“Anyway, the receptionist called him on the phone. But while he dialed the phone, I peeked at the numbers. I thought it could also be the room number. Someone picked the phone on the other end. The receptionist told me the person to whom he spoke with was not expecting any visitor.
“I was mad. I wasn’t prepared to let go easily. I went back to the lobby, sat in a corner, and ordered a bottle of Campari. I drank almost all of it. Then I stood and I decided to go, to nowhere in particular. When I got to the car park, I was confused about what to do. By luck, I saw my husband’s official car, a Toyota Camry. My head just flew off.
“I was still in this miserable state when I saw the outline of two people approaching the car park. It was my husband and Lesty. I quickly hid behind a palm tree about 30 feet away. They kissed, held hands and embraced. That’s when I backed away unnoticed. I went to where I parked my car and drove home—in a deranged state of mind.
“On Sunday evening, my husband returned home. He told me he had a very successful trip and the contract was signed. I thought to myself, signed indeed. I had prepared his favorite egusi soup with pounded yam and placed them on the dining table. I told him I had already eaten, so he ate alone.
“After the heavy meal, we retired to the bedroom. There, I offered myself to him as a dutiful wife. And the fulfillment was mutually passionate. It had never been so fervent, and it would never be, again.
“Ten minutes later, we rested and laid down side by side. Suddenly, his body began to jerk, to jerk violently. It was like an epileptic seizure. He started to froth in the mouth, and he wriggled like the severed tail of a wall gecko. That was when I pinned him down and sat on his hairy chest while he begged softly that I should take him to the hospital. His eyes were misty, very cloudy. Five minutes later, he was dead. And I embraced him, and we lay there together in warm embrace for about 30 minutes. I then called the police.”
“That was so callous,” Mersee says. “How could you do that? Where is love?”
Defia looks at her indifferently.
‘“Love?” Defia replies. “The love was always there. I loved him with passion and hated him with the same destructive jealousy. And it was that same love that made me to save him from a demon that would have eventually destroyed him.”
“But wait a minute,” Mersee says thoughtfully. “Something is amiss in your story. You mean he died as a result of rigorous love making?”
“I wished it was that,” Defia retorts. “If that was the case, I wouldn’t be here for the past 10 years awaiting trial for murder. Anyway, I am happy that was not so, else the revenge would not have been as sweet as I wanted. I dutifully killed him with...”
Just then, a warder bangs the iron bars. It is time for lunch. The warder lowers silver bowls underneath an iron bar and slips them into cell 20. As Mersee lifts the lid of one of the bowls, the aroma of curry and ginger fills the room. The bowl is filled to the brim with watery bean porridge. Noticing that the beans are few and that the broth is primarily water, she sighs.
Defia glances at Mersee, who is not eating, and tells her to get used to prison foods because the quality wasn’t going to improve. Besides, she explains, dinner will be even worse.
Mersee decides to try a few scoops. After a few spoonfuls, she ogles her cell mates as they devour their meager, tasteless lunch.
“Where did I stop?” Defia asks, directing her question to nobody. At that moment, lightning flashes across the iron bars and illuminates her well-chiseled checks and lavish bosom. The sky is overcast and the wind is blowing furiously.
“You killed him with,” says a faint voice from a corner of the cell.
“Thank you, Orene,” Defia says. “Oh yes, I laced the egusi soup of the creepy, lecherous lizard with poison, and he ate it lovingly.” She ends with a wry smile, while the other inmates join with mischievous giggles. But not Mersee.
“That was indeed callous,” Mersee interrupts. “I ask again, where is love? Don’t tell me love and hatred are the same.”
“I didn’t say so,” Defia replies. “But where one exits, the other is also present. Both come from the same fountain, the same source; they are both creatures of passion. A woman can either love or hate with passion. And there is no middle course. And when the love of a woman is scorned, even a feather in her hand is deadlier than a sword.”
“Don’t you have any regret?” Mersee says in a quivering voice.
Defia pauses for five seconds, heaves and says: “No; my only regret is that I couldn’t kill the other woman.”
“Revenge is mine says the Lord,” Mersee says.
“Yes, I believe you. And when I meet my creator, I’m ready to stand in defense for helping the almighty God to avenge,” Defia responds brusquely.
“That’s sounds blasphemous,” Mersee replies angrily.
“And you sound like a hypocrite,” Defia says coldly. “Even the Lord blesses those who avenge for him.”
Mersee shakes her head in disagreement. She thinks that the man who turned this bright, charming woman to a brooding viper has indeed done a great damage to morality.
“Haven’t you read about one enraged woman in the Holy Book,” Defia says. “This is not a story about a jealous lover, but about a passionate zealot.”
Mersee is not sure what story Defia has in mind. Defia then moves toward her blanket and pulls a small black-covered bible from underneath. She flips the pages, and stops at Judges, Chapter 4. She gives Mersee to read from verses 15 to 23.
Defia moves toward the faint light through the iron bars.
Mersee reads: “And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.
But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left.
Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite: for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.
And he said unto her, give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.
Again he said unto her, stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.
Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.
And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.
So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.”
Defia gingerly takes the bible from Mersee and flips the page forward.
“Ha, ha,” Defia says, “I want you to read particularly this. Chapter 5, verses 1 and 2, then, verses 24 to 27.”
Mersee reads: “Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying,
Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.”
“Verse 24: Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet
he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.”
Mersee is stunned.
“My pious friend, I’ve tried to find a true meaning to that—to love and hate, but I’m lost and confused. If the Lord is jealous, who am I to deviate from his omnipresence?” Defia says stoically.
“But everyone has a duty to obey the law of the land. For in that we create a just society,” Mersee interjects.
“I’m solely accountable to my treasured conscience and not to any earthly law,” Defia replies. “And the noblest of all duties is to obey your conscience.”
Mersee regards her quietly, then shakes her head. “Perhaps this is a time for the renewal of souls, a time for you to beg God to forgive you and purify your outrageous, arrogant conscience,” she says after a long pause. “For God is just, although the justice of man is unjust. And it does not profit the almighty to destroy a soul which man has unjustly damned. I’ve regretted what I did. It was at the spur of the moment. I’ve asked God for forgiveness, and I’m paying the price now. I’m against the shedding of blood, because it is evil. I’ll also continue to pray for you for the good Lord to soften your heart.”
“So, does that mean you support infidelity?” Defia asks.
“No. I truly believe partners should be forever faithful to each other,” Mersee replies. “What I’m against is shedding of blood because a lover has been jilted or because of infidelity. And the way you did it in cold blood. How can you kill him and continue to embrace his corpse?”
“You see, my daughter, my friend, even when two snakes fight they embrace each other. And sometime it may be till death separates them,” Defia says coldly as she looks intently at Mersee’s cherubic face.
To this day, in this dingy cell, a penitent soul and a vengeful conscience continue to discuss the true meaning of absolute good and absolute evil until death separates them.
The Lucky Charm
A hunter who carries an elephant on his head should not
use his feet to till the soil for a cricket. – Yoruba proverb
It is 3:25 p.m. on a bright Monday. A gray, bearded man descends the Ojuelegba Bridge in Lagos and his car begins to sputter. He pumps the accelerator as the car jerks like a stubborn goat. He wonders what’s wrong. After all, this is a brand new Mercedes-Benz, purchased two weeks ago from a reliable dealer. He continues driving and the car coasts further down the bridge. It moves slowly, causing the other drivers to honk their horns impatiently. The bearded man is oblivious. “Callous Lagos drivers,” he mutters to himself.
He descends the bridge and veers toward the service lane of the oncoming vehicles from the Ojuelegba roundabout junction and steers the car toward the walkway slowly. After about five meters, he turns the car into the pedestrian walkway by the fence of the Abalti Barracks, about 20 meters from the gate. The engine stalls.
He sits in the car and, once again, wonders what’s wrong. Why the problem on his way to a multimillion-naira business meeting with a foreign partner at Ikeja? He starts the engine again. It sputters.
“The beast,” he shouts as he winds down the driver’s window. A whiff of fresh air hits him in the face—quite different from the new car fragrance he’d been breathing all afternoon. He reaches under the dashboard and pulls a lever to open the bonnet, steps out of the car and raises the bonnet. He stands, confused about what exactly to do. Then he goes back into the car and opens the booth, picks up a pair of pliers, and goes back to the bonnet. He hits the battery terminal with the pliers several times. Maybe this will work, he thinks, as he goes back into the car and starts the engine. It crackles, then stalls.
“This is just my unlucky day,” he says and waves his hands in the air dejectedly. Just then, he sees two men crossing the four lane highway and walking toward him from the Ayilara street side. The man sizes them up. One is stocky like a wooden barrel and draped in an old-fashioned green tweed coat so wrinkled it looks like he has been wearing it in his sleep. He has a fist-size, lion’s head pendant neck chain. His colleague is tall and lanky and dressed in a blue shirt, and a blue tie with black polka dots. Threads sprout from the lapel of his collar. His trousers seem to be angry at the ground; they barely reach his ankles, thus exposing red socks that clash with his scuffed, brown shoes.
“Hello,” says the man, as he hastily glances at the shoes of the lanky stranger.
“Hi, buddy,” they both answer in unison.
“You gotta problem?” the lanky fellow asks in a fake American accent.
“Well, sort of,” the gray-bearded man replies.
“What’s ya problem?” the barrel-chested guy asks.
“One of those unlucky days,” the bearded man intones. “The car just decides to mess me up.”
At that moment, the barrel-chested guy grabs the pliers and goes to the bonnet. He removes the plug caps and notices that they are soaked with engine oil. He shows one of the plugs to the bearded man. After about five minutes of cleaning the plugs with a rag and blowing air into them with his mouth, he places them back on the plug sockets. Then, the lanky fellow slips underneath the car. Moments later, he emerges with the fuel filter and shows it to the bearded man.
“This gas filter is dirty, man,” he says as he blows air into the filter. “Anyway, I’ve blown the gaddem dirt away.” He slips underneath the car again and emerges after about 20 seconds.
He tells the Mercedes owner to start the engine. He follows instructions and marvels as the engine responds with a smooth low noise. The lanky man then tells him to switch it off and start again. The car responds with a rhythmical vroom. Elated, the bearded guy switches off the engine and steps out of the car.
“Gentlemen, thank you very much,” he says. “How much should I give for this service?”
“Men, we aren’t a roadside mechanics,” Mr. Barrel-chest says. “We just saw a brother, a buddy in distress, and just wanted to help.”
“Yeah man,” his friend adds. “When we saw ya, we thought this was a perfect gentleman who has been treated badly by a machine.”
“In that case, gentlemen, since you wouldn’t like to take money for this favor, I will like to say thank you very much,” the man says. He dips his hand into the inner pocket of his suit and brings out a gold-plated business card holder. He gives a card each to the fellows. As he opens the car door, the lanky fellow touches him on the shoulder.
“Your business card says you are the managing director of Creative Ventures. What’s that all about?” he asks.
“Oh, that? We are into a lot of creative businesses, you know”
“Well, we’ve just returned from the United States.” the lanky fellow says. “Actually we live in the United States and just came here a couple of days to meet our business partners.”
“Maybe you’ll be interested in our business,” adds his associate. “It’s a multimillion-dollar income generating business, which has made many people wealthy beyond their imaginations.”
The bearded man doesn’t say a word as he listens attentively to the duo. Maybe today is not an unlucky day after all, he thinks. Then he looks at the fellows, and observes their shabby clothing. They seem to read his mind.
“And don’t look at our appearance to judge us. We are indeed multimillionaires,” the lanky fellow says. “Lagos is a dangerous place to flaunt your wealth. We have to be careful not to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.”
“And what’s this business of yours?” he asks.
The Tale of the Cow Tail & Other Stories from the African Diaspora Page 9