His Only Wife

by Peace Adzo Medie

Genres: Women's Fiction; Book Club Picks

Synopsis

An Observer, Time Magazine amp; New York Times Book of the Year
A Reese Witherspoon's Book Club Pick
'Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding.'
Afi Tekple is a young seamstress living in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother. Afi's future doesn't seem to hold much excitement. Until, that is, she is offered a life-changing opportunity – a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo.
She barely knows Elikem, but that seems a small price to pay for a marriage that could offer her family financial security, as well as the key to the glitzy city lifestyle she's always wanted. But when Afi arrives in Accra, she realises that her fairy-tale ending might not be all that she'd hoped for. Now she must balance the often conflicting roles of wife, daughter, niece and sister-in-law, without losing sight of herself.
Bursting with warmth and humour, His Only Wife is a witty, smart and moving comedy-of-manners about the search for independence, and the rules that might have to be broken along the way.
“This fierce young woman's struggle for independence in a city that is way out of step with the time-honoured traditions of the rural village in which she grew up is vivid, witty and utterly absorbing.” DAILY MAIL
“I love this book so much I turned the pages so fast... It's all about the search for independence and being true to yourself and who you really are.” REESE WITHERSPOON
“Mesmerising... This is not a book to read with one eye on a beach volleyball tournament; it's a story to soak up in silence, on a long, cloudy afternoon when you have time to think.'” NEW YORK TIMES
“With characters making questionable decisions and a rather brilliant ending, this is a good old-fashion book club read that'll leave you arguing about character motivations and morals.” STYLIST
“Bursting with warmth, humour and richly drawn characters you can't help but root for.” COSMOPOLITAN
“A hilarious, page-turning, sharply realized portrait of modern womanhood in the most infuriating of circumstances. A gem of a debut.” WAYETU MOORE, author of She Would Be King
“I couldn't put down His Only Wife, which made me nostalgic for the food, frills, and folly of Ghana. Peace Adzo Medie's sentences are packed with muscle, beauty, and hilarity. Even though I was rooting for Afi's happiness in her arranged marriage, I didn't see that beauty of a twist coming at the end.” AYESHA HARRUNA ATTAH, author of The Deep Blue Between
“In her debut novel, Medie writes with a precise rhythm that builds the reader's anticipation. Themes like deception, ambition, love, and values drench the pages with conflict that evolves into an emotional rollercoaster.” BOOKLIST
“This stirring tale sings when Afi learns to flex her limited power.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Release date: September 1, 2020

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding. The ceremony was held on the third Saturday in January in the rectangular courtyard of my Uncle Pious’s house, which was bordered by two-roomed apartments and a wooden gate that opened onto a busy footpath. Our relatives, stirring with equal measures of happiness, but for different reasons, sat opposite one another on rented plastic chairs that were neatly arranged in rows that filled the courtyard. The partly walled kitchen had been scrubbed and cleared of the cast-iron coal pots, on which my uncle’s wives prepared the evening meal, and of the enamel basins that they used for washing and storing dishes. My uncle’s sitting-room chairs, upholstered with a carpet-like fabric and polished so that the chocolate-brown wooden frames glistened, were also brought outdoors and comprised the front row where the elders of each family would sit.

Before the guests arrived, my Uncle Pious, who was my tɔgã, my late father’s oldest brother, deposited his bulk into a chair, beaming, as though he was the one to be married. He was flanked by his two younger brothers, my uncles Bright and Excellent. Tɔgã Pious’s chiseled face, with bushy eyebrows that grew in every direction, did not match his soft body. His smile resembled a grimace. That morning as he sat in his itchy armchair, his blue kente cloth had come loose, slid down his arm, and pooled around the elastic waistband of his culottes so that his fleshy chest was on display. He didn’t bother to pull the cloth back up. Other uncles and older male cousins, about fifteen of them, shoulders high with unearned authority, settled into three rows of plastic chairs behind Tɔgã Pious. They all longed to be in his position so much that they had begun to imitate him. They copied his guffaw, which was usually accompanied by several thigh slaps and followed by a loud, drawn out, woooohoooo; they snapped their fingers like him when they wanted attention, and when that didn’t work, they whistled. Today, they were ready to support him in executing his head-of-family duties, as though he would need help in stretching out his hands to receive the bottles of schnapps, cash-stuffed envelopes, and gaily wrapped parcels that my soon-to-be in-laws would present. The youngest and most inconsequential among the cousins would, of course, be displaced by my older aunties when the ceremony began.

But for now, most of the women were in my grand-aunt’s house, which sat opposite Tɔgã Pious’s. They were bustling around in her roofless kitchen, preparing the food that would be served after the ceremony. When I had visited earlier, there had been okro soup, reddened with palm oil, bubbling in a cavernous pot on a clay stove. My father’s sister, Sylvia, who lived in Togo and only visited on special occasions, shoved several twigs into the clay stove to turn up the heat and then scooted away with a yelp when sparks began to fly. The sparks still dotted the air when someone broke out in song, which the others picked up and sang, repeating verses until the soup began to boil over into the wood fire, the smoke sending everyone into a coughing fit. Despite the smoke, the air in the kitchen was thick with the aroma of spices and herbs that tickled my nose. The women shooed me out of the kitchen when I began to sneeze repeatedly, and I reluctantly returned to Tɔgã Pious’s house where the others were also hard at work.

A few of them meandered among the chairs, their hands heavy with branded handkerchiefs, bottle openers, mugs, and picture frames that had been stuffed into small, multicolored gift bags and were being lined up on a table draped in a white tablecloth. These were gifts intended as souvenirs for the wedding guests. My mother had selected Nancy, my ferocious cousin who had just completed secondary school, to oversee the souvenirs table. She could be trusted to drive away those guests who would tuck their gift bags into the folds of their cloths and come back for second, third, or even fourth helpings. It was also especially good that she could control the children who were always underfoot, no matter how many times they were shooed away.

I watched Nancy through the black window bars of Tɔgã Pious’s sitting room, her face a frown of concentration, as she carefully counted each colorful bag that was placed on the table. I’d never seen her so focused on anything, but then, this was the first time that something of this magnitude had happened to us. Mawusi, one of Tɔgã Pious’s daughters and the cousin to whom I was closest, strode out of the bedroom and began dabbing my face. My eyelids fluttered closed as the white handkerchief, which she wielded like a surgical tool, migrated from the bridge of my nose to my forehead. It was immediately replaced by a sponge from a compact that she had fished out of a small rhinestone-encrusted clutch tucked into her armpit.

“It’s enough,” I said in protest as she lightly brushed my cheeks. This was the fifth time that she had touched up my makeup in the last hour. I couldn’t have been sweating that much; I wasn’t nervous, not then anyway. I was mostly weary. Since my mother told me that I would be marrying Eli, I had felt as though I was balancing our two families like a basin of water, which was full to the brim, on my head. It wasn’t easy being the key to other people’s happiness, their victory, and their vindication. I desperately wanted the wedding to be over because then I would have done my part. Or, rather, I would have begun to do my part.

“Ah, it’s okay, you’re only adding to my stress with all this makeup,” I protested when Mawusi’s hand and the makeup sponge continued to hover in my face.

“Stress? Haven’t I told you to relax? There’s nothing to be stressed about. You should be happy and smiling.” She was glaring at a small pimple on my chin as she spoke.

“You make everything sound so simple. I barely know the man. And what if things don’t work out, what if this marriage doesn’t make him leave the woman, what if it doesn’t bring him closer to his family, what if I let everyone down? His family? My mother? This whole town? I couldn’t sleep last night just thinking about this,” I said in a whisper, because we weren’t alone.

“Everybody says he’s a good man so there’s no need to be afraid.”

I sighed heavily, not caring that she was standing so close that I was exhaling into her face. My cousin was obviously too overcome with excitement to have a proper conversation. In fact, it was as if she wasn’t even listening to me. As soon as she freed me, I lowered myself onto a coffee table to give some relief to my feet, which were crammed into cream, pointed-toe pencil heels.

“Is it clean?” I heard my mother call out from across the room. She was overseeing the stacking of plates onto the dining table. The plates would be used to serve Eli’s mother, his uncles, his siblings, and their special guests from Accra. They would eat plates of fried rice, grilled chicken and pork, and vegetable salad, inside the house at the table, unlike the others, who would eat their akple and goat-meat okro soup outside, where they had watched the ceremony. The caterer would soon return with the chafing dishes; my mother had placed the fried rice order herself, reluctant to leave this task to my aunties who were in charge of the food.

I sprang to my feet as she bustled over to us in her floor-length, fitted skirt.

“Give me the handkerchief,” she snapped at Mawusi, who was still shadowing me and now appeared to be stricken with guilt; she had failed in her duties as my attendant. My mother folded the handkerchief to hide the side that was covered with brown face powder and began carefully dabbing at my lace-covered backside. She couldn’t risk any of the sequins coming loose.

“Afinɔ, let me do it,” Mawusi offered, but my mother swatted her hand away.

Mawusi flinched and looked at me with a mix of exasperation and pain. “Don’t mind her,” I mouthed. Three months before, I wouldn’t have been afraid to give sound to my words but now I dared not. This wedding was so important and my mother so anxious that all go according to plan that I expected her to throw a fit at any moment.

She wanted everything to work out perfectly: for Eli to be satisfied with me; for Eli’s mother, Aunty Faustina Ganyo, to get back her son; for us to enjoy the status that would surely come with being tied, by marriage, to the Ganyos. Aunty had done so much for us. When my father died ten years before, in 2004, we were forced out of the government bungalow and most of our valuables seized by those who claimed, without showing any proof, that my father owed them money. It was Aunty who offered us one of her properties, a two-bedroom house with an indoor bathroom and kitchen. Meanwhile, Tɔgã Pious had sat back, his gut resting on his thighs, lamenting the lack of rooms in our family’s compound and the tenants’ refusal to move out after their leases expired. It was also Aunty who gave my mother a job as a saleswoman in her flour-distribution depot, without my mother even asking. And the woman wasn’t even a relative or a friend! We, of course, knew of her like everyone else in Ho. We knew that she wasn’t the only rich businesswoman in town but was the most generous and never hesitated to help those in need. We were used to seeing her white Pajero drive down the main road, the driver in the front with her nestled near the door in the back. I had attended the Christmas parties she threw every year for the town’s children. The ones—initially held on the lawn of Parks and Gardens but later moved to the stadium when the regional minister timidly lamented the bald patches that our feet left behind in the grass—where you could drink as many cups of chilled leha, the sugary corn drink, as you wanted, and each child was sent home with a small transparent plastic bag of doughnuts, chips, and toffees. And my mother was a member of the Women’s Guild, of which Aunty had been president for so many years that no one remembered her predecessor or cared to schedule new elections.

“God bless her!” my mother would say as she admired a sack of maize or some other gift that Aunty’s driver had dropped off. Half of our morning devotion was spent entrusting Aunty into God’s hands and praying for her cup to overflow. When I was younger I would imagine, with great concern, Aunty neck-deep in supernatural water as a hovering golden chalice rained even more water down on her head.

“Father, let your blessings flow, overwhelm her with your love, overtake her with your grace,” my mother would plead, a tremor in her voice.

But my mother had never imagined that she, Afinɔ, Afi’s mother, would ever be able to repay Aunty’s kindness, until Aunty proposed marriage between our families. So now she carefully smoothed the sleeves of my shimmery boat-neck top, and directed Mawusi to hold up the slippery, cream fabric of my slit so that the hemline wouldn’t drag on the linoleum.

The cries of “mia woezor” rang out, an enthusiastic welcome that couldn’t have been for anyone other than Aunty. She and her entourage had arrived.

My mother shooed me into the bedroom before breezing out the door. “Don’t let anyone see you,” she warned before she shut the door.

I thought for a moment about my mother’s transformation. It was like she was a different woman. She had on a shiny black wig, styled into a bob, which she had bought on her shopping trip to Accra, her first since my father’s death. Her off-shoulder kaba and the fish-tailed slit were made of a white-and-blue wax-print fabric, which marked her as the mother of the bride. Blue clay beads, which had once belonged to my maternal grandmother, adorned her neck and wrists, and her kitten-heel slip-ons matched the white satin of her purse. It had been a long time since she had looked so elegant.

I could hear everything going on in the courtyard because Eli’s younger brother, Richard, had insisted on microphones. He’s also the one who hired the tsiami, the spokesman who came from Accra, along with the videographer and photographers who thrust their cameras in my face throughout the day to capture my every expression for Eli’s viewing.

The ceremony began with greetings; Eli’s older brother, Fred, who tirelessly campaigned with the president during the last presidential election and was now a deputy minister of transport and a real-estate mogul, sought permission to greet my relatives. After the greeting, he announced their mission.

“We have seen a beautiful flower in this house, a bright and fragrant flower that we have come to pluck,” he said to cheers. Of course, the guests would have cheered at any word that came out of Fred’s mouth. He was an important man, after all, and regardless of what he said, they knew they would be celebrating my marriage to his brother. The tsiami had to shush them.

“Yoo, welcome to our house,” Tɔgã Pious responded to the mission statement, his voice shaking with giddiness. It wasn’t a small thing to have a minister in your house, a minister who often appeared at the president’s side on the evening news. Now here he was asking something of us. The tsiami joked that prayers would have to be said before any flowers were plucked. One of the men from our clan, a calabash of palm wine in hand and his cloth knotted around his waist, poured libation to the gods. Father Wisdom, ever efficient, immediately followed with a short prayer. I’m sure the guests were grateful for the brevity. After the prayers, Fred presented two bottles of schnapps to Tɔgã Pious. Next, he gave gifts to my relatives, Tɔgã Pious first.

“Agoo,” the tsiami began, demanding everyone’s attention; we all wanted to see what the Ganyos, with all their money, would bring. We had given them a modest list of the gifts we wanted but there had been talk that instead of two bottles of schnapps they would give ten boxes of Black Label whiskey, and instead of a gift-wrapped suitcase stuffed with panties, bras, yards of cloth, nightgowns, necklaces and earrings, and the other basics that every woman needs when starting a new life, they would come with a gift-wrapped 4x4 vehicle, the interior of which would be a mini-boutique. I will confess that I broke into a wide smile at that bit of gossip.

“First, here are the drinks. Five more bottles of schnapps! Five crates of soft drinks! Five crates of beer! Five crates of Guinness! Two gallons of palm wine!” thetsiami boomed, as though he were announcing the prizes on a game show. He then invited my relatives to inspect the bride price that my soon-to-be husband, through his siblings, had brought and placed in another room in the house. My aunty Sylvia, who was my father’s only sister, and other women from my father’s side, went in to inspect the items. They came out about five minutes later and told the tsiami that all was in order, the Ganyos had not disappointed. In fact, they had done way more than requested.

“Papa, we know how you have suffered for your daughter, so we are not simply going to take her away like that. No, not at all,” the tsiami intoned. “We know that it is not a small thing to raise a good daughter in today’s Ghana. One who is respectful and humble, despite her looks,” he continued, to murmurs of agreement. “A daughter who has both school education and home education, a daughter who can read a book and cook a tasty pot of soup.” He paused for dramatic effect. “That is why we did not come with small gifts. We came with gifts that match the work you have done!” The tsiami’s voice rose to cries of “Yueh!” from the eager guests. “We came with spectacular gifts, magnificent gifts, gargantuan gifts,” he cried to fervid applause and ululation. “Shhhhhh,” he whispered halfheartedly. After the noise died down, there was the rustling of paper as the gifts changed hands and then TɔgãPious’s breathy “akpe, akpe, akpe” repeated until the tsiami interrupted him. I’m sure he would have continued thanking the Ganyos all day if the tsiami hadn’t stopped him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my dear uncle collapsed into a quivering mound of joy. Of course he was happy to receive a reward for work he had never bothered to do.

It was then my mother’s turn.

“We know it’s not easy being a mother; carrying your daughter for nine months, feeding her, running to the hospital when malaria struck, soothing her when she cried, traveling to Kpando to visit her in boarding school. We know it’s a difficult job and you have done it well; that is why we have brought these things for you. We thank you for taking care of her for us,” the tsiami said, his voice less playful; someone must have told him our story of hardship. My mother’s thank you was as effusive as Tɔgã Pious’s but the tsiami didn’t interrupt her. I didn’t have to see her face to know the joy she was feeling; her sacrifice was being acknowledged by important people in front of those who had once thought nothing of her.

Fred, through the tsiami, presented more gifts. White envelopes to the other uncles for helping Tɔgã Pious raise me and to the aunts for minding me when my mother was away. There were gifts to the older cousins for holding my hand on the way to school and to the younger cousins for playing with me after school. It was only after this that Aunty Sylvia ushered Mawusi into the gathering.

“Here she is,” I heard Aunty Sylvia declare playfully, a minute later, before adding, “Are you saying she’s not the one?” There was laughter and then a chorus of “No.” “Okay, I will go fetch her, but you have to give me something small. I have to cross a bridge to get to where she is and there is a tollbooth,” Aunty Sylvia said slyly. There was more laughter and a long pause—during which I imagined one of the Ganyos handing a few notes to Aunty Sylvia. This time she and my mother came into the room in which I was waiting.

“Are you ready?” my mother asked as Aunty Sylvia waited in the doorway.

I nodded and then swallowed loudly.

“Don’t be afraid,” my mother said, reaching for my hand.

I nodded again and squeezed her hand until mine hurt. We both flinched. I was afraid.

“Afi, there’s no reason to worry, no reason to be afraid. You have made me so proud. You have wiped away my tears, you have removed my shame. Because of you, those who laughed at me are now laughing with me. May God bless you, my daughter,” she said, a hitch in her breath.

“Yes,” Aunty Sylvia said under her breath, reluctant to interrupt the moment but impatient to move things along.

I hugged my mother tightly.

“Your makeup,” she said and pulled away when my face touched her hair.

“The people are waiting,” Aunty Sylvia reminded us softly when it seemed like I would not let go of my mother.

She and my mother, each holding a freshly manicured hand, then led me outside to ululation, applause, and somewhere in the back, the rhythmic rattles of an axatse.

They deposited me in front of our two families. I was acutely aware of every eye inspecting me for flaws. I searched for Aunty. She sat plump and dignified in the front row, her kaba and slit made of a fabric too unremarkable to recall, a thin gold chain culminating in a small, unshaped nugget at the base of her throat. She was flanked by her sons; Fred, big with muscles, sat at her right, and Richard, smaller and rounder, the stand-in for Eli, was comfortably tucked into the chair to her left. An almost-blind paternal uncle, representing Eli’s late father’s side of the family, also occupied the front row. Aunty’s only daughter, Yaya, dressed in lace that rivaled mine and a glittering head-tie modeled after a hexagon, sat in the second row with other relatives. Fred’s wife, Cecelia, sat beside her in a less eye-catching ensemble. I followed my mother’s lead and shook their hands before greeting my relatives. My heart began to beat faster when I took my seat beside Richard. I think I would have been less apprehensive if Eli himself had been present. Then I would have known what he really thought of me. Aunty had told me that Eli was happy to be marrying me. Indeed, when he called my phone from Hong Kong, he had said that he looked forward to spending time with me. He had apologized for having to miss our wedding, a last-minute change of plans. There was pressing overseas business that required his attention. But that had been such a short conversation and there had been so much static on the line that he sounded like a robot.

Eli had always been a distant figure. He was the son who lived overseas; the most successful of the three brothers but the least visible. He had attended senior secondary school thirteen years before I did and had graduated from the university while my hair was still cropped short in the style of a schoolgirl. I saw him once during the long vacation when he visited the flour depot where I would go to help my mother. I remember him smiling kindly at me, or in my direction, and sending one of the shop boys to buy a bottle of Coke for every worker. I had been in awe of him; after all, he was Aunty’s son. The son who wore starched khaki shorts that revealed the length of his sturdy legs and a Lacoste shirt that hugged the muscles of his chest and biceps; who drove a Peugeot 504, which had once been used to ferry his mother around town; who was about to graduate from the university. The man who might one day own the house we lived in and the store that employed my mother. How could I not be in awe? And now, how could he not be at our wedding? I knew that men were sometimes unable to attend, but it was usually because of issues beyond their control: expired visas and resident permits, insufficient funds to afford plane tickets for themselves and their new brides, poor health. But I had never heard of a man missing his wedding because of a business trip. What kind of business keeps a man away from his own wedding?

This question had been bouncing around . . .