Desire ignored the chatting and laughing of the students, which seemed to increase each time she figured out a way to focus, so she could finish her assignment. She lifted her head from the materials she photocopied from the library, as a crowd of boys rushed into the class hailing a figure she could not yet see. They moved around in circles, their eyes vagabonding, their fists flashing in the air while they leapt and he entered the classroom.
Desire cursed herself for choosing to finish her assignments in the class instead of going to the library. As she raised her head from her book to catch a better glimpse of what had disrupted the class, she spotted Ireti at the door. He entered the class, dressed in a khaki safari suit with his enormous head of tousled hair. Desire sat up and adjusted herself on the seat with a smile. In the past weeks, the thought of him slipped into her mind at times and she reminded herself to find him at the student union’s building, or talk to Prof about him. For one reason or another, the days had passed with no sight of him, until now.
As more students trooped into the class and formed a fence around her seat, Desire placed her hand on the desk to prevent anyone from standing on it; she needed to catch a better glimpse of him.
Ireti cleared his throat, looked around at the students with a smile playing on his lips. Some boys behind him screamed some slogans she could not catch. Ireti turned around, gestured to the boys to stop the screaming and fist-banging on desks. The noise subsided a little as he called out, ‘Greatest Lasuites!’
‘Great!’ a body of voices responded to him.
‘Greatest of the greatest of the greatest!’
The students rushed up, in and about, stomping their feet on the ground as they shouted, ‘Ghandi Reloaded!’
After a round of greetings, Ireti silenced them, and the students settled to listen to him.
Desire decided it was an opportunity to learn more about the person whose resemblance to Prof had made her consider opening up a conversation on his private life in her future visits. She piled her books together and rested against the chair to listen to him as he ranted about what he would do when he became president of the student union. He moved around the class jumping form one desk to another, and talked to the students who laughed at his jokes, and a few who had booed him when he spoke from his makeshift podium. He threw his hands into the air as each word dropped from his lips, ‘Greatest Lasuites! Greatest Gbi-Gbi! Greatest Gba-Gba! Greatest of the greatest of the greatest—’ From the way he connected with the students, even with his salutations, she felt a part of her revisiting Prof’s visit to Maroko. She packed away her assignment and sat on the desk, which gave her a better view of him.
Desire knew so much about Prof, how he was an only son and was not married, but there were rumours of some of his women and the possibilities of children—she read not just newspaper articles or reports, but columns in soft sell magazines like Fame and Encomium. She studied library references, research articles and interviews on Prof as if she was preparing for a law examination. She observed how he changed in the pictures; the days of his full afro hair and those days he carried rough hair that was not as full but tangled like Ireti’s own.
Desire looked around the class, at the bustling students whose voices were soon raised into a shrill of ‘Aluta Continua, Victoria Ascerta,’ and then at Ireti. It amazed her once more that in her two years at the university she had never met this young man who was a photocopy of Prof. His voice bounced around the walls of the classroom as he spoke.
‘I need your votes. Together we can say, “No to school fee increase! No to the management of student politics! We say nooooo!”’ The chants spread from the classroom to the many corners of the campus, rushing off into the ears of passers-by, as far as they could reach. Ireti spoke to the students. His arms flailed as he threw long words into the air. At a point, he jumped down from the desk onto the floor; his campaign entourage and some other admirers quickly swarmed around him, so that she could not see him any more.
Her size proved an advantage again as she squeezed herself through the throng of students. At eight years old, which was a year before she met Prof, her neighbours and friends stopped calling her Desire, they called her, “cockroach”. This was because a neighbour had said she could easily pass off as an underfed five-year-old, and because she ate so little, the name stuck. There were also those who addressed her by comparing her head to a tennis ball or her limbs to dried sticks. She was so used to it, that when she heard shouts like, ‘Tell that stick-hand girl to tell her mother “Thank you,”’ or ‘Hey! Tennis-ball-head, come and buy food for me,’ she ran towards the caller. There was perhaps something about the way she was called that it never occurred to her that the words, in a different context, were hurtful.
There was also a time in her childhood when the older boys used to ask her to dance like a baby wain-wain. It was not difficult, and she enjoyed acting like a marionette whose strings were being pulled into movement. She enjoyed how people gathered around her as she flayed her stick hands in the air and freed herself to the rhythm of their clapping while laughter jumped from their mouths into the air. She entertained them until they all dispersed, most times leaving a naira note for her and her friends to buy some coconut candy.
As she pushed her way through the students, placed her books in her bag and smuggled her way out of the multitude, she tried to get Ireti’s attention without making it too obvious. His face jolted her, as it carried the same intense expression that had spoken to her in her childhood. In that fleeting moment, she was caught up in amazement at how nature could replicate itself, this déjà vu, before she attempted to once again escape from the human barricade that made leaving the classroom difficult. He was rounding off his speech as she struggled to move out of the room and soon found herself literally being swept off her feet until she got close to the door and the crowd let her down. Sandwiched between the door, a wall and the buxom student whose hair attachment pricked her neck, she turned around one last time, only to find him so close that the breath from his mouth rushed over her face. His entourage engaged in a din of emotional solidarity, singing songs of victory, pressing on and lifting the students from the social oppression forced upon them.
She squirmed, inadvertently hitting Ireti and causing him to let out a low moan. Seeing the awkwardness of the situation, she muttered quickly, ‘Sorry.’
They were the only ones aware of this shared discomfort at that moment.
She began to press on to escape the tension when Ireti tapped her on the shoulder and told her, ‘I’ll clear the way.’
He then spoke in muted tones to one of his allies and they began to make a way for her to pass through the human traffic; while some of his friends were cooing words and jokes into his ears, laughing and backslapping, he fixed his look on her. She felt it burrowing through her neck. He acted jolly, and when the people were not moving fast enough, he created space by shooting his buttocks backwards and forcing some people to the back. They laughed at his playfulness. He winked at her and she giggled. In that moment, she decided that she wanted to sleep with him.
When he got to the door, she placed her mouth next to his ear and softly, said, ‘Thanks.’
‘Uhn?’
‘I-I said, thanks.’ His attention was now no longer with her, and she had enjoyed it despite its brevity. She then gushed, ‘I’m good in bed. Try me.’ She said it quietly, but she knew he heard. His eyes bulged. His mouth was half-open, and his eyes roved around for an audience. It was as if he was looking for someone, anyone to confirm that he had heard her correctly. She expected him to laugh it off, but even as his friends tugged at his shirt collar, he continued to look at her, gulping her down with his eyes.
Desire fuelled the curiosity she saw in his eyes by eyeing his crotch defiantly, and turning like she was ready to walk away, assured that this would make a good joke for her and Remilekun later that night. Yet, she found herself standing outside the class like she was waiting for him, watching as he attended to
his friends. She studied him. She recognised his unsettled eyes shifting about like he was in search of someone.
Desire did not go to the library. She stayed by the window until the small crowd of students had dispersed one after the other and the few that remained stood by the door throwing around banter and laughing out loud. Finally, when she felt he would not come to her, she walked towards him and resisted the attempt by his friends to block her from getting closer. He waved off their attempt and they allowed her through. She stepped away, pulling him to the side. Once with him, she repeated her previous words more audibly than the first time, only to him, ‘I would like to sleep with you.’
Ireti’s eyes darted from left to right and he folded and unfolded his arms. Finally, he said, ‘Like, sleep…you mean sleep-sleep?’ Ireti’s voice stirred her. He was obviously taking her in with his eyes again to determine if she was indeed serious. She wondered what he was thinking. Remilekun once told her she looked like a nun with lips that begged to be kissed. ‘You turn heads. Don’t you know?’ Remilekun had said. She had never considered it, but it came to mind as Ireti stared at her and she could not figure out what he was thinking.
When she didn’t respond, he tried again. ‘Are you a Nigerian? Are you not from this country?’
She did not get a chance to reply before his supporters, oblivious of the drama going on between them, screamed, ‘Ghandi!’
Desire looked at him intently, and Ireti cocked his head and smiled slowly.
‘What do you think?’
‘What Nigerian girl that looks like you would say… I’ve never seen this kind of thing-o.’
His friends called out, ‘Ghandi? How far?’ while Desire wondered what kind of Nigerian girl she looked like.
‘I dey come,’ he turned his attention back to her as he waved for them to be patient, before he leaned towards her, moving in close.
‘You’re serious?’ The bristles of his beard brushed against her shoulder.
She stiffened and said in a high pitch, ‘I like the way you do your own politics. Maybe, we can talk politics, or something, later?’
He smiled at her. His nose twitched a little as he said in a low voice, ‘Tell me your name?’
‘Desire,’ she said staring through him.
‘Desire? Your name is Desire?’ he repeated. His shoulders dropped. ‘Uhn-Uhn! Tease,’ he huffed. He buried his hands in his hair, and she glimpsed distrust in his pupils.
‘My name is Desire Babangida Jones’.
‘Hmm, interesting name.’ Ireti smiled at her, placed a hand on the small of her back and muttered in her ear, ‘I stay at number 12, Ibrahim Compound, Balewa Street, Ojo. Come.’ He stepped back and stared at her face for a long time before he nodded, and turned to walk away. She remained on the spot, as he glided towards his friends. She took note of how his bum filled his trousers and made waves as he moved. Yet, she felt little that was sensual. She could, in that moment, understand what it meant to be an artist painting or sculpting a nude woman.
14
Ojo was an area of narrow streets that crossed each other’s path forming a crucifix wherever they met. Many of these streets were lined with cars and the spaces between were filled with traders and their wares. The place was a vibrant open market where you never knew what you could find. Brown, rusted, caved-in roofs of the igloo-like houses filled the landscape like giant art installations. It was in this area that Desire walked in search of Ireti, looking at every street name until she found “Balewa Street” on a black signpost with white lettering. It was a blind alley with several houses, whose landlords, she learnt, were descendants of a settler. Desire stopped at a chemist two houses from the one she would later discover was Ireti’s. A girl of about 13, with a mole on her lower lip, was in the shop watching a black-and-white 12-inch Sony television.
‘Condom,’ her voice was low. She felt unsure, but she looked straight at the girl’s face to keep up her act of defiance.
‘Na you wan use am?’ the girl asked with her focus on the television screen.
Desire scanned the scanty shelf of medicine in the shop and replied with a lilt in her voice, ‘Yes-o. Bring two packs.’
‘How many?’
‘Two packs,’ Desire made a V sign with her fingers to indicate two and then slipped them into her bag as the girl returned to watching the drama on TV.
Ireti’s house was also an old rectangular bungalow with walls that wore a navy-blue paint. She walked straight through the door, and down the passage of rows of opposite rooms in the house, moving past buckets of water placed at doorsteps, kerosene stoves on wooden tables and raffia brooms leaning against the walls. When she reached the second to last door, she knocked. She didn’t know which of the rooms was his, but she concluded that being a university politician, he would not rent a room at the entrance of any place, for his own security. ‘Who be dat?’ That was not his voice, and sure enough, the door of the room was swung open by a man in underpants.
‘Wetin happen?’
‘Good evening, sir. Is Ireti in?’
‘Ireti? Who be Ireti?’
‘He is a LASU student…’
‘Na him tell you say dis na him room? Waka from hia!’ He eyed her with sleep-burdened eyes that were swollen and mtssshed at her. His mouth remained in a pout and a bulb of spit hung from the middle of his lower lip.
‘You wan make I woz you.’ He tightened his fist, folded it under his armpits and spread his legs apart, observing her till she sensed that he wouldn’t budge unless she left his doorstep. As she walked away from him, she felt him still standing there with lasting disdain. She didn’t turn to look, even when his door slammed shut. Unsure of which door to try next, she returned to the front of the house to see if she would find any clue or someone who could help.
There was a woman with a baby strapped on her back with aso oke cloth, sitting on the porch. ‘Well done ma.’
‘Wehdone.’
‘I am looking for a friend. He is in LASU.’
The woman took a long look at her, and broke into a smile that disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared on her lips. ‘You for greet when you dey enter? You studen-shildren sef. You no know say when you enta house, you go greet? Anyhow, that man no well like dat.’
There was a soft note in her voice which was not pity. The woman looked up at Desire, and asked, ‘Who you say you dey find again?’
‘Ghandi Reloaded,’ she said, and then thinking they may not know him by that name added, ‘Ireti. Student, LASU.’
‘De Presido? Ha, na dat room,’ she stood up, pointed in the direction of the room and turned back in an instant to her chore of picking beans on a tray Desire had not noticed. Desire thanked the woman and walked to the door, catching her breath before she knocked like she was stroking a beloved’s skin. There was a poster, bearing “GHANDI RELOADED FOR PRESIDENT”, and a picture of Ireti in a suit and tie, pasted on the door. She had missed it earlier.
Desire stopped to listen. She heard more than one voice inside the room. She considered turning back and stood by the door in deep thought.
‘You sure say na Ireti you come see?’
Desire did not turn to the woman, yet she knew she stared, so she called out and didn’t knock, ‘Ireti. Are you in?’
‘Yes? Come in.’
She opened the door and faced three men turning to look at her. A small fluorescent scattered its light over everything in the room. She recognised two of them from the classroom incident.
‘O-baby!’ the one she didn’t know greeted her with so much familiarity she nearly asked if they had met somewhere before then. He stood up and met her by the door. With one hand holding one of her shoulders and the other grabbing her hand for a handshake, he said, ‘Hope you didn’t have trouble locating this place.’
‘I found it, that’s what matters,’ she said with a shrug.
‘Ireti has not been able to sleep or eat or drink-o,’ he laughed as he spoke in small bits, so that it seemed that he was
holding back something more thunderous. This made it possible for him to speak as he laughed, ‘So, do you want to drink, tell me and I will provide it for you. Ireti means a lot to me, and I am ready to give you anything you want.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Hmm what? I say anything? Meanwhile, are you campaigning for us among your friends?’
The more he talked, the more Desire wondered how long she could keep up being polite enough not to wipe off some of the spit he sprayed on her face as he spoke to her. He was one of those people who gathered saliva in their mouth when they spoke, so that every time he opened his mouth it flew about and settled on whatever was closest to him. He also turned out to be the one who talked the most of the lot.
Desire stood in front of him, but stared at Ireti with intensity, hoping that he would say something that would make him stop talking. The small talk on school politics continued, until Ireti’s feigned coughing and the dragging of her feet on the floor, signified to his friends that they needed to leave the room.
The spittle-mouthed friend dropped his hand from Desire’s shoulder and said, ‘We’ll see you again. It was nice talking to you.’
‘Mmm,’ she nodded and he gave her a full smile before leaving with the others who made excuses about how they needed to rush off to finish one thing or the other.
‘How’re you doing?’ Ireti asked as the last of his friends left the room.
‘Fine! Fine!’ She surveyed the room, then its floor which was covered with a flower-patterned linoleum carpet. The mattress was on the floor, covering a part of the exposed cement floor. A few metres from the bed, a Tiger fan blew from a corner of the room where the unruly wires of several rechargeable lamps were plugged into an adaptor. The 14-inch Sony television on the carpet carried a CD player. There were some old newspapers on the floor. The sub-headline of the one on top caught her attention: “FREE AT LAST”.
Desire didn’t need to read the rest. It was a story on Prof’s release from prison. She wondered why Ireti would be interested in his story. So many people had lost interest in Prof.
A Small Silence Page 9