Tomorrow I Become a Woman by Aiwanose Odafen EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors:Aiwanose Odafen
- Publish Date:April 28, 2022
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Women Fiction
- Format: PDF/ePub
- Size: 4 MB
- Pages:243
- Price: Free
I’m going to marry him
We stood side by side in March of ’94, arms around each other with milky pasted
smiles, displaying all our teeth for the cameramen shouting, ‘Oga, please look
this way,’ and ‘Madam, please move closer to oga,’ as we cut the ribbon to the
factory Gozie was opening in his hometown.
Our pictures would appear in the
glossy pages of society magazines, above owery articles of the business exploits
of Chigozie Azubuike, a respected member of the community, and his dutiful
wife, one Obianuju Azubuike née Nwaike, who’d stood by him through the
toughest of times. Mama would buy dozens of copies and distribute them to all
her friends and members of Ndigbo Women’s Association of Lagos and show
every visitor that crossed the threshold of her and Papa’s household; her
daughter, her own Uju, was now a star.
Church members would approach me with timid smiles to say, ‘I saw you in
“so-and-so” magazine,’ and compliment my expensive wrapper and head-tie, my
designer shoes. And I would smile with just the right blend of pleasure, humility
and satisfaction, tilt my head elegantly and say, ‘Thank you.’
Just days before, an expensive earthenware vase with hand-painted red roses,
the one Gozie had bought on his last trip to China, cracked on the wall just
above my head and shattered in an icy rain around me.
‘You’re a witch!’ Gozie screamed. And I knew I’d dream of those words, the
letters dancing in circles around me – you’re a witch! You’re a witch!
We met at church – the perfect place for an upstanding Christian girl to nd a
husband – on a Sunday in August of ’78. I was a student at the University of
Lagos at the time, with only a few months left till graduation.
The church was alive that Sunday, the air electric with fate. The atmosphere
bubbled with music and people. Smiling women in oor-length skirts and
colourful headscarves stood at the entrance distributing yers, and men in
oversized trousers directed us to our seats.
My friends Adaugo and Chinelo had pestered me to attend service that day,
and I nally caved when they threatened to report me to Mama. Nothing was
scarier than Mama showing up at school, wearing that frown of hers that would
make even the devil quiver.
I could picture Mama in the matching wrapper and
head-tie she always wore for her Ndigbo women’s meeting, with wafts of her hair
sticking out the open top. ‘Obianuju! Obianuju! Tell me what I heard isn’t true!’
she would yell. No. I’d have rather faced the devil himself, and my evil friends
knew it.
The three of us had been inseparable since we were waddling about in
diapers, and our mothers had the black and white photographs – showing tiny
chubby versions of ourselves and ashing toothless grins – to prove it.
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