I’m determined he is going to say something to me. Why does he think I’m going to waste my time in Abuja?
He does not answer me. A transit bus races past us and disappears into the distance. I clear my throat and ask him if he heard me. He does not answer. I point out that I’m talking to him. He keeps mute. I repeat myself. He won’t answer the question. Instead, he turns up the volume of the radio, perhaps to swallow any sound of my voice that may have been held back in the frosty space between us. I wonder if he is trying to make me feel bad for choosing to embark on this journey, but I don’t care.
After he lost his bank job last year, he talked a lot about farming. He called it the mainstay and future of our economy, as though he had just suddenly discovered it, and said he desired for us to go into a farming business. But that was not what I wanted to do with my life, so being able to get a good job will mean a lot to me. It is why I took my chances by writing Fide Okolo three months ago when he was confirmed a cabinet minister. In the email, I congratulated him and, naturally, asked if he might have any interest in what I could have to offer his office. I signed myself Ruby, his pet name for me back in the day, hoping it would make him respond soon. But he did not acknowledge my email, and I was itching for his reply. Finally, he wrote back, inviting me instead to a birthday party, mentioning nothing about my request in the email.
“That’s my point exactly,” my husband had said when I first told him about the invitation, “At least, he should have said something about it. I tell you, he should have given you an assurance of a job.”
*
When we get to the train station, my husband pulls up along the station and remains in the car until I buy my ticket and return for my bag.
“Nicholas Onyemaechi,” I say. “Say something to me. Talk to me, I’m your wife.”
He mutters “Ije oma, safe journey” without even looking at me. I do not complain. I take my phone from the glove compartment and swing my small travel bag out from the backseat, equipped to stay a day or two in Abuja
Before I married my husband, I could go traveling without thinking about anybody. I didn’t care so much about my movement then. We were still dating at that time. And whenever I asked for his opinion on my next planned destination, he would say,
“It’s your life; I tell you, do your mind.”
So it is my mind I did one week ago when I dialed the telephone number in Fide Okolo’s email to remind him of his invitation, just in case he had forgotten about it, and to let him know I would honor it. A man, who introduced himself as Innocent and Fide Okolo’s housekeeper answered the phone and assured me that Fide Okolo was still expecting me.
When I reach Abuja later in the evening, I call Innocent again to announce my arrival. Then I go to Gemma Cakes, just off the train station, to get the birthday cake I ordered online. In a little while, Fide Okolo’s driver comes to pick me up in a black Prado jeep, and for about fifteen minutes, I enjoy a ministerial ride to Fide Okolo’s house.
*
The house is a splendid white house flying the Nigerian and the ruling party’s flags. When I step out of the jeep onto the gravel-covered compound, a smiling young man with discolored yellow skin appears to receive me.
“Welcome, Ma,” he says. “Let me help you with your bag, Ma.”
He tries to take my bag from me. I enquire if he is the Innocent that answered my calls.
He says yes. I give him the cake instead.
“It’s for the minister,” I say.
At the glass-paneled front door, a beautiful woman I suspect is Fide Okolo’s wife comes to meet me. She is about my age, wearing red lipstick and a bright red gown so skintight that the ridges of her tiny hips swell out. Her long flaxen hair frames her face and spreads out on her shoulders like golden wires. She looks like she has lived in Canada her entire life—very shine-shine light skin and all.
I greet her. She does not answer me. I assume she did not hear me.
Or is it my accent?
“Good evening,” I repeat, a little loudly and cautious about the English. Again, she does not respond. It becomes clear to me that she has ignored my greetings. If she is Fide Okolo’s wife, maybe she thinks I’m one of those girls Fide Okolo could be seeing —if Fide Okolo hasn’t changed his usual ways. I would have continued my relationship with him if he didn’t start to flirt with my friends and the girls in classes below me, always greeting them with a wink, hugging them for too long, and making me jealous.
The woman comes close to me. “Yes?”
She has a strong Igbo accent, far from the sound I have been anticipating. So, with scant regard for my pronunciation, I introduce myself and state why I’m here. Her eyes open wide. There is a conspicuous glow in them that adds to her beauty. She is so beautiful I want to throw my arms around her and squeeze her body to my own, as though to rub off some of the beauty on me. But something holds me back. Maybe it is my sweaty, travel-worn body.
She surveys me from my short black dreadlocks to my proud Aba-made heels.
“I see,” she says and stifles a smile. She stands there like a billboard staring at me, as though waiting for me to do or say something. I’m slightly disturbed. I imagine her asking me what it is again I said is why I have come here. She can even make a scene, as she now looks like a bomb gearing up to explode.
Innocent coughs and beckons to me to follow him inside. I do not ask him about the woman as he leads me into the guest room. I would not have asked him even if I wanted to. My mission here is to see Fide Okolo and not to grip myself with gobs of gossip about some weird woman.
*
The guest room is sparsely furnished; a sofa with two cushions and a big Vitafoam mattress on the tiled floor. A large painting of Fide Okolo’s baby face tacked to the white wall is gazing at me, his smiling lips too enormous for the face.
“Where is the minister?” I ask Innocent as he moves for the door.
“He went out since morning, Ma.”
“Do you know when he is coming back?”
“I have no idea, Ma.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”
After Innocent leaves me alone, I go to the window. I open the curtains to get a better sight. The compound is spacious enough for two more houses to sit on comfortably. Coiled electric wires top the enclosing walls lined with Royal Palm trees; and within the walls, enormous security lights dispel all darkness.
I’m still at the window when my phone starts ringing. I rummage through my bag and find it. It is my husband. I let it ring. I don’t feel like answering the phone. When the call ends, I see seventeen notifications of missed calls, from him alone. I log on to a network to check if he sent me a WhatsApp message.
What’s wrong? he had texted an hour ago.
Why aren’t you picking my calls?
Did you arrive safely?
I type Yeah and send it to him. He sees my text immediately and starts calling me, again. I do not want to speak to him. I’m weary and irritable. He should have just said whatever he wants to say via WhatsApp.
I answer the phone.
“You should have called me the moment you arrived,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Okay.”
He pauses, perhaps realizing I’m not happy with him. I can sense that he feels guilty and wants to apologize, but I want to chasten him even more. So before he can utter anything else, I tell him I’ll hang up now and do.
*
I shower, wear a casual dress, and apply makeup. By my wristwatch, it is 8:05 PM. I think for a second trying to make sense of Fide Okolo’s absence. How is it that he is not here if he knew I was coming? And there is no sign whatsoever that a party has been arranged for the night as the entire house is dead silent. On the sofa is a glossy girlie magazine. I pick it up to pass the time.
After a quarter of an hour, I hear cars honking, followed by a crunch of tires on gravel. It is Fide Okolo, I guess. I go to the window, girlie magazine in hand, and watch as a long line of black Prado jeeps, all screens tinted, eases into the compound. As the Prados nose up to one another through the gate, gleaming like polished scales of fish in the full lights of the compound, I begin to count how many Prados there are. Once in a while, their glaring white lights will drive into my eyes, forcing me to look away. I count up to twenty-three, or maybe twenty-four.
When all the jeeps are in and the gate closed of its own accord, I leave the window to resume viewing my magazine, my anxious ears waiting for Innocent’s knock on the door to inform me that Fide Okolo has come back.
At last, someone raps at my door. I open the door and get transfixed by Fide Okolo’s high-spirited, charismatic presence. He is dressed in bright overflowing agbada. Since he became a minister, I have always seen him, sometimes on TV, sometimes in newspapers, sometimes online, looking so chubby and so different from my recollection of him. Now I figure that even after all these years, not much has changed about his looks—just subtle changes to his face. He looks so young and handsome, more than I have seen on TV or elsewhere.
“Ruby Ruby,” he calls me.
I’m smiling. “Your Excellency, Sir!”
“My pretty Ruby! Look at you, just look at you,” he says, laughing, then throws his arms around me.
We hug, and I feel a slight pressure in my stomach. I think about the last time we hugged—what he smelled like, what it felt like.
“Happy birthday, Fidelis!”
“Thank you, thanks too for the birthday cake,” he says as we withdraw from the embrace. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Oh, I had to make out some time.”
“I’m pleased to see you again—” He comes to a sudden, stumbling halt. “You must have become a professor at Nsukka by now?”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t invited to teach after my master’s degree.”
His cheerful face crumples, as though he might cry. “Don’t even say! What happened?”
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