HUMMINGBIRD

Aii.

Let’s say…

There’s this young couple I used to be close to. We’re not as close anymore.

I did a lot of running-around for them during their wedding and, naturally, they felt they owed me one. So I was always welcome in their home. They made sure I was comfortable, and always offered me something to eat. That hospitality started to wane gradually… because I was a constant guest. Every free time I had, I was in their house. People who wanted to see me came to look for me there sef! I sensed it was uncomfortable for them… but I kept on.

The thing was… they were the cutest couple on earth. Not in terms of beauty per se, but… they were cute. I loved the way the girl clung unto her man; how her eyes closed when they kissed; how she melted at the knees… I loved the way they nestled when we chatted in their house. I loved the way she fell asleep in his arms. I loved the way I stayed there and never gave them breathing space.

Haha.

The onus was on the man to tell me to cut down on the visits, but I felt he still remembered how I broke his jaw back in school, and was scared to annoy me. Because he wouldn’t keep his friend away for a while, his wife was pissed with him. She didn’t fall asleep in his arms anymore when we chatted late into the night; she just forcefully dragged herself to bed, visibly angry. And her husband kept wishing I’d get the cue.

I kept the man up in the living room so late he hardly got enough sleep. He was lousy at work… and that was the part that disturbed me.

I was certain my presence afforded them no time for love making; and this made me grin every time I left their house to go to mine. I didn’t go there every night sha… say… six nights a week. And I made sure other guests were very brief.

Because of me, silent tension rose between husband and wife. I could feel it. But I wasn’t reasonable enough to back off.

One night, three or four months on from their wedding, I noticed the girl had added some weight. I became scared somewhat. Then my fears were confirmed: she was pregnant. Once I confirmed this, my visits ceased. I wondered where and when they planted that seed. I was with them the whole time. Maybe on one of those rare nights I didn’t visit because I was at my parents’, they quickly hatched a plan to make a baby.

Creeps!

When my visits ceased, I was sure there were relieved at first. But as time passed, they had to be worried. I wasn’t all a nuisance; I was a friend. They would surely miss me.

One night, the wife called.

                “Hey Jay! No one has seen you in a while. What’s up?”

I told her I’d been very busy, and work had me travelling a lot and all.

They put to bed.

I went over to see the baby and congratulate them. Not at their house oo; at the hospital. It was a baby girl. Couldn’t tell if she was pretty cuz she was too tiny… but she had to be. Her parents were cute. I pitied them. Then I left.

Months passed.

The wife called one night to know how I was doing. I said I was fine… but out of town. I was truly out of town, but it seemed she didn’t believe me. So, two weeks down the line, a knock on my door, it was her. She said she hadn’t called ahead because I could lie that I wasn’t home. Said I’d changed; what was wrong with me?!

She was carrying her baby; and she looked like someone who needed some air. I offered them a seat, and asked if the infant was ripe enough to be out like that. That was about all the care I showed.

Because of the sigh of relief she must have heaved when I left her family alone, she now felt reluctant and guilty to express any sort of need for me. But they missed me. It was clear.

                “How’s your husband?”

It was a continuation of my callousness. Calling him “your husband” made him entirely hers; not ours. If it was before, I’d have said “how is Ben?” He was my friend, and her husband – we were both stakeholders in his life. I now sounded as if I’d washed my hands off them. It was quite obvious that all wasn’t well between them. That sweet love; that cuteness; that succulence… it didn’t seem very present now.

All of a sudden, she broke into tears on my couch. I reached for a tissue and handed it to her. Didn’t touch her, didn’t touch her baby, didn’t ask her why she was crying…

She wipe her tears vigorously and got up to leave. I went straight to the door, opened and held it for her. She paused to take a quizzical look at me. Then she adjusted her baby a bit, and walked out. I closed the door.

As I was returning to the papers I’d been working on, she forcefully opened the door and walked in.

                “Jude! Is this revenge?!”

I acted as if I was lost and simply stood staring at her.

“Or simply punishment?!”

“Why did you abandon us?!” she continued. “It wasn’t our fault that we needed some privacy. We were newlyweds for Christ sake!”

“Now my husband accuses me of having driven you away. Why would I do that?!”

I said nothing, only watched her.

This pretty woman… of course, that killer shape… wasn’t quite as it was anymore. She looked like someone who was throwing in the towel on the fight to look chic. Biological, moral, and emotional supports were lacking.

As her questions drew no speech from me, she turned around and left my house, closing the door gently behind her.

I wasn’t returning to my papers now… I was thinking about this couple, and their journey that had only just begun. Many more nights of fights awaited them, and they needed their old friend back.

I gently and quietly followed her… no intention of catching up with her; just to meet her at home. I met her on their front porch, sitting there, distraught. I stood to watch her awhile. She was silent, gazing away. I walked past her into the house, hoping to find her husband. Ben, sorry. He wasn’t in. Their abode wasn’t as tidy as I remembered it. Their walls were peeling off, proof of dampness within them. Maybe from a broken pipe from the flat above theirs or something. There was no proof of zeal in the house to do something about it. Baby things here and there. Their refrigerator was scanty. No trace of food in the kitchen. Ben’s shuttle bag was flung to a corner, proof that he’d come home from work and went out again.

I walked back out to meet Teresa, and I sat there with her.

I would make things right; but it was the last time I would tolerate any two persons squandering precious love because they failed to stop and think.

LET ME WARN YOU READING THIS… Because if it happens to you, don’t call me!

One for the money,

Two for love…

Three is a crowd,

Four can be called a team.

Five is a group,

Six as well.

Seven deacons, Stephen gets killed

Eight disciples, Jesus wasn’t done yet

Nine

Ten

He still needed two more.

If my presence in their house was a nuisance… did they think a baby’s would be any different? I wasn’t even there all of the time, but their baby would live with them. That makes them three – a crowd.

Young couples get it wrong very often… especially in these parts. On their wedding night friends and family taunt them… telling them to ensure they worked hard tonight, so they could pull a crowd nine months on. Who says that immediately you get married, you ought to go straight to making babies; who?! Even if you courted for fifteen years before marriage, it still has to be just you two awhile before you consider bringing in third parties… otherwise, the cares of parenthood and extra bills soon usurp the succulent ambience of your home, and you become unsure of how and when you signed up for this.

I was in their home often, at my own inconvenience, to make them realize that what was most valuable to them was their own company. I deprived them of sleep and cuddling, yes; but see who was on board now! Babies are the most wicked and self-centered human beings in all the world. You have to be ready for their bullshit before you let them into your home. Stay away from them for as long as you can. Childbearing is secondary to marriage. Even the Church tells you that. But because of all our misconceptions about sex, we conclude that our first night – which should be all passion, all pleasure, and all bliss – ought to be the night we conceive our first child. This simply plunges couples too soon into the annoyingly boring and unending monotony of adult life. Plus, how are your finances? Bearing children comes with bills!

Stay with your wife a year, two years… bond, bond, bond. Your mixing auras soon begin to prepare you mentally for the weight that you soon decide to put upon your marriage cart.

Now Ben and Teresa are going to be needing help from time to time to keep them together. They’re going to get it. I’ll give them that. But the consciousness that you need external therapy to enable you cohabit with the person you love is already a sucker punch to your sanity. Someone you found and clung unto effortlessly – sometimes even against the forces of gravity and your family – you now need help to stay with. It’s a ridiculous something, I tell you!

I’m going to start visiting again and we’ll be four. That’s a team. We’re a team now, determined to make this work. Determined to win. The team will grow too. But that love I sought to safeguard for a while, is gone for good.

LULL OF LIFE

It’s mainly youths that travel these days. Older people have attained some rhythm to their lives and have sunk into predictable beats: They stay at their stations throughout the year, and travel only in December. Basically. Any other time they travel, it’s for funerals.

What are the youths chasing? Jobs; greener pastures; adventure; money; community; friendship; love.

Life.

As we set out, Funke and I, she expected that we’d spend our time in the bus engaged in lively chatter. I would have loved that too, but silence often engulfs me at such times. My eyes hover over the endless bushes, and I wondered if they’d be different if Jonathan wasn’t the President. Like, I’m asking… in a forest, does it matter who be president? Does the relief dance to his beats?

The tussle for the land: how do you know that here’s Delta, and there Edo? Who measured them out? The blood that spilled, the heads that rolled… the land gulps them all and moves not. The victor and the vanquished both end up in its belly, and it belches, and excretes green, lush vegetation...

Stella’s amiable disposition soon wins her the lively patronage of two fellow travellers, and she left me to my boring life.

We arrive.

In only a matter of minutes, we were going to see all the others who had made the journey to Warri for the wedding from far and near places. I knew of the joy and elation that lay waiting to consume us once we set eyes on each other again after all these years… but not as much as I knew of the silence that ought to follow. Some will say they’ve been doing well, others will say they haven’t… but the real hidden truths everyone must decipher for themselves.

There could be morphological disappointments and/or surprises. Back in school, one might have been on his way to becoming a very tall man… we gather five, six years later and, to our dismay, he didn’t make it beyond the fifth foot. One might have been really pretty… five years… she grows fat and ugly. One might have been lanky, with bushy hairs… five years… they look good. The married ladies couldn’t quite rendezvous with us – they’re in the thick of childbearing. They look nothing like the trim, sexy girls we used to know. Time.

We take each other in so, and eased up before late night. A booze binge – call it Bachelor’s Eve – late into the night wasn’t out of place, not even for me of all people.

Blur.

Next day was the wedding, and we had to donate our solidarity in sobriety. It was why we’d come. We glide through it,  pretending to feel the thrill that ought to attend white weddings… where the man is permitted by the priest to make love to his wife, supposedly, for the first ever time. We applaud, though we know it is possible elation isn’t what the man truly feels. Could be fear. Doubt: Should I have held this wedding off a bit? Should I have married girl B instead? Am I trapped? This cultural difference between her and me, should I really have ignored it? Should I have listened to my father?

Our applause disturbs his musings, and he looks up at us, beaming, with all his thirty-two teeth on display. Quite white, against the ‘black’ of his skin. Sometimes we might succeed in fooling others; but we can never lie to ourselves. Laughter’s not necessarily joy; smiles aren’t happiness; and a merry cheer isn’t peace. But whatever he may have felt didn’t matter; for the sake of everyone present, he had to act the script to the end.

When we finish with the ceremony there’s a fine car on hand to take them away. Just Wedded! The rest of us head back tiredly to our lodging. Rest for the night, disperse at dawn. Some lying lazily on mattresses, some perching on chairs, some on the floor, some standing outside… in twos, threes, fours, or all together, everyone converses. We talk about the wedding, our perceptions of gaps, signs of future friction, and all. None really holds any water. None has to. They were married, period!

It was inevitable that we’d fix our gazes in the distance and talk about ourselves: our chances, how close we were to our own weddings, and the bumps on our paths. Some gleeful as they talk, some sullen – this was the real moment. There’s often the general playful question: “Hey, when are you inviting us nah?!” Funke exudes the impression that we can’t ask her that… “Abi will I marry myself?!” But she retains hope that it’ll be soon – even though she probably had no boyfriend. That is often the dilemma of the woman. Funke: stout, plump, just about four feet, without a job, hovering around thirty, and hilarious – she too was staking a claim for a Prince Charming. She’s bold and confident. If Brad Pitt were to fly down and propose to her, she wouldn’t be flattered, wouldn’t blush; she’d feel she thoroughly deserved it. And why not?! But she couldn’t deny that she had doubts, fears, questions… What if no one comes along?

Looking through a guy’s phone, you could easily tell that he has a girlfriend, and who she be. So I see the most frequently occurring girl on Tom’s Blackberry Q5 and put it to him that his wedding should be next. He concurred. Tom was well-placed in a leading bank, had a good car, and was already planning to build his own house in Asaba. As a matter of fact, he told me his traditional marriage lay a mere two months away. But does any of us ever have it that smooth? Tom’s face toughened as he took on the other parts of the tale. His parents can’t have their first son marry far from home. Enugu lies between Anambra and Ebonyi, making both states far apart. And Ebonyi people are ‘backward’, which his parents can’t have. He assures me he has no intention of disappointing anybody – not himself, and not his folks. So he’ll marry his Ebonyi girlfriend (who was still in school); and if his parents bring the ‘enlightened’ Anambrarian, he’ll marry her too. His Dad lived in London, and wanted to pretend his objection to his son’s proposed marriage was purely western, so he says he wouldn’t want a situation whereby he’d have to support his son and his son’s family. Tom asks him, “Dad, I hardly asked you for money when I was in school. But since I left the university, have I ever asked you for money?” Now, a son asking his father that… that’s weighty! There’s already chaos on the horizon: and a wedding day, nay, wedding days of questions and doubts and fears lay ahead.

Having heard bits and pieces of Ugo’s story, everyone agrees that it was his mother’s prayers that ended his lucrative job in Akwa Ibom State. They were in the business of land reclamation for the government, and that meant demolishing and destroying peoples’ livelihoods. It was possible the people fought back, they often do, by going to shrines to make incantations. While there, Ugo met a girl whom he promoted within his family. As mothers often see what their sons can’t, his mother embarked on fierce prayers for the extrication of his son from shackles. Soon, the land reclamation project went into hibernation. The staff hung around, thinking it a matter of days or weeks. Time passed, and it didn’t seem the project was coming back on, so everyone dispersed. Ugo returned to his mother’s bosom for good, and distance stifled that ‘unwanted’ relationship. Today, he was our host.

There were those who kept on making unfunny jokes about girlfriends… how many they’ve had, where they’ve been, who they’ve been with, and what they’ve done. The thing is… when the heart cries, nobody really knows. The person could be cracking jokes and laughing, but their heart is in tears. No man who’s truly happy jokes about women that way, putting them down.

And then those who didn’t talk much about the prospect of marriage probably still faced stiff economic challenges. It seemed almost completely evident in our dressing – the difference in our economic statuses. It could be an advantage. Money could be the best vehicle for going astray… for veering off the course of destiny. Some people graduate and quickly get jobs, and that keeps them busy and occupied. Someday, they check their wristwatches and, finding it’s time to get married, they go dashing down the aisle, pulling a girl along. Their colleague is their best-man. It is the same for lovers, friends, or even enemies who got themselves prematurely pregnant. Marriage becomes a necessity. If they’re on the wrong road, they may never turn around.

But, for the unemployed, does life wait? Five, six, seven years after graduation, we come together… all our dreams haven’t come true. All our plans haven’t worked out. Or some were still making plans… none of these stopped the years from coming and going. Kingsley Idegun had died; Anastacia Ojiebele, Anita Patta… They’d lived; maybe not as long or as well as they might have wished, but they lived. Either down on their beds where they were hatching their plans, up at the table where they were plotting their moves, or our out in the fields where they were executing, they ran out of life, and their stories folded up. How about that!

No matter how fast we must move ere our lives end, that unwanted, boring period of joblessness, heartbreak, and emotional quagmire isn’t entirely useless. It might be, throughout our lives, the only period of serenity we find to philosophize… to ask those questions we ask belatedly after the priest might have joined us… to watch life from a distance.

I was called ‘nwa father’ (young priest) by Ugo’s younger sister. At some point it was debated where I got my quietude from; whether from the minor seminary where I’d been, or from the family that begot me. I said little. We had talked about how close or far away everyone was from matrimony, but my angle was uncharted – even by me. So I planned a short trip that could help…

At dawn when everyone set out for their destinations, I wasn’t headed for mine yet. I was going to Benin… to see her. I thought that… if I couldn’t get answers from her lips, I’d decipher them from her eyes, or deduce them from her demeanour. My journey was delayed, and I sensed there was an anxiety to see me – which was a positive. When I arrived, reception was haphazard. And then, as I stayed on, company was sombre. Excerptible moments were dense with unsaid words. It was an inanimate rendezvous.

By morning I was returning to base. I’d gone for answers, but I was leaving with more questions. I’d still be mute when such marriage discussions are carried on; still won’t know how far or close I be, still couldn’t say.

Or maybe I was too scared to concede the truth: that when feelings are there, they’re there; and when it’s not very clear if they are, then they’re not. When the former is the case, one can join marriage discussions, and probably say they’re close. But when the latter, then one’s not even on the journey yet.

So… Ekene’s thirty-something now, and a Barrister; Onome too, and a teacher… They’ve had their fair share of that lull of life – having dated for twelve years astride school and work life – and must have pondered their options. This ‘wrong’ marriage – if at all – might be the ‘rightest’ they’re entitled to. As in… maybe, for them, it doesn’t get better than this!

Jude Nnadozie, 16:28pm, 23rd April, 2014, Utako, Abuja, Nigeria.

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.