MORE HASTE
...the marital trials of Brother Segun...
DEDICATION
Dedicated to my loving wife, AbolanleAbigael, who had to wait seven years for our firstborn, IniOluwanimi, to come, and by extension, to all waiting mothers.
EPIGRAPH
Sun, Very Soon
You waited till you are worn
When will you Pampers your newborn
Night may seem long and forlorn
Soon, it will be the turn of the sun
And you will see your long-awaited son
Nay, daughter to start your new morn
Abiodun Soretire, April 2014
PROLOGUE
The atmosphere dripped with emotion. Even Sola, the 13-year old, caught the current. Her eyes, fixated on the mother-son scene, were saturated with the tear-gland fluid ready to trickle down any moment. Mrs. Toriola had succeeded in infecting every occupant of the sitting room with emotive germ. Segun contracted the endemic and a lump was stuck to his throat. He was gradually getting mollified as he succumbed to the feminine tear-power supplying the atmosphere with the electricity in high horsepower. He is no wood, how will he not succumb! Yes, it will only take a wood to stand unyielding when mother's tears start yielding in squirts. He dropped his head, shook it vigorously and was still for a while. When he finally lifted up the bloodshot eyes, his exasperation had been defused.
‘But Mummy, I'm confused. He said he was not my father. Here you are saying I should forgive him being my father. Would there be smoke without fire? Would Daddy…' the first time in many days his heart and mouth would reconcile to call Mr. Toriola Daddy, ‘have said it if nothing broods at the back of his mind? Mummy, does the mouth not speak out of the abundance of the heart?' The conveyance of his conviction was wrapped up as he awaited its effect.
The middle-aged mother heaved a great sigh but not of relief. It was time she visited the past she dreaded even its mere mention. She acute-angled her head on the upright, the backrest, of the sofa as she travelled down memory lane...
Cascading tears pervaded every particle of the emotional pause.
Segun squeezed his eyes shut as if remembering something.
CHAPTER ONE
He woke with a start. He rubbed his eyes severally just to be sure he had left the realm of dreams. It was a cool night, one of the equable nights of the rains towards the tail-end of April. He was bedraggled in the water mass soaked up the centre of the mattress. The nightmare must have set off some mechanism that produced the clammy sweat. The water outline drew an abstract map in the middle of the foam encouraging a sagginess that brushed his back on the wooden support.
Segun sat up immediately and yanked off the wet bedcover. He checked the time. It was just twenty minutes to two. Grimacing in horror, he ran back his mind over the phantasmagoric dream.
He had seen three men knocked at a door. Someone inside unlatched the door. Before he could keep the door ajar and peep to ascertain who the visitors were, they burst in. And the next thing he would see: a man bearing striking resemblance to him. He was sure they were not one and the same person. The man, in his mid-30s, was dragged out into the open half-standing-half-kneeling pleading for mercy. The three marauders, armed with machetes having blades reflecting the gloom of the moonlight, butchered him in violence so cold-hearted – it beggared description – but not without the honour of informing him on which bill the sudden death was striking – a land dispute. The blows came in torrents and never stopped until the man was as dead as a doornail. Then they left wearing a villainous beam of satisfaction. A man, who had heard the distress shouts and had come out, crossed their path. He too was silenced and laid flat writhing in excruciating pain with few blows of the machete. Thereafter, the heinous trio made off in sustained glee of fulfilment.
A woman heavy with pregnancy, who looked like the first victim's wife, fearfully trotted out of the house where she seemed to have been confined by the bosses with knives. On seeing her husband's lifeless and decapitated mass of flesh in a pool of blood she gave a long shriek of terror, and passed out.
That was the scene that unfolded last in the nightmare before Segun was brought back to reality. Presently, he jumped out of bed and made for his cell phone. The bed was terribly unmade and the sheet unusually rumpled; the centre of the bed was slowly recovering from its saggy mission. Ordinarily, Segun would straightway have remade the bed ensuring the bedding was neatly tucked. Meticulous he was at doing it every time he rose from bed. But, this night, the couch would get no such attention. Pressure had prevailed on protocol.
He punched in Pastor Tunji's number and depressed SEND button. Before it could ring at the other end another thought ran through his mind. Why disturb Pastor at these wee hours? Can't he wait till the dawn breaks? He cut off the almost connecting call, knelt by his bed and began a violent supplication. One clause stood above others in the prayer – I reject it in Jesus' name.
* * * * *
‘Hold on,' Pastor Tunji said as he made for the door. Though a bit ruffled at the early morning caller, something struck a chord in the stranger's voice. When the knock first came he was fast asleep. The persistence in the knock woke him and with sleepy eyes he asked who it was. The fellow's ‘It's me, Pastor,' a semi-anonymous response suggesting familiarity, met Tunji's faculties just recovering from the metabolic slow-down which beauty sleep had subjected them to. It took him some few more minutes to fully recover but then he wouldn't want the person at the door to identify himself again. He had made it a bit of courtesy. He always likened himself to a receptionist – her prospects in the career cannot be taken away from how well she receives visitors. The faint day's first ray of light revealed the minute hand of a contemporary battery-operated pendulum clock some seven shorter marks away from Roman figure twelve. The more conspicuous silvery hour hand was a bit farther from five. As the pastor of a medium-sized congregation in town, early calls on him to attend to one emergency or the other had become part and parcel of him. The other day he was awakened around quarter to five, a bit earlier than now, to settle a gruelling quarrel between a couple over whether to have family planning or not. Anyway, this voice is familiar, so, no cause for alarm.
‘I am covered,' he muttered as he held the handle of the Union lock. He lifted the door a bit by the handle and with the other hand turned the key in the lock anticlockwise in three complete revs. He pressed the stiff knob arc down and pulled the wooden door open. Standing at the door was …
‘Brother Segun!' the Pastor ejaculated. For a long one minute, the brief lull that followed engaged him in a goggled-eye stare at the visitor before he could find his tongue again to string some words together.
‘What's the problem?! Hope all is well.'
‘Good morning, sir.'
‘Oh-oh-oh! I'm sorry. Good morning. Never seen you here this early? I'm really surprised beyond measure, you know.' Then he realized he had kept his guest at the door all the while, ‘Please do come in.'
‘Sorry for disturbing you so early, sir.'
‘Ah-ah, it's no bother at all!'
Tunji closed the door behind them and they settled down. With all the gory details, Segun recounted the dreadful dream he had in the night breaking into dawn at the moment. When Tunji had swallowed whole the details, he gave a deep sigh and sank deep into meditative silence.
‘Let's pray,' Tunji said as he held out his hands. Segun plugged his into them and the Pastor offered prayers to God on the subject matter. After ten minutes or thereabout, the prayer session came to an end with doxology.
‘Brother Segun, it is well.'
‘Amen, sir.'
‘You see, I'm yet to get any interpretation to the dream from God. Really surprised I didn't have even the slightest insight into it. But not to worry we will keep on praying. No evil plan of the wicked shall prosper over your life in Jesus' name!'
‘Amen!'
‘I cancel any plot from the pit of hell in the mighty name of Jesus!'
‘Amen'
Their conversation thereafter went warm and hearty and peace pervaded the atmosphere. Finally, Segun stood to go and was seen off to the door. Just before he turned his back on the door, Pastor Tunji asked,
‘Aha! How is your sister? Hope she is doing fine?'
‘Yes, sir, by the grace of God.'
‘My regards to her.'
* * * * *
The atmosphere was tense between the father and his son. They were both alone in the sitting room; though poised for a tête-à-tête nobody was saying anything at the moment. It appeared the present scene was in the aftermath of a previous conversation that never went cosy. The eyes of the elderly one was bloodshot; brows furrowed in concentration like the exaggerated veins on an idealized sculpture. He scowled at the son who stared at the ground in a sulk.
‘Is this what I will get for all my years of caring for you and paying through my nose for your education?' the father's angry and stentorian voice broke into the silence.
Then it was the turn of Segun to speak. He slowly lifted up his head and with much pains explained to his father why he would not, with his own means, support the marriage to a second wife. In Segun's words,
‘It's unfair sharing love with a woman all the while only to now go hunting for another all because she's wizened.'
Another reason why he would not subscribe to the troubling idea was because it contradicted Christian faith.
As if the word ‘faith' was the cue for his line, Segun's father blew hot once again. He would not have Segun lecture him on how to be a Christian – after all, he had been one while Segun was still a twinkle in their eyes. The argument dragged on and the paterfamilias became more violent with words. Has the aspiring matron given him a love potion immune to all oppositions and senses of reason? Whatever the case, Segun was unrelenting in giving a calm but capital no. When it dawned on Baba Segun, his alias in the neighbourhood, that no form of appeal, violent or sullen, could produce result with the adamant son, he retorted,
‘Do I blame you? The parable of the elders is true indeed; if a home is at peace it's simply because the inside bastard has not yet come of age. Pshaw!' He gave a sustained hiss like the snake and walked away from the father-son meeting.
The purpose of the meeting is defeated already, what is he still waiting for anyway? His so-called son has made up his mind not to fulfil his filial responsibility of financing his marriage to a second wife.
He headed for the door of his room. His son's repeated calls of ‘Daddy' behind him sounded way lower than a whisper in the way he ignored them. He entered his room and slammed the door with a bang so resonating the whole building felt it. Segun gaped in horror and his bottom stayed glued to his seat for the next several minutes. His daddy's reaction was more than he bargained for.
CHAPTER TWO
Kemi, Segun's fiancé, came visiting. In Christendom of the day the simple but sanctified title ‘Brother' or ‘Sister' must come before your first name. Despite some years of engagement, Segun still addressed his future partner as Sister Kemi. Kemi, Mr. Atidade's daughter, too called her love by the corresponding appellation ‘Brother Segun'.
A lot happened in the relationship over the past two weeks which shook it right to the foundation. The obstacle race they now ran started on the day of their formal wedding introduction.
In this part of the world, wedding introduction is the first formal meeting of the families of the intending couples. It is a time of festivities and family members are at their best in period fashion and style. Joy sets the pace, merry-making caps the day. Amidst the jollification and jubilation, the crux – proper introduction and exchange of gifts – is never missed. Also the delivery of elder's speech and prayers have a prominent place reserved for them.
Segun and Kemi's introduction programme looked like every other from the start and everything went well until it was the turn of Segun's father to address the gathering. Allowing the father of the future groom to speak seemed the gravest mistake made at the function. His words unloosed the nuts keeping back jaws from dropping; every pair of lips present was parted in horrendous amazement. He rattled for what seemed like ages on the dark side of Segun, his son. Above all, and most pathetic, he left no one in doubt of Segun's paternity. Segun was not his son but was adopted only out of compassion. He finally declared his dancing naked in the public as a selfless step in the best interest of the lady's family; to guide them in making informed decision. Without waiting for response or reaction, he walked out on the gathering. Others of the groom's side, seated facing the other family like the opposition in a British parliament and looking beaten by a simple majority vote, wished it were all but a bad dream. The atmosphere was imbued with uneasy silence. A dropped pin at the moment would sound like a pot tipped over; hanging in the air was tension of pandemic magnitude. They finally plucked up the courage and stood all up at once managing to drag themselves away from the scene without uttering a word to bid their to-be, or not-to-be, in-laws farewell. Segun would not move an inch from his seat. He felt his whole world tumbling down.
With a jerk Baba Kemi stood to go. ‘When a man prayed not to see shame but eventually got disgraced in a proportion he least bargained for, his prayer would automatically change gear, “Lord, spare my life!”' he thought to himself. With a rare show of confidence he walked out of the shame. Segun, with sharp reflexes like a good goalkeeper, sprang up from his seat and dived to grab his in-law's leg. Sinking to his knees he was sorely apologetic at the feet of Mr. Atidade. The embattled in-law, with the gross embarrassment a moment away still ringing in his head, would have none of such plea. To hell with the nose if cut off to spite the face. He freed his leg and made for his house. And the once promising wedding introduction came to a premature end.
That was two weeks ago. The couple had since been raising high-power emissaries of elders and family relations upon another to pacify Mr. Oluwole Atidade. So far their pleas had all proved abortive. Oluwole would not even want to set his eyes on Segun. Of late, however, another peace-making delegation was organized and with the calibre of people involved, hopes were high they would deliver. Kemi had gone with them and Segun was anxiously looking forward to her coming to give the outcome of the meeting.
One then could understand the restlessness and fidget when Segun discovered Kemi was at the door. He opened the door with enthusiasm but shrank when Kemi's face greeted him. The look on her needed no service of an interpreter to decipher. It is fish as the old Yoruba metaphor would say. He muttered welcome and silently carried his drooped shoulders and lolled head back to his favourite seat, the three seater. He sank deep into the velvet armchair. Kemi saw the verbal delivery needless. Feeling like death warmed up after the long, exhaustive session the peace league had with her father, she too walked unsteadily to the sofa Segun sat in and sat beside him with her head propped against the backrest. A distant observer would think she was appreciating the newly painted white ceiling and the stately hanging ceiling fan when actually she did not see anything around her, beautiful or ugly, sublime or ridiculous.
Her thought had travelled far ahead of days and months to the end of the year, the time they fixed for their marriage ceremony. December 23 was fast becoming a mirage, a hope that was not to be. She had remembered the prayers and planning they had invested into it. The invitation cards were with the printer. All her daydreams and fantasies about the day and the days to follow – the connubial bliss of a Christian home – came to her and hot trickles of tears rolled down her cheeks to form a pool on t
he cloth over her cleavage.
‘Sister Kemi! Sister Kemi! Sister Kemi!!' Segun had to sing out the name thrice before the bearer came back to herself to give a faint ‘Yes?'
‘Though a difficult time for our relationship,' began Segun, ‘I would want to reassure you of my love.' He re-adjusted and faced her. It was then he noticed her wet face, he pulled a white handkerchief out from his trousers and offered it to mob the tear-soaked face. She collected it and intermittently wiped her tears as Segun spoke on.
‘Your love in my heart is no ordinary love, it is divine. My sense of physical attraction wouldn't have picked your kind of a woman but for God who chose you for me and convinced me about it with abundance of proofs. That was why I could even propose to you in the first place. And thank God you gave in to my proposal based on your own personal conviction too. Ever since, we've never had any cause to regret it. And as for this…' He gave a deep sigh, looked down for a moment and then returned his head to regain the eye contact with Kemi.
‘And as for this,' he got his tongue back, ‘that has come our way; let me borrow the word from the mouth of Pastor Ashimolowo to describe it: it's just an ordinary circumstance. Circumstance, according to him has its original meaning to be ‘this circle I'm standing in.' And when you find yourself standing in a circle in your journeying, a time will come that you will stand out of it, if you keep moving on. So, I'm moving on with this relationship. I was strongly persuaded of God to start it and I cannot now be easily dissuaded out of it by a mere circumstance which though has come our way today, we shall look for tomorrow and not find. Kemi…' The title ‘Sister' got lost: it always did when emotion got on the high and raw love pervaded the air. The title ‘Brother' also suffered the same fate before Segun's name at such times.
‘… I still love you and I do with the whole of my heart.'
The last statement brought sparkle to Kemi's eyes and she plugged her hands into Segun's now outstretched hands. In reassurance of commitment to their love they held on to each other's hands for a minute longer. Had they not resolved not to hold more than hands during emotional whip-up, this particular case would have resulted in a bear bug. Twice or thrice in the past they had hugged but the smooching sensation left them disdainful ever after. To guard against the sex drive overstepping the bounds, they absorbed the code: no hugging; holding hands might just do. At all cost, the bed must not be defiled.