Chapter 56: Chapter 56

CHAPTER 49

Teju was like a hunk of stone chipped off from a large rock and dropped in the middle of the Pacific. Swallowed by the beautiful blue surface, he sank slowly, like a bridal procession, down into that profound black water, cold and dark, wishing to feel the warmthof the sun one last time. He was way too young to be forlorn with such feeling, but fate was simply doing his job. If it was fate’s handwork, probably no one could fix it.

The darkest hour they say is just before dawn, but the dawn had brought him to a penal complex for doing what was ‘wrong’ for the right reasons, even though he haddone what he did because he had his back pushed to the wall. He believed love was above the law, yet the law would always win. Yes, he knew the nature of the law. The same fangs the bitch uses to amuse its puppies are the same fangs it uses to bite them. That was the true nature of the law among other things. Yet, he believed the world could be a better place if only it was protected by love and not by the law. The law is imperfect, but love is perfect. The law is jealous of love’s perfection. He puts love’s followers in jail to prove to the whole world that love is not perfect. But the law was wrong anyway, not everyone in prison was a criminal. He and Dejo were no criminals. He,like Dejo,was a prisoner of love, just as there were prisoners of conscience all around the world.

As he sat idly on the cell floor after the early morning chores, he thought of his actual stand in the whole situation. He was married and yet he had shrunk into a life of a bachelor behind the impenetrable prison walls. His mind reverted back home. How was Simi going to take it all in? She would be living in such a spacious and large mansion alone. There would be too much air to breathe. There would be too much of vacuum for danger to lurk. A strange man could hide in that house for months without being seen. If she screamed for help, there were enough thick walls to hold down the waves of her voice. She was in peril. A random man could break into the house, rob and even rape her without much ado. The thought of this made him shiver inside out. It made the left wing of his headache.

When next she visited, he was going to ask her to relocate to another neighbourhood. She would have to rent a three-bedroom flat for herself for security purposes. But he knew what her answer would be. She would say she was not a coward. That she was a brave woman, bold as brass and she could look after herself. She was too connected with the house and it was impracticable to dessert it. She was a lonely woman and it would be lonelier if she was snatched away from her rightful home. She could survive. He thought about her. He let her face sit before his face, but her face was blurry. He shut and tightened his eyes to see her clearly. Her face formed boldly before his inward sight. She was smiling and blowing him kisses. He could not take it. He opened his eyes quickly and saw an emblem of himself.

His mind came back to him and showed him how wretched he had become. After many pleas for mitigation, they had sentenced him to seven years in prison with hard labour. The thought of spending a good seven years of his married life behind bars made him laugh silently but violently within him. After a legal fair hearing and the presentation of the video footage as evidence in court, it was quite impossible to prove that the crime was murder- the most grievous sort of homicide and which attracts the capital punishment. According to Section 317 of the Criminal Code Act, it was manslaughter. Manslaughter was defined as any unlawful killing which does not amount to murder due to the inclusion of provocation. Luckily for Teju, his crime was classified under involuntary manslaughter. Though according to Section 325 of the Criminal Code, the maximum punishment for manslaughter was life imprisonment, Teju, with the help of his lawyer, was able to bag seven years sentence instead.

When a problem escalated into one which was unbearable, the fountains of one’s tears would not flow. Instead, it was a thunder of laughter that would ring out from within one. He could not cry after the sentence. He could only purge his emotions with laughter. People who noticed his strange reaction had the full right to presume he was out of his mind. He remembered when he was being led out of the court after the verdict had been given. It was apparent that Simi had been holding back her tears all the while. It reached a point she could not take it anymore. She could not surrender to the fact that her husband was not coming home soon enough. That for seven solid years, she was going to do without the warmth of her husband. She broke into tears.

Teju wished he could dry her tears with the tip of his tongue. He wanted to have the taste of the sourness of her tears. But he could pity her. Her present situation was like she was being stripped naked in public. It was like she had been decapitated in front of a staring crowd. He felt some hydration wanting to escape his eyes. He tried to hold them back but they flowed freely from his eyes and wet his cheeks. The more he strived to hold them back, the more they poured out in surfeiting quantity. He had a taste of his tears, the saltiness of it, the sharpness, and the sourness. He was astounded that he was excessively pouring out his tears there in his cell, even when he could not pour them out in the court where it could have been more effective. There was a bang on the prison bars.

"Mr Teju, you have a visitor," the prison warden said as he unlocked the prison door. Teju quickly wiped his tears with the back of his hands and his prison clothes. He stood up to meet the prison warden who held open the prison door. The prison warden observed him, looking at him closely.

“Have you been crying?” the prison warden asked. There was an air of authority in his voice which startled Teju.

“Of course not, what’s to cry about after all” Teju said, making his tone assuring as much as possible. But it was evident that the prison warden was not convinced.

The previous day, Teju had tons of visits. His pastor, Simi’s parents, Sam, Simi, Lara, Tiwa’s Dad, his uncle, Ebun and his boss, they all came visiting. The prison officials were so weary that they kept him in the visitation chamber throughout the day. The visit of Tiwa’s Dad came with a lot of surprises. Teju was uncomfortable until Senator Gbadebo assured him that he had been absolutely forgiven. What left Teju’s jaws slacked was the fact that the senator had unofficially declared him as his son. On top of that, he had promised him amnesty as soon as he becomes the governor of the state in the next elections. Governors were granted the power to grant ‘prerogative of mercy’ under the constitution.

Teju scoffed to himself. It was funny. He wondered why politicians were so sure they would win an election. Perhaps, they only pretended to be sure. Probably that was why they resort to violence when they lose sometimes. Teju could not connect with Senator Gbadebo’s line of action or its awaiting repercussions. He wondered if he was being sincere or if the story of his forgiveness was going to appear in on news channels. Maybe it would be used indirectly for a political campaign, who knows. Sam also visited. Teju was grateful that he saw and could talk to Sam like old times. Sam told him of his divorce. Teju was happy that Sam had grown to acknowledge that he deserved it. However, it was still hard to say if Sam was a changed man.

Teju was led to a small neat room at the base of the building. It was empty except that there was a small neatly laid bed at a corner of the room. It was lighted by a little window with iron bars. For the first time, Teju noticed that the prison officials and his cell inmates had been treating him with special respect since Senator Gbadebo had visited him. It was of great merit to him and he conceded to the indebtedness. Nevertheless, he felt many citizens of the nation still clung to their slavish mentality whenever they see a 'big' man of the country regardless of the elements they were made of. He wondered if Senator Gbadebo had arranged the room for him, so he would be comfortable. He wondered why the prison warden had refused to speak when he asked about his visitor. He sat on the bed lightly as if it would sink him into the underworld if he fully rested his buttocks on it. And then, he waited.