SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN by BUCHI EMECHETA

This is the story of strength, struggle, and love. It is not your average love story, it is deeper than that. There so much strength and so much grace in being an African. Being an African also counts for being able to carry burdens and still being able to laugh about them. Buchi Emecheta is no compromising here. She tells it real and raw. This is Africa.

Childhood

Adah did not even know her date of birth. But no one cares, because, you see, she is a girl. A girl who came when everyone was expecting a boy. She was so insignificant to everyone, but she recalls the story of her life since eight. At least, she felt she was eight years old. Adah was from Ibuza, but she was born in Lagos. At that time, the people of Ibuza were preparing to receive their first lawyer from the UK. The way Adah’s father would sound the word, ”UK”, made her feel like the UK was where God lived. The lawyer’s arrival felt like the coming of the Messiah to the Ibuza women. The Lawyer would fight for Ibuza and defend the rights of the people, bring electricity and water, and good roads too.

Adah wasn’t allowed to go welcome the lawyer like other people were. Her mother made it a punishment for her. She had fought to be enrolled in school, despite being a girl, a girl who would end up in a man’s house and be nothing other than being there. That was how everybody thought of girls and women. But Adah forced her parents, and she got enrolled. She progressed to the Methodist Girls’ High School in Lagos, where she met white missionaries. Adah knew what she wanted in life. She wanted to have to go to the UK someday like the Lawyer Nweze.

Escape into Elitism

Several setbacks sure came along for Adah’s dream. Her father passed and her mother was married to her late husband’s brother. Adah’s brother, Boy had to live with one of his father’s cousin, while she became the house girl at one of her mother’s brothers. It was great that she didn’t have to stop schooling, her uncle’s family thought it wise since more schooling for her meant they would receive more money on her dowry, which would go towards Boy’s schooling. But the thought of her having to leave school worried her. She wanted to continue schooling, but she knew her relatives would not give her any money to write her final exams in high school. So, she framed the loss of two shillings when she was sent to the market with it.

She wrote that exam and was one of the best that she got a scholarship. No one asks how she could sponsor her education. No one cared. After studies at the Methodist Girls, she got married to a quiet young man who was reading to be an accountant, named Francis. He was not a “made man” though, but she was lucky, he wasn’t an old baldie. But she wasn’t happy at all.

Soon, she had a baby girl and secured a job as a librarian in the American Consulate Library. Her salary would be so much that it worried Francis. But he was a zombie, ready to do whatever his parents and siblings would tell him to do. And on their advice, they all started living off Adah’s salary. She still dreamed of going to the UK with her husband and children. Before she knew it, Francis decided he was going to go to the UK, Adah would sponsor him, then join him later with her children. After Francis’s departure, her relatives would not let her go. But she convinced them that she would be back soon. Then, they agreed.

A Cold Welcome

She finally got to the really cold UK but met a different Francis than she knew. One who would kiss her in public. She prayed that they would be able to accept such kind of civilization into their relationship, so they could last. She got to where Francis lived and it was so bad that even poor people back home would not live like that.

With Francis’s new behavior of shouting at her and slapping her, she wished she had come to England single, but the immigration authorities were making it difficult for single girls to come into England. She got a job as a senior library assistant at North Finchley Library.

The Daily Minders

Adah, in her new job, had to be very fast in filing books, in filing tickets, in making out reader’s tickets, in tracing lost ones, and forever saying, “Thank you”. But she was happy, with the first-class job, her colleagues liked her and she was enjoying the work.

Francis had begun to complain about watching her two children. The landlord of the house they stayed in also made it so obvious that they wanted the children out of the apartment. It was the custom of Nigerien parents in England to find white foster parents for their kids. Only first-class citizens had the convenience to live with their children in the same house. But, Adah got advised by a neighbor, a cockney girl named Janet, that she could find a professional carer; a daily minder for her children. They finally found one named Trudy. Francis would drop them off in the morning and bring them back in the evening. But Trudy did not care for the kids, and Adah would regret almost losing her children.

An Expensive Lesson

Adah was pregnant with her third child and felt really heavy one morning when she noticed that Victor, nicknamed Vicky, her second child, a boy, acted strangely. She couldn’t really place it though, but hours later, when she was at work, she got called that Vicky was in a terrible condition. It was diagnosed as Virus meningitis. It was after these incidents that she exploded another myth. Second-class citizens could keep their children with them. She got a nursery for both her children.

“Sorry, No Coloureds”

The Obi’s got a notice from the landlord to leave the apartment within one month. They kept looking for another place to live, but most houses had “Sorry, no coloreds” on them. It was more difficult because she was black and pregnant. She began to lose hope and thought that the best was not for her, and she would have to work herself from being inferior to the top. Finally, Adah got a really nice apartment by disguising herself to sound white over the phone. But when she and Francis got there, their blackness seemed to make the house unavailable. They were directed to someplace looking like a pile of rubbish to go look for some accommodation there.

The Ghetto

There was this group of Nigerians who came into the UK in the forties when Nigeria was still ruled by the colonial masters. This group of men could be termed middle-class Nigerians. They came to get more education in the UK, envisaging that Nigeria’s future independence will give them higher places in positions of leadership. So, a lot of men in this group abandoned their wives and children and left every other thing to go to the UK in search of a degree. Some of them were successful at this and became the foundation politicians in Nigeria. The others who failed sought consolations in the pubs and wasted their lives, until they were too old to school or do anything meaningful with their lives.

Mr. Noble’s story is another remarkable one. Several stories circulated about him, one was that he came for a degree in London with his pension and gratuity money which was insufficient, because he kept failing the entrance exams. He was rejected at every job, except for being a liftman in a railway company. Mr. Noble was living from the remaining pieces of his discouraged life and was prone to give in to anyone for even a pint. He disfigured his right shoulder by attempting to manually operate a lift. The company paid him off and he got retired the second time. He used this lump sum to acquire a ghetto apartment and got entangled with Sue, one of the women he met at the pub.

Adah began considering Mr. Noble’s apartment after Janet told her of it because they couldn’t get a place. They were going to be evicted from their present apartment in two days. The Noble’s apartment is as deserted and cranky as the Nobles themselves, but it was worth managing for the Johnson’s.

Role Acceptance

Adah had begun to feel heavy, her pregnancy had progressed, but Francis would not listen to any excuse. Adah even lied to her office that she was not soon due so that she could gather enough money before she found another job.

One morning when Adah was feeling very heavy and tired, she had to come back from the train station, because the railway people were on strike, but came back to face Francis Jehovah’s witness sermons on how she should be a diligent virtuous woman. Francis had been raised in a home where boys were treated like kings. The girls did all the work, so the men thought it was an entitlement. That was why Francis did no work.

In pain and tired of listening to his confusing sermons, she made for her scarf and padded just like a duck to Dr Hudson’s surgery at the Crescent. At Crescent, she had told the doctors she wanted to have the baby at home, Francis had insisted that the six pounds she would be earning if she had the baby at home would be needful. So, she was allowed to go back home. The midwives could not deliver her baby, so she had to be cut through to have him.

Learning the Rules

Adah woke up to find herself on the hospital bed with her nose and mouth uneasy to move. She couldn’t say anything but she was wide awake feeding her eyes on the other women beside her. They all had different stories from hers. One of the women there had waited for seventeen years before she had a boy. The woman was therefore showing off her newborn to everybody at the ward. Another young woman beside her was in a complicated situation. Her baby has been long overdue, but the doctors were skeptical about whether to operate or not. The surgeon who operated on her had believed she would -live, so she believed with him. Her child, Bubu was a loud child and was popular among other women on the ward and the nurses, who wouldn’t stop showing him around.

Adah saw all the love that was given to both women and couldn’t stop tears from running down her face. Nobody, not even Francis came to visit her with nice gifts when it was time for visitors to be allowed into the ward. She felt pity but didn’t want the other women to pity her. So, she resolved to tell Francis to buy her a beautiful nightgown just like the other women wore. Besides, the nurses had told her to get one, she was not supposed to wear the hospital gown after delivery.

Applying the Rules

The winter was very cold, but Adah was lucky that her family lived in the same room where they cooked, bathed, and slept. The children had no option but to play in there too. The only thing they did outside was the toilet. Francis had to work for two weeks, but it left Adah feeling guilty that he did. Francis continued to pour fuel into the guilt fire by telling her terrible stories about what he faced working with white people.

Christmas came but they planned to hide under being Jehovah’s witnesses so as not to celebrate it. There was no money. But she got surprised when some toys came from the Library as Christmas gifts for the children.

She noticed one of Vicky’s ears swollen and enlarged which made her panic. She applied some Vaseline the day before, but all to no avail. It was Christmas day, but they had to get a doctor. A big fuss arose because of it but Vicky’s ear was nothing more than a bug’s bite.

Population Control

She was out to use the public bathroom early on Monday morning and felt so grateful for the start of spring. She determined that despite the conditions of the blacks, her children were going to be different. They were going to be proud of being black. Rejoicing in the joy that she was now a mother of three, and she was going to visit the Family Planning Clinic. she recollected that she had been loaded with pieces of literature on birth control from the clinic. She didn’t want to have more children, but Francis would not understand. She needed to complete her studies and regain her health.

Francis was not in support of this move, he believed men knew how to control birth better-by throwing away their seeds when it would have entered the woman. So, she forged his signature on the Birth Control Form and saved enough money for the first round of Birth Control Pills she would be given. Adah felt the pill would be better until she saw another woman who had reacted to the pills with a lot of skin rash. The Jelly was a no-go area; therefore, the cap was her next option.

Francis found out what she had done and began to beat her about it, she invited other tenants to come and witness the situation-how his innocent wife had become clever to get the gear behind his back so she could sleep with other men. He threatened to write to his people about this. But it was clear to everybody now that the man she had been slaving for was a fool.

Some weeks later, Francis received his examination results. He failed again but explained that his failure was as a result of the cap Adah fitted in. But before any reply would come, she was pregnant again.

The Collapse

She did not weep when she found out that she was pregnant again. She just went to her Indian doctor that she wanted it terminated. She didn't want to be pregnant again. The Indian doctor gave her some white pills, but she didn’t know that it would not terminate the baby. She found delight in her relationship with her God, in her kids, and in her new job working at the Chalk Library. She met new people, got to read more books, and resolved to leave Francis.

Adah went back to the doctor telling him that the baby did not come out as he said it would. She was confused, Boy had sent her all his savings, telling her to leave Francis and come back home, and her Consulate job would still be there for her. She was thinking about this when she got a pat on the shoulder-another Nigerian, an Igbo man was asking if she fought with her husband and they should go and apologize.

The Ditch Pull

Adah’s daughter, Dada, was born in May. She insisted that she won’t be resuming work immediately because she had four kids under five and couldn’t bear to leave the kids with another woman. It was an enjoyable time for her and she wished it would continue that way. Titi was enrolled at the nursery school attached to Carlton. Adah would take Titi to school, go with the other kids to the park come home to feed them lunch, tuck them into rest, and continue with her book, The Bride Price.

The Bride Price had been her escape from the world of nothingness, she overromanticized the story, it was her dream of what she wanted in her marriage. Her problem was that Francis came from a totally different perspective. He viewed women as second-class humans who can be slept with at any time, ordered out of the bed when done, wash his clothes, and make meals for him. She wished his perspective would change now that they were in England. Hers had changed. She just wanted to be happy.

She decided she would show Francis her book, but first, she showed it to her new friends at the Chalk Farm Library. They took her seriously and encouraged her. Adah was excited to show Francis her brainchild. But Francis did call her work rubbish and preferred to watch the TV than read her book. It hurt Adah deeply. She blamed herself again for coming to England in the first place. At least she would not have had the urge to write. But now there was no going back.

One Saturday morning, she woke up very early, when Francis and the kids were still asleep, for shopping, only to come back home to smell the ashes of her burnt, The Bride Price. Adah felt pain. She remembered the beatings of her Cousin Vincent. Francis had the triumphant smile of accomplishment, all the while, saying that his people would not accept such behavior from his wife. Adah felt disheartened knowing that Francis could kill her child.

Adah got a new job at the British Library Museum and moved out of the house with her kids. That was when Francis came to her house banging at the windows. She had left Francis without taking a dime from him or asking him for anything. But Francis came with a knife. It took them to the court, but she forgot that Francis knew about the law. He claimed he had nothing to do with Adah or the kids. Adah couldn’t provide a marriage certificate to prove she was married. Therefore, nothing much was done to the issue. She left the court to the Camden, not because she wanted to buy anything, but her wandering took her there.

She felt sick, hungry, and tired when a voice cut through the drowning crowd. It was one of her classmates at Girls’ High school. It was dreamy, probably a bad dream. Adah’s friend paid for her transport back home because he thought she was still with Francis.

Photo credit: Goodreads

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