By Lechi Eke
The day to see Dr. Wilson, to sort out Ulari’s Russian courses’ problems finally arrived. Ulari walked through Moremi gates into the early morning fog. Thick and patchy shifty dark clouds loomed up in the lowering slate gray sky. The rainy season had made her wet entrance. Ulari was well prepared for it. She had tucked into her big hobo bag, a foldable umbrella and a see-through raincoat. She also fortified herself against the cold. The fashion of the day among young ladies was to wear matching plain polo blouses on Ankara print long skirts. So for the cold, Ulari wore a black sleeveless polo turtle neck underneath a black blazer upon an Ankara print long skirt. She felt her physical strength over-stretched having spent most part of the night praying and reading. A part of her mind told her it was dangerous to see Wilson in the guesthouse but another part told her she could handle him. She left her friends a note on her reading table because they would come for her.
Hi, Girls!
Gone to class early to prepare for my Music Analysis test. After lectures, I will stop by the Guesthouse (Rm 202) to see Dr Wilson of the Dept. of Russian. See you at about 2’clock at LF, by the fresh water pond.
Ciao!
Ulari
By twelve noon Jamin would be in Lagos. For three days now he had been in Uyo with Maj. Gen. Fiberesima. She would give him a call after her Mathematics of Music. When she turned off the short drive in front of Moremi hall onto the major road leading to the lecture blocks on the left and to halls and the health centre on the right, she saw a hooded Muslim sister carrying some books and hurrying back obviously to the hostel. She must have forgotten something. They met under the flamboyant tree dripping with dews and dropping reddish orange flowers. The girl was completely covered from head to toe in a way that had been outlawed in the campus. Ulari wondered if she could see where she was hurrying to in the poor light of that wet morning gilded with mist. Suddenly she saw her trip over her long gown and fell scattering her books all over the wet ground carpeted by the fallen flowers of the flamboyant tree, just by Ulari’s feet. Instinctively, Ulari bent to help her pick the books and together the two of them rose and turned towards Ulari’s direction and began to walk to a waiting vehicle just a few feet away. They both entered the car, the hooded girl after Ulari, into a red Honda Accord that had seen many days and it zoomed off.
Ulari sat perfectly still between the hooded person who spoke to her with a man’s voice, and a man in dirty jeans by her right. Odour oozed from him, of many days or weeks of unwashed sweat. In the front seat sat a stout fellow with a pig’s snout. They drove through the main gate unmolested with the nozzle of a gun pressed into Ulari’s side. For a few moments it felt like she was dreaming then the fact hit her – she had been abducted! Fear like an unwanted guest burst in and sat in her mind. The fact that they did not blindfold her frightened her greatly. She felt it was an indication that they would kill her. She had no idea what it was all about. She had never wrangled with anyone in her life and had always conceded in an argument with people because she hated hurting others. It was not a dream.She racked her brain to see who she wronged but could not remember.
She was careful not to stare into their faces having heard stories of how unmasked robbers kill their victims for trying to get a good look at them. She was scared stiff. The nozzle of the gun hurt her left side. No one had ever pointed a gun at her in the past. The only live guns she had ever seen all her life were in the safe hands of the law. What is it all about? She dismissed cultism on campus – she had never meddled with them. Then a thought hit her. She broke out in fresh cold sweat. It must be the campus cultists. This must be their revenge on the NA for destabilising them. They were going to hold her until the Nigerian Army released every cultist. And, what if they refused? Jamin was not the army. What would happen to her? Fear paralysed her. Is this the end for her? Suddenly, she cried out: “Jesus, save me!” In answer, the nozzle of the gun dug deeper into her. Like a drowning man she began to frantically search for Scriptures to hold onto. She was no spiritual babe although she wasn’t as deft as Bisi in the mastery of spiritual warfare. But right at that moment no words – ‘swords of the spirit’ came to her. She began to murmur Jesus, Jesus.
Soon, warfare scriptures gradually began to filter into her mouth chasing away the paralysing fear. Her captors tolerated her grunts. This threatened to destabilise the little faith she had begun to build up on the inside of her. Something told her that they wanted to kill her that was why they did not bother to stop her. Another voice told her that they needed to hold her to ransom until the NA released all cultists; so they cared less for muted prayers. Whichever it was, gave her no joy.
They drove through the usually busy Bariga road which was not so busy at that time of the day and turned left towards Oworonshoki, but instead of driving into that densely populated suburb, they hit the Express way to the Third Mainland Bridge – area unfamiliar to Ulari. Her mind soon filled with the terrible thought of being thrown into the ocean. She remembered Ofuri who was alive some days ago and real fear of death gripped her. Was this revealed to her in a dream? She was not sure. But she did remember having creepy feelings of recent, of being watched but she never mentioned it to anyone and never prayed about it. She faulted herself for being so insensitive and negligent of her intuition. Now it is too late- or is it? Did not Jonah pray in the belly of a fish? She continued to pray, a near soundless activity whose noise stopped in her throat. Soon, they were meandering into the area which she suspected to be the slums of Isale-Eko and she intensified the prayer, her heart in her mouth.
The car finally turned into a rusty gate manned by a young mullah. A storey building that should be at least a hundred years old stood in a small dusty compound. There were two or three trees- a guava tree and trees of the citrus family. Three men sat outside, on plastic chairs wearing dark goggles and smoking wrapped papers. An empty chair faced the one that looked like the Capone. Seeing these men Ulari began to think of rape- this virginity, she thought would not make it to the marital bed if my life is spared. Unrestrained loud prayer began to tumble out of her mouth.
“Shut up joo! Na wetin? Nobody touch you- nah. Wetin you dey make noise?” one of the men that came with her said in a rough gutter tone.
One of the three fearful men consulted his watch. This one wore a cheap white T-shirt, souvenir from a burial ceremony upon an Ankara print ’sokoto ’, or native trousers. He looked quite sinister with a badly sown lip scar, a broken nose and gorimapa, or skin haircut. Ulari shivered when she was made to sit on the chair facing him.
“Wetin come hold oga-now?” he asked nobody in particular baring several broken teeth and badly cigarette-stained dentition.
“E go owa-mbe for night. E go soon come,” another replied, taking off his dark goggles and began to remove impurities from his red glassy eyes. He had a still glass right eye sunken into its socket making Ulari resist a shudder. She quickly looked down to show them she had no intention of getting their descriptions.
“Make you no fear, beautiful omoge we be correct guys. We no harm people,” Glass-eye said with some gutter gestures and Ulari nodded to show cooperation.
Thereafter, he said nothing but sat beside Scar-lip staring at her in a most unnerving lecherous manner, baring his huge irregular stained teeth and licking them with his tongue every now and then. Soon it was mealtime, a little girl served all the men but two; these two went inside the old house. Food was two small round brown mounds of amala placed beside okra soup mixed with stew. When Glass-eye caught Ulari staring at the greenish and red soup garnished with roundabout and pomo and shaki on his plate, he said to her, “You wan chop? Abi make dem bring food for you?”
Ulari shook her head. She was actually shuddering inwardly at how the Yoruba place soup and swallow together on a single plate because the Igbo eat them in separate plates. When he finished eating he called out to someone and the little girl brought him water in a plastic bowl. He washed and wiped his hand on his sokoto and began to dig a wooden toothpick into his badly formed teeth.
They continued to sit facing each other until the fog cleared and the sky turned azure blue with a slight hope of sunshine. Not long after, they began to feel the heat as the sun bathed the earth with golden rays. Ulari was tired and weak but could not complain or even look at her gold-plated watch. The hooded fellow reappeared having removed parts of his attire. He was a young handsome teenager who spoke to her in Igbo, ‘Kedu?’
Ulari nodded her response that she was OK. He went to the Honda men and talked briefly with them. They drove off and he returned into the house. Scar-lip still sat in front of Ulari digging his teeth with toothpick and chasing out meat debris with his tongue and swallowing them again, making smacking noises. Tired of praying and confessing the word, Ulari covered herself with the blood of Jesus two hundred times. The sun now became too hot turning the sky into a sparkling eye-hurting sheet up above the firmament. Ulari’s body began to itch from the intense heat. The formerly hooded fellow appeared again. He was all apologies, speaking Yoruba.
“Ore mi, come, come and sit under the tree, make sun no black you.”
When Ulari stood up, her head swooned and she almost fell. She followed him with unsteady steps as he dragged a plastic chair to one of the trees, this one a sparse-leaved lemon tree as old as the house. Scar-lip did not move but sat where he was until the boy called him into the house. Now Ulari was alone saved for the young mullah at the gate selling sugar-cane. She checked her watch. It was almost one o’clock. Wilson must be getting ready for her and Jamin must be wondering where she was. Her phone was on vibration so she could not hear it ring. She believed she was being watched. She killed the urge to look for the phone. At that moment, a rickety old jeep drove through the rusty gate into the compound. The people in the house ran out before the driver of the jeep jumped down.
He seemed to be the one they were waiting for. Everybody curtsied and ‘do-baale’ for him. He was a thin little man who looked like something dropped into an agbada for he wore a white flowing garment called one thousand five hundred over a blue buba shirt upon same colour ‘sokoto.’ His white slip-on shoes were new and so was his blue and gold flowered cloth cap which was probably the aso-ebi (uniform) for the owa-mbe (party) the previous night. Huge facial tribal marks almost marred his small featured handsome face. Ulari watched him advance with bows and curtseys for her that were almost comical. But there was something about him that curdled her blood.
Culled from The Girls are not to Blame by Lechi Eke
To be continued next week