Chapter 6: Chapter 6

CHAPTER6

Teju pulled into the parking lot of a boutique, where ladies’ wears and accessories were sold. The boutique, walled with large translucent glass and illumined with bright fluorescent lights, one could see the clothes, shoes and other clothing accessories displayed on hangers, racks and show-glasses. Its name– DreamWorld Boutique– was etched with two-dimensional red-coloured transparent plastic on its fore, and was lighted from the posterior with bulbs so that at night, it would be decipherable to all eyes.

Despite the economic recession flaying everyone in the country, he had found himself there; not because his bank account was fat enough, as many people would think, but because Simi was worth the price in every way.

“Good evening sir, how may I help you?” a young lady seated behind a desk said as soon as Teju pulled the heavy glass door with a large MIND THE GLASS sign and had taken a few steps into the boutique. Teju took in the smooth spotless tiled floor, the many blinding fluorescent bulbs dangling from the plastic-made ceiling, the air-conditioners blowing an artificial cooling air into the apertures of his body, the clothes hung on hangers with price tags and stacked on long horizontal racks and female mannequins dressed in different attires from English to native, and striking different poses.

“Well, I would like to see your jewellery store if you don’t mind, I can help myself with...”

“Good evening Mr...” a woman from a corner interrupted. She must have beenin her late fifties. She worea Kampala-made gown and matching head tie with many colours; orange, white, green and others skilfully muddled up in three-quarter moon patterns. Her black slim body shot straight up in the gown, her height would have been something sustained by an incredibly long legs. Her face, makeup-less, was a face that seemed to be in the middle of a struggle between youthful and old age, few tiny creases across a smooth skin, here and there, the result of a constant application of alovera and honey– the natural skin care therapy. Her eyes, sharp with a rare bright quality, must have been engendered by either intelligence or experience, or both. She approached Teju with her right arm stretched out. Teju quickly threw a glance at the lady behind the desk before meeting the woman’s hand with his.

“Call me Teju” he said.

“Alright Mr. Teju, welcome to DreamWorld boutique, what can I help you with?”

“Well, I was just asking the lady over there to show me to the jewellery store”

“Oh, is that right?” the woman said, turning to the lady who was now standing behind the desk.

“Yes, madam”

“Okay then. Please, follow me Mr. Teju.”

Teju was already getting literally bored with all the formalities. Businesspeople and their thorough customer care doctrines sometimes make him sick; they all treat you like a prodigious individual all because of the money that lies idle in your pocket. Well, money is the acknowledged superpower that makes humans superhuman, but not necessarily superheroes.

As Teju walked through the boutique, trying to keep pace with the long-legged woman, he saw racks as high as the ceiling, filled with meticulously arranged ladies and unisex shoes in different colours.He saw ladies bent over sewing machines and other tailoring machines with shredded fabrics and threads lying aimlessly on the floor.

“I didn’t know that boutiques now have fashion designing workshops” Teju said

The woman looked at him and then at the busy tailors.

“Our services are diversified to suit the taste of our esteemed customers. Not all of our customers like Gucci, Versace or Nike, and not all our customers can afford them. So we have an affiliated fashion institute where we make a variety of ladies wears, shoes and necklaces from raw materials to better serve our valued customers”.

“So you guys make some of the clothes and footwear you sell here”

“We make a considerable amount of products and sell them alongside the products that are shipped in”

“Sounds interesting. So how does one tell the homemade products from the imported ones?”

“They are categorised differently so that our customers can find whatever they want easily and without wasting much time. Our customers can also order in person or online from our website.”

“You have delivery services too? That’s awesome”

“Oh no, we do not deliver goods, not at all. Our online shop is for customers who would like to book whatever product they would love to purchase still the time they are ready to pick it up here. Our customer who would like to sew a particular style of attire or make a pair of new, customised shoe or necklace can also order online”

“Jesus! How do they take their measurements?”

“Well, customers who would like to use our online shop are advised to know their various measurements in order to be able to fill in their sizes on the online form that are provided”

“That’s brilliant! Women like you are the kind of entrepreneurs we need so badly in Nigeria– innovative”

“Thank you very much. As much as I would like to accept your compliment, I can’t. This establishment doesn’t belong to me, it’s my sister’s. I’m sure you understand that a person who owns such establishment would be busier than attending to our honoured customers”

“Of course, but your sister is a woman all the same. And I’m sure you deserve as much credit as your sister; you’re doing a magnificent job here.”

The woman smiled at Teju before leading him to a large room, large enough to be called a hall.

“Please” she said.

Teju had been led into a room filled with body adorning accessories. There were gold and silver coloured necklaces, rings, brooches, bracelets, chains, and wristwatches caged in see-through waist-high cabinets and compartments, glinting against the wild lights of the room. Teju watched the jewelleries; each of them hung or placed in such immaculate arrangements that he marvelled at the idea that had him brought few inches to these expensive jewels. He walked among them, sometimes stopping to peer at a particular wristwatch or necklace or chain,whose beauty or quality had won his attention.

Teju had bought a high-priced Swiss-made unisex wristwatch for her when they had celebrated Val. He had bought her dresses and footwear several times. He could boast he had bought two-thirds of the dresses in her wardrobe, and the footwear on her shoe rack.

It was not that Simi also could not boast of something, thanks to her, she had also bought all of the T-shirts, polo shirts and jean trousers inhis wardrobe. She did not enjoy buying shirts and suits for him because, according to her, they made him look too serious.

Teju had also accompanied her on several occasions to different beauty salons, even though accompanying him to barbing salons in return was a bad idea to her.

Teju cleared his throat.

“Do you locally make some of these?”

“Of course. Here sir.” The woman said, pointing at the eastside of the room. Teju noticed that she had no earrings on, not even tiny studs. Her neck was free of any chain or necklace, her wrists unburdened by no jewels of any kind. She must be a Deeper Life church member, Teju thought. To her, he must have looked like a sinner on a trip to hell burning with fire and brimstone. But even then, was it not sardonic for a person who was mandated by doctrines not to possess worldly jewels, yet was not under any obligation in terms of trading with them? A person guiding others to the treasure she cannot posses. Teju wondered if it was hard for her, having such unusual amount of jewelleries at her finger tips but can never use them, not if she did not intend to burn in hell till eternity. But here he was, guiding and abetting his wife’s journey to hell with his hand intertwined in hers.

There were bead-made necklaces with and without pendants hung around several half-bodied statuesque. The statuesque only had heads, shoulders and chests, enough to display the beauty of the necklaces in a potential wearer.

“Well, I think I might have made a mistake”. Teju said without intending to scare the woman that her potential customer was a time bugler– those who walk into markets, stores and shops to ask after prices without having any intention of buying.

“How do you mean sir?”

“I should have brought my wife along. This is a very large set of necklaces, how am I suppose to choose what to buy without knowing whether she’d like it or not”

“Probably I should help. What is your wife’s favourite colour?”

Simi had claimed to be in love with gold; it was her favourite. She said it made her feel royal, even when she was a pauper. It made her feel enormously rich even when she didn’t have a kobo in her purse. Shehad insisted on wearing a gold gown when she had gone out with him on Val, even though nearly everyone was in red. Of what use, Simi had said, was wearing a colour that repulsed both one’s body and spirit for the sake of convention, for the mere sake that everyone else was wearing it.

“Gold, and maybe purple?”

The woman smiled.

“The royal colours; such a woman of taste” she said

She walked him to a necklacestrung together interchangeably by gold-coloured and lilac beads, each colour equally separated by designs of wireworks. Attached to the necklace was a pendant made of an oval-shaped coral bead, the size of an eye and coated in a net of wireworks.

“It’s called Majesté de L'europe” she continued

“That’s...”

“French. Its means Majesty of Europe”

“Why is it called that?”

“Nothing historic. The beads were imported from Paris which is in Europe, and they are royal colours.”

Teju looked at the price written on a sticker at the base of the statuesque and flinched.

“Geez! That’s a hell of a price” he said, pointing down at the sticker.

“Just last week, a US dollar equalled three hundred and seventy-eight Nigerian naira. This week, it’s now three hundred and ninety-five naira, but the value of our products doesn’t change. It’s tough for you as much as it’s tough for us– the economy”

“Well, as much as I’d love to buy this for my wife, I’m afraid I won’t be able to. The amount does not entirely agree with the cash in my wallet”

“Our mode of remittance is also diversified. You can pay through POS machine if you have your ATM card with you– extra charges apply of course”

As the necklace waspacked into a parcel by an attendant, the woman broughtout a machine that looked like a macro mobile phone with large buttons labelled with figures and a rectangular red-lighted digital screen. The woman slotted in Teju’s ATM card into machine and asked him to punch in his ATM pin, and few seconds after, there was a debit alert on his phone.

As he sat back in his car, carefully placing the wrapped parcel on the passenger’s seat, he wondered what could be left out in the amusing and breath-taking drama he was cooking up. Then, just about time, it struck. How could he be so annoyingly forgetful? Earlier he had made a mental note to purchase flowers for her from his favourite florist.

Simi had personally found the florist’s collection a little bit boring and stale, but then,with her ridiculously high taste in flowers, she could be a hard one to please. Teju glanced at his Rolex and what it said made his face flare up.

He found a man of about forty years at the front of the shop. He was sitting idly on a stool, rocking himself back and forth as he listened to a small portable radio. The man was unfamiliar. It was not the man Teju had been used to. The man was standing in for the florist whom he said was out for an important function and had not returned. There were quite a few sets of flowers displayed at the front of the shop. There were the red hibiscus, the sunflower, the bird of paradise, and the purple hibiscus. Teju was convinced none will make her hit the 'like' button. So he moved inside, and there he saw sections of marvellously arrayed flowers mounted on short tables, the African tulip, the begonia, the delphinium, the gillyflower, the African daisy, the windflower and so on. It was beautiful, a vista that made it seem he was peeping into paradise. He watched them critically, and it seemed each of the flowers was screaming at him to pick it up. And as his eyes travelled, they spotted a little pack of flowers with a gold-yellow pigment.

"What's that?" Teju asked, his tone somewhat enthused. He was pointing at the direction of the flowers.

"Oh, that? Well, those are daffodils; they’re nice, aren't they?"

"Of course, I think they will solve the puzzle," Teju said and moved closer to them. He bent over them and stroked their trumpets.

"Well, I must say that they are very expensive" The man pursued as if he thought Teju buying those flowers would be throwing caution to the wind.

"How much are they?" Teju quizzed with an angry undertone. Traders like this man make him plunge into a fit of annoyance. With intent mischief, they hurl water right in front of themselves so that they could walk on wet grounds. They emphasise on the expensiveness of their wares, even before one had the chance to start a negotiation.

"Ten thousand naira, and presently we have no discounts, not until Black Friday," the man said still with that cautioning tone.

"I don’t see any reason why you should inflate your prices as that" Teju replied in a mock anger

"Well, these set of flowers are really scarce at this time of the year, and the demand is very high, besides we all know what the economy says presently" he replied

Teju brought out his wallet instantly, counted out some currency notes and passed it to the man who took it with shock on his face.

"Really?" asked the man

"Really what?"

"Are you really going to buy the whole bundle of the daffodils for ten thousand naira?"

"Well, yes, or how much did you call it?"

"Something is certainly wrong. I don't understand why everyone is buying the daffodils no matter how expensive I say it is” the man said, pausing to see if he made any sense to his customer- maybe he did not.

“They are really nice, and I was hoping to take some of them home for my kids, but here you are, you have bought the last bundle for an extravagant amount" the man explained. For the first time, Teju saw a trader frustrated by the profitable loss of his merchandise.

"Well, sorry for your loss, I'm taking this home, it’s for my wife," Teju said as he took hold of the bouquet, took out some of it and gave it to the man

"Here, that's for your kids," he said

"Oh, that’s very kind of you, thank you so much. And I must return five thousand naira to you, I’m sorry I overcharged you"

"Oh don't bother yourself with that, it’s okay, you can just buy your kids some nice things with that also," Teju said with a smile at the right corner of his mouth. He tried to look sincere and pleased with the man even though a part of him felt like filching the flowers from him with his left hand, and give him a nice right-hand jab on his Adam’s apple so that he would gasp for breath a little. There was no gainsaying that the man was largely astonished. It was really the last good man on earth who could have done that. The man’s intention to pull a fraudulent stunt on him did not escape him, but it was nothing to be surprised with, it was everywhere. People took economic recession as an alibi to double up the prices of their goods or services without conscience.