TAGS: FICTION, ROMANCE,
SERIES
Janet
stands still, like a stone figure; her face is terribly blank, eyes wide.
Right
here, my spines wobble within me, from a cold shiver. A two-month Pregnancy?
The question probes my mind.
Silence has
crash-landed upon the room; like the one at the funeral of a young deceased. I
can’t deny the fact that we had lot of raw affairs. But she would wash them
with pills. I can’t remember vividly the last.... No. I think I can remember. Yes.
Before she left, it was over two months when she started requesting me to always
protect my sword before any battle.
I shake my
head. Then frame my jaw with my hand, smile, turning at the wall.
In a matter of seconds, I turn back, sigh and
face Adeola whose head has been dropped back.
With a
cool apologetic tone, I begin, “Baby, you should have told me this when Baba
was here....I don’t know you’re carrying my baby. I’m so sorry. Two months, you
call it?”
She lifts her head. Her cloudy face is
starting to brighten up.
“Yes, two
months,” She mutters, nodding.
Then I bend over her, supporting my hand on
the wall, “And you have confirmed from a doctor. He assured you that it’s only two months….”
“Yes, I
did,” she nods, innocently, again.
I stand upright, turning back to look at Janet
who seems completely lost; dummy-faced.
I return my gaze on Adeola.
“Get up
from that place,” I say in a low, controlled voice.
Looking at my face, her eyes glint with
confusion.
“I said get
UP, now!” I boom as loud as a gunshot in the midnight, so that even Janet is rocked
back on her feet.
Adeola is
standing slowly, trembling, “But, but, y...you….”
“But
what?” I bark, “But what? You think I’m stupid? You think I’m stupid like you?”
Then I drop
my voice to nearly a whisper, my breaths racing, I snarl, “for good three months
in this room, Deola. For good three months, tell me. Did we have any raw
affair? You must be sick in the head!” I point straight to the door. Janet is
now standing aside, right behind me, “Now, use the door!”
“But I
didn’t meet any other man since I left!” She snaps, as if afraid I would beat
the statement back to her mouth.
“If I hear
any word from you again, I swear, you will…”
“Mathew,
please take it easy,” Janet says from behind me.
I turn to Janet, still pointing at the door. “Thank
you….but please, ask her to leave gently,” I say in a calm voice.
She rather wears a faint smile, as if to say
she’s never in the best position to do that. Turning back at Adeola I discover
she’s been shooting a fiery look at Janet. Certainly, she believes Janet is my
current woman. Idiot!
“For the
last time…”
But before I could finish my statement she has
bent to carry her bag, proceeding to the doorway. Before opening the door she glares at Janet,
then back to me.
I hear Janet
sigh heavily when she has left. I tilt my head, pocketing my hands.
“So, can
we get going?” she says after an awkward moment of silence.
“Yeah,” I
exhale.
***
It has
been an hour and 51 minutes’ drive from Lagos. Her new driver, a middle-aged
man, also an Igbo, seems to have travelled far and wide. When I mentioned
Oke-Are, Ibadan, he didn’t crumple his brows, going as far as listing all the
villages and towns around it.
The range rover jeep is presently climbing a
mountain of red-dusted road leading to Oke-Are. The road is tarred, but awash
by heaps and heaps of dust. Only occasionally do we come across the brownish
blackness of tars, usually with bumps and pot holes.
Beside me,
Janet has been busy with her phone and whenever she raised her head she would
call my attention to any interesting landscape. Like what she is doing now.
“See, Mathew,
that building, how classically beautiful….”she’s pointing at one castle-like
building with rusted and ragged zinc; although unpainted, but looking as if smeared
with dirty creamy paint.
“Yeah, I
wonder what age it is. Perhaps it was erected in the 30’s.” I remark, smiling.
She is watching through her side window.
She
especially admires the architecture. She has expressed how unique they are,
unlike her own town where the entire archaic buildings are bungalows.
In a few
minutes the vehicle is on Opo Street, pulling along a broad untarred road. The
street is lined with mostly out-dated and semi-collapsed houses. I soon ask the
driver to stop in front of a bungalow with faded orange paint. To the left is a
shop packed with soft drink, a colossal pear tree in the middle. From here,
forty feet or more, I can see Mama’s sister handling her customer a bottle of
mountain-dew. That shop is a supplement for her salary in education. Her
children would manage the place on week days.
This time,
I’m the first to get down, pocketing my hands as I look ahead. Janet is passing
through the other way. Gracefully she walks beside me after crossing the plank
of a shallow gutter. The air is so thick with the smell of dust and burnt hairs
of bush meat; a cloud of bluish smoke crawling into the sky from the next
house, demarcated with a dwarf concrete fence.
“Eh,
Mummy, Mummy, brother Yinka is here!” Lara, the last daughter of Mama’ sister,
sweeps into my open hands, drunk with excitement; she is dressed in a blue
skirt and sleeveless pink blouse, chocolate-skinned, a teenager.
“Ha!
Yinka, Oko mi, eh, how was your trip!” says the mother, almost at the top of her
voice, extending hands at Janet, who to my surprise, has fallen on her right
knee beside my prostrating figure.
“Abi she
is….” Mummy says and cuts, as if awaiting me to fill the gap. Meanwhile, she
has sent her daughter to inform Mama.
“Yes, ma,”
I nod and smile.
“Oh, you
are welcome….”
After the pleasantries,
we head towards the front door; Mummy leads the way, followed by Janet and me.
It’s a face-me-I-face-you—ten rooms,
half for the family, half leased.
As we
enter the sitting room, Mama is about to get up from the floral red sofa,
probably to come outside.
“Ha, ha,
ha, you are welcome, my lovely daughter,” Mama is bubbling with euphoria as
Janet drops on her two knees, just beside her. Oh, Nollywood is missing a great
actress. My fiancée, indeed. Seldom can one find an Igbo lady, a high standard at
that, saluting on her two knees, like a typical Yoruba breed. Of course, the
respectful Igbo girls are popular with curtsy.
I prostrate before Mama after Janet. Getting
up, I sit beside Mama on the three-sitter; Janet is seated at the opposite
one-sitter, a ragged one. But she seems comfortable on it nevertheless. In the
middle of the sitting room is a formicated wooden table piled with textbooks
and notebooks; the whole interior is coated in blue, a mahogany shelf with old TV
and stereo radio standing at the far wall, just by the bedroom entrance. The
bare floor and dirty white ceiling, on their own, are signboards of poverty.
Janet is
smiling, head tilted. Mama pats my back as if to say,” Well done, my son.”
Boundless as ocean is my joy at her temporary restored
health, as it were. It’s evident on her gleaming face and skin, like the ripest
mango in the raining season, although with tiny creases. Her body has returned
to that normal plumpness and her petite figure is elegant on her blue ankara
blouse, wrapper and white scarf.
Lara is standing
before Janet, requesting her preference between amala and pounded yam and the
soup she would like with each. She shakes her head in protest, claiming she is
okay.
“My
daughter, they don’t reject food in our house O,” Mama says, half joking, half
serious “You have to take something. My son must have told you that.”
With that,
her face seems to flush red. She resorts to pounded yam and egusi soup. I smirk
at the deceptive scenario, wondering with bitterness how Mama would feel if I
later present another lady.
At last
Mama asks her name, followed by tribe, state of origin, and residence in Lagos.
Telling her English name, she answers each question between warm smiles. Having
realized she is an Igbo with Yoruba manner, Mama nods severally, glancing at me
as if to say: “She will be a good girl.”
“I hope
you will be a good wife in our household,” Mama says with a jovial smile, “But,
I’m afraid. I hope we are not going to sell all our properties before paying
the bride price? I know that Igbo people can demand gold and diamond when it
comes to dowry…. ”
I watch
the way Mama picks her Yoruba-coloured English one after the other. According
to her, she was a graduate in marketing from OAU before meeting Dad who, after
losing his railway job, had resorted to driving a Taxicab. Mama later opened a
bookshop; on one fateful day, she had lost her goods to a fire outbreak which
occurred in the adjoining building.
Janet is
smiling at each word from Mama. She must have noticed her sense of humour. But
then, Mama is right. The Igbo’s outrageous price is a monster that scares men
of other tribes, especially the humble ones. Like me.
When the
meal has been served by Lara Mama disappears into the bedroom. I draw the table
close to the three-sitter, expecting Janet to come over. She lowers her head, right elbow on the sofa
arm, fiddling with her sparkling blue bracelet, as if absent minded.
To call
her attention, I tap gently on the table. She reveals her face, and with six
paces she crosses to my side, sitting closely beside me. I ask her to rinse her
hand first, in the stainless bowl.
For the
first time, we are eating together in a single plate, a local food at that, served
in two white plates, four chunks of bush meat. I have thought she would just
nibble at it, the way any classy girl would have, but seeing her take each
handful with gusto, I know right inside me that she’s a treasure of a lady; at
the same time, a high class pretender.
***
As we set
out for Lagos by 11:35am, Mama and her sister are following beside us, seeing
us off. Earlier on, after the meal, Mama sought my attention to the bedroom,
for a private chat. She said I was lucky to get a lady with such degree of
beauty, while expressing a concern that she must be from a rich background, for
her expensive jewelry and dazzling appearance. Just then, I lied to Mama that I
have come with our company official car, for a project here in Ibadan. So, I
just seized the opportunity to bring my fiancée. It’s a surprise visit. I never
told Mama I was coming today. All these
lies were Janet’s idea. While approaching the street, she has told the driver
to await us at the junction, so she would call him to take over the wheel. She
wanted me to appear with air of honour, according to her; otherwise she might
have parked a bit far away. She wouldn’t like my parent to hold the impression
that she’s financially superior to me. So I told Mama that her parents are
comfortable. Mama has fretted about the payment of her dowry from my meager
salary. “Olorun ako wa mo’se,” (May the Lord guide us) I have told her.
I’m now at the boot of the car, bringing out
two bags of beverages, for Mama and her sister. I call Lara from afar, to pack
them inside. Janet has shopped for them on our way coming. The contents are Milo,
slice bread, peak milks, sardine, coffee, sugar, oatmeal, and others.
Mama and
her sister begin to shower prayers on us, from Yoruba to English, from Bible
verses, that we shall land safely, be blessed, that nothing would ever put us asunder.
While I hesitate to say ‘Amen’, Janet is responding with a loud AMEN. I shake
my head, wondering what extent she has gone to help my mother’s health.
***
The car
has long since crossed beyond Ibadan, sliding towards Lagos in quiet speed.
Janet is two feet away from me. She’s been browsing on her phone, as usual, and
then she is reading something aloud. A status update from a friend, I guess.
She nods slowly.
“What a
touching story,” She sighs, shaking her head.
“Mathew,”
She calls softly. Before I could answer ‘Yes’ she continues, “Do you also have
a moment in your life you can never forget?”
“A moment?”
I ask, chuckling, “there are several moments in my life I can never forget.”
“If I may
ask, which is the most painful or touching?” She positions herself towards me,
with a questioning look.
I wonder
if to tell her about my first girl on campus, who I caught in act with my
friend at the back of lecture room....No. That’s a cliché, a common scenario. SHE
is certainly the most painful thing that ever happened to me. It will make no
difference if I reveal that to her. How on earth could she know? Nothing is
more impossible in the universe than it. Would I have recognized her if not for
her names and the marks? Anyway, let me air my feelings.
“When I
was 14 years of age,” I begin slowly, staring nostalgically upwards, “I was on
a bus with Mama…on my way to school, along Badagry. I came across this girl,
about my age. She was comforted on her mother thighs; so was I. Her mother and Mama
were into a hot argument before I set my eyes on her….I think that was my first
experience of a deep affection, for a girl. I wished I could see her again.
Little as I was, I tried my best to locate her school; by her school
uniform….all was to no avail. I thought I was merely suffering from
infatuation. My eyes stung with tears. I told my friends and they laughed at me.
They said I was so stupid to think the girl would also like me. I tried to
forget about her. I believed I was indeed stupid, foolish even! But she became
my haunter in night sleep—for almost
a year. After my encounter with many other pretty girls, her memory faded like
a smoke...”
I pause and sigh, observing her countenance.
She is looking moody, almost tearful, like someone watching a tragic movie.
Then I continue, looking up, “But recently, I came across her, she never
recognized me. But I did recognize her by the faint marks on her chin. She has
grown into a more beautiful and caring lady… The peculiar thing is that, you
share the same name. I remember back then, I hear her mother call her
Adaeze....”
I decide
to conceal the English name to avoid obtrusion.
So I’m
expecting her to say: “Oh, sorry” “That is sad”, or “That is powerful.” But by
the time I look at her, she is muted, frozen, blank-faced, eyes wide—distant and vacant. With what I’m seeing right now, I bet
she will never stir even if I wave my hand across her face.
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