Married But Available

by B. Nyamnjoh

  Lilly Loveless didn’t ask for an interpretation, which meant she had become quite comfortable with pidgin.

  “While in detention, Agatha visited him and took food to him, this time without incident. The wives were arrogant whenever they met Agatha. They took nothing to him for one simple reason: Agatha helped him spend the money so she should take responsibility to help him out. Agatha did help him out and Edward was released in time to destroy the files that had led to accusations of embezzlement against him.”

  Amazing country with amazing people, Lilly Loveless thought, with reference to all the amazing stories of people doing amazing things. She remembered what Prince Anointed told him, how highly placed officials were used to burning important official documents to destroy evidence of corruption.

  “The affair with Agatha came to a halt.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Agatha left ‘to seek pastures new and embark upon fresh challenges’, which was widely interpreted by those who knew her to mean that she had found an exciting new flying-shirt.”

  Again, Lilly Loveless, curious though she was, wouldn’t ask Britney about Bernard or the children or just what Agatha was after because she knew Britney told all she knew. But Britney saw the question marks in the eyes of Lilly Loveless and smiled saying, “Someone called me a black hole the other day.”

  “Really, why?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “She said all I hear disappears into some unknown place.”

  Both laughed heartily at that observation, but Lilly Loveless, given what she now knew of Britney from talking to Adapepe, thought rather of a broadcasting weaver bird than a black hole.

  Britney spread a cloth on the table and started unpacking their lunch.

  Two fishing boats had come in – ‘Christ is King’ and ‘Jealousy Kills’. Lilly Loveless and Britney ate fried plantains and grilled fish and watched the fishermen and the women who funded the outing, dance the boats up the shore. Putting their weight on the bow would send the back of the boat into the air. They would then turn the boat, with the bow against the sand, so it was parallel to the shore, move to surround the back of the boat and count one-two-three. When they heaved their weight down, the front of the boat rose into the air and they rotated the boat once again and let it rest on the sand, with the bow pointing up the shore. This was repeated four or five more times, and the boat moved up the beach farther from the water each time.

  Lilly Loveless felt lucky to witness this graceful dance that required such cooperation and was a daily routine for people in the fishing community. When she asked Britney about it, she was told, “Such beauty is a detail, considering all other worries.”

  “So,” Lilly Loveless said, “let’s hear some more worries.”

  Britney pressed record on the recorder between them and proceeded with her next story.

  ***

  “Nicholas is a businessman in Sawang and Joe is an electrician living in Sakersbeach. These two gentlemen bachelors have a force that has often brought them to Puttkamerstown and that is the irresistible wild beauty of ‘Nina the Beautiful’, as her friends love to call her.

  “Nina comes from a royal family – which means many wives and tens of children competing for the attention of one man playing the role of husband, father and chief. I cannot really say she is wealthy but with the help of two talented gentlemen like Joe and Nicholas, she survives, and so does her beauty. Nina is not only beautiful, she is gentle, calm, polite, and has a musical voice. Nobody could have imagined she was capable of organising a coup.”

  Britney noticed Lilly Loveless lift her head from her notebook in anticipation. “A coup?” she asked.

  “Be patient,” said Britney, “I’ll get there. Nina had been dating Nicholas steadily,” she continued recounting, “for two good years when her mother decided to enrol her in the best professional hotel management school in Puttkamerstown. That is when she met Joe, an ex-student of the same school. From the beginning, she was never interested in him and never even accepted Joe’s invitation to go out for a drink or to a nightclub or even to go visiting places. Nina has never been strictly for the wallet, although she always considers her potential boyfriend’s occupation before deciding whether or not to take them seriously.

  “As far as Joe was concerned, he had met his ideal woman and nothing was going to turn him away. After all, he imagined that he was handsome and could earn an income, so why should ‘this little princess’ be so uncompromising. It was only when he discovered that he was spending more of his evenings in Puttkamerstown than he did in Sakersbeach that Joe knew he had given his whole heart to Nina.

  “So one evening he invited Nina out and she accepted because she was used to him by then. He poured out all his troubles to her and even cried openly. He asked Nina to advise him on what to do because he had neglected his friends in Sakersbeach since he spent most of his time in Puttkamerstown just to catch a glimpse of her.

  “Nina was confused but told him she already had her fiancé and they were about to get married in a few months. He promised Nina he would play cool and never interfere in her affair with her fiancé.

  “Finally, Nina accepted, for she was interested in a relationship that could lead to marriage, and there was no guarantee that Nicholas could offer that. This lovesick gentleman just might offer where others had failed.

  “The day Nina accepted to go out with Joe, problems started. Nina and Joe had just come out of a snack bar and were strolling along the road preparing to get a taxi when Nicholas came out of a taxi in front of the snack bar they had just left. A lady came out with him and he held her round the waist as they entered the snack bar. They never saw Nina.

  “Nina stood shocked, she could not believe it. As for Joe, he was confused and thought he had hurt her but she denied having been hurt. Nina went home that day totally depressed. Worst of all when she discovered Nicholas had not even come to look for her and he did not until one week later.

  “When Nina went to school the next day, her friend Evelyn chatted fondly with her saying that she knew Nina was ‘fine’ because she saw her boyfriend yesterday buying roasted fish in front of a snack bar, thus she imagined Nina must be inside. Nina just smiled. From this revelation she accepted within her that truly she had seen Nicholas with another girl.

  “She never asked Nicholas why he had behaved like that and who the other girl was, but she was to know of this girl when their school organised an end of year party and she decided to invite Nicholas as well as Joe.

  “Her strategy was that, since she was highly involved with the organising committee, she would not have enough time to be with either of the boys. So she thought neither would understand that she had a special relationship with the other.

  “While she was planning this strategy, Nicholas was also planning how to participate at this occasion with her and with his other girlfriend and love, Martha, a student at a government high school.

  “Sounds complicated,” said Lilly Loveless.

  “Don’t know how they keep it all straight,” added Britney and continued. “Nina had informed Nicholas that she wouldn’t be able to spend a good evening with him because she was a member of the organising committee. Thus Nicholas took this as an opportunity to come along with Martha and his junior brother Charles, who was living in Sawang with him.

  “So on the day of the party, Nicholas, Martha, Charles, Joe and Nina were attending a grand party at the ballroom of Nina’s school. By this time, Joe had totally won Nina’s heart and was thus honoured as a special invitee entitled to a place at the high table. Nicholas was pleased not to be raised to the high table, for this would have disturbed him from enjoying the occasion with Martha who had no idea that Nicholas had another girlfriend in the hall.

  “Trouble started when chewables, cake cutting and introductions had been done with and everyone was drinking and dancing. This is when Nicholas started relegating Martha to his junior brother and going for Nina but his junior brother had already fal
len for another girl in the hall and didn’t want anything to disturb him from proposing to the girl.”

  Lilly Loveless wondered how Britney kept all this straight without a diagram or at least notes.

  “The last straw came when the DJ played a nice slow song and every man who took to the dance floor had his girlfriend with him. Nina having told Joe that her fiancé was present, Joe decided to enjoy the occasion in his own way.

  “Nina went out of the hall and as she entered again, she discovered that Nicholas was with the girl she had seen him with some two weeks ago. So when the second slow was played, Nina went straight for Joe and while they were dancing, Charles went to Florence his newly found love. Nicholas was forced to dance again with Martha who had insisted for so long.

  “The pattern continued just like this and by the end of the occasion Nicholas was drunk and threatening to beat Nina. When Martha came up to him to ask who Nina was, he slapped her and she lost control and fell to the ground. Nina understood that Martha did not know that Nicholas was her boyfriend. So she invited her out of the hall, told her the story and left the party immediately with Joe. That was the end of her relationship with Nicholas, who lost Martha and Nina at the same time as Charles got a new girlfriend and Joe was made to feel secure.”

  “That’s it?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “That’s it,” said Britney.

  “Having made it through all that juggling alive, do you think things will stabilize a bit for Nina and Joe?”

  Britney just smiled because she knew Lilly Loveless knew she would not respond to such hypothetical questions, even if she would allow herself to ask such a question once in a great while.

  ***

  Lilly Loveless and Britney were startled to hear something and turned to see an old woman pulling a plastic chair up to the end of their table.

  “I’m Ruby and this is my place,” she said, “but you girls were so settled and engrossed and seemed to be taking such good care of yourselves that I didn’t want to disturb you, not even to propose you grilled barracuda.”

  Britney and Lilly Loveless took a look at the colourful newcomer to the table. Her wiry white hair was attached at each side of her head with yellow bands. When she smiled, which seemed to be a lot, judging by the patterns of the wrinkles on her face, you could see that her triangular teeth were brown at the bases. Only one was obviously missing. She looked different from the women they had just seen taking the various varieties of fish out of the boats. Black plastic frame glasses with perfectly round lenses rested on her crinkly nose. The flower print fabric of her dress was bright orange, green, yellow, red, white and black. Its wide shoulder straps buttoned in front exposed a bony neck and skinny arms. She wore small multi-coloured beads around her neck and from her ears.

  “You girls sure do a lot of talking about family and relationships and love and such things,” said she, “not to mention a bit of infidelity here and there.”

  Lilly Loveless and Britney looked at each other, realizing they had finally caught up with a pretty good eavesdropper.

  “Well,” continued the woman, “let me add my story to your basket.”

  Lilly Loveless pressed record, just in case.

  ***

  “My husband was a diplomat. We lived in Muzunguland for eight years. We were hot and I know you girls know what I mean. We’d be at the dinner table and he’d make a good joke in front of friends, and I’d say, ‘That’s a good one, dear, you’ll get your dessert tonight,’ and everyone would laugh. Eventually things cooled down on that front as they often do.”

  Britney’s eyes grew big. Lilly Loveless set her pen to work.

  “I took care of our four children and everything else having to do with the home and family matters. This I did so much so that I started feeling like a statue in the house, an African statue, a working African statue, and not the type the Muzungus buy at the market to take back home. My husband treated me like an object, completely out of tune with what was going on inside me.”

  She inspired pity, but her dignity was unaffected.

  “When we moved back here to Mimboland, I decided things had to change. I had the support of my mother and family. I went back to my job at the ministry of things foreign. I started writing books for children. I started travelling. My husband seemed to realize all of a sudden that I wasn’t as dormant as he had always perceived me. I was boiling with energy and on the verge of eruption. He didn’t know what to think or say or do. So he said nothing and did nothing. He just watched.

  “You see Mount Mimbo over there? As you know, she has erupted twice recently, just after the deaths of two prominent village chiefs. I felt like something had died in me and that something else was coming alive like the lava that flowed down and disappeared right into to the sea when she belched.”

  Britney could feel the children’s writer that the lady said she was.

  “He didn’t know how to embrace the new energy within me. He seemed stuck and afraid. I was ready to understand and experience new mysteries of life. I tried to invite him to evolve with me but didn’t know how to reach him. Used to stability, he felt suddenly confronted with danger of the unknown.

  “I wish we had learned to move together, but he hung back, and I had to sojourn alone. Though we are always surrounded by others and embedded in community, we are also in some ways and some times alone on the fishing boat of life.”

  Lilly Loveless loved the analogy, and stole a look at the colourful boats at the shore. The first buyers had vanished, and a new group had come to await the arrival of the next set of boats.

  “They say that the southwest side of the mountain is one of the wettest places in the world. When I think of that, I think of you two girls and everything I’ve heard you talking about. So wet and fertile you don’t know just what will grow there tomorrow. So be careful and go wisely.”

  “What finally happened with your husband?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “He died last year and I opened this small eating place to make myself useful,” she concluded. “And I hope you girls will feel free to come by anytime. I’d like to grill you up some tilapia, Ruby style.”

  Lilly Loveless and Britney gave and got big hugs from Ruby on the way back to the road. Some three hundred metres away, they spotted a lovely elevation by the shore and yielded to the temptation to sit for a little longer and watch the beauty of the comings and goings of the waves, of fishing boats, and of seekers after fish

  “I’ve just remembered another funny story by the tailor,” said Britney, once they were on their own again.

  Lilly Loveless listened.

  “He told me about this couple who had two beautiful daughters, but who have always wanted a son. Two years ago they decided to try one more time for a son. The wife got pregnant and delivered a healthy baby boy. The excited father was the first to rush to the hospital to see his new born son. He was horrified at how ugly the child was. With a face like the skin of the stomach of a goat, the child was the ugliest he had ever seen. He turned to his wife, a worried expression on his face, and said: ‘There’s no way I can be the father of this baby. Look at the two beautiful daughters I fathered! Have you been fooling around behind my back?’ The wife smiled sweetly and replied: ‘Not this time!’”

  “Excellent!” Lilly Loveless exploded in laughter.

  “Now, if I may, do you by any chance have stories of your own to share?”

  “Funny stories?”

  “Similar stories, funny or not…”

  “OK, two quick ones,” said Lilly Loveless, wetting her lips with her tongue.

  “There was this wedding where I come from. The groom was nearly 100 years old and the bride was in her early twenties. The groom looked as if he would not survive the wedding night, because his bride was a healthy, vivacious, determined young woman. The next morning, the bride came down the staircase slowly, step by step, hanging onto the banister for dear life. She finally managed to get to the reception of the hotel. The receptioni
st looked really concerned and said: ‘Whatever happened to you, honey? You look like you’ve been wrestling a crocodile!’ The bride groaned, hung onto the counter and managed to speak, ‘Ohhh God! He told me he’d been saving up for 80 years and I thought he meant his money!!’”

  When she recovered from laughing, Britney said, “We’ve got similar stories here, of men who appear less than what they can do until they are fed the pleasures of younger flesh. We call them ‘slow water runs deep,’ ‘small no bi sick’ or ‘pepper na pepper.’”

  “Ready for the second?”

  “Absolutely, and even for a third.”

  “A judge asked a woman after a man was found dead in her room: ‘Lady, you were the last to see this man, tell us what happened to him.’ She said: ‘He started to roll his eyes. I thought he was coming, but he was gone.’”

  “I should listen to your jokes a lot more,” said Britney. “You take something, you leave something, no?”

  “Good research is give and take,” Lilly Loveless agreed. “And this one is for the road, as we say in Muzunguland. A beautiful Hollywood starlet married a very short ugly man, and when her best friend asked why she had decided to marry a man so obviously short and ugly, she replied: ‘He is tall on his wallet.’”

  “Tall on his wallet indeed,” echoed Britney. “What would the world be without the wallet?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Aren’t you the one who told me of the saying that God feeds the blind snake?”

  “That’s because God has got an infinite wallet, and the blind snake isn’t aware of how abundantly endowed the world around it is,” Britney laughed.

  There was silence, a long silence, before Britney came up with yet another story.

  “Lilly, are you listening? I still have one more story for today.”

  “Of course, Britney, I’m always ready to listen to you,” said Lilly Loveless distractedly, “especially because of the richness of the data you bring me.”