Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Tryst

Tryst

By

Isaac Attah Ogezi


The bank was thickly full as if it was payday for government workers who use to collect their salaries through the bank. It was double cue for only one counter. The other Paying Out counter was empty which made us understood that the bank have no money. I doesn’t need to tell you that the two Receiving counters were empty. Only a mad man will see a house on fire and run inside to pick his underwear. Every customer on the cue was praying that the money will not finish before it reach his or her turn or that there should be no order from above to stop payment until further notice. The bank people too were not happy and you can see it on their faces. After all, if everybody withdraw his or her money, and the bank close down, where will they be? Even a small child in the kindagatin know that unemployment have shoot to sky-high in our country. I was among those praying but unlike the other people, I was praying in the language the devil will never understand. I was praying in tongues! Our pastor told us that the devil cometh not but to steal, kill and destroy and the only way we can scatter his head is to pray in the Holy Ghost, the language of heaven. Parima ha, ha. Ribo soto …. I began to tongue it. The devil is not my age-mate. He is a bloody liar from the bottomless pit of hell. It shall not be my portion in Jesus’ name. Not with less than one year to gain my freedom from my master. Maliki peremasho lehinma kela!
It all happened last Saturday when I returned home from the market very tired because that day the sales was high. It was as if everybody wanted okirika cloths that day. Not that I blame them. Not at all. Since this civilian government came into power, prices of things are beyond the reach of the poor suffering masses and the only things they can afford to buy are second-hand or even third-hand goods. I was resting in the parlour when my friend, Ekene, came in. Ekene is my real pal and when I say pal, I mean it. He is an apprentice too like myself to Chief Okechukwu, a dealer in motor spare parts. Immediately, I set my eye on my friend, I knew all was not well. For Ekene have this kind of gloomy face that I call fire-on-the-mountain face that immediately you see it, you know that ground no level. He called me outside so that my master and his family will not hear us.
“You never hear de thin’ whey I de hear so?” he asked forbodingly.
“No until you tell me, Ekene”, I replied.
“Hmm”, he sighed an ominous sigh. “People de talk say our bank wan’ go bankrupt”, he finally dropped the bombshell.
“What! Ekene, what are you yarning about? You mean Sub-Sahara Bank of the East of all banks?” I asked at the same time alarm.
‘Yes, dem say de big people for headquarter carry money borrow politicians whey no fit pay dem back. Even self de Oga Patapata for de bank dey for prison now. Gofment done arrest am ….”
“Jesus Christ of Nazareth!” I hear myself exclaimed. No, this cannot happen to me. The Bible say that the expectation of the righteous shall not be cut off. Not after all this years. Baba God, you say a thousand shall fall by our side and another ten thousand by our right hand side and nothing shall happen to us. Even if we trample upon snakes and scorpions, nothing shall by any means hurt us. The riches of the Gentiles shall be our possession.
“Smart!” called Ekene with great fear. This jolt me back to the presence from the spiritual trance I was falling into. I’m Smart to all my friends because of my smart, lawyerly way of behaving. Before I dropped out from the secondary school, I was in my third year and was dreaming of becoming a Barrister. Unfortunately, that dream was cut short because my father died suddenly in a car accident when I was fifteen years old, and none of my uncles were ready to sponsored my education. That was my story how I came to be an apprentice to Mazi Ugo. Anyway, my real name is Obasi Ndubisi.
“Sorry, Ekene. I was just cogitating”, I said with a big air of condescending. Our people like big grammar and if you know how to blow it, they would surely love and respect you. I saw it in his eyes.
“Wetin we go do now?” he asked, worried.
He deserve to be worry, so was I. Not after all this years, God. Both of us have devise a smart way of making clean money from the profits of our sales that our masters did not knew. Our masters have both fixed the prices for each goods in our different shops. Anytime we sell above the fix prices, the extra money is our profits. We doesn’t normally reflect it in our records other than the fix amounts. We have been doing that for more than five years now with each of us with not less than five hundred thousand naira in our bank accounts. The thing have even become a sort of competition between us to see who will beat the other one hands down. And now they say the bank we put all our monies is going to close down with our sweat, with our hard-earn monies. No, God! Let this cup pass over me.
That Saturday, I couldn’t sleep even one wink. I kept rolling on the bed till the daybreak. I made that problem my first prayer point in the church on Sunday. I tongued it so that the devil will not understood me. The first thing I did on Monday morning when I opened shop, was to rush to the bank. Thank God my oga was not in town. He traveled to Onitsha on Sunday morning.
“Obasi Ndubisi!” I heard the lady cashier called my name.
“I’m here, ma!” I answered at the top of my voice.
At long last it was my turn to be paid. I was so happy with myself that for the first time I look through the counter hole at the lady who was paying us. Wonderful! I licked my lips like a dog who have see better food and the mouth begin to salivate. To God who made me, I have never see a woman as beautiful as this one since my mother born me. She covered herself so nicely with a veil like a Muslim woman but I know she was not Muslim. The eyes was so bewitching as if she charmed me. Her skin was so yellow as if she was oyinbo girl from Pakistan or one of this Arab countries. This bank people are so wise. They knows how to advertise their banks and draw customers by force. This girl should be around that kind thirty-four years old but because of her great beauty, she can masquerade as a twenty-five-years-old lady if not less. She may be my senior with about seven years’ gap but I must to confess, I will not mind to marry her. Yes, I will be happy to take her as my lawful wedded wife! Her nose may not be pointed but it fit the mouth pkem in a kissable manner. But her greatest asset apart from her fine face are her spellbinding eyes. I was feeling like a teenager having a wet dream, with my wetin-call ….
“Go and put today’s date”, she said, pushing my passbook and the withdrawal form at me. I suddenly descend back to the earth from the paradise of my dream. She beckoned the other customers behind me to come forward. If I tell you that I was not alarm, I will be lying from the bottomless pit of hell. I was simply flabbagasted! What if the money finish before I put today’s date or the order from above to stop further payment until further notice. I quickly put the date and went back to the cue, after the last person she paid because the rest of the customers on the line knows my problem and that I was before them. She regard my withdrawal form calmly like an implacable goddess that she is and suddenly she pushed it back at me again.
“Go and write your address at the back of the withdrawal slip”, she said and turned to attended to other customers on the cue. Already my heart was in my mouth and was beating loudly like funeral drums.
I rushed to one side of the counter and wrote my address quickly at the back of the withdrawal form. I notice my hands was shaking so badly. I was so tensed. Immediately I finished, I joined the line after the last person she paid. She pursed her sexy lips as she went through my withdrawal form gradually and suddenly she pushed it back at me again. To God who made me, this girl wanted something from me and I swear to God, she must to have it.
“You’ve forgotten to sign directly beneath your address at the back of the withdrawal slip. Or is this the first time you are making a withdrawal?” she asked, dismissing me like a recalcitran pupil in a kindagatin class.
I rushed back again to signed my signature. I doesn’t know who told her this but she was right when she ask if it was my first time of withdrawing money from my account. True to God, this girl have provoked me in no small way. No girl ever troubled me like this and go scout-free.
Let me see how she will reject this one again, I told myself as I joined the line and gave her my passbook and the withdrawal form again. She paused and I can see her mischievous mind working seriously to spot a mistake. What won’t I do with this ferocious lioness … I quickly checked my mind from working in an evil direction. I will tame her …. No, God. Not again.
Suddenly, she pushed them back at me again.
“Go and sign your signature twice!”
That was the last straw and I went mad. I must to deal with this too-know girl. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I controlled my temper and complied and was eventually paid by her. Immediately, my money entered my hands, I forgot all about my trouble for the day like a pregnant woman who have give birth after nine months of endless pain and spitting. I smiled at her as if to say “You are beautiful, baby” and took off to looked for where I will keep this big sum of money.
Before I slept that night, I replay all my activities that day like a flashback in a film. The drama in the bank, how I was able to opened another account at another bank opposite it, how I made more profits from the sales of my master’s goods in the shop but the picture of this girl at the bank keep disturbing me like a ghost. It simply refused to left me. Sleep became a problem for me this night. Everywhere I turned on the bed, I see her picture smiling at me. Now, I doesn’t want you to make mistake about me that I am a virgin and inexperience and all that nonsense. No, I have past that stage of my life but the way this girl affected me this night, it was like when I was still thirteen years old and love was sharking me crazy like ogogoro or kaikai. Before I gave my life to Christ, baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost with evident of speaking in tongues, I belonged to this gang of apprentices who always stormed all the brothels in town in the night. Infact, it was a prostitute who disvirgined me. I can still remember that little timid boy who went inside the dark, crummy room of sin. The harlot, an old woman in her late fourties, understood that I was a first-timer and was so kind and understanding and showed me where to hanged my pant and trousers on a nail hit to the wall. When she saw me shivering like a fowl after a heavy rain, she patted me calmly like a mother and said: “Take am easy, ol’ boy” and begun to work on me. On two or three occasions, her left hand guarded me from slipping. After she have give me the works, I thanked her, paid her her money and wear my cloths. I went in as a boy but came out a man. A Samson, expose to all the secrets great men of this world have tested, dead or living. After her, I tried many other harlots in town until Christ appeared to me like Saul on his way to Damascus and I became born-again. I told myself that any girl I want to sleep with again, must to be the one I want to marry. Does I want to marry this girl at the bank? Honestly, I doesn’t know yet but I knows I love her so much. Before sleep overtake me that night, I made up my mind that I must to see her again in the bank the next day.
The following day, before the day fully break, I was in the market on time to opened shop because of the big assignment ahead. I cannot just wait to go and see this girl at the bank. After I opened the shop, I begged one of my neighbour apprentice, Chinedu, to looked after it for me and that I will not stay long in where I was going. I took okada straight to the bank. When I entered the bank, the whole place was empty except the bank workers waiting for retrenchment and the police security. From where she was sitting behind the glass counter, our eyes jammed one-time. I walked boldly to her counter, brought out my jotter from my pocket and tear one page. I quickly wrote the following short note for her:

Hello, fair angel,
How are you? I hope fine. If so, doxology be to God.
Would it please your Majesty if I speak to you for a
moment? I am impressed by your deskterity at the
computer. I would be greatful if you will teach me
how to operate it. Do you mind to tell me your
beautiful name and your residential address of where
you live for coaching lessons? Thanks a million.
Ever yours,
Smart O.

I put my signature importantly and gave her. The sentences about “doxology be to God”, “Would it please your Majesty …” and so on and so forth was not my own. I learnt it off head from books such as How to Speak to a Girl About Marriage, How to Win a Girl’s Heart, Winning the Game of Love, How to Solve the Problem of the Weaker Sex and so many others by some authors from Onitsha. They claim that the books has sold millions of copies world-wide and has produce many happily marry couples. Any way, she collected my short note without looking at me. She read it calmly and scribbled a line on it and hand it back to me. Before I could read it, she vamoosed into the inner banking hall. Directly under my note, she write in a corner in her female handwriting: “I am married”.
I laughed victorious to myself as I rushed outside the bank with my trophy as if I have won her love already or a lottery, though I doesn’t normally try that kind of nonsense. I was so happy that she was still single and available to me. I arrived at this smart conclusion by putting two and two together to arrived at four. Because no serious marry woman will openly and immediately tell you that she is marry. What this girl is trying to do is to test my seriousness for her. She is no longer young again and may not has time for any hot-headed, hot-blooded, hit-and-run youngster like me. Marry? I laughed again as I remember what happened to one of my friend during the days when I use to visited prostitutes along with my friends.
One of our tough friend, Mahoney alias Ladies’ Spanner, told us how he nearly put himself for trouble in the name of chasing. He said he saw this beautiful chick one beautiful day and toasted her. This lady said no problem and give him her address of where she is living. One night, our friend decided to go and visited her. The address she gave him is one big flat with mighty gates and dogs. This did not scarred our friend who think maybe the lady was one lonely rich woman staying all alone. After the bell was pressed outside, the lady opened the gates with giant police dogs barking and barring their teeth dangerously at our friend. She hushed the dogs and usher our friend in. Our friend said he see one huge man in white singlet and short knickers in the parlour, watching television with two little children. The man welcomed him warmly and asked him to sitted down in one of the big cushion chair. The way he narrated it, I always feel as if I was there. I can imagine the huge man tell our friend to feel at home.
“Desire, do get him something to drink”, said the man to the lady.
Our friend was all so tensed. What is happening? The lady brought him cold Maltina in a tray and a glass cup and set it on a stool before our friend. She smiled at him encouraging and asked him how was work in the market today. Our friend said, fine, no problem.
“Oh dear me!” exclaim the woman suddenly as if she just remember something. “Come to think of it, I’ve not even introduced our august visitor to you, dear”. A pause. “Honey, meet my friend, Mahoney. Mahoney, meet Nick, my dearly beloved husband”
“How do you do, Mahoney?” asked her husband with great interest in the visitor of his wife. “It’s a pleasure meeting you. My wife has been telling me so much about you ….”
Our friend said he did not heard the rest of what the husband was saying to him nor did he knew how he manage to escape from the house, only God know. It was like a nightmare he was having with inhuman voices all over the place. He wish the ground would opened up and swallow him. No way. As if that was not enough, one of the little child went up to the lady and rest his head on her lap, saying: “Mummy, I wan go sleep!”
We laughed ourselves crazy that day. Some said good for him since he say he is too tough and nothing in skirt will ever past his eyes. That is my idea of a marry woman and not this fine lady at the bank. A woman who will not flush it point-blank at your face that she is marry. I was so sure that this lady at the bank is not marry that I made up my mind that I must to find where she is living, come rain, come sunshine.
I saw the finger of God clearly in the whole matter like the way Daniel saw the handwriting on the wall. If not so, how would one explain my luck three days later when I stumble over her place? It was the Lord’s doing, His wonders to ponder. I cannot remembered what took me to that compound located about one hundred and fifty metres behind my master’s house with so many unplan houses in between. But I can remembered there was one girl I use to know there. Her name was Agnes and she always greeted me with so much respect as if I am her boyfriend. On that special day, as I was passing by their house, she greeted me and I stopped to exchanged some jokes with her. Suddenly, I saw it and my heart skip a beat small. It was the sticker of the Sub-Sahara Bank of the East on the outside wall of the building. Agnes saw my sharp reaction and asked me what is the matter. It was then that I asked her if any staff of the bank is living in their compound. She said yes and show me one-bedroom apartment in the compound belonging to a lady staff of the bank. Could it be that lady at the bank or somebody else? But I didn’t wanted Agnes to knew what was going on in my mind, so I thanked her and leave.
In the evening after I have close shop in the market, I was at Agnes’ compound to see the lady staff of the bank. If she was not the one, at least she can helped me know where the lady I liked in the bank was living. Luckily enough, when I knocked, somebody was in and I was usher inside the well-furnish parlour by a housegirl. On one of the cushion chair, a fat, jovial woman of about fourty years old was resting, watching a film on the television. She will have be beautiful if not for those ugly and wicked exzema and pimples that has invaded her face like bloody rebels in Congo.
“Yes, what may I do for you?” she asked.
I told her my name and that I am a customer of her bank. This informations attracted her attention immediately. After a long lecture on what was presently happening to the bank from her, I asked her if she know one lady at the Paying Out counter.
“There are two ladies at the counter in question. Which of them?”
“The yellow, slim and very beautiful one”.
“Oh, oh, oh. That should be Betty”, she said with an amuse glitter in her eyes. “What about her?”
“Uhm … I …”, I stammered miserable.
“You like her, uh?” she said rather mischievously.
“Something like that, ma”, I answered softly.
“Love in Kazobia!” she laughed, recalling the title of one Nollywood film. After a long silence, I asked her quietly where Betty live.
“Here of course!”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, she lives here”
“Here?” I couldn’t hided my surprise.
“Yes. Her house is opposite mine, as you go down a little. I don’t think she’s at home right now but you can check her maybe later or tomorrow if possible.”
Wonder of wonders! You can imagine my biggest surprise. After several years of living in this area, I didn’t knew that one beautiful lady by name Betty live here until that day. But I didn’t wanted to check her without giving her notice. Again experience have thought me not to check an unmarry lady without fixing an appointment with her. So I thanked the exzema-and-pimples-face woman and begged her to tell Betty that I will be coming to see her tomorrow around 7 p.m. after service in the church in the evening and I took my leave.
I was so happy with myself, with my life when I reach home that evening. At long last, I have found this lady’s place and I doesn’t have to crack my brain again. Come tomorrow, I will know my faith with her. I will ask for her love and she will say rather shy: “Yes, I love you too, Smart”. And we will spent the rest of our lives together as husband and wife. We will both swear the wedding oat – for better, for worst; for richer, for poorer; in good health or in sickness. What God have joined together, no man should put asunder! Man, I was so happy with my achievement this evening that when I was about to sleep, I brought out my books: How to Speak to a Girl About Marriage, How to Win a Girl’s Heart, Winning the Game of Love, How to Solve the Problem of the Weaker Sex, and so many others by my highly intellectual Onitsha authors. I need to prepare big for this lady if I must win her heart. A first-class girl like her deserve a first-class manner of approach and not like anyhow girl that an agbero in motorpark can approach. I read far into the night until I surrendered to the soft, caresting fingers of sleep.
Before I left to church the next day morning, I took my time to pressed the cloths I will be using later to go to Betty’s place. I’m afraid to confess this because I doesn’t want to be misunderstand by those who do no knows me very well from Adam. When I woke up this morning, I was suddenly afraid. Have I wet my bed at my age? I quickly feel my pant and to my greatest surprise, discover this sticky substance like liquid gum. Oh my God, not again. The last time I saw this was when I was twelve years old and my aunty use to undress in my present. Anyway, that was a long story.
When I came back from church in the evening, I went and have my second bathe, toweled myself very well. I put on my black trousers, white long-sleeve shirt with waist-coat popularly call Monkey Jacket on top and rounded it off with a black tie. I put on my best black shoes and I sprayed an expensive perfume on myself. I must not disappoint Betty like one bush boy from Atakpa village. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was satisfy. Even a bank manager cannot dress more co-operate than this. This girl cannot afford to say no to me. My evil mind can imagine spending several beautiful nights in her place anytime my oga travel out of town. I have took life too seriously for many years now that I doesn’t mind to be treated to a nice bout of sex by this experience lady. Yes, I want to be spoil a little by a mature and experience lady like this girl. I want her to kill me with pleasure.
. I left to go and see her. You can trust this PHCN people, there was total blackout this night. The night was so dark as coal-tar or the bottom of a local pot as if it was around that kind twelve mid-night. Maybe as our Geography teacher use to said, we are experiencing longer nights and shorter days. Also, I liked the idea of going to see her when it was so dark. It give more privacy. Darkness can be so romantic especially if you use a candlelight. Me and her will be sitted around a table with a burning candle and a tray of cold drinks in between us as if we are the only human beings on earth. Who know, she may decide to submit to me this night if I play my cards very well.
I reached her house some minutes past seven. At the long, dark corridor, some young girls including Agnes were discussing. They greeted me and I answered. I asked Agnes if Betty is around and she said yes in a secretive way I doesn’t understand. Why this sudden mystery? Or was she jealous to see me go to another girl? Anyway, that is her own business. I noticed there was no lights from the room of Betty’s kind colleague at the bank. I went up to the side of Betty’s apartment at the end of the corridor and knocked. Silence. There was no sign of life or movements. Everywhere was dark as if she was not at home. And Agnes who is her neighbour told me she was at home. What could be wrong with her? Could she have sleep off around this time after a hectic day? The whole thing was so confusing. I knocked again. No answer. What should I do? I then decided to wait for her. I saw a long bench opposite the door to her apartment and I went and sitted down on it to wait. I like seeing anything I begin to the end. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning. From where Agnes was with her friend, she saw that I was having problem and came up to me.
“Haven’t you seen her yet?” she asked with great concern.
“No. Are you sure she is in at all?” I asked doubtfully.
“Yes. I saw her when she entered this evening. Let me see.” She went up to the door and knocked several times. It was so dark that I couldn’t saw who opened the door but the door opened small and Agnes whispered something with the person inside. The door was shut again as Agnes came up to me.
“She says she is coming”, she said to me.
“Thank you.”
Agnes left me to go and continued her discussion with her lady friends at the general gates. And I waited.
After about fourty-five minutes or more, I saw through the window a flame of light as the person inside tried to light a candle. It went off. After two more attempts, the candle was aflame. It was taking to an inner room and the parlour was plunged into total darkness again. There was some minutes of silence as I waited. Fifteen minutes or so went by, no Betty. Soon, the door opened and Betty came out in her sleeping nightgown with a wrapper tied around it up to her breasts, holding tissue paper. If she saw me, she didn’t showed it. And I waited in silence as she went up to the girls and discussed something I cannot heard and returned to her room, as if I was not there or she didn’t saw me. I told myself that I must be man enough to saw to the end of this business this night. This is not time to chicken out like a coward. So, I waited. Thirty minutes later, the door opened again and a man in caftan came out of her room. A man? No, I couldn’t believed my eyes. So all this while a man was in her room? I will see something this night. I watched the man headed to the gates. He past me opposite the door as if I was not there. Or am I invincible like a ghost? A minute later, Betty came out too and followed him. Was this a dream I was dreaming or real life? Anyway, I stood up quickly and followed them too. No, I won’t allow Betty and her boyfriend book me just like that. No, I must to saw to the end of this matter no matter what. She cannot book me like that and go away with her boyfriend. No way!
Outside the gates, as I approached Betty and the man, the man turned angrily at me and switched the light of the torch he was holding full-blast on my face like a car headlights.
“Who are you?” he barked at me, with Betty clutching at his left arm for protection. I could give anything to saw her face in this darkness.
“I should be asking you that question. Who are you? Do I look like a criminal to you that you can flash your torchlight on my face or what?” I asked boldly. I noticed he was staggered a little by my confidence as if I give him a punch on his stomach. My friends don’t call me Smart for nothing.
“What do you want?” he asked again, a little subdew.
“I came to see Betty, if you don’t mind. You see, I’m a peace-loving citizen of this country who believe in the ideology of live and let live. Can I see her now?”
“Now look, Mr. Man, if you love yourself, I advise you to quietly go away from here before any harm comes to you”, he warned.
“Come off it, my guy. Chill. I just want to see the baby and nothing more. This is not something that you must get hot by the collar like a stark illiterate”, I stabbed.
And that was where I have made the greatest mistake. For suddenly, Betty sprang up like a wounded lioness to the defence of her man. She was shouting at the top of her voice, struggling to come and fight me! Man, I have never see this kind thing since my mother born me. This created alot of scene and in a few seconds, many people gathered. The girls in the compound including Agnes, passersby, neighbours from different compounds, and all-whatnots came to see what was amiss.
“Leave me. Oh, I say leave me! Let me deal with this stupid boy. He abused my husband”, screamed Betty at the top of her voice, struggling against strong hands to come and fight me. God, I have never see this kind thing before. It was like a terrible nightmare that I want to wake up from it and laugh it over. But Betty was not done yet.

“He has been disturbing me. I told him that I don’t love him. I’m already a married woman but he wouldn’t leave me alone. Is it because I am a woman?” she asked her listeners weepingly. “So when I couldn’t face this alone, I called my husband. Immediately he saw my husband, he began to rain abuses on him. Called my husband an illiterate man”, she said in a sympathetic voice of a defenceless woman being oppress by a man. I nearly fall for her tricks, the Jezebel!
“It seem the two of you don’t trust each other”, I managed to hit back at her. “You don’t have to make a fool of yourself to prove that you love that coward”.
This sting her very well and she went mad, struggling for them to leave her to come and fight with me.
“O-o-oh, leave me! I say leave me. Didn’t you people hear what he said to me?’ she struggled with the kind passersby who are holding her. “It’s either me or him today. He must kill me today!”
“Young man, what are you still doing here? I mean what is wrong with you yourself? Don’t you see that the poor lady will not stop this until you go away?” pleaded an old man. I was touch by his advise and came to my senses. I looked around and I was surprised to see the number of people who have come, some with torchlights, some with bush lamps, others empty-handed. If I stayed here any longer, somebody will surely recognized me and the news will get to my master. That one is surebanker. Before I left I overheard some young men saying that the man Betty called her husband is the boyfriend who was always fucking her to nonsense in the name of going to marry her. No wonder, she always want to appear like a Muslim lady because the boyfriend is Muslim and want to convert her. I couldn’t stayed to heard more of this painful remarks and went away angrily.
On my way going home, I pondered over this incidence. How would a very beautiful lady like Betty behaved the way she did? No, I said to myself. Something must be wrong with her. This her behaviour is not ordinary. Something invincible is pushing her to behaved the way she is behaving. Yes, I have got it! She is simply under a very potent spell. Yes, the wicked man must have charm her to marry her and not because of his money and not to say he is handsome like me. Imagine such a beautiful lady behaving so foolish if not for charm? Love medicine very wicked men always do to proud ladies so that they will begin to follow them blindly like Hausa sheep. She may do me anything she like but I doesn’t care. God is using me to save her from herself. You must be ready to take all sorts of insults to save some people from themselves. After their salvation, some may come back to love you back for saving them like the one leper out of ten lepers that came back to thank our Lord Jesus. If this man marry her now, he will suck her beauty finish like an orange and throw her away after marrying three other wives, that is if he didn’t gave her triple divorce when her beauty have faded away, when her breasts has become flabby like wore-out, tired slippers like many foolish, long-throat women. But I must to save this one from such ugly faith, come rain, come sunshine. I doesn’t even mind to marry her just to save her from herself. And she will be the only wife I will ever marry, the one and only love of my life. One day she will be greatful to me. We will laugh it over and tell our children the drama their father have to go through to married their mother! But how can I go about achieving this big dream? Suddenly, my thought go to Comrade Aluta. Yes, only Comrade Aluta can be able to bail me out of this hullabalo. I will go and meet him tomorrow evening after work. This immediately gave me so much joy that I put all the incidence of this night behind my back.
Comrade Aluta have made his name in our compound before I met him. He came to our compound as a Youth Corper on NYSC Service, teaching English in one of the secondary school in town. Within one week alone, he became the most populous guy in our compound. The first thing that strike you about Comrade Aluta when you see him is his rough appearance like a reggae exponent. Ragamuffin. But instead of dreadlocks, his face is so unkept with long hair and beard like John, the Baptist in the Bible, when he first came out of the wilderness. And if you want to look for his trouble, do something that will make him talk and he will finish you with grandiloquent grammar that you cannot find even in the dictionary. Some people think that he is taking “wee-wee”, marijuana, in secret and that is why he is talking the way he is talking. But what surprise us most is the number of young, young female Corpers and university girls that keep trooping to his one room like a professor. When they come, they will spent several hours in his single room doing only what God know. Needless to say, I became curious about Comrade Aluta and always looking for opportunity to be his friend. That opportunity came one day when I saw him drawing water from the public well in the compound. I quickly rushed to assisted him but he refused. After much struggling, he relutantly give up and I fetched the water for him and carried it to his place. He invited me to his room and I entered. His room is as disorganize as his appearance. Apart from one big mattress on the ground in one corner, everywhere is so scattered anyhow with books and sheafs of papers.
“Do sit down and get yourself acclimatized to my humble haven”, he offered, waving me to seat on the bed. I obeyed. There was silence.
“What are you called?” he asked, with his red eyes boring into me. I told him my name.
“I see. I’m afraid you came when I don’t have anything to offer you”, he apologized. I said no problem. I understand.
“Have you seen any of my collections?” he asked suddenly.
“Of pictures?”
“No. My collections of poetry”, he answered.
“You write?” I couldn’t hided my excitement. So Comrade Aluta is a writer? No wonder.
“Yes, I’m a poet. An unpublished poet foraging in the dustbin of history”, he answered very proudly. “In a country where everything is topsy-turvy, where the moon walks on its head like ours, the only way to maintain sanity in this season of anomie is in the world of the creative imagination. The realm of the phantasmagoria. The surreal world where the self is sublimated”. He rattled on. I didn’t understood most of what he said but his words enchant me like the mumbo-jumbo of the herbalist in our remote village in the east. He pick one piece of paper very proudly from one of the bulky sheafs of papers and ask if I have read it before. I said no.
“Look at this poem. I say look at it”, he said excitedly. “Even Professor Wole Soyinka, a whole Nobel Laureate, cannot write this”, he boasted. I have never read anything by the writer he called but I have see many pictures of him with the white beard and long hair like Moses in the Bible on newspapers during the late General Sani Abacha time.
“Let me read it for you”, he offered generously. “It’s a love poem, you know”, he added. I listened quitely as he read, with his eyes shut in extasy. I was fascinated too by the way he recited it. Every now and then, he slapped and scratched himself because of the swarm of mosquitos in the room. When he finished, he hand the paper to me. The poem go as follow:

Crossroads
Bereft of his sight
Enigma among the gods
Take away your bow and arrows
Try them on the feeble
Your help I so much despise.

Is that your vengeance?
Speak, ye heartless child-god
Am I a teenage schoolboy first in love?
Am I a victim of your painful arrow?
Come, oh please come
Help me out of my quandary.

I finished reading the poem but I didn’t understood anything, though I like areas that talks about bow and arrows and the teenage schoolboy first in love as if it is myself. I told him I enjoy the poem so much and his face break into ripples of smile.
“Even Professor Wole So …Soyinka-a ….”, he started saying but slapped himself again with pain.
“Mosquitos?” I asked with concern.
“Yes, the bloody blood-suckers!” he cursed. “The heartless capitalists!”
“Why not use Mossequine?” I suggested timidly a populous brand of insecticide good for mosquitos.
“Not on your life!” he exclaimed. “I’d rather die of cerebral malaria than indulge in such bourgeois excesses like using such expensive insecticide in a world ravaged by so much poverty, HIV/AIDS, diseases and starvation”, he said heatedly, with his nostrils flaring. I kept quite. The next day when I came back from the market in the evening, I brought him a dozen of small, small bottles of Otapiapia that cost twenty naira each and he thanked me. Since then I have become his friend and each week I use the excuse of Otapiapia to gain entrance to his humble haven as he call it for more poems and general knowledge from him. I discover that he is not mad as some few people say.
The next evening after my narrow escape from Betty and her foolish, ugly boyfriend in the night, I went straight to Comrade Aluta after I arrived home from market. He listened quitely without interruption as I narrated my story and suddenly bursted into laughter when I finished. I have never see him laughed like this before. He laughed and laughed until tears was streaming down his red eyes.
“Oh my, how costly is the price of ignorance!” he lamented.
I kept quite. I was hurt by his laughter but I didn’t said it. Suddenly, he stopped laughing when he noticed I was not happy.
“I’m sorry, Smart, if you were hurt by my laughter. Oh my, I couldn’t help laughing, you know. This incident is really funny. Come to think of it, it could make a good plot for a short story. Unfortunately, I don’t write short stories. No, I cannot cheapen my talents by writing prose-fiction. Novelists and short story writers are failed poets, you know”, he concluded. “Let me see”. He lapsed into silence, with his face crease in deep thought.
“Women are such funny and selfish animals I have ever known. Smart girl, she has obviously used you to score a cheap point in her boyfriend’s heart. Played successfully to the gallery, to use a clichĂ©”, he said. “Take my word for it, she’s right now being fussily loved by her boyfriend who foresees a likely rival in you.” Silence.
“What do you advise me to do, Comrade?” I asked, breaking the silence. “I still love her.”
“Well, forget the foolish girl. She’s not worth the trouble. She may well be anatomically developed but deep down her is the heart of an infant”, he replied with the authority of a man who know women into-to.
“I want you to help me write her a letter”, I requested after a pause.
“Write you what?” he asked, shock. I said a letter and he bursted into laughter again, highly amuse.
“Oh my, aren’t you funny, Smart? Imagine writing a love-letter to a girl in this twenty-first century! I mean don’t you have her cell phone number or something?”
“No.”
“Oh-oh, that’s rather unfortunate. I’d have helped you. It’s not good to write letters to girls when talking can serve the same purpose. It is old-fashioned, archaic, anachronistic, outmoded and outlandish. Uhm … In any case, let me see.” He paused for a minute or so and suddenly said: “I’ll write the letter for you, Smart.”
I was overjoyous. I jumped up excitedly and grabbed his hands, thanking him profusely. I told him to greet her very well for me and he nodded as he pulled out a sheet of paper and begun to write swiftly. After about fifteen minutes, he was through.
“There you are, Smart. This should be able to win you that girl”, he said confidently and hand me the letter. I collected it. It go like this:


Dearest Betty,
I write to protest most vehemently the shabby treatment meted out to me by you last Sunday night. I couldn’t imagine that you could do that to me especially when one comes to think of how much I love you. My love for you transcends the ephemeral lust whose ultimate destination is sexual gratification on the bed. How dare I come in-between you and any man that you truly love? Heaven forbid that I should ever stoop that low.
However, I want you to pause and take a hard, unflinching look at the man you call your husband or do I say fiancĂ©? How preposterous to say the least! As a matter of fact, it’s too difficult to conceptualize. Don’t you see any other man in the entire universe that you have to condescend for a nonentity like that man? A ne’er-do-well who is not man enough for a quality lady like you. A stark illiterate man who doesn’t even trust you. What’s more, he doesn’t share the same faith with you. Is he worth the trouble of you converting to his faith? I say an emphatic NO! Wake up, my dearest, before it is too late. Use your pretty head for once instead of using your thighs to think while the head perches as mere decoration!
A word is enough for the wise, as the saying goes. I urge you in the name of love to give this piece of advice a hard thought before you make the greatest mistake of your life by marrying that ignoramus. I feel compelled to sound you this note of warning because of the great love I bear for you, for no love has a man for a woman like the one I bear for you, my fair angel. I think of you every minute of my life. I wish you would leave your parents, siblings, friends and everything and come with me to the end of the world where Romeo and Juliet lie, waiting for us. Sweet dreams.
Your darling,
Smart

When I finished reading the letter, I shake my head seriously and told him that the lady will not like it at all especially with the way she is crazy for that man.
“Does she have to like it in the first place? Wake up, man! No man ever wins a girl’s heart when he makes himself too cheap for her”, he argued. There was a pause.
“I don’t like that part about her thinking with her thighs instead of her head”, I complained lamely.
“And I don’t want her to like it either”, he said, stabbing the air with his hand. “I want her to really get provoked. For girls like her are easier won when attacked than fussed all over. It’s better to attack than to defend in war and love. In war and love, there’s nothing like unfairness”, he concluded.
At long last, he convinced me and I copied the letter with my handwriting carefully not to make any mistakes. I thanked him and left to my master’s house.

I didn’t stayed at the shop for more than thirty minutes when I went to the market the following day before I rushed to the bank to see her with the letter. Immediately I entered the bank, I saw her at the usual Paying Out counter but I pretended as if I didn’t saw her and went straight to the Information Desk where one beautiful, short black girl was seating. Her beauty didn’t reached one-quarter of Betty’s own but she is not ugly. I greeted her and she answered me finely.
“Em … I brought this letter for Miss Betty. Can you please help me give it to her?” I said, showing her the letter.
“But she’s around. You can go and give it to her yourself at the third counter”, the lady replied, pointing at the third counter for me.
“I know but I … I doesn’t want to deliver it myself”, I stammered badly. She saw the desperation in my face and mellowed down a little.
“All right, let me have it”, she said. And I quickly gave it to her before she change her mind. I thanked her and made to go but one small mind was whispering to me to go and greet Betty at the third counter before going. I obeyed straightaway the advise of this inner voice in my heart and marched to her counter. She was there looking so quite and pitable with her veil as if regretting what she have done on Sunday or because the bank have problem and she stood a chance of lossing her work.
“Yes, can I help you, sir?” she asked with her sweet banker’s voice. I can see that she didn’t recognized me immediately.
“I just came to say hello”, I said, starring at her as if I should go and kiss her. Suddenly, she recognize me, her calm expression grimace, harden and change all at the same time as if she have just see the black devil himself with his scarring horns and tail. She quickly stood up from her sit as if sting by an ant and stormed out of the counter, making the sound kruss, kruss, kruss with her high-heel shoes. My spirit told me immediately that she was up to one mischief if I didn’t found my level. So I took off instanter for my dear life.
I was outside the entrance door, marching very fastly when I saw her coming behind my back with one huge man. He looked like a police inspector in mufti. Now the lady was pointing at me frantically saying something rapidly that I cannot heard. Something like: “That is the boy running, officer. Stop him! I say arrest him before he escapes!” I then heard the man barked at me with his tough, parade-ground voice:
“Halt, you there!”
I stopped one-time kparara like a driver who apply his brakes so suddenly, breathless, and turned boldly to face him and her. I know I have not done anything wrong, so why should I run? And again, I am a customer of the bank. As if I sensed there will be trouble, I carry my passbook with me even if the balance is too small. I waited as they walked up to me.
“Ehen, my friend, what’s the matter?” asked the man, with Betty standing at his side like a troublesome wife who want her husband to beat up a man for her. She is waiting for the officer to manhandle me, the bad girl. Even as I looked at her, I feel sexually move as if I should go and kiss that her fine beautiful mocking mouth by force until she will bleed. When a beautiful girl is as mischievous like this girl, she can be so sweet and excitable at the thing. The type who always cry at it!
“In the first place, what will be the matter between a young beautiful lady like this and a young unmarry man like myself?” I asked the officer. I always speak my best grammar whenever in trouble than anytime. “I just called to say hello to her because I like her and that was all. I didn’t did anything to her”.
“Is that all?” asked the officer, amuse and at the same time unbelieving.
“Don’t listen to him, Inspector. He’s lying!” she interrupted fiercely.
“Let him finish first, Miss Andrew”, growled the officer.
“Yes, that is the only crime that I have committed. That I am in love with her, officer. I doesn’t mind if you will arrest me now because of that. That will not be too much a price for loving her”.
The man bursted into laughter suddenly and I could not helped adding my little smile. This angered Betty so much when she saw that the tables has turned in my favour. Greatly disappointed that the man she brought to arrest me is now laughing with me, she turned angrily and rushed back to the bank, walking kruss, kruss, kruss like a peacock with her tail on fire. Maybe this time to get the whole bank Manager.
“Young man, you may go”, said the officer in between laughter. “Honestly I didn’t know that that was why she called me, I wouldn’t have come. This girl will one day kill us in this bank”, and he bursted into another round of laughter, greatly amuse and impressed by my confidence.
I thanked him and left. In the distant, I saw another man trailing after Betty, both of them rushing outside the bank. Maybe the Manager but I didn’t waited for them. They must all be funny in this bank. Imagine! I quickly hailed a passing okada man, climbed it and vamoosed.
It was getting to that kind six-thirty in the evening when I returned to the shop from a message my master send me. It was now three days since the narrow escape at the bank. Comrade Aluta is still insisting that I should leave this crazy girl alone. When I told him of what happened at the bank when I went to delivered the letter he wrote for me, he bursted into laughter like before. He laughed and laughed with tears running down his cheeks. But how can I leave her alone when I wanted to save her from herself? Doesn’t people say that love is one big sacrifice? There is no price that is too much for love. After all, love is blind and is as strong as dead and there is nothing you can do that is too much for love. Even the Bible say that love covereth all multitudes of sins.
I wanted to go in but my master was still with somebody in the inner shop and it is almost time to close shop for the day. Suddenly, the door of the inner shop opened and one tall man came out. He looked at me curious as if to remembered the face and went away. His face was familiar but I cannot remembered where I know him.
“Obasi!” barked my master with anger from the inner shop.
“Yessir!” I answered as I run inside. I can sense trouble in the air. What have I done now? He was seating on his big turning chair as I entered. He impatiently waved me to a chair opposite his own. There was thick silence as I sitted down.
“Did you know the man who left here a while ago?” he asked. I said no.
“I see. He was here to report you to me”, he begun, starring straight at me.
“Report me? What for? What have I done?” I asked, looking very shock and innocence.
“Hm. I see. You will soon know what you have done. Take a look at this”, he said and bring out some documents from the drawer and hand them to me. The suspense was too much. Man, it was killing me gently as I break out in hot sweat.
My hands was trembling badly when I collected them from him and tried to opened them. Immediately I opened them, I shock like a man electric pole electrify. No, God, I cannot believed my eyes. Oh God, this cannot be true. This must be a bad dream. In my hands laid the letter Comrade Aluta wrote for me to gave to Betty which I copied it carefully with my own handwriting. Chei, this lady have finished me. I was sweating like a Christmas goat. I looked up at my master who was starring unblinking at me.
“Her husband brought that to me”, he was saying. “Honestly, I’m surprised at you, Obasi. Imagine not being satisfied with all the young ladies around here that you now have to go after other people’s wives too, eh Obasi? Is that supposed to be another form of madness?” he shoked his head pitilly. “God Almighty! What a shame! No, I’m really disappointed in you. Imagine such a young man!” He paused then he continued like a father. “I have always warned you that this is not our village Mbantano. This is a city and the people here are hostile like their beasts. If you cannot control your penis very well, they will cut it off for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. They will kill you like a dog and throw your corpse to the vultures”. He was very worry for me and his big stomach was heaving, truely provoked. “That is all I want to tell you. You are no longer a small child again. If you say you are going to allow yourself to die such a shameful death, that is your own headache. Very soon you will be on your own to do whatever you like with yourself. You may go. Tufia kwa!” he spat generous on the floor. “Carry the meat I sent you to buy to my wife at home.” He said, dismissing me like somebody with terrible body odour.
I left him very ashamed and near to tears. I took the meat I bought in a leather bag and left the shop. I felt as if I have lossed somebody so close to me like the day my father died. I staggered home like a drunkard as if every ground was full of port-holes. Why would this girl I love so madly do this to me, eh? Did her boyfriend also told my master that I have a secret account in her bank? I am completely confused. Oh, my God, this girl have finished me.

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