“You’ll never find a makeshift football pitch this perfect to practice your free kicks,” she said the last time I suggested moving. “It’ll be impossible to find a nice house with open green spaces like this one.”
The house was T-shaped, and partly shaded by the branches of a giant mango tree. From my room, at one end of the T, I could look out and see Agbomma, in the radiance of her solitude, making a dress. Once she made me a blazer with my name and number on it. In my own room, I would sit with my laptop observing the Forex market, while trading with what had been left of my savings. And when I lost the rest of my money, I drew football pitches and team formations on sheets of paper. These were strange past times, but I was in a bind and didn’t know what next to do with my life.
Agbomma and I were together for the first four years of my life. Those years are so blurred I dare not count them among the time we spent talking, laughing, singing, dancing. I could say—as it really seemed—that we had spent only thirteen months together, but that admission would foist upon me, the hopelessness that comes with being judgemental. I often felt like we had been together my whole life. It must be the tough, bright-redness of the bricks that tiled the outer walls, covering it from top to bottom, which gave a sense of a happy long season. I am thinking of the red sand that perpetually carpeted the roads in Uturu when it was rainy, when it was sunny, and worse, in the harmattan, when the sons of the land drove around. There are shades of reddish-brown rust on the roof.
Agbomma’s choice—or preference—of this house, I often attribute to her humble Franciscan upbringing. I used to say that I had been doomed to a Politician’s Palace by a Senator’s wife and that perhaps, I was better suited in a Pauper’s Paradise. Looking round her bier, at the scrunched up faces of austere old neighbours, friends, friends of friends and relatives, I saw how foolish it would have been to have them visit her in a blue-roofed duplex and no mango tree to shield the roof. The huskiness of their Igbo-inflected English made exchanges difficult and unpleasant. It was a voice that startled me the first time I phoned Agbomma. I remember imagining it was a tactic to scare me off, but she was only being herself.
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Beautifully told tale. Love and loss can be difficult companions to court. I could feel her agony and emptiness all through the story.
The voice reminds me of Chika Unigwe’s Night Dancer – this story is simply written yet striking and thrilling. I love the narration and the way the dialogue is fused into it effortlessly such that the reader feels the story, like one feels a powdered face.
This story tells tale of hope and family and most importantly of love – blind, longsuffering, patience and determined.
There is love. It’s here in this story. So short and yet so full.
Very nice piece of writing. This is a writer with a bright future. I look forward to seeing more of her work.
A beautifully told story that touches the heart strings. Love, loss, penance and sacrifice come to life without being smothered by sentimentality, Well done.
Lovely story, Chioma. The voice is pure, the style stays clear of maudlin, which is a feat, given the subject here–and which makes it all the more poignant. I’m left with the sense of having lost something myself, too.
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Well done Chioma.
Beautiful. Loved the narrative style. Loved the attention to detail.
Chioma this is amazing. I love the terseness of the piece. Well done!