The Place Beyond Her Dreams

by Oby Aligwekwe

“It’s a long story. Come to the Palisir hotel around five.” He was whispering again. “I’ll explain everything then. Come alone, please. Not even with Amah. I’ll be waiting for you in my room. I can’t meet you at the lobby to avoid being seen together, but one of my men will be there to make sure no one bothers you. Come to room 765, and please do all you can to disguise yourself. I hope you understand what I mean.”

  He slowly released my hands and stood up to leave, his words lingering, leaving me in a panic.

  “Don’t hesitate, please. Our lives may depend on it.”

  “Our lives?”

  He nodded, pursing his lips.

  “You need to tell me what I’m up against,” I shrieked.

  He placed a finger on my lips before bending to kiss them.

  “You will be fine. I’ll explain everything tomorrow, okay?” he concluded before sneaking out the door.

  The moment he left, all the questions I wanted to ask him tumbled around in my head: where he’d been all these years, how he had fared, and what gave him the courage to return considering the state of things in Ntebe and its environs? None of that mattered anymore. All that mattered now was that he was back and that he still loved me. I cried from joy and relief. I continued crying even when I saw Ifedi at the door.

  “Everything okay?” she asked, a bewildered look on her face.

  I nodded.

  “Everything is okay.”

  “I just saw Okem leaving. What did he want? Where has he been?”

  “I don’t know. He was in such a hurry to leave, so we didn’t get the chance to discuss at all.”

  “Why did you let him in after all this while?”

  “I didn’t. He just appeared—”

  “He can’t just appear. You must have known he was coming.” She stuttered.

  “What’s your problem, Ifedi?” I said, hoping to calm her down.

  She sighed and clapped her hands in derision. “My problem? How can you ask me that, Ona? Don’t you know you shouldn’t ever be alone with him? It could jeopardize your new status. You need to understand that things can’t go back to the way they were. You’re about to be married.”

  I was too excited about Okem’s return to risk getting into an argument with Ifedi. Judging from his tone, it was important to maintain absolute discretion at this point, so I ignored her, hoping she'd walk away.

  “Ona, answer me,” Ifedi continued in a raised tone.

  My heart skipped a beat. I feared that if I didn’t offer a substantial apology, she might get hysterical and wake my grandmother up.

  “I’m sorry, Ifedi,” I said, pressing my hands together and flashing a wan smile. “I apologize for letting Okem in and creating the wrong impression.”

  “Please be careful from now on. Do you hear me? I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  “I will. Have a good night. Please shut the door behind you.”

  “Good night,” she muttered and crept behind the door.

  I hardly heard her. My head was filled with Okem, my soul mate, my angel, my everything. I sat up on my bed and held my cheeks with both hands as the sounds of her footsteps faded in the hallway. An hour later, my heart still beat uncontrollably as I remembered Okem’s strong arms, beautiful eyes, and the shock waves that swept through my body when he held me close to him. And the kiss? Phew! I said a prayer and did something my grandfather always cautioned me against—praying for sunrise to come. According to him, it was an inefficient prayer that robbed souls of a good night’s sleep. In the meantime, there was nothing I could do. There was to be no sleep henceforth. My heart was filled with joy from seeing Okem. It was as though the past year had gone backwards to reset things to how it used to be between us. I wished I could call Amah so I could tell her that something had happened to my heart. I shuddered when I recalled I had to see Albert in the morning. He was traveling to Ghana in the afternoon. My meeting with Okem was scheduled for later in the afternoon. I needed to be careful. The tone of Okem’s voice when he said, “our lives may depend on it,” was not to be taken lightly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A FEW HOURS before I was scheduled to see Okem at the Palisir hotel, Albert sent his driver to pick me up from home. We had planned to catch an early lunch to discuss our wedding plans before he left for Ghana. Filled with dread at the thought of seeing him, not to mention the possibility of getting stuck at the palace, I opened the window to take in the fresh April breeze during the hour-long ride to Ide. It was the rainy season, but the first rain was yet to fall. Observing the sky, with the clouds of dust hovering beneath, and the leaves on the trees rising and falling like the flap of a wing, I closed my eyes and said a little prayer. I was tired of the dryness, so I asked for rain. At first, it was a slight drizzle; the faint scent of new rain met my nostrils. In the twinkling of an eye, it was falling in droves. I wasn’t sure what the right sequence of events was. It was either I willed the rain to pour, or the rain was predestined to fall and by default motivated my senses to will it. Whichever it was, I shuddered at the fatalistic nature of the occurrence and settled down to enjoy the powerful earthy smell of new rain. We passed a picturesque square and a narrow two-lane street that stretched into a busy main road. On both sides were a jumble of buildings in no particular architectural style, just one in front of the other and another on top of the other, mix-matched and unsightly. Some were roofed with rusted aluminum sheets, others with cement. The larger ones had fences that were as high as the buildings themselves.

  “Crazy city,” I murmured to myself.

  “Nah so sistah,” the driver responded.

  I had forgotten I was not alone. He’d startled me for a second.

  “Nah the boundary clashes cause am o,” the driver continued in broken English, craning his neck to look in the rear-view mirror.

  “I know. These greedy politicians acquire large parcels of land that belong to the masses and build all these structures without proper planning and approval.”

  “Nah true talk be dat.”

  I nodded, and he returned his attention to the road.

  Slum city would be a better moniker for these environs, I thought. Maybe Albert will address this if he becomes king. Albert. I completely forgot. The sights on the road had consumed me. I sighed as I thought of what I would say to Albert. Not at this meeting, only when the path was clear for me to pursue my relationship with Okem. I also dreamt of being far away, where Albert couldn’t hurt me when I finally say those things to him. I would make sure he regretted ever meeting me, asking me to be his wife and daring to lay his dirty hands on me. I pictured the look on his face when that opportunity finally came, and I smiled. I could see it so clearly—the growl, the pain, the confusion, and the bitterness of a man whose only show of strength lay in terrorizing women who were weaker than him. As we rounded a bend that put us on the straight road that led to the palace, I tried to divert my mind to happier thoughts to avoid sinking into depression. At the gate, I forced a smile to appear on my face to avoid raising suspicion. The rain had stopped suddenly too, without warning.

  * * *

  I met Albert in his study. He seemed unusually distracted, but he managed to get up and kiss me on the cheek. Moving from place to place with a look of confusion in his eyes, he peered into shelves, searching for something.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “A contract. I kept it right here,” he said, pointing at the desk.”

  “Have you checked those drawers?” I asked, pointing at the antique chest on the wall. “What does it look like? I can help you look for it.”

  “Oh, never mind. Here it is,” he said, pulling a folder from his suitcase.

  I heaved a sigh of relief and tried to relax on the settee. I struggled to keep my joy out of his view as we sat down to eat in the study after a uniformed servant brought us fufu and vegetable soup.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” Albert asked, staring at the morsel I placed on my plate.

  “I’m eating
,” I protested. “I had a bit too much last night, so I’m still full.”

  I was full with Okem. How could I eat when Okem was back, waiting for me at the Palisir hotel?

  “That’s disappointing,” Albert said, cutting through my reverie. “I asked the chef to make your favorite soup. He’ll be disappointed you hardly touched any of it.”

  If Albert knew that I’d seen Okem the night before, I would be sorry. He hadn’t laid his hand on me since his father died, but I knew he could reignite that monster. I had blamed myself the times he hit me. After each episode, he would remind me it was something I had done or something I had said that had triggered him. For a while, I struggled with my self-esteem, especially as he claimed he had never hit another woman besides me. Borrowing my grandmother’s words, that was adding insult on top of an already painful injury. What was it about me that made him want to hit me? I asked myself often. What, about me, infuriated him so much, yet he claimed to love me so much, more than any woman he’d ever met? I no longer struggled with my sense of worth. I have long since figured out that it was never about me. It was always all about him. He was sick. More so, he was a coward and a loser. He would never have done what he did if he didn’t think he could get away with it. That phase of my life was over. I knew there was only one way to go, and I felt sorry for the entire city and the tax money that was spent on my queenly training. I vowed to repay every penny when I could. But at that moment, I had other things to worry about. I had to hide all indications that I was seeing Okem that afternoon because if Albert knew, he would do everything in his power to make sure I never set my eyes on him again. I needed to protect Okem.

  * * *

  I left to see Okem after Albert’s driver drove me home. Luckily, Albert wasn’t due back for two days, so I didn’t need to worry about stumbling into him. Okem was stunned when he saw me at his door. My disguise—a short wig and fake reading glasses—had worked magic. The moment he closed the door of his suite behind us, he held my waist and kissed me passionately with my back against the door. I was breathless by the time he released me.

  “There seemed to be something urgent you wanted me to know,” I muttered, reminding Okem why I was there.

  “Oh! I’m sorry, Ona,” he said, chuckling. “I’ve missed you so much. Seeing you again is like a dream come true.”

  “I can’t believe it, either. Seeing you has erased the pain of these past months.”

  Together we entered his room, and he wasted no time filling me in on the details.

  “Do you recall when I used to play the role of prince? When we were kids?”

  “Of course, I do. I remember very well.”

  I remembered it like it was yesterday. That was when I was still allowed to play freely with Okem. He often played the role of a prince, a persona that took different forms over the years. Once, he pretended to be ‘the frog prince’ who had been charmed by a wicked witch. To break the spell, he stuck his lips out to kiss me, his ‘beautiful princess’ and I reminded him that if he didn’t put his mouth right back where they belonged, his lips would remain protruding like that of a frog and he may indeed turn into one. He had shivered from fear over my comments and never played that game again. Another time, he was the knight, and I was his damsel in distress who he had come to rescue from the wicked witch who had the beautiful damsel holed up in a tower, banning her from seeing the man she loved.

  “Those were the good old days,” Okem said, jerking me out of my reverie. “Have a seat.”

  I sat on the desk while he sat on the bed, facing me.

  “The father Albert has known his whole life, the late King is not his real father.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “That doesn’t make sense. Who then is his father?”

  “His real father is Ekema’s lover, Ozumba.”

  “Which Ekema? The King’s sister? And Ozumba? How?”

  “Yes, the Ideme’s sister.”

  “But how?”

  He sighed. “For years, Ekema nursed the ambition to control Ide and everything in it, including taking the throne. She saw her chance after her child was born two days apart from the King’s real son. Her ambition drove her to perform a dastardly crime. At birth, the Crown Prince and her son Albert bore such a striking resemblance, like all children do, especially those born within the same family. When he was taken from his crib and replaced by her newborn son, no one, not even my beloved mother knew of the crime that was committed.”

  “Your mother!” I was on the edge of the desk, gasping for breath as I tried to make sense of the stunning revelations. Nothing Okem told me about Ekema and Ozumba, and now, his mother, made any sense. “What has your mother got to do with this?” I asked.

  “My mother...the Queen.”

  “Wait! The Queen is your mother?”

  He nodded once.

  Stunned beyond belief, I placed a hand over my gaping mouth and the other on my chest to control the heaving. I had been struggling to absorb the fact that Albert was Ekema and Ozumba’s son before Okem made the most shocking revelation of all.

  “The Queen is my mother, and Ozumba, the father I have known my whole life, is not my real father. The late King is my father. It turns out that my role-play was not in vain after all. I am the Crown Prince.”

  * * *

  I took a moment to take in everything Okem had just revealed to me and shivered as his comments hit me like a déjà vu. It reminded me of the out-of-body experience I had with the rain on my drive to Albert’s house. It seems all these years, his role-play as prince, much like my wish for rain, was a type of prophecy.

  “Go on,” I pleaded after I realized he was waiting for his revelations to sink in.

  “To ensure I was nowhere near the palace after she got her son settled into my rightful position, Albert’s real mother, Ekema, placed me with her boyfriend Ozumba and paid him handsomely to assume the role of my father.”

  “I can’t believe this. Just to be sure, is this the same Ozumba I know?” I asked, feeling as though I would faint.

  “Yes.”

  “How did Ekema explain the disappearance of her child?” I stood up from the desk to pace the room in every direction while Okem remained sitting on the bed with both hands on his knees.

  “She claimed he died soon after birth. Everyone thought she’d lost her child.”

  I snapped my fingers in derision.

  “Unbelievable. Thank God she didn’t murder you.”

  “I heard she tried many times without success. Anyway, Ozumba took care of me for several years before he finally sent me off as a house-boy at Ekema’s request. As I grew older, I began to look more and more like my birth father than my cousin Albert did. Ekema became increasingly scared that I would one day trace my lineage.”

  “I see that now,” I whispered. “The resemblance is striking. You’re the Crown Prince,” I said, stopping for a few seconds to stare at him.

  Okem remained calm and nodded slowly before continuing. “Some weeks before I was given away, Ozumba overheard me saying that I was a prince while I played with other children. He beat the living daylights out of me. It was soon after that declaration that they plotted to send me away; to make me disappear forever. An obscure servant would never see the light of day, so when your grandfather sent an emissary to Ide to look for a house-help, they found the perfect opportunity to get rid of me. Ozumba hatched a plan which Ekema readily agreed to. The emissary chose me after he was introduced to Ozumba, who at the time lived under the guise of a doting single father that needed all the help he could get in raising a child. Within a couple of days, I traveled to Ntebe with Ozumba and his cousin who posed as my mother.”

  “That was his cousin? The woman that came with you and Ozumba the day you moved in with us? I thought she was your mother?”

  “They made me believe my mother had died during childbirth.”

  “Wonders shall never cease,” I said, trembling from the shock.

  “That was how I came
to live with you. The arrangement was perfect, or so they thought. I was far away from Ide. What they didn’t know was that your grandfather was not looking for any ordinary help. He wanted someone to double as a playmate for his little granddaughter. Your grandfather fell in love with me. That solidified the agreement.”

  “I know. Papa truly loved you.”

  Okem smiled and tears started to form in his eyes.

  “Your grandfather never treated me like a servant. I think he saw something in me. We bonded the first time we met, and I really loved him too. Come here. You look as though you’re going to collapse any moment. Come and sit beside me.”

  I shook my head. “I’m really confused. I can’t sit still right now. None of this is coming together for me.”

  Okem stood from the bed and walked towards me. Stretching his hands, he pulled me close to stop the trembling. I held onto him and placed my head on his shoulder.

  “Everything will be all right, Ona.”

  “I missed you, Okem,” I finally said when I found my voice again. “I’m so happy you’ve come back to me.”

  “I missed you too, my love.”

  We held onto each other for a while before I released his back, slowly took his hands and looked into his eyes.

  “I’m curious. How did you survive all this while? Where were you?”

  “You won’t believe all I went through if I told you.”

  “Tell me. I want to hear everything.”

  “It turns out nothing is hidden under the sun. Call it fate or providence. I met a man who claimed to know what happened the night Ekema and Ozumba switched us. He’s been away for a while but has been following my progress since then. When he found out I had been sent to live with your family, he tried to tell your grandfather the truth. Ekema and Ozumba found out what he was up to and tried to kill him, sending him into hiding.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “He’s been trying to lure me to come and work for him since I graduated from the university. The night I left, I took a bus to Ajidi and went straight to the address he gave me. He didn’t reveal the treachery to me until recently. A few months after I started an apprenticeship in his company, someone informed him that a man who we suspected to be a private investigator was looking for a person by the name Okem. No one knew me by that name. Luckily for me, when I arrived in Ajidi, my benefactor had insisted I go by a different name, which I agreed to, not realizing the plan was for me to remain anonymous. Following that incident with the investigator, he decided it was too dangerous to withhold the truth from me any longer. That was when he told me about the circumstance of my birth.”