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“Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”—Nietzsche 

Yẹ̀lú had always said it was my laugh. The deep belly chortle, almost masculine sound that I’d grown to abhor throughout childhood before evolving into an indifference about it in adulthood. Yẹ̀lú had described it as poetic–as distinct and embodying everything that made me beautiful to him, its lyrical quality singing the anthems of my persona unabashed. He was always quick to remind me, many years later, that it was this simple laugh that had reeled him in permanently. Helplessly. 

I’d been out at a karaoke bar with Zara–who refused to be called anything resembling the fullness of her traditional name, Chizaram–when I noticed him. There had been something alluring about him, which he would come to later joke as him wearing the fullness of the presence of God.  His gaze had been intense, almost domineering as he sat in the far corner watching Zara and I drunkenly belt out off-beat lyrics to Falling Apart in commiseration of another one of Zara’s failed situationships. It had been the pressure of that feverish, possessive gaze, piercing through the layers of my skin and searing itself into all my senses that drew me to him. He’d lifted the pint glass with frothy brown liquid to his lips, eyes never leaving mine, those deep black orbs oscillating between my eyes and my lips–as though trailing the journey of the song lyrics from the crevices of my soul to its outpouring from my lips. There had been something about Yẹ̀lú that demanded my full attention. His presence was inescapable as though he was the only thing that mattered, that made sense, our realities merging to orbit around one potent truth: that somehow all the forces in the universe had conspired to force this meeting. 

“You know, I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to up and leave,” Zara’s voice had bled through my consciousness when the song was over, her chest heaving from the exhaustion of dancing across the bar when we screamed with the force our lungs could muster. I’d turned to her, intent on feigning oblivion at her words. She’d lifted her eyebrow and rolled her eyes, a step ahead of me as she up nodded towards where Yẹ̀lú had sat. “He’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous,” She’d shrugged, slinkering ahead of me before turning to wink at me. “If you decide to leave with him, I wouldn’t blame you.” And with that she’d sauntered ahead, blending with the kaleidoscope of bright lights and darkness in front of us. 

He’d been the one to take that first step minutes after Chizaram had left. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard any Michael Schulte song being yelled that way in my life,” had been his first words to me, a deep baritone voice with a soothing quality to it that seemed to sate the hidden romantic in me. He’d towered over me, leaning against the bar table I’d had my back to, holding my gaze in that enigmatic way I’d come to define him by. 

“Then you’ve probably never met a hardcore Schulte fan before,” I’d responded smugly, leaning just slightly closer to him. It was easy to pretend I’d closed the gap so he could hear me better, but the blatant reason was some desperate need to mould myself into his space. To breathe his scent–an unusual combination of lavender and sandalwood that seemed to work–and watch the way his words slipped out from his lips. 

“I haven’t met loads of those before, forgive me,” He murmurs conclusively, his voice like a soft caress in how it forcibly raises goosebumps from the bed of my skin. “And Nigerian from your accent I believe?” There had been an odd disbelief in his tone, head tilting back to watch my face for confirmation. 

I’d nodded in response, mimicking his posture before continuing. “Tòròmádé. But only my father ever calls me the full thing.” 

He’d lifted an eyebrow as his tone descended into flirtation. “And what do men who want to rock your world, men who want to own you, call you?” Breath hot against my cheek, there had been something about those very words–whispered in contrast to the rowdiness of the bar around us, the intentionality wrapped around them and the way it evoked a myriad of feelings I’d refused to name–that had drawn me in. Helplessly. 

Tòrò. Call me Tòrò, everything inside me had begged but chosen to stay silent as he murmured his name. Akinyẹ̀lú, but I want you to call me Yẹ̀lú. We’d been the only ones in that very moment, the universe a witness to the sacredness of the feelings we’d evoked in each other. 

We’d spent the rest of the night in deep intellectual conversation about music, the arts and societal rot. He was quick to tell me that even though he was the son of a popular church founder, he’d cultivated his own sense of life and values, his words desperate to convince me of his radicality in an era of religious fanaticism. And even though I had reservations about the fact that his father’s dream was for him to take over the ministry, everything about who he was, somehow endeared me to him. My favourite thing about him was the delicateness of the love he poured out. It was glaring in the way he spoke about his parents, his father who made it a point to call every day, ending each conversation with a soft I love you, and his mother who he seemed to admire but also worry needlessly about. Yẹ̀lú was both an enigma and an open book and perhaps it was the very thought of someone like him being a permanent fixture in my life that demanded me to cling desperately to him. 

“Let me take you out, Tòròmádé. Properly this time.” Yẹ̀lú had uttered at the end of the night of coquetry, of trading glances with his intention written in its very fibre. There had been something quietly possessive about his tone, which–in ways I would later come to question–I found intoxicating, drawing me deeper into everything he’d been offering. The way his hands tightened around my waist, tightly gripping the lower parts of my body, eyes refusing to release their hold on me until I murmured a breathy yes. He was a perfect mix of control and spontaneity, appealing to the latent parts of me that had grown up seeing dominance in relationships as only a good thing. 

So, I’d said yes. To Yẹ̀lú and the love he was bent on outpouring. To a lifetime of the entirety of Yẹ̀lú. Most especially the cruel parts. 

*

My husband, Yẹ̀lú, has the distinct habit of capturing the attention of people as though he’s the only one in whatever room he walks into. It is this same skill—the art of captivation he’s so skillfully mastered—that endears nearly everyone in the hall to him in this moment as he moves. His smile is perfected, eerily similar to his father, the infamous Megachurch pastor Reverend Fẹ́nimí. From the apt angling of his lips to the concise baring of his teeth–not too widely that it would appear he was a doormat but not too close-mouthed to appear unkind. It was that smile that coloured his father’s face that first day when Yẹ̀lú introduced us, dismissal and revulsion heavy in Fẹ́nimí’s eyes as he took in the array of piercings lining my left lobe, down to the butterfly tattoo at the base of my wrists when he shook me, before smiling that plastic resigned smile at me as he greeted me. It is this caricature of a smile that Yẹ̀lú now wears as armour, walking around the minimally decorated wedding hall, greeting church members, uni old friends and random acquaintances the moment we enter. 

“Baby, remember we can’t be here for too long,” I remind him when he registers the presence of Prophet Emenike and Ministers Terwase–global evangelists who insisted that the prefixes Daddy and Mummy be added before reference to them in any public gathering. Yẹ̀lú’s attention is preoccupied, and it is easy to deduce that my words have flown over his head when he nods distractedly and jets off in their direction, wearing his cloak of captivation and this same smile. The Fẹ́nimísmile, this possession by a mad spirit like I’m fond of reminding him because Yẹ̀lú had only adopted it the year we moved back to Lagos, and he took over the operations of his father’s church. There was a plethora of things Yẹ̀lú had embodied since taking over Revelation Worship Centre in the first year of our marriage upon our return. It had been an almost abrupt change, a sharp contrast to the unconfined way he wore his faith back in Coventry that for a moment I thought I’d entered an alternate reality. Yẹ̀lú had become a mimicry of his father, from the way he carried himself down to how he spoke, perfecting a tone that closely resembled his father’s, a feat Fẹ́nimí was quick to remind me of with glee in his eyes. From the way Yẹ̀lú would carry himself with a forced aura of transcendence as though God had by himself, come down to entrust him with an all-powerful, indispensable message. How he’d suddenly adopted the habit of ending every statement with according to the will of God, lips tilted in that same eerie smile. The same smile that I now recognised as subtly manifesting itself in the earlier parts of our relationship. 

“Daddy, Mummy, Prophet,” Yẹ̀lú’s voice breaks through my reminiscing as I take in the presence of the Prophet and the married Ministers. Pretentious men and women who loved to assert a domineering yet condescending type of intelligence about a thing. It was the best way I could think to describe them and the congregation they lorded over. The kinds of people who defined religion in terms of the confined lives they had grown up in. Blessed are the poor, Blessed are the meek, the ones who take it on the chin when persecuted and bruised. I’d listened to several messages pouring from their respective churches that they all seemed to bleed into each other, tone, delivery and content all the same that it would be useless to attempt distinguishing one from the other. They were the kinds of people Yẹ̀lú and I, for the better part of our short-lived dating, seemed to have dissimilar opinions about. 

“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of properly introducing my wife to you.” He finishes off, placing his hand behind my back in a way that is more threatening than loving. “Meet the beautiful Tòròmádé. Tòrò, meet Daddy and Mummy Terwase and Prophet Emenike in the flesh…” His voice tapers off as my attention is held by his expression. 

That same smile, that maddening spirit. 

*

 It had been this same spirit, a possession by a force stronger than will or self-control, that had overtaken him a year after we’d gotten married. Sat at the dining table, after he’d mistakenly burnt the native rice, I’d asked him to warm, a quick joke about how I’d send him back to his father’s house the next time it happened and Yẹ̀lú had thrown me to the floor. It had been quick and sharp, this mad spirit that overwhelmed him that night of our first anniversary, that for the first moments afterwards I’d convinced myself that I dreamt it all up. Yet pain gripped my lower belly–the result from hit after hit after hit until I’d become a bloodied mess. As the evidence of his demonic possession spilled onto the beige ceramic tiles and the baby we’d been elated to welcome flowed out lifeless, I’d sunken to the floor in hopes of gathering her back into me and the reality of Yẹ̀lú became clearer. The earth of my womb had bled unendingly in the aftermath, as he wept. He’d cried in a way that stunned me, in ways that left me muted to my own pain. 

It was distinct, his tears, because Yẹ̀lú was not the type of man to cry at the slightest provocation. It’s unmasculine, unbecoming of me as a man, he would blurt out with a misguided sense of conviction whenever he saw videos online of men crying silent tears. So, his tears were as rare as an eclipse, but the moments they were eked out from his tear ducts I held sacredly. Yẹ̀lú had cried on our wedding day. It wasn’t calculated–we’d spent the days leading up to the occasion mindlessly laughing at videos with the crying groom as the lead, throwing subtle teasing threats warning the other never to do such–yet, in his words, they were unavoidable emotions as he’d watched me walk up to him, gaze heavy with the weight of all the emotions I had for him. There had been something about the way he seemed to lose possession of self, dabbing desperately at his cheeks while grinding his jaw as though begging the tears to stop their descent, that seemed to convince me of the depth of his feelings. How unshakeable and sturdy they were. Unwavering in its stance, like there was nothing in life that could convince me otherwise. Yẹ̀lú loved me in the most profound ways, I’d assured myself. 

I’d laughed at the absurdity of it all–watching him crumble, me comforting his shivering form shrivelled in my arms as painful tears streaked down my cheeks, holding myself together from the shock and deep betrayal from the very action. After what had felt like an eternity, of mumbling silent prayers to God to restore my child, of comforting Yẹ̀lú where ironically, I was the one who needed comforting, Yẹ̀lú finally spoke. 

“I don’t know what came over me, baby, I swear it wasn’t intentional,” He’d mumbled brokenly, arms curling around mine, eyes shining with the depth of what I’d thought to be remorse. Over and over again, muttering those words until they became an anthem, his attempt to soothe my anger. He’d refused to allow me to speak, instead dominating the silence in the night with words about his father. About what he’d grown up seeing, words intent on justifying instead of reflecting. Reminders of nurture, about the normalisation of torture he’d grown up seeing. Words reminding me that he was similar to his father, the great Reverend Fẹ́nimí. Too similar, in fact, scarily similar, he would caveat, his voice taking a frightening lilt, tone dripping with proud humility as if he couldn’t help how things were, yet at the same time, as though the revelation of this quite frankly absurd fact, terrified him. The way he would utter those words had been too reminiscent of his mother’s words, almost an echo of the words she’d whispered to me during the Sunday Thanksgiving the day after our wedding. 

“I hope you will endure with Yẹ̀lú.” She’d recognised the confusion in my expression that day because she leaned further into me, her vanilla scent overpowering my rationality as she continued. “When Yẹ̀lú introduced you the first time, I didn’t think you had an enduring spirit.” She’d glanced in the direction of her husband who stood with Yẹ̀lú by his side before continuing. “A virtuous woman builds her home. She stays and prays and endures, and through her resilience, she keeps her home. I hope you are a virtuous woman.” 

We weren’t close, nothing warranted the subtext of familiarity in her words, yet in the true fashion of a ‘concerned’ Nigerian woman and a mother-in-law who knew better, she’d given her piece of advice. I’d found it odd that she had used rather gloomy words to describe marriage. Resilience. Endurance. As though marriage was a thing of hardship. A thing to be suffered through, an adversity that needed to first be overcome before character and persona were built. I’d found it odd, her framing of marriage in the language of war–as if the words ‘wife’ carried with it a duty to withstand an unbearable burden without rebuttal. As if the primary role of wives in marriage was to be saddled with the asinine responsibility of managing the inadequacies of their male partners and then crushed under the guilt of not doing enough to stroke their egos. She stays and prays. I didn’t come into the fullness of her words until that night of our first anniversary. 

“I killed our baby. I killed our child,” He’d whispered over and over, rocking back and forth as a cocktail of regret and remorse morphed in his tone to fully assure me that this madness was a first and only. 

*

My son’s father is fond of reminding everyone that he is just exactly that–a father of a son, as though the mere fact that we’d had a boy over a girl was something worthy of a trophy. Not the fact that we’d had a child at all, he’d be quick to caveat, but that I’d given him a son. His ultimate dream. 

“Daddy Bolu,” His mother had shouted from the opposite end of the hall to garner his attention. I watched how his chest seemed to puff wider and higher like a car tyre being pumped full of air, head raised higher with pride at the fact that he was a father to a boy. In the months after that initial madness overtook him the night of our first anniversary, Yẹ̀lú had been the perfect husband. Too perfect in fact, that it made me wary. And when the same madness overtook him a year later, claiming child after child after child, the part of me that no longer anticipated perfection from Yẹ̀lú was sated. It didn’t make any sense to the rational parts of me, because I had sworn never to be like my mother who had suffered at the hands of my now-deceased father. Yet it was the same woman who’d taught me the importance of enduring Yẹ̀lú. That everything that was happening was perhaps a consequence of the willing perversions of my youth back in Coventry. So, when my marriage began inching closer to its third anniversary with no child, my mother’s words returned. 

“Have twins.” My mother had said that day she’d come over, complaining of the noiseless state of our house. “One of each.” The one boy, one girl, very silent, but loud in the way she punctuated each word with heavy subtext. “You’ll be happy,” She’d finished off very self-assuredly, as though I–by the very virtue of being a woman–had the supernatural ability to procure conception and determine the gender of my child at will. And when I had laughed, pacifying her with reminders that it was God who determined whether or not I would have children, she had warned me to never speak in such a manner, like those who did not have faith. 

“We’re people of faith, Tòròmádé. We pray, we believe and we receive.” And then her voice would descend into a whisper as though conveying a secret, even though I knew the direction she was headed. “And about that matter you told me about…” 

“What matter, mummy?” I knew what she was referring to, but I needed her to say the words. It was interesting, the knowing avoidance of talking about such a brutal thing within faith circles, covering them up as domestic matters and family disputes. It was as though she was afraid that giving name to the very thing would make it more real. And so, she carried on that way, subtly emphasising that these were things never to be spoken aloud, instead a matter to be dealt with in the closet of prayer. 

“You know that thing now…have you been praying about it?” 

I’d rolled my eyes not at her, but from the fatigue of hearing the word prayer. Pray about this. Take it to God in prayer. I’d once asked her when I was 19–and sick of the way she willingly allowed her suffering in the hands of my father–what the effect of her prayers was. “What did your prayers change, mummy?” Her response had been simple and curt, but her words had held the weight of her conviction. “They taught me to endure.”

“Daddy Bolu, e bo si bi, jo.” Please. Yẹ̀lú’s mother’s beckon draws my attention to where she stands. It was almost laughable the way his mother deferred to him with her words, as though she too had become frightened of the man her son had turned out to be. Yet the more my mind lingered on their interaction, the more sense it made. The way Yẹ̀lú seemed to nurse a subtle contempt for his mother in any interaction they had as if she had been the sole cause of the madness his father had passed on to him. The way a crippling disgust began crawling on his face months after we’d returned to Lagos, and he began filling his father’s shoes in Revelation Worship Centre. The concealed pride I’d been able to pick out from his features whenever his mother would cower at Reverend Fẹ́nimí’s ire. There was something about Yẹ̀lú that had now become a far cry from the man I’d met five years in that local bar in Coventry that made me question my perception of people. 

Yẹ̀lú’s mother holds his attention for minutes, and I can see the loud way he wears his denigration from the disinterest on his face to the way he seems to discard whatever it is she says, as if she no longer held importance to him now that she had completed her job of raising him. She takes it all good-naturedly, nearly cowering in mislaid respect for her son and acquiescence to his authority as her spiritual head. I can tell he revels in this; it is perhaps why he treats her in this very way. 

And a part of me wonders if this is what fate–the universe who seemed keen on forcing us together–had written for me. Whether in true fashion from my mother’s words, his mother’s advice and the reality of a man like Yẹ̀lú, this was the life I was meant to exist in, one I could only ever exist in with resigned acceptance.