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.