Chapter 38: Chapter 38

CHAPTER 33

Simi had, unlike what he had predicted, consented to go out with him. It was easy to foresee the hysteria it would cause in him. He found something leaping within him all day. In preparing for the date, he could not help running around the house elatedly, doing one or two things. Teju was convinced that he was going to get what he wanted for the last time. At least, he was going to spend some time with his presupposed ex-wife. It gave him safe sentiments that the battle had not ended in checkmate but in a stalemate.

Though he had the golden ticket already, he was still a little bit unsure of how best he could put it to use. Probably it was a hard-earned chance for him to redeem himself from unmerited marital disgrace, but he wondered what he could say or what he could do that could change her mind. He knew women's hearts were malleable and fleshy but not when they were freshly broken. Trying to woo Simi back into a relationship she had long excommunicated from her heart was like trying to extract blood from a stone.

He did not understand why Simi had not given him the paperwork yet. She was keeping him at suspense even though she was not conscious of it. Maybe she would give them to him after their date. He wondered how he was going to react to the paperwork when she finally gives them to him. Was he going to act up being surprised or being sad despite his foreknowledge? He was sure Tiwa would stand on Simi's neck until Simi makes him sign the paperwork. And he wondered how Simi was dealing with the pressure and how long she would withstand it. He wondered why she was delaying the last episode of their tragic story.

Teju gave the house a general clean up as it was customarily expected of him to do, being a special day for him. He swept and mopped the floor. He wiped the table, the television set and the windows. He dusted the sofas and the books. He took down the wooden framed portrait pictures hung on the walls in the sitting room. One was a delectable picture of him in a nice as ninepence suit. He was carrying his beautiful, hearty and wedding-gowned wife in his hands. Another was a picture of him in a newly tailored agbada and sokoto, and a filaabetiajasitting comfortably on his head, striking a pose which reminded him of his deceased Dad. He was sitting next to Simi in her elegantly designed iro ati buba, and intricately tied gele on her head.

Others were solo pictures of him and his wife holding their certificates folded in a tube-like way, and wearing their complete convocation outfit. As he wiped each of the pictures, they filled him with memories. The memories left him with a mixed feeling of bereavement and appreciation of a life well spent. When he was dusting the sofas, he had found the ring Simi had banished from her finger in one of the enclosed recesses at the side of a long sofa.

Simi was observing her normal newly-adopted afternoon siesta at the time. Teju sat on the sofa with earphones plugged to his ears. He listened to Adele’s Hello, Charlie Puth’s One Call Away, Michael Jackson’s You Are Not Alone, One Direction’s DragMeDown, Adekunle Gold’s Orente and Enya’s Only Time. He stared wistfully at the ring, caressing it with his fingers for about a half of an hour.

Simi’s scent still lingered on the ring. Teju sniffed the ring sporadically. It made him remember the unparalleled feeling of making love to Simi. He knew he missed her so much more than it had ever occurred to him. He realised, though sorrowfully, that he was not close to being ready for a divorce. He wondered if the ring could wriggle its way back on Simi's finger. He wondered if finding the lost ring on their first wedding anniversary was an omen of reconciliation and reunion.

He was undecided on what he should do with the ring. Like Dr Faustus, it seemed he had been dropped between the Good Angel and the Bad Angel. The former insisted that he should put back the ring where it belonged while the latter advised him to throw the ring into the water closet and flush it away with the streak memories of her existence.

They went to Cold Stone Creamery. Simi had made the choice and it was Teju's duty to accept her choice without the slightest objections or contradictions. It was a serene eatery and probably with the best airs for a date like Teju's and Simi's. Simi was in a red gown. Her makeup was in black. Though Teju knew Simi was not in a good relationship with colours like red and black, he waved it off his mind dismissively. Simi deciding to wear a red gown and black make-up meant nothing to the wedding anniversary date, he had told himself. Teju was in a black leather jacket and a blue polo shirt underneath.

The evening was dull. Teju could see the weirdly structured bats sailing in twos and threes across the sky in slow motion. He could see the clouds gathering in the sky, forming into unevenly sized films of thick black clouds. The lightning flashed and peeped behind the clouds. The clouds were sweeping themselves together, ready to invade planet earth. The atmosphere was becoming breezy and the winds were becoming chilly. It was going to rain. Perhaps it was going to be a shower of true love between his Romeo and Simi's Juliet.

The negative silence still lingered predominantly between them even as they dressed up for the date and as Teju drove to Cold Stone. Teju tried as much as possible to keep the silence away from them. At home, he had asked if she cared for a bouquet, but she had only shaken her head. During the drive, he had asked her if she would like to see a movie in the cinema, perhaps TheWeddingParty he suggested. But she had shaken her head again stubbornly as though saying a word meant she had compromised a pledge. And before entering the eatery, Teju had complimented on her dress. He had said she looked awesome in her dress as if they were not coming from the same home. She didnotgive a smile or say thank you to the compliment. He had asked her if she did not mind taking a snapshot or at least a selfie with him, but she had snapped at him. She had told him he spoke too much and that it would be better if he to let her be.

The lightning kept flashing rapidly. They could see the red flashes beating through the lucid glass wall of the eatery. They scooped their French Vanilla ice-cream, topped with Fudge mix-ins silently. Teju stared at Simi as he took each bolus into his mouth. He knew she could feel his eyes piercing through her skin, but she would not look into his eyes, not even with a glance. Simi seemed to be avoiding eye contact with him by every means as if there were charms in his eyes that she dreaded to be entranced with. A lot of things seemed to be going on in her head. Teju could see her begging eyes that travelled from the table to the left which was a space in the eatery and to the right which was the outside world, begging the time to wind up quickly.

Teju felt it was necessary to confront that negative silence between them. He felt the drive to have at least a five minutes run of conversation with her but each time he opened his mouth, he recalled how Simi had snapped at him, and literally called him a magpie. But then, something dropped in his mind. It was something he had overheard Tiwa telling Simi about Sam the previous day. She had recounted the extremely ridiculous way Sam had tried to pull the wool over his wife’s eyes when he was committing his usual adultery.

It had been at the zenith of the afternoon that day. Sam must have taken his usual excuse from office on the grounds of being ill, and had stayed back at home while his wife left for her place of work. His wife had come home way behind the accustomed schedule in the afternoon, and on opening the door of the room, she had seen a young startled woman having a bedspread shabbily thrown over her naked body. The young woman was sitting up in her matrimonial bed and staring at her as though she had just seen a ghost with a familiar face.

There had been the common slow transition from shock to rage. Sam’s wife had to threaten to kill the young woman if she did not tell her where her husband was. The young woman noiselessly pointed under the bed. Sam’s wife had bent over and had seen her husband stark naked, squeezing himself under the bed. He was sweating generously, and then boom! Their marriage had shattered like glass into pieces.

For some time, Teju considered the story. For the first time, he thought of how dim-witted Sam was, even more than he had ever thought him to be. The more the story kept recurring in his mind, the more stupid and hilarious it was. He did not know when he plunged into a burst of involuntary laughter. Simi looked up at him from where she savoured the icy and creamy taste of her ice-cream. She considered him for some time. It was easy to see that Simi thought he was laughing at her.

Though he knew telling her what made him laugh would not be funny at all, and it would generate a lot of complicated questions, he wished she could say something, or ask what was funny. He could have lied. He could have said that he had recalled one of the whimsical gags of little Emmanuella in one of her comedy skits, though it was hardly the time to recall such things.

Suddenly, Simi's phone which lay on the table chimed into consciousness. Teju cursed the phone under his breath.

"What's that?" Teju asked

"Oh, I got it" Simi replied. She picked up her phone "it's only a WhatsApp message".

Teju nodded and watched Simi read the message. Gradually, Simi's face started tightening into a grimace. As she strolled down and read the messages her face reddened.

"What is it, baby?" Teju asked.

"Oh, it's nothing" Simi replied. She was trying hard to smile as though she was just getting to know she was not alone.

"Are you sure?"

Simi stared long at him for the first time before saying,

"Yeah... I'm sure".

She punched her phone for some time, probably to reply to the messages. Though Teju suspected that something was wrong, asking her too many questions would be spoiling the broth with too much salt.

Teju wanted to use the restroom. He signalled to a waiter.

"I want to use the restroom," he said as the waiter approached.

"Oh, it's over there," the waiter pointed.

"Okay, thanks"

"You're welcome sir"

"Baby, I'd like to use the restroom, I'll be back soon," Teju said to Simi who only gave a solicitous nod.

Teju had barely used three minutes in the restroom. When he came back, he could not find his wife and his car key. When he looked through the lucid glass wall at the parking lot, he saw that his car was also gone. He inquired from one of the waiters and he told him his wife had left. Teju could not understand why Simi would ditch him. Why would she take the car away? Who does that? Teju said to himself. The waiter who had broken the news felt sorry for him, according to his facial expression. It was not easy to be cursed with such a wife or girlfriend, his face had said.

Teju sat down at the table. He could not touch his barely eaten ice-cream. His eyes caught hold of a little paper on the table. It was a note. It read, Check your fucking phone. It was her handwriting, though the ‘fucking’ did not sound like her. He brought out his phone. He had some WhatsApp messages from Simi. She had sent him some pictures. The pictures were different from the one he had earlier seen on her phone. They were pictures of him. He could see his face as clear as crystal.

He saw himself sitting on a white armless chair. He was surrounded by three ladies. It was a luxurious number of ladies around one married man. One was kissing his cheeks, the other was fondling his chest and the last was sitting on his crotch. He was kissing and pulling at their parts. It appeared he was enjoying his good fortune.

Oh my God, it was yesterday. How did it happen, was Tiwa following him yesterday? Or was it a setup? Teju thought in despair. It was absolutely impossible for Tiwa to have tracked him. How could she have tracked him, with GPS, or IMEI or Google Map?

He sat down looking at the pictures and rubbing his eyes. He was an insoluble gas. He was finished. Simi dropped a message. It was a congratulatory message to him on his being conferred with the award of being the most faithful husband in the world. He unbuttoned the upper part of his shirt in dismay and shifted painfully on the chair. A tear tickled off his face as he read the message. It was a torture that sent its agony down his bone marrow.

It was not the fact he was screwed that made him sore with insufferable pain. It was the fact he had allowed himself to hope he could win a second chance with Simi. He had lied to himself. He had compelled himself to believe in his own lies. Finally, he stood up. The only person he had to talk to at this point was Tiwa. She owed him a great deal of explanation.