So he had decided to go to bed early. He always slept in the spare room. But since Jumobi was around and the other room wasn’t arranged, he would have to bear sharing a bed with Chidima. That was her plan. The reason Chidima would ask Jumobi to stay the night, was so that she could get Alex to sleep with her. The conniving bitch! Sweet Jumobi would always refuse like a good girl. But tonight, Chidima had her nailed. Jumobi had shaken her head.
“I can’t stay the night,” she had told Chidima. “I have to pack for my trip.”
Chidima had looked over at him. “Honey, won’t you ask her to stay? It is as if she is angry with me for a reason I don’t know.”
“What?” Jumobi laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
“My best friend has never slept in my home,” Chidima told her. “You always refuse outright. Is there something here that chases you away? Ghosts?”
Alex had seen the creeps on Jumobi’s face and he knew the answer. The reason she had always stayed away. He was the ghost.
“She is busy, you know that,” Alex told Chidima.
“Just a night? Please?”
“Okay,” Jumobi gave in.
And the result was the discovery of that night. How Chidima had manipulated her with her talks.
SIX
They were quiet. It was about 1:15am and the moon was high and full.
Alex drove the jeep. Jumobi was beside him. He knew she wasn’t sleeping. The look on her face was very far away. He wanted to say a lot to her now, but he was scared. That was the problem. For over eight years, he had been scared to say the truth about Dotun and live his life freely.
He got on Mobolaji Bank Anthony road and kept on at his speed. So many thoughts were running through his mind. He must tell her the truth. It is either she forgave him or she didn’t. If she doesn’t forgive him, well, he would be out of Chidima’s bondage. That would be a little consolation.
*****
Jumobi got out of the car and started towards her front door. She didn’t wait to know if Alex was coming after her. She didn’t even collect her keys from him, because he might want to go back with the jeep.
The dizziness that washed over her when Alex had earlier told her about Chidima’s deeds, passed quickly and she had recovered from the shock. She told them she was leaving that she couldn’t spend the night there. Chidima said nothing. Alex offered to drive her home, she refused. He practically forced the keys out of her hand saying she was in no mood to drive.
She allowed him to drive her home. Now, as she opened her door, she stopped to look back. He was still standing by the driver’s door of her ride. Their eyes met. She looked away. What was the use? It was either he spent the night here or at a hotel, because she knew he wouldn’t go home. How she had been so wrong about his life. Instead of friends in love, he and Chidima had been enemies at war.
She stepped into her sitting room and left the door opened. At the moment, there was nothing to say to him.
She went straight to her room and threw off her clothes. She was going to have a cold bath first, then her head would be clear enough to think of what happened in the last few hours.
*****
He locked the door behind him. She wasn’t in the sitting room. Alex threw the keys on the table and sat down on the couch. He was fighting the urge to make a decision to tell her the truth. His fear was losing her completely. Wasn’t that why he easily allowed Chidima to manipulate him? Because he didn’t want to lose Jumobi forever? He always knew it wouldn’t be forever. What annoyed him now was that he could have prevented the latest events if he had been strong. The worst that would have happened was that they all would have gone their different ways; for Jumobi would have seen who Chidima was. Not a friend.
Alex unbuttoned his shirt and relaxed properly. He was prepared to face his demons.
*****
She left the bathroom and went straight to bed. She needed to sleep. Her head was aching. From her bedside drawer, she got out pain killers and left the room to get water from the kitchen.
She had not switched on the lights when she entered, so the sitting room was dark. But then, she didn’t miss the figure that was spread out there in her sitting room. At first, her memory refused to react, then before she could be afraid, she remembered she returned with Alex. Jumobi sighed. She went over to the wall and switched on the light. He had drifted into sleep, waiting for her.
She stood there, watching him and wondering what they did wrong that inhibited them from being together. Wondering why Chidima turned out to be a girlfriend from hell. Jumobi sat down. The drugs in her palm forgotten. She was downcast.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him. She had been wrong. He wasn’t sleeping. It was the second time in less than three hours that he was apologizing to her. “What for?”
He sat up. “Everything.”
She stared at him. She couldn’t believe that at this time of the day, they were together in her apartment. “Why did you marry her if you never loved her?” she asked.
Alex sighed. The moment of truth has arrived.
“What does she have on you?” Jumobi asked.
He kept quiet.
“Won’t you tell me?” she asked near tears. “Don’t I have the right to know why my life turned out this way without the man I love? Alex? Don’t you want me to believe that you had no choice but to go along with her, by telling me?” Jumobi was crying. “I always believed that you fooled me that night, just to sleep with me.”
He shook his head. “Oh God Jumobi, what do I do?”
“Just talk to me, please,” she begged him. “For me to find out now that my friend hates me so much? Oh Alex, please talk to me.”
He remained silent for a while. He was going to tell her everything. Whatever the outcome, so be it.
*****
She couldn’t sleep. She had gone to her room after he told her everything. She had cried and her tears were finish. She packed her things. She would go to Port-Harcourt. That was what she wanted to do before everything started. She didn’t want to think of what would happen if she returned. Her parents. How could she know about Dotun and not tell them? That precious little eight-year-old boy that they all cherish. How could she know that and not tell her family?
I stagger to the door. I am amazed. As I open the door, I notice that it is daylight. But then, it hasn’t been so long since he drove Jumobi home. And now it is day? And see, it isn’t him that is standing at the door. It is his little sister. Why is she looking at me like that? I leave her at the doorstep and walk back the way I came. She knows her way round the house.
I sit down and watch her move away in the direction of the rooms. I wait. Minutes later, she returns with his bag. She came to pack a bag for him. What is the use of asking the girl where he is? With her of course! My friend, my enemy, the betrayer.
She has gone and I am alone again. I did nothing bad. Any woman would have acted like me. I am bitter. I am sad. Where is the echo I heard at the doorstep? Come and take the last of my breath. Can’t wait no more. Jumobi has refused to be mine. She has made her choice.
TO THE THIRD GENERATION
Looking out of the window that morning after my world fell apart for the second time because I revealed my secret to them, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the day picked; the day that my mother would finally fulfill the best threat she has always made to me in a promise.
As the tongue of dawn began to lick at the remaining dark clouds in the skies, light started to fill up and with it came the deep sense of abandonment. Unlike the dark clouds that can be consoled for being forced to give way for day, since they will return at the appointed time to take their place again in the skies, my situation was worse because I cannot be consoled and my future for the first time in my life was unknown.
With eyes downcast seriously studying the shape of my feet, I allowed my mind to wander back to the morning months ago when I had woken up with a feeling that something definitely was ami
dst. I call that morning the beginning of my troubles. Though precarious I had been, my intuition kept arousing my curiosity. Though I do not have the power of precognition, I did feel soused with anxiety that something was definitely out of the ordinary.
On the day of the beginning of my troubles, I had tried to work my mind backwards to that appropriate time when the illusion first sank on me that something had gone sour. This is what happened to me back then, that morning, when I decided to take that backwards journey and after I made the decision.
Back Then
Stopping somewhere in my backwards journey, I was shocked to realise that I was afraid. Yes afraid. I asked myself if I really wanted to go back to that appropriate moment when my world really crashed around me. Daunted silly I hung about where I stopped in my backwards journey. I inhaled slowly, savouring the sweetness of temporal peace, where poignancy had no business. But I knew it would never last. No matter how much I savoured the sweet caress of this borrowed time, still I would face whatever was on the other side when I finally woke from my reverie of cowardice.
Pacing up and down and about, with my mind working overtime, I was scared. Should I take a step forward and fidget about wondering of the unknown that I dither about, or should I take the bold step back to scrutinize that action which has landed me in this mood of precariousness?
My mind told me yes my body said no. Unfortunately, I knew not to what my mind was agreeing about, just like I knew not to what my body was disagreeing about. Forward or backwards? It was more of a burden than I dreamt.
Instead of going backwards, I went forward and wondered what on earth was out of place. And due to my uncertainty, I washed it down with a glass of water and placed it aside as waking up on the wrong side of the bed. After all, everyone had a blue day. This was mine. Maybe, just maybe, my imagination was playing a trick on me, making me believe that I had tempted the peace of a dawn.
I closed my eyes and turned them away from the window where my pacing about had led me to. By the time I opened them, they fell on my worn out typewriter. The feeling of ease that washed through me is like what that missionary talks about; the peace experienced when God finally answers a prayer of forgiveness. It is like that peace of that God’s mercy, because I didn’t have to avert my gaze when I was still looking out of the window. Averting my gaze would have made me a big coward. So like the sensible person I am, I closed my eyes and maneuvered them away from my downfall.
I walked into the room. All will be well in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. I borrowed the tune of that preacher that dresses in white, in a house he decides to call a church. If there is life hope is definitely at the corner, waiting to be recognized and embraced. The things we learn on a daily basis increases with the foreigners in our village.
Hardly had I braced myself on taking the bull by the horn by being a coward, when the storm came knocking on my door.
*****
If I had known, I would have completed that backwards journey and probably I would have saved myself this tragedy because I would have done something on realising where my precariousness had sprung.
When she came, she looked at me as though I was more the meaning of the word ‘useless’.
I couldn’t think of what I had done to be paid by that look, I shrugged.
“Don’t you have anything to say?”
I didn’t fail to realise the tone she used on me. Normally, whenever she borrowed that tone, I went numb. At those times, I waited with big jitters for the tone to come, because I had done something wrong. This was different because I didn’t feel numb. I was ready to ask what she was talking about. I opened my mouth to ask, and my mouth opened. Unfortunately, the words of questioning were stuck. I was later to thank my stars that those words didn’t come out. It would have aggravated matters. The ancestors of my forefathers watch over me. But I maintain, had I completed that backwards journey, my words wouldn’t have been stuck, because that tone wouldn’t have been used, and because, she wouldn’t have come knocking on my door, accompanied by the storm, all because before then, I would have done something to correct an action of the past that so easily evaded me, leaving me in this sanctuary of precariousness that I find myself.
“Omote, am I talking to you or what?”
My eyes fluttered to hers. “I don’t understand.” I spoke gently, so as not to tempt her red spirit.
Her mouth opened in surprise. “You don’t know what I am talking about?” The look of incredulity in her eyes made me wonder why I stopped that backwards journey. My intuition did tell me that something was amidst.
I shook my head from side to side as my memory went into late action, of recalling my evil deed.
“Omoteowore, I could kill you now!” she threw.
I hate that name. I love the abbreviation, Omo. It sounds better. My teacher calls me Omo because it is easier. My friends all call me Omo now and I like it. He, even calls me Omo. I looked at her, wondering what I have done. This woman looks set out for me.
Her eyes were blazing, as she looked me up and down.
“I carried you inside of me for nine months. I was aware of you growing inside of me from your very first day of conception. If I had wanted, I could have made an appointment with one of the many grandmothers, one would have definitely given me the liquid to drink considering whom my parents were, and you wouldn’t be standing here today. So, when I say I could kill you, my words are never mere threats.”
I didn’t plan on smiling when Onime was talking to me, believe me I didn’t. It’s just that, I have heard those lines a thousand and one time before, and the words always remain mere threats; but honestly, the first time I received those lines, I had developed feverish conditions. But now… I saw her eyes narrow.
“Omoteowore, I am talking and you are smiling.”
I did the downward movement as though I was about to kneel; the elders say our generation lack respect. We find it difficult getting down on our knees. All we do is bend our waist a little, and stand erect again.
She eyed me at my movement. “Is your waist hurting you?”
Stupid me. Before I could stop myself, I did the movement again. “No, Onime.” I figured she was about to say something harsh judging from the way her hands gesticulated before her mouth opened. Then her hands fell to her sides and she shook her head. “This time, I am going to kill you.” She snapped her fingers at me, and left the room.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I quickly dove back into memory, to see if I had a chance of saving myself. Judging from that countenance on her face, she might as well make true her words and kill me.
*****
The day had begun like any other normal day. I had woken up and attended to my domestic chores. After which I picked up my cutlass and went behind our two roomed small house, to weed around my precious tomatoes that stood a little distant away from the bathroom and the toilet. I believed by that time my mother must have gone to the market because since I woke up till the time I went out to weed my tomatoes farm, I didn’t set my eyes on the beautiful woman who is my mother.
It must have been thirty minutes of none stop weeding, or so – Onime always said my farm was the only thing I cared for – before I was brusquely interrupted by him. I could swear that I never heard him. He must have stolen the footsteps of the fallen angel that preacher calls the Devil; who crawls on the vulnerable and idle ones without warning. He interrupted me as I said. Not that he laid a finger on me or anything pertaining to that; Onime would skin him alive dare him try. I was turning the soil, when his shadow fell over me and my cutlass. I didn’t panic. Why should I? My ambience is such that offers nothing to fear, everything to be secure about.
Although I knew I had company, I didn’t straighten up to see who my companion was because I was waiting to hear the voice so I could order my brain to work out who was adorned with that voice. I love putting my intellectual to test; Onime always said she did that a lot in her youthful days. She is a strange woman, my mother is; a
very extraordinary woman who has been through a lot.
“Omo my sweet, won’t you say good morning?”
I have seen a bird which was hit by a stone tumble down. I don’t know if to describe the fluttering movement of my heart in that sense. That voice could belong to none other than he himself. Dare I stand straight to say a simple good morning, and the next time my mother picked up this cutlass, its mouth shall say all that its ears had witnessed this day and Onime would make good of her words and kill me; after all she carried me for nine months. She’s warned me from the very first day I was rejected which was before I was born to stay away from him.
“Omo, come on. I know your mother is out. I saw her at the market, and decided this was a good opportunity to see you.”
I remained mute.
“I know your mother has told you terrible things about me, Omo,” he said slowly. “I’m not that bad, won’t you give me a chance? You are old enough to tell what sort of influence I’ll have on you. If you want me gone, then I’ll go.”
I straightened up and straightened my knee length skirt that was glued to my young body. “Then go away. Please.” I looked into his eyes.
He reached for my free hand, and held on tightly. “Don’t you want to know me?” His voice was low and wore a painful sound.
“I know who you are,” I told him in a calm voice. I love looking into his face. I never met a finer man till the day I met him, and since that day, I’m yet to meet one who’d surpass this ebony skin god in terms of beauty or intellect. He inspired me from the day I discovered he was a writer and a teacher at the Community Grammar School. And I had to understand why Onime forbade me to attend that school; because he was there and because she knows like I know and like he knows that he could easily steal me away from her. Love is a strange thing. That would kill my mother; I am the apple of Onime’s eyes, her only pride and richest possession.
He smiled. That smile that captivated me the very first day I met him without any knowledge as to who he really was. Then without warning the smile faded, and I read his anxiety. “I need to talk to you before I leave this village.”