By Lechi Eke
Obembe, his marriage has finally broken down: irreconcilable differences. Sweetie is just too possessive. There is nothing sweet about her. She’s pure trouble, and Obembe regrets ever meeting her and marrying her.
Obembe thought he should have known that when she introduced herself to him eleven years ago as Miss Gum, Sweet Gum. He had thought it was a wonderful name, although strange. How on earth was he supposed to know that this Northern girl was nothing but pure super glue! In spite of her poly background, she lacked a sense of sharing. She had this weird notion that God made him for her alone. The manner and ways she went about it turned him off completely. Nobody should come near, not even his own sisters. She regarded with suspicion everyone. Initially he was flattered, and so indulged her. As the sweetness of the honeymoon began to thin out and the excitement of having a brand new wife began to wane, tiny drops of displeasure began to accumulate into growing irritation.
It amazed Obembe how the physical attraction for his wife waned fast, although Sweetie was a superb-looking girl, tall and mannequin-thin with a strut that could make Naomi Campbell green with envy. Her attitude completely put him off and he began to grow restless. When the physical attraction waned, the passion steadily ebbed away, and then he became awfully distracted. Sometimes, he spent moments pondering on the so-called chemistry between them that was said to be right at the beginning. Suddenly, everything seemed so wrong.
Gone was the lively and lovable girl he married ten years ago. In her place was a mean, bad-tempered termagant. Obembe could not help but flinch any time his wife looked at him for anger and hatred flew from her eyes. He made a shocking discovery: marriage was a mistake! There were so many broken dreams and disappointments. The children had not come as expected. Only one managed to come in ten years. And she took after her mother. The way they were living, only artificial insemination would give them more children now! Obembe decided they would not miss him if he disappeared from the scene. It made him feel sorry for himself. He had dreams of a happy family, full of children with the girls outnumbering the boys. He had envisaged fun time at home; close family ties… Life was full of disappointments.
Sometimes, he felt like asking his friends, “Do your bodies touch in bed?” “Do you sleep with your arms around each other?” “How many times do you make love in a week?” “Do you still hug?” “Do you smile at each other, looking into each other’s eyes?” All these had gone from his marriage. What he and Sweetie had now was an empty shell.
He had cheated five, six, seven times? – Nothing serious though! However, now he wouldn’t mind something serious. Actually, there was someone, someone he met at a car shop a week before. He had gone with his cousin who needed help to pick a good car with low petrol consumption, and like a hot cup of coffee on a rainy day, this girl appeared. “Je m’appelle Bebe,” she had breathed when Obembe asked for her name. Obembe thought she was beautiful; and with a husky voice like hers and the ability to speak French? – Obembe fell over heels. Although she wasn’t as tall as Sweetie, but she had eyes, which is sine quo non in matters of the heart. She was well-educated and sharp, full of laughter, very expressive and unreserved. Obembe’s cousin tried to discourage him saying the girl was a Christian sister in their church. This made him more determined – that’s what he needed, a good Christian girl to brighten up his world.
Obembe went back to ask her out, after all Christian girls needed husbands too. She hesitated not a second but readily agreed. Obembe loved that – why play hard to get if you’re smitten yourself? She had a family situation which she explained to Obembe. She worked for her father, closed at 6pm and was expected home an hour later. Her dad set a 7pm curfew for all his children. Only on Thursdays could she exceed that as Thursday was her church midweek service, and they usually had a crowd. No one would know if you were absent. Fortunately also, the unpredictable Lagos traffic offered airtight alibi should she or any of her siblings decided to hang out with friends. Incidentally, Thursday coming week Bebe had a function to attend. She said she had been wondering who to take with her.
It was on a Saturday he asked her out. They fixed the rendezvous on Thursday. He kept visiting her everyday because he was so happy to meet someone that truly caught his fancy after Sweetie, for his wife raised his taste in matters of the skirts. Bebe said they would visit the place of the function briefly before proceeding to a decent “open” place where they could talk. It was a special programme for unmarried people, she explained, and she wouldn’t want to miss it entirely. That was okay by him, after all, he was like unmarried; Sweetie wouldn’t let him touch her anymore!
Nevertheless, Obembe wouldn’t wait until Thursday, but visited her at work every day, spending lunch hour with her in her canteen. It made him deliriously happy. If Sweetie was at home with her brat, he hardly noticed them anymore. What did he ever do to her that she would make life unbearable for him? He had asked her several times what his faults were, but she was taciturn and threw tantrums. Now, he discovered that life could actually be sweet with the right person. A niggling thought dropped on his mind: didn’t Sweetie feel right when he met her? He shrugged it off. Bebe was the right person now. She was very accommodating. He knew she would make him a good wife. He was honest with her. He told her he was married but there was no more fire in it – he was trapped in a loveless marriage. Bebe was very understanding and sympathetic.
On his third visit, Obembe confessed that he had fallen in love with her, and would love to marry her. He was 100% sure of his feelings. Bebe laughed and congratulated him on his certainty; after all, some men never knew what they wanted, she told him.
The D-day came, Obembe dressed carefully in his newly bought double hued cream and pale yellow Ermenegildo Zegna suit with handcrafted tie from Givenchy on a white Hugo Boss shirt, finished with muddy brown crocodile Mauri shoes and belt. Sweetie paused to stare at him when he stepped out of his room with a swagger; his perfume preceded him, on his way out. He refused to slow down his pace or bothered to say where he was off to; she would soon hear from his lawyers! He knew she would be wondering why his best car was washed and waxed and being aired when she came in from school run. He forgot not to buy Bebe a present: identical watches (his and hers from Rado). He felt debonair as he stepped into his best car, used only on unique occasions, and what could be more unique than taking Bebe out? She looked a princess in a cream dress with glittering pale yellow sequins as if they planned the dressing. It was a pointer to him that God arranged this thing. Everything he wore was new, including his Calvin Klein underwear, just in case, not that he would ask.
The thought of going to where Bebe was invited first was daunting to Obembe, but he was an urbane man who would readily put a lady’s interest first. He had already reserved a table for two in a French restaurant ran by a Parisian married to a Lagosian. It was classical and quite expensive, but nothing, his wallet would not bear. Bebe schooled in Paris and he was certain the place would thrill her.
The music was strangely soothing and Obembe felt strangely good. He knew it, everything about Bebe was right. He looked around; lots of smartly dressed young people like them were there. Some ushers in uniform moved around with trays laden with stick meats and some red wine. He knew they were cheap wine so he cautioned Bebe not to spoil her appetite with them; gourmet food and wine awaited them elsewhere.
Never in a thousand years would Obembe imagine that his date would take him to a church programme in a three star hotel! Immediately the convener began to speak, Obembe understood that it was a gathering of singles that came to mingle: many knew themselves and greeted and hugged, hi-fived themselves, did some dance steps, etc. Some, like Bebe had already gotten a catch. To Obembe’s utter chagrin, it turned out that it was a kind of marriage class. He looked at her, and she shrugged with a sweet smile. Obembe was uncomfortable. He had a niggling suspicion that only a desperate woman would invite her date to a marriage class. The speaker said something like his topic was, The Things that Make Marriages Fail. Obembe’s first thought was to get up and leave, but that would be ‘un-gentlemanly,’ and besides, he would like to see Bebe again. He sat back, and listened to the young man at the podium behind a wooden lectern with the hotel logo in front wondering if he was married at all, and if yes, if he had spent up to two years in it. So he listened in order to find fault with the young fellow.
Suddenly, without thinking, Obembe brought out his phone and typed in something he found interesting. After a while he brought out his phone again to type something, then he brought it out again, and again, then he decided to hold it in his hand. The lanky young man at the podium spoke eloquently on why marriages fail, and on what couples do wrongly. He read from his IPad, probably from a Bible, God’s position on marriage. Obembe took down the scripture, Luke 16:18. He talked about the duties of the wife, and the husband, respectively. Obembe never knew that putting away his wife to marry Bebe would be adultery before God.
The programme ended in an awkward note. Obembe felt embarrassed. He felt weak and listless, and had lost his appetite. He looked at his watch and said to Bebe, “Do you still have time for dinner?” He felt like one who stained his outing clothes. She glanced at her chain wristwatch and exclaimed, “O, my God! How time flies! My father will skin me. I’d love to eat, but my God!” Obembe felt strangely glad. He said to her, “I’ll take you home.”
They were invited to come the following day, same time. Obembe wondered if Bebe didn’t know that it was a three-day programme. He glanced at her, she seemed happy looking rapturous. Obembe began to have an uncomfortable feeling that she was happy because she believed she had found a husband. A potpourri of thoughts mingled on his mind, and he didn’t hear when Bebe asked him to pick her up for the next meeting.
All day the following day, he felt a pull to attend the meeting, to hear what more the young teacher had to say after saying so much on the first day. Somehow he suspected that he wouldn’t want to attend with Bebe, and he was sorry that he had said too much to her about his feelings and his rash decision. He had dropped Bebe off with no promise to see her the following day, then he remembered that she only had one day in a week she could go out, and he relaxed.
Obembe attended the meeting alone. The third day, he invited Sweetie, but she didn’t even dignify him with a response. He went anyway. He went out for a call for repentance, for bad thoughts and actions against marriage, and for prayer to God to heal hearts and give guests good marriages. As he stood there, he remembered how wonderful he had felt when he met Sweetie, and how she pleased him so much that he went to tell his parents, and later met her people, and all the attention he gave her, and all the promises he made her… Then, he remembered he didn’t try to discuss her excesses with her. He never told her how negatively they were affecting him; rather he reacted against her excesses.
These three days he had attended these meetings on marriage made him realise how he and some others had missed it in this area. He was a marine engineer trained to the hilt; even despite knowing how to swim like a fish, he never worked without a proper gear that included a safety jacket! How come in marriage, something that would last a lifetime, no one trains for it?
On the last day of the programme, he returned from the altar to find Bebe on his seat. He hesitated. She greeted him with these words, “Hi, Obembe! You stood me up.” He froze. He had led her on, how would he withdraw from her now?
That night, when Obembe got home, Sweetie was having her bath. He walked into the bathroom and went straight to hug her, Brioni suit et al, she screamed at him to get out. “Are you out of your senses or what?” she screamed.
The end.
Watch out next week for the sequel to the story. It is Sweetie’s side of the story.
