Alhaji Was A Fucking Bitch

Brandy Bawo? Her name is Barakah!

“Ashewoooo!”

“Me, Ashewo?! You, come outside! I will remove that stupid hijab from your head!”

My eyes opened wide behind the windows from where I was peeking. ‘Useless’ and ‘hijab’ in one sentence? My mother would have a heart attack.

I shifted closer to the window and stretched my neck, willing it to grow longer than it was. The tip of my nose was already touching our dusty window net and my eyes darted around rapidly trying to gather as much information as I could before my mother came out of her room.

“You are going to hell!”

I nodded. She was certainly going to hell. Everyone in my house had concluded on that.

“Jahannam is where you are destined for with this rubbish you are doing! You, this demon!”

The voice belonged to Mummy Azeezah, the eldest wife of the Alhaji who lived in the next compound. I couldn’t see her but that voice? I could recognise it anywhere. And so could anyone who had lived on our street for longer than a week.

Mummy Azeezah loved the sound of her own voice and that meant we also had to hear it.

“I say come out first nau! Shrivelled up Iroko tree”

This statement was coming from the ‘demon’ who was bound for hell. And her, I could see.

She was wearing a grey large shirt with hot pink lettering of the word ‘busty’ on her chest. Her thick yellow thighs showed under her shorts, hair in a bonnet and spatula in hand. Her face looked fresh, supple and youthful. She had skin like perfectly ripe mango. The type with juice almost bursting out the soft skin.

I loved looking at her.

---

The first time I saw the demon, she was seated in our living room. I stared at her from behind the kitchen door. She was wearing a black bandage dress that clung to every curve of her body and a scarf that really did nothing to cover her jet black bone-straight wig.

She had come to ‘greet’ my mother with a bowl of piping hot jollof rice and turkey. As she half-heartedly tried to fix the scarf back over her head, it was clear she was fooling no one.

She placed the bowl on the table and my mother’s eyes went straight to the long red acrylic nails. Clearly, she was not a muslim woman. What muslim woman fixes such long ghastly nails? Did she not know her role? Who brings home such a woman? And should Alhaji not be ashamed of himself? Didn’t he know he was a role model in the community?

When she left, my mother made sure to drum it into my brothers’ ears that she was not going to accept such a woman as their wives. My father pointed out that they were 10 and 13 but she asked what that had to do with anything.

He said nothing and she spent 30 more minutes lecturing them on the evils of marrying a demonic woman.

When she finished, I told my mother the demon was the most beautiful woman I ever saw and I got a knock on my head for that stupid observation. We were not supposed to be friends with her or even speak with her.

My father strongly agreed as he wolfed down her jollof and turkey.

I didn’t know her name. I wish I could ask my mum but I was still nursing a headache from her knock and a name was not worth another one.

However, that night, I’d learn the name.

---

“Brandyyyyy”

“Brandyyyyyy”

“Ahhhhhh”

“Brandy. Ma pa mi nauuuu”

I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands and listened again…

“Brandyyyy”

The person continued to say that name. I reached for the torchlight on the floor next to my mattress and switched it on.

“Braaaannndyyyy”

Just at that moment, another voice pierced the air.

“Hasbunallah wa ni’mal-Wakeeeeelllllluuuuuuuuu”

Mummy Azeezah.

Her voice was so loud, it drowned out the moans. In fact, it even seemed to quiet them down.

Until, I heard her voice.

“Alhajiiii”

“Alhajiiii don’t stop! AHHHHH ALHAJI DON’T FUCKING STOP!!!”

“NI’MAL MAULA!”

“ALHAJIII I’M COMING”

“WANI’MAL NASIRRRRUUUUUUUU”

“Hauwa! Go back to bed! NOW!”

That was my mother’s voice. I turned off my torch, laid back in bed and plugged my ears with my fingers. I was beginning to see why my mother had said we were not supposed to talk to Brandy.

She was clearly on the wrong side and was definitely going to hell.

---

The second time I saw Brandy was when Alhaji came to visit. Alhaji almost never came to our house. You see, although my father had built a storey building he was extremely proud of, it was nothing compared to Alhaji’s house.

You could see where Alhaji’s house stopped and ours began.

While ours was only partly completed with paint falling off the walls and withered plants outside the house, Alhaji’s house had fresh flowers sprawled along his newly painted walls and big bright lights lighting up the inside and outside of his house.

Where we had a rusty black makeshift gate, Alhaji’s gate was grand and high, with a huge symbol of the islamic faith welded onto it.

He had four duplexes within his large compound, each one belonging to a wife. The grounds were interlocked with red and white bricks, a fountain that never ran out of water smack in the centre of his compound and a fleet of cars parked next to each duplex.

Alhaji never informed anybody whenever he took a new wife. We just knew whenever we saw a new car frequenting the house. It was either a Lexus or a Mercedes Benz.

Once in a while, we’d see the woman.

Sometimes, they’d come to my mother with a bowl of food to introduce themselves but they never stayed for too long. Many times, I’ve caught them turning up their noses up at our furniture, how dusty our parlour looked or how chunky our tv was.

I don’t know if other people noticed as much as I did but one thing we all silently agreed on was that the hijabs kept getting shorter.

Mummy Azeezah’s hijab reached her ankles.

Umu Khalid’s reached her midriff.

Mummy Ridwan used a turban most times but draped a scarf around her neck.

And Brandy… well Brandyyy…

---

So that day, when Alhaji came to visit with Brandy, it was clear he was coming to undo whatever the fuck she had done the first time she came visiting.

She replaced the form fitting black bandage dress with a shimmery loose black abaya and this time, the scarf stayed firm on her head. Even her bone-staight was nowhere to be seen. She was either not wearing it or it was properly tucked into her scarf.

My mother was almost impressed.

Alhaji chucked and introduced her to my parents. My father’s eyes lingered on the rising and falling of her chest until Alhaji cleared his throat, causing him to look up, embarrassed.

My mother had not seen this, she was focused on Brandy’s anklet.

“This is my new wife”, Alhaji told my parents as I set cans of Malta Guinness in front of them.

“Hi. I’m Brandy”, she waved, as though this was the first time she was visiting.

“Brandy Bawo? Her name is Barakah jare”, Alhaji quickly interrupted.

Alhaji smiled quickly. Brandy followed suit. My father as well. My mother didn’t. Why should she smile at Shaytaan?

Alhaji needed Brandy to be Barakah. He didn’t know what she had earlier introduced herself as but he needed to erase whatever picture she had painted.

This was his new wife. His new muslim wife as we can clearly see from the Abaya and scarf.

To my surprise, he raised the can of malt to his lips. Alhaji who had never eaten or drank anything from our house was gulping down our Malta Guinness?

He truly needed Brandy to be Barakah and more importantly, needed any embarrassing questions we might have, kept to ourselves.

---

Over the next few months, Brandy would drive a Benz, a Range Rover and a Porsche. She’d load suitcases into cars and disappear for a few weeks on holiday. She’d host gatherings in her duplex with women in skimpy clothes trooping in. I’d overhear the women on our street say Brandy used to work in Lagos night clubs where men would tuck money into the bodies of naked women.

“If they were naked, where would the money stay?”, I mistakenly asked once and I got a slap on my mouth for putting my mouth in the affairs of grown women.

I learnt to keep my mouth shut and my ears opened wide.

And they stayed wide open because many nights, Brandy’s name would keep me up but in the morning, nobody would mention it.

One day, Brandy saw me coming back from grinding beans. She gave me a lift while singing along to the song that boomed from the car speakers.

I said certified freak, seven days a week

Wet-ass pussy, make that pullout game weak!

Astaghfirullah

Astaghfirullah

Astaghfirullah

I kept repeating in my head as the speakers continued to pound.

My mother flogged my bottom red that day because I mistakenly said ‘wet ass pussy’ while I was mixing the moimoi.

---

Day Of The Fight

“Come down now. Come and face me! Useless old woman”

Brandy directed her anger at Mummy Azeezah’s duplex. As she moved up and down, her large breasts jumped with her.

“You are lucky Alahji is not around!”, Mummy Azeezah retorted.

It’s important to note that Mummy Azeezah didn’t step out of her duplex. She fought safely from behind her walls.

“And if he was around nko? Foolish woman!”

“I know the man you brought into the house this afternoon! I know you are sleeping with him.”

“Illiterate! You don’t kuku know what it means to have colleagues.”

“So you dress like this in front of your colleagues?!”

The fight was just getting good when Alfa Junaid, our neighbourhood imam, walked into the building.

“Who is shoutin…”, he spotted Brandy, “Subuhanallah! Barakah! Astagafillah! Go and wear cloth! I say get inside!”

“Alfa no now, let her be parading herself naked up and down.”

“Alfa good afternoon…”, Brandy tried to greet him

“I say go and wear cloth!”

Brandy reluctantly walked into her duplex.

Was this the end of the fight for today?

I craned my neck to see if Brandy would be out again.

Nothing.

Fuck Alfa Junaid mehn

---

The following day, I saw a truck carry Brandy’s things out of the house. It was not a holiday because she was wearing big dark shades and sitting at the owner’s corner of a Prado jeep. No emotion showed on her face.

Mummy Azeezah had won the battle. She was dancing in the compound and jubilating. My mother shared in her joy while my dad and I looked forlorn.

Him probably missing her jollof and me, her.

My mother said she had been caught with that ‘colleague’. He had been tucking money into the crevices of her body in a Lagos night club.

YET NOBODY WOULD TELL ME WHERE THEY KEEP PUTTING THIS MONEY ON THEIR BODY.

---

That very night, I heard it.

“Brandyyyy I said sorry.”

“Say it louder!”

“Sorry!”

“Ahhh jor ma pami”

“Pack in back”

“Branndyyyy”

There was no Hasbunallah this time around

We all knew.

Brandy had won the war.

Alhaji was a fucking bitch.

Today’s song on Spotify is Moving On by Asa.