Angel (Part 2)

Time

Months had gone by since we watched the play at the Arts Theatre, but it had been recorded by history. History was the recorder of every movie that life made of us. And, time was the director that unveiled it for all to see. Another thing that I learnt as our relationship progressed was the fact that a woman could never be trusted. She was the greatest actress who could represent anything that she felt like. She could pretend to be crying whereas deep down, she would be laughing at the man. She could pretend you were the world to her when honestly you were nothing but just a number.

  As time glided on, I kept on making plans of how we would spend our future together because a good woman was hard to find in this era of cosmetic looks. We had discussed our future and other things in the past; she never failed to inform me of her mother not wanting her to marry a man that wasn’t from her hometown. I knew our love would see us through one day. 

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As Christmas approached that year, I promised to visit her in her hometown. In the night, I was lonely. I took Ben Okri’s The Famished Road to read and saw a short note she had dropped for me one day I had walked out on her out of anger because I saw her with the stranger. It read:

 Must love harbour pain? Must we merge through strain? Honey, why did you have to keep me in suspense? Why did you have to walk away like that? Why did you refrain from my embrace? Why did you have to slap my hand when I tried to hold you? Are these attributes of love? Darling, we love each other but there’s obviously a gap to be bridged and this has always been the basis of my worry because I can’t place what exactly it is. Does love always hurt? Let’s seek God’s face. 

I thought of it, my shortcomings, which included excessive jealousy, and knew I had to do something about it. This was my woman, my life. Should I totally trust her? Should I dare the circumstances and take the risk? My mind was flooded. Yes, that was all I needed to do – marry her and spend the rest of my life by her side. As I gazed at the rotating ceiling fan, I fell asleep.

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The trees accelerated at the same speed as the car I had boarded. It was sunset. As a young man, the moving trees were an enormous enchantment to me. My cogitation then was that the trees really moved. I discovered later on they never did. Amidst all these thoughts, the car came to an abrupt halt in Odu. I stood for a while, not knowing which direction to head to, whether to take my right or to take my left, or perhaps to ask someone if where I stood was Lokoro in Odu. I finally did.

  “Lokoro?” a man asked me. “You’ll take a bus there”, he pointed to a park farther off.

  I boarded a bus and alighted at Lokoro. Then I took a bike. The rider happened to know the family I was looking for. Moments later, the bike man dropped me in front of a gate. As I stood in front of the gate, I looked up at the sky; it was a fine evening in December. Dry leaves lay everywhere. The wind was mild, not intimidating and the weather was clement. It was a typical Eastern scenario. When I finally looked down, I peeped through a little space on the perforated brick-designed walls that gave grace to the building which reminded me of the pattern noticeable in government reservation areas in Nigeria. 

  I finally saw a bell; I rang it and heard nothing. I began to think of my fate. I replayed everything Angel had told me about her mother not wanting an outsider to marry her. If only she was like my mother, at least I would assure myself of a warm welcome. My mother had welcomed relatively unknown visitors to our home simply because they merely mentioned my name. My name thus became the visa that was required for entry to our home. I had persistently tried to discourage her. She reluctantly stood her ground.

  “My son,” she addressed me one day, “you travel most often. You meet and live with people I’ve never met and might never get to know, yet you’ve always returned home to me, happy.”

  “I just want you to be careful about strangers you welcome into our house, you might never tell …”

  “That my kindness might kill me one day, is that it?”

  “Mum, I didn’t mean it that way”, I muttered. 

  “Do you know how I feel each time I put shelter over a stranger’s head and a meal on his table, knowing at that point the relief he gets from his long journey?”

   That was the viewpoint of my mother, the sweetest mother in the whole wide world – a completely different one. But this was a different ball game and scenario. I was in an unknown town and decided to brace up and face anything that came my way. 

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I rang the bell beside the gate again. And my inner man began to talk to me. He did this most times when fret set in.

  “Would you come this far and be afraid to walk these few steps to Angel’s parents’ door?”

  “No. I’ll walk in the moment someone attends to me”, I reassured myself.

  As I peeped once more through the perforated space, I saw somebody emerge from one of the rooms and walk towards the gate. As the figure drew closer, it became vivid. The figure was my Angel. She wore a simple shirt and blue trousers. Her hair was in its natural state. It wasn’t long but I loved it. 

  As she tried to open the gate, I hid myself, not wanting her to see me instantly. 

  “Who’s there?”

She wanted to be sure before she opened the gate for an unknown person. I didn’t respond, rather I moved to the side of the wall and kind of made myself small as she tried to peep from the little opening beside the gate.

  “Who’s there?” she asked again.

  I kept quiet.

  “If you don’t identify yourself, I’ll leave o.”

  “Angel, it’s me.”

  She recognized my voice and hurriedly opened the gate and jumped on me like someone whose lost love had just been found.

  “Honey, I missed you. I missed you, oh my God!” she erupted and hugged me.

  “Nne, how are you?” I scrutinized her from head to toe.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon”, she smiled. “Anyway, you’re welcome.” 

  “I hope so.”

  “Oh sweetheart, stop it! Come and meet my dad. My mum isn’t home right now.”

 By the time we moved closer to their house, her dad came out and sat on a chair on the pavement. Staring at me, I almost lost my steps. Angel sensed my fears.

  “Don’t worry; he’s a nice man.”

  I said nothing as we took our last steps toward him.

  “Dad, this is my friend, Terry.”

  “You’re welcome”, he said and stretched out his hand and shook mine.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Please, sit down young man.” He pointed to an armchair close to himself.

  He asked me some questions as a form of interrogation.

 The arrival of one of Angel’s sisters cooled my nerves. She greeted her dad, and me, and went inside with Angel, then came back and asked me to come inside the living room. 

Evelyn came out from one of the rooms. Angel introduced her to me as her eldest sister. She told me that I looked different from the person that she saw in her sister’s album. She didn’t like me. And I cared less. Fortunately for me, her younger sister, Mary, liked me and we talked endlessly. I was a bit relieved. At least, someone in their house loved me.

Greenview Hotel

Green View Hotel was a storey building with chandeliers adorning the ceilings. The rooms were of moderate size and the wall painted white. My room had a bathtub and a shower as well. From the window, one was welcomed by a powerful sight of nature in total communication with man. There was a little rock with water gushing out of it. A serene place, the people of the village believed it was the home of their major god. The window became my main spot. I normally sat by the window.

In the hotel room the next morning, Angel brought some toast which her younger sister, Mary, had prepared and sent to me with a note which read: ‘Hope you slept well. I was so happy to meet you yesterday.’ 

  “This is so kind of Mary,” I shook my head.

  “She is such a nice girl,” Angel said smiling. “She does it to everybody.” 

  “Do you mean your sister who I met yesterday can be so thoughtful?”

  “It’s nothing; she is used to such things.”

  I took a few bites of the toast, savouring its taste. We heard a knock on the door. Angel stood up from the bed and walked towards the door and opened it. Oliver stood smiling. He happened to be Angel’s relation and a friend of mine during my undergraduate days. It wasn’t the first time that I met him since my arrival in Lokoro. I visited him the previous night. He was returning my visit. 

  Oliver was stout. He had the look of a featherweight champion, calm but always charging. He told me he came back home to begin his political ambition. It was so interesting to hear how he intended to revitalize the declining curiosity of youths toward politics and his plans to wrestle power from the elite. All my life, I had never had cause to doubt the power of words, especially when spoken with so much positive power.

  “My friend, it will be nice if our generation can phase out the old crop of politicians”, I preached.

  “Well, that’s where the youths come in. I must rush back home now. I have things to do at home.”

  “Thanks, my brother.”

As he walked to the door, I followed, passed him, and turned the handle. And he waved bye to us, I closed the door and rushed back to Angel.

  “Why were you so quiet?”

  “I had nothing to say. Moreover, I’m not interested in politics.”

  As I sat beside Angel, I was glad to have met Oliver, the friend that always ignited the fire inside of me. My mind roamed around till Angel put a stop to the torrent of reminiscences with a question. 

  “Did you hear that Amos has married Ugochi?”

  “I heard o.”

  “Such an ugly girl,” Angel said and gave a disgusting facial gesture.

  “What has beauty got to do with marriage?” I queried.

  “A lot”, she said. “Do you want them to give birth to uglier children?”

  “Character, humility, and intelligence I presume are the basis upon which good, lasting marriages and homes are established”, I explained.

  “You are right. Maybe that’s what he sees in her”, she conceded and paused before continuing. “What then did you see in me?”

  “I thought we have discussed this over and over in the past”, I said and stared at her.

  There was this silence that fell upon the whole room as we sat and just looked at each other for a while before I cleared my throat but said nothing.

  “You see, you don’t even know”, she resumed, lowering her voice. “That’s why my mother said we can’t get married.” 

  “Hmm, now I know what has been troubling you”, I said, dejected. 

  She moved forward and tried to touch me, but I rebuffed her.

  “Please, Honey, I wish you understand. It’s not my making”, she consoled me.

  “It’s mine’, I replied as I stood up and held her. “Look at me. Do you think we can’t get married?” My hands trembled as I spoke. “It’s us, Honey.”

  I gazed directly into her eyes, searching for other reasons. “It’s our life we’re talking about here, no one else’s”, I argued.   

  On completing this statement, I felt dejected and started to pack my things from the wardrobe. Without folding, I dropped them inside my black little bag and zipped it. As I walked towards the door, I saw my world tumbling down and I felt dizzy. She walked up to me and held my right arm. I felt cold inside. 

  “I’m sorry.” 

  She came in front of me and planted a kiss on my lips. But it went sour. I had lost taste for everything. I wasn’t sure of life anymore. I couldn’t comprehend things. It was like an unfolding nightmare that I must wake up to revert or a kind of eternal joke. I looked at her again, not believing my ears. I held her hands expecting to help change her stand. 

  “Honey, will you marry me?” I asked for the final time.

  “I cannot disappoint my mother”, she said and looked away.

  I opened the door and stepped outside; I thought to myself that there must be something else she wasn’t telling me. But she had unconditionally loved me in the past. I couldn’t stitch these things together. How could she be so cold just because her mother wanted us apart?  

  As I waited patiently for the bus that would take me to the motor park, she stood behind me, calling me all the sweetest names in the world. But, it seemed to me she never existed. 

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The car I entered had travelled thirty kilometres away from Lokoro when I discovered I had forgotten my wallet containing some money and other important things like my international passport and identity card. 

I quickly told the driver to let me alight, which he obliged. So I stopped and boarded another vehicle back to Lokoro. When I got to the hotel room, it was dusk, a few minutes past seven o’clock. I raised the pillow and was lucky to find the wallet still intact. It was getting darker; I became reluctant to embark on the journey once again as I wasn’t too comfortable with the route.

  I rushed to the receptionist and booked for another night.

  “You didn’t travel again?” the manager asked.

  “I changed my mind.”

  I collected my key and went back to my room. It didn’t take long before someone knocked on the door. I kept quiet. The knock came again, this time a little bit harder.

  “Who’s there?” I boldly inquired.

  “It’s me”, someone answered from behind the door. 

  I walked to the door and opened it. Behold, it was Mary.

  “What are you doing here?” 

  “I’m looking for Angel. Mum has been worried about her. So, she asked me to search for her.” 

  “She isn’t here? We’d a little quarrel and she left.”

  “Over what?” she asked and searched my eyes.  

  “Nothing much”, I quickly added.

  “Is it about the marriage thing?”

  I was quiet. There were a lot of things to talk about, but that wasn’t the right time. 

When I finally opened up, Mary showed so much concern and promised to help me. I loved the way she handled things maturely. After some time with her, I went to the bar and bought some drinks. 

  We sipped our drinks and talked. Moments later, Mary boldly looked me in the eyes, moved closer to me, and kissed me tenderly.

  “What for?” I inquired.  

  “For coming this far and being nice”, she replied.  

  I was confused and sat like a moron. I tried to speak but my mouth was full.  

  “Don’t worry; if she truly loves you, you’ll win her back.”

  I didn’t reply because I was tipsy and believed she was intoxicated as well. I was surprised to wake up the next morning with Mary lying beside me. I could tell what had transcended but I kept living and tried not to think of what might have happened. Angel was the world to me, and that was all that mattered.

A Letter

I got a terrible letter from Mary. As I read it, I was shocked. My heart accelerated and my eyes bulged out like mangoes. I was in for real trouble. The second paragraph read: I am pregnant for you. I was shocked. How? I questioned myself. I tried to reminisce. That night I had been afraid to think of or talk about what had finally arrived to haunt me. I was perplexed.    

Months later, as I battled with my problem, I got another letter from Angel. That set me on fire. She was pregnant as well. I was doomed, I thought to myself. When things wanted to get nasty in a man’s life, they sometimes rolled in all at the same time. “God!” I shouted, trying to seek external help.

  That night I lay in bed for hours with my eyes wide open, contemplating the next step to take. It was one of the worst nights of my life. In as much as subsequent nights were like the first, I didn’t know what to do. I was in a fix. It was entirely my fault.

  The next morning, I woke up, parked my luggage, and decided it was time to change my abode and seek a new home. I was facing a situation I never foresaw. At least, I did not in my wildest imagination thought of sleeping with Mary. As I counted that morning, I knew I had known Angel for three and a half years. Until that night, preceding my departure from her town, I had never slept with her. We had earnestly loved each other unconditionally. As I finally boarded the car, I knew I was in for real trouble.