Chapter 37: Chapter 37

CHAPTER 32

Wedding Anniversary: Friday, 2nd December.

When he got home the previous night, it was already late. He did not care much about what Simi might think of him. He was drunk and it did not matter what she thought of him since he had never decided what she thinks of him. Teju was too drunk to know if Simi was home or not. After he had thrown up in the bathroom, he struggled with the stairs for some time without prevailing. Then he slept off awkwardly on the sofa in the sitting room.

It was their first wedding anniversary. Probably that was why it was quite different from the days he used to know ever since he had become an object of repugnance in Simi's sight. Simi had woken up before him. Though Teju knew he had been drunk the previous night, he did not expect Simi to be up that early.

He had woken up to his biggest hangover in the history of his alcohol-drinking bout. If he was a cold-booting first generation computer system, his mind returning to a sense of balance would not have been slower. He knew right away that he needed honey spread on crackers to flush out the alcohol in his system. By the time he was fully awake, Simi's audible movements in the kitchen and the usual percussions of kitchen utensils started to make an impression on him. Teju’s head was still full and padded with junks as though there was a sort of traffic jam in his head. He sat up and started rearranging his mind to its normal state.

The air in the sitting room had already been substituted with the sweet whiffs of Simi's soup. From the scent, it was easy for him to realize that Simi was cooking her favourite soup- egusi soup. She would intersperse the egusi with shredded ugwuleaves, locust beans, stockfish, dry fish, crayfish and diced pomo. Inhaling the refreshing scents of unusual egusi soup, the fact that he did not care for Simi anymore started ebbing out of him.

He stood up after he was sure he had the balance to stand and walked to the kitchen. The aroma of egusi was thick that Teju imagined the mixture of oxygen and egusi scent. He stood at the door taking in the aroma. The aroma reminded him of the gone-are-the-days when everything was perfect between him and his wife. He knew what he would have done if he was on good terms with her. He would have sneaked on her and suddenly given her a tight hug from behind. But all that was left of him was a life of a bachelor, a divorcee and a widower all at a time. He was still married of course as far as paperwork was concerned.

His life, despite its glorious beginnings, had turned out to be a life which was practically out of sorts. And though he had done without sex for as many years as his bachelorhood years, looking at Simi’s back profile in her white, short and light-textured sleeveless dress, he felt he was presently being starved of it.

Teju kept staring at Simi's back view as she busied herself with the cooking until she turned and saw him. She looked at him with the same expression she had been looking at him since Black Friday night. Only that her face bore a lighter and colder shade of that expression. The expression that kept assuring him that he was next to nothing in Simi's life. That expression made him feel he was like a salt which had lost its savour and which would soon be thrown out to be scrambled by men.

Simi did not say a word. She had been good at playing deaf. She talked with her face these days. Her face was always accusing. You’re a cheat, a liar, a willful sinner who had been predestined to rot in hell, it says. She plucked out a few ripened fingers of plantains from their stem. She started peeling and slicing them into a bowl. She would later salt them and fry them into a fine brown dodo.

"I'm sorry I came late yesterday" Teju broke the silence.

"It’s okay... a stupid wife could easily find a place in her heart to forgive her husband's misdeeds under the influence of alcohol, especially when her husband is good at lying through his teeth" Simi replied with a strong undertone of sour sarcasm.

"What are you talking about?"

"You were drunk last night" Simi snapped at him. She poured vegetable oil into the frying pan on the gas cooker. Probably, she expected him to deny that.

"Yes, I was. I'm sorry about that too. There wasn't another way to contain my ordeals"

"Your ordeals? What an interesting set of words" Simi remarked. She chuckled and Teju knew he had made a mistake. He should not have tried to defend himself.

Teju wondered why Simi addressed him with scorn rather than the candour and blunt reprove she had used to reproach him in the past. He silently went over to the overhead cupboard and brought down two pieces of crackers and a jar of honey. He spread each piece of crackers with honey. He munched the crackers, making a silent crunching sound like a grinding stone. He waited for her to talk about the paper she had collected from Tiwa's lawyer. She would need him to sign those papers on time, she would add. She said nothing.

Maybe she had put it on the centre table in the sitting room so that I could see it when I wake up, Teju thought. She could not expect him to sign the papers. At least, he should ask her what the papers were about. He should protest for a while. He should plead with her. He should ask for a second chance where there was none. He should wait patiently still she insisted, pestered and even threatened him before he signed them.

He had not taken much cognizance of the centre table and the probability that his assumptions were true made his prompt return to the sitting room instantaneous. Teju carefully checked through the papers, books and magazines on and underneath the centre table as if he expected Simi to have hidden the papers somewhere among them. Then, he heard a sharp, loud and deafening shriek from the kitchen.

"Help! Oh my God! Jesus! Help!" Simi exclaimed right on the zenith of her voice. The voice rang through Teju's ears and he flung off the magazine in his hands. He sprinted to the kitchen.

It was fire. Fire is a good servant but a bad master. The fire was implementing a coup d’état to overthrow Simi. In the end, the fire might overthrow him too. The oil in the frying pan had caught fire. The orange-coloured fire was smouldering like a heap of fire from an outrageous flambé. Simi was panicking. She was running from one end to another, shouting help and OMG in sequence. No sooner, Simi grabbed the water in a pink plastic bucket and made to exhaust the whole bucket-full on the ill-mannered fire. Teju intercepted her.

"You're going to burn down the whole house with that!" Teju screamed at Simi.

He charily snatched the bucket from her. Like a skilled firefighter, he switched off the gas cooker. The gas switch was searing. He had used his naked hand to switch off the gas cooker. After dancing to the pain, he took a reasonable amount of salt and strewn it into the flaming frying pan. Then he covered up the frying pan with a lead. After two minutes the fire was completely dead. The panic was gone. Simi was sweating and so was Teju. He was panting and so was Simi. They stared at each other for some time, probably to get back their senses.

"Are you okay?" Teju finally asked

Simi nodded.

"You?"

Teju stiffened. He had not expected her to ask, but she had asked and he just gave her a nod. Simi coughed. The frying pan was still emitting thick choking smoke that smelt like burnt oil. He opened the kitchen windows.

"Sorry, we have to stay outside still the smoke is gone,” he said to Simi.

Teju and Simi sat down on the cemented veranda with their legs on the short stairs. It was silent. Only the morning wind whirling and passing slowly made a thin sound. However, it was not enough to stop Teju from hearing Simi breathe. Teju stared into the open as Simi stared on the ground, fondling her nails. Teju wondered what could have happened if Simi had actually poured the water on the wildfire. Probably the fire would have risen in all its strength and anger, like a vicious monarch. Maybe it would have burnt them to ashes, or it would have burnt Simi’s eyebrows off.

Maybe as their marriage was coming to a sad end, the fire was going to give them a valedictory gift. It was going to burn and exterminate the house that had housed their marriage. After all, the firefighters in the country would only arrive when it was time to make you see the remains of your burnt house and not to save it from burning. He suddenly wanted to have a farewell or departing time with Simi. It was hard to face such an unpalatable and brutal reality as the one before him but it was out of his control. He had to accept the fact that he was going to become a divorcee.

"Please, would you go out with me tonight?"

He had asked Simi out as if she was a stranger whom he would love to establish a familiarity with over a table of foods and drinks.

"You know I don't want to, even if you just saved my ass" Simi resorted. She acted along the line of the estrangement that had characterised their wedlock.

"I know, and I understand, just do it for the sake of our wedding anniversary” Teju pleaded.

Simi looked at him for some time and then she nodded.