Idara sank down into her chair. How could she have forgotten? That guy does look good. She quickly got her phone and punched in the number that was underneath his name on the complimentary card.
“Hello, Ahmed Alliance Ventures.” Someone answered.
“Hello, please can I speak with Efe Urheigho?” Idara asked.
“He doesn’t work here anymore.”
“O forgive me.” Idara rang off. What was she thinking? He told her he was going for an interview. She looked at the card in her hand. Just why did he give me this complimentary card then? She wondered. Was he trying to impress her with his former position where he was the Sales Manager? She chuckled. Sales manager! She checked her call log, looking for the number he called her with. She had so many calls that day, and only the last ten would be listed. The number wasn’t there. Hard luck.
*****
Idara got off the bike and paid the motorcyclist. Before crossing to the other side of the road to board a bus going back to Mile Two, she stopped by a bookseller’s stand to look around. She was addicted to foreign magazines, especially the ones that focused on supermodels.
She was browsing through an old edition of VOGUE magazine when someone tapped her from behind. Idara turned and her mouth fell open.
“Surprised?” he asked.
She smiled sweetly. “I’m rather glad, Efe.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She nodded. “Yeap, I know. I forgot earlier when you called. So much work. I was pretty tired you know…” she shook her head, hoping he’d understand.
He gazed at her intently. “Aren’t you surprised to see me?” Before she could answer, he continued. “I had to wait around. I knew eventually, you’d come, since you’d take a straight bus home.”
Idara looked at him unbelievably. She almost wasn’t going to come straight. “What if I had decided to take a different route?”
He smiled. “It’ll be stressful. Girls like you don’t like too much stress.” He laughed. “Okay, I took a risk and it paid off … I had to see you again,” his voice dropped. “I wasn’t entirely pleased that you forgot me so easily.”
Idara smiled. “Well, we meet again.” After she paid for the magazine, they left together for the park. On getting there, they heard the conductor calling out to passenger going to Mile Two, for N120.00.
They both stopped. “N120?” Efe asked the conductor. The fare coming to Ikeja that morning had been N70.00.”
“Fuel don go. E no dey anywhere,” the conductor informed them. “And road block.”
Efe looked at Idara. He shook his head. “Can you believe this?”
She shrugged. They had no choice. If one refused to pay, then home would be a distant place. She peeped into the bus, and saw some passengers. They weren’t the only ones. “We have no choice,” she told Efe.
He was open mouthed. “You mean you’ll pay that much to Mile Two?”
“I can’t sleep here now, can I?”
He shook his head. “They just want to use our heads,” he insisted. “Let’s take a bus to Oshodi, from there to Mile Two. It will be cheaper that way.”
Idara hesitated. The money wasn’t her problem. It’s possible he didn’t have that much money. She felt at a loss. Some guys don’t like when a girl offers to pay their fare. “That will be stressful, Efe. I’ll pay.”
He pretended to look around to hide is restlessness. “Let’s go over to Oshodi,” he insisted.
She stood her grounds. “I worked today and I’m bone tired. No more stress. I’ll just take a straight bus home, and relax.”
“I’ll call you then,” he started to leave.
She walked up to him. “What’s your problem, Efe? I said I’d pay.”
He wanted to say something, but changed his mind when he saw her countenance. “Okay.” He gave in.
They boarded the bus and few minutes later were on their way out of Ikeja heading for Mile Two.
*****
The conductor did say that the road was blocked and the traffic jam on Agege Motor Road was nerve breaking. They were under the bridge that led to the International Airport, when trouble started.
Obviously, a convoy was passing. The public wouldn’t know who the dignitary was. The sirens were up in the air and blaring away. The traffic was heavy but the guards escorting the convoy did all they could to clear the way for the dignitary.
“Real nonsense,” Efe injected. “I wonder where they want these vehicles to climb into for them to go through.”
“Hey you there …” One policeman escorting the dignitary started at a bus driver.
Idara who was sitting close to the window saw the commotion while the others kept complaining about the country’s deteriorating condition. People were running. Her left hand strained to grab Efe’s arm. “What is happening?” her voice was a whisper of fright. She was remembering how she narrowly missed been hit by a bullet.
Efe’s eyes went in the direction of her eyes. Then his brows closed together.
*****
After school hours, Wunmi didn’t go home. She and the rest of the other appointed Prefects stayed behind. They were going to have a meeting with the school authority. They were all together in a classroom waiting to be summoned into the presence of the school ruling body.
Wunmi sat at a corner away from the others. The day had been banal. After the morning assembly, the students had gone to their various classes. Most teachers didn’t go into classes to lecture. Wunmi spent a considerable time with the school’s head of sports. After expressing his disappointment that she wasn’t picked as the Sports’ Prefect, he launched into why he’d sent for her. A letter had arrived the day before, from the Ministry Of Sports, informing all secondary schools in the country that participated in the Nigerian Secondary Schools Athletics Competition, to inform their medal winners of the African Secondary Schools Athletics Competition, which will hold in six month time. So, the athletes are being invited to camp for preliminaries.
“But the good thing is,” he went on, “you are not going to the preliminaries.”
Wunmi wore a confound look. “I don’t understand sir,” she said slowly.
“All the big winners at this year’s Nigerian Secondary Schools Athletics Competition have automatic qualification. And you were the number one big winner.” He smiled. “Anyway, just have it in mind that you’ll be our number one hope. You are the best in Nigerian Secondary Schools, as far as I am concerned.” He nodded.
Now, sitting in the classroom, with her co-Prefects, Wunmi couldn’t help wondering what the outcome of the competition, which will be in South Africa, would be like. She has to start training immediately. She hoped for a lot of things. She hoped the world would watch and see her and come to her rescue. She needed her spirit to be free. She needed to do what she wanted to do.
The meeting didn’t take long. Wunmi listened attentively to what the ruling body of the school had to say. At last she was on her way home.
When she arrived at the bus stop, there were no vehicles. She and other students trekked down the Agege Motor Road. They all stopped at the sounds of blaring sirens.
“This mumu people don start again,” someone close to Wunmi said.
Wunmi wanted to get home and sleep. The day had been banal, but she felt drained. Her day had begun in an excited state, meeting Idara. It had gotten spoilt at the calling of Prefects. It had then soared higher with dreams of a new tomorrow; at the news the school’s head of sports had given her.
There was a gunshot.
Screams rose into the air. People began running here and there. Wunmi’s heart was in her mouth. She remembered her mother’s words. When things like that arise, run into the nearest building. That had been after an occasion when Wunmi had experienced a riot.
More shots could be heard.
Wunmi looked around for a nearby shop and started to run with other students towards a shop. She kept running then her strength began to drain from her. She stopped to catch her breat
h and someone ran into her. Before she fell, she felt pain in her back and wondered if she was sweating so bad that her shirt was sticking to her back. She fell.
*****
Now, the road was blocked. No vehicle was moving. Surprisingly enough, the convoy had left the area. They had succeeded in clearing the vehicles from their way.
Idara and Efe were out of the bus. Nobody knew what was happening. She stood very close to him – feeling secured knowing he was there because she couldn’t take the event of the previous week off her mind when he sat with her in the front with the bus driver. He had consoled her soothingly. Earlier in the bus when she had drawn his attention to the rising commotion, he had put an arm around her assuring her that they will get home safely. The crowd before them was terrifying.
“What exactly is happening?” Idara asked for the umpteenth time.
“The gun shots have stopped,” Efe noticed. He looked around for their bus driver. From the front the vehicles started crawling forward.
The driver came running down the sidewalk. “Oya make una enter,” he called to his passengers.
“Wetin happen for that side?” a passenger inquired from the driver as they filed into the bus.
He buttoned his seat belt. “I no dey sure. Dem say bullet hit one student.”
“Ha. Stray bullet again!” a woman wailed. “This convoy people, they shoot to clear the road and now they are gone.”
Idara was counting the minutes and praying in her mind to the Lord to get her home safely.
*****
The breaking news came on in the bus, before they got to Mile Two. The Student was identified as a seventeen-year-old student by the name of Wunmi Davies. She was shot in the back and the bullet penetrated her heart. She was identified by students of her school.
The bus was quiet. Nobody said a word.
Idara went pale. She couldn’t say a word. Her hand on Efe’s continued to grip him harder.
He looked at her attentively.
“This morning… that student… she dropped…Wunmi…” Idara choked on her words and broke into tears.
Efe remembered that a student had been with Idara in the morning.
*****
The next morning, every front page was of the deceased girl. There were different versions off how she died.
By midday, TV stations had gotten more information on the girl. The sports world remembered the young sensation at the just concluded Nigerian Secondary Schools Athletics Competition. Her achievements were read to the public. The state governor gave a speech. The Minister of Sports gave a speech.
The days that followed weren’t so different. Friends gave sorrowful interviews. Her parents refused to talk to the press. Her school was closed for a day in her memory.
Idara was far removed from it all. She resigned from her work place. She had no concrete reason. She said she was tired. She didn’t open newspapers. She didn’t watch television.
*****
It has been six months since the incident. Wunmi Davies once lived, but now she is forgotten.
In her bedroom Idara piled her materials together. Wunmi lived in her mind.
Two months after the incident, Wunmi’s mother had come to visit Idara. She got the address from Idara’s former place of work. She brought with her a diary. She had been going through it when clearing her daughter’s room and had seen Idara’s name in it. The name appeared more than thrice. Wunmi wrote of her dreams. What she wanted to be in the sport’s world. She wrote of the female gender. The women she respected in the country. Idara was number one on her list.
I saw her first on the cover of a magazine. Then she was on TV. I loved the way she spoke of her kind of work and her dreams for the future. I don’t know her, but there was something about her that drew my attention. I pray to meet with her someday. I have no idea what to say to her when such a day comes, but I know something good will come out of it. We are girls who share the same desire of a better future of achieving our dreams.
Wunmi wrote that in her diary three months before they met in the bus at Mile Two.
Idara told the woman she’d met her daughter in a bus. The mother was glad.
“She always wanted to hold the world record for different races,” the mother said.
Idara had cried that day. She read through the diary. The woman left it with her. That was two months ago.
Today in her room, she was arranging all the newspapers that wrote about Wunmi. She wanted to read everything she could lay her hands on.
Almost all the papers went into her sport life and achievement. Idara felt proud to have met such a gem. Then she read what infuriated her. It was the summary of Wunmi’s achievement.
‘Wunmi Davies: at seventeen, she held the country’s record time for 400, 800 and 1,200 meters. Wunmi, in the last three years, had gathered fourteen medals for the school. Six gold medals, four silvers and four bronzes. She was the country’s hopeful for the African Secondary Schools Athletics Competition. On the day she died, she was chosen as the School’s Time Keeper.’
“That’s an insult!” Idara cried. She read the interviews of those who knew Wunmi. She read an article on Wunmi’s courageous act when she was robbed off the opportunity of being the school’s Sports’ Prefect. Idara couldn’t stop her tears.
*****
Efe listened attentively to Idara. “Are you sure?”
Idara nodded. She had set her mind to work on the story of Wunmi Davies. From the day she was born to the day she died. A biography. She had already contacted Wunmi’s parents, and they were ready to work with Idara. “Her mother said she would look into old boxes and see what she can come up with.”
“What about funds?” Efe asked.
Idara had thought of that. “I would write it first. After that we’ll see.”
*****
Almost a year after she made up her mind on the book that was now completed, Idara started wondering how to go about publishing it. It had taken eight months of serious work for her to finally complete the book. In the process, she was busy going about looking for a sponsor for the book.
She went to Wunmi’s former school. The school couldn’t or weren’t interested in sponsoring the book. Wunmi was once an issue, but now forgotten and lives went on.
At her wit end, Idara was determined not to give up on her effort. She visited her ex-editor. Somehow he was able to get in contact with the Minister of Sports’ office. The Minister wasn’t interested either. Idara was infuriated. Wunmi was one person who would have gone places if the bullet of the government hadn’t snatched her life away so early. Who knew the sensation she would have caused in Sun City South Africa?
She was jaded after a day of moving around, looking for a sponsor for the book.
Idara was trying to relax and plan the next day when Efe came calling.
“I have this terrific idea.” He leaned closer and kissed her full on the lips. “How was your day?”
“Despondent,” she replied.
Efe flung himself into a seat.
“And your day?” Idara inquired. He had gotten the job at the Ikeja firm he’d gone to for an interview.
“Daunting. But, I feel elated at the news I brought,” he smiled at her.
Idara smiled. “What are you up to?”
“I met someone at the state ministry who can talk to the sport commissioner. What we have to do is a good proposal that is very flattering. If the commissioner comes in, the minister will have a rethink. It will be a boost for the next election when the news is revisited.”
Idara nodded, afraid of getting excited. She had been disappointed too many times.
“It would be in their library, around the world. It is the best thing you can do for Wunmi. There will always be a place that sports people would go to read about her.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Idara went for it.
*****
The country may have forgotten but it was brought back to their minds, exactly two years after. Before
the day, the newspapers carried various news items in Wunmi’s memory. The Biography of Wunmi Davies was going to be launched on the same day, exactly two years after, that Idara had met her in the bus. The same day that Wunmi had died prematurely.
All at once the sports world became interested again. Even the Minister of Sports was interested. Efe had been right. He wanted to meet with Idara.
It was a day to remember. The speeches were soul touching. Idara made friends and foes with the public and the sports people. Her speech was controversial. She didn’t fail to tell how the idea was rejected by people who ought to have stood for Wunmi Davies by keeping her memory alive in a book. She was invited to shows for interviews. She was invited to be the president of the non- profitable organization YOUTHSPEAK. She turned them all down. Idara couldn’t take advantage of Wunmi’s spotlight. She didn’t do it to get noticed. She did it for a friend she knew for a day only, a friend she will never forget, one who gave her wisdom. A friend who finally taught Idara the realities of life and things that are basically taken for granted.
AN ABOMINATION
My world has turned upside down. It has been destroyed by the one person who is supposed to have molded my life. My fifteen year old marriage is about to suffer a terrifying death out of no fault of ours.
Why should this happen to me? What about our children? I cannot even imagine what they were telling me to do. Leave my home and my husband and my children and just walk away to begin my life alone? Were they insane? This is my life! This is what I dreamed of and it has been a good one up until they tainted it.
When I met my husband, I hit a jackpot. When he asked me to be his wife, I won a lottery ticket. Before now, I believed we were a match made in heaven. I was definitely his missing rib because we were so perfect, alike in many ways and even looked like each other, according to people. Then they came and took my perfect life, love filled, joyous and peaceful, dragged it right from under my feet. It was the most unthinkable thing I could ever imagine.
It was crazy definitely. It is an abomination and I shouldn’t even be saying it out loud, but how do I keep a secret this huge? What about our children? What will happen to them with this ugly and devastating news I cannot bring myself to share with my husband?