money there. Most of these patients just end up owing the doctors anyway.” She paused, then, more quietly: “I heard they raped some of the nurses.”
“My God, Maja.”
“Ruby was telling me about it. I’m tired of this country, Kavita. Brutality everywhere. I’m thinking of taking Juju and going.”
“I thought you said Charles hid your passports.”
Maja shrugged, even though Kavita couldn’t see her, and started unbuttoning her shirt. “And so? I will find them somehow. Or go to the embassy and make a complaint. What am I staying here for, after the way Charles has treated me? Let me swallow my pride and ask my parents for help.”
“Will you go back to the Philippines?”
“I don’t even know.” Maja leaned against the wall, her shirt falling open. She was alone in her and Charles’s bedroom. They had told Juju he was away on a business trip, and he was, handling it all from a hotel in Onitsha. Maja wasn’t sure if he had taken his other family along with him. “Where else would we go?” Her voice was deflated.
“I’m so sorry, Maja,” said Kavita. She knew that Maja wouldn’t leave Charles, not really. She was too afraid of him, too in love with him, too stubborn to admit that her marriage wasn’t what she kept telling her parents it was. Charles knew it, too. He’d spent years whispering into Maja’s ear that she would never make it on her own, just her and Juju, that they needed him, that her daughter needed a father.
“Where are you going to go?” he’d said. “You know the kind of shame it will bring to your family if you don’t have a husband. It’s better you stay here and make it work, adapt to our customs. Welcome my second wife when she comes. Behave with some dignity and don’t embarrass me. It will be good for Juju to have a little brother in the house.” When Maja tried to argue back, he smiled patiently and twisted her wrist till it bruised. “I will give you some time,” he said. “I believe a family should live together. You hear? But I will give you some time.”
Maja wished she was like Tammy, whose husband had done the same thing, gone and taken a second wife, except that Tammy had given him sons already. The man thought Tammy would ignore it, because he was rich and she and their children lived in a gorgeous house with lavish grounds. Instead, he’d come home one day to find the house empty and his children gone. Tammy took them back to Scotland and that was the end of it. She didn’t even shout. The other Nigerwives told that story with pride, but Maja knew her story wasn’t going to end like that. Charles had already warned her that he would come and find her wherever she went, so if she wanted to run, she had better leave his daughter behind. Maja didn’t quite understand why Juju meant so little, yet so much to him. Like property.
“I have to go,” she said to Kavita. “I have to make dinner for all these visitors.”
“Send them back to their houses,” laughed Kavita. “As if they don’t have food there.”
“I don’t mind. It’s nice to have them around, you know? The girls are turning into lovely young women.”
“And I’m sure Vivek is enjoying himself with them,” added Kavita. Part of her was hoping that he was like other boys—that he actually was up to something behind closed doors with the girls. She couldn’t contemplate another option.
“You know, sometimes I forget that he’s not one of the girls,” said Maja.
Kavita pressed her lips together and kept the annoyance out of her voice. “Of course. What with that hair. Let me let you go and handle them.”
She put the phone down. She’s only saying that because she’s jealous, she thought. Because her husband is ruining her life. Because she doesn’t have a son.
* * *
—
Meanwhile, up Agbai Road, Chika watched as Eloise scrambled up from her knees in his office, her cheeks flushed and red. She was smiling as she wiped her mouth, a smile that puzzled and annoyed him, as vacantly good-natured as if she’d just passed him the salt at dinner. He tucked himself back into his trousers and zipped them up, watching her adjust her blouse to cover her breasts.
“Do you think Kavita knows?” she asked, cutting a mischievous look at him.
“You’re her friend,” he said pointedly. “What do you think?”
Eloise pulled a brush out