” she said, somewhat impatiently.

“You’re just wearing it for the first time today?”

“Yes Mummy. It’s my finest top and I want to wear it to school so that people can know that — ” She said swankily, but I cut her off.

“Remove that top and give it to me.”

Eyitomilayo looked alarmed at first, and then she wore a pleading expression. “Mummy — ”

I gave her a look that said I wasn’t playing, and grudgingly, she removed the top and stretched it across to me. Then she went into her room to wear something else, and left the house without saying goodbye to me.

I slumped on a chair after she left, clutching the top in my hands and feeling shame course through my body. I put up a show of a mother who didn’t want her daughter wearing people’s clothes, as if she didn’t buy any for her, but the truth was that I wanted the top for myself. When I saw it, my insides jumped for joy. This was a piece of Madam I could have, a piece of her she left behind, and I snatched it for myself. I smelled the top and it still had her body scent. I inhaled in satisfaction and tears rolled down my cheeks. I was willingly indulging in sin again and relishing it.

Omotoyosi Salami is a poet and writer living in Lagos, Nigeria. A lot of her writing is influenced by the various inequalities that exist in Nigeria and her culture — Yoruba — and its traditions. Her work have been published in Brittle Paper, Constellation Journal and other Lit mags. If you do not find her reading a book, you will find her writing something. You can follow her on Twitter and Medium @yorubasnflwr.