***
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| Golden yellow street lights. |
When Obinna returned to the house, everyone: Obiajulu, both of his parent’s in-laws and his brother in-law were already asleep but Adure, was in the kitchen making stew for some of her coworkers who could not attend the party. He was still very hungry but the fear of what Adure could say was still very much vivid inside him so, he could not muster the courage to ask for food. He just went to the parlor and sat on one of the new black leather sofas she’d just bought. And he was careful not to let the crisp leather make a noise while he sat because, he wasn’t yet sure Adure would let him sit on it. ''What does a jobless man know about the cost of things?'' she had blasted four days ago when she had found him lying on the longest one. He sat quietly with his clasped palms between his thighs, listening to the shattering sound of the rain which came as fast as his saliva; his saliva always dripped faster whenever he got much shaken emotionally because his lips would quiver beyond his control. It was one of the issues the doctor had said he would have to try to cope with, when he counseled him on how to live with his new deformity after the accident.
The rain got him thinking of his first meeting with Adure; rain always took him to the past since the accident because it had rained heavily on that fateful day. It had rained heavily too, on the day he and Adure met at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. He had run into her in a little kiosk besides Caver building where they had both sought shelter from the rain, at the same time. He was tidying up his master’s degree project while she was in her first year in mass communication. He would never forget the glowing smile and sparkling teeth which she flashed at his face on that day; it had been so piercing that it went through his bachelor heart, piercing it, leaving an irremovable imprints of her face in the chambers of his heart.
And soon, they got talking and soon, they were inseparable. She wasn’t doing quite well and seemed to have very little passion for her course of study and naturally he, being someone who placed a lot of emphasis on hard work, wouldn’t have looked at any girl with such academic predisposition for a second time. But, in her case, he instead, felt challenged and, a strong desire to build her up welled up his throat. But he was quite impressed with her apparent good behavior, good morals and church upbringing and her charisma and home training; and she was quite caring and loving too- the two attributes that were the most important to him during those days when he was searching, when he often sang that song ‘I got you baby’ by Lucky Dube.
In the end, it was really an easy decision for him to make as per choosing to date her out of the myriad of girls, far prettier, more intelligent and richer girls, at his disposal at that time; he was handsome and had a master’s degree and a car and, in a small town like Nsukka, any girl would fall for him. And he had a lot of them he was sleeping with at that time.
He and Adure got on well, became what could be invariably called a couple in love, love- stricken love birds. She worried a lot about finance because her father was retired and sick and she was going to drop out of school if no help came. She wished she had an elder brother, or good relatives who would’ve helped. “All our relatives want us to suffer and die so that they would have all of the very few lands of which they do not want my father-the only son of his own father, to partake of, to themselves,” she would say, leaning on his shoulder. She told him she didn’t want to sell her body just to pay for her education because it was a sin and because she was damned scared of HIV after her aunty died the most horrible death following a cold blooded fight with the disease. She told him about her three other siblings, how they were almost starving. And her poor mother who was just a petty trader.
Obinna often laughed inside his mind whenever Adure stressed that she didn’t want to sell her body for money because it was obvious that as a poor unattractive and needy undergraduate, it would have been very difficult for her to attract a guy rich enough to offer any significant financial relief; the university was full of too many pretty girls who would take all the attention if it got to the point of girls using their bodies to stay afloat. And this was where he could not explain his love for her because just like the university was full of better girls, his life was full of girls better than Adure in all ramifications. But, it was she who got dearest to his heart and he even reveled in the many ways she fell short of his taste for an ideal girl; and how else would true love be explained if not that it exist in spite of deficiencies in the life of the loved? He wasn’t looking for a perfect girl but, someone he could love forever and Adure was that someone.
Later, his reply to his friend when they told him they didn’t see anything special in the girl was “na my choice.” He soon broke up with the other girls in order to focus all his love on his one and only Adure. He told her not to worry that all was going to be well as long as he lived. He took care of her and the rest of her family just as he carried his own mother. And right now… now that things had gone sour and he was sitting on the sofa, hungry yet unable to ask his wife for food, how he wished he could still do it again- carry her on his shoulder again, his sunshine, his spotless eagle, his Adure, and say again to her, that all was well.
He was working as an accountant at Saint Theresa’s collage then, and life with Adure was a beauty every minute of every day. They enjoyed every bit of the exhilarating scenery of Nsukka: the hills, the oily food, the quietness, the humble hospitable locals and the fresh air that often came with the rather too frequent rainfall. And soon Adure graduated in flying colors thanks to the magnificent effort that Obinna put in her studies.
On the day of her convocation they also got engaged. It was a night that would forever linger in the chambers of his memory, regardless of the turn of things. The beautiful fluorescent hall at Conis hotel with multicolored balloons floating in the air; the smiling faces of friends and families; the beauty and life which flowed like a waterfall from Adure’s face, all combined to produce this everlasting memory which popped up in his mind each time he sat down like yesterday and today, to reflect on his life, on their lives, regardless of the nature of the reflection.
***
When the rain got to an abrupt stop, it was quite late into the night and with his mind and body well under the Influence of sleep and hunger and, a heart-consuming desire especially after watching Adure’s dance, his body lost its two years old restraints and he compulsively walked into Adure’s room; her room with the new sedate orange paint and sparse furnishing and exquisite art work and smell of lavender, the smell which they both had started loving from the night in which she gave her virginity to him, the night before their engagement. How could he have been so foolish to have attempted walking in there knowing how sour their marriage had gone, knowing how copious his saliva now flowed and how bad it smelled? Off course he got what he deserved for being a failure of a man, for being so deformed forever; he was soundly rebuffed and pushed away.
“What man stays home all day and still expects to enjoy the warmth of a woman, like the Chinese say huh’’ She asked him in that casual tone of hers which she employed when she got irritated by someone, before slamming the door against his face, as had been the case for the past two years, without waiting for him to speak. Then, she sat down on the bed and cried.“
What is happening to me, to my love for my husband? Why do I hate him so much now?” she cried. Off course, she, just like Obinna lost the rest of the sleep as their minds slipped into the past again. And again, the regret and melancholy came storming in. But, Obinna did the more negative thinking.
Perhaps, he should not have loved the way he did, the way he reveled in the love between him and Adure and the family love that developed between his in-laws and he, a kind of love that he had never experienced since his father left. Things weren’t always this way.
***
By the time Adure finally got pregnant, after their wedding and years of trying and failing, Obinna had been promoted to the post of chief accountant of the school. He decided that Adure resigned from her old job in the supermarket to make sure there was no problem with the pregnancy after two years of trying; she needed a good rest. And their decision paid off because ten months later, their child was born effortlessly. He named him Obiajulu, meaning that their hearts had become calm and, the beautiful little boy indeed brought joy to their home. Adure’s mother was soon with them for Omuguo. Obinna’s mother also came and, each day saw the old women entertain them with their numerous dance steps and folk songs and memories, memories that made them laugh with tears in their eyes. Everyone had smiles on their faces especially his mother who had been praying to carry a grandchild from her only child. They created one big family that reveled in shinny bliss.
Adure’s younger brother coincidentally, got admission into the university and was doing well so, Obinna happily paid the bills. He had only his mother to carter for since he was the only child and his father had long disappeared. Adure’s family was literally the only family he had, besides his mother. At least, before he became a failure. And so, when his father-in-law’s illness got worse and required a very costly surgery, Obinna didn’t hesitate to tamper with the school’s finances if it meant saving the life of his father in-law, the only father he’d actually had since his late father rejected him from the onset. The plan was to return the money soon enough, before the school asked for it. But, like our people say, when misfortune decides to visit, it visits in the company of its brothers.
There was a cogent need for money to repair the gully erosion which threatened to cut the school football pitch into two. The principal called him into his office and asked for the money. He couldn’t produce it and then one thing led to another and then, a few weeks later, he was sacked, after he had sold his only plot of land and his car at a cut price and paid the money. He was unhappy but, it didn’t last long since he never actually rated that missionary school job. He actually saw the sack as an opportunity, a wakeup call for him to start looking for a real job befitting of his certificate. And thanks to the miracle of Adure getting gainfully employed within the next few months, at ESBN, their home did not suffer as what he thought was going to be quick job hunting turned out to be a prolonged, painful initiation into the teeming fold of the unemployed. Yet time passed by and things remained relatively calm and he still listened to love songs by Enrique Iglesias and still believed that love would conquer all. But fate had a different plan.
Exactly fifteen months after he lost his job, fifteen months in which Adure deftly carried their home, paying the bills with a smile on her face but with a mildly growing distant demeanor towards his mother for no known reason, something happened on a rainy Sunday.
Adure was in her village with the rest of her family aside her younger sister Chinenye, attending the burial of a distant uncle and so, Obinna was left at home with his mother and chinenye. On the evening of that day, Obinna’s mother took ill, and lost consciousness. So panicking, Obinna jumped into the car, the new car Adure had just bought and drove straight to the hospital; he drove as fast as Michael Schumacher. And then, bang! The slippery road to the teaching hospital did what it knew how to do best. The car summersaulted and fell into a gully. It was nearly fatal; in fact that Obinna, his mother and Chinenye did not die at the spot was a major miracle. They were rescued and the people thanked God. On the spot also, Obinna’s mother recovered from the unconsciousness that brought them to the road in the first place. While his mother came out whole, he and Chinenye come out of the mangled mass of metal, incomplete.
Yet Chinenye was better off, for whereas she only lost her left breast, Obinna lost more than half of his face. And now he’s left with a severe facial deformity because some angry metal fragments crushed most of his facial bones, producing a severe damage which only a facial transplant could remove. The piece of metal drove into his face, leaving him now, dribbling smelly saliva, every minute of every day and, gradually but steadily since then, things have been falling apart and five days ago it got to the peak.
***
Their son, Obiajulu, was now four and felt lonely; he yearned for a sibling to fight and play with but, he had none and the loneliness was beginning to tell on him as he now daily, withdrew more and more into him. Adure had long stopped letting Obinna touch her since he was discharged from the hospital after the metal fragments where dug out from his face together with his left eye and lower jaw bone and so, they had no other child. She was flying high in her job in ESBN and her reason for not wanting more children was that a man who could not feed his family should not have more than one child. Obinna was still unemployed and so, he’d been keeping quiet and been saying yes and yes and yes; it’s ok. Whatever he thought could make Adure happy was ok by him, whatever that could make the discomfort of being with him lesser for her was alright by him. And besides, what choice did a man like him have?
A man who is already on the ground, defeated, should fear no more falls. Such a man should make no more protests if he still desires to see out his mission on earth; his only option should be to hold onto that-whatever it is, which sustains his dissipating life. In Obinna’s case, that which sustained his life was their son Obiajulu and for his sake, he’d agreed too many more “things not going the way he wanted it”. Like last year, when he saw what no other man have seen, when Adure started seeing other men, men who treated her like trash but nevertheless, men upon whom she showered her money and love and Obinna repeatedly cowered under her threats of divorce if he made too much noise about it.
But, the truth was that Obinna really stayed on in the marriage for the sake of their son but most importantly, for the sake of his love for his Adure; for whatever way she treated him did not matter much because there was something bitter sweet about his undying love for her, even in the mist of the most severe pain; something bothering on masochism. And if being with Adure was hell fire, he was ready to spend the rest of his life happily, in it.
The first case of his humiliations came on the kind of a day when one wakes up on the left side. A kind of a day when one’s Chi, god, shows him his sins to his face and then, brushes his mouth on a rough patch of earth. Adure had just left to attend a conference at Owerri when Obiajulu took ill; fever. So, Obinna didn’t go out to construction site where he was managing as a laborer in order to be with Obiajulu and he was right not have gone out because at 5pm, Obiajulu started having febrile convulsion. Obinna rushed him to the hospital but he didn’t have enough money to keep him in there for the two days which the doctor said was required for his treatment. So he had to call Adure to send some money, even though she had vehemently warned him not to disturb her important conference at the Imo state capital. Nevertheless, he picked up the phone and dialed her number.
“Hello, sweetheart” he greeted when Adure finally picked up after he had dialed for the umpteenth time.
“Hello Obinna, what is it?” She sounded irritated.
“How is the conference going?”
She was silent.
“How is….”
“Bia nwokem, go straight to the point” she paused a while then giggled, sighed before adding “eheeh?”
Obinna could hear a masculine voice but, he wasn’t bothered. His main worry was Obiajulu.
“I need some money, sweetheart, Obiajulu is ill and I don’t have enough money on me,” he pleaded. Adure sighed. Obinna could hear the masculine voice still.
“Hope it’s not serious?” She was concerned.
“Not to worry, he’ll be fine. I’ll take care of him,” he assured her.
“Off course, you can’t afford not to because he is the one eye that owes blindness,” she sounded cold. “Go to my room and check my drawer, I left some money there. When I get back I’m going to find out if you tamper with my things,” she finished.
But she left the phone on, perhaps, by mistake; perhaps intentionally. By then Obinna was already rummaging inside the drawer searching for the money, unconsciously still holding the phone to his ear. He was about to lay hand on the crisp wand of naira notes, when he started hearing the sound of kissing then her voice.
“Wait now….waiiiit now, take it slowly because am all yours tonight.”
A short while later, Adure started moaning and screaming. Then, Obinna switched off the phone. Of what use was it to keep listening to such pain? Even with such evidence, how could he put up any fight against the only woman he loved and the woman who had his heart in her palms forever and who dictated his dream in the painful sort of way that day by day she increasingly climbed higher beyond his reach? The woman who paid the bills? The woman who held the knife and the yam? How could he put up a fight in the environment where the essence of his life-Obiajulu was been raised and hence, definitely denying the poor boy of that which he desired most for him-that he be raised in a complete unbroken home- a privilege of which he never had, since his father had left his mother shortly after he was born? That would have been like the case of the lizard which brought chaos on the funeral of its mother.
And so, he took in the bitter pills of nights when his wife went out wearing skimpy dresses and returned home in the morning severely drunk. Nights on which he’d lie on the bed receiving calls from his friends and hers alike who called to say they found her at so and so place with one cute young man or the other in Enugu capital city, young boys whom she could not resist the desire to have a taste of. And this hurt her, filled her with guilt, and bewildered her, this ravaging desire for handsome men. It had not been there when her Obinna was still whole and this knowledge offered a little explanation to the withering of her once rock solid love for Obinna. After every hot sex she had with a lover, her mind would be quickly occupied by what the reverend father told her when she had gone for counseling immediately after her first act of adultery “what really attracted you to your husband in the first place is gone and your body is now living its true nature, craving for that thing and it is your duty to get it under control.” But try as she did, she could not get her acts together.
But she cried after every act because she was always filled with guilt for betraying her Obinna. How shocked she was now, coming to the knowledge that love could die. And every time a man climbed on top of her, she would call her husband name. Obinna was her first and only love, she knew. Her pain was that she could not just get her body under control; her craving for handsome faces now controlled her since the one she called her own was now gone. Perhaps, Obinna understood and the understanding fuelled his endurance e and stoicism. And many times, he wished that people stopped blaming Adure because, to him, her behavior was just born out of frustration from the fact that she had lost what she treasured most in the man she called her own. Her time with her male lovers barely helped her with a little happiness because, ever since that accident happened, she had been spending her nights, praying and hoping for love to return in her heart for Obinna. Yet somehow, Obinna understood.
The day he bumped into her walking into a room with a young man at TOSCANA hotel where he had gone to see the manager of the construction company for whom he worked as a laborer, he just looked away even though he was sure they had seen him. And when she came home and murmured “sorry”, he could not say a word. Rather he felt something closer to pity for her; he imagined how she must have felt, waking up each day to see his pitiable face, realizing that she was stuck with a man whom she apparently never truly loved. A man whom she called husband and father of her son but for whom she had lost every bit of the feelings that made her say yes to him in the first place, a man who had lost every bit of the things that ever made him attractive.
***
Yes, Adure now found her husband nothing short of a piece of thrash, but she was still willing to stay with him and raise her son, their son, the fruit of their once life-saving love. She still wanted to stay and provide Obinna with food and shelter and care. She still believed that their love could come to life again. She was aware that her promiscuity was just borne out of her canal craving for handsome faces. It was just a canal feeling and so she still had hope that her marriage could one day stand up again because everything canal definitely comes to its natural death, one day. If only Obinna would reason with her now, would understand and play his own part, play along with her in her decision and efforts to save their home from his occultist mother, according to the pastor of her church, pastor Enoch. If only he would listen to her and forget about that witch he called mother, as pastor Enoch put it, who was responsible for the accident and the ill wind blowing in their home.
She had quickly consulted the pastor after the accident. And after due prayers and fasting, the man of God came to a conclusion. There was an insider who belonged to a sea cult and in her craving for power; she had chosen to sacrifice the family to the wicked spirits of the sea in exchange for enormous power.
He, the pastor was a huge man, always wearing black Italian blazer double buttons suit. He spoke with the authority that had come to define him and made him the most powerful and respected man of God in town. And all the while he spoke, his large distant gaze was on Obinna’s mother who for some inexplicable reasons had sustained no injuries at all from the deadly accident which had claimed chinenye’s breast and completely destroyed Obinna’s face. After the prayers, Adure’s mind was made up. Even before the man of God called her to her room to warn her seriously that the witch must be removed from their home and that all ties with her must be broken forever, she had already decided on what to do.
The next day, after she had gone to see Obinna at the ICU of the teaching hospital and, cried herself out, beside his bed and unconscious body, she returned home and sent the old woman away.Obinna returned from the hospital, a frail and dependent man and only Adure’s love kept him going during those difficult months of his discharge, months that the reality of his new physical deformities settled in. He had lost the use of his left arm in addition to the irreparable facial deformities and the dripping smelly saliva. He said nothing about his mother.
Time passed and the name of his mother was never mentioned in the family anymore. The old woman somehow understood and, in her desire to save his son’s marriage, she accepted her fate and willed her son to play along. She didn’t need to explain things because everyone apart from Adure understood that she could not possibly be the cause of the accident. And she also hoped that no one would blame Adure because anyone who felt the crushing blow of the accident as she did would understand that it was normal for her to believe the pastor’s words. She was so shaken and paranoia overwhelmed her.
Time passed and in the old woman’s stoic and silent grief, she fell sick but, kept it secret, until she got worse and worse until she was at the verge of dying. She still didn’t want to tell her son for fear of causing a problem in her son’s marriage but some relatives got the words across to Obinna.
That was how they got to this breaking point. Obinna was determined not to abandon his mother in her last days. And for the past five days, his mind had been occupied by the details of his storied life’s journey with his mother. From when he was in primary school when his father sent them away and his ikwunne rejected them too because his mother had disobeyed them and got married to the man from Mba ise who was said to have been an armed robber. He thought about those days of his primary school when he and his mother hawked boiled corn and lived in a batcher in Ngelevu ghetto on ugwualferd in Enugu. He thought about his secondary school days when he had to go to Aba to hustle until he got a scholarship with which he attended university. All the while, his mother had stuck to her rosary and divine mercy prayers.
He had been deeply in thought and could not sleep the night after the party. When the first cock crowed, he looked into the picture of his mother in her wedding dress and his tears and saliva wet his pillow significantly. He peered into the other picture he was holding which had his mother holding him as the priest poured the baptism water on his enfant head and suddenly, his limbs began to shake and then he got up from the bed. He got dressed quickly and rushed to Adure’s room. He knocked heavily twice and then said.
“Ada, I’m going home now and I’m going to bring mama with me. She needs medical care, and she should be here with us for proper care” and without waiting for her to respond, he was off to the motor park.
As he walked briskly towards the motor park, he was thinking of one thing: the first thing he would do when he got back to the city and inevitably found Adure’s divorce notification on the table would be to take his mother on an evening walk along the streets of independent layout, to admire the golden yellow street lights. At least the old woman deserved it before meeting her death.
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| Obinna, walking into the sunset, alone. |
Written by Nnaemeka Ugwu. @All rights reserved.
