It’s Mma Ngo. She was my neighbour. A young woman I met many years ago. She was, I can still say several years later, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
I don’t even know her real name, that is the truth. We lived in the same compound for about two years. All I heard of people calling her then was Mma Ngo. She had a daughter named Ngozi…she had several daughters, six beautiful girls.
Mma Ngo, like I said, was a true beauty. She was tall, not fair skinned like most women from the east. She was dark in complexion. She had a lovely set of teeth especially when she smiled and lovely, dreamy eyes.
Mma Ngozi also had rich luxuriant hair. Virgin hair that was rich, dark, and full. I know this because I was her hairdresser. I plaited her hair for free back in the day. Mma Ngo’s husband forbade her from perming her hair or adding anything artificial. You see, in his eyes, she would be more beautiful than she already was, and this would be trouble for the woman.
Papa Ngo would be some years older than his wife.
I think he married her to settle a debt her parents owed him. I am not too sure because there is no way Mma Ngo would have married such an ugly and insecure man. Well, she would, she didn’t do much schooling and seemed to be so scared of the man.
But she was a decent human being. She would greet the neighbours…only the women, never the men because she would get beaten by her husband for greeting any man.
One day, right to everyone’s hearing, when he flogged her with his belt, he kept repeating, “Your toto go tear…you don dey fxxk mechanic…you don dey fxxk.”
Ha!
I mean, his children would be witnesses to this madness and the woman would be calling neighbours for help…nobody helped.
Papa Ngo would come home from his shop and beat her…just for the heck of it.
If he wasn’t accusing her of sleeping around, he would accuse her of smiling too much with someone on the street. Sometimes, it was that she over cooked the vegetable or the meat or did not boil enough water for his bath…the man was a beast!
When I moved into the compound, I befriended Mma Ngo. My door was not too far from theirs. Theirs was a two-room with a parlour. I would hear her cries…almost everyday. When I asked the other neighbours why no one ever intervened. They said they had gotten used to it.
How can any human being get used to the cries of a woman in distress?
They said Papa Ngo had threatened to beat up anyone who intervened. Did I tell you the man was big, burly with arms like a wrestler?
His wife would be around her mid-30s when I knew her, she was tall and slim. I can’t imagine him on top of her every night.
Anyway, I became familiar with her. That is when I told her I was good at plaiting hair and offered to do her hair. It was mostly unkempt, and she often tied a scarf to cover it. Though she tried to keep it covered, she had long and rich hair. Unlike mine that was dry, brittle, and no thanks to perming, it was always limp on my scalp.
Mma Ngo was pleased. So I would plait large chunks, she insisted as she said her husband would be upset if she plaited tiny braids.
How a woman plaiting tiny braids should upset any man was beyond me at that time. Well, several months after we had become friends, she had begun to confide in me especially on the days I plaited her hair. I persuaded her to do smaller braids. I told her it would mean she could carry the braids for longer instead of her biweekly plaits.
That evening, I was outside airing myself as I lived in a one-room with a tiny window. I was outside when Mma Ngo ran out naked with patches of exposed scalp!
Oh Loorrrdd!
Her husband was after her. He had decided that because she had plaited smaller braids, she had begun to sleep around.
Now, every time he beat her, he always accused her of sleeping around…it was always “ashawo kobo kobo…your toto go tear…your…”
Very disgusting human being!
This is the mother of his children!
That day, I swear, if I was a man I would have beaten that man to a pulp.
But we lived in a compound where the men had long decided it was better to keep out of Papa Ngo’s way. So that they would not get into fights with him nor be accused of sleeping with his wife.
Now, that day, several men saw this woman naked. Didn’t it occur to the idiot husband that this was a woman they would chase after and take from him?
But Mma Ngo was never like that. I have no doubt that even with six children, she was being admired by men.
That’s how come I stopped braiding her hair. Her husband had cut off chunks, so she had to go and shave off the rest to even it out. She began to wear a low cut. She never grew her hair back.
I wept for Mma Ngo that day.
You ask why we never reported?
I did, twice!
Like some of my neighbours who had reported the disturbance to the police. They were told it was a “family matter” and since Mma Ngo herself never came to report, denied it when asked, there was nothing they could do.
I held my peace for a long time because I had come to see Mma Ngo as a younger sister. Even though her husband had openly accused me of recruiting his wife for ashawo work.
In fact, the second time he accused me of trying to recruit her, I walked up to him with a large stick and told him, “Papa Ngo, I do not fear you. Lift your hand at me and that would be the last time you use that hand for anything, including beating your wife.”
He looked at me, hissed and called me more names. He may have attacked me if not that he feared for his life.
You see, I used to have a guy friend in the military who visited me back then. He was a captain in the army. That must have been the reason Papa Ngo walked away.
He said I was a devil, a woman no man would ever take into his home; he called me barren, saying that is why I have not got married.
I called him a coward and a bully.
Believe me, though he was bigger than me, I was determined to fight and hit him with everything within reach. Then my military guy would deal with him afterwards.
Anyway, I avoided him so that he wouldn’t take it out on his wife.
One day…as usual, he began his wahala with his wife. I heard the woman struggling to open their door. Their daughters were crying, begging their father to stop hitting their mother.
Mma Ngo ran out. I stood and shook my head. This sight was also getting familiar.
I heard Papa Ngo rush after her…I waited. As soon as he lunged forward, I put out my leg…just ever so slightly.
He flew briefly mid air and landed yakata on the concrete floor! You should see the untidy heap.
I just waka comot!
There was some commotion because he screamed like a girl. Papa Ngo was crying, his head, his arm, his leg…nonsense!
As for me, I did not go to help him, instead I went out to get his wife. By the time I came back, Papa Ngo was still rolling on the floor, screaming for help.
Neighbours peeped, when they saw it was him, they slunk back into their rooms.
Something had broken, as I found out later. Yes he twisted his ankle and dislocated his wrist …the way he landed on the ground. True it wasn’t my intention, but I am glad I tripped him. I thought he would attack me. He did not.
That was the end of Papa Ngo beating his wife.
I think he saw Jesus, like Paul in the Bible on the road to Damascus!
He was taken to the hospital. He came back with plaster of paris on his arm and leg…I don’t know how a small twist would result in plaster of paris.
He spent several weeks at home not going to his shop…but not once did I hear him scream at his wife or beat her…where is the hand he would use to beat her or legs to chase after her?
I never told Mma Ngo what I did. It is between me and God and these pages, today. But the woman was relieved. She blossomed right under my eyes. Her hair grew back…not as long as before, though. She laughed when outside their door.
I began to wish I had tripped the man a lot earlier.
Why am I telling the story?
I just heard the man died…alone. I heard his wife left him ages ago and he had been living by himself, often begging neighbours children to go buy him food from food sellers. He deserved this and worse!
Well, it couldn’t have been the fall that killed him. This incident happened more than 20 years ago…but I am glad the woman is finally free of this monster.
I heard he had probably been dead for three or four days before and stinking out the compound before neighbours forced his door open. I didn’t get the full story of how he died, as I had moved away from that compound years ago.
I am glad Mma Ngo left.
Sometimes, bad things should happen to bad people for a change.