….. Alhaji Tanko watched his wife walk into the living room with his dinner, her eyes carefully averted, looking any place else but into his. He smiled at her petite frame and inwardly marveled at her young, untainted beauty. At his advanced age of 62, She excited him in ways his other wives never did and while it seemed she had more or less been forced into the union, he was grateful he had finally managed to make her accept her fate, she was his now, whether she liked it or not.
She set the food down and the delicious aroma wafted deriliously from the plate and carressed the Alhaji’s nostrils, he licked his lips again and grinned appreciatively at his wife. Her face was straight. She carefully took a seat infront of him and sat down, facing her husband. He opened the food and admired it - pounded ripe plantain and Otikpa sauce – his favourite.
‘Where is Hamza?” He asked, washing his hands. Hamza was his son with her, the boy was 5 years old and it had become a habit to eat with him, a detail Amina had forgotten.
Before she could answer, the alhaji began calling for his youngest son.
‘Hamza! Hamza!”
“My king, maybe he is not at home” Amina replied quickly, “Maybe you should go on ahead and eat. Besides, I didn’t put enough for two.”
“Why?” Tanko asked “You know I always eat with him. Please call him and add more soup and dodo”
For a second Amina looked undecided. The alhaji studied her briefly and remembered the last time he had tried to sleep with her, she had been really upset and had put up for a fight, citing the excuse that she was feverish and even though her body was nowhere near hot, the man had let her be.
Now a friend of his had told him that recently, during his travels, his wife had grown rather fond of dancing outside at midnight in a plain white lingerie, undone hair and bare feet. This detail didn’t bother Tanko, he was more concerned with the new troop of soldiers posted to his part of town, they looked young and really troublesome. For a man with a 24 year old beautiful wife who hated him with every fibre of her being, she ofcourse could be easy prey to this extremely adventurous boys.
“Well?” He asked when she hadn't moved an inch from the living room. She nodded dreamily and stood up, walking out of the room in a daze.
Alhaji Tanko knew she wasn’t going to call her son, she had no intention of doing that. She would lie about his whereabouts just so he wouldn’t be dining with him today. Tanko knew why, he stared at the food.
She had poisoned it.
He knew she hated him, he understood why but he had never thought she would go this far – at-least not yet. He wasn’t surprised too. He had long suspected it would come to this sooner or later.
He also knew what to do. When she returned, he would make her eat that food.
