Chapter 2: Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The saloon was one of the new relaxation establishments which had started to pop out like mushrooms all around the central city of Ibadan, among which were nightclubs, restaurants, spas and hostels.Though ithad a touch of ultramodern quality, it was a breath away from the conventional cool spots or joints one would find anywhere in the suburbs. Especially with the plastic tables and chairs, the wooden shelves stacked with liquors and bitter gins, the Star and Guinness labelled crates, the transparent standing refrigerators filled with bottled and canned beers, the haunting and vivid aroma of cowtail and catfish pepper soups, and the perpetual upward sail of cigarette waste, forming a firmament of smoke above them.

Teju could not have stumbled onsucha spot without the help of his friend, Sam. Sam was highly reputable for his love of women as much as his love of alcohol, and the latter was one of the few things he and Teju had in common. Although, when they boozed, Teju was always the one to drive Sam home. He was always too drunk to even stand on his own.

Sam was an all-around drinker. He could drink anything, even his urine. Teju did not like brewed drinks, which was why he had become a liquor and rum connoisseur. Hennessey was his favourite liquor, but because of its expense and understandable rarity, he drank it only on special occasions, just like he drank Seaman’s Schnapps, otherwise known as the prayer drink.

He had been in high spirits that evening. Instead of sticking to Best, which was his favourite Scotch whisky, he had picked a bottle of McDowell’s. While drinking, some other men had joined them, and they had talked, laughed, and argued at the peak of their voices. It had been a night pitched on the helm of vim and artificial forgetfulness. While Teju drank to his exaggerated glee, others, especially Sam, drank to forget their insuperable predicaments.

They had argued and contemplated on the cause of the economic recession, and how much it had replaced corruption. Of course, many theories were propounded, and everyone took time to support or to oppose these theories. When it came to politics in Nigeria, everyone was a philosopher. They kept philosophising, analysing, and dissecting what they felt and not the facts. But who could blame them? Who could boast of knowing the facts?

If everyone believed that economic recession was coming off the bench to be substituted for corruption, as they do in football matches, then he was the only person who did not believe that, Teju had said. The economic recession had been on the pitch from the start. He was the defensive midfielder blocking out the progressive offensives of the masses and providing passes to corruption. Corruption was the playmaker that dribbled past the masses; theynutmegged, faked, snakebite, and even did over-the-leg tricks. Corruption then laid lobbing passes or low crosses into the eighteen-yard box, only for the politicians to find the back of the net. Ninety-nine to nil, the scoreboard says. Only a fool would ask who had ninety-nine and who had zero.

The men had sucked at their beer through straws or sipped from their tumblers. They had been sobered by Teju’s words, even though they were far into drunkenness. As usual, Sam had drunk himself into a stupor and Teju, as usual, was saddled with the responsibility of driving him home. When he got to his house, he had found Sam’s wife upset and worried. Teju made a narrow escape from her normal verbal lambasting. Sam’s wife was very abusive, and though she was not from Ibadan by origin or by growth, she could insult a corpse back to life. Teju had been a victim of her vocal stings a few times, but before she could react he had cleverly made a French exit after dumping Sam’s inebriated body in his bed.

Besides that, he also wanted to tell Simi how happy he was. He had secured seven business deals in just a month, a feat no one had ever attained in his company and a feat he never thought he would attain in such a turbulent economy. She would have called it a testimony after shouting a drawn-out Hallelujah.

“God is good!” she would have called

“All the time!” he would have responded

“All the time!”

“God is good!”

Sitting on the couch, Teju wanted to tell her he was going to be compensated with a bonus which was half his salary, and that his boss had ordered a new office laptop from Konga. He also wanted to tell her he had ordered a coffee maker and a washing machine from Jumia. He wanted to tell her every detail of his day, to make her smile broadly and tell him how much he was a darling, how much she loved him. But he could not get himself to make a sound.

Before long, Simi dashed out of the sitting room and into the kitchen and Teju followed. Getting to the kitchen door, he saw a knife slash through the air. He ran back to the sitting room with Simi on his trail. Paranoid was the word he would have used to describe how he felt, but it was more than that; he was water. Death was staring him in the face, telling him not to blink, not to flinch, and not to shiver with fear. If you would kill me, get over with it and stop making unrealistic rules, Teju would have said.

It was quite unfortunate Teju had seen the knife before he saw Simi’s face. It was contorted and animated with the bitterest of hatred and malice. Her countenance was far more worthy to be feared than the razor-sharp kitchen knife. She gave him a hot chase around the centre table, spurting out curses and threats. She swung her blows, slicing the air without care. Teju managed to seize the knife, ducking her blows and whisking the knife away from her grip. Her face tightened as she stared at the ring on her finger. She slid off the ring, and with all the residue of her strength tossed it at him. It missed him completely, though he ducked as it made tiny clank-clank sounds on the tiled floor. She broke into a silent sob, perhaps to show her disappointment in failing to kill the man who had the effrontery to cheat on her in the light of day. She ascended the stairs, like a child beaten in a fight.

She was halfway up when Teju asked, “Where is my dinner?”

Simi stopped on the stairs. He was still daydreaming like an idle child. He hoped Simi would put off her acting shroud and announce that he had been pranked. She turned around and stared at him in awe.

“You better consider yourself lucky that I didn’t cook for you, or you’d be dead by now,” she said, sniffing.

Teju had to put on his thinking cap. She was quite realistic about that; if she had cooked for him, poisoning his food could have killed him better than trying to stab him when he was fully on guard. Whether his post-mortem said he had been murdered or not, it would not make a difference.

He knew intuitively whenever Simi was up to a joke, but this was different. He could not sleep with his two eyes closed. In fact, if it were possible, he should sleep with his two eyes open. Someone who had the guts to physically attack him with a knife would find it easy to sneak up to him while he was asleep and pierce his heart with a sharp edge. He cogitated vaguely over the new and unprecedented qualms that had just crept into his life, but he could not think straight.His thoughts were like the gait of a toddler, inconsistent and deranged. Alcohol numbed the brain, and for a moment he seemed to agree. He trotted sluggishly back to the sitting room.

He took the ring from the floor and collapsed onto the sofa. He took off his shoes and socks, contemplating which of the two he was going to do: iron out the issue on ground with his wife or go into the kitchen and improvise a way to put the raging worms in his stomach at bay. Unfortunately, he was too tired for either. When tiredness was peppered with hunger it seemed as though one was drunk with something more intoxicating than undiluted palm wine.

As he lay with his body stretched out, he felt his soul leaving him and his sight blurring out. He saw a floating and faceless feminine figure undulating toward him. The figure stopped in front of him, uttering unintelligible words. Then the vision subsequently let out a deafening laugh. Teju could hardly decide what it was. If it was a mere hallucination or an unclear vision from a trance. Everything seemed unreal and real at the same time. It was like being in the middle of life and death, heaven and earth, consciousness and unconsciousness. He muttered gibberish words to the feminine figure, which had now vanished. He rebalanced on the sofa, drifting slowly like evening tide into sleep.