Short Story : Todun

I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

I’ve been doing this every day for the past week, ever since Remi advised me to do so, and as I did, to repeat the words, ‘you are beautiful, you are strong, you are loving, and you are loved’.
I've known Remi ever since I was six years old.
We played together in my family home in Stamford Hill. Anytime her parents argued, her mother would bring her over to stay, and to play, until calm had returned between her and her husband.

They were an unusual family.
Her parents were both from Ogun state in Nigeria, yet had moved to the UK after her father decided he could no longer see a future in his homeland. Remi ’s mother was excited at the thought of having new life in the UK, until she realised that he would continue to travel back and forth, marry an additional wife, and have children back in the place he had said held no future.

It was that situation which caused most of the arguments in their family home. That, and money.

Remi’s mother would argue that all the money he earned was being sent back to Nigeria, so much so that she was often left with nothing to feed herself and children. He blamed her for their situation, saying that he wanted no other children but Remi, but she insisted on having more, a son, whose appitite for food far surpassed his own.
He told her that he returned back to Nigeria for peace and quiet, yet often complained of the noise, the hustle, the dust, and the lack of light. He complained that she had gained weight, that when they first met, she was slim, fine looking, but had let herself go. He told her he could no longer bear to make love to her, that her body turned him off, and that he couldn’t trust her not to get pregnant again, and hated condoms.

So her mother, anytime they argued, left Remi and her brother, with us at my family home, and went to stay with her boyfriend, something Remi's father knew nothing about.

Remi and I played often, yet every so often whenever we heard raised voices, or her mother sob, we would prise the door ajar, to enable us to hear what was being said.
The was how we learned of the state of their marriage.

Remi blamed herself.

`i learnt about the birds and the bees through Remi. It was the day of my 12th birthday that Remi asked me who I hoped I would marry.. I told her what my mother had told me, that god would find me a husband and send him to me when the time is right, and if that was taking too long, my father knew a man back in Lagos who had two sons, and either one would be a good match for me.
She asked me if I was ready to do the thing wives did for their husbands. I told her I as learning to cook pounded yam and egusi and that my mother had showed me how to wash clothes by hand , so that if the washing machine ever broke down ,there would be no argument in the home.

‘Not just that‘ Remi remarked. ‘What about the bed stuff’
In my naivety, I told her that if we only had one room, we could take turns sleeping in the bed with the other on the coach.
She laughed
‘Dummy!’ She said
‘You think a man want a wife and no sex?
I was confused. I asked her what that was,

Remi was happy to educate me. She pushed the door of my bedroom shut, pushed my toys off the bed, and sat next to me.
She pointed to my private area. She said, when man thing gets hard he will push it in there. He will probably want to rub on your breast too, and use his finger to finger you so you get wet.
‘Oh’. I said.
Dont worry she said, ‘you will like it. It might hurt at first but you will get used to it, and then you will like it’
‘How do you know? I asked her, fascinated by her knowledge of the subject
‘I just know’ she said
‘Who told you this’, I pushed her further. I couldn’t believe that Remi knew so much and my own mother had not told me of this.
‘Did your mother tell you all this ?’ I asked
‘Not my mother’ she said
She put her finger up against her lips. Looked around my tiny room and whispered in my ear
‘My dad’
‘Your dad told you?’
‘Shhh!’, She said, ‘keep your voice down it's a secret’
‘He didn’t tell me, he showed me!’
‘How can your father show you?’. I was confused
She looked at me , with pityful eyes. ‘He did it with me’
I sat silent.
She continued.
‘He showed me long time ago, one night he just came to my room and put his finger against my lips, saying my mum was tired so not to wake her. Then he did it…
After that… he did it all the time’.
I didn’t know what to say, I was confused, I was inquisitive but something inside me knew what she was saying, couldn’t be right.
‘Does your mum know?’ I asked
‘How could she know now? Anyway he said we have to stop soon because if I get my period it could cause problems’
‘Period?’ I asked
Remi signed.
Then she explained all about a woman menstrual circle.

**

My mother didn’t understand the change in my attitude.
She couldn’t understand why I was no longer interested in her place of birth, or my father. My unwillingness to learn how to cook, or watch her as she sewed clothes. Nothing that previously interested me, interested me.

My father put it down to me being a stroppy teenager, my mother blamed my hormones. I was 18, and my father was keen for me to visit Nigeria with him, and meet my prospective husband.
I told him no.
He was angry and blamed my mother for naming me Moruntodun, even though he liked the idea at the time.
He said I was growing stubborn, and stubborn women make men miserable. It was the fist time I had ever heard them argue.
I didn’t want them to blame themselves, and that is when I finally blurted out, that which I had held a secret for so long.
I told them all about Remi, and her father.


Silence enjulfed the room. My father walked out.
My mother burst into tears. I didn’t realise that when my father left the room he had gone to make a call. Within minutes Remi and her parents were at the door.
‘She’s lying’ , Remi screamed. Her father beat her, her mother beat her. Until she finally sobbed, ‘I’m not lying, and I don’t want to live with you anymore’.

Her mother was angry, and told Remi she knew she was a little whore when she got pregnant and brought shame to the family.
Silence hit the room again. No-one had heard about the pregnancy before.

‘How do you think I could get pregnant with no boyfriend ma?’
That was it.
My father took a stick he kept n the corner for potential intruders and lashed out at Remi’s father. my Yoruba was weak, but what he said was splattered with English, and I was clear about the words vile, and animal.
Remi’s brother cowered in his seat. He was away at boarding school most of the time, so the entire scene was a great shock to him.
Remi ran out.

Her mother hysterically hit her husband, until he was also able to get away.
I left the room and went to sit alone my bedroom. I could hear raised voiced until the early hours of the morning.

I remember thinking that the family was torn apart, and that things would never be the same again.
But months later. Remi ’s mother and her husband were still together.
They had decided to hide their shame, and would continue to appear publicly as man and wife. They begged my father not to share the news in Nigeria.

Remi’s father offered my father £20,000 to stay silent. My father told him he didn’t want his money, and that god will serve him his karma in time.
Remi , now living with an aunt , spoke to me about everything other than that night.
Only my mother spoke to me about it. But only once.
She said
‘Understand baby that these things happen, you hear about them happening to other families, and pray that god will protect your own.
I knew a young girl in Nigeria who suffered the same fate’.
She told me that families rarely spoke of it, and that many times the wives or grandparents knew, but they were afraid to speak up. m`y mother blamed poverty.

‘But he’s not poor’ I exclaimed
My mother told me he may not be poor now, but he was raised in poverty, and had a poverty mindset that only god could erase.
She told me that I was fortunate, and I should remember that in our culture, women are not given the same rights as men.
They are seen as second class even if they are educated, or hail from a wealthy background. She told me I should never allow someone else’s experience to colour my own, but to learn from them, see things ,hear things, and say nothing, unless I could change things for the better.

She told me , there as a reason she named me Moruntodun.
‘I have found a beautiful thing’.
‘Todun’ she said.
You were born for a purpose, and I am sure, you will find it.