TAG: FICTION, ROMANCE, SERIES
Narrated in point of
view of two main characters…YINKA
and ADAEZE
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YINKA
At first, the droning of the bus and Mama’s voice sounded as
if echoing from miles and miles away between my half sleep and half
consciousness. Then later, her voice was hurting my ears, almost replacing
the cold wind with hot one. I adjusted myself on her big thighs and lifted my
head from the front-seat, to see what the argument was all about.
It was the “molue”
bus conductor. He asked Mama to change the twenty naira note, that it was
soiled and torn in three parts. Mama was still arguing over the fact that the
money collected from the lady across our seat was worse, compared to hers.
“Wetin you dey try talk, woman?” The lady’s voice catapulted
into the air again, “You think say I no hear Yoruba? Na “n’gbati, n’gbati” you
go dey talk scatter everywhere!”
Her voice was so heavy
with Igbo accent. I was unable to see her, because the standing passengers were
huddling together like matchsticks in a pack, in a way that made them assume uneven
shadows of blockade.
Tired of exchanging
Insult with her, Mama threw her attention out of the window, watching the
peaceful landscapes. The conductor had proceeded with the T-fare collection. He
seemed to have given up on Mama’s pathetic naira note.
Perhaps Mama was
trying to tease the conductor that he was too fond of women, the way she always
teased “Man’yi” at home. I grew up to hear Mama calling my father “Man’yi”
(This man), and I was used to calling him by that, without being cautioned. My
father didn’t care anyway. Only occasionally would I call “Daddy mi” (My Dad).
I was the only child before Mama lost her womb, and Man’yi refused to marry
another wife. They seemed to share a true love because, as I later heard, Mama
was close to forty years before God could answer her prayer.
The bus was on Badagry expressway. Sleep rejected my eyes as
I imitated Mama. I was carried away with the trees’ backward movement, running
five times faster than the bus in their hundreds. And I watched the dusts as
they assumed the image of a translucent brown garment spread all over the air. The
wind whooshed and whispered into my ear as the bus succeeded with more speed.
The bus came to a
halt at Agboju bustop. Then a handful of seated passengers alighted, creating a
space for a few standing passengers. It was then I saw her. She was not a lady,
but a fair woman with her daughter on her laps. Her fair daughter was also
staring intently out of the window until her Mum asked her to sit right.
“Janet, you won’t break my legs. Sit properly. Can’t you see
how your mates are sitting?” She said to her in a calm and motherly tone.
As if to confirm and prove her mother wrong, she cautiously
turned her head around, and I saw an enchanting face, which made my heart
jumped like a tennis ball hit hard by a bat. My blood began to boil beyond a
reasonable degree, my eyes under a spell of vision. An angelic vision.
In the process of her survey, her eyes slowly
met with mine, and our eyes gave a spark like two wires that accidentally
joined on the high tension pole. She
hurriedly escaped her eyes, as if she had seen a terrible thing in my eyeballs.
If she was thirteen years old, I supposed. I would be a year older. Her school
uniform was a blue pinafore and white blouse. I wished our eyes would meet again
and again, before departing for our respective destinations. My hope began to sink when she diverted her attention
outside again.
Towards the front aisle, another trouble was brewing between
a young lady and a man among the standing passengers. The lady was complaining
that a man behind her touched her backside. Her short skirt was really tight in
a way that made her butt stand so high like a mountain. The blue skirt and
blouse were made of “aposhe” fabric. The man in question argued that his hand
had gone astray due the sudden decrease of the bus’ speed.
“Na mumu you call me, ehn?” Her voice grew taller as she
confronted the man, who I quickly assumed as a corporate office man, owing to
his white shirt, black trousers and red tie, “You touch my yansh three times
and you say na by mistake. You think say I resemble all those ashawo you dey
carry for road side…and…and…those ones wey you dey fuck for corner for club?
For your information, I be married woman!” Each word had stumbled out of her
throat like a huge stone.
Every ear on the bus had stood up at the mention of “Three
times.”
All the seated passengers adjusted on their seats like court
attendants about to witness a final judgment.
“Haven’t I told you “sorry”, you this lady? Better watch
your tongue!” The man raised his voice and pointed his finger at her face, “I’m
a true man of God. How dare you say I patronize prostitutes and night clubs. Have we ever met before?”
A laugh exploded among the young boys and students on the
bus.
One of them chuckled,
“A man of God…three times. Na wa o.”
And a person muttered something about the lady being a Calabar
tribe.
“Hey, young woman…” a man on black suit in front of us
cleared his throat, “you should not use such a vulgar and detrimental language
where children are present.”
The lady insolently
waved the man off, asserting that her dirty language was not in any way his “palava!”
“Do you know who you are talking to?!” The man made to stand
up, probably to attack her, but was restrained by the old man beside him. “For
crying out loud, this useless girl lacks home training. She is not even up to
my last child! Please, let me deal with her. I will beat you the way I beat my students in
the school!”
“The way you dey beat your wife for house abi!” She retorted,
“We know men like you…blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…Na so so grammar you go dey
blow for your wife if she ask money for soup. You no go fit carry any
responsibility for house. You no go fit train ya children. And you wan come beat
me!” The lady uttered each word with gesticulations and demonstrations that
seemed more awful than her words.
The man shook his head and smirked, then stretched his right
hand in her direction, “Just…just take a good look at yourself. You are carrying
such a catastrophic load behind you, and you still went ahead to wear this kind
of demoralized and abominable wear. And ‘you’ call yourself a married woman? You
are nothing, but a whore. I mean a professional prostitute!”
This time, most of the passengers thundered with laughter. Then
our eyes met again. Janet and I. She smiled in my direction and I smiled back
before she escaped her eyes again, each eyeball was gripping like a magnificent
moon. Her round face was holding full lips and a cute flat nose. Two delicate
perpendicular marks rested on her chin. As much as I could recall, her overall
beauty was beyond explanation. I couldn’t tell if that smile was really meant
for me.
I resumed watching the drama unfolding before me. Unfortunately,
the calabar lady was already at her destination. She continued insulting the
professor even when she alighted. Meanwhile, in between my “busy body”, the Igbo
woman had started scolding her daughter.
“What have you been looking at? I don’t know what you
planted around there, ehn, Adaeze!” She gesticulated in my direction.
That must be her native name. Ugh! I was secretly excited
that she was also staring at me.
When the bus moved on, the thought that I was going to drop
at the next junction dug a deep hole of sorrow in my heart. The possibility
that I wouldn’t see her forever made me blink to hold back my tears, so that
Mama wouldn’t ask why I was crying. Still, I managed to steal another look at
her. Her face was bent down and her eyes seemed to glow red, fluttering and
glistening like ocean-sand under a terrible sun. She seemed to be containing
some tears too.
Then the unwanted time came when Mama shouted: “MAGBON
junction wa o!” after which she said to me: “Adeyinka get up, you are late
already.” And then she adjusted the collar of my school uniform (a pink shirt
and blue shorts.)
That was how I lost her fourteen years back, until yesterday
when I saw her at the company I work. I addressed her by “Madam!” And she stared
at me with these suspicious eyes when the chairman was introducing her to the
staff, as the new executive director of the company.
”And I have to tell you this,” the chairman had pointed out,
“She is my son’s fiancée. Therefore, she is one of the eyes of this company.”
Then a tempest of honour and dignity seemed to envelope her.
She blushed as we all chorused: “You are highly welcome,
Madam!”
It’s not possible for
her to recognize me anyway. And neither am I in the best position to approach
and remind her, since we never exchanged words but strong feelings. Besides, she
is now my big boss! Many prestigious men must have journeyed across her life
before the chairman’s son. Adulthood affections would have washed away
childhood fantasies.
I wouldn’t have discovered
her identity if I didn’t see JANET WILLIAMS ADAEZE on a document the secretary
was typing after the introduction. The lady told me it was her file. The name
rang a bell in my head, which prompted me to observe her chin the next minute I
saw her. I was so devastated on seeing those two marks fading into her smooth
skin.
“What a small world….” was the statement I mumbled.
I have barely closed my eyes since last night. The “molue”
bus scenario wouldn’t stop haunting me, as though it was yesterday. My mind
keeps swinging between the past Janet and the present one.
Now, the time says 4:37am on the bedside clock. The bed gives
a gentle creak as I turn cautiously, so as not to wake Adeola whose head is
lying on my bare chests. In our school days at LASPOTECH, Adeola and I once
planned to get married and have our first child under any condition, until last
week. She insisted that I have to leave this single room and relocate to a flat
apartment before she could spare any pregnancy.
When I asked: “Where do you want me to get money for a
self-contain this time around, Deola?”
“You better find a
better job or else!” She had nagged, after telling me about some of my school
friends who were living in luxury, despite my own first class upper in business
management.
“Come on, most of these guys dey into YAHOO things now,” I
voiced out, “Mama always warned me against fraud….”
The argument went on
like that for almost an hour. I wonder what has suddenly come over her. How do
I fulfill such a dream from my forty thousand naira salary? For how many months
would I gather such amount?
“Hmmmn…” My chest heaves with a long sigh.
Not this time when Mama urgently needs a grandson, to heal
her wounded heart. Ever since Daddy died
of cancer six years back, Mama hasn’t been herself. She had sold all her cloths
and Daddy’s junk Taxi to sponsor my tertiary education, after which she moved
to Ibadan, her hometown. How then would I prolong my precious mother’s life?
****
ADAEZE
To be continued…. (in Adaeze's point of view)
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