Useful quotes from Buchi Emecheta's Kehinde


Collected by Terence Rajivan Edward (apologies for typing errors)
Date: 2024


Chapter 1
In fact, Albert was only being realistic, since Kehinde earned more than he did. It was because of her position in the bank that they had been able to get a mortgage. But a good wife was not supposed to remind a husband of such things. When Kehinde said 'your house', she was playing the role of the 'good' Nigerian woman. Conversely, when he said 'our house', he was being careful not to upset her. After almost sixteen years of marriage, they played this game without thinking. (4)


Chapter 3
Others came in, who, in the English manner, did not bother to say 'Good morning', except for Prahbu, a man they called 'India' even though he came from Pakistan, who greeted all the other storekeepers and went straight to the tea machine. (13)


'I didn't know that Hindus drank tea. You're the first I've seen.' John was at his jokes again.
        'I am not a Hindu, you know that,' Prahbu said, laughing. John had always said this since he had realized that it annoyed Prahbu at the beginning of their association. Not only that, but John had soon realized that calling him 'India' was even more annoying. Prahbu, however, soon got wise, and learnt to react with humour, which took the sting out of John's spite. (14)
 
Chapter 4
Albert bent down and gave her a moist kiss on the cheek. Kehinde felt it was a show for the watching nurse. Kissing, after all, was not part of their culture. (24)


Chapter 5
She had an educated voice. Though she was young, there was no doubt that she was in control as soon as she opened her mouth. (25)


Chapter 6
He had never before refused to comfort Kehinde when she needed it. She felt like a boat adrift on a stormy night, lashed by the winds. Albert could not help her. How could he? She was alone, in spite of what they said about marriage being two people in one. It could not mean the same to him that the child she had just flushed away was her father coming back. Albert's imagination could not carry him that far. She glanced at Albert as if he were a new person, his profile clear against the window of the car. He had nothing to offer her. (33)


Chapter 7
Prahbu, however, though well acquainted with the privileges of the traditional male, remained sceptical about their relevance to men like himself and Albert. He objected, 'I know what you mean, but that type of life is not possible here, in a country where a woman is Queen and where it's beginning to look as if we're going to have a woman Prime Minister. The trouble starts when women get educated, and now it's too late to change back again.' (35-36)


He noticed that white people felt honoured to be invited, whereas in Nigeria people feel that when they come to you, they are honouring you. So the host feels gratified when his invitations are accepted. (36-37)


He actually envied Kehinde and Mariammo the spontaneity of their relationship. They were never afraid of making mistakes and they seemed to forgive each other very quickly. Where would he find a man he could talk to like that? (37)


In the course of the evening, she changed clothes ten times, as rich men's wives did in Nigeria, to advertise their wealth and boost the ego of the man of the house. Albert, who, like Kehinde, had grown up in Lagos, loved to look expensive. (37)


Among the guests was Mary Elikwu, who, with her husband, was a former friend of Albert and Kehinde. Mary had recently left her husband because, she claimed, he beat her. She had taken her six children with her. To the men in their circle, she was a curiosity, to the women, a kind of challenge. To Kehinde she was a fallen woman who had no sense of decorum. Kehinde was going to forget to invite her, but Albert had announced the party at their local Igbo family meeting. When Mary Elikwu approached Kehinde at the party, Kehinde became rigid. Mary, who was a university graduate and known to disapprove of overdressing, started to finger the coral beads. She commented, 'One would have thought you are just getting married.' (38)


Chapter 8
Have you forgotten that in Nigeria it's considered manly to be unfaithful? (46)


Many black men could not stand routine for long, and they reacted more violently to the inevitable racism than women. (48)


Chapter 9
If he had been white and could have looked after himself properly, he would not have bothered with marriage at all. But his mother would not hear of such an abomination. Somebody had you so you must give birth to someone else, the world goes round that way. (54)


Moriammo persisted. She forced herself on him. She threatened not to cook for him. But she only succeeded when she threatened to write to her people telling them that her husband was impotent. Potency is an essential attribute of the Nigerian man, and Tunde would do anything to establish his virility and avoid the humiliation of his wife going about saying 'he no fit do nothing in bed.' (54-55)


Moriammo had thought that because Albert was a Christian, he could be relied on to treat Kehinde with respect. (55)


The result was that he banned her from visiting Kehinde, with a series of unanswerable questions. What were they doing that they forgot his child's pram? What was Moriammo, a good Muslim wife, doing at all, with a woman who had sent all her family away so she could have a good time? Any man could go to her now, had Moriammo thought of that? What would Olumide think of her when he grew up? (56)


Chapter 10
He could not know that Kehinde's mind had gone back to the lavish farewell party they had thrown for Albert's departure: the food, the clothes, the music... It seemed to have happened centuries ago, but it was barely two years. She was amazed at how short people's memories were. She had been a generous hostess to their friends, but where were those friends now?
        It seemed that without Albert, she was a half-person. (59)


In Nigeria, calling a slightly older woman Mummy was a term of endearment, showing that the person so addressed was as dear as one's own mother, but here in London, it rattled Kehinde. Why had Amaka just started calling her that? It was out of place in an environment where anything connected with getting old was taboo. (59)


And Tunde did not approve of women dressing up just to go to the market to buy meat and okro. Kehinde recalled his joke: 'Okro and meat no mind the way you look!' (59)


Even though Kehinde had worked with him for over ten years, Arthur never called her by her full name, making light of his failure to pronounce it correctly. Now she could see that he was poking fun at her. 'You're probably going home to have a baby, like your friend,' he continued.
        'I'm going back to my country. What's wrong with that? I never intended to settle here permanently,' Kehinde countered, suppressing the knowledge that, apart from her immediate family, she had been away too long for her absence to matter to anyone. (62)


Chapter 11
He looked more imposing than the London Albert in flowing white lace agbada and matching skull cap. His skin was darker and glossier, and he exuded a new confidence. Women knew the country did this to their men. There was no doubt about it, Albert was thoroughly at home. (66)


You are not going out there shouting his given name as if he is your houseboy; as if you circumcised him. (70)


There are many ways of catching a fish, and Rike used the cleverest. She met Albert when he was low, with neither job nor accommodation, and presented herself as a ministering angel, even taking him to church. (74)


She caught sight of Albert once or twice, at the centre of proceedings, ordering drinks, seeing to the music, and accepting compliments on behalf of his senior wife. He was remote and distant, as though tradition had put a wedge between them, just as it had apparently between him and Joshua, or Joshua would have protested. He must have learned quickly that here a father was to be respected. Kehinde's heart went out to her children for the adjustments they had had to make. (75)


It was a long time before Kehinde was allowed to leave the party, and she was exhausted. She fell at once into a deep sleep, visited by fragments of the past, as if, in her depleted state, her spirit was seeking solace in its beginnings. (76)


Chapter 12
The men murmured and one of them exclaimed, 'Have you ever heard such rubbish? Children of the same father calling each other "half". No wonder the white people's country is a place of everybody for himself.' They all laughed again. I never heard such laughter. (80)


Albert's attitude was that polygamy was degrading for women, which he based on his own experience with his father's two wives. I therefore thought we were of the same mind on the matter. (84)


Chapter 13
They say that women talk a lot, but many years with Albert had taught her that she reached him more by being silent, and she had perfected this art, letting him talk while she half-listened. (89)


Her happiness increased when Joshua and Bimpe appeared, tall, healthy and behaving like respectful Nigerian children. At least for them, the move had been a good one... Kehinde was both relieved that they had adjusted with apparently so little trauma, and confirmed in her opinion that there was no place for her in the family. The circle had closed in her absence, and she did not have the strength to fight her way back in. (91)


Chapter 14
I have been for several interviews, but as we suspected, they want younger people. When they are liberal enough to employ a woman, they want a younger one, with certificates. Unless I condescend to be a secretary, and even for that, I am not qualified. So stay with your job. Experience? No one talks of experience here. You must produce certificates or perish. (94)


She even felt nostalgia for the wet stinking body-smell of the underground. (96)


Chapter 15
Grace's behaviour was simply a reflection of her employers' attitude towards Kehinde, and indicated the low esteem in which she was held in the household. She was the senior wife, the been-to madam, but she did not work and she had no influence over Albert. The servants saw this, and treated her with barely concealed insolence. (98) 


Chapter 16
A mischievous grin lit Ifeyinwa's pinched face. For the first time, Kehinde glimpsed the spirit trapped behind the veneer of tradition. (106)


Chapter 17
If she could not bring her sister back, she would make Rike's stay in Albert's house like sitting bare bottom on a chair smeared with red hot pepper, like having a piece of bone lodged in the throat, unable to swallow or spit it out. (110)


Rike's head was bent to one side, a picture of theatrical sorrow. Had Ifenyiwa's mission not been so important, she would have burst out laughing. She had seen such scenes played out many times in her own household, where she was an old hand at the game of sharing her husband with another woman. Compared to her, Rike was a novice. (111)


Chapter 20
The sheikh was old enough to be her father. Kehinde could tell from her tired eyes and her sometimes awkward movements that this was a young girl being obliged to cope with frequent sexual demands. (130)


Ifeyinwa had said that she was the most unconventional woman she had ever met, walking out of her marriage simply because her husband had taken another wife. She argued that if every woman left for such a trivial reason, there would be few marriages left, but Ifeyinwa had not travelled out of the country of their birth. (135)


Chapter 21
Kehinde looked at her son, and saw the gangling youth he had become. He felt he had the answer to the world's problems, having been to Africa, where young men were made to feel they owned heaven and earth. (137)


Reference
Emecheta, B. 1994. Kehinde. London: Heinemann.