By Lechi Eke
This is actually a curious account of how an executive lost his side chick. The title is chosen for want of a better title (chuckle).
It was dusk; the sun had gradually slid down the horizon. Two cars pulled up simultaneously in front of the posh Lagoon Front Restaurant. A tall thin man with a slight limp stepped out of one of the cars, a 2019 model of the Mercedes Benz E Class. He was a well known figure.
It took quite a while for the occupant of the other car, a Grand Cherokee Jeep, to get out. He was average height and heavily built with the biceps of a prizefighter. And he moved like one, alert and ready to sidestep his opponent. He was the most sought after stockbroker on Broad Street, Marina, Lagos. His name was Immanuel Dipri.
Both men exchanged nods as they strode into the restaurant. They were well-acquainted, although they had never been alone together. As if by coincidence, they chose to take the table close to each other, and without saying anything, one crossed over to the other’s table and sat down.
The tall thin man was a whiz kid banker. Thirty years ago, he started out modestly, eventually reviving many distressed banks. Today, he had become a sage; his name was on the lips of industrialists and economists as the man who could move the nation’s economy forward. The president was not unaware of him.
The two men both worked on Broad Street. They looked their worth in their impeccable dressing: men of high renown.
Apart from the Barman and two ladies at a far table, the prestigious restaurant was deserted. At a hand raise, a waiter appeared with pen and paper to take their orders. As soon as he turned away, one of the ladies got up and crossed the men’s table to the bar. She was a sight to behold. Tall, mannequin slim, lovely complexion, elegant dress, elegant hair-do. The two men followed her with their eyes.
The tall thin man shook his head and said. “There ‘re pretty women in this world.”
“Yes”, agreed Mr. Dipri, “and my wife is the prettiest of them all.”
The banker sat up. He loved pretty women and regarded himself as a connoisseur of rare beauties. But a wife? Coming from another man, the banker would have laughed, but there was something about Mr. Dipri that made people take him seriously. And the banker was immediately curious trying to imagine a woman prettier than the one before them.
“Really?” the banker said in a voice that said, “l want to know about it.”
“Sure, the prettiest woman I’ve ever known. And I’ve known quite a number (he paused and nodded, wondering inwardly, why he was saying that). The banker was all ears, mentally kicking himself for not making Mr Dipri’s acquaintance earlier.
“I have been married to her for seventeen years,” continued the stocky stockbroker, “and she has never failed to turn me on. No other woman has ever turned me on,” Mr. Dipri concluded.
The banker sat back in his chair. He had lost interest in both the story and the wife. Surely the man was eccentric. How could one woman be exciting for seventeen years? Surely, Mr Dipri was not alright.
“Are you sure you are alright, my friend?” the banker asked him after deciding that they could be friends. There was something friendly about the other man. Mr Dipri laughed expansively with no offence. “You have asked me what l used to ask myself years ago, until l came to find out from God’s word that nothing was wrong with me and that God expects us to love one woman in our lifetime.”
“God? You believe in that concept?” the banker asked incredulously.
“Sure, God is not a concept. He is the creator of all things,” Mr Dipri said soberly. “And l have a deep respect for him.”
The banker shook his head in amazement. “There is no God my friend. If there’s any, we created him. We make money a god. We make our career a god, our possessions, children, wives, anything we fancy. And the gods don’t tell us what to do, we tell them what they should do.”
Mr Dipri’s face was set in a relaxed mien, a smile playing around the corners of his lips. The banker could see he was good looking as a boy.
“Gods are what we worship,” Mr. Dipri said with a sermonic leverage in his voice, “and what you worship controls you. So you are not an Oga to your god, rather you’re the servant.”
Something gripped the banker, a brief sensation to flee. If he had not known the other man, he would have thought he was face to face with one of those professional preachers. The bankers phone began to ring. He pressed a button and raised it to his ear.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “I’ve been here for…”’he consulted his Rolex wristwatch. (Mr Dipri tried not to listen) “twenty minutes…” (the banker used a swear word, Mr Dipri flinched). “Oh, I will wait, l have a gentleman keeping me company here and telling me the most um… amazing things. See you my love.”
The food arrived.It was fresh fish peppersoup spiced with efiri leaves. The aroma wafted up their nostrils watering their mouths. “That, your wife?” Mr Dipri asked casually.
“No, my girlfriend,” the banker replied equally casually. “I call my wife honey, and I don’t call any other woman that, In order not to complicate matters,” he said winking at Mr Dipri his voice confidential. He actually liked Mr Dipri, he didn’t repel him as other men did. The stockbroker said something on tasting the peppersoup.
“I take it everyday. The veggie is medicinal, drives away diabetes, you know.”
“God’s presence in your life can drive away…” Mr Dipri began.
“What presence?” the banker snapped almost choking on the fish. “I once went to church for a wedding, I must tell you, and the preacher came on and began to say things most bizarre and…and…”
“Unimaginable?” Mr Dipri asked with a laugh.
“Well, not exactly, but certainly empirical premises, and … um…” Words failed the sage banker. “But my wife was enraptured by the words of the preacher and when he gave an invitation for people to come to the front, to my utter chagrin, l mean, my wife got up and went. Ever since then, she’s become unreasonably different.”
Mr Dipri listened with rapt attention. He could see that this piece of narration was irksome to the banker for locked in his eyes was trepidation.
Mr Dipri was a messenger, obedient to his master. The Lord had said to him, “Go to Lagoon Front Restaurant.” He did not know why he came, but as he listened to the banker, he began to think he knew why.
Having done justice to the peppersoup, they wiped their mouths with the napkins and reclined in their chairs to socialize while it digested. Some early diners had started to arrive. Many exchanged greetings with the two famous men.
“Your wife is born again,” Mr Dipri told the banker.
A young woman elegantly dressed came into the restaurant,unescorted. She looked like she just stepped out of the French Vogue magazine. The banker stood up and beckoned to her.
Mr Dipri had paused in mid sentence, but when he spotted the young woman and realized that she was the one the banker was waiting for, he put a final punctuation to his sentence, and his heart sank.
He knew the girl, the deputy speaker’s 19 year old daughter. Their parents were too busy to raise their children properly. The children were given free rein travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, unchaproned. Mr Dipri once expressed concern to the couple how they left their children unattended, exposed. Their mother had exclaimed at him, “Don’t be prudish, Ebiere! This is the 21st century, you know, besides, no one will eat them!”
Now, looking at the girl, Mr Dipri mused, “No one?”
On spotting her lover the girl walked briskly over to the two men. She took the seat pulled out by the banker and greeted Mr Dipri, calm, and unaffected by Mr Dipri’s presence despite the fact that she knew her father’s relationship with him!
The banker introduced them. The situation was very awkward, and Mr Dipri felt bad. She was a sophomore in an American university studying International Relations.
“Will you like some peppersoup?” the banker asked her in a way that nauseated Mr Dipri.
“Yes,” she replied unabashedly, “with gin and lime on the rocks.”
The banker raised his hand and a waiter appeared. The girl’s voice was confident as she said to the waiter, “Mutton intestines and a bottle of gin, a bottle of lime with some ice cubes.”
The banker turned to Mr Dipri and smiled. “Ladies know what they want these days. Wonderful restaurant this place. They serve from boli and groundnuts to caviar and blini.”
Mr Dipri made some affable noises, and then cleared his throat loudly, intentionally to send a message across to the banker indicating he had something to say. He had checked with his radar and received no green light to depart, so he began laboriously, “As I was saying…”
“Yes, Yes,” the banker cried with some histrionics and turning to the girl, he said, “Sweetheart, we must hear him, he’s been telling me the most um… um… amazing things…” But he stole a glance at his watch.
Mr Dipri knew he had overstayed his welcome. He too stole a glance at his watch. The peppersoup arrived.
“What if there are two places to go? Only two places: one, a place of no sorrow, no darkness, no sickness, no suffering, no death. A place of light, of peace, of joy…”
“And what kind of place would that be, Mr Dipri? There’s No such place!!!” cried the banker.
“There is,” sniffed the girl. There seemed to be too much chilli in the dish for the girl’s eyes began to water and her nose began to run. “And I’ll not go there,” she sobbed plainly.
“Why?” Mr Dipri asked sitting forward.
“Because, because, I’m a bad girl, and my Auntie Bose told me that God will not let bad girls go there.”
“That’s right,” admitted Mr Dipri warming up to her. “But, you can make a detour today. You can change your destiny today by saying ‘Lord Jesus, come into my life.”
“I’ve prayed it. I prayed with my Auntie Bose, and I continued doing bad stuffs. I can’t stop myself, sir, I can’t stop myself!” Her voice was filled with anguish.
Mr Dipri glanced at the banker, his countenance mirrored his displeasure. He moved to the edge of his seat and reached out to the girl, “Sweetheart…” he began. The girl shrank from his touch. She was now sobbing. The banker looked around thoroughly embarrassed. How the hell did he allow this terrible stockbroker sit with him? However, he was grateful that the restaurant never allowed the press into their business space, and any bridge of privacy,they stated on their doors, would be met with a libel suit. Their customers could let their hair down. Whatever happened there never got into the papers.
“Let me take you away. I’m sorry the gentleman has touched a cord in your tender heart.” The banker’s voice was hush. Turning to Mr Dipri, his voice reprimanding, he said, “You know she’s only a child. You should leave all these heavy stuffs about God and stuff for men like us. Young minds cannot bear them.”
“No no no! Help me , Mr Dipri, I don’t want to go to hell!” the girl cried.
“There’s no hell , my dear. It’s all in the figments of his imagination!”
Mr Dipri and the girl began to pray together. And the banker looked around in shame and confusion wishing he could find something to hit the stockbroker with.
Two weeks later, the banker’s first son said he met the stockbroker early one morning while he was jogging.
“And, what was he doing around here?” the banker enquired testily.
“He was jogging too.”
“What? He doesn’t live around here!” the banker’s voice was indignant.
“He said the Lord told him to go help a young man around here receive salvation. It turned out to be me!” He laughed, and added, “He said to me, young man, don’t find out about hell in hell!”
The end.
