THE NAGGING HUSBAND

Kator was close to tears while struggling to hold at bay his little's brother's fists, and had to smack the mischievous boy hard on the head. A loud cry issued. Their mother was in her sleepinhg quarters when the fight began. Long before morning, dawn had found her working on some work related documents and then house chores. She was tired and needed to rest for a while. Her sons' refusal to reconcile their childish charad lent her no relief.
"Why should you two spoil the peace in this house ehn." She said, walking into the sitting room where Wange's angry voice kept its volume up. "Wange Cii zwa la!"
"I wanted to sleep on the long chair but Wange won't let me. I told him to leave me alone and he started to fight me." Kator attempted to explain
"Its a lie Mummy, i wanted to sleep there first."
"Let me hear anymore noise from you two again. We will see if this house will contain all of us." This quelled them for the time being.
She was not really angry at them but sometimes it was frustrating having to be caught in their restless behaviour. She was one of those who felt that it was better to have children who tended to exhibit their natural tendency for rivalry. By now, night had fallen. Her husband had telephioned earlier to say that he would be around so she was expecting him. It was late when he came. The children had waited longer than they could keep awake. Even the portion of the evening food kept for him had gone cold.

Kator shifted uneasily under the cover cloth grandma brought for him the last time she visited from the village, willing himself to sleep. But the tom-tom-tom in his chest banished sleep from his eyes. His father's angry words carried into the surrounding darkness like the sound of a locomotive train and its jagged whistle. It didn't matter that the night was cold and old. It was a good thing that they were staying in the outskirts of Makurdi town, else the neighbors would have seen Torshimbe, as a quarrelsome man. The man was always looking out for excuses to make angry ado about trivial things. Unfortunately, the wife was almost always on the receiving end. Kator wished he could be like Wange who was sleeping undisturbed and lost to their parent's war of words.
"You have refused to contribute enough for the up-keep of the house. Again, you insist that i shouldn't keep or visit friends. How worse do you want it to get?" The woman shouted the words at her husband.
"Don't talk to me like that or throw that cheap one at me Charity!"
"Don't Charity me. When you order me around like a maid and i keep quiet, do you think my silence is because i have lost my tongue?"
"So you are learning to use words on me." He mocked. "I am the head of this house Charity. I decide what my wife does in my house."
"I am your wife, not your slave to command."
"If you don't like it, i will pack my things and leave you and your children. Do you hear?" He cuts her off.
"I thank the gods that they have not robbed my ears of hearing. I have heard you my husband." She said and left him for their bed room. This indicated that she had emptied her basket of angry retorts.
"Walk out on me woman. Yes, that is what you are good at. You are slow at every other thing. I wonder if your mother ate an entire forest of chameleons before she bore you. Did i pay the bride price on your head so that you can take over my house? Women! When would they learn that a man is a man in his own house. Let me warn you Charity. You did not marry me o! Walk out on me. By all means do." Finally silence fell. The man then stretched on the long Chair and promptly went to sleep.
Morning came quickly as if to chase the night away. Charity roused when the sun was preparing to announce itself from behind the restless harmattan clouds, as did Akundu, the girl who was staying with them. While the older woman cooked morning food, Akundu heated water in the 'Jogobi,' a medium sized pot made from aluminum scraps, then went into the house to wake up the two boys to come outside to wash and to ready for school. As the morning did not share in the quarrel of the previous night, which also indicated that the soup had gone sour many months ago, busied itself with crawling steadily towards midmorning. Torshimbe soon persuaded himself to refuse the invitation to sleep longer and came outside. The man drew water from the well behind the main house and began to wash the car. This was the car the wife bought shortly after men of the underworld forcefully relieved them of their first car. Torshimbe took so much pride in cleaning the car as though it was he who paid for it with the proceeds from selling many tubas of yam from his yam farm. He whistled as he did this, nodding like the red-headed lizard.
Torshimbe, his displeasures aside, Charity had fond memories of their younger days together. Even now that many new moons and nightfalls have eaten into the fabric of years, her thoughts often drifted back to relieve those days. Her memories were especially of the time when they were curting. Once when he realized that she welcomed his advances, not even the town girls with swaying hips and pointed breasts who parading the streets half naked could charm him. The matter of his possessiveness used to quicken her pulse too. Still they have been sleeping in the same bed for many years and she has proved that barreness was not in her family. She had learned from her mother Inlaw that when Torshimbe was only a boy, his mother's sister left her husbands roof and returned to her father's house after twelve years of childlessness because she feared that she had become a man. This was not the case with her, so her heart has forgotten where the wisdom in her husband's lost of sleep came from. Why should he continue to cast a wide net of anger and distrust over their household, as if regret has suddenly covered his eyes. Perhaps this was the result of old age.
Charity didn't know that marriage would be so much trouble. It was like walking in a muddy stream with water sloshing around your kneels and making it impossible to reach the saftey of its bushy bank.

The entire collection of Short Stories out soon!