The meeting with Ulari’s father
By Lechi Eke
Ulari arrived in the city of her nativity at about 9:45am, parting from Major-General Fiberesima six houses from her father’s house. The general rode on to his hotel in the quieter part of the city to rest and change before coming to see her father in the evening. One or two rains had fallen in Aba to the capacity that cooled the heat and wetted the dusty earth. It was the third Saturday in April, and a gradual transition from dry season to rainy season had begun.
Stopping in front of the Ukejes’ house, the oldest house on Asa Road, no one was about. The Ukejes had an empty nest now. Ulari allowed herself the pleasure of fantasy.
Pausing briefly under the huge avocado pear tree that she and her mates raided as children, her mind flited down memory lane to when they picked fallen fruits from the tree to keep in the ashes from the iron tripod cooker in a warm area of their mothers’ kitchens. There, the hard fruits remained until their insides succumbed to the pressure of the kitchen temperature turning soft and buttery and they would take them out to eat bread.
Many rainy seasons ago when they were children, fierce wind would sway the thick pregnant branches of the avocado tree and furious rain would pelt down the fruits and she and her mates would run merrily to pick them. The rains would beat them silly plastering their clothes to their bodies and they would run barefooted laughing and catching rainwater stones, transparent as water, but hard as pebbles. Their mothers would scream and bring out the aña, waiting until they come in. But more dreaded than the cane was the B codeine they made them swallow after when their mouths shook and their teeth shattered with the cold.
Leaning on the enormous hard barked ancient tree trunk, Ulari brooded wondering what fate awaited her few metres away. It wasn’t about Maj-Gen Fiberesima going to see her father anymore, but her mother had called her hall Porter requesting to talk to her, and the good man had called Bukky who explained that Ulari had been very busy with school work and was not back to the hostel yet. So, she requested that Ulari return her call ASAP. She did. Her mother told her to come home to attend an urgent meeting. “It should be about the ‘onye ugu’ (northern person) issue,” her cousin living with her maternal grandparents whispered to Ulari over the phone. Definitely, her father would bellow at her, and the adults would eat her raw.
Escaping to fantasyland, the sky turns slate grey and furious rain comes down. She and J are trapped inside the house as a couple under a warm duvet and they drink …each other! Alone with J behind closed doors furious winds tear through the empty space between the sky and the trees, swaying them almost to the ground and sharp slanted rain showers like wielded brooms slash mercilessly at the backs of naughty children playing outside in the rain and the rains pouring heavily down on rooftops where lovers luxuriate under duvets drinking hot chocolate and windows frosting over with the rains denied entry into houses… She sighed.
The early morning sun said to give vitamin D was up; golden yellow like the yolk of egg surrounded by boiled broken albumen shining loud and bright. It was determined to subdue the sparkling brilliancy of the firmament promising a sunny day. Ulari began to drag her feet towards her father’s house.
Her father stood in front of his shop, his thinning sponge-like hair of varying shades of grey tinged with brown escaped from underneath his plaid cloth cap. His sunburnt face, the colour of cooked crab was leathery covered with deep creases of worry. His eyes were Ulari’s, big, brown set in shimmering pools of water that was no longer white. He looked emaciated, under the weather. An evil ailment had raided his diet taking out all the yummy stuff. He could no longer eat eggs and milk and red meat and akara, the yummy fried beancakes. Her father’s shop boys were loading tins of paints onto a pickup van. She waited for the van to drive off. Across the road, her bodyguards blended with the local people in their Ankara shirts on plain trousers. Her father was surprised to see her.
“Have you run out of money?” he asked making her realise the meeting was her mum’s project. She shook her head. “Then, why did you come? I don’t like you travelling by night bus because of night marauders.” He seemed distracted, his mind perhaps on the paint consignment that just left.
“I came by air.” Her voice was quiet and hesitant, observing him. He gave her his full attention now. Flying was a big deal amongst them. “I can afford it,” she added. “I have more outside ministrations now and hosts don’t let you go empty-handed.” It was true, but she had no clue if they could pay flight tickets.
He was suddenly proud of her. He grew up in deprivation so, good things puffed him up. He would mention it to his neighbours: Chiefs Ibe and Ileka, casually.
“So, why did you come?” he asked again. Ulari considered selling her mother, but no; at home, they always supported Mma.
“Let me see Mma first.”
“Okay. Your sister, Ugo, is even with her.”
Ulari started. Ugo, whom they called senior spelt T-R-O-U-B-L-E. She was the eldest of her mother’s eight children, fourteen years older than her; married with four children, a banker and a meddler in other people’s businesses. Things certainly did not look good.
Her mother’s staff were attending to two customers, one of whom was her security. Ulari gave them a weak smile nodding to their greetings as she turned the door handle to her mum’s office without knocking. Senior and their mother sat with their hands folded across their chests and their faces long and drawn like bereaved women. They were obviously in deep unpalatable discussion. Ulari halted.
READ ALSO: Mediation
Senior looked bigger than the last time she saw her. Her hands couldn’t fold properly across her enormous bustline. She was shaped like S. A school of little birds could perch on the upper curve of her bust while the plateau of her bottom could accommodate a hen and her broods. Only grandma Ugorji knew she was the picture in Mr Colin Ashby’s living-room, the picture of the grandmother of the man who sired their father.
When Ulari came in and curtsied, Senior gave her the evil eye and her body moved to exclude her. Her body was built for trouble for she walked like one who needed more room, her torso keeping her arms at bay. Strangers often discerned that she was bossy and a meddler in other people’s affairs. Senior shifted on her seat again to thoroughly exclude Ulari while their mother unfolded her arms using one to support her jaw. On happier times, Ulari would tell her that that position was unflattering for her jaw pulled her neck to stretching point: turtle-like, for she was slight of frame.
Considering how irksome the issue of non-Igbo suitors was to their mother, Ulari expected nothing less than heaven to fall.
“Hmm, enyi,” she hissed as she regarded Ulari with slanted eyes. “So, you’ve sprinted down here already when your father’s BP has not come down after Enyimba lost to Leventis last night?”
By addressing her as ‘friend’ in the sense that Jesus used it for Judas, Ulari glimpsed how things would go.
“Have you seen your father?” Her eyes and lips were turned down with displeasure. Ulari nodded with half a mind to tell her that papa asked why she came, but no wise person deliberately antagonised their mother. Mothers deliver their children from trouble irrespective of their sternness.
“What did he say?” she asked studying her. Now, her arms were back across her chest.
“Nothing,” Ulari replied.
She was wary of the two women. They responded to her greeting as if she were wayward, their eyes running all over her. Ulari had pre-empted them making sure she wore nothing new. Nonetheless, she was a new Ulari now, a stronger Ulari. Jamin had been talking to her. They were the new arrivals on earth who were going to be here longer than the adults, they should allow them a say in matters that concern them. Jamin had enfolded her in a strength-giving kiss at the back of his posh car before they boarded the NA private plane. There and then, all her fear about her mother dissipated and she had faith in Jamin’s faith now.
When one is sent to school it’s to study and not to marry…” Senior began when she failed to see anything new on her body to start trouble with. Her mother hissed heavily shifting her weight on the chair, her lips curling up in disgust. Ulari’s strength began to dissipate.
“Is she still going to school?” her mother asked no one in particular.
“Yes, Mma. I just submitted the form for my workload to Exams and Records and my supervisor has approved my project topic, and I’m burning the midnight candle.”
“Story! Just shut up there!” Senior yelled in a low tone. Ulari suspected her mother warned her not to shout because her voice had volume. She wouldn’t want her staff to catch wind of the goings-on. “That your parents are not there isn’t reason enough for you and your Yoruba friends to run around Lagos looking for boys…”
Her mother hissed again and said something negative about the Yoruba and child upbringing. Every tribe was guilty of one misdemeanour or the other to her mother.
“My friends are Christians and we were not…” Ulari began.
“Hey,” her sister clapped her hands soundlessly, “don’t answer me unless you want me to slap your mouth and pull out that irreverent tongue of yours. Little girl sent to school to study is appearing on the pages of magazines with gossips about a man (her mother looked more mournful and Ulari’s heart caved in. That was it! It was that Kampus News report about her and J when they met at One in Town that a tabloid magazine reprinted). God forbid, but what will you do if that man dumps you? That’s what all these Lagos boys do, use a girl and dump her.”
“But he wants to marry me,” Ulari protested. “And he’s not using me.”
“He wants to marry me, (she mimicked) enhkwa? Look at your mouth! What else would a smart guy say to a mumu (ignorant) girl like you? Men know well-brought up girls when they see them and they also know that the only thing that can make them open their legs would be the promise of marriage (turning to their mother she started a story). In fact, I know one Lagos guy, someone read about him in the papers, from Kogi State, who even went as far as carrying wine on this good girl who refused to sleep with him, but all in pretence. (Their mother snapped her fingers nodding in amazement) because the moment he saw the girl’s inner laps he cancelled the wedding plans and dumped her.”
“Chineke m ekwela! My God forbid it!” their mother cried with a pagan gesture of circling her head with her left hand and snapping that same hand away in rejection.
Ulari watched her sister’s thick lips shiny with the oil of something she ate that morning and her double chins quivering with displeasure. Her mother must have noticed that her mind had wandered off and she didn’t look remorseful enough for she used the intercom asking the maid to bring some dry meat. And she did, in a large plastic bowl. She showed it to Ulari. “See these dry meats, they’re from the north. They were dried under room temperature! Because we’re telling you now and your eyes are shinning. Don’t come back to tell me how you shot the little bird and the mother escaped when things go wrong with you.”
“The kind of sunshine in the north cannot be described; the heat is like hell, not to talk of the rain…” Senior took over from their mother.
“Does it rain there?” their mother asked.
“Rarely, but when it does, it flattens buildings and uproots trees.”
“Hey!” Mma cried her hands going to her head in despair as someone turned the door handle and pushed it open without knocking, temporarily, putting on hold the butchering of an innocent life.
Three pairs of eyes glared towards the door amazed at the effrontery of whoever it was. It was Felix, one of Ulari’s older brothers. They relaxed. He just returned from Port Harcourt where he worked as a casual worker in an oil company. Felix was thrilled to see Ulari. He had questions he was dying to ask her, questions of the truth behind what he read in a tabloid magazine recently. Was his four years younger sister really the “one of Unilag’s famous Three Tall Girls, a CU girl and a part 4 Music undergrad and Jamin Torkular…” that he read about? Felix knew the Torkulas of Tivland. The two women greeted Felix well, and their mother turning to Ulari said.
“Your brother has found a wife, an Igbo girl from our very own hamlet, not one that we’d travel two thousand miles to go and marry.”
Senior nodded meaningfully her fat lips curling down disdainfully making her chubby cheeks spread like that of Cinderella’s half-sisters. “You need to lose weight!” Ulari almost blurted out.
“Despite all kinds of girls, he’s exposed to in his workplace, including expatriates, yet, he wisely chose an Igbo girl,” their mother continued. It seemed she often forgot the family dynamics – their father was a half-caste, and her children mixed!
Felix took in the tense atmosphere- two seated, one standing, obviously facing a firing squad. “Your sister,” their mum told Felix, “wants to marry a Northerner, that’s why she’s home, to tell your father. She wants to go to the hill country!”
Ulari’s jaw dropped. Was it not her mother that asked her to come home? Oh! She wanted to force her to tell her father so they could roast her? Felix looked alarmed and senior sat up straighter in her chair. “What Northerner?” he asked Ulari, “I thought it was a Benue man?”
Ulari nodded.
“So, you even knew?” Senior asked Felix with glee. Felix shook his head.
“No, I didn’t. my fiancée just showed it to me recently.”
Senior cast a quick meaningful glance at their mother. Felix turning to their mother, his voice reproachful, said, “But I called you and asked if Ulari had any suitors, you said no.”
“How would I know? The man came here and I thought it was a joke, a bad jo…” Their mother spreading her palms up and looking around from one good daughter to a good son called for pity her eyes misting. But Felix’s eyes suddenly widened and his mouth dropped open with shock; he pointed repeatedly at the floor indicating here. “He…he came here?!!” Felix stuttered with excitement.
“Do I have water in my mouth?” their mother asked him.
“Mma!” Felix cried raising his voice in elation, now, the women understood that he was elated and not scandalised.
“What do you mean? Shouldn’t you scold your sister for her…?”
“Scold? Mma, you mean Jamin Torkula came to our house? He stepped in here?!!” he exclaimed. His eyes wild with disbelief looking around frantically for confirmation. “Mother, you should have sent for me. If you had called me, I would have rushed down here in a jiffy…”
“And leave work!” Senior cried.
“Work!” he snorted; his face squeezed contemptuously. “What do I need with work when I have Jamin Torkula for an in-law? You women don’t know who he is (turning to Ulari, he asked). It’s Benjamin Torkula, right?”
Ulari nodded, happy to have a supporter. Felix jumped up a couple of times and shook Ulari’s arm muttering Jamin’s name reverentially.
“Tell me it’s true, Ula m. My God! Mma, the man is so well-known…” he began moving towards his mother who turned her face away in anger.
“Let me hear word!” Senior snapped with forced lividness.
Both women were enraged by Felix’s reaction but now Senior’s rage had received a dousing. She had no clue it was a big name. Being a banker, they knew the moneybags but she hardly read so, was operating on hearsay. Initially they had thought Felix was for them, understanding his point, their mother spoke up sharply.
“Don’t we have well known people in the east here? What of Mbolu? What of Ileka? What of Chief Ole Oleka? Nnanna Kalu? Okafor Mmang? The Ikoros….”
“The Atuenyis, the Ogbas?” Senior added mentioning her own family.
All the while Felix was regarding Ulari with a kind of worship while their mother was still engaged in her tirade.
“And your father is very well known too,” she continued, (pausing and considering briefly what she wanted to say next, she decided to go on and say it). If it’s money that’s the attraction (she paused again and then said, disgustingly) you know he gave your sister a brand new Nokia phone, but we, your father and I can afford to buy her that if that’s her problem, that is, if we consider it needful for her to have such a thing because it doesn’t add anything to her life…”
“It’s a bet to make her yield herself,” Senior interjected hotly but now it was a charade, she had to maintain her anger tempo for her mother’s sake.
“It’s not to boast,” their mother continued but her voice had the vice of pride, “this small hair business I’m doing fetches me over a million naira…”
“Mma-a,” Felix teased laughing, “moment of truth enh? If I come to borrow money now, you’d tell me you have none. Now, truth is out, you have a million naira breathing in your account. You’ll buy a cow for my wedding-o!”
“Leave me alone, nna. Haven’t you all borrowed the whole money away? Your father will buy two cows for your wedding if need be. Your sister makes me so angry. Is the Northerner richer than your father? The last statement of account they sent him from Zenith was five-million-naira raw cash. This has nothing to do with his houses and goods and we have richer families in Aba whose sons would gladly marry her. In fact, Chief Ude has been calling me his in-law since Ulari entered university. Every time we meet, he asks me of his daughter-in-law in Lagos.”
“Nwanta e sendii skul, enh, a child sent to school – is it time to marry?” Senior interjected again glaring sideways at Ulari. “I tell you mother; this man doesn’t have marriage in his agenda. All he’s looking for is to defile an innocent girl- maybe she has told him that she’s a virgin.”
“Maa-ma, you should read newspapers. You’re not an illiterate. Jamin Torkula is not regular rich: they’re opulent. The Torkulas travel with jets and chattered planes. One of Jamin’s many cars cost -$million!”
The banker gave the correct figure in naira; their mother started out of her chair and cried, “It’s a lie!” Felix snorted and continued. “What you should ask your daughter is how and where she met such a man. You don’t meet such people on the street, mother. And he’s a Christian, Mma, born-again. In fact, I read that Ulari is the first girl he’s been romantically linked with…”
Senior stood up and raised her voice, her hands on her hips and her face very red; she was quite beside herself now with rage. “I hope you’re hearing yourself!” she shrieked. “Your sister is romantically linked with a man and you’re standing there like one who received an injection in the head saying it before your mother! Are you alright?”
“Ugo, please sit down and don’t let those girls hear us,” their mother cautioned.
“If Michael Jackson comes to marry your daughter now, won’t you jump to the roof? This man is…”
“It’s your daughter that Michael Jackson will marry and not mine!” senior said in a calm voice and sat down again.
Ignoring her, Felix turned to Ulari and asked, his arm on her shoulders beaming with smile,
“Ula, my baby, where did you meet Jamin Torkular?” And the women were all ears as she narrated their meeting.
“Mma, you’re in for something huge, I tell you,” Felix cried beside himself. “I said it that all these prayers and fasting you and father engage in cannot be in vain!” And when Ulari produced the new Nokia handset from her bag at Felix’s request, he screamed, “This is a machine!”
Felix his countenance shinning like the sun declared, “If Dad won’t take her bride price, I will.”
“Don’t be a foolish son,” his mother told him but she was suddenly sober. And so was Senior.
The women were all eyes as Felix slid the handset open. “You have a phone you b-a-a-a-d girl and you never gave me a call,” Felix said affectionately to his sister.
“Don’t call her that!” Their mother’s protective instinct jumped out for she believed in positive confession, but not to the degree the Pentecostals use it for she spat that theirs bothered on mendacity.
“Man, this is a handset!” he cried. “You’ll give it to me when you get married, promise me.” Ulari nodded, their mother winced and Senior stole a glance at her.
Felix would have received a rain of curses at this moment was their mother not a woman of peace. His casual word caused her much pain. But Senior seemingly disgusted by the whole thing her brother was doing staged a walk out, her wide hips waddling from side to side. But she heard when Felix said, “This handset has a camera (and senior had heard that there were new handsets with cameras now but hadn’t seen any so she felt like turning back), a video and is more powerful than a computer …” and their mother’s angry countenance changed to curiosity. Felix drew closer to show her and Ulari seized that opportunity to escape to her room to await the coming of General Fiberesima with dread.
Continues next week
Culled from The Girls are mot to Blame by Lechi Eke
