A modern fable about the redeeming power of love
As I listened to the audiobook Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, I tried to imagine what kind of steroidal fueled drama the “Housewives of” franchise could create if polygamy and overbearing extended family in a Nigerian setting were thrown into the mix; I’m guessing it might have been something like this novel. The darkly complex story, punctuated by comical moments is told almost like an instructional fable on the redeeming power of love.
The period in which Stay with Me takes place is during a time of great upheaval in Nigeria, when it experienced two military coups, followed by an attempt in the 90s to elect the Social Democratic Party, only to have the election annulled by the general installed during the second coup, prompting the US to suspend aid. During this period Wole Soyinka won the 1986 Nobel Prize for literature (the first African laureate), later fleeing Nigeria in late ‘94. Six months later another playwright and Nobel Prize nominee, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged with 8 others by the government.
The nation’s dissonance is mirrored by the modern couple, Yejide and Akin, who struggle with infertility within the context of a traditional and overbearing extended family pressuring them to produce the next generation that will honor each of their fathers, and ensure the family’s legacy going forward. Yejide’s mother in law Moomi’s impatient rants ironically are some of the funniest scenes in the book.
At one point a beauty salon acquaintance tells Yejide she (and others) had received an anonymous letter requesting them to prepare a package of money (enough to buy a car) for thugs who indicate a future collection visit. Yejide, who also received one believes it is a prank, “This was long before that kind of thing became a regular occurrence. I could not imagine then that one day in Nigeria thieves would be bold enough to write letters so that victims could prepare for their attacks. That one day they would sit in living rooms after raping women and children, and ask people to prepare pounded yam and egusistew while they watched movies on VCRs that they would soon disconnect and cart away.”
Throughout the marriage Akin is less than forthcoming with Yejide about things of importance, and at one point contemplates “...what would be left of love without the truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?” And therein lies the problem. At one point he thinks, “The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones that others will remember.”
Yejide later thinks, “...my marriage had been built around a lie. In spite of it all, I was convinced that Akin loved me, and because love was supposed to be the test that brought out the best in us, I told myself that my husband would soon come to me and explain himself...it was hard to accept that he would keep up his deceit for the rest of our lives...sometimes faith is easier than doubt.”
Years later after a particularly egregious episode involving her husband Akin and brother in law Dotun, Yejide slowly gives over much of the care of their youngest child Rotimi to her husband Akin. At one point she thinks, “I was not strong enough to love when I could lose again.” After a visit to her father’s youngest favorite wife, Iya Abike, she boards a bus amidst the turmoil and rioting after the result of a state election is reversed by the ruling general. She is apprehensive about the future, and thinks about her past, “It would take a while for me to realize that each of my children had given me as much as they took, my memories of them, bittersweet and constant, were as powerful as a physical presence, and because of that as the bus bore me into a city I did not know while...the country was unravelling, I was not afraid because I was not alone.”
The most powerful and moving scene in the book is when Yejide gives voice to a feeling many experience who face years of infertility amidst family and friends constantly battering them about their plans for a baby, “I understand how a word others use everyday can be something whispered in the dark to sooth a wound that just won’t heal. I remember thinking I would never hear it spoken without unraveling a little, wondering if I would ever get to say it in the light. How I recognize the gift in this simple pronouncement, the promise of a beginning in this one word. ‘Will you please say it again? Call me that again,’ I ask, grateful that my child will not have to settle for a substitute. My daughter draws me into her arms, ‘Moomi,’ her voice is soft and tremulous. I shut my eyes as one receiving a benediction. Inside me something unfurls. Joy spreads through my being, unfamiliar yet unquestioned, and I know that this too is a beginning, a promise of wonders to come.” With a simple act of love and forgiveness, wounds that refused to heal are mended, and a family that had once disappeared, is whole again.
The period in which Stay with Me takes place is during a time of great upheaval in Nigeria, when it experienced two military coups, followed by an attempt in the 90s to elect the Social Democratic Party, only to have the election annulled by the general installed during the second coup, prompting the US to suspend aid. During this period Wole Soyinka won the 1986 Nobel Prize for literature (the first African laureate), later fleeing Nigeria in late ‘94. Six months later another playwright and Nobel Prize nominee, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged with 8 others by the government.
The nation’s dissonance is mirrored by the modern couple, Yejide and Akin, who struggle with infertility within the context of a traditional and overbearing extended family pressuring them to produce the next generation that will honor each of their fathers, and ensure the family’s legacy going forward. Yejide’s mother in law Moomi’s impatient rants ironically are some of the funniest scenes in the book.
At one point a beauty salon acquaintance tells Yejide she (and others) had received an anonymous letter requesting them to prepare a package of money (enough to buy a car) for thugs who indicate a future collection visit. Yejide, who also received one believes it is a prank, “This was long before that kind of thing became a regular occurrence. I could not imagine then that one day in Nigeria thieves would be bold enough to write letters so that victims could prepare for their attacks. That one day they would sit in living rooms after raping women and children, and ask people to prepare pounded yam and egusistew while they watched movies on VCRs that they would soon disconnect and cart away.”
Throughout the marriage Akin is less than forthcoming with Yejide about things of importance, and at one point contemplates “...what would be left of love without the truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?” And therein lies the problem. At one point he thinks, “The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones that others will remember.”
Yejide later thinks, “...my marriage had been built around a lie. In spite of it all, I was convinced that Akin loved me, and because love was supposed to be the test that brought out the best in us, I told myself that my husband would soon come to me and explain himself...it was hard to accept that he would keep up his deceit for the rest of our lives...sometimes faith is easier than doubt.”
Years later after a particularly egregious episode involving her husband Akin and brother in law Dotun, Yejide slowly gives over much of the care of their youngest child Rotimi to her husband Akin. At one point she thinks, “I was not strong enough to love when I could lose again.” After a visit to her father’s youngest favorite wife, Iya Abike, she boards a bus amidst the turmoil and rioting after the result of a state election is reversed by the ruling general. She is apprehensive about the future, and thinks about her past, “It would take a while for me to realize that each of my children had given me as much as they took, my memories of them, bittersweet and constant, were as powerful as a physical presence, and because of that as the bus bore me into a city I did not know while...the country was unravelling, I was not afraid because I was not alone.”
The most powerful and moving scene in the book is when Yejide gives voice to a feeling many experience who face years of infertility amidst family and friends constantly battering them about their plans for a baby, “I understand how a word others use everyday can be something whispered in the dark to sooth a wound that just won’t heal. I remember thinking I would never hear it spoken without unraveling a little, wondering if I would ever get to say it in the light. How I recognize the gift in this simple pronouncement, the promise of a beginning in this one word. ‘Will you please say it again? Call me that again,’ I ask, grateful that my child will not have to settle for a substitute. My daughter draws me into her arms, ‘Moomi,’ her voice is soft and tremulous. I shut my eyes as one receiving a benediction. Inside me something unfurls. Joy spreads through my being, unfamiliar yet unquestioned, and I know that this too is a beginning, a promise of wonders to come.” With a simple act of love and forgiveness, wounds that refused to heal are mended, and a family that had once disappeared, is whole again.
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