Chapter 4: Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The impeccable smile was still on his face. It was as if the smile had been masked on it as though he was a smiley emoji. The silence of his office made everything seem still, as if there was a one-minute silence for the deceased. Teju rocked himself back and forth in his office chair. It was the best thing to do at that moment when the sweet memories of his love adventures with Simi revolved in his head.

“Griiin griiin!”

That was the rude sound that startled him back to reality. He frowned at the telephone which continued to ring against the tranquillity of his office. He heaved a sigh and picked up the phone. He sat up, straightened his head and listened.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hello, sir!" A female voice responded a little nervously from the other end. It was one of the clerks from the Marketing department.

"Yes?"

"I'm through with the record files; can I send them in, please?"

"Arrrg... no. Not now. Maybe later."

"You mean later today?" The clerk inquired pleadingly.

"Oh yes, later.”

"Thank you,sir."

"You're welcome," Teju said.

He carefully replaced the receiver and let out a deep-running sigh. The interruption had done little or nothing to affect the soothing sensation that had been coursing through his veins in his serene reminiscence. Though he was all by himself in his office, he felt like he had a company with him. It felt like someone was hiding somewhere in his office watching him. He sat back in his rocking posture, and his eyes rested on a little wood-framed picture on his desk. It was one of his wedding pictures taken almost a year ago, but which looked seemingly like yesterday. He had brought the picture when he moved into his new office.

The picture looked green and vivid that it seemed as he sat there, that he was viewing the memorable sights he had that day on a screen. He let the picture dissolve into recalled memories of the Day of days. It revived a feeling in him, a feeling which fervently reverberated through his five senses. He had the nicely shaped modern Afro haircut which had made his head seem longish and square rather than round. It was a haircut that he discovered late then on campus, and most girls never had a 'crush' on him until he came to class one morning with the unusual haircut on his head. It was the same haircut he had on his head at this time, and as usual, it preserved his handsomeness. He was smiling broadly at the camera as though the smile had become immortal, holding his newly wedded wife across her shoulder in a satiated air of ownership. He tried to recall exactly what and how he felt, holding the woman of his dream, and smiling to the camera that day.

His wife was also smiling her smile. He had seen her smile like that as much as he could not count, but every time she smiled, it seemed the beauty of the whole world had been bequeathed on her all at once. It was an irresistible smile that melts his stony heart and makes it extremely hot with love like molten lead. It buries his haughty head in docility even as he sat down, staring at the picture. He reached out for the picture and brought it to have a tactile contact with his lips. He pressed the picture so religiously to his lips that he thought the glass would crack. He let the smooth and flinty texture of the glass blend into a fleshy and succulent texture. He imagined he was kissing his wife rather than a framed picture. Stupid as it seemed, he surrendered to it.

He stared at the picture. He stared with a strong reverence for the precise depth of her elegance, which was neither seductive nor repugnant. You rarely see a lady's beauty reflecting her intelligence, but Simi's beauty reflected much that lay within, both her impulses and temperaments. One should never judge a book by its cover, but with Simi it was different. Her beauty had spoken to him; indeed, it had told him about her even from a distance. As he gazed in refreshed awe at her, he felt indescribable pride and contentment, which helped to relax his shoulders, making them feel lighter. Not even the pride he felt when graduating with a first-class degree, or the emotion he experienced when –within the shortest possible timeframe –he was promoted to the post of Senior Marketing Manager, could beat the surge of feeling at that moment. Sometimes he felt he had been lucky to have ever married her at all, as if she was, in fact,doing him a favour.

There was a gentle knock on the door and he hurriedly replaced the picture in its previous position.He sat up in his chair. He cleared his throat, looked up to the door expectantly, and then said, "Yes, come in."

The door opened and a petite brunette lady wearing a blue shirt teamed with a tight grey skirt entered. Her gait made it seem as if her limbs were separated from her abdomen. It was Ebun, his personal secretary.

"Good morning, sir," she beamed as she approached his table with a neat green file.

"Good morning, any problem?" he asked, as a way of reply.

"This file arrived this morning, and the Director would like you to take a look at it," she said as she handed it to him.

"Oh, they have brought it finally, what took them so long?"he asked, collecting it from Ebun and flipping through its pages. Looking up at her, he then asked, “Has he taken a look at it himself?”

“Well, I’m afraid I’m not sure about that,” she retorted.

“And he didn’t mention the sections I’m to work on?”

“Not a word concerning that, sir.”

“He has a funny way of complicating my job for no reason I know of,” Teju continued absentmindedly.

“Well, I’m sorry about that sir,” she murmured.

“Sometimes you make me think I was christened ‘Sir’.”

She smiled and said, “that’s probably part of my job…sir.”

"All right with your ‘sirs’, and thank you very much, you can take your leave now,"Teju said, smiling back at her. As his eyes escorted her out, his gaze rested on her buttocks, which seemed to be dancing salsa to a fast beat; he thought about the physical features of his wife. He had first seen them on the night of their wedding ceremony. He had developed a strange habit, a habit he wished his friend Sam could also develop: he could think of Simi even while looking at another woman's body features. Perhaps that was the only way he could kill his lust for other women.

To his greatest amusement and even to the amusement of others, one of the reasons he became less atheistic was the body shapes and curves of women. And he never paid attention to this part of women until he became married. Apart from that, Simi played a great role in curing him of his impiety and profanity. She was basically a pious creature even to the bone marrow. If an intelligent and equally beautiful lady like Simi could believe in God, then it was dumb and dense to believe the opposite. Well, maybe Teju felt that, for the sake of Simi, a God had to exist.

For the first time that morning, he doubted bitterly if he would be able to concentrate on the pile of files still lazing on his table. Probably he was just going to spend the whole day sitting idly and thinking about her. Maybe his anxieties were capable of hastening the day to a close. He was too excited to start opening and flicking through the pages of the files. Maybe it was because he was going out on a date with her that evening, or maybe it had something to do with their first wedding anniversary.

He would later start to feel uncomfortable with the distance between the present and the future. He had always believed that it was impossible for him to have a pre-echo of something good, and usually, he did not nurture expectancy for fear that it would ruin his actual expectations. He had a strange history of ruining most of his premeditated expectations. Perhaps, it was one of those ill feelings which suggest that the brightest moments had darkness lurking ahead of them. Or maybe he was afraid something nasty was going to disrupt his happiness. He felt his stomach tightening, and he winced a little in pain. He could also hear the worms making an echoing sound from within. He dialled a number on the telephone, listened for a moment and said

"Bring my cup of coffee please" and he added as an afterthought "add a little milk, and don't put sugar, please".