Chapter 21: Chapter 21

CHAPTER 18

Two Days after Black Friday: Sunday, 27th November.

The whole conclusion of Teju’s thought that Saturday was to report the whole matter to the pastor. He wondered what the reaction of the pastor would be if he heard that things had gone asunder between him and Simi who announced their wish to do Thanksgiving in church a week ago.

He had started rehearsing his manner of approach to the pastor. He had heard of how couples went to the pastor to resolve their marital disputes. Sometimes it was resolved. Sometimes, it got out of hand. If the couples were workers in the church, they were suspended. If the couples were insulted by such suspension, they left.

He wondered what would be Simi’s part of the story, whether she was going to tell the pastor that he was an outright adulterer. He jolted at the imagination of the whole scene, how ridiculous it was going to be. He was starting to get discouraged. It appeared easier to be complacent with the whole matter but the importance of their cordial first wedding anniversary left him with no choice whatsoever.

There was the birth of a negative silence between Teju and Simi. It was a toxic silence injurious to a marriage. It was a silence smudged and underlain with dark spite, sheer distrust and confusion. They lived together. They slept on the same bed, but they never spoke or laughed with each other.

It became an intractable obstacle to know what each of them had in mind. Teju would often wonder what Simi was thinking. If she was planning on having him killed or if she was killing time until it was time to pack her things and get out of their matrimonial home which she assumed to be compromised with adultery and deceit.

A wall twice as thick and tall as Jericho’s had been built between them and it had shielded their love and deflected their trust. It was fearful, having such a boundless lacuna, a gap wider and deeper than the Pacific. Teju studied his situation. He studied Simi, and it seemed he had ceased to exist as her husband.

To Simi, it seemed his presence in the house was as intangible as having an unseen and passive ghost around. Even to him, Simi was dead. The jovial and agreeable Simi was gone with the wind. It was their duty to mourn each other. They could not speak to each other. Speaking to each other would mean they were speaking to the dead, a sign of insanity.

It was unarguable that Teju had never seen this part of Simi before, the darkest side of her. Back then on campus, he could not count the many times he had gone back to his hostel almost publicly embarrassed whenever he visited Simi in her hostel- Queen Elisabeth Hall. She had sent him off several times like a profoundly infested and grim-looking dog. But even then, she was far more agreeable than she was now.

At least then, she saw him as an infatuated beast who wanted to pull a fast one on her. But now, he was rather a two-timing dog with shattered integrity. Then, she spoke the words of his rejection as a lover. But now, it was a silent rejection as her husband. A silent rejection was far worse than a spoken rejection. People always say silent people were most dangerous because their thoughts whether evil or good can never escape from their lips.

It was Sunday and Teju was getting ready for church. After brushing his teeth, he took his rumbled Ankara clothes from his wardrobe for ironing. He met Simi at the ironing table. She was ironing a pink skirt and a cream-coloured blouse. He dropped his clothes on a smaller table beside the ironing table and vanished downstairs.

He switched on the television to watch early morning sports news. He had no interest in foreign news. Donald Trump had won the election and he was the last person to be happy about it. He preferred, and as a matter of fact, many Nigerians preferred Hilary Clinton. In fact, a renowned man-of-God had told his congregation and thereby the whole world that God had told him in a vision that Hilary Clinton would be the victor in the presidential elections. When Trump was declared the winner, some people frowned and some people laughed their brains out in scorn. Perhaps, the man-of-God’s personal preference of Clinton got too much in the way, and when God was saying ‘Donald Trump’ in His small gentle voice, he heard ‘Hilary Clinton’ instead. Or maybe his intuition was so ceaseless in guessing that he had mistook his own prediction for the voice of God, or maybe God had changed His mind and had decided not to tell the man-of-God.

He had followed the presidential campaigns and debates closely on CNN and Al Jazeera. He was usually appalled by Trump’s speeches, and once, he had been so horrified and angry that he had switched off his TV, without even considering a change of channel. He had a mixed feeling towards Trump’s views on Muslims, Non-Americans and Africans. It was a recurrent subject in his campaigns, and even after he won the election. Teju believed Americans, and the British have no right to judge Africans. If Africa was a ‘shit-hole’, they were the source.

When Wole Soyinka declared to destroy his Green Card, Teju vowed secretly not to ever have a Green Card, let alone cutting it into pieces. Not that he was opposed to the idea of having a Green Card for any reason which Trump might represent nor did he resent those who had or aspire to have one, but he had never felt a genuine need for it.

He also hated Business news. He hated the steady fall of naira against the US dollar. It made his heart pound viciously. It was like watching the defeat of one’s country in a war. He also hated the local news entirely. He observed that the news had rather become a catalogue of the woes which had befallen the country. The Boko Haram deadly rampages, the armed Fulani herdsmen whose cows were more equal than humans, the spread of penury throughout the nation like wildfire. The more recent update was the domestic catastrophe that had erupted in his home less than seven days to his first wedding anniversary.

If Teju’s thoughts dwelled so much on the news, coupled with the new and unpalatable development in his home, he would have no reason to live at all. He preferred to watch sports news, which at least gave him less tension. He changed the channel from AfricanMagic Epic to SuperSport Blitz.

Arsenal, his favourite football club had played an English Premier League match against Stoke City the previous day at Emirates Stadium. Arsenal had won four goals to one. Real Madrid had also played a LaLiga match against Deportivo de La Coruna at Santiago Bernabeu. Cristiano Ronaldo had scored a hat-trick as they won five goals to two. The English Premier League archrivals would have a match later in the evening, Chelsea versus Manchester United at Stamford Bridge. Barcelona also had a match against Valencia at Camp Nou. Teju would like to see the English Premier League match.

Teju, just like any other random person who loved football, was not intrigued by domestic football leagues hosted within the country. It was quite disturbing and also disappointing that as populous as Nigeria was, foreign football leagues like EPL and LaLiga have their pockets fattened by this overwhelming population without the domestic football leagues having a fair share of it. Just like the way the Thai rice had become the major while the indigenous Ofada rice had become the minor, who was to be blamed anyway?

The Ofada rice obviously was not to be censured on the basis of its appearance in the rice market. No type of rice had a natural or an automated neatness after harvest. Probably a nutritionist who had been appointed on the recommendation of a big rice-importing businessman had proved ‘scientifically’ that Thai rice has more carbohydrate than Ofada rice.

He went back upstairs after the sports news to iron his clothes. Simi was still ironing, only that she was not ironing her skirt and blouse this time around. She was ironing the type of Ankara clothes he had brought for ironing. At first, he had thought she was ironing his clothes, but looking more closely, they were still on the smaller table where he had deposited them. Simi was ironing the ankle-length skirt of the Ankara cloth. They had bought and sewn the Ankara clothes when one of Simi’s friends was having her engagement ceremony. Most of their native dresses were made in pairs. It was called ankoor asoebi.