By Lechi Eke
Ulari was between despair and sheer panic when she let herself out of her course advisor’s office. Terrible things had begun to befall her. Somewhere in her subconscious she shovelled blames on the kiss with J. That kiss sealed the situation with Benjamin as a relationship and she found herself too lily-livered to fight it. But was the kiss really to blame for four years’ old problem? And why did she feel like weeping on J’s shoulders? Certainly, the Devil was after her! She tripped thrice on herself, and knew not where she headed until she found herself seated on one of the stone benches at Lagoon Front (LF). When a large canoe drifted by with three or four men on board and one of them stood precariously in the slow moving wooden vehicle and threw up a net to catch fish, then her brains woke up. It fascinated her how the net went up, stood for a breathing second like a sail in the air before crumbling into the slow-moving black waters rippled by the languid paddling of those fishermen.
She saw her result sheet spread out on her course advisor’s table. All her results from 2007 till the present stared her in the face. The red marks of the Russian courses glared up at her. Courses she had foolishly borrowed from Foreign Language Department in her first year when she was filled with youthful exuberance and adventure. Their course advisor had warned them, “Don’t borrow language courses except you have a natural flair for languages.” They said they had. First semester was all right. She passed the two courses borrowed. They were taught in English. It was exciting and fun. She learnt some Russian- ‘Kak de lac?’ Every day they asked themselves, ‘How are you?’ and waited for the reply, ‘Xorosho, spaciba!’ And when the lecturer asked, ‘Kak va zavut?’ they were proud to reply, ‘Meyan zavut Ulari Ugorji,’ ‘Meyan zavut Tunde Rasaki,’ ‘Meyan zavut Elijah Solomon.’ They shared stories of how Russian was easier to learn than English and how they would go on to learn Italian and German; perfect their O level French and learn Spanish. They mastered the Russian alphabet, knew how what looked like the English ‘p’ is pronounced ‘r’ and the English ‘x’ is realised as /ha/. They went to cocktail parties in the Russian Embassy; congratulated themselves for breaking into high society she, not in the shadow of the VC but in her own right. It was enjoyable whileit lasted.
Second semester, the witches (that’s what the students who chose Russian language as elective began to call the lecturers) in Russian sub-Dept began to teach in Russian! The students complained that they had not mastered the language well enough to learn in it. They went to different offices to complain but nothing came of it. They failed the two elective courses.
Pondering over it now, Ulari remembered that it was the same academic staff advisor, Mr Koul, who told them about the Russian Language course and its benefits of getting one a job in Nigeria’s Foreign Offices or with the SSS (the State Secret Service) when they came in and knew not what to do.
In 200 level, they returned to the course advisor and desired to withdraw. He shook his head. “Not done,” he said. Dr Wilson, a sickly-looking Russian lecturer tried to get Ulari to ‘sort’ him in exchange for good marks, she shunned him. “Okay-o,” he said, “we shall meet one day.”
They failed four whole elective courses. In year three, there was no need for Elective Courses anymore. Ulari was relieved that she had only her Minor to tackle. At the present, in final year, six failed elective courses stared her in the face!
“If nothing is done, you’d have a repeat,” her course advisor told her.
“God forbid!” she said.
“Well, this has nothing to do with God. It’s either you increase your workload or you mentally prepare to return to school after your mates are gone to repeat first semester. You’re nowhere near the number of units just approved by senate for students to pass out with.”
“God will help me.”
“The VC can’t even help in this matter,” the lecturer said.
“Well, there must definitely be a way out.”
“But of course,” he said spreading his ghastly looking light-skinned hands. “There’s always a way out.”
“Why didn’t I stay with English taught courses?” Ulari wailed to herself.
The fisherman pulled the net. Ulari watched fascinated. Suddenly, she wanted fresh fish but that would make a dent in her allowance unless someone paid for it. She could visualise croakers with the greyish pinkish hue of their scaly bodies. The net caught nothing. The canoe moved on. After a while, the fisherman stood, poised to cast the net again. She wondered why they came out in broad daylight to fish when fishes are said to be net compliant at night. Could it be they were like her heady and resistant to good advice only to learn in a hard way later?
An idea hit her, she decided to see the Russian sub-Dept HOD. Minutes later, she sat across from him and said her mission.
“Oh, of course you borrowed courses from us two years ago. Da, da, da,” he said, nodding stupidly.
That was the problem with them, speaking Russian in Nigeria. What was wrong with saying, yes, yes, yes?
“You want…?” Ulari repeated what she wanted. “O.K. let’s see…” he drawled.
He swivelled towards his PC and pressed it on humming to himself, waiting for the system to boot. At that very moment his phone rang. He picked it and listened for a long time and said, “I’ll come right over, sir!” Turning to Ulari he said, “I’m sorry, Miss Ugorji, come again some other time. That was my dean. He needs my attention urgently. Or better still go to Dr Wilson, he’d be glad to help you.”
“God forbid!” she muttered under her breath at the mention of Wilson. “I’ll come back, sir.”
On Monday when she returned to see him, Dr Wilson sat on his chair with a huge smile. He announced that the HOD had gone to UI on loan and would be there for a month.
“I’m the acting HOD now.”
Ulari stumbled out of the office. She could not wait for one whole month, it would be too late. She was ashamed to tell the VC who had voiced his displeasure at her average GPA. He had accused her of being too involved in church activities.
“If only you’d spend as much time on your books as you do on church activities, why, you’d do very well. We all are Christians; you don’t have to bury yourself in it.”
And he would not hear Ulari’s side of it. He was her friend. The vice chancellor had requested that she became his friend soon after she sang the National Anthem at her matriculation. Her HOD who awed by her JAMB result had tested her and smuggled her name into that year’s matriculation programme. Then, the VC had invited her to his expansive office in the senate building a week later. She had gone trembling convinced that he wanted her for evil purposes and determined that she would rather leave school than give in to him. He sat behind his huge oak table with a smile she thought was a bit too much. So, she was on her guard.
“You’re a very beautiful girl,” he said straight to the point after she had declined every offer of refreshment.
She had been warned at home that men drugged what they give to young ladies to make them lose their senses in order to have carnal knowledge of them.
“I want you to be my friend,” he said.
Her eyes were watchful and wide. Friendship she knew meant anything from casual acquaintance to sex partnership. Having been well-tutored at home on how to handle such situations, she looked steadily into his awestricken eyes as a firm word of protest rose in her larynx. He killed it before she uttered it by adding, “Not a sex partner but a friend. I have a daughter your age. You’re a talented young woman and very intelligent. I saw your JAMB score.”
She relaxed but wished she should not be liked based on that JAMB score. She worked too hard for it and knew she might not have a repeat performance for she was an average student. There was an awkward silence then he spoke again.
“You’re very beautiful.”
“Thank you, sir!” she said.
Compliments affected her but rarely; she received them by the dozen daily. It was like being told, ‘O, you have two legs!’ She often nodded in agreement.
As time went on, she found out he had not sex on his mind. So, she became his family friend on the strength of her beauty alone, she supposed, but also on the strength of her musical skill and her JAMB score since he always told everyone about them which was quite unfortunate because she was an average student.
Of late, her class performances had begun to irritate him as she had observed at occasions when academics were discussed. It had begun to get awkward chatting freely with him of recent since they returned from Christmas break. She knew he must have gone through the performances of final year students for that year, and her name was nowhere to be found on the list of high performers, or her HOD who was his friend had spilled on her. Incidentally, she had grown fond of his fatherly care as he and his wife had made her their protégée. So she couldn’t go four straight days without talking to him. Although his wife’s overt fondness of her made her ill at ease because underneath her façade of love, Ulari often sensed great dislike.
She often accompanied them to high society events and often froze in dismay how the woman regularly dragged her from the back to people’s faces and hear them catch their breaths at the sight of her height and perhaps looks, because ‘You’re beautiful’ had become commonplace to her ears since she arrived at university. Back home, they had told her she was too tall, too lanky and her eyes were too large, and she was often scolded to close them a little making her to sometimes greet people with half-shut eyes. However, despite the VC’s wife thrusting her forward to greet and be admired, Ulari sensed that the real motive was for her ignorance to be exposed and her stupidity to shine through so she could be disgraced for she was socially ignorant when she arrived at school; 17 and bashful and had zero knowledge of Current Affairs. She had no idea what happened to Mbeki or why Mandela broke with Winnie. She knew neither the current World Bank president nor the crippling effect of IMF loans on developing countries. The hot issue of Clinton and the intern was lost on her. She had no idea whose turn it was to host the Olympics; had no idea where Belfast was or the problem of that region. Back home, she knew not in good details, the Niger Delta problem nor what MEND represented nor Arewa, OPC or MASSOB. Neither did she know many of the cabinet ministers of the president nor how Nigeria budgeted lower than the current OPEC price of oil per barrel in that fiscal year. High conversation centred on these and other pressing issues like Israel and the Middle East and the problem of North Korea. Her ignorance made her frugal with words but the first family of Lag never slacked in inviting her to these high society events.
As Ulari sat lost in brooding at LF, she prayed that her personal angel would not let her present situation with her friends find its way into the ears of the VC’s wife; she would rejoice over her. And she was afraid to consider how the VC would react.
Culled from The Girls Are Not To Blame