Today is the day I will leave, not tomorrow, not the day after but today. It has to be today. Another month is ending and it is time to begin anew. It\u2019s a new dawn \u2013 a rebirth more like. Finally nothing is going to hold me back. I am taking the bold step into the unknown, ready I hope, for the ups and the many downs this journey will bring. You must set Forth at<\/i> Dawn\u2026<\/i> Some day when things are more settled and my raging demons are calmer I will read that book again, maybe even write mine. Yes. <\/p>\n
I woke up early just as day was breaking and got ready. If only Baba has been observant, he would have noticed that it is a new me. I slowly but steadily move all my worldly possessions out of the 4-bedroom town house we share. First it is my books; all my books must come with me. All the books that I have collected along the way must come with me. Books which I keep saying to myself that I will read when the time is right. Books are my great escape. I would be transported alongside the characters as I turn each page, lost in my own world exploring the streets of cities unknown. I have been to Paris, Manila, Tokyo and Dublin \u2013 all through the pages of books. O then my shoes too have to come along. After books my greatest luxuries are shoes. \u2018A lady couldn\u2019t go wrong with a good pair of shoes\u2019 is my mantra. You must always put your best foot forward in a nice pair of shoes. My sunshine yellow shoes with the white polka dots bow which I wear when I am really blue, my black patent sling back with the powdered blue heels and details, my black 6 inches strappy sandal with Swarovski crystals which I wore to Baba\u2019s office Christmas party. I stood tall beside him even if inside I was shrinking away. My shoes are coming too. Clothes, I could leave behind. The first thing they would check is my wardrobe and I can almost hear Funmi in her chirpy voice saying, Oh, she will be back, she left her clothes behind<\/i>. She will go through the wardrobe looking for the black jacquard dress she always wanted me to give to her. I leave it behind for her knowing she will look for it. She can have it. It\u2019s my farewell-so-long gift to her for the many long hours of talking to me endlessly about life in the family house and for enduring my silence, which she could never understand. Funmi I know I will miss. <\/p>\n
Adaku didn\u2019t ask any questions when I bring the first Ghana Must Go<\/i> bag filled with books to her apartment for safekeeping. Soon it becomes four bags, and another two filled with shoes joined. At that moment she knows I am going to leave. Through tears she quietly asks me if I need help. We lie down side by side our bodies not touching on her orange sofa and we cried without a sound for hours while Beautiful Nubia crooned away Irinajo <\/i>from her iPod dock. Anyone who walked in on us would think we were asleep. My friend Adaku knows me better than I know myself. My silence spoke volumes she would say and through the tears she would hold my hands crying silently knowing it was a matter of time, something had to give. This is the time, something is giving and she is going to support me. I make no demands on her, just her quiet support and understanding was all I ask for. She never did question me or ask hypocritically, Are you sure about this?<\/i> Or, Have you prayed about it?<\/i> I knew she has questions but would not ask. She knows time is indeed the best storyteller \u2013 time which I don\u2019t have. She understands the need to keep my plans under wraps. This resurrection morning I didn\u2019t call her. I also knew she would be there waiting in a taxi at the street corner just as we agreed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I met Adaku 10 years ago now. She was the first person I spoke to as I walked into the faculty square as a freshman at the University of Ibadan. I really cannot say what attracted me to her. \u2018It must have been ordained from creation\u2019s morning,\u2019 we would later say. Eledumare must have known that I would need her calmness to cool the fiery spirit that was me when he ensured that our path crossed. We soon became inseparable on campus. We went everywhere together. During the holidays we took turns spending time in each other\u2019s house. I visited Adaku\u2019s family in Aba. Her grandmother referred to me as her long lost daughter who has finally come home. We would sit with her and listen to her talk about the Biafran war and why the young men now went after enterprise instead of schooling. What was the point of their education, Nne mused, when they had no money to defend themselves against the Yoruba and their friends from across the Niger, she would say? My mother, who rarely has good words to say about my many friends, could not find any fault with Adaku. My brother\u2019s marriage to Adaku\u2019s niece was the seal to our relationship; we became not only friends, we became kindred spirits, soul sisters. My mother loves her daughter-in-law and would say proudly at the women\u2019s meeting that her son married a good girl, though she is Igbo.<\/p>\n
Just the other day Betty came to see me. How long would we continue like this she asked. I wondered for a minute about the \u2018we\u2019 she was referring to but I knew it was Betty in her usual style of making her problems a national security issue. I listened as she moaned and whined for the umpteenth time about her relationship woes. I didn\u2019t say a word for many reasons. Betty, unlike Adaku wears her troubles on her sleeves; I am her friend but I would not say the same of her. Betty likes to hear her own voice and she really wasn\u2019t seeking my opinion; besides I was busy plotting my own escape. She noticed I was distracted but because she is Betty she couldn\u2019t be bothered to ask if all was well. Betty was married to Emeka. Emeka sold motor spare parts at Ladipo market. He is the kind you refer to as the King of boys. Emeka was larger than life. They lived in a 6 bedroom duplex with a 4 room servants quarters at the back, a gym and a waiting area separate from the main building where you had to pass through security before you got access to the main building regardless of who you were and how many times you had visited before in nouveau rich Lekki peninsula. Emeka bought the place for N200m for his 40th<\/sup> Birthday three years ago. Emeka always had a retinue of aides and hangers on with him everywhere he went. Even his bedroom was not spared. Emeka was never alone. He spoke loudly for all to hear and the admiration of his court and the indignation of his wife reeling out tales of his escapades during his many trips and how he made his money. He was indeed a marvel to watch. It soon became clear to Betty not long after their one in town wedding that she was another of his assets, she was never to aspire to be a partner, friend or lover. Emeka did as he pleased and no one dared question him least of all a woman whom he fed, clothed and who satisfied his manly urges when the need arose. She should be happy he would say. She took a six-week all-expense paid trip twice a year to Europe and America with her six daughters. She didn\u2019t have to work even though she was a qualified doctor with hopes of specializing in General Surgery when she met Emeka in the Accidental & Emergency ward at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital Idi Araba. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n He was rushed in to the hospital at about 3.40pm on that slow Wednesday morning in June 1999. It was her last rotation in surgery and she was moving to a new posting the next day. She was thankful for the quite day that it had been until Emeka happened to them all. She was busy filling in her notes and completing charts when they heard the multiple voices screaming and wailing in pain and calling out for help. She grabbed her white coat and rushed in the direction of the commotion. Emeka had been shot by armed robbers on his way from the bank. He was due to fly out to China that night to bring in his next shipment of sub standard motor car spare parts and God knows what else; was the story his aide told the doctor. One would think Ike was the victim going by the amount of blood that was on his white shirt and his loud wailing. There were about seven other young men in the waiting room. They all wanted to know if Emeka who they all referred to as Igwe was going to live or die. After 3 hours of surgery Emeka was wheeled into the recovery room and the many aides were banished from coming anywhere near the wards. Ike would refuse to go and wait outside like a woman whose husband was on the brink of death. Betty took pity on him and admired his devotion to his Oga, a character she would grow to despise with all of her strenght. She gave him her number and promised to update him if there was any change to Emeka\u2019s condition. For now she told him reassuringly to wait, that the worst was over, the operation to remove the bullets logged in his ribs was a success. <\/p>\n Emeka made a full recovery, went to China and brought back five containers of spare parts and decided he was going to marry the kind doctor his boys told him saved his life. He bought a brand new car and registered the plate number as Dr Betty 01<\/i>. The car was blood red in colour. After months of constant badgering Dr Betty was pregnant with her first daughter and the Igbo community in Lagos was selling the red George asoebi for the wedding. Betty moved into the house where Emeka and Ike lived. Betty after 10 years plus of marriage is still praying for a male child and the only reminder that she ever went to medical school is her car plate number. It was now Dr Betty 13<\/i> meaning the 13th<\/sup> brand new jeep she would be riding, the color was still blood red.<\/p>\n Betty soon got tired of talking and asked that we go out for a quick bite. I wanted to have a meal at Segilola\u2019s Buka I insisted. It would be my last meal for a long time to come in the city I have come to call home for the past decade. I ate the house special, Ofada rice with offal pepper sauce. I ate slowly savouring every bite while Betty kept talking about how she knew once she had a male child all her troubles with Emeka would be over and she could finally ask him to tell Ike to move out or go and marry. She was now taking some herbal remedy, which he brought from China that was guaranteed to seal the deal. She was already planning the naming ceremony even though she wasn\u2019t even pregnant yet. She had to check with Ike when Emeka would be back from his trip and if he will be in the mood to copulate. Such was the love-hate triangle among Betty, Emeka and Ike.<\/p>\n I will miss this place. I remember the confusion and the noise when I arrived new in town straight from school armed with my diploma and my I\u2019m invincible<\/i> spirit. Nothing was going to stop me I thought till I met Baba and the whole clan. I took in everything in small measures but soon enough I learnt there was not so much substance or depth in most things flamboyant. It was a city bursting at her seams and feeding daily on her young while carrying on as if all w well. I became a part of the statistics, the uncaring ones, those who walk away fast instead of stopping to help, the silent voice cursing loudly yet without a word as you watch man\u2019s cruelty to man; just like in William Golding\u2019s Lord of the Flies, <\/i>life here was short and brutish. Yet in all of the madness there is order, for as many who care to, find a rhythm to the beats of the Bata drums and the many songs of the city wishing you well, as long as you worked hard \u2013 for indeed there is dignity in labour. I will miss this place. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Betty left that afternoon saying to me, you must visit me next week so we can talk about my plans for the naming of Emeka Junior<\/i>. I can\u2019t continue like this<\/i>, she said referring to the constant need to go through Ike even to get a conjugal visit from her husband. I assured her that we will be talking next week to fix a date. If only I knew I won\u2019t be seeing her until another five years. <\/p>\n I make a mad dash for the bathroom, in less than 10 minutes I am dressed and ready to go. Baba asks if I had an early morning appointment. I almost choke while trying to respond to him. I quietly get up, pick up my purple handbag, wore my freedom shoes, said my good bye to everybody in the house, and walked out through the kitchen door that led to the compound. I couldn\u2019t help but wonder about Baba. I love him you know and I know he loves me too but most times love is never enough. I refuse to think about how we met and the dreams we had and how we got to where we are now. What is the point of reopening the wound? It will only fester and cause more pain. I am on a journey of recovery. Someday, I pray, in the very distant future I hope we would sit and talk without the pain or the anger and the desire to hurt each other.<\/p>\n Iya Agba, the wise old woman who lives at the back flat knew I was never going to return. I went in to say goodbye to her like I would on some mornings on my way to work but today is different and she knows it. She holds my hands for a while and whispers, \u201cMay favour find you my daughter.\u201d I looked into her eyes as tears well up in mine. I could only nod saying, wordlessly, Amen with each nod of my head. I stand quietly beside her \u2013 for eternity it seemed. Iya Agba loves me like a daughter she never had. She married Baba\u2019s grandfather at 18 and lived with him till he passed away five years after I was married into the family. Iya Agba never had a child for her husband. Oga Tissa, as he was fondly called by all young and old, was a jolly good fellow. Baba has his looks, every inch like his grandfather \u2013 tall, handsome with a charming smile that would melt your heart but that was where the similarities ended. They can\u2019t be more different than cold and hot or night and day. The older man was such a gentleman who had perfected the art of courting and pleasing a woman. He was the proud husband of five wives but the true love of one, Iya Agba. We all knew the love story of Oga Tissa and his damsel, Iya Agba and how together they courted and married the other wives. Oga Tissa, till he died, shared the same room with Iya Agba. The other wives knew their place in the strange equation and soon realized they were married to Iya Agba and not Oga Tissa. There was really no point trying to usurp Iya Agba\u2019s position. She was in full control of her man and his wives and, in turn, their children. Iya Agba is a very wise woman but since her husband passed she doesn\u2019t say much to anyone anymore.<\/p>\n Oga Tissa would invite me to his parlour to chat over tea in the evenings. We would discuss everything but my relationship with his grandson, which was obviously not going smoothly. He had a sweet tooth and we would eat endless sugar doughnuts and chocolates candy. He would pray for patience from me but then say to me, You only have one life to live<\/i>. On his death bed, Iya Agba kept a vigil, he asked for me to come and read to him from his book of Psalms. Just before he passed he said to me, Omo mi, find the courage you need to act<\/i>. I hate to see you like this. Promise me you will find your voice again.<\/i> Those were Oga Tissa\u2019s last words to me. I cried so hard at his funeral Baba joked that I was crying for chocolates. He says the most thoughtless things most times. I miss Oga Tissa but I know he will be smiling down at me as I walk out of Iya Agba\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n Iya Agba gets up from her seat and held me in a warm embrace. I could see the pain in her eyes. I know today is the day I leave, today not tomorrow. \u201cO dabo Mama,\u201d I said. Goodbye. I walk out of her flat, through the long dark corridor past the well where the children play their games; and out to the street corner where Adaku was waiting in a taxi. Today I left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I left Today is the day I will leave, not tomorrow, not the day after but today. It has to be today. Another month is ending and it is time to begin anew. It\u2019s a new dawn \u2013 a rebirth more like. Finally nothing is going to hold me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1656,"parent":193,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1030","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1620,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1030\/revisions\/1620"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}