MAN PROPOSES

The Iyaloja* was dead!

How?!

It can’t be! This must be a mistake!

How can the Iyaloja* die?

That was simply impossible. Becky’s mind either couldn’t wrap itself around this breaking news, or she simply refused to believe the news. How can the town crier go around, gong in hand, hitting it intermittently, and making the same pronouncements over and over again as he moved through the length and breadth of the market? His dejected look told the story even more than what he was saying.

I think the reality of the trueness of the story finally started dawning on Becky chiefly because the town crier looked like he would burst into tears any moment.

Forget the fable that men don’t cry! This man looked like he had been crying and was ready to cry some more if prompted by any additional external stressor. It was no secret that the Iyaloja* was fond of him, even to a fault. And that he too was a very loyal errand “boy” to the Iyaloja. Even going on very private errands that were considered hush-hush!

Being her errand boy wasn’t part of his official duty as the town crier, but it was a role he played willingly and with pride too. Even though some spitefully called him “woman wrapper” and all other demeaning names, signifying that he was more or less a slave to a woman, he cared no less.

It was open knowledge that it was Iyaloja who found his second wife for him and even footed almost all the marriage ceremony expenses. The naming ceremonies of the first two children of the second wife were also sponsored by the Iyaloja. These ceremonies were quite lavish even to the extent that some people thought that he was a blood relative of the Iyaloja. And now that his wife was pregnant with twins and almost about to put to bed, she was dead!

It was rumoured that because the town crier’s wife was expecting twins, Iya wanted to gift him with a tricycle so that he could have an additional means of earning a living, while also having a means of conveying his family from one place to another in a comfortable manner. This magnanimous gift was supposed to be a secret, but almost everyone in town knew that the town crier and two other of her “boys” were going home with brand new “tear-leather” tricycle on Iyaloja’s birthday, no thanks to the tale-bearing town crier and his loose tongue!

Now what?

What kind of fate is this?

Why couldn’t death wait until after her birthday?

His anguish was written all over his face. The anguish on the town crier’s face made Becky realize that this unfolding nightmare was now a reality.

She looked at the faces of all the traders whose stalls were close to hers. Many of them just stared on in disbelief. Is it possible that, like herself, they were now waking up from their unrealistic dreamland to smell the coffee they had brewed for themselves by their careless decisions and actions?

Where was she going to start from?

With this news, she knew that her debtors would be on her neck real soon. For some time now, she had been living from hand to mouth and from one debt to another. All because she misplaced her priorities and used loan money to satisfy her prideful ways.

Oh, what calamity? She cried internally. Who sent me on this errand of fools? How could I have used the cooperative loan that was availed to market women to buy Aso-ebi that the Iyaloja* had sold to her “friends” in order for her birthday celebration to be colourful? Talking of friends, Iyaloja doesn’t even know who Becky is, talk less of being her friend.

Becky only decided to buy into this “wearing of uniform material” thing because others, especially those she believed she was better off than, were buying it too. Not only that, they were told by a reliable source that if they wore Iya’s Aso-ebi on her birthday, their names would be penned down for souvenirs like sewing machines, motor-cycles, gas cookers with ovens, fridges, and so many other unbelievable gifts. It was rumored that the gubernatorial candidates of the four prominent political parties, for the upcoming governorship elections, were sponsoring these gifts as a way to buy her and her “people” over. Since she was a very popular and powerful socialite, every politician wanted to be in her good books so that they could win the election.

But now, death had disorganized all the carefully laid out plans of the organizing committee. The birthday was in a few weeks. Some said the container loads of her souvenirs had already landed and were in the ports bothering the town. Others said they were still on the high seas. Others said she was yet to order for them as she had diverted the monies the politicians had given her to complete her jaw-dropping mansion located in the high-brow area of town. No one knew which report to believe.

And now this!

Becky did not know whether to mourn quietly, cry outrightly, or shout crazily into the air. The foolishness of her deeds and the implication of its impact on her life now that Iyaloja was dead was a loss too heavy for her soul to comprehend or bear.

When she remembered her son telling her just yesterday that the headmistress said that he and his siblings should not come to school the following Monday if they don’t come with their PTA levies, and the fact that her rent was due soon; she simply blacked out and fainted right in front of her stall.

The feel of cold water forcefully splashed on her face, jarred her back to life. She sighed out of relief, thinking she had been in a terrible dream. But when she saw the face of the town crier among the faces of those looking down at her, the truth came to her like a blow.

She had wasted the loan she was granted to boost her business on a very expensive Aso-ebi* for an occasion that would never take place again because the celebrant was dead!

Dead and gone forever! This was a tragedy indeed!

She had told herself many a time that it was high time she stopped the habit of living above her means by buying into the addictive, expensive lifestyles of the party-loving socialists in her community. She knew she had to start cutting her cloth according to her material, as the saying goes, but her appetite for living the “good” life had always defied logic.

Now, she was left with a loan to repay. No money to support her business. No deep freezer souvenir, which she had planned to use to start her ice-block business, as had been promised by those who came on behalf of Iyaloja* to sell the Aso-ebi* to her. No money to pay her children’s school fees. She couldn’t return the material and ask for a refund because she had already taken the cloth to her tailor. Even the sewing was done on a credit basis. Even if the material was still intact, who would she hold responsible for her refund?

She was at a complete loss as to where to start remedying her predicament. She had intended to start repaying her debts as soon as she started selling the ice blocks.

Now there was no deep freezer, no ice blocks to be sold, no money to repay her mountain of debts, and nobody to help her out!

The loan that was meant to stabilize her business was gone forever on a cloth she was certain she could never bring herself to wear in her lifetime!

After all this time, it works against all logic to know that Becky and so many other women like her, especially the low-income earners, will go out of their way to borrow in order to be like the Joneses.

The End.

Note:
*Aso-ebi is a particular material selected by the celebrant to be purchased and used by all those who intend to attend the occasion.
*Iyaloja is the woman who overlooks and controls (to a certain extent) the activities that go on in a market located within a particular area