lanned to take with me to the funeral and a leather bag filled with gold jewelry. Musa can carry the rest of the luggage for me another time. So that's it: fifteen years here, and although my house isn't on fire, all I'll take with me is a bag of gold and a change of clothes.

The things that matter are inside me, locked in my chest like a tomb, where they will remain forever, my trunk of buried treasures. I leave the house. The air is chilly, and on the horizon the dark sky is turning a violet hue with the rising sun. Musa is leaning against the car, cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. He spits into a mug as I approach and puts the toothpick in his jacket pocket. He opens the car door, we shake hands, and I climb into the backseat. Musa turns on the radio and searches for a station. He chooses one where the day's broadcast is beginning with the national anthem. The doorman waves as we pull out of the condominium. The road stretches out before us, shrouded in a blanket of darkness that fades into the dawn as it leads me back to you. 2 ILESA, 1985 ONWARDS I soon realized that they had come prepared for war.

I could see them through the glass panels of the door. I could hear them chattering. For almost a full minute they didn't seem to notice that I was standing on the other side. I wanted to leave them outside and go back upstairs to sleep. Maybe if they stayed out in the sun long enough they would melt into puddles of black mud. Iya Martha's buttocks were so big that if they melted they would completely cover the cement steps leading up to our door.

Iya Martha was one of my four mothers; she was my father's eldest wife. The man with her was Baba Lola, Akin's uncle. Both of them had their backs bent against the sun and their faces set in a grimace of determination. But as soon as I opened the door, they stopped chattering and smiled. I could guess the first words that would come out of the woman's mouth. I knew it would be an exaggerated display of a bond that had never existed between us. "Yejide, my precious daughter!" Iya Martha said with a big smile, covering my cheeks with her damp, fat hands. I smiled back, kneeling down to greet them. "Welcome, welcome. God must have woken up thinking of me today. That's why you're here," I said, bowing again after they'd entered and settled into the living room. They laughed. "Where's your husband? Did we find him at home?" Baba Lola asked, looking around as if I might have hidden Akin under a chair. "

Yes, sir, he's upstairs. I'll call him, but first I'll get you something to drink. What should I prepare for you to eat? Mashed yam?" The man glanced at my stepmother as if, while rehearsing the drama that was about to be performed, he hadn't read that part of the script. Iya Martha shook her head emphatically. "We can't eat. Go get your husband. We have important things to discuss with you both." I smiled, left the living room, and headed toward the stairs. I wondered what "important things" they had come to discuss. Several of my husband's relatives had already come to our house to discuss the same issue. The discussion consisted of them talking while I listened on my knees. On these occasions, Akin would pretend to listen and take notes while in reality he was writing down a list of things to do the next day. No one in that series of delegations could read or write, and everyone felt intimidated by those who could. They were impressed that Akin wrote down his words.

And sometimes, when he stopped writing, the person who was speaking at the time would complain about his lack of respect for not taking notes. Many times during these visits, my husband would plan the entire week's schedule while I felt terrible cramps in my legs. The visits irritated Akin, who wanted to tell his relatives to mind their own business. But I wouldn't let them. The long discussions did give me leg cramps, but at least they made me feel like part of his family. Until that afternoon, no one in my family had paid me such a visit since I got married. As I walked upstairs, I thought Iya Martha's presence meant a new argument was about to be made. I didn't need her advice. My house was fine without the important things they had to say. I didn't want to hear Baba Lola's hoarse voice straining between coughing fits, or see another flash of Iya Martha's teeth. I thought I had heard all there was to hear, and I was sure my husband felt the same. I was surprised to find Akin awake. He worked six days a week and spent most of his Sundays sleeping. But when I walked into our bedroom, he was pacing back and forth. "Did you know they were coming today?"

I looked at his face for the familiar mix of horror and irritation that he showed whenever a special delegation came to visit. "Are they here?" He stopped and clasped his hands behind his neck. No horror, no irritation. The room was beginning to feel stuffy. "You knew they were coming? And you didn't tell me?" "Let's go downstairs." He left the room. "Akin, what's wrong? What's going on?" I asked as he left. I sat down on the bed, put my head in my hands, and tried to breathe.

I stayed that way until I heard Akin's voice calling me. I went down to join him in the living room and smiled, but not so wide that I showed my teeth, just a slight lift at the corners of my mouth. The kind that said: Even if you old folks don't know anything about my marriage, I'm happy, no, ecstatic, to hear all the important things you have to say about it. After all, I'm a good wife. I didn't notice her at first, even though she was perched on the edge of Iya Martha's chair. She was pale, a pale yellow like the inside of an unripe mango. Her thin lips were smeared with blood-red lipstick. I leaned toward my husband. His body was rigid, and he didn't put his arms around me to pull me closer. I tried to figure out where the yellow woman had come from, and for a crazy minute I wondered if Iya Martha had kept her hidden under her clothes when she came in. "Dear wife, our people say that when a man has one thing and that thing becomes two, he doesn't get upset, does he?"

Baba Lola said. I nodded, smiling. "Well, dear wife, this is the new wife. It takes a child to call another child into this world. Who knows, maybe the king in heaven will answer your prayers because of this wife? When she gets pregnant and has a son, we're sure you'll have one too," Baba Lola continued. Iya Martha nodded in agreement. - Yejide, my daughter, we have thought about this matter and postponed this decision many times, your husband's family and I. And your other mothers. I closed my eyes. I was about to wake up from my trance.

When I opened them, the yellow-mango woman was still there, a little blurry, but still there. I was stunned. I expected them to talk about the fact that I still had no children. I was armed with a million smiles. Apologetic smiles, compassionate smiles, God's-will-be-done smiles-think of all the fake smiles it takes to survive an afternoon with a group of people who claim to want your best while poking their finger into your open wound: