I Spent All My Years Waiting For Him

I stare at the young man over the counter and he stares back at me. He is a good looking young man with dark smoky eyes and soft looking black beard. His brows are furrowed in a frown and his glass of wine is suspended between the counter and his mouth.

I look down at my grey dress that does nothing to hide my flabby belly, the little red shoes I thought would make me seem young or at least like a little fun just seem over the top now. Yet the young man’s stare is not one of admiration or lust. I am quite sure he thinks I look like his grandmother’s old aunt.

I chuckle a little in my throat, once upon a time young men just like him came scurrying in my direction the moment I batted my eyes at them. On a night like this, a young man brought me to a bar and made me promise my life over to him. I smile wryly, toast to the air and dump the fiery liquid down my throat.

***

“Go and get the beans from Mama Yusuf” my mother murmured from the corner of our one room apartment.

I shuffled around, close to the door and picked up my one brown scarf. It smelled like the dust and stale palm oil perfume that pervaded our environment. My mother was currently breaking palm nuts with a hard granite stone.

Outside, the early morning breeze ruffled through the leaves of the coconut three opposite our room. In this squat brown house, the only thing that gave us a modicum of privacy was the fact that our doors faced ourselves and not each other.

I wrapped my scarf around my shoulders tightly so the wind would not succeed in combing through me as it had combed my coconut tree. Mama Yusuf’s house was around the corner so I didn’t have far to walk. She had a grinding machine and I would go there in the evenings with my bucket of beans.

Her house was a mansion compared to ours. For one, she and her husband owned the place and although it had taken them ten years to complete the shaky structure, it wasn’t that bad to look at if you ignored the fact that all the windows were straining to kiss the ground.

“Good morning Ma” I greeted her when she reached the back of the house. She was bent over the fireplace, her generous backside poised in the air.

“Eii” she exclaimed. That was her customary greeting. Still bent over the fireplace, she pointed at the brown bucket in the corner and resumed blowing the red embers stacked in a corner of the fireplace.

I spent my evening with my mother in our little stall, cleaning up while she counted the money we had made for the day. My mother whistled as she counted the money and I swayed my hips slowly to the tune. It was an old Yoruba tune, the mother was telling her child to listen to her and follow good advice.

My mother was one of those Yoruba women who married Igbo men and left their homeland to travel the country with their husbands.

“Uhmm” someone cleared his throat. I turned and saw a Mercedes car parked across the street and its owner standing in front of our stall.

“Can I have some of those?” The old man asked, he was around the age my father would have been but his English was impeccable and it made me wonder what kind of rich educated man bought akara by the roadside. My mother’s eyes flashed and I realized I had been staring dumbly at him. With a start, I ran to the packed Akara in the bowl and took it to him.

“How much are these?” He asked

“#500 Sir” I replied

“Ha!” He exclaimed. I had almost began to stutter that we could reduce the price to #400 for him when he said.

“I will give you #1000 Ok?” He handed me the money and took the wraps out of the bowl.

When we got home, my mother dropped her things in the corner, undressed and went to have her bath without speaking a word to me. I was worried and wanted to ask her what the problem was. Yet I was afraid of getting a dirty slap as reward for me efforts so I kept quiet and kept watching her.

She came back from the bathroom outside humming a traditional song about God hearing her cry. At this point, it was obvious to me that my mother was very upset. I suspected that the reason for her behavior was the generosity of the Mercedes man at our stall that evening.

“Mama, what is it?” I finally summoned enough courage to ask when we were both tucked in bed. She did not reply to me, the sound of her humming was punctuated by small cries here and there.

I was paralyzed. I knew she was mourning for my late father. I knew seeing a man be kind to us made her remember her husband and triggered thoughts like “oh if my husband was alive! We wouldn’t be suffering” and “he cannot even be here for his daughter”.

I didn’t know how to tell my mother I was doing just fine. I knew our financial situation and I wasn’t ashamed or aspiring for too much. I had been able to finish my secondary education and that was okay for me. I had suggested to mother that I get a job working as a sales girl in a supermarket but she had refused, saying that I had to stay back to help her in the stall.

The next morning we ate bread with our Akara, courtesy of the money from the Mercedes man. My mother also sent me to the market to buy foodstuff and things for a pepper soup feast.

As I walked towards the small market at the end of the street, a car honked behind me and I quickly jumped out of the way

“Hello dear” I heard from behind me. The car idled to a stop. I looked and saw the same man from yesterday.

“Good evening Sir” I said. Genuflecting so my knees almost touched the hard red earth.

“How are you my dear?” He asked, smiling at me.

“I am fine Sir” I replied.

Then he beckoned me closer. I went closer to his car and leaned so he could say what he wanted to say to my hearing.

“I need you to help me with something” he said.

“What’s that Sir?” I asked

“I need you to let me carry you to your house”. He said.

“In the car?” I asked dumbly.

“Yes” he said.

When I got home I told my Mother my experience and she beamed at me.

“Hei!!!” She clapped when she saw the money he gave me. “Obiageli, it looks like this man wants to marry you o”

” Mama! Don’t say that na” I protested

“Hmm. I’m just saying o. This one he is dropping firewood in my backyard everyday. What do you want me to say?” She asked me.

“Nothing, Ma” I replied.

“Abi you don’t want to marry a rich man?” She asked laughing and taking the tray of beans she was picking outside.

Few minutes later she shouted “Obiagele bring another tray of beans! See this lazy girl o..”

“You say your father died when you were twelve?” Mr Ogbiede asked me.

“Yes sir” I replied. I was sitting in his office.

Yesterday he came to see my mother in our stall and told her I was a bright young girl that he would like to work for him. He owned a shop that sold building materials and he needed an honest sales girl as the previous ones had run away with his money.

My mother assured him I had never stolen anything from her. I wondered if she had forgotten I used to steal Akara balls and hide under my bed sheets for so long that it attracted rats to our room. The memory made me wince.

After she told him stories of how I had returned this amount of money and that amount of money to her instead of buying sweets and biscuits, and how well I did in school, he invited me for an interview in his office.

He tested me in calculations and customer relations, which I was familiar with at that time due to many years spent selling Akara balls. He began to ask me questions like, why I had stopped at secondary school and wasn’t furthering my education. I told him it was because we had no money. He nodded and introduced me to other members of staff.

Osas was a tall thickset young man that opened the gates every morning, sold when the original sales person was taking a break and carried any of the heavier goods around and for customers.

Tolani was a young nursing mother who lived two streets after mine. She asked me if I recognized her and when I said no, she said she used to buy Akara balls from my mother everyday two years ago. It was then that her face registered in my head and I remembered that she was the popular Tola whose situation was a trending discussion in our neighborhood for a while.

She had supposedly gotten pregnant for a rich guy in a bid to tie him down only to discover too late he was nothing but a poser. I smiled and told her I remembered who she was and she went back to work.

After a while I discovered that sales-girl work is boring work. Sitting in place for hours on end was not exciting in the least but I endured. My mother was happy and . with my salary now in the picture, moving out of that dump we lived in was sure.

A car parked in front of the shop and a young man stepped in. He was tall and slim, his hair was the first thing I noticed. Unlike other young men who sported full and sometimes dirty afros, this young man’s hair was cut low on his head. I was behind the shelves taking inventory so I was able to look him over from head to toe.

He was wearing a blue polo shirt, black jeans and high brown boots. He walked up to Tolani who had been bouncing her baby up and down.

“Hello Madam” he said. I stopped what I was doing. The young man had an accent! No wonder his hair was that way. He was one of those Akhate people who came back home to the family sometimes.

When I recovered from my surprise I looked up and the young man was gone, Tolani was bouncing her baby up and down again. I returned to my work.

The next time he came, it was I who stood at the counter. He asked for two 60 Watt light bulbs and an extension. I packed everything and was handing it to him when he raised a finger.

“What’s your name?” He asked. I froze, his action made me fear I had done something wrong. When he saw the fear on my face he covered my hand with his.

“I’m so so sorry” he apologized. I put my hand to my chest and tried to breathe in. Two voices rang in my head. My boss telling me that customer satisfaction will determine if I lost my job or not and my mother telling me I must never lose this job if I wanted us to live better.

“It’s fine” I said “my name is obiageli”

“Great. Are you okay?” He asked. He still looked worried. I mustered up a smile.

“I am fine”

For one month he came to buy this and that from the shop. He told me his name was Joseph but that he wasn’t a dreamer. He always found ways to make me laugh either by telling jokes or posing as the doorman and being obnoxious to customers.

We became so close and when he asked to take me out I agreed. We went to a restaurant and he bought me a plate of jollof rice and chicken with a bottle of coke.

“What are you doing?” He asked when I brought the first spoon of rice close to my mouth. My hands froze in the air, a bubble of annoyance rose in me and I quickly squashed it. Why was he always saying things to shock me?

I watched him as he dipped his own spoon in his plate of rice and offered it to me. I was close mouthed at first but when he pressed the tip of the spoon on my lips I had to open up and let it enter. We spent the entire afternoon feeding each other and laughing about his overseas jokes.

I told him about my dream to be a nurse and why I couldn’t further my education. He told me to believe that things will get better and I should feel free to ask him if I needed anything. He drove me home.

My mother’s moans woke me up that night. She was lying in an awkward position when I got up to examine her.

“Mummy!” I tapped her but she didn’t move. I switched on the room light. The left side of my mother’s face looked funny. She was no longer making any sounds. I pushed her and called her over and over again but she didn’t respond. I rushed to the door, opened it and ran screaming through my compound. The peaceful stillness of the night was broken.

I sent a message to my boss through Tolani. Joseph arrived at the central hospital where the neighbors had taken my mother to that night.

“Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. How are you feeling?” He asked.

“I’m okay. How did you know I was here?” I asked him.

“My father sent me” he said. I was confused.

“Your father?”

“Mr Ogbedie” he said. He saw my face and looked away. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you”

“You’re always sorry” I thought. Outside, I didn’t say anything to him. After a moment of silence he left me and walked up to the doctors office.

My mother came back home after two months of being in the hospital. Joseph footed all the expenses and I was very grateful to him. Yet I was still smarting from the lie or the lack of truthfulness that he exhibited. I had thought we were getting really serious in our relationship. I even began to have feelings for him like the foolish village girl I was.

When I resumed work the next day he came to see me.

“Obiagele, can we talk please?” He begged. Tolani stood behind the shelf, urging me to follow him with her hands. Her face was alight and hopeful. One day we were talking about issues in the neighborhood when she told me about her story.

At the end of it, she advised me to “hold Joseph tight”. Good men with real money don’t come by everyday and I shouldn’t make the same mistake she made. I told her I understood.

When I think of all these conversations now, I could say it is fair to blame all these people for pushing me into the hot pot of woe I finally fell into but I know it is all my fault. A man tells you he loves you and wants to marry you but he needs to go back to the United States for a while.

What do you do? You tell him to go, that you will be right there waiting for him to return. No one told you that a woman is like groundnuts. When it spends too long on fire it becomes burnt and unpalatable. Then in your ignorance you suffer through 25 years of loneliness, without man or child or any warm body to cling to when the night is cold and dark.

What kind of foolish woman does that but me? Believe me, I loved Joseph for the first 10 years, the other 15 years were spent hating myself.

Fulfilling my dreams of becoming a nurse and of making my mother’s life one of comfort and happiness was great but a woman could die from loneliness, you know. I return back to my reality and drain another glass of wine. I make the decision to step down from my bar stool and walk over to the young man. My days of waiting are over.

All images are sourced from unsplash