Married But Available

by B. Nyamnjoh

  “I understand that many people prefer phones from whitemankontri, is that true?”

  “We Mimbolanders believe a lot in what comes from outside. Those of us who receive calls from whitemankontri like to dramatise the fact. Since most of the calls from abroad do not display the numbers of the callers, fraudsters use that feature to dupe lots of people locally, claiming that they are calling from Muzunguland, China, Dubai or elsewhere abroad. Due to the economic crisis we face here, many people tend to want to fall bush because they feel that once you are out there you will make it. Sometimes people with phones get very frustrated with calls from abroad, especially when these calls do not come along with promises of expected goodies. Most elderly people here link up and meet their children abroad thanks to cell phones. Remittances are negotiated and transferred thanks to cell phones, and bushfallers and their relatives or friends here at home can follow the transfer minute by minute, drawing the attention of one another to any hitches in the process.”

  Lilly Loveless intensified her note taking. She liked what she was hearing. This interview was worth the lost phone, she thought. “Any negative side to the cell phone?” she asked.

  “The cell phone has its good and bad sides. Most unscrupulous people have used the cell phone to wreak havoc, just as some have used the phone to keep peace and deter crime. For young girls, they are mostly using the cell phone as a tool to grab things left and right, and also, to make themselves available for grabbing. When a woman gives you her phone number, she is actually giving you access to herself, and also as a way to pester you to send them airtime, this and that.”

  “How common is the beeping or flashing you mentioned a while ago?”

  “When someone beeps me, I will never respond if I don’t know them. My phone is strictly for business and important issues. I sometimes play with it, and may beep somebody once or twice only to attract their attention. The cell phone is still very expensive for Mimbolanders to manage. Even though the price per unit set is manageable, the airtime is still very expensive. Most people also feel that those abroad have easy access to cell phones. Usually, when you have relatives or friends abroad, you would want to request a cell phone from them. So most people have cell phones from abroad as gifts, and the tendency is to believe that those phones are superior to what we have locally, but that’s not true, as you yourself can see from the stock I have here…”

  At the end of their conversation, Lilly Loveless thanked the proprietor and his assistant, and left in a taxi, which dropped Britney off at her place, and continued with her further down the windy seven kilometres long road popularly known as the Anaconda Street.

  ***

  Later that evening Lilly Loveless caught up with Bobinga Iroko at Mountain Valley to show him her new phone.

  “Thanks for the bush meat,” a young man told Bobinga Iroko, emptying his glass of beer and licking his fingers.

  “It’s the least I can do for a bushman,” said Bobinga Iroko, as the young man stood up to leave. “Make sure your report on the attempted arson on the Mimbo Forest Conservation Project building is on my table first thing in the morning,” he added.

  “Others are bushfallers, he is a bushmeater,” Bobinga Iroko told Lilly Loveless as she took a seat.

  “What is bush meat?” asked Lilly Loveless, beckoning at the waitress to bring her the usual.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t eaten bush meat yet,” Bobinga Iroko raised his eyebrows.

  “What I see I eat, what I don’t see I don’t eat.”

  “Do you mean you wouldn’t eat if you were blind?”

  “Why can’t you just answer simple straightforward questions straightforwardly?”

  Bobinga Iroko laughed, and with his eyes closed, said: “‘I see,’ said the blind lady, sitting at the corner of a round table to place her order for Achu with yellow soup andred bush meat.”

  “And what is bush meat, for the blind and the sighted?”

  “OK, bush meat is meat that hunters bring back from the bush,” said Bobinga Iroko. “That’s as straightforward as I can get,” he added, with a laugh.

  “How popular is hunting around here?”

  “I don’t know about around here, but where I used to come from until I got stuck in the city and its zero sum games someone who comes home with a leopard, a lion, an elephant or even an antelope is hailed and honoured with a red feather by the village chief.”

  Lilly Loveless wondered the extent to which this was still true, although she came short of asking Bobinga Iroko if people really hunt these days even in the villages. Instead, she asked: “Is bushmeating similar to bushfalling?”

  “Have you fallen for a bushfaller?” Bobinga Iroko laughed in his usual jovial and jocular manner.

  “Do you have a good looking, hardworking, long fingered smily, intelligent, bushfaller who laughs like you?”

  “I’ll arrange for a perfect clone,” said Bobinga Iroko. “Bushfalling is like real hunting, which doesn’t take place in your backyard,” he added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you go hunting in your backyard, what you are most likely to catch is a neighbour’s goat or fowl, in which case you are branded a thief and disciplined accordingly.”

  “If I understand you correctly, real bushfalling is that which takes you to a distant bush, and from which you bring back real game,” said Lilly Loveless, taking out her notebook.

  “Correct.”

  The waitress returned with a Mimbo-Wanda for Lilly Loveless, who filled her glass and said “cheers” to Bobinga Iroko. After a gulp, she opened her handbag and showed Bobinga Iroko her new cell phone, followed by a story of how she lost the old one.

  Bobinga Iroko gave her a lecture on cell phones as instruments of exploitation.

  “With the cell phone, men and women are able to schedule and reschedule appointments, and sideline the person they do not want at a particular moment,” he told her.

  “Also, the cell phone makes it easy for people to tell lies. Somebody would tell you, ‘I’m in the house’ when the person is in Mountain Valley having a nice time with your best friend. ‘I’m coming in ten minutes’, when he is actually going away from you. Some would say: ‘Where are you?’, and you could easily reply: ‘Where would you like me to be?’”

  “Let me understand you correctly,” said Lilly Loveless, taking out her notebook. “You mean the cell phone makes it possible for people to want you to be where they want or where they don’t want?”

  “Absolutely,” agreed Bobinga Iroko. “So it is very deceitful, at times. But again, it is also very useful in that, for those who know time management, instead of travelling for kilometres for an appointment or to send a message, you just tell the person that you will not be coming because that saves a lot of time and money. Creative in their use of the cell phone though they are in some ways, Mimbolanders are yet to master the cell phone as an instrument of expediency and purposeful communication.”

  “That’s the same thing the proprietor of the cell phone shop said.”

  “Which means it must be true, right?” Bobinga Iroko laughed, faking mockery. “The cell phone has also proved very useful in rigging elections because the rigging of elections is the favourite pastime of our politicians,” he added.

  “I can well imagine how handy the cell phone could be to a polling official in the service of a government economical with democracy,” agreed Lilly Loveless.

  “And not to forget using the cell phone to eliminate critics, subversives and political opponents,” added Bobinga Iroko.

  “How do they do it? By planting a bomb in your cell phone? Or is it by calling you up and telling you to drop dead or else…?” asked Lilly Loveless, half teasingly.

  “It is no laughing matter,” Bobinga Iroko rebuked without sounding it. “We lost many a prominent son and daughter of this country through cell phone assassinations. Someone calls you up pretending to be interested in something else but actually seeking to identify your location
so that it can be communicated to their squads of hired killers. Before you know it, someone has died mysteriously from a car accident, poisoning, break-in and assault by armed robbers, matters of the heart, etc…”

  “I see,” said Lilly Loveless, after noting down in her notebook. “In your own work as a journalist, how has the cell phone influenced things?”

  “Good question,” said Bobinga Iroko. “There is a very marked difference. Before the advent of the cell phone, we were using just the fixed phone, of which there were not that many. With the coming of the cell phone everything has been revolutionised. You are able to crosscheck information easily. The process of gathering news has been facilitated immensely by the cell phone, which has also enabled us to balance our reports. Initially, you get one side of the story, and even if you can’t get the other side for want of mobility, you know all you need to do is get in touch with somebody who has the number of the person who has the other side of the story and then you crosscheck. So the cell phone has done a lot of good to the media even though it has also done a lot of harm.”

  “In what way has it done harm?”

  “People take liberties with the cell phone. I for one am exploited.”

  “You, Bobinga Iroko, exploited? How?”

  “If an event is happening around here, those from other news agencies in Mimboland, Muzunguland or elsewhere, have the habit of calling me up for information, and I find myself being a correspondent for news organs that have not placed me on any salary or a stringer’s fee, but that are simply taking advantage of our esprit de corps.”

  “I see.”

  “Criminals have also used the cell phone to facilitate crime. I remember last year when I had to travel with a friend during the Ramadan period to Pawa-Town and at some point I said I didn’t want to travel any longer because of the long delay we had at the motor park. Only my friend travelled, and they were robbed by armed robbers somewhere on the highway. The robbers were looking for somebody light in complexion, with sideburns and a twinkle in his eyes, and wearing a black shirt. This could only mean that somehow the people at the motor park had communicated through cell phones or through SMS to these robbers with the identity of this person and with an indication of how much money was on him, so they could pick him up and force him at gunpoint to hand over the money.”

  “Then there is also the issue of the use of anonymous calls when you write a story that is critical of somebody, he or she calls you anonymously to warn or threaten you, so that you have the impression that you are being trailed, and that at any moment something could happen to you. On many occasions I have received calls like that insulting me about a particular report although once in a while I also get calls congratulating me. But the insulting and threatening calls do not leave even the daredevils of our profession indifferent. So the cell phone to the best of my knowledge is a necessary evil.”

  “You are a courageous man with a big heart.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Is it for me to think what you intend?”

  “Difficult as ever, Bobinga Iroko… have you ever considered changing your name to ‘Bobinga Iroko the Difficult’?”

  “What is there to be gained?”

  “A cell phone with a number only one person has besides Bobinga Iroko.”

  “And who might that person be?”

  “Britney taught me about beeping or flashing a while ago, but how come you didn’t reply when I beeped or flashed you to announce my new cell number?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “Normally beepers and flashers are low income people and generally women consider themselves to be low income so they beep even when they have far more than the men,” Bobinga Iroko feigned tongue-in-cheekness. “I don’t tolerate beeping or flashing,” he added. “I only communicate with people whose numbers I have and with whom I have a prior appointment.”

  “That must be terrible for an investigative journalist,” criticised Lilly Loveless.

  “I have an official phone for official business,” Bobinga Iroko defended himself. “And that number is very well known and regularly featured in the front page of The Talking Drum. With that number, I can do anything, but my private number is my private number. I have no patience with the abusive and reckless traffic in personal phone numbers by people who have no business giving out a number that was shared with them in confidence.”

  “I see,” said Lilly Loveless.

  “And with my private number, if I receive a beep, it doesn’t matter who is there, if I don’t know you I will never respond. You know how many people out there are just seeking for notice? So because I didn’t recognise your new number, I couldn’t avail myself to your beeps and flashes.”

  “Message understood,” said Lilly Loveless. “And now that you’ve got my new number, do react when next I flash.”

  “It depends what mood I am in,” replied Bobinga Iroko, a mischievous smile perching playfully on his face.

  13

  ´Hitch a colourful ride through the Garden of Eden with or without Eve’ – was the welcoming sign proudly displayed at the entrance of Lillies of the Valley, a tropical paradise situated a few kilometres outside Puttkamerstown, on the way to Sawang. Amaryllis lilies, pink hibiscus, climbing roses, poinsettias and many other goodies were on the shelves of this most natural of tropical gardens where everything grows and glows with a beauty simply out of this world. Even the birds in their multicoloured multitudes took time to sing their songs and to listen to the songs of others, creating thereby a special kind of music to celebrate the joy of being in tune with the world around them. Initially meant as a modest contribution to the fight against the rape of the rainforest turning an environmental disaster into a catastrophe, Lillies of the Valley had grown to fulfil other desires.

  Lilly Loveless felt herself in heaven. She followed the gardener around his nursery as he pointed out the varieties and shared with her their local names. For once it was Britney who was running late and Lilly Loveless didn’t mind in the slightest. They had agreed to meet here, not for the flowers or the birds, but because of the resting house tucked discreetly away behind a long wall covered by purple bougainvillea. Someone had said it was particularly busy during the day in a discrete sort of way, and Lilly Loveless had felt it would be fun to sit here strategically and work away while at the same time observing all the movement in and out of the place by people dying to rest.

  Hopefully they could get some work done without being distracted by side issues like they would be in places where there were seen often, like at Mountain View or Mountain Valley.

  Britney arrived late. “Oh, there you are, Lilly. Sorry to keep you waiting. I was visiting my aunt in the hospital. She is the one with whom we stayed at Sakersbeach.”

  “What is the matter with her? I hope nothing serious,” Lilly Loveless looked worried.

  “Her husband’s problems with his boss have grown worse, and she can’t take it any longer. The stress is too much for her. Two days ago she just collapsed and was rushed to the hospital,” Britney explained.

  “How sad,” Lilly Loveless said, shaking her head sympathetically. “How is her situation?”

  “She is on drips and the doctor says her situation is stable, but he wants to monitor her for a few days before sending her back home.”

  “Please give her my regards when you visit her again, and do let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Thanks. I will.” said Britney, adding: “Welcome to Lilies of the Valley resting house. Should we go in and get started?”

  The gardener looked at the two curiously.

  Then, before they slipped through his fingers, he said, “If your name na Lily, like dat one talk, you no go weed no lily.” Lilly Loveless didn’t understand much but she was free to read her own meaning into what was said, when he went to cut flowers and returned with two elegant glorisas, one for the one and one for the other. The glorisas were magni
ficent. Lilly Loveless and Britney tucked the stems behind their ears, letting the deep orange hues adorn their coiffures. There’s no better artist than nature itself, thought Lilly Loveless as they disappeared into the bougainvillea.

  The gardener was a little reluctant to let go of what he’d thought was going to be a big sale. At the same time, he was used to people passing by his flora with a mere glance for pleasures in the pains found beyond.

  Judging by the quality of the wrought iron and wooden tables in the foyer and by the paintings on the walls and the grandfather clock that sounded its bell at the top of every hour, Lilly Loveless guessed that Lilies of the Valley served somewhat upscale clients. She and Britney chose a table away from the reception cum bar, toward the back and off to the side, so they could follow movement through the front door by potential resters seeking the quiet time of day. They were expecting things to pick up in an hour or so when people would flood in for their lunchtime quickies and snacks.

  “What can I get for you two?” asked a young woman, putting a plate of groundnuts and another of green olives on the table. She was dressed for the place, in a black V-neck top and a necklace with a love sign that dangled into her cleavage. They ordered their regular drinks and got to work, their eyes actively alert.

  ***

  “Mr and Mrs George had lived in Muzunguland for almost 15 years,” began Britney, in a hushed voice so it wouldn’t carry in the room. “When they finally returned home, Mr George was trapped by the concubine syndrome. They were resident around the Mountain View area and his concubine was around the University Junction. This concubine became a very notorious one, and Mr George spent almost all of his time in her house. At first, when his wife questioned him about the concubine, he refused all allegations. He would drive his car and park at least one hundred metres away from the concubine’s house. After several attacks at home by his spouse, he decided to be parking his car directly in front of the concubine’s house. It was no more a ‘hide and seek’ relationship.