MY LOVE STORY

If someone had told me that with all the changes and transformations the world has undergone, things as horrifying as this still happen, more so, that it could happen to me, I would have laughed it off.

My name is Queen Adindu; I became a part of the Adindu family by marriage to my once sweet love, Chinonyerem. I will hold myself from giving further information about his background as his name already suggests that he is from eastern Nigeria.

In my university days, I was that slim, dark-complexioned, average height, teenage girl, who had no particular friend. I kept to myself a lot. I had a journal, where I wrote poetry when the gods of creativity smiled at me – that journal served as a companion, my one true friend.... As I walked out of the classroom after a class ended one bright Friday afternoon, someone bumped into me and my companion fell to the ground, he ran along; he did not even stop to say sorry or anything. I made a move to pick up my book only to see a stretched out hand giving it to me. He was my classmate, who, according to him, has been observing me. He moved swiftly to open the book before I could stop him.

Days later, someone joined me as I sat in class brainstorming, he introduced himself as ”Chinonyerem – the one who helped you pick up your journal the other day,” and from that day, we started talking. He was the only person that had come close to me, close enough to request that I write him a poem. Although I got to like him, but that was it, I could not bring myself to write him a thing. We saw a few more times before he finally asked me out, which I declined. Before I gained admission into the university, I resolved that I would not engage in any extra-curricular activity that would interfere with my studies. I made this known to him, but not without an offer that he tries again after we were done with school – if he was still interested in me by then.

Time passed, and my fondness for him grew as we moved from one academic year to another. You will excuse my feelings, because even as I stood my ground about a relationship in school, I got extremely jealous when I saw him with other girls.... On the day we wrote our final degree examination, he walked up to me and asked me again to be his girlfriend… you can imagine my excitement. We went out for another three years before we tied the knot.

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Many years have gone by since then, and we have with four daughters – homely Chinaza who turned 20 last month, quiet Ogechukwu, 18, naïve Chetachi, 16, and ‘hot-headed’ Ugochi, who is 14. From the day my husband realised that his fourth child was also a girl, he hated her so much. I have always thought that the reason why Ugochi is emotionally strong and daring unlike her sisters stems from the unavailability of affection she suffers from her father. In addition, I no longer enjoyed his love.

Though we did not live in separate apartments, I cannot say that my daughters have any relationship with their father other than paternity. They all shared this aversion, especially the last. His hopes on her to be his heir were much. Maybe that was the reason why he hated her more. After my last birth, he seemed distant and so much under pressure. Maybe the stress of not having a male heir was weighing him down, or so I thought. Wait! Was it Nuela, my husband’s sister? Sister Nuela forbade anyone from addressing her as Nkechinyere since she was 25 and beautiful. Fifteen years on, Sister is still single. I heard stories of how men of different calibre came to ask her hand in marriage, but no, she wanted the high and mighty. She cared more about her hair and her nails and her skin than she did about marriage then. Sister shares our apartment with us, not that she pays any of the bills; she has no source of income whatsoever. Well, I do not know about any! Like an African mosquito in dry season, Sister continued singing into my husband’s ears to get a young woman who would bear him a son.

“I choro ka ama gi chie?” She would say in Igbo. No one will carry on your name.

I do not like that woman. Something about her makes me puke each time our paths meet. Maybe she has developed an odour from her prolonged use of cheap bleaching lotions. Yes, that is it… if not, why does she wear deodorant, body spray, and cologne to bed?

It was 8:27PM when my husband returned with a girl. She was about my size and age when I left my parents’ house to join Chinonyerem. Her youthfulness caused me a mixture of anger, pain, and jealousy, and I imagined that she has been enjoying my husband for quite a while. Sonia came in three months pregnant. Chinonyerem could not gather encourage to tell me about it, but I overheard his conversation with Sister when I set the table for dinner. He brought her along to the dining room, and when I served the meal, I hoped that she would decline to eat but no, she did not!

Months rolled by and it seemed sudden when Sonia who was now in her third trimester went into labour. On the day of her labour, we were both alone at home. I battled with the thought of whether to help her out or just let her wallow and writhe in pain. I finally decided. On our way to the hospital, I phoned my husband to inform him about the development, and under 15 minutes, he joined me in the hospital.

You could literally hear my heartbeat when the doctor came out to announce the success of the birth more than six hours later. “It’s a boy” was the last thing I heard before I slumped.

DEEP RIVER WOMAN

Photo Credit: cosmopolitan.com

It was night; a dark night with a pale moon sitting in the sky surrounded by weary stars that gathered like Catholics in a candle light vigil on Easter eve. It was strange to see them so. Stars are often scattered, but this night they seemed to have come together for an alleluia chorus.

Cold air rushed from the west and swept through the river bank and it stung on my skin, biting into the pores of my skin with a mild fury. There, I stood and watched the river from its lonely bank. This is where I meet the woman in my dreams....

I don't know the name of this river, but it was beautiful in the night. Calm and serene, it lay like a blanket beneath the stars; endlessly stretching as far as my eyes could see. There were ripples of weak waves swaying, making the dark blanket quiver and the congregation of stars danced to the music of the waves.

She will come, yes, she will come.  She always comes to my dreams and this night can't be different. I thought as I stood. I clasped my palms against each other and rubbed. They were frozen in the cold and it hurt, but I rubbed anyway. I had to keep them warm, to keep the blood flowing. I tried to sing, so my voice will tell her it was time but my teeth gritted in the cold and drowned my voice.

This was the tenth dream. For a while, I have been dreaming about this woman every day.

The first time we met in my dream was some months ago. I can't remember when with clear precision; but I just know that it has not been up to a year. In that dream, she was a sprinter and practiced for a contest. She had ran for a mile when we met on this river bank. Broken and tired she lay in the sands. She had had a sprain and couldn't move her legs. For reasons I can no longer remember, I was at the river bank.  It was early morning just before the night's dark cloaks became multiple shades of bluish gray. I did not clearly see her face.

"Hello," I said. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm okay, don't worry. I'm fine."

I can't remember the dialogue but I eventually helped her up and massaged her legs.

"There's no shame in asking for help, you know"

"Yes, I know. But you humans have a way of preying on the weak. I didn't want to appear weak."

"You humans? What does that make you?" I asked.

She laughed. "I meant to say you men."

"Oh! I thought as much. True anyway. A beautiful young lady helplessly lying at a river bank by this time of the day"

"You see what I mean?"

"Yes, I do"

She felt at ease and smiled in the darkness.

"Why did you help me?"

"Huh? I guess it's natural to want to help"

"What about those that prey on the weak?"

"Well, it's natural too. I just guess it depends on which part one comes from. I just don't know. There is good and evil. It depends."

"So you are good?" She asks.

"I don't know. I just did what I felt was right."

I perceived the smell of smoke; something was burning. I looked around but there was no fire.

"So, what's your name?" She asked as if to distract me from the smell.

"Ekene. My name is Ekene. You?"

As she was about to say something, I felt a jerk. Someone gave my left leg a ferocious pull. The dream was gone. My sister had woken me up.

"Bia, Nwokem! Do you want to burn the house? How come you put the soup on fire and slept off?"

Oh! That was the smell. I looked at the time and it was midnight. That whole night, I slept with one eye open. I could not shut my mind against that woman. I thought about her as if she was real.

The second time we met was some weeks after the first. It was still in my dreams and we strolled through the bank before I was jerked up to go and discard the dirt. I remember our laughter in the night. The echoes of our voices as we sang some folklores from her home. I grudgingly went out to discard the waste. It was 9PM and how could I have been dreaming so early?

For months, I did not meet her in my dreams, but I dreamt of other things – women, lions, sharks, cars, jets, wars, movies, fire, apocalypse, bomb blasts... There were nights when I dreamt of mountains falling into the oceans and woke up sweating.  I dreamt of everything but the river, the bank and her.

Last week, she came for the third time. I found myself beneath a capsizing boat. The quiet river reverberated with kicks of struggle from my dying legs. I had taken a few gulps of water, drinking myself to the bottom of the river. She came in swift strokes prowling like a shark in the deep. Then, she grabbed me from behind and pulled. Her strength stunned me and I turned in my sleep. There are dreams that act like movies; you watch them and you react in your sleep. Such dreams have a way of telling you, "this is a dream, you are asleep"

She locked her hand under my armpit and pulled me.

"I've paid you back man," she said.

"You came?" I asked.

"Yes I did," she answered.

She was still bent over me and drops of water fell from hair.

And since that third dream, we have met every night. She always comes before me to wait on the river bank or pass the time swimming. When I come before her, I sit on the sand and sing. She believes my voice is a spell and calls me the enchanter.

Now, I stood waiting for her but could not find her. Dreams don't last the whole night and it hurt me that our often short moments of wild encounter was being cut in half. I wondered what kept her. She had not told me about herself; she is just a woman that lives somewhere in or around the river and I'm just a man that comes around the river. We only meet at the bank. Then I remembered that the few times I came before her, she came swimming out of the river. I thought of jumping into the river.

After the night I almost drowned, I swore never to get into the river again. Fear washed over me, cascading over me in complete effusion. But I wanted her and could not wait anymore, so I waddled into the river and took a dive.

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Warm! Warm! The river was warm. I savoured the blissfulness, swimming in the calm serenity of her world. I took more strokes that led me farther away from the river bank and I kept moving without really knowing where and how to find her.

I had swam so far away that I could no longer see the land when I saw her patiently afloat in the middle of nowhere. Around her, the serene river formed a carousel of ripples like a halo on the head of a saint. Her hands caressed the river with gentle strokes that kept her afloat. She smiled.

"I've made you work," She said.                                  

I should have been angry. I should have thrown tantrums, but I had no glass cup to cast and there certainly was no wall upon which to break the glass cup. I rather had a sense of deep fulfilment that broke into happiness.

"There you are madam," I said as a way to tell her that her attitude that night was bossy.

"See what it takes me to get to you sir; see how far I swim to be with you"

“Wow! But I'm no fish like you"

She broke into laughter and sent splashes of water against my face with one monstrous strike.

"Is this just a dream woman? I still don't know your name"

"My name is whatever you want to call me and yes, this is still a dream. Your dream"

"How long have I been asleep?"

"I don't know. But I know that split seconds can give you an eternity of dreams. You may have been

asleep for a second"

"I waited for over an hour in the cold. It will soon be morning and I've missed you"

"Oga missi missi; come with me."

She took a very deep breath and dived. She has a habit of taking you by surprise and I've developed a tolerance for sudden jerks and surprises. I rushed my breath and went after her.  In the few moments that followed, we explored the river from beneath.

"It's all in your head. This dream is yours and you can do with it as you wish. If I'm in it, then I'm yours. Take me. Let's create our own world. Say what you want to see, we can decide that this river is now an ocean or a land. Let's create an island on it so you won't have to go back. Stay with me."

"But I'll have to wake up and when I do, all these will be gone. Reality is what it is and this dream is not real."

She felt a stab of pain pierce through her ears as I uttered the words "not real". Her eyes glittered under the moonlight and flashed like that of a cat. It scared me for a second, but I knew this woman could not hurt me. Slowly she allowed the current to move her slightly away from me. All this while, she looked at me with disappointment in her eyes.

"You know nothing, Ekene. Your mind is blank. You don't know how far we can go. Dreams are real as real can be. What you call reality is a series of limitations that you humans create with your imperfections to chain yourselves."

"But someone will just wake me up and that will be it. The dream is gone. That's what I mean." I protest.

"But you love me. You race to sleep to find me in your dreams and you worry and pray the tides don't carry me away. You think of me as though I'm part of you and can do for me all in your power. You swam all the way to the centre of nowhere not minding if I could ruin you. What if I strangled you? But you just believed I won't. Is that real?" She insists

She knows more than I do. She has seen more than I have. She has lived for thousands of years and now, she has found me to love. That was scary. I held her hands and she grabbed me to hug me. There we were in the middle of that nameless river. Two warm bodies wrapped around each other, surrounded by a blanket of shimmering waters. I saw the moon sitting on the sky and quietly, I opened my eyes. It was morning.

What if I could make my dreams my new reality? What if we could build an island on that river? She could be right.