By Lechi Eke
With compunction filled heart Ulari spent her waking thoughts on Benjamin Nguuma. This had become regular, lying supine and still at the crack of dawn every day eating bread that anxiety baked. The soldier, Benjamin, had rented a large residence on her mind lately. It grieved her not a little that Bukky was entangled, yet there abound other complications like Bisi becoming suspicious of her, her schoolmates meddling in businesses not theirs watching a girl’s every move; and she barred thoughts from home.
She remembered the immediate past with a wry smile. It comprised the fact that she was not too keen on entertaining J. Nonetheless Bisi had encouraged her pointing out that there was real danger in leaving Bukky alone with the soldier. She wished that it marked the end of the story, but with the permission of the catechist’s wife to entertain the NA soldier who’d become the rock of Gibraltar in their lives, things took a dramatic twist as J was in their faces every week. Ulari faulted Bisi not for calling him a pestilential fellow. The guy was tireless, and girls were no longer as spiritually strong as they used to be, or could it have something to do with coming into season? Being ripe? Ulari suspected that if the soldier could go away, disappear from their lives, he’d give room for out of sight, out of mind situation, but no, he was faithful every week! She heard Bisi’s voice again repeating what the catechist’s wife said.
“Well if one of your friends is excited about the soldier you better go with her to chaperon them, lest they should fall into sin. And your friend was right; you’d not be young girls forever. In fact, the next milestone expected of you girls after graduation, would be marriage. One day soon, you will meet that special person that you’d want to spend the rest of your life with and of course you must court your man before you marry him. No sane person meets a man today and marries him tomorrow. There must be a period of getting to know the person one intends to marry and that as I’ve taught you girls is called courtship.”
In the distant past, Ulari would scoff at such stereotypical jargon about university female graduates proceeding to nothing nobler than starting homes with husbands! However, God must have created His world for complications and conflicts of interests. She suppressed the desire to scream out her frustration. If she had an earthenware pot, or a hole in the ground somewhere remote and quiet, she would have availed herself the pleasure of screaming long into it until all the madness going on within her was expunged!
She stole a glance at the clock on her reading table; the neon-lit numbers read 4:30. Crazy, she mused, how someone could not only forcefully broke and entered, but monopolised another person’s mind space refusing to move!
The catechist’s wife said if one of them was excited about the soldier…But was that how to solve problems? Why couldn’t the saintly woman say something like, “No one should be excited about any soldier, and I’m coming to ask your potter not to let any of you out with any young man until your time in school is ended?” A little sobering thought sneaked in and said, “How long do you think others should take decisions for you?” Ulari nodded, and her mind wandered off again, aimlessly until they chanced upon their first outing with Benjamin. For some reason known to her, it brought a softening of expression on her face. She had written a letter to the chief porter:
Rm B12 Moremi Hall,
Unilag.
22nd Feb. 20011
Dear Mr. Adekunle,
This is to let you know that Bukky, Bisi and I have gone out with a soldier named, Major Benjamin Nguuama (a.k.a. J). To do what you may ask? Sir, it’s expedient for us to go out with him for an important business. However, if you don’t see us before 8:30p.m, please, contact the police. It may be helpful to you to know that this soldier works in the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) HQs, Apapa and lives in Ikeja Cantonment. He’s from Gboko, Benue State.
Enclosed is N1000 that can help you run around.
Thank you and God bless!
Yours Sincerely,
Ulari
When she handed the letter to the chief porter, Ulari told him not to open it until after 8:30pm and not before. His beady eyes slapped her with a jolted expression. When she took one last glance at the hostel, she saw that a figure darkened the porter’s side window, the little one that looked into the parking lot and the park where students and visitors without personal vehicles board commercial cabs. She was comforted that the porter was aware of their movement. She envisioned him calling the main gate to get the cab’s particulars, and she sighed with relief as she settled into the vehicle and the feeling of one who’d tidied up loose ends enveloped her as the campus cab eased out of the park into the slightly busy road.
One can never be too careful Ulari had told herself. She had also taken a secondary precaution: she told Bisi to call the porter and raise an alarm if she slumped or fainted in the course of the outing.
“Slump or faint? Aren’t you feeling well?” Bisi had asked scrunching her face with concern.
“No, I’m quite well. It’s in case I suddenly develop something strange,” she said.
She was just being careful recalling what she was told from home about men who slip substances into girl’s drinks to take advantage of them, not that she suspected J of such wickedness, but one could never tell. Bisi studied her face for a while and shrugged.
“Did you tell Bukky this?”
No, of course, she did not. Bukky was too playful. Was it not Bisi who confided in her that Bukky was a carnal Christian; that she had stunted growth? Since this was the first time they were going out with a young man, they had to be very careful. Ulari couldn’t tell if the beating of her heart was because of the soldier or the outing. Thus they went to a posh restaurant to dine with the siren called J.
Her face puckered into a smile as she savoured that outing with J, and subsequent outings. Although Bisi would feign disinterest, her expression at the table seldom corresponded. The restaurants were oft upscale, and the food gourmet, and they, they would act cool as if it was commonplace, except may be Bukky, she was well travelled being the daughter of the Anglican archbishop of Lagos Diocese. Those dinners were allowance savers, and they secretly looked forward to them.
Without warning, her wandering thought happed on her grandma with a question, “Could it be how she was entertained?” This wiped the smile off her face at once! In her family when they prayed for an unmarried female, they prayed that what happened to their grandma Ugorji would not repeat with the person because history has a way of repeating itself.
Ulari pondered on the activities that brought her father into this world. Was she forced, or did she give her consent with her eyes closed, being enticed, her legs opened savouring the moment? It was a terrible thing that happened to her grandma, the other Ulari, which brought her father into the world. Ulari winced at the thought of what her grandma went through. However, that was in the 20th century. Ulari, the younger was a 21st century young woman, and in the 21st century, the world had grown up, babies could not drop into earth unplanned; technology had taken care of almost everything except how to protect the heart. Today, there was freedom of choice, like the right not to be married, the right not to have children and be child-free; all kinds of rights! Just last week Ulari’s course-mate told her of how their aging neighbour was child-free, but whenever they were on holidays she would not let them rest forcing them to spend time with her.
In a conversation lately, a girl named Lucy had opened up to Bisi and her about how in the 21st century, everything had a solution, except broken heart. She said her mother’s heart was broken, so she had taken precautionary measures to protect her own heart – she would be marriage-free! Bisi, out of character, tried not to dissuade her. It was midweek and they were snatching brunch at QSS (Quick Service Shop) before classes and general talk at the eatery was about what current Miss Unilag said in reply to a question about family at the grand finale just a day or two before. Bukky’s day was lecture-packed so she was at her lecture block. When Lucy hurried off to her class, Ulari looked askance at Bisi for she was forever a defender of tradition, how come she lost her voice at Lucy’s story, and even appeared to empathize with her?
Bisi did a shocking thing: she opened up to Ulari, telling her something she said she had never told anyone in the school; something malicious. It was about her dad. He was alive, she said. They all thought he was dead. Bisi used to mutter something about when her dad was on this side… So her friends assumed he was on the other side of eternity! But Bisi said he was alive and lived in the part of the city called AJ city, a slum. Bisi knew where he was but wouldn’t go. She said he was the son of a wealthy man, and he spent his youth, his energy and his wealth on being a butterfly flying from pollen to pollen until he wasted his good looks, his energy, and his wealth leaving broken hearts in his trail.
Bisi’s mum was one of the broken hearts. He married her without mentioning he had another wife, and then he went off to marry another wife, and another wife and another wife. Now his resources were spent, and he enjoyed his time alone in a slum place without good water and electricity; in a shelter that was nothing but a shelter called *pako.
The neon numbers on her reading table read 4:58. Ulari sighed. These were stories that could knock the heat off a beast in heat! Her lithe svelte body slid off the bed in sneeze speed throwing off her wrapper. In her baby pink see-through nightgown, she flashed cone-shaped breasts and lean stomach muscles pulled in at the valley of her navel and spread out again towards the hills of her hips. She quickly shrugged into a robe and tied it around her lean waist. It was time for the early Morning Prayer.
- Pako: a wooden fabricated shelter.
Culled from The Girls Are Not To Blame by Lechi Eke
