I love her really; that doesn’t mean I don’t hate her for what she has done. I love her because she is a strong determined and focused woman. My grandmother might have been strong, but she was nowhere near my mother; I guessed she must have realised this and the excuse of my mother’s pregnancy was a way to ward off competition of a kind. I would do anything for my mother; reason why I never will stand him call my mother any name that suits him, but then, did he ever mean any of those considering how I found them?
I grew up with the doctrine of without a man, you learn to survive alone. Right from when I was young, Onime made me take to farming and understand how cassava was planted, harvested and processed into garri, as well as extracting starch. Should the inevitable happen, I have Onime’s farms to sustain me. I believed till I was fifteen that my father died a long time ago. I believed till I was fourteen that my mother was an orphan.
He had come knocking on our door one morning after my mother had left for the market to sell her garri. It was the big market day and people from the towns always came down to buy home garri that had enough starch. Because I was down with the monthly cleansing that women always have – my first days of the circle are always unbearable – I didn’t go to school. He knocked and I opened after grumbling because I had to hold my stomach all the way to the door. With a frown I had looked up at the stranger.
“Where’s Aseba?” he had asked.
I had recoiled a bit only at his lack of manners. Onime always said, ‘no matter how young the person was, show that you didn’t leave your manners at home’. He didn’t say ‘eve’ or ‘doh’ as a way of greeting and I didn’t offer the traditional greeting for the elders, let alone move my knees.
“Where’s Aseba?” he had repeated.
“Out,” I answered.
Then he had looked at me in close scrutiny. “Are you who I think you are?”
“No.” Was what I said. My stomach was hurting inside and unless he left, I wouldn’t have the comfort of lying down with my stomach on the pillow.
“But you don’t know who I am talking about. Are you her daughter…yes, you are.” He had pointed at me.
Naturally, I acted on instincts and retreated thinking he was a sick man.
“I am your grandfather, Oseologbo.” He raised both hands up.
That was when I shut the door and returned to bed blocking away his loud bangs on the door. I didn’t even indulge myself with thoughts about what he said. My mother was an orphan.
She came home surprisingly before noon that eventful day as though she had a calling that her father awaited her. I had drifted into the other beyond when she came. It was her silent sobs that woke me up. I had tottered into the living room to see the man who claimed he was my grandfather consoling my mother. My first thought was that he had hurt my mother. I used to be very protective of Onime so my pains forgotten, I jumped on him hitting him from all sides with promises that I intended to kill him for whatever he’s done to my mother.
After what seemed like eternity, Onime got me off him. She bridled my trembling body when she said he was her father. What followed that I have willed myself to forget. He brought the news that his wife was dying. She wanted to see her daughter and grandchild before she died.
So I met that woman and I learnt of her and of that which my mother didn’t tell me from all her stories of the past. I learnt also the truth about my father. I did say that my mother was stronger than her mother. My mother had her toe to the ground I believed, because my grandmother must have told her it was wrong of her to keep me away from my father.
My grandfather died two weeks after his wife was laid to rest. I never knew them, I felt nothing. What I did was help my mother in carrying her grief around and I carried it until my fifteenth birthday when another stranger staggered into our home and called me ‘Omo my sweet’. Oseme – my own father – came.
*****
After that first meeting, I was forbidden never to interact with him for the pains he inflicted on us when he disowned us. But I was curious about his person. He was different from any other person I knew. He had seen more white people than anyone in our village, from where he came from. He had actually worked for one of them. He had learnt a lot of things, and was actually a schoolteacher. He even had something that baffled me. It was later that he told me it was a typewriter. His boss had given it to him. He used it to write stories. He fascinated me; my father did. He was equal to the white man for all I knew. He could read fluently and he wrote, not with ink, but with the white man’s typewriter.
At the end of every time I spent with him, we would fight, because he would call my mother names. After that, Onime would promise to kill me and warn me again for the last time to stay away from him. On my sixteenth birthday he gave me his typewriter because he got something better from his good boss. Our fights kept on with me promising myself every time that I wouldn’t see him again.
Now what? The two of them were something else.
*****
I turned around on hearing footsteps behind me. I was surprised to notice that I was sitting under a pea tree. I couldn’t remember having sat down. I must have been lost in the memory of things. And I noticed that the clouds were darkening. Thinking that I might have stayed out too long, I started for home.
The house was frightfully quiet when I stepped in but I knew they were there somewhere waiting for me. I stepped into my room and was welcomed by both eyes.
“Omo, my sweet, you are back,” he said to me.
I didn’t look at him. I was still angry.
My mother came towards me. “Omo, you know we want the best for you.”
I smiled. “I know.”
She looked at me precariously as though I were up to something.
“Are you going to do the right thing?” I asked.
“Your mother has accepted, Omo, you will come with me,” he said to me.
I faced her, my fears written all over my face. “No.”
“It’s the best thing, Omo,” my mother said. “You will get a better education and be as smart as those city girls who dress well and hold their heads up in the air when they are around village brought ups like me. You will become what any girl in this village is yet to become, a school teacher. If the men can do it, my Omo will be the first female at it. Yes, my daughter?”
I just stared at her with an emotion I couldn’t explain. “What about you?” I wanted to know their plans.
“I will be fine,” she said. “Knowing that I am mother of the first female teacher.” She smiled. “They will no longer call me Oni Omo, but Oni teacher, because my daughter will be a teacher. And you Omo dear, they will call you Miss.” She turned towards my father. “Isn’t that how they call the female teachers? Miss?”
He nodded.
I said nothing. The day’s arguments were enough for one day. In my absence they sat down to plan my future for me. Who said I wanted to be a teacher when I had plans of my own? But I said nothing and allowed them to believe that we were all in one accord.
On the day we were to leave, we eloped.
*****
Two months later, he found me. He said they had no idea that I would take such an action. “Omo, what do you want?”
I discovered the length they had to go to find me and felt slightly guilty for putting them through such. I imagined his work must have suffered too. But I was quiet. Being alone has changed me, even if it was just two months.
He didn’t know about my secret and I wasn’t ready to tell him. I followed him back to my mother. I didn’t fail to notice the bags under her eyes. She looked frail and tired. My disappearance must have been tough on her. She was happy to see me. She thought I ran away from home. She never considered the fact that I would elope. She forgot that I am still my grandmother’s granddaughter. Eventually, I told her that I was pregnant which was why I left home, because I was scared. I thought she would disown me the way her mother did her, but she didn’t. What she did was promise me her wel
l versed threat that since she carried me in her womb for nine months, she could easily kill me.
*****
And as I sit here, looking out of the window the morning after my world fell apart for the second time because I revealed my secret to them, I cannot help but wonder if today, Onime’s threat will finally be made true.
HUNTED
When Ifeoma called to tell him to resign his appointment with the consultancy agency where he worked, Ike laughed. He had not heard from her in over ten years and at first had been surprised when she introduced herself. He was on the verge of asking how she got his number, or how she even found out where he worked.
When he dropped the phone, he laughed harder. She had the nerve! How could she just call him and tell him to resign? Who was she? He shook his head as his laughter subsided.
He checked his time piece and started to clear his table. In an hour time, he should be sitting down with his friends at Down Town, in company of drinks and girls. Thank God It’s Friday.
As he left the office and proceeded outside to where his car was parked, he passed by two of his colleagues who were talking about the coming Monday. Now, the coming Monday was what Ike should be ready for and praying over, but he doesn’t even want to think of it. Today was yet to be over for him. All the problems he had to bother about were today’s only. Tomorrow and Monday’s would take care of themselves.
*****
Ike had a very swell weekend. He woke up that morning with a different girl on his bed. The girl on Friday night had been different from the girl of Saturday night. Sunday night he returned to being the meticulous guy he was. He had picked up his fiancée from the airport. Her short trip to Abuja was over.
He prepared for the office while she was still in bed. Before leaving the house that morning, he went into the bedroom to kiss her. Her eyes were open and she smiled at him. “I know you will have a swell day at work today.”
He hoped so. With the new General Manager resuming that very day, every other staff that wasn’t a part of the management was walking on an invisible edge. They have been walking on that edge for the past two weeks, since the rumours began to spread about some staff being laid off. The news had it that the new General Manager had been looking into the office work for over five months and had come up with the names of those that needed to go. The new boss had been around the office several times but no one seemed to have seen him.
Ike positively hoped he wasn’t going to be one of the unfortunate staff. He had to hold on to the job. It was his only means of survival. His family depended on him and his fiancée has become used to the comfortable life he provides her with that she wouldn’t be able to adjust to managing. He just hoped it wouldn’t get to that point, because he really loves her.
On his way to his office, his cell phone rang. Less than a minute later he ended the call in annoyance. It was Ifeoma again, calling to ask him if he took her advice of last week Friday and resigned his appointment with the company. He didn’t even say anything except cut her off. He couldn’t bear to have such a bug on his shoulders. What does she want from him? What does she mean by; ‘if you don’t resign, you won’t be able to live with it’? What does she mean?
*****
Ike had met Ifeoma eleven years before in an examination hall where they both took JAMB, the matriculation examination. He had played his cards fast and had gotten her to leave her address with him before she left for home. It didn’t take him long to get her into his bed. He considered her dull as she believed everything he told her. To him, she was just another girl on the block. He was playing and immediately he got tired, he moved on to another agenda.
Months into their unbelievable affair, Ifeoma came with the nasty news of a baby on the way. Ike had been furious. He told her to get rid of it that they were too young to be parents – she was 18 and he was 22. She refused and that surprised him. Ifeoma never opposed his decisions. He thought she was just being childish. He put an end to the discussion that day, saying they needed to think; that acting immediately could be bad since they were bound to make wrong decisions. She fell for that one, but Ike had already made up his mind. She was going to get rid of the baby whether she liked it or not.
Days later, he was out with his most regular girlfriend, one Ifeoma had always accused him of and whom he always denied. He never knew that Ifeoma even had the time to follow his movement. She was obsessed and crazy. His girlfriend had left her seat to go talk with someone she hadn’t seen in a while. Ike was nursing his beer when he heard her voice. Turning in surprise, he discovered Ifeoma. His first reaction was to scan the place to make sure his girlfriend was out of sight. He couldn’t bear to hurt that girl in anyway. He asked Ifeoma what she was doing there and she had confronted him that he was cheating on her. Ike had been stunned. He came right out and asked her if they were committed and why he should stay faithful to her. Ifeoma had started to cry and was already on her knees saying all sort of weird things about love. She was talking of their future together and the baby in her womb and every one was beginning to listen. She was at his feet and he felt very repulsed. Then he heard his name again and he looked up to find his darling girl standing there, shocked and humiliated at the sight before her.
He tried saying something, but all he could do was stammer inaudibly. He watched her turn and walk away. And that had hurt him so terribly he took it out on Ifeoma. He beat the living daylight out of her. And when he was held away from her, his desire was to later hear that he had beaten the child in her womb, dead.
His girlfriend heard about what he did to Ifeoma. She said if he could do it to one girl, then he could do it to another. She left him. Ike had left town when Ifeoma got hospitalized; realising he was in for trouble, he fled. It was crazy that as young as he was, Ifeoma expected him to abandon plans for his future and get tied up with a child he wasn’t ready for. He never saw or heard about her again until she called him on Friday.
How did she get his number? He couldn’t understand. And why should he resign?
*****
Parking his car, he alighted and went to chat with some of his colleagues before going into the office. He wanted to know what was happening and if the dread they’ve been waiting for had arrived. But all he gathered was that the new General Manager had not yet arrived. Ike settled down to his job.
At lunch time, they were yet to hear anything about the new General Manager. It was almost at the close of work that the announcement was made. The General Manager had been around since the early hours of the day. She had been the first person to resume work. They had all looked from one person to the other. She? A woman? One could never predict a woman.
One after the other, the General Manager’s secretary called the staff to meet the new woman. They went in twos and threes. They stayed in the office for less than three minutes.
Ike waited to be called. He was surprised that in his department, everyone had been called except him. He was still sitting in the waiting room of the new General Manager when the secretary began to clear her table. He had looked at her and had voiced his concern. She looked at him and he could read the surprise in her look. She was new also. She came with the new General Manager. She quickly picked up her list and asked him his name. He watched her eyes scan the list and she shook her head.
“Your name isn’t here. I'm sorry. Do you work here?”
Ike had begun to sweat. Could it mean he had been fired? How many people got fired that day? He began to think of the people that got letters from the management. But those people were promoted, not fired. He asked to see the new General Manager. Something had suddenly begun to get to him. The secretary refused. The lady was tired and had asked not to be disturbed. Ike was ushered out like a nonentity. He returned to his office to clear his desk. At the process of clearing it, he came across a letter he had not noticed all day. It was from the new General Manager. Ike’s heart was already in his heart. He could almost guess what was in the letter. He opened it and got the s
hock of his life.
He sat in his car. He couldn’t drive away. He needed to see her. Ifeoma Obiora, now Ifeoma Eze, was his new General Manager. How come? He needed to see her. It’s been ten years.
He was drumming on his steering when someone knocked on the roof of his car. He looked up and there she was, standing by his door. She looked different. Very beautiful.
“Congratulations,” she told him.
He got out of the car. “Why did you do it?”
She smiled. “Reject it if you want. I don’t care.” She smiled. “But truly Ike, you should have listened to me and resigned. We would have paid you off really well.”
He didn’t understand what she meant by that. He was going to say something, when a small voice called out to her.
Ifeoma turned and beckoned to the girl to come. Ike almost collapsed at the sight before him. She looked exactly like him. He didn’t need anyone to tell him she was his daughter. The very one he had killed in Ifeoma’s womb. He watched Ifeoma take the girl by the hand. She faced him again and wished him luck with his new appointment, turned and walked away in the direction of a waiting car with their daughter.
Ike knew that he would never have peace again, unless Ifeoma talked to him. Forgave him. That face will hunt him. He has seen his child. But he had no right to say anything because he killed that child in Ifeoma’s womb.
He has been transferred to a branch office in the north and also promoted. He ought to be happy. More money. He wasn’t happy. The job will be difficult. His fiancée will refuse to move with him. He wouldn’t have rest. That face he saw will hunt him. He ought to have resigned but he needed the job.
With kindness, Ifeoma has sent him a quick notice to a future of restlessness.
THE CONSEQUENCES
If anyone had told Eloho when she was twenty, that she would one day throw her view about single women having relationships with married men out of the window, she and that person would have visited hell first before she took her next step. But then, telling her that one day, she would find no trouble sleeping with a married man would have been the straw because in her dictionary of fourteen years ago, that could never happen. When it happened, it happened not because she planned it that way, but because she didn’t see an alternative. Eloho made a mistake.
Entangled Affair Page 6
