Musings on the 'other woman'.

I went to shake up Mr Bassey Udoh who owes me money since May at his gwarimpa residence. He actually defrauded me of over a million Naira  purported to be an agent of an apartment I wanted in Abuja, and went into hiding. I have only been able to recover part of that money and he had left town, hiding away in undisclosed locations. The Gwarimpa police station tells me he has almost 10 pending cases...

like mine. There are many fraudsters like that in Abuja (sadly,I met one of them). A woman he introduced as his wife lives at his apartment with his 2 kids, I went to see if he was home. He wasn't. When asked where her husband was and when he would pay me my money, she acted like she wasn't married to him and severally referred to him as 'that man' and 'the person u are looking for'. Is he not your husband? I asked in anger,then felt sad for raising my voice. Her two boys were seated by her side,looking on. 'He is the father of my children but I have not set eyes on him for over six months now', she sniffed. I felt sad for her.
There, images of the 'other woman' came to mind, you know, the 'Abuja wife' that lives in a flat rented by the father of her children,that gets introduced as 'wife' but is actually the unrecognized other woman, the one he leaves and runs away from,to his 'actual' wife or when his sins catches up to him. The other woman that gets the ranting and screams from the irate debtors. The one who gets the police threats, and may as well go to prison as an accomplice because she is not a 'wife' protected by law, but a concubine who had his children and aided his dealings.

'She can't be his wife' Desmond said. 'Men don't leave their wives and children like this'. It must be hard being the other woman, I thought, feeling sad.

GETTING SETTLED

  

It is early Monday morning. The lovers hurdled up close, sniffing each other’s early morning scents. She is quiet, thinking. The conversation with an old friend still played out in her head. ‘Get settled’ he had told her. He had intended the meaning to mean ‘get married’ she had argued with him. Getting settled is many other things and not just ties to another through oaths of fidelity and eternal love, she’d said.  Get settled? What the hell does that mean really? And why do people always intend it to mean the same thing? Getting married these days is as easy as going to court and signing legal papers 3 months after…

The last thought about the ease of getting married tickled her. She knew she didn’t believe her own argument. Getting married was not an easy decision for her. She can’t even decide if she even wants to be called ‘Mrs this’ yet…

‘I had a chat with a friend just before you woke up’ she said. He is still half asleep but he heard her faintly.

‘Huh?’

‘I said I had a chat with a friend earlier, just before I woke you. He said something I didn’t agree with, he said  ‘getting settled’ was getting married, I think people always misrepresent that phrase, getting married doesn’t transfix you to a town or country, plus, for someone to be settled, he or she must have fulfillment in every area of his/her life, there must be emotional, financial, spiritual and physical stability first. Marriage is like a contract, merely getting tied, in my opinion, is not stability’

‘But getting married presupposes that you have all the security that you just mentioned, no? Once marriage and children happens, one does not have the freedom to up and leave a city, job, or location as single people do. It means your every decision and or security is tied to another now, hence, ‘settled down'. He finished.

‘But that is exactly what a committed relationship does to you, no? Once you are in a relationship, like we are, our decisions are still not impromptu anymore, you still consider the other in every step you take, still settled in the sense that you mean… you are settled with me aren’t you?’ her  voice is smaller now, almost a whisper. He heard her. He heard the ting in her voice as well, but wishing not to lie to her, wishing to tell her what he had always wanted to tell her since she started asking him questions about his family, about wanting to meet his mother, he replied;

‘No babe. We are not settled. We are not secure with each other’.

She heard him in her silence. She knew what his words meant too. She was going to leave his city to another country on a job transfer soon. He had told her she was very independent of him. She made her own decisions and almost always just informs him. They both knew it was going to be different once they part ways for the 16 months that she was going to away. They had been together for about a year now. It was necessary that he told her what he had always wanted to say…

She realized what she must do now. It wouldn’t be an easy decision but she must make it.

© Igali Tukokumo Conquer. 2012

POETRY: AT EASE

We love the deaths we create

like playing God 

We play Doctor with choice, needles and syringes

Serving death  on mackintosh sheets

Nights of sleepless slumber
Days of attentive distraction
Hours racing into days
Lived a being destined to die


It is real though
The torment, the torture
The torrent of guilt!
Never at ease with the strangers we've become to ourselves
Or of fighting Morality's wars.

It is funny though
The ease with these wars
For time passes

And only the charts live to tell the tale

of souls that lifts from their slumber
And of ease that grows from distraction.

POETRY: STOLEN

It felt good to be there
That home away from home
But the inward voice echoes the wrong in this right

Been there and here
A mysterious two sided lives lead
All home but none home
One's right that is not right!

Yesterday births today
But Tomorrow died a stillborn
Trust built on eternity's promises
delivering a falsity in truth's lies

What justifies this indulgence?
This forcing of one to believe
What one knows as untrue 
This false identity, truth creates?

Once there and always here
Never barring these memories
 once instilled
Always remains
No delete this brain knows


So we live in our coffin of rot
Our denial

Strengthening the bonds of our decaying existence

POETRY: RESENTMENT

No longer on each other's neck
with the malice ,hurt and pain
but mere friends tied by the string 
of divers acts of secrecy
and the remains of these thoughts
forming the common bind

No longer in each others way
with past romances
But a freedom
no reservation
of present actions and long periods
Two people cohabiting
in deferent waters
connected
The sea shells discarded

No longer strange partners
but broken botles of indeference
No little ones tugging at mama's lapper
asking questions of unseen daddies
Just the hapiness that our paths crossed
crossroads!

Now all sentiment is gone
The question
Who stole your heart?
is answered

No one.

POETRY: THE CONFESSION

Bless me father
For I have sinned!
My confession
No less
Is straight
From desired bends I come
My misdemeanor
Counted
For I love a man
But his status
No denying
Is straight out bound
His third then fourth finger
Carry the laced bind
And I
Alas!
Bottles desires
Undeserving of innocence!

Wait!
Father
Hear the confession
All
Give your penance
After my heart is rent
From this sin
I wish to cease
For day and night
I dream
Of glittering waters
And lips
Like buttered crunches
Glistering moist on bee dropping
Served!
Shattered glasses
From the impatient caresses
of Baileys served
On belly buttons sweet
Lips on lips
Moans unequaled by distance
Countless nights
Oh priest!
Have I desired
Him!
Bound by the laced bind.

Before you tell
Stories
Of the spiritual
The death of the body
For the attainment
Of joys unequaled
Tell me
Father!
Do you feel same too?
Your body aching
Wanting satisfactions
Only sin provides?
The mid-section rises
Then the prayer
‘Mary 
Mother of GOD!
Pray for us sinners’!

But Father,
Will the lord forgive sins
E’en though
Our misdemeanors topples
Like Spartan walls
In battles built
With corpse of king XERXES troupes
As stones in 300?

Blog-thoughts: Productive Responsibility

Facebook, 28/6/2012. Igali Tukokumo Conquer wrote: 'Sometimes, all the push we need to be more productive to ourselves is a sense of responsibility. If we know that someone else needs us to survive, we will do the right things for ourselves...we would finally set up that company:-), do that business, write that proposal, bid for that contract, be more involved in our community, visit those motherless babies every weekend like we'd always wanted to:-)...If we know someone else, someone so helpless without us, looks up to us to be the mothers, fathers,guardians, friends and role models, we would, maybe, be more responsible to ourselves'...

I am seated on a leather black office chair doing nothing but staring at the screen of my Samsung notebook and brooding. There is nothing to do anymore today. Most of the office work I did today was outside the office. I am here, seated, thinking about responsibility and how, sometimes, responsibility pushes us to achieve the goals we'd set for ourselves, or into doing the things we'd always wanted to do for ourselves, for others.

Several years ago I wanted to either set up an orphanage or work with an orphanage immediately after my call into the Nigerian Bar. I also wanted to enroll in a cooking school, set up a foundation for my mother, do annual clothing runways for elderly models every December (as part of the Christmas celebration) for my Mother's foundation to make older women feel pretty and make them laugh, work with The Daniel Igali Foundation in Nigeria during my free time, visit orphanages on a regular basis, set up a thriving Law practice and own several businesses before I turn 30.

I have less than 6 years to spare before my target age clamps on me,  i am yet to do few of the things I thought i'll be doing by now. Maybe if I get a sense of responsibility, well, more responsibility, maybe, I will get these things done?

Do you have things, ideas, proposals you'd always wanted to work on before now? How many of those have you succeeded at completing? Do you think a sense of responsibility propels people to doing things, goals they set for themselves? Do share! 

Sometimes, saying the things we'd want to do aloud helps us do them anyway. Even if we don't do them right away, we'd have reminders of what we wanted to do and who we wanted to be. 

POETRY: TUNNELS

Need I worry of things unseen
and wallow in self pity,depression and hate
when all that matters is this life
and the will to live in his promise?

Need I compare the cave to this light
and choose the remains of the popcorn burnt
when the keeper of the mansion large
made promises of untold abundance?

Worry is a killer
From the serpent's vent
So the light I embrace!
From the cave
Into the light at the tunel's end!

Blog-thoughts. PANIC DECISIONS

Have you ever had to make a decision within the shortest possible time? How did you cope? Did you make the best decision for yourself or for the person/people involved? Did the stress of having to decide on a possibly long term decision tell on you? Is it possible to make a correct decision even in seconds? Are we built to handle clarity even in daunting situations?


Well, the answer to these may likely vary from one individual to the next.

For some people, the most difficult decisions they've had to make had been out of a panic, confusion, or uncertainty usually hidden behind a stoicism of sort, a belief that all things work together for good. Sometimes, they've had to regret these decisions but most of the times, panic had led people into doing the right thing that led to the right decisions they'd had to live with.


I believe the best test of rationality could be one's decision making choices in a limited time,under stress.


Do you have comments or experiences to share? Please do! 


Cheers!

POETRY: TRIMMING TRUNKS

Leaves rustle down 
the natural takes flight and screams severance
But I, cowardly still
Hangs swinging on a weakened branch
Proffering excuses against resilience 
Plotting reasons to cut the stem;
It is not about the sun gaining entrance
But the procreation of tendrils of thoughts

But the gardener came 
Trimming first, the leaves. 
Then the trunks and roots
All that is left is a naked space 
no shade for lovers now
no robust greens and succulent tendrils 
Only anthills.

All that’s Left is nothingness
And the longing for words to come!

FICTION : ANGEL

“This girl, you will break my heart!” he groaned. Angel only half-heard him, but she smiled when he reached out to surrender the last of his resolve to her lips. He moaned a deep, throaty moan and from somewhere outside, she heard a cricket chirrup. It was getting late.

”I should go home now.” She said.

He didn’t hear her. He had undone her blouse and her nipple was in his mouth.

“You didn’t hear me just now?” Angel asked, moving away from him, her nipple slipping out of his mouth. He looked at her, hurt.

“What will happen if you slept here, ehn?”

“An army of armed men will come breaking in,” she replied.

He smiled a sad, tired smile. They’d had this conversation before. Her reply always was of imaginary armed men. He had come to accept they were there, somewhere in the dark outside the door. He’d never met any of them but he hated them. They had a way of taking her from him.

“What must I do to have you all to myself?”

She didn’t reply. She thought he really didn’t want her to reply. It was that sort of moment, a question hurled at a sea.

“Tell me, what do I have to do?” he asked yet again. His voice was broken.

”Make me forget,” she replied.

He sat up then, holding her left hand. He brought it to his lips and left it there, lost in thought.

“Does it mean you will marry me?”

He tried to smile, but the effort stopped at his brows – a stillborn smile. She wouldn’t marry him. He suspected that already and his face quickly set to match his returning depression. She wouldn’t marry him. Because of the armed men!

“When will you let them go? When will you ever forget that they hurt you so?” He demanded. She didn’t have an answer to give him. Maybe never, she thought. She never answered any questions about the armed men in her head. They were always there with her.

Sounds drifted in from the hospital – sounds of wailing. Someone had died. People always cried in this hospital. She wondered. Then Angel knew why she’d never let herself be owned by this semi-obsessive, clean-nailed doctor with the desperate look in his eyes. There was just too much death around him. All Angel wanted was for her smiles to stay longer on her face. . . The other day, her sister had looked at her, concerned.

”Why do you have worry lines on your face at 22?”

“They must come from smiling too much,” she had replied inanely, grinning for good measure. But Bigsis didn’t smile back. Angel was not bothered. She’d never let things she couldn’t control get the best of her, she tried hard not to let them.

Dr. clean-nails nudged her back to reality. Angel half-smiled and kissed him.

***

She pushed the small iron gate open and saw a face peep from inside the house. Angel knew Bigsis was looking to see who had honked outside. She shut the gate carefully and walked in.

“Good evening Bigsis,” Angel greeted, making to walk past. She saw the question in her older sister’s eyes before the voice came.

“Are you seeing someone? It is almost 9 p.m., you know?”

She wasn’t going to answer. Her sister had a way of asking these questions. Am I that transparent? Angel wondered. It was strange how people assumed it had to be a man keeping her out late every time. Bigsis never assumed it was possible she just sat alone in a bar; sipping a bottle of coke and watching time pass by. Angel answered her question with a smile, shook her head and entered her room. She knew the question would be asked yet again, but not tonight. Tonight she needed time alone.

Angel’s phone rang twice. She glanced at it but did not pick it up. Then a text message alert shortly followed.

“Excuse me Boss, you have a text message!”

She picked up her phone.

“Pick my call or I hang myself!” the text read. Angel smiled and dialled back. He picked at the first ring.

“Doctors save lives, not end theirs.” She said coolly. She heard him laugh, short, but even from across town she felt his face setting.

“. . .Angel. . .I broke up with Tope on Wednesday,” he said briskly. She didn’t hear the beginning of his confession.

“Why?” She half-screamed.

Silence.

“You don’t even care that I am serious about us, do you? I tell you I left my marriage-bound relationship to be with you and are asking me why? I left her for you Angel, I left Tope for you!”

She didn’t respond. Maybe if he had listened long enough to hear his own voice, he would hear his blunder. Breaking off any relationship for her was a mistake. Angel knew this, she resumed breathing in silence.

“I need to process this information,” she said finally. “Let’s talk in the morning, okay?”

“No. Let’s talk about it right now! What really happened that night? What did they do to you that you have locked up your emotions so?” He asked. He had struck a nerve. Angel did not respond.

It had been years since the armed men appeared and disappeared with her easiest smiles but Angel still never talked of that night. Trauma, like most misfortunes, was best described in silence and the dark-skinned beauty from the Delta knew this well. She knew they would never have a conversation after today. His question sounded like a familiar chime — the prelude to a breakup. 

ANGEL was first published by SENTINEL NIGERIA. To read, visit http://sentinelnigeria.org/online/issue-7-august-october-2011/fiction/angel/

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REMEMBERING KEME

 6th April, 2011.

 Keme came into my life today.

 It is almost 8am. I am on my way to the office, to Utako, Abuja. In the cab is my older sister Jane as well. Just outside Philkruz Estate, by the curve just before the road, is a crowd. I get out of the cab.

 A child is sitting outside, on a carton, flattened on the rocks.

 What happened here?

 A young woman tells me the child had been sitting there all night and into the morning.

What has been done?

 Nothing, the lady responds.

If a child is abandoned it should be reported to the police?

There are rapid outbursts that follow my suggestion in Hausa.  The crowd is against inviting the police.

 Is the mother or a relative of this child here? Nobody responds.

‘That boy is HIV positive’, my older sister says almost instinctively, when I returned to the cab. She is a final year medical student at the University of Port Harcourt. She would know.

Directing the driver to the nearest police post in Jabi, I returned with three police constables, Angela and Patience and an older man.

An elderly woman is carrying the baby and feeding him with pap when we got back to the scene. Constable Patience retrieves the child from the woman. Elderly woman tells the Constables she would like to accompany us to the hospital to take care of the child. She would meet us at the police station but she has to change dresses, she says. We were never to see her again.

We took him to the police post at Jabi, and then to the life camp police station to make an entry.  At the Life camp police station, we are told to take the child to a hospital (this was instructed by a superior officer in a car. I did not ask for his designation but finds out much later that he is the DPO.)

 We (the female constables and I) took the baby first to Nisa Premier Hospital at Jabi. The hospital refers us to Garki Hospital, Abuja. The receptionist asks for the baby’s name at the records room. I don’t know yet, I tell her. How come? She asks. I am just meeting him, I tell her. She refers me to a Matron, who refers me to a Social worker attached to the clinic. He is admitted after Constable Patience pledges to bring a police report to the hospital the next day. I also undertake to bear the cost of baby's treatment.

 Baby needs a hospital card. A file under the name 'baby Ara' is opened for him. It is spontaneous, although a miss-spell on the part of the attendant as I intended to call him 'Pere'  which means 'riches' in Ijaw. I do not know what ‘Ara’ means.

The Doctor that examined him assesses Baby to be a little over 2 years.

The initial down payment is paid, the hospital commences treatment. Ara is immunized first, and a drip with drugs administered immediately. He needs a change of clothes and essentials. I leave the hospital with Constable Patience to get them. We buy four set of changing cloths, pampers, a plate, cup, sucker, towel, flask, eva water, soap, cream, powder, milk, cereals, etc.

When we got back to the hospital, baby Ara is taken upstairs to the paediatric ward, is stabilized and already asleep.

The social worker from the hospital calls for me. Her name is Mrs. Adegube. She asks me questions. How did you find him? Where? What did you do then? I tell her about the report at the police station, the trip to other hospitals that would not take him in. She calls a Mrs. Hart, an Assistant Director, child's welfare, at the social development secretariat at area 10, Abuja, Nigeria. Mrs. Hart sends a Nanny. Joy Patience, to stay with the child so I can go to work and return in the evening. I remember for the first time to call my Boss and inform her I would be arriving late to the office. It is almost 12 noon. Constable Patience leaves for the Police station at about 1 pm. I leave for my office at 2pm.  I would return to the hospital at 5pm with my older sister Jane and my niece, Princess Ayi, to see how Ara is doing.

By evening, Baby Ara, became 'Ehud Kurokeme Goodluck Tisan'.

Ehud.  My friend, Kenneth, named him that.

My older sister, Jane, adds another one, Kurokeme, meaning a strong man.

The other mothers at the paediatric ward tending to their sick children named him Goodluck (after President Goodluck Jonathan).

The Nanny named him Tisan,  which simply translated meant, 'our savior'.

…

10: 27pm. Baby Ara is awake but is not talking. A tube goes all the way from his nose to his stomach. He is very uncomfortable. He looks at me, begging me with his eyes to remove them but I dare not. I want him to survive this.

We would leave the hospital at about 11pm tonight. His tiny frail right hand would hold my left index finger for the first time today. I would have a meeting with the Matron, the social worker and Mrs Hart tomorrow. I would hear phrases like ‘are you sure of what you are doing Tutu? Can you handle such a responsibility by yourself?’  

My Niece, Ayi, would always be at the hospital with him. She is always angry at the woman that left him at the stones, to die.

I tell her she is probably sick too. Maybe the only option she had was leave Keme out there, for fate, or hope.

For the next weeks, there would be countless trips to baby shops, calls from and to my family. There would be more meetings with the Police and the Social welfare people at area 10.

The Police would close his investigation file shortly after. Is there no means of finding his Mother?

How about that eager older woman feeding him? Maybe she knows the Biological mother somehow? Did you find her? Question her?

The answers are always in the negative. There would be an inspection to my apartment by the Social worker at the hospital and my Mother would plan a trip to Abuja to see me, to see baby. Before she would make this trip, I would be informed ‘to prepare for the worst’. Keme was in the final stages of battling the AIDS virus. He would die on a Thursday morning. Joy, the nanny that slept at the hospital with him would call me at 5:17 in the morning and cry;

‘ Aunty, Tisan is not breathing’!

Looking at his tiny frame, minutes later, I would remember how he held on to my index finger late into the night until I went to the car to sleep. How he never wanted me to leave his sight the previous day, crying every time I stood up to go anywhere. I would break down in violent sobs, but try not to look hysterical because other families tended to their sick here too.

Yes.

Keme came into my life on the 16^th of April 2011. I had just turned 24, been called to the Nigerian Bar a year ago, and had just recently started living on my own.

Keme came, and for the first time in my life, I learnt how to feed an acutely malnourished child suffering from AIDS, planned a funeral and buried a kid by myself at Kudu cemetery, FCT, Abuja.