Weeping

When Chinyei finally left, Mako wept. He had thought that he could just marry a woman who owned a house and then bring his first wife to live with her, some sort of polygamous arrangment that disregarded how the neighbors, who were already shocked that a woman had brought a man into her own house, would react. Mako made the rural wife live in a lodger's room in the back of the house while he slept in the master bedroom with the land lady, his new wife. He carried on with his life for three weeks, like everything was fine.

Then one morning, Chinyei told him she was returning to the village.

He looked at her as if he had not heard what she had said. But he made the mistake of keeping the stare and tilting his head to her.

"Yes, you heard me right," she said, turning away.

"What makes you think that's even possble?" he said. And raising his voice. "Don't act like you haven't lived with the rules all these years." And raising two fingers, "Twelve years and you tell me you are doing what?"

"First thing tomorrow morning," she said, emotionlessly, which surprised Mako.

"What's the hurry?" said Mako. "Next week is your turn. I will leave her and come spend three nights with you in your room. Isn't it nice that you now have your own room here?" He even turned to point at the house with his eyes.

"It's not about any of that. You can sleep where you want. The blanket is yours--you decide whether to cover yourself with it, or to sleep on top of it," she said, ignoring the flirty smile beaming from her husband's face, one of his famous, white-teeth smles women were drawn to. Once, this smile had mean a lot to her too. Now it had the disgusting look of a fly purging on its food.

She looked at him with a face showing a dismissive seriousness, the sense of finality encased in the words she had just said. When she saw that he remained rooted there, his grin turning stupidier by the minute, she added, "You are always free to do what you want; you are a grown man."

"But my question is: what's the rush?"

She wanted to say to him, "Do you even get it?" but she said, "My peanuts. I want to go harvest my peanuts." She was looking on the ground now, like a shy girl.

"And your peanuts can't wait?"

"They can't! You know that." Her words came out so fast she almost choked on them. She took spent a few second clearing her throat and swallowing. Then a wave of anger finally registered on her face, she torched him with her redenning eyes and said, " Now you think because you have a town wife you are not from the village anymore? Is that what you think, Baba B, is that what you think?"

"No yelling. This is the city," he said, raising his palm.

She quivered for a moment, rolled her eyes and said, "I know. I had forgotten we are in the city."

"Exactly what I thought too. So why the yelling? Trying to embarass me or what?"

"Just an ugly voice, I guess," she said, walking away from him and disappearing into her room, which could only be accessed from the back. That room was her bedroom and kitchen. They had bought her a parafin stove and had given her a few plates and pots. This was his idea: she had to be allowed time to get used to her new life as senior wife. "Give her two, three weeks, and she will be okay," he had explained to his junior wife. And now it was week three, perhaps she was ready. Guess what, she was not, and he had seen it in her eyes, that whole exchange; it wasn't like anything he could have imagined her capable of, loyal Chinyei.

Anyone who knew them could say this was an improvement because the last time he had brought a new wife he had been a lodger in one room, so all three of them, and his seventeen-year-old younger brother, had slept in them same room. He had always explained that he would get better accommodation for them, and now here he was, married to a house owner, who had been generous enough to give the senior wife her own room. Had the other woman not left when she found out that he was dating the homeowner, he would be dealing with three wives, which was not too bad because his target was four. For now though, this arrangment should work just fine, so this trip to the village she was telling him about did not make sense to him. She was just being herself, a senior wife who had outlasted many a woman before this new one.

He followed her in the room, aroused by her stubborness. But as he was entering,the new wife arrived and said," Can I talk to you in private?"

"Oh sure!" he said, backing out of the room and signalling to his senior wife that he would be back. He followed the new wife to the master bedroom, where he was kept for more than four hours.

Inside her room, Chinyei briefly sobbed, then started to laugh, and she said, in Shona, "Kuseka nhamo serugare."

And the next day she was gone, without saying good-bye, without asking for bus fare. Gone to the village, where she was not planning to harvest any peanuts. Her plans would plunge Mukoma into month of weeping. But every story has a beginning.

1977. He had just returned from South Africa and was itching for village girls after years of dubious interactions with bar women in Johannesburg. Within a day he had run into a plump and ripe Chinyei who agreed to sleep in his hut and by the second day, the two were instructed by her uncles to get married. He took her happily, saying that as a man he liked to take responsibility. That 1977 hot morning started for the two a childless journey.