LOVE AND LIES
ELEVEN
Nkiru could hardly sleep all night. She would sniff, toss and turn and the bed would let out a squeal of protest. She was crying but she didn’t want Kola to know. He had not known about her dismiss from work. May be in the morning, when she refused to wake and make breakfast as early as usual. Kola would get it into his thick head that something had gone wrong. Those loans and financial privileges were over. She vowed not to tell him because he hardly paid attention to her feeling. It was about time to teach him a lesson. He would know himself. She believed that would be more painful for him.
The morning woke with the usual whimpers, chatterings and blaring on the roads. The sun seemed to float in the clouds as usual and the fresh breezes seemed to circle and sweep through the sky. Something like a persistent beating of a watermill was tearing through the silence of the morning. The blaring of vehicles had early enough swallowed the peace and quietness of the roads that had been over the night.
Kola got up and wondered why Nkiru was not up yet. He had never woken her as far as he was concerned. She had been devoted to waking early and making breakfast. Kola stared at her as she lay in bed sniffing. Several thoughts crossed his mind. She could be probably tired or exhausted due to the stress at work the previous day or she had been so drawn into her sleep that she had forgotten breakfast and the need to make it to work early. He stared at the clock that was chirping on the wall and hissed.
“Babe aren’t you going to work this morning?” Kola asked. He waited for a few seconds and there was no reply. All he got was sniffing and snorting of breath.
“I have lost my job!” Nkiru said and turned round. A swollen face with bloodshot eyes gave credence to Kola concerning what she said.
“Why? What happened? What did you do?” Kola was confused.
“Nothing” Nkiru said between sniffs and snorts. “The company needed to get few hands off.”
“Really? But your bank has been doing well lately even in the stock market.” Kola sighed, still confused. “Are you sure that’s all to this?”
Nkiru didn’t reply. She tossed and pulled her wrapper before spreading it round over herself. She pretended to snore while Kola examined her. He concluded she was probably joking. He began to laugh. Nkiru turned and gave him a sneer. She hissed, pulling her wrapper again.
” When did you begin to make expensive joke? Hmm? I need my breakfast abeg” Kola concluded as he tried to stifle a laugh.
“Who is making jokes? Didn’t you see the letter on the table since last night?” Nkiru turned and asked, nodding to the direction of the table where she had dropped the letter. Kola hurriedly snatched it. He tucked out the content and read. A fearful glint of anxiety and shock in his eyes.
“This is serious!” Kola grimaced with a wild glow of shock in his eyes. “But why didn’t you tell me this since last night.” A scowl was now visible on his face.
“Do you care to know? Eeh?” Nkiru flew out from the bed like she had been waiting for the right time. “Have you ever paid attention to how I feel? All you care about is yourself alone in this house. Are you even a man? I regretted getting married to a man like you. Yes I have lost the job and it is because I am trying to keep a marriage where the man is just good for nothing and only cares about himself.”
“I don’t understand. You are trying to keep your marriage and how has that got to do with your job?” He waved a hand that suggested he needed more explanation.
“I don’t owe you any explanation, Kola.” Nkiru shouted. There was this wildness in her eyes that told Kola she wasn’t okay. He observed her for a while before he left the house.
It was 11:15pm in the morning and Nkiru was still in bed. Her eyes were heavy with persistent crying and her nose was runny. She was snorting and sniffing for breaths. She was quite confused where to start from. She struggled up after few minutes of crying and decided to summon up the courage again to move on. She heard the door bell ring. She picked her way to the door, dried her face with the wrapper she swung around before she creaked the door open. Chika, their laundry man was staring at her smiling. He could read the sad look on her face. Chika wondered why her madam didn’t go to work. He had often met the clothes in a laundry basket by the staircase outside the house but the clothes were not there. He decided to ring the house.
“Good morning madam” Chika greeted. A smile hovered over his face. He was a young man in his late thirties often carrying a large quantity of beard he hardly shaved. He had bragged to be a rapper and believed he would be popular some days. He would mention Rick Ross as his mentor. Therefore, he had decided to keep his beard like his. But people had often mocked him that he didn’t have the large stomach like Rick Ross. He was lanky and skinny, often wearing a black turtle-necked T-shirt with a multiple-karats chain hanging loosely around his neck. It had often made him look like a tethered dog than a gangster wrapper he wished he was. He had taken up laundry as a route for survival. He invested quite much in music in his twenties and could boast of a few tracks which he played from his phone sometimes at the amazement of people who seemed to look down on him.
“Morning Chika.” Nkiru replied. “How are your wife and baby?”
“They are fine ma.” Chika flashed his ill set of teeth. “E don tey way I don see u ma.”
“It is work.” Nkiru sniffed. She wondered how she would tell him his service was no longer needed.
“The clothes are not outside ma.” Chika asked between smiles.
“Hmmm. I don’t think we will need your service this month Chika.” Nkiru dropped the bomb at last in a soft tone.” I am not busy this month and you know when I don’t have enough I love to do our laundry myself.”
“Ma, I take God beg you. My wife just born. I need money to buy baby things. Na only you I get as client now ma. How will I and my family survive? Please ma.” Chika was on his knees begging. Nkiru sighed and motioned at him to get up. She was just confused.
“You have been a good man Chika. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Nkiru sighed. She was indeed confused. She didn’t know how to explain to Chika she had lost her job and wouldn’t be able to pay him if he continued.
“How much do you need to buy baby things?” Nkiru asked him.
“Na 20k I dey find ma. I plan say if I do your work this month I fit get am.”
Nkiru began to laugh to console him.
“You don’t have any problem Chika. Your family will survive, you hear!” She ran up the staircase and came back with ten thousand naira. She gave it to him.
“Take this and use it to buy the baby things you need! Just be patient with us a bit, you hear. I will call you back. ” Nkiru explained to him. He smiled as he scanned the amount of the money with a wild glow in his eyes. He prostrated half-way in appreciation and left. Nkiru smiled and went back into the house. She got to her bed and threw herself tiredly into it. She began to cry.
“I have often known my job is not meant for my family alone. The income I make isn’t just for me alone. So why did you take my job dear lord? At least you should have preserved my job if not for me but for the other people I have been a blessing to. But I can see you are an indifferent God who just cares about himself.” Nkiru cried. “I am done serving you. You have no conscience or pity. If you do, you should have pitied the new baby I feed if not directly but indirectly. Do you have to make so many people suffer even if I have been a sinner or unfaithful to you?”
Tears flowed freely from her eyes. The bed began to soak as her tears streaked down and filled the bed. She sniffed and coughed. She had believed for many years God hadn’t seen any need to answer her prayers. She wanted a child but it seemed God had turned deaf ears to that. Now it was her job. She cried more.
“What can separate you from my love?” A soft voice asked her. It carried this peace that suddenly gave some rest to her heart. ” What tell me? Marriage? Joblessness? Penury? Starvation? Wickedness of the world? Tell me if any of these, is enough to separate you from my endless love. I promised you I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I am the architect of your life. I have drawn it right from the beginning. It is like a shinning star that shines brighter. So never be discouraged by any of these tribulations and trials because I have overcome the world…..”
It seemed to Nkiru all the church sermons she had listened had begun to replay within her.
Nkiru could hear a voice talking softly in her head. She got up and shuffled to the kitchen feeling a little rejuvenated. There was a force inside of her that would indeed hold her on. She appeared to have discovered it. She had a feeling she would be fine against all odds.
To be continued………..
ยฉEmmanuel Erondu, 2019
