The Vegetable Truth

The truth is, I relish my wife’s vegetable soup. A fine blend of her culinary skills with the popular Nigerian delicacy makes it such a delight. The soup is always garnished with tasty food supplements, and a wholesome plate of nutrition and art piece is placed before me to enjoy. Sweat beads gather on my forehead as I eat; she teases that I smack my lips like a true foodie. I cannot deny it. With every mouthful I savour a piece of her, and she wears an invisible badge for Best Chef, insisting she never learned the recipe. It is simply her gift: spell-riddled and complete. I have never hidden my admiration.

Barely six months into our marriage, my mother arrived. She came with her own vegetable leaves, a black earthen pot, and other cooking condiments. She wanted to prepare me èfó rírò; fresh water leaves that were nicely sizzled in tomato stew, garnished with stock fish, beef, cow offal and snails. This was what I grew up enjoying. Not until I ate my wife’s variant.

While mother boiled the leaves that afternoon, I overheard her conversation with my wife begin as cheap banter and slowly darken. Still reading the news on my phone, I felt the air thicken with the tomato sauce she stirred on the second burner. My wife offered a different method. Mother frowned.

Then the words turned cruel: it was my wife’s “wrong recipe,” she declared, that had sealed her womb and kept it from cuddling life.

Minutes later the sizzle of leaves meeting stew rose loud enough to muffle my wife’s soft sniffling. The aroma of mother’s èfó rírò—locust bean and fresh palm oil rising like a memory—mixed with the ache in my chest. When the soup was finally served, I declined. Calmly, I told her that my wife’s recipe was the one I preferred. Mother screamed that I was under a spell. She had been in Lagos barely five hours, yet she packed her things and left, declaring that the truth had stung her like a hot aluminium pot and that I would regain my senses once the spell was broken.

Two days later I travelled to the village. Mother smiled as I told her how much I had enjoyed her èfó rírò with soft morsels of èbà. The old woman never knew I had come only at my wife’s gentle, persistent urging, seeking peace.

***

This is how my wife begins. She takes a memorable journey into the southern recipes of the land and returns with a blend said to restore the body during convalescence. I watch her cut washed pumpkin and water leaves with precision. She squeezes cow tripe, liver, beef and dry fish between thumb and finger as though they were soft bread, then slices them. While the leaves drain, the meat and offals begin their slow boil.

As always, I drift in and out of the kitchen with soft words of encouragement. That day she chased me out like an errant child for trespassing, just as the doorbell rang. I opened it, received a thick tawny envelope from the courier, and closed the door again. The mail was addressed to me; the sender’s name was unfamiliar.

She was adding palm oil, crayfish and pepper paste to the cooked beef when I stepped back in to inform her who came by. She covered the pot, told me to go and open the mail, and returned to her work. I sank into the sofa, tore the envelope, and watched a lewd catalogue of revelations spill across my lap.

I did not notice when she added the periwinkle and water leaves. I knew the sequence by heart: pumpkin and salt after a few careful minutes; never overcook the leaves; palm oil as the only liquid; a final stir, then the heat switched off so the soup could settle into itself.

My body suddenly felt too heavy for the sofa. Disquieting thoughts flickered through my mind. We had been married for a little more than a year. The aroma of edikang ikong filled the living room, yet my lips remained dry. Soon she appeared carrying a plate of her special soup beside a white mound of semolina. I stared at the familiar, addictive dish and somehow found my appetite again. I began to eat.

She noticed the strange look on my face, but because I was eating she assumed the matter was off the nape of my hairline. She was sure it had something to do with the mail. She thought it was something relating to work—like it usually was—or a disturbing request from long-throated relatives. Her fingers only began to tremble when she picked up the envelope herself and opened it.

I continued to eat, and watched her with the corner of my bloodshot eyes. She watched as pieces of her unclad self were shredded and displayed in photographic renditions. I champed some stubborn cow tripe with my molars, and loved the noise it made in my ears. She fell on her knees when she saw the accompanying letter tell a true tale of her wanton lifestyle as a spinster with an old lover—when she claimed to be my doting girlfriend. I could tell she wished her life ended that very minute.

I continued to sandwich the soup and some of the supplements within a handful of semolina, before letting them into my mouth. By then she had gripped my foot in desperate submission. She begged with unclear words, she cursed herself, and whimpered like a child. I pretended my limbs had lost life. Her voice grew thin; the meal turned tasteless in my mouth.

“Thank you for the meal. You can take the plates away.”

I am not sure whether her heart stopped, but she stiffened. She released my leg, pressed her teeth hard against her lips to smother the fresh cries, and looked into my eyes. I looked back and said nothing more. She crawled to her feet. Something inside me quaked as she gathered the plates and turned away, careful not to meet my gaze.

“Did you also make this special kind of vegetable soup for him?”

I asked as she returned from the kitchen. She answered no. She wanted to say more, but I raised one finger and she fell silent. I stood. She staggered backwards. I walked into the kitchen, took a clean plate, and served myself two more spoonfuls of her vegetable soup. I hoped a second helping would be enough to calm my mind.