MY SCRIPT

Just so you know… whenever you regard me… if it’s my script I’m living, or the one the producer dished me.

Lemme start:

Do I wanna live? Yes.

With who? You.

For how long? For ever.

How?

Oh! Here goes…

The only things I remember from my lecturers are the things they said out of context. Dr. Willy Ugwuanyi once asserted that ‘Love is all deals’. And deals are all selfish – cuz they’re all tainted with ‘selves’. There are examples:

Osita Iheme is set to marry a Ghanaian. He’ll say love took him there; but when a short man has carefully selected a tall, pretty lady to marry, is love still blind? The dark-skinned pick the light-skinned; everyone wants to pick someone who’s schooled… Is Love now a bully? Everyone seeks a compliment – it’s themselves they have in mind, not always the ones they ‘claim’ to love.

It’s okay if it can’t be helped; but should anyone stop there?

I won’t!

I still dare say ‘I Love’; even if it doesn’t appear to be the agape kind that gives no damn about the aesthetic qualities of the love recipient.

My Love is just right for me, yet what I take stops there; everything else… is for her.

                When we walk and I hold your hand, it’s not because I’m taking you to where I’m going. It’s because I am your buddy; and where you’re going is where I’d rather go.

But if you’ll put your dreams on my feet, I’ll take you to all the places I think are beautiful, enter them like it’s my first time and, if you smile not, then I don’t like that place anymore – if it couldn’t make my baby smile. It’s not fine joor. I hate it! We go elsewhere.

I’ll work hard to earn money for us; not because I’m content with having you be nothing but a wife and mother, but because I wanna show you I’m aware of your every need, and will gladly give the sweat of my brow… to meet them.

But if you’ll put your dreams in my hands, I shall help you unlock your own potentials, so you too can gain the fulfilment that comes with industry.

I know a man who lay dying, and kept on apologising to his wife for leaving. For him, life wasn’t about staying on to be served, but to serve, and to be his wife’s rock every day. That man is my hero.

So if my chest aches and I fall ill, I’ll cooperate with the doctors so I can get well… you know why. If it’s protracted and you have to devote all your time to caring for me, please do not be angry, once I get back up, I’ll usher you back to your throne again – back to being my queen.

When I appear quiet and pensive, know that I’m not pondering negatives, but I’m working on your dreams, and how to make you cherish forever that you chose me. If you’ll put your dreams on my head, I shall bring them to life one after the other. All.

Some men may think… that there are so many ladies in this world for this queer reason: that some are the ones to love, some the ones for sex, some the ones to smile with, some the ones to play with, gist with, pray with, work with…

That may well be! But all my ladies are in one woman…

                When the day breaks and I have to pray, it’s you I wanna pray with… Because I know that suppleness of your countenance, and I know God will smile, and hear us faster.

                The makers of peak milk and milo are faceless to me. But they could as well be you, because sipping tea with the sorta cake you bake… the office can be hell if it pleases, I’ll still go with joy.

The frenzy with which life is lived in big cities is unfortunate. The race to beat traffic and get to work on time parallels the same chaos home at dusk.

                When it’s lunch time, I wanna hold your hand and stroll around these tall, pretty buildings, and savour it all… I cherish how your hand slips into mine. But if you’re not by my side, I’ll just be like everybody else who sees them not.

There are a number of possibilities for my evenings: If you’re home, I will not rush. I’ll like the bliss of seeing you to wait… to linger… So I’ll go spend my daily hour at the gym, building my biceps, so my arms around you can be like pillows when I hug you.

But the gym can wait if I have to dash over to your office and pick you. If we paid 180k for you to serve, we did everything else for it to be Abuja!

And who says we can’t go to the cinema?!

It’s you I wanna share evening jokes with; cuz I love the glint in your eyes when you laugh.

Dinner’s best eaten with you, even if it’s eba every night. Or peppery stew.

Your lips are naked, but let’s pray, and thank the Lord.

Your body’s been calling, and anything’s enough – if to just hold you, or to do more.

With you in my arms, let night fall, let NEPA strike, let mosquitoes skitter, let…

Let morning bring us a new chapter. And I love you still.

This is my script. Life’s the producer.

Any day I’m found wanting, know that my producer’s doing rubbish. But I won’t do his bidding for long. I’ll ultimately, and always… come back to my script.

TRUTH IS THE RAREST THING

The finest swords are always in sheaths;

And dangle from the belts of kingly regalia.

They’re never employed in such feats

That are likely to end in disdainful defeat.

The first daughter is always a treasure

And must perpetually subsist around her roots;

Whereas the second fears no such censure,

And may chase love abroad for her pleasure.

The truest words are often veiled

In the silky necessity of pained silence;

When prior attempts at speech had failed,

And lovers lose the trust they’d gained.

A sword, a girl, the truth…

It’s unchecked that we truly live.

And poets have left many truths untold,

In their pursuit of measured lines, and rhythm.

LABYRINTHS - ONE

Kill two birds with one stone? I’d never seen that happen. Literally. But the sense... Yes, the sense. An opportunity came for me to, like a skilled archer, shoot down three birds with one arrow... Run away, see the World Cup, and meet my... girlfriend? Everything a girlfriend should be... to the ears and the imagination, that was. Not to the eyes... I’d never set eyes on her. Ever!

                ‘I enjoy your company a lot, and your words. They help me get through difficult times. I’m sorry when I don’t reply promptly, I  get to be busy at work, but never too busy for you.’ Abbey.

                ‘I’m glad to hear that, and, honestly, the feeling is very mutual. You’re the only reason I get on this network these days... Almost the reason why I get online at all... if not that I have to work with it at times.’

                ‘Me too, whenever I get on, it’s with the hope of meeting you here and spending time with you. There’s something I’ve always wanted to say, but always think I shouldn’t, that it must be crazy... But then, what the heck! Even if it’s crazy you can’t reach me to spank me...’ Abbey.

                ‘Oh, c’mon! Even if I could reach across, why would I ever wanna spank you?’

                ‘...Because I love you... and it’s crazy!’ Abbey.

I was a bit stunned, but I liked the development. Or perhaps I wasn’t stunned at all. Love shouldn’t be believed to exist because it is said to, but because it is actually felt. All what we had been doing together – online... how far we’d come... how long... the things I knew about her; I’d definitely felt love, so that, what difference did her saying it really make? But the girl was obviously lonely... to be lavishing all her love on one miles away... I thought there was a problem; either she wasn’t pretty enough, or she was naive and got heartbroken often. If the former was the case I’d run too... like dudes before me; but if the latter... well...

But I liked it that she said it... meant I had to reply.

‘I love you too, baby’.

It was improbable, especially for a realistic person like me, but... where ignorance is bliss...

I wasn’t a con man, so I wasn’t building up a pattern or steps with which to proceed. The best I could do was set things in motion and allow them play out naturally. Whatever results I got in the end I’d take. I hoped I was doing the right thing. The fact was that, I had arrived South Africa, had seen the World Cup... had idled away with Valeria – yet the urge to seek out Abbey remained strong in spite of Valeria. So I was still on course to meet my internet friend. The urge had been delayed but not extinguished. And, what was more, I had run out of money thanks to Valeria. Now meeting Abbey held more than one promise, the other one being, she had to help me get back home. I had to return to Johannesburg after the Games to seek her out.

I’d played out various scenes in my imagination about how I’d meet her. Something always stood out – the cocky mien with which I sauntered into her life. If that failed there was surely going to be a second chance – reveal my true identity. But first, I’d decided: I was proceeding as a shrink.

                Walking to the office complex every morning you’d think I worked there. Or that maybe I was searching for a job there. None of the above! But it was job-hunting in a way. I was broke, and stuck. Now I was tailing a prospective client. I had to orient my meeting with her on a business level, and be certain I’d get my fare home. Proceeding as her online lover mightn’t have yielded the result I’d rather had. As I couldn’t meet her for the first time and openly go begging her for money. That would ruin the good impression she had of me. She had told me once that other people she had met online didn’t lose any time in making demands of financial natures from her. She liked me because I was different. How could I now... betray that... confidence? I wasn’t going to risk it. I was proceeding as a stranger. A doctor. A shrink.

 Having gathered sufficient information about her, I’d done the desk part since the World Cup, in the sparse minutes that Valeria wasn’t with me. Even before the World Cup. Looked at critically, of the three reasons why I was here, this could easily be the first. I actually came to South Africa for this, and not the mondial. As the days passed I was getting more and more convinced that it was a patient Abbey should be: beautiful, rich, successful, aging, a woman and, of course, lonely. It’s not only in Nigeria that this happens: a rich, beautiful, successful, single woman is almost always lonely. Her achievements, though commendable, leave her marooned in a world devoid of genuine male company. Most men are wary of the silent competition posed by such women; so she has no relationships. Her female friends not as successful as her get married and their husbands instruct them to refrain from keeping her company. Others, finding it hard to cope with the obvious class difference, sever their connecton with her. Over the course of time, small, cheap boys would drop by in her life, full of love and full of lies. They bite a chunk off her cake and beat it. So she’s wary of them now: when a woman shares love with a younger man seldom does it last. Seldom does it lead to any positive end. She’d much rather have a deal in the open now, than be deceived and robbed under covers in the name of love. And fooled.

                I could easily have been an ‘Honors Student’ in this turf, so my presumptions were right... so, I was proceeding as a shrink, period. I had to get into character. The name Iroko Cedan to always be on my lips. Never fumble. Be careful. Aye, aye Sir!

                After about two weeks of tailing and studying her – physically this time – I finally made my move. In these weeks I hadn’t shaved, so my mane gave me an older look. On a Monday evening, after work, just as she was about to ease out of her ‘Reserved’ space in the parking lot, I tapped on the passenger window of her S-Class. Fear must have been the furthest stimulus... the place was peopled so I couldn’t possibly carryout any mischief there. She wound down the glass. In my most courtly accent I asked her for a lift. Ladies so circumstanced are, more often than not, nice. How could she refuse to help a brother out!

While in the car, well on on the road, she asked where I was going.

“Bokroom,” I said, making sure to pronounce it with the accent of a foreigner.

I got her there! She smiled, and gently corrected:

“Bukrum.” My pronunciation was longer. “You’re not South African?” she said rather than asked.

I affirmed.

 “So where you from?”

 I liked her English... her accent.

“Nigeria.”

That might have sent ripples down her spine. Nigerians didn’t exactly have a good reputation amongst foreigners. Not even at home! Especially Nigerian young men. They were too desperate to be courteous, or nice. They were dangerous. Capable of anything for money’s sake. Not meaning, however, that you couldn’t find exceptions like me... After all, she was in love with one... only she didn’t know this was him... But I knew she’d talk less now. I was right. It was almost five minutes before she said another word.

“So what are you doing in Bukrum?”

“Looking for work.”

“All the way from Nigeria?”

“Yes.”

“...hmm... so what kinda work?”

“A professional kind”, I said, “...read accounting in the university, and read psychoanalysis after that. I’m a psychiatrist . . . more like a shrink... And I thought you might be interested.” That was a lie; I’d never even heard if psychoanalysis was a field of study or not.

“Me?” she asked, a bit surprised.

“Yes, you!”

“Why me? Why should I be interested? Do I look mad?”

“Certainly not, ma’am!” I chuckled confidently, “But my services would benefit you anyways.”

“You don’t even know me, mister. . .”

“Well, hope you won’t be offended if I say I do . . . a little!”

She looked at me with bewildered eyes. She must have wondered what she was doing with a Nigerian boy . . . inside her car . . . such a big risk . . . like a cat close to a pot of fish. I was sure she’d never been conned by a Nigerian; so why was she acting all up?!

“I can help you re-focus your life ma’am. I can help you get past all the hurts you’ve suffered at the hands of men. I can help you learn to forgive and forget them, and open up your heart for new possibilities. And, most importantly, I can help you forgive yourself for the ways in which you think you’ve let you down. I can help you learn how to maintain a healthy disposition for love, ‘cuz you ought never to give up on it...”

She was gazing at the road ahead, but listening intently. I was just saying these for effect, but I’d actually drafted a detailed proposal. I knew there might be no time to say all that I intended to do. And, actually, there wasn’t. She interrupted me politely, with impatience in her tone, and demanded that I utter no more word until she dropped me off at Bukrum. But I wasn’t going to Bukrum. I’d planned and timed events.

“I’m sorry ma’am but, I couldn’t be mute...  especially knowing that I’m genuinely interested in helping – or rather, working with you. But if you must have no more of it, then please lemme get down here already.”

She tried to hesitate, but I pressed. She slowed to a stop at the next junction – Parakou junction – and I alighted.

 “I’m really thankful for your help ma’am,” I said, then brought out the envelope from my duffle bag. “Beyond the proposal that this is, you may find it an interesting piece of reading too. So do not hesitate to peruse it and, should you find yourself even vaguely interested, then, please do as you must. Good bye ma’am!” I left the envelope on the seat and shut the door.

                I walked off into Parakou Street, not looking back. This was the actual place I was coming to, but I’d said Bukrum to enable the drama of the car play out just this way. I sensed she paused awhile before driving off. And I knew my speech sank in.

...WHEN I WAS A LITTLE YOUNGER, A LITTLE SMALL, AND A LITTLE FOOLISH

...Mirth. Mirth. Uncontrollable mirth... from her. Amidst it all she says...

                “Why are you always attacking that one... always on that one?” Mirth. “You’re making this other one jealous...” Mirth. More hysterical laughter. She was enjoying our pillow-talk too much. As always.

                “Awwwh! It’s unintended,” I blurted to the other one. “It’s not my intention to make you jealous or anything... I jus’ love your sister more. She’s my favourite one.”

                Tess was lying on her back, still laughing wildly as I continued to gnaw at her left breast and nipple. It was my favourite one of the two.

                “Seriously,” she said, trying to stop laughing and talk serious, “why do you prefer that one? I’m perfectly made, the two are the same size and texture...” Her temporary seriousness gave way to fresh bouts of preposterous mirth. An amiable girl she was.

                “The two aren’t the same,” I argued, “that one’s funny... like there’s a stone inside it or something. It’s not very sweet to touch...”

How could I tell a girl that?!

                “Stone?” Tess suddenly grabbed her right breast, her face changing instantly. She squeezed it roughly.

I wanted to chide her for treating such a vital commodity as breast anyhow but found she wasn’t smiling anymore. She hit my hand off the left one, squeezed it. She shoved me aside and got up. She wore her shirt hurriedly, and her pants. Grabbed her keys from the table...

                My name is Farouk; I know you won’t believe it, but never mind. I was twenty-two years and two months old. Tess was twenty-three and seven months. To anyone who cared to listen, I was always eager to point out that age is just a number... Tess older than me didn’t mean anything; I was still the man! And I hated it when Tess attributed my little faults to my youth and inexperience... as if hundred-year old men are perfect.

                One day I hit her, so she’d know that, even though I was younger, I was the stronger. The best moments of my life, so far, were when Tess cried, and fell helplessly into my arms... I soothed her, and was generally her pillar of strength. But when she was all happy and gay she forgot how like a little child she was in my arms whiles ago.

                At twenty-two you don’t really know what love is all about. Nonetheless, I told Tess I loved her; many times. She always told me to shut up, that I didn’t know what I was saying. I felt like strangling her. I believed... she was fond of me... liked me... and was waiting for me to get older so she could love me. But that, before then, she had to keep me anyhow... She often said she owed me no explanations on how she lived her life, but she got jumpy whenever I hung out with Odinaka or other girls. Call her possessive and you mightn’t be wrong. Tess was confusing me. And the day she pushed me off her just before we’d had sex was another confusing scenario from our affiliation.

                She was a pampered child; but she wasn’t quite spoilt. She always boasted to me about that... that other girls in her position would go rotten before they were even eighteen, but that she had her head intact. The daughter of a business tycoon who was always out of town... she had a car; the only daughter of a woman who had died... she was special to her dad. She and her half-brother hadn’t spent up to a cumulative one year together in their entire lives. His mother made sure he avoided her. And their father could afford to situate both parties in separate opulent homes. The few times he was in town, he usually was at his living wife’s, leaving Tess with tons of domestic staff, and me.

                Tess had been teaching me to drive... I would face my biggest test on that day.

She walked hastily out of her room and I followed, wondering what the matter was. She went straight to her car and got in on the passenger’s side. I went to bend by the window... for some explanation maybe. She handed me the keys, and I went round sheepishly and got in on the driver’s side.

                “Drive!”

                “To where?”

                “I’ll show you. Just drive!”

I started the ignition.

                “Are you alright?” I asked her.

When she said nothing I added “You’re not wearing a bra o?!”

Nothing.

                I drove like the amateur that I was, but Tess was never ruffled by the fear that I might get us killed. She just wore a steady gaze and kept her eyes on the road. When I hit potholes I observed her breasts jumping under her shirt with the corner of my eye. She pointed out directions and we ended up in a hospital.

                She got out of the car and walked briskly into the building. Maybe it wasn’t obvious, but I was concerned her breasts were not sheathed. I stayed back in the car.

Thirty minutes went by, and there was no sign of her. I went after her, taking the direction she took. Not knowing where she entered, I couldn’t find her. I tried to call but her number was switched off. I hovered around the walkways for a while, staring at people... I saw a bunch of women with little babies... like twelve of them, so I thought they had a match or something. One of them had a baby and was heavily pregnant at the same time. I was like... Whoa! Cruel husby! Maybe when she was six months pregnant with the baby she was now carrying, her husband waylaid and rammed her with another bowl of spermatozoa. So a new foetus got hot on the heels of the advanced one. This one she was pregnant with now... could be eight months and there was another two months... in that same... womb. Baby tap; turn it on and you have babies flowing. What did I say? Cruel husby!

I loitered to another lobby and I saw a bunch of heavily pregnant women milling about the place. Then I knew for sure they had a match with the nursing mothers. The pregnant nursing mother would be the Ref.

I sat at the reception for a while. My eyes caught those of a pretty girl sitting a long way from me. We now wanted to see who was going to win the look game... who’d look away first. She won abeg! I didn’t want to hit anything off with no hospital patient. What if we were both terminally ill and had only months to live? What then? What if one or both of us had AIDS?

Gory sights. Gory sights. Gory sights. Anyone who came to the hospital must be sick. Even those who came healthy bringing sick ones, seeing all these gory sights, they’d be sicker than all.

I waited a little longer but saw no sign of Tess so I went back to sit in the car. It’d now been an hour since she went in.

                Soon I saw a nurse approaching. She’d looked around like she was searching for this car. She came to the car and asked if I was Farouk. With all the fear in the world I nodded. She handed me a note, scribbled in Tess’ handwriting... asking me to go drop the car at her house and go, that she would see me later.

                “Is she alright?” I asked the nurse in visible freight.

                “Oh, she’s very fine. There’s no cause for alarm,” she assured me. “Take care now!”

She left.

                Fear or anxiety immobilized me. I couldn’t move for a while. It took thirty minutes before I could. Then I started the car and left... to do Tess’ bidding. I dropped her car off and went home. One of the maids had asked me where she was....

                Everyday I tried to call Tess but her phone was switched off; so I was told. A week later I went to her house to look for her. That silly maid attacked me, saying I was the one she was last seen with... that I was the one took her away. They’d been looking for her. Fortunately for me, her dad came home that evening, and asked them to leave me alone... that Tess wasn’t missing. He entered the house slowly and I followed him. He didn’t know me. His strides were measured. I didn’t know if he walked slowly because he had a burden in his heart or if they were the natural steps of wealthy men.

                “You’re Tessy’s friend?” he asked, not turning to look at me.

                “Yes sir!

Where’s she sir?”

                “Don’t worry, she’ll be alright...” the man said tiredly; yawning even.

                “What’s wrong with her?” I asked him, deeply concerned.

He turned one-eighty degrees to face me...

                “Go home young man,” he said, with finality in his tired tone. Then he turned and slowly walked on upstairs.

I stood there and watched him disappear into his room. I knew where his room was. I walked slowly out of the living room, like one defeated in battle. When I got outside, I noticed the domestic staff were as confused as I was. They watched me as I walked, and watched the direction of the man’s room.

                As I left I thought many things... chief among them was HIV. I’d go get tested. If fear would let me.

                I kept trying to call Tess. One month... two... I thought she had died.

                I often went alone to the Lakeside where I’d shared priceless moments with Tess to just gaze at the water.

Water, Da Vinci said, never moves of its own volition, except when it falls. True. The surface of a water body is moved by winds, underneath, it’s stagnant. May be true too. These were Da Vinci’s postulations. This water was near black. We used to call this place our spot. We believed it held answers that we sought, because, when in our relationship we came to the sex question, we’d got our answer from this place. It was Tess suggested we came to the Lake to find out if we should ‘engage’. We’d come, and looked attentively within the water for the answer, but it was without we got it. Horses grazed solitarily on the lawns; but a supernatural wand commanded one male one to track down one female one, and the show began. Horse show! It was when they cried I saw them. I thought Tess’ eyes and mind were in the water, but they were up on a tree where two birds were making out. I had to follow the line of her sight to know. I smiled, remembering what I’d once read from a British poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley:

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the Ocean;
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things, by a law divine,
In one another's being mingle.
Why not I with thine?

Nudging Tess, I said...

                “Every creature in the world is making out in pairs... why not you and I?”

She laughed dryly and I didn’t know what that meant.

                We stayed at the Lakeside, silent for like another hour. Then we went in her car to her house. In her room, we fumbled to nudeness. I saw a smirk on her face and I knew she was ridiculing my JT... or maybe I was wrong. The thing was healthy as it should be. We pushed her packed luggage off the bed, and lay down; we were like... ‘Let’s do this!’. She was prepping for a trip soon.

                A friend of mine had taught me to, whenever I didn’t know what else to do with a nude woman, to just keep nibbling at her nipples. Said she’d keep moaning and I’d always be the man, even if I be spineless and ‘dickless’. For the most part, that was what I did that evening. And that was the night I fell in love with her left breast over her right. Sixteen months ago.

It’s a whole fourteen months later I’d say why I preferred her left breast. That’s one year and two months.

                In these two months of Tess’ disappearance I’ve been to the Lakeside seven times. Alone. I was always thinking about her... of what might have happened to her. Sometimes, I felt I was in her company and I conversed with the air. That was when I started to think I really loved her. But then again I was also thinking I was going insane. So the next time I was to go to the Lakeside I hoodwinked Odinaka into accompanying me. It just occurred that I wanted to go there sometimes, but now I didn’t want to go and behave like a lunatic to myself.

                After Tess, Odinaka was my next choice for a girl. But, Odinaka, as I sensed, wanted to be all or nothing to me. She was trying so hard to hate me and quit being my friend since I’d chosen Tess over her.

We were sitting on the grass. I was battling with Tessic thoughts in my head. Odinaka was restless, not seeing any sense in our queer picnic. It seemed she wanted to leave.

Then she nudged me...

                “Why did you bring me here?” she said angrily, and stood up. “You know, sometimes I really do think you’re sick!”

She started storming away. I called after her but she wouldn’t stop; until the voice of the one she’d seen called. I turned to the other direction. Tess was walking up to Odinaka... to tell her she wasn’t staying... that I was all hers... she could keep me... But the angry girl shrugged her off and went away, saying she had better things to do. And she swung her pretty hips from side to side.

                Through the drama, I was busy watching Tess. Where did she emanate from? And why was she dressed like... this? Baggy jacket; Tess of all people! It didn’t go with the pants she wore at all. Was she cold?

                Tess came and stood before me. I wanted to sit back down but her mysterious gaze held me up. So we just stood there, staring at each other. I with my raw eyes, she hidden behind her shades. Then I thought I saw her chin twitch... a smile or something. What nerve!

                It was minutes before any of us said anything. It was her.

                “I’m sorry for interrupting your happy time with your new girl.”

                “You really are a jerk,” I said sternly, “if a girl can be that!”

                “I’m sorry. And not just for this, but for everything...”

She was looking sullen, and I felt she wanted to cry; only her shades wouldn’t let me know for sure. But then it became very obvious. Tess bawled.

                “Oh... what’s the matter baby?”

She was my baby now; she usually was when she cried; but my boss when she was bright and sober. I held her but she moved away. She said she was sorry; that she only wanted to come and go on her own terms... rather than have me come over to the hospital or the house and ‘leave’ her there. That if I came, whenever I left, no matter the circumstance, it’d feel like ‘leaving’ her. She wanted to be the one to leave... if at all. (I would catch her drift soon)... if I was still game – if I really loved her – I’d come after her. Tess opened her jacket for me, and she had no other top covering. My favourite breast was standing alone – the only breast now. The right one had been evacuated. All there was now was a healing wound on a flat surface. It was ugly. I was dazed. I rushed to cover her up when I came to realisation. I held her to sit; then the story began...

                ...it had grown malignant and, to save her life, a surgical evacuation of her right breast was the only option. In those two months of her absence, Tess had been to the US, done the surgery, recuperated, and came back.

                She was only five when her mother died; and she’d heard it was breast cancer but she’d never really asked questions... in part because she had no one to ask; and in part because her dad’s new wife made it look like witchcraft. That same cancer was going to kill Tess too, cuz she’d heard nothing of self breast examination and all that. It had to take our carnal posturing to sin for her to learn something was amiss... And then it took a tad too long or the cancerous undergrowth would have been nipped in the bud, and all her breasts would be intact.

                Tess cried.

                I cried.

                “What comes easier to me is to hate you... for pointing out your observation so late. But then I know it’s gratitude I should feel: you didn’t point it out too late... you saved my life B. The doctors said two more weeks was all it would have taken for it to spread to my other breast and into the rest of my body. And to think that after that day we went to the hospital, I was to travel to the UK to see my aunt, planning to spend the entire Summer there... I might never have come back... alive.”

She sobbed some more, then said...

“You saved my life Farouk, you really did.”

Then she cried herself to her feet and started making her way to the parking lot about a hundred and fifty yards away. I watched her leave, too stunned to speak or move.

                Was I going to return to her? Maybe. Maybe not.

I wondered if Odinaka checked her breasts regularly; or if I had to go and also help her find out. I wonder if every girl practices self breast examination... taking all those steps... nude before a full-length mirror. If not, only when your breast is gone would you know its importance. Or when you die...

                In relating with me, Tess is easily on the defensive these days. Maybe that easier thought takes sway. She’s mad at me for pointing out so late that there was a lump in her breast.

If that’s the case, well, she can’t keep blaming me. It was three years ago... I was a little younger, a little small, and a little foolish. Not my fault; no; not at all!

PRACTICE - TWELVE

Laide got up and cleared the dishes… slowly… still wearing that worrying look. There was something wrong. Grandpa’s speech was either going to make or mar this. From her countenance, I feared the latter might have resulted. I stayed with Grandpa while she went to the room. He talked to me more about ethnicity and religion… but agreed they were surmountable hurdles. He pointed out that, for him, the ideal thing is, if you marry a girl, she becomes a citizen of your village. In the long run, the matter of her maiden village never comes up again. He realized, though, that modernity had made a lot of room for convenience. Especially economic convenience. It is the reason why many Igbo young men migrate to Europe and America, marry women from there, and derive benefits exclusive to citizens. Or, a young man marries the daughter of a wealthy man, and he becomes wealthy too. In the face of these developments, he acknowledged that once we can easily decide where we face in December – Edo or Enugu State – we’re cool. But trips to Edo State must be properly termed: visits; and, trips to Enugu, homecoming. Whatever the case, modern times or no, my village becomes our home. Anything other than this, I was on my own.

                Grandpa and I shared an eerie silence before I helped him get up. I helped him walk to the room, helped him sit on the local mat atop his mud bed, and stirred the glowing embers of firewood under the bed.

He was old! For some reason, I started to relish in retrospect these close moments I shared with him. Much as anyone might hate to admit, it was obvious his end was near. Very so.

Later on I went to meet Laide in the room to know if all was well. Negative! She had taken seriously ill.

The next few hours had me worrying like crazy. In her usual stubbornness, she had refused to go to the local Chemist’s, saying she’d be alright. But her temperature was scary. So I went to the chemist myself and got drugs for malaria. Before I left I begged her not to tell her parents she was ill if they called. Sometimes, streaks of signal came in that room. When I came back I administered the drugs… with much difficulty, due to lack of cooperation. Then I placed her head on my thighs, and continued to dab her face and chest all round with a damp towel. Nothing was going to get me out of the room soon.

                Before bedtime, Grandpa came to check on her, felt her temperature, and promised her she’d be alright. It was funny. As if he was the giver of health… Grandma herself had been in and out of the room, being a mother.

                I spent the night with her in the room. I wasn’t going to stay stuck to a promise not to share her bed while her health withered. Beyond the fact that I loved her so much, this is what her Dad would wish I did. I hardly knew any sleep, anyway: All those eyes to and from the farm; all the half hugs; all the visits and suspicious pleasantries… this notorious, witchcraft-ridden village… I had to make sure – every half hour – that my sweetheart was breathing.

From Grandpa’s marriage lessons, the range of my thoughts had expanded, and now I could add one grim picture that he did not. There are many threats to marriage: divorce, war, poverty, time, waning love… There’s also death. What if your partner dies… early on? What if it’s from mysterious or questionable causes? What if your business blooms afterwards? What if her family does not buy your story about the cause of her death?

What if your girlfriend dies on you?

By dawn her health improved tremendously, and the day was looking up. No hard chores today, just peace and quiet… We toured the village, taking romantic pictures here and there. Grandpa talked some more too… but I knew by now that there was no discouraging Laide. She was having a go at this… the whole nine yards! I managed her as much as I could… so she’d recuperate fully in time for the trip that lay ahead. Tomorrow, we were due out.

Back in Abuja, the sixth day was such bliss I had to eat into the seventh. We went to Wonderland… all manners of swings and roller coasters… all pitches of fright and amusement… adventure. Families and people in love all over the place, but they were all blurry; Laide was the only clear human being in my view. I kept looking at the time. Arik Air – Abuja to Benin – was at 5pm. Laide was all mine till then.

PRACTICE - ELEVEN

After we freshened up we found Grandpa already feasting on roasted yams. Mom had been preparing them all evening. He invited us to table.

                “The girl is pleasant,” he said, struggling to chew.

I smiled.

On the graph of life, we were still rising to the curve… Grandpa had made the bend. He was way downhill already… back to pap and ‘swallows’ these days. He was being stubborn by asking for roasted yam instead of something easier for his old mouth to handle. What age does to us…

                “What if you have to live together like this?”

                “Like how?” I asked.

                “You young people in big cities don’t have the full picture of marriage. Your father wanted you to see this as well… Marriage could be this way too: Two people, living alone…in a village somewhere, old and without help, but still together. Add it to the picture you have.”

Hmm.

“We haven’t always been here. I lived in the city too… long ago. When circumstances forced us to come home, my wife followed me. Marriage is for all times, all seasons – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Add that to the picture you have.”

I took note of that too by nodding pensively.

“Many young men from this village are living and working in different cities in this country. Some marry the women then meet there, some come home to marry… there are others who do not marry at all...

“A calamity befell the Igbos some years ago, and today we’re wiser and more cautious. I’m sure you had reached the age of discernment when the Kaduna Riot happened… it’s not up to… say… fifteen years now…” he cast his gaze in the distance and took on the story.

“Young men from here – and other parts of Igbo land – who were plying their trade in Kaduna were succeeding in business. They saw no problems whatsoever in marrying pretty wives from any Igbo State... Anambra, Imo, and Abia. And erm… Abakaliki – or even from other parts of the country. Any girl comfortable with their trade was made a wife, and life went on. The couples lived happily and were producing bright children. All was well. But then the riot broke out... Kaduna burned! Lives and property were lost. So, people that survived fled to their villages. Our sons came back here with their families. Most of the women they brought back found the new circumstances unbearable. On our part, we tried to be reasonable… knowing that all cultures aren’t the same. We cut them a lot of slack. But at every turn, these women were getting in their mothers-in-law’s hairs, and arguments were erupting from every home stead. Their husbands’ presence seemed to douse the tensions, though. But the time came when, after the mayhem, the men had to venture out, back to the desolate streets of Kaduna, to see if they could pick the pieces of their lives back together. It is said that only a fool tests the depth of water with both feet… for, if the water be deep and dangerous, then the fool is doomed; whereas only one foot would suffice to learn of a shallow river. The men went back to Kaduna alone. Stepping cautiously into territories that had been fraught with terror... but leaving behind them, in the village, a fresh colony of flames. Some found glowing embers of war, and concluded that their sojourn in Kaduna was over… they retired and came home, picked up their hoes, and followed us to the farm. To adapt to the new reality, their families went through turbulence, to say the least. Others found stumps that were still alive in Kaduna, and knew that their lives could grow back – with the requisite patience that was. So those ones came home to strategize and head back. But one thing was, each time the men came back, they rarely found things the ways they’d left them. Some found not their wives whom they left in their mothers’ cares. Mothers told them things like ‘she said she wanted to go to Nnewi; that she’d only be two days...’ That was a month ago! In some cases they’d taken the children dearest to them and vanished... flouting the duty given them by pastors... to love and to hold their men forever, in good times and in bad.

“This is just one scenario. Most young men based in Kaduna were devastated all round by the war. The worst case scenario was... that some men died in the violence, and their parents back home couldn’t tell if there were survivors from their sons’ families or not. The women disappeared with everything, children and all. Perhaps an Alhaji took a liking to the woman and orchestrated the chain of events that left her gasping for breath like a choking fish on a dry lake. He scoops the nymph and adds to his invincible harem a cikin daki – as they say! Such was the cataclysmic reach of the Kaduna riot. This story, amongst other experiences, taught us a bitter lesson: to marry from home, so that if anything happens, man and wife are both coming back here. So add this to the picture you have as well.

“During the mayhem in Kaduna, some of our sons ran home alone. Some of our daughters too. Their marriages had borne no fruits, and were only hanging by threads. The violence provided the snap, and they fell apart. So, one question you must ask yourselves: are you friends enough to live for many years without children? Or will you just be hanging on, waiting for the arrival of children to legitimize your distraction from each other?

“One good picture you have in the city is that… there are many successful men, and more beautiful women… more than yourselves… so it’s very fascinating when you forsake all others and pick each other. Not like here in the village where options are few. I am far from rich… even after more than ninety one years on this planet. Yet, at the time, I was all the heroes in the world put together to my wife. There were hardly any contests… hardly any rivals. Now I know the few things that belong to me: my name, my children, my patches of land, my house, and, most importantly, my wife – the woman who has made this journey with me. She’s mine; always has been… for more than sixty years. While my children have all gone on their own, she remains… And I’m quite sure that only death can take her away from me. Mind you… it’s not a… a… miserable… assurance; I’m as sure now as I was sixty five years ago.

“So add these to your pictures and determine if you like the resultant mosaic.

“Nor is divorce easy… People who marry, and then part, open up wounds that never heal. If there was love, and you marry on account of it, and years down the line you can’t find it anymore, while there are lots of possibilities, that the love you seek has gone into a total stranger outside your marriage is not one of them. Second marriages are, therefore, often more catastrophic than first marriages. Moreso because, those who have divorced their wives in pursuit of better options outside, are convicted by guilt, and so cannot scream or divorce again when things with their new wives do not work out. Therefore, they stomach their discomforts, thereby treating the second ailment with therapy that would have worked for the first. The second ailment becomes incurable. No, divorce doesn’t help. Lost love can be rediscovered… only except if it wasn’t genuine love in the beginning. That is why there is music in this life; that is why there is smell, pictures, places… all to remind you… give you clues… on where to find what you lost.

“Of course some young men came back here from Kaduna with women we hadn’t been party to them marrying. When we asked them about the women we watched carry wines to them, they never quite came up with any cogent explanations. It made us realize that the lot of you have no real understanding of the marriage covenant. So, your father sent you here for a reason. After this, of course you can go on and do as you please, but you’ll be more likely to know where whatever decision you take will lead you to.”

                Our attention was rapt; we sat enthralled by his delivery – especially his gesticulations and facial expressions. Occasionally, I took a bite of the roasted yam we were having – just it and red oil; but Laide had been done a long time. Her face was sober, and I thought maybe Grandpa was scaring her.

He continued…

                “Your Grandma and I… we’re old, but we still remember some moments in our lives that make us smile.

“Build a collection of these pictures and more, and make your decision. Life is not a bed of roses; happiness is supreme, but there are a lot of things waiting to destroy it for you: race, tribe, religion, social condition, distance… you name it. And you must take them seriously, or they will destroy your happiness. Your decision is yours. You have a right to it. After all, you’re the one to live with it. But it’s important that we guide you. Our people say, ‘you must learn from the mistakes of others, because you won’t live long enough to make them all yourself’.”

He beamed a rickety smile at us and said, “Going to the farm, cleaning, and doing things in unison… you get a pass mark there.” What was left of his teeth were a mess – brown initially, but now had red oil on them.

I felt fulfilled.

PRACTICE - TEN

I was up early. After washing my face I prepared things for Laide to have her bath. She was already up and about, cleaning.

I heard Grandpa call from his Obi. I went. He said his barn was empty… he hadn’t been feeling well enough to go to the farm. The young men who used to help the old out in their farms had all migrated to the cities in search of better fortunes. It had never been harder being an old man. What Grandpa was trying to say… I had to go to the farm and get his yams, at least – if I couldn’t accomplish anything else there. There was hardly any food in the house.

Damn!

I informed him that I could buy all the food the house needed… in case he didn’t know. It was an odd idea. He wouldn’t have it. Go buying food when he had surplus in his farm?! There was no contesting it, I had to go. And I knew this man; I dared not ask him for directions to the farm – at my age.

I told him I had to go get ready. I went to ask Grandma and she said, she, a woman, dared not point out directions for me to my father’s farm while he was still alive… It was a taboo or something like that.

My Blackberry’s battery had died, but my Nokia was still alive, so I switched sim cards. I went in search of signal to call my eldest brother. A man that saw me struggling outside the house told me I had to head towards the junction. So I went back in to prepare for the farm… call my brother on the way.

I took a cutlass, hung a hoe on my shoulder, and took a basket and a piece of cloth with which to carry the basket home. I started making my way. Grandpa had come out of his Obi, chewing-stick in his mouth. He asked if I was leaving already, and laughed a wry laugh when I said yes. He said even the sturdiest boy in the village couldn’t trek to Ukpata – that was the farm. The farm was the reason he had a motorcycle… I said, well, I couldn’t ride. There was a bicycle too, and that I could ride. When I wheeled the bicycle out to the front yard, he asked if I was leaving Laide behind. She, meanwhile, had been watching…and she now had that ‘I told you so’ look on her face. Grandpa’s countenance would have it no other way – Laide had to go with me. It appeared we had to undertake and succeed in this together. Modern girl: she came tagging along at once. Grandma yelled in our language. I explained to Laide that she had to go get a wrapper… No need to take off the trouser she was wearing… just tie it over.

                I kept trying to call my brother. It kept cutting. I put clues together, plus the little I could still remember from 1995…and kept going. April 1995 was my second time ever in this village… for a few days. A number of months astride ’91 and ’92 were my first. Then, we had run from a raging inferno in Kano State.

People we passed on the road stared at us until we were out of sight. The ones that knew me came to say hello and pry. Knew our family, actually. I would stare too… if I was in their shoes. What sort of young love… in a place like this… Laide held onto me from behind, and kept cautioning me about my speed on a not-so-good road. I argued that to keep our balance, we had to speed. That’s the trick in riding bicycles. The better riders can go slow; amateurs speed. It was thrilling to ride a bicycle again after so long. When we got to the vast area around where our farm was, we alighted and I wheeled. We were saying hello to people… sheer luck that people were in the farm this early. If we saw people from our clan, meant our farm was close… because the plots were shared amongst clansmen. One woman spoke like a true neighbor, and I knew at once ours was next to hers. It was unkempt. She said she’d intended to help Grandpa weed the following day. With all the rains, weeds were blossoming. And at the spots where yam tubers from last season were gathered under dry debris, the rains had soaked them, creating moisture underneath and causing the yam tubers to start germinating. All these anomalies assured me further that this was our farm.

While I was surveying the heaps of debris, the woman called out to me…

                “They’re starting to germinate, yeah?”

I said yes.

                “Well, they’re yet still okay to eat; a little later and you’ll have to put them in the ground and wait for next year.”

                “They seem far gone already,” I said, “can’t I just replant them now?”

                “Well, you can… But it might be a waste. They’re not all seed yams, and the yield may not be as big as the investment.”

Laide and I started to gather into the basket. Doing it with her, it didn’t feel like work. And it didn’t matter that she didn’t look a useful farm hand. It’s the ideal of grandparents to have their grandsons marry extremely industrious girls… for all of life’s challenges. But times had indeed changed. There was hardly a three percent chance that we would end up as a couple who would have to depend on our subsistence agriculture for a living. Didn’t mean I had our future all sorted out, though.

                Laide took the hoe and started weeding at random. I got her to concentrate on the task at hand. We had filled the basket, now how to carry it was a problem. It occurred to me that, since this woman was our neighbor here, she had to be our neighbor at home too… so I decided to ask her to lend us a sack which she could pick up from the house later on. Laide flashed me a knowing look.

We put the yam tubers in the sack, and it could even take more than the basket. Laide was laughing. I couldn’t help joining her. I was tying the sack unto the back of the bicycle… I asked her to quit laughing and give me a hand. She came to help me, but said she wasn’t getting on that. It was funny, sweet, memorable… That was how we met – watching a picture of an okada man and a woman who carried a sack of cassava in similar fashion… only theirs was a motorcycle. She posted the picture on Facebook, and my curious comments inspired the chat that had brought us here. Our sack now, placed horizontally on the bicycle, didn’t alter the balance; as a matter of fact, it enhanced it. And then Laide could sit high on top of it… I could handle it, really. I could navigate us home this way.

                “It’s the only way we’re going to get home today.”

                “No!” She kept giggling.

                “Don’ worry… I’ll be extremely careful…”

                “I’ll walk.”

                “We can’t walk all the way… Remember they’re counting on us for lunch.”

                “I’m going to fall,” she nagged.

                “No, you won’t. I’ll be extreeeemely careful… Promise.”

She was chewing on the idea.

“Please. Let’s just go home… If you can’t do it for transport, at least do it for love.”

She thought awhile, and then began to smile.

                “I’ll do it for love, Duke. And keep your promise, okay?!”

                “I will, sweetie.”

Phew!

Fear was still in her eyes when she clambered. This girl had to learn to trust me.

We didn’t go too slowly, or balance would have been hard to achieve and maintain. It was my defense again when she protested that I wasn’t keeping my promise. Wherever the road was bad, or too hilly, we got down and wheeled, then got on again… attracting attention the entire length of the journey.

                When we got home, Grandpa was sad that his worst fears had materialized – his yams were starting to rot. He praised our work, but wished we could make more trips to rescue the most we could, and plant the ones we couldn’t. Laide jumped at the errand.

We made two more return trips… the last time we went, we stayed back making hips and planting. We had instructions – as if I didn’t already know – slant the tubers when you put them in the soil; make sure you don’t upturn them; the bigger the hip, the better… on and on.

We went home really dirty, and Mom told me sarcastically that hard work in the farm wasn’t determined by how dirty one came home. I ignored her and went to bathe.