39 The Arrangers of Marriage
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
My new husband carried the suitcase out of the taxi and led the way into the brownstone, up a flight of brooding stairs, down an airless hallway with frayed carpeting, and stopped at a door. The number 2B, unevenly fashioned from yellowish metal, was plastered on it. “We’re here,” he said. He had used the word “house” when he told me about our home. I had imagined a smooth driveway snaking between cucumber-colored lawns, a door leading into a hallway, walls with sedate paintings. A house like those of the white newlyweds in the American films that NTA showed on Saturday nights. He turned on the light in the living room, where a beige couch sat alone in the middle, slanted, as though dropped there by accident. The room was hot; old, musty smells hung heavy in the air.
“I’ll show you around,” he said.
The smaller bedroom had a bare mattress lodged in one corner. The bigger bedroom had a bed and dresser, and a phone on the carpeted floor. Still, both rooms lacked a sense of space, as though the walls had become uncomfortable with each other, with so little between them.
“Now that you’re here, we’ll get more furniture. I didn’t need that much when I was alone,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. I felt light-headed. The ten-hour flight from Lagos to New York and the interminable wait while the American customs officer raked through my suitcase had left me woozy, stuffed my head full of cotton wool. The officer had examined my foodstuffs as if they were spiders, her gloved fingers poking at the waterproof bags of ground egusi and dried onugbu leaves and uziza seeds, until she seized my uziza seeds. She feared I would grow them on American soil. It didn’t matter that the seeds had been sun-dried for weeks and were as hard as a bicycle helmet.
“Ike agwum,” I said, placing my handbag down on the bedroom floor.
“Yes, I’m exhausted, too,” he said. “We should get to bed.”
In the bed with sheets that felt soft, I curled up tight like Uncle Ike’s fist when he is angry and hoped that no wifely duties would be required of me. I relaxed moments later when I heard my new husband’s measured snoring. It started like a deep rumble in his throat, then ended on a high pitch, a sound like a lewd whistle. They did not warn you about things like this when they arranged your marriage. No mention of offensive snoring, no mention of houses that turned out to be furniture-challenged flats.
My husband woke me up by settling his heavy body on top of mine. His chest flattened my breasts.
“Good morning,” I said, opening sleep-crusted eyes. He grunted, a sound that might have been a response to my greeting or part of the ritual he was performing. He raised himself to pull my nightdress up above my waist.
“Wait—” I said, so that I could take the nightdress off, so it would not seem so hasty.
But he had crushed his mouth down on mine. Another thing the arrangers of marriage failed to mention—mouths that told the story of sleep, tha