Chapter 33: Chapter 33

CHAPTER 29

Thursday, 1st December.

At this stage of Teju's misery, he could not settle on what he was, whether he was a bachelor or a divorcee, or if he was both at the same time. Against his own will, he had witnessed his friend's brutality. He had a rough feeling down his bowels. It seemed the garbage in his bowels were as oblivious as his peace. Immediately he got home, he had headed straight for the toilet. The only thing which could escape his anus was a loud and boisterous air.

Everything was crumbling all the way down for him, and for his friend, he could not say. He could not twig what Sam could be fighting for to that end of hostility. He had imagined himself over Simi, pounding her like uncooked yam. He had laughed silently to himself. Not that beating his wife up was hilarious but the possibility of it was not without humour. Simi was not at home that night, and he wondered where she could have gone to. That night, he had a horrible nightmare, a nightmare that robbed him completely of his sleep for the rest of the night.

He had seen Sam and himself standing over Sam's wife. They were stained heavily with blood. They had coshes in their hands. He had seen Sam’s wife bathed in her own blood. Her eyes were searching for mercy in their faces, but she saw none. He saw life slowly taking its leave from her as a snail would leave its shell, but his heart was cold. He had seen himself swing the cosh across her bloodied face as she fell silent and lifeless. Her blood splashed across his face and poured out of her like water from a punctured pipe. Then he had heard his name like an echo in the woods. He turned around and lo, it was Simi. She had been watching them with horror written as bold as brass on her face.

Teju sprung up from sleep. It was six minutes past two in the midnight. He was sweating. He noticed the bed was empty save for him, Simi was not back yet. He got out of bed. He was worried. Where has she gone to that she considered it too expensive to inform him? He thought with an undertone of anger. There was one mistake Simi kept making, and that was thinking he had ceased caring for her.

He grabbed his phone and with shivering hands dialled her number. He must have called her a million times but she had picked none of his calls. It was later the woman in the phone told him quite frankly that the GLO customer he was trying to call was currently switched off, and that he should please, try again later. It sent a sturdy throbbing across his head that he thought his head would burst open. His worries often switched from Simi's strange and unprecedented absence to the high odds of Sam's wife surviving the assault of her husband.

Sometimes he would be terrified of the possibility that Sam had killed his wife. Somehow, and beyond the surface sense, he felt if Sam’s wife died in the hands of her husband, he would be part of the homicide, not necessarily by law, but by conscience. What Simi’s absence from home without a word of her whereabouts for the first time signified to Teju was muddled and tainted. She had obviously not packed out of the house. Ninety-nine percent of her belongings was still undisturbed.

Simi was someone Teju would readily lay down his head on a spike for. He was like a knight who was sworn to his lord, and who was ready to defend and die for his lord if need be. But to her, he was another salient version of a green snake under the green grass whose black underbelly had been exposed by providence. It was such a bitter irony that it made his heart ache as though a nail was being driven through it.

“You know why I hate watermelons, don’t you?” Simi had asked him in one of their heated arguments. Of course, he knew. Not that she hated watermelons so that she would never eat it. But she hated that there were so many hampering seeds in a watermelon itself so that eating watermelon when the seeds were still inside it was not pleasurable to her. And now, he had become to her a seeded watermelon she would not eat until it had become seedless. The thought of being a seeded watermelon made him feel nausea down his throat. He went downstairs to make for himself ginger tea, even though he knew he had nothing in his belly to throw up.

Simi did not come home until it was around ten minutes past eight in the morning. Teju was in the sitting room. He had been seeing one of his best seasonal movies titled GameofThrones- Season 4, and he had been reading old Nigerian Tribune newspapers throughout the rest of the night. He was poring over the editorials of one of the old Nigerian Tribune newspapers when Simi arrived. He stood up immediately Simi entered into the sitting room, ready to confront her, but seeing her facade which spoke so much about worry and distress, he melted.

Simi glanced at him indifferently, as she would have glanced at a statue that reminded her of nothing but bleak despondency. Teju watched her as she ascended the stairs, silent as a cat. She was in a blue sleeveless gown with a black scarf around her head and which covered her shoulders. She wore no makeup, not even a slapdash. That was unusual. She must have rushed out of the house yesterday, he thought.

Simi was leaner now. It was as if she had been bisected into the equal half of her regular self. She looked faint, delicate and unhealthy. It was evident that Simi had been caught in between a situation larger than her. She had not been eating well enough, and Teju suspected that the present situation might escalate into the worst. He might not only have to deal with the problem of regaining his wife's trust alone, but also her health, not just physically, but also psychologically.

He went into the kitchen to prepare something for her. He had made up his mind to insist she ate properly and regularly. It was becoming extremely uncomfortable for him to leave her to the care of herself, especially when he knew she was doing nothing but hurting herself. Though she saw all she did as an act of marital activism or advocacy.

When she came downstairs, one and a half hour after she had ascended the stairs, he had already gone through enough hassle to make an opulent breakfast of boiled yams and omelette garbed with fresh tomatoes, red pepper and onions sliced in trim rings. He had also brought out the a-week old coleslaw in the refrigerator and dressed it with vinaigrette. From the way she was dressed, it was apparent she was off to somewhere and did not intend to eat anything either.

Teju’s fear was unexpectedly cuddled in the ugly prospect that Simi was trying to have herself killed rather than killing the marriage. If Teju had not seen her in her black skirt, white shirt, black suit and grey handbag, and if the sweet and pricey scent of her CaronPoivre perfume had not tingled his nose, he would have concluded without many thoughts that her handbag contained nothing but a hard-wearing rope known as omo lokun in Yoruba to hang herself on a tree. She was about to open the front door when Teju intercepted her.

"Where do you think you're going, huh? Where are you going? You disappeared yesterday without leaving a note of your whereabouts, I called you a trillion times this morning and you couldn't even call me back. You came back this morning looking pretty much like hell, and yet you didn't say a word. And now, even though I had gone through hell to prepare you breakfast, you are walking out of me as though I was a mere houseboy. Look, if you think this is how to shut me out of existence, then, you're wrong Simi."

Simi had become an expert in giving Teju a sneck posset even when he appeared passionate. She stared long and hard at him. She was completely straight-faced. Teju held her hand, but before he could grasp it well enough, she jerked his hands off her as though it was an automated reaction, a reflex action.

"How many times have I told you not to touch me? I want to take my leave, please." Simi growled in such a way that did not escape Teju that she was utterly irritated.

"Simi please, stop all these madness. I still love you, I still care for you, and I'm so worried about you"

"Let me out"

"I'm serious Simi, have you looked at the mirror? You look as if you've become a drab phantom. You don’t even feed well anymore, and my heart aches whenever I see you like this."

Simi stared coldly at him. It was easy to see that his words had no penetration. They just hit and bounced off the wall like a pinball. Simi reminded him of Robinson Crusoe, the self-willed sailor who went ahead to sail across the sea despite his father’s stern warning not to do so. But well, he was shipwrecked and was stranded on an island for many years. He wondered what would happen in Simi’s case.

"At least take something before you go, I've made you something." Teju pursued

"Let me out" Simi insisted.