Nigerian Writer: Okoro (4)

By Felix Brambaifa

  By the time he returned the night sky had gone dark. He smelled of alcohol and his breath was a murderer in its own right, his eyes were dark as red and his inside cried in rage. He entered without knocking; he looked around at their troubled faces before asking. “Where is she?”

  Mama Agnes could feel the foreboding of a terrible outcome; she feared the worse would suddenly break the bridge which had so solidly connected them this past many years and in its chaos spell an eternal doom, not for her daughter but for Okoro whose age alone was a burden weighing too much on his weary shoulders.

  “She has not yet returned” It was hard looking into his eyes but she tried.

  She saw the lines on his cheek where the tears had earlier touched and she hated her daughter for it. Now more than ever she blamed herself for not becoming the barrier from within even if it meant  her daughter who would have been paraded through the market square a whore, her reason which was designed to see her daughter graduate from the university was now nothing when placed on the scale of moral value, for her conscience was just too bitter and could no longer stand the sight of a man the age of her own elders crying for what he had suffered so much to bring to a taste, which other men were now making  difficult even for him to have access to, though she knew age was now the frustrating factor to the whole arrangement, she still believed that a contract agreed upon was worth honoring..

  He had invested so much on her and never before questioned the sanity of his actions until this moment when everything else had taken the ugly and tiring form of nausea. He had refused to bring this chapter of his life to the notice of most of his friends and those who knew were always quick to frown and show their objections and now he knew why.

   “What normal man would chose to spend his money on the future of a woman and expect to smile at the end” A friend of his once asked. And it was not long before the two of them became enemies, his friend outraged by the matter would not let sleeping dog lie. He was now alone with nobody to cry to, nobody to understand and nobody to share his grief with, the pains were just too much but he endured, waiting for Agnes to return. He sat on their frontage and waited, for his future wife to come home, to the judgment that would certainly go nowhere.

  The time was past eleven before Agnes with her hands filled with fast food eateries returned. She had almost recounted her steps but Okoro was quick to notice her emerging presence.

   “Where are you coming from” He asked, for reasons unknown the rage with which he had so waited the return now failed to announce its presence as if Agnes had somehow watered its salt.

   She faced him without showing her fear; she knew he was not a man of violence at least not when she was the person involved but she could also tell that her actions were the sort to make violent miracles happen and this frightened her. Okoro was her fool and even at this moment she could see the light of hope still lurking above the darkness.

   “I will go inside, drop my things and we shall go to a nice hotel after which I will explain myself” She spoked with authority.

   He had wanted to stop her, wanted to make her pay for the disdain and shame her actions had brought upon his old age but he was an old man in love who knew not the ways of the cunning youths, so like the gentle fool he was he allowed her. For some men the hardship of life, poverty and misfortunes were the only forces that could effortlessly tame them but for Okoro the reverse was the case, he could defile hard times and come out laughing but Agnes that little girl who had once called him Uncle was the force to bend his will and make tears drop, how foolish he was to freely accept the deceit of a woman child.

  Her Mother shouted, her voice threatened to bring down the roof, she listened, her face the form of faked remorse and in response to the present query from her Mother all she did was beg for a little piece of quiet.

  He was waiting for her, his mind divided by the different possibilities that could have led to the long absence and even though he tried to be objective in his thinking his heart was still not at peace for it was convinced of the ugly fact that Agnes was a terrible cheat with an outrageous sense of adventure which his old heart no matter the circumstance would never find pleasing.

   She came out, gave him her purse and cardigan as if nothing ugly had earlier transpired between them with the excuse of going to the bath room and again he was ready to wait. Only a fool can live through another dejavu and not see the similarities and bad itch that made the other unpleasant. He had waited for another thirty minutes and would have continued in his foolishness had Mama Agnes not gone to check the bath rooms. Moments later she was back with a sad report. “Agnes is not there”

  He dropped the items to the ground and rushed to the other side of the compound where the bath rooms were situated and was quick to confirm his foolishness. The small gate became his exit as he ran outside, straight into the busy streets in search of Agnes.