I once met a girl in NYSC camp whose aura got me fixated in her. There was something overwhelming about her physique that was plum and chubby in a beautiful way, as it was tempting.
I remember the day that I met her, that cold and frosty harmattan monday morning at Yikpata camp with the bugle blasting martial music and the soldiers bursting from room to room shouting, "If you're sleeping, you're wrong! If you're still dressing up, you're wrong! If you're still sitting you're wrong!" and people- bleary eyed graduates, weary from journeying thousands of miles from all over the country, with no respite nor welcome, ran here and there, c
onfused, jarred and jolted from their comfort. This was Yikpata, the oldest NYSC camp in the country and it was wosky in the real sense of it. 😂
And I, ever conscious I, was in the bush trying to ease myself as there were practically no toilets..And the nearby bushes had already been filled by northerners who liked to do it nearer the blocks.
But, it'd become something I would be gratefully for because that's how I would meet Onyinye, the chocolate skin-coloured damsel from Anambra who often ended our evening walks, years later when we'd end up serving together at Nteje, with the words, "if you're not loving me, you're wrong," mimicking the female soldier who made a boy roll on the floor because he'd said he'd never love a soldier. 😂
It was in that bush that I met her, vulnerable with all her fancy glitters down as she squatted to do same business I had come to do. We'd sneaked out of camp for the quiet seclusion of the bigger woods where the wind blew in a quiet caress over our skin.
We really clicked, loved each other, held each other closely. She was my companion through out our service year working at a community health centre, me the doctor and she, the nurse- the beautiful nurse who made every man turn twice to look at her.
We made memories, colourful memories, going out in the evenings to Onitsha mall to eat Kimanjero fish peppersoup on our pay days, window shopping at Finenet for phones we could not afford, 😂 and at times, going to main market in a keke to shop bargains from importers of same goods sold at premium at the mall.
"You're the real calculator, Emeka," she often teased, highlighting my penchance to penny pinch." and I'd tell her that I was only saving for her sure-to-be hefty bride price. And we'd laugh. Our laughter was easy. Loving her was very easy.
She was my first girlfriend in the true sense of it and I was very welcome at her home which began to feel like home when her mother began to like me and make me feel at ease.
I remember her, the fair tall woman who spoke softly to me, gave me food during festivities, enough food to last me weeks and often mediated when Onyii and I had problems. And when corn and ube came out, she'd give Onyinye alot of boiled corn and ube for me.
And as the service year came to an end, with the first winds of September and harmattan dust, I lay in bed with Onyii and told her that I was going to marry her once I got enough savings for her dowry.
It was something I couldn't explain how I had said, "Do you want me to see your parents now, Onyii?". It was after she'd began crying in the middle of our affectionate cuddle and I was confused as she didn't want to tell me why she was crying. "Will it stop you from crying? Am I good enough to marry you Onyii?"
I looked into her eyes, expecting a 'yes,' a resounding 'yes,' but I got nothing because Onyii simply looked at me and said nothing. That afternoon, as I drove her home, I would get frsust3d by her vehement refusal to discuss her problems. She even said I was a complainant and that I should stop bothering her.
Her coldness prompted me to talk about it to her mother who'd assure me that she would sort it out. I had wanted to also talk with her brother but was put off by his recent cold shoulders towards me, often refusing to talk to me nor respond to me. I was desperate but I found no help.
Looking back now, I think that was the beginning of the end of that beautiful relationship which had made me so happy, like my mouth was full of melting sugar. It was the beginning of a period of coldness in which Onyii would totally change towards me and never again would open her heart to me.
Everything onwards would be purely mechanical between us and after 3 months of trying to get her to love me again, I would refuse to give up, still crying to her to love me, still trying my best, still trying to avoid other girls, still driving out in the night to buy her 'best' creamy milk which I gave her at work, until that rainy monday morning after my first semester MSc exams when I would text her, "you're my life, Onyii" and she replied, "I shouldn't be your life, you should have a life without me," that I would smell the coffee and decided to sit her down and talk eye ball to eye ball.
"Tell me the truth Onyii! Tell me where your heart lies now, what you still feel for me, if you still feel anything for me?" I asked her over the phone after my exam. I was lying down on the bed, tired, with my heart beating, waiting for her answer for by then, I had become totally conquered by her charms as any man who met her would surely be.
But she didn't talk, she said rather, that she would chat me her response which when it came read, "there's someone else Emeka, and I've said yes." And then, she logged off.
My heart was broken and the bits fell into my belly, like the rain splashing on the roof in heavy slanting drops. The world around me stopped. And I'd begin to slide into darkness that'd would last for months and cost me 20kg of weight, my job and my masters exams. 😂
I became a robot at work. I could not eat, could not sleep, could not function and her face formed a huge shadow around my soul.
I begged her. I cried. I called her cousins and mum and I cried. "Please come back! Please come back,! Don't turn your back me Onyii, hear me now." But she said no.
My pain would totally submerge me when I learnt that the man who took Onyii was living in Canada and doing well and was so handsome in an Odogwu kinda way, that although my Onyii hadn't seen him, she'd excitedly said yes when his people came to their house to tell her mum that they'd seen a very ripe ụdara in her house and wouldn't love to pluck it, flashing before their eyes a picture of the would be suitor in winter coat and head gear.
And months passed and I began to heal. But my masters was gone. And so too was my shine and pride, for everyone who knew us now, laughed at me. My boss tried to shout me out of the darkness but when I failed to get out, he fired me.
***
Months rolled into a year and then another and I would leave everything behind in Nteje and relocate to Abakaliki. It was there that I would meet Onyii again, heavily pregnant but not for her husband.
"For whom?" I asked out of turn, surprised at the nonchalant way she said it. "It's not for him," chewing her gum loudly, parting her expensive bone straight hair.
She told me that the man never returned after their wedding, that not even when she had surgery for her baby nor when she fell ill, did he return. She said she was now alone, that she'd have loved him, that she had hoped he would have taken her abroad and if things didn't turn out well, she'd have left him.
She apologised, "sorry, for the way I left, Emeka. I was just focused on leaving Nigeria then and he was my prayer answered until he suddenly wasn't."
She rubbed my hands and said, "whatever you want now, I will be open to do, I can even have a baby for you if that'd make sense to you," looking into my eyes the way she often did in the consulting room back at Nteje when both of us were on night duty and everyone had slept.
"It was just too tempting Emeka," she explained further. "You know we wømen marry not for love but, for comfort."
I was now a resident doctor and she'd come as patient and we had the discussion in the air conditioned consultation room which reminded me of our little office at the health centre and the many times we'd kissed and held each other.
I looked at her and I wanted to say something about her still shinning skin but no words came out. Except for "here, that's your prescription. We'll see you again when you're meds are done."
"Yes," she said, extending her hands to take the papers. "Thank you doctor."
And there was a lasting silence as we stared at each other for what seamed like a century.
Outside, the sun blazed hard and the wind stood still. I wanted to have a shower and then sit in the shower for the rest of the day.
To be continued.
Written by Nnaemeka Ugwu
