Gardener

Yesterday

Donald knew his neighbours talked about him behind his back. They jeered whenever he walked past them in the long passage that all the occupants of the twenty-two rooms in No 1. Salawu Street shared if they had to use the bathroom or kitchen or leave the building. He always heard their whispers when they saw him clutching his big Bible, on his way out for morning cry.

The men kept their distance from him, only acknowledging his greetings with a slight nod.  Not that he cared though. Well… he cared a little. As far as he was concerned, they were weaklings – all of them! Any man who could not keep his wife in check was a weakling. And by being weak, they made him look bad.

The biggest disappointment was Pastor Action.

That walking irony!

He kissed his teeth and shook his head. First, he had found it funny that someone would name their child, Action. And after Pastor Action called him over to counsel him, just for teaching his own wife some discipline, he began to loathe the man because that was when he became sure that Pastor Action was a fake man of God.

What kind of man thought it was okay to advise another man about his marriage. Then, what was all that nonsense talk about treating his wife with tenderness, like she was a flower? Was that not what he was doing? Worse, he tried to explain to the man but the oversabi just would not get it. It was why he would never honour any of his invitations to his church services or men’s meetings. If that was what he taught the men in his church, then he was sure all their wives wore the trousers in their houses.

How can a man of God allow his wife call him “Honey”? Is he the by-product of a bee? Tufiaa! He spat. The worst is “Baby”! “God forbid!”

In that instant, he bumped into Angelica, Jude’s wife.

“Watch where you’re going?”

Subconsciously he had declared war on the women when he confirmed that they were deliberately being rude and disrespectful to him. Of course, they would support their kind. Besides, what else did they do but sit around and gossip all day? But then, he did not blame them. Can you expect any good from women who call their husbands, grown men with pubic hair, “Baby”?  It was their husbands he blamed.

Yesterday, Donald had cared. It had really worried him that he could not witness to these people. And now, the church had mandated that members must evangelise and bring two new people to church, this Sunday. How would he get through to them if they would not even respond to his greetings? 

Today

When the men’s leader exhorted them at the men’s meeting to be to their wives what a gardener was to its flowers, he concluded that God had indeed sent today’s message to him. As the man preached on, Donald imagined himself as a gardener wearing an apron and carrying a toolbox. His garden had just one flower, Ada. When he bought her clothes or any other thing he did that made her happy, like buy Iya Ramota’s puff puff on his way from work, he was tending and watering. Those times when he hit her because she had been talking with Rosa and Angelica, their neighbours who were unbelievers and therefore not people to be equally yoked with, he was weeding. Every good gardener had to do that, every now and then. The few scars she got during the pruning were worth it; they were reminders, since her ears were made of plastic.

In fairness to him, he did not enjoy hitting Ada. And he always felt bad every time she wept, after a minor weeding or pruning. But she just never listened. He had told her several times: their church doctrines were different, so people like Rosa and Angelica could not be also counted as believers. Besides, he knew that God would judge people by their different church doctrines. Why could she not pick friends from the good women in their own church who called their husbands “Oga” and responded to them with “sir”?

Even Sarah our mother called Abraham “Lord”! Why is it so hard for Ada to be a virtuous woman?

Today’s sermon had cleared his conscience. Now, he felt justified in God’s eyes. As he approached his room, his nose was assaulted by the smell of burning food. It was coming from the stove just in front of his door.

Ada had fallen asleep again!

Was she the only woman who did chores? He already knew what excuse she would give. She would say she was sleepy because she had carried the baby all night. And it was not that she said it. It was how she said it, like she expected him, a man, her husband and crown, to have helped with the baby.  Was that not supposed to be the joy of motherhood and womanhood?

“Women of nowadays are lazy,” he mused.

He wished his mother were alive. She would have probably helped him teach Ada these things. No matter what his father did, she had endured and raised him and his brothers by herself. She always served their father fresh food and obeyed him, no matter what. Even when his father’s sisters visited and tried to make trouble or offend her, his mother never complained. He was sure he was a better husband than his father was to his mother. It was Ada who needed training to be a good wife.

Donald ignored the burning food and rushed into the room to confirm his suspicions. The small frame of the sleeping woman on the chair stirred up something in him, something closer to the zeal to be a good gardener than hate or anger.

 By this time, whiffs of smoke had begun to seep into their room.

As the sleeping woman choked, he hurriedly unfastened the belt from the trousers he was wearing.

Donald had some pruning to do.