Storymania - Fragile by Uche Peter Umez

Fragile (3)
Uche Peter Umez

In the streets
the African child,
the leader of tomorrow,
how he hawks about

I called after the boy. He came towards us, barefooted.
“Is it chilled?” I asked.
“Aunty, it’s chill well, well,” the boy said, bringing down his pail.
I stretched a hand and felt the sachets lying among some chunks of ice. Cold water dribbled through my fingers as I offered a sachet to Ijeoma. I took out a rumpled N5 note and paid the boy. As he walked off, I wondered what his parents were doing at home.
She bit off a tip of the sachet. Some water splashed onto her face.
“Shit!” she spat.
“Ndo, sorry,” I sympathized.
She sucked the remaining water from the sachet. Her face showed a deep frown.
“It has a taste.”
“The State Water Board is still on strike,” I said. “One can’t be sure of the source of water one is drinking nowadays.”
“It tastes bad, sour.”
I said to myself, Life is sour.
“Don’t sound cynical.”
“What?”
“I heard you,” she said.
“Oh,” I said.
Ijeoma threw the sachet away.
“It wasn’t Anne,” she began speaking fast as if to spit everything out of her chest. “Cleo is one kinky fairy of a girl. She is fun, but sleeps with men. We quarrelled several times. Lorraine is sort of a live-in mate, cool-headed. And there is Omphile. She has feisty Italian blood. Lerato – she is as erotic as her name. Lovable Olivia. It could have been any of them.” Ijeoma closed her eyes.
I thought she was brooding over her past.
Without opening her eyes, she went on, “It’s said the virus from an infected partner can seep through tiny bruises in one’s mouth. When one brushes one’s teeth, the gums often get injured a little. I don’t know; so they say. I remember hearing something like that, something about the mucous membrane in one’s lips. I mean, when you engage in cunnilingus.”
My head throbbed as I tried to make sense of all she had been saying. This was quite a shocker. So she was this way in the university? So some of those girls were like her?
I could not even think of any reason for her not being straight. I tried to imagine her with one of those girls in bed. I could only see the blurry shapes of a man straddling a woman in an X-rated movie, Kene and I watched the weekend a storm stripped the night of its serenity. I couldn’t imagine another girl fondling my bare body, her tongue writhing between my legs, licking me up.
As she unclosed her eyes her lips began to tilt wryly, like she could discern my thoughts, like she was about to laugh at me.
“Shades,” the word came out slowly, as though she was trying to make out the title of a book, or recite a poem perhaps. “Shades of days kissed by the sun. Hmm; someone said, life is a mirror. Rather an inapt metaphor. I can only say life’s one goddamned delicate piece. Mine was a mirror quite all right. I didn’t take a look in it. I think my life was beautiful to behold. People always tell me. I see my reflection in their eyes. You think it’s now the mirror of fragments? Shards scattered across the sands of time? Maybe, fragments of memory, you aren’t following? Well, I hope my true friends will still see me as a pleasant memory…” She fixed her eyes on me.
“Or what do you think?” she asked.
I should sound reasonable. Yet, I found myself wandering in a maze, getting more befuddled. Her revelations were hard knocks on my head.
“This AIDS business is a mystery,” I said.
“It is more like a curse on mankind,” she said. “Remember that lousy course on Greek Mythology? The gods play with earthlings like toys. Zeus couldn’t hold his randy dick.”
“You mean the Three Sisters?”
“Fates. Bitches. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of having the last laugh.”
I kept quiet.
She continued after a long pause: “It is not easy to hold fast to something that’s breakable. Trying not to give up, when all round you everything speaks of death. You hear groans that chew your heart. One sees adults crying on their beds. You think of taking your life every so often. Why did I return home? Why did I not stay back? I don’t know. I just don’t know….maybe…” Ijeoma sounded subdued.
I could sense the sadness in her voice. Would she break into tears? Was it not better if she stopped talking?

Ghosts of the past
hovering birds of prey…

She sighed. Her face was ashen, her eyes weak. She lowered her head as one who was drained. I realized I was feeling subdued, too.
Yet, she chattered on: “I’ve hushed up loads of things. Anne alone knows all of them. I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I’m surprised that I told you our most precious secret’s secret. Anne would feel vexed. We’ve been dear friends since our secondary school. It seems strange, my lifestyle, right? Well, all this started one rainy night. We found out that girls cuddled one another whenever the rain pounded on the roofs of our dormitory. Anne and I shared the same bunk bed. When we started shivering like drenched birds, we would just cling to each other; that way we warded off the cold. It started harmlessly. We were two innocents and never thought it was abnormal. In the university, we realized some girls were like us. They made us feel it was a sisterhood kind of fun, feminist stuff. Nothing to be ashamed of, but we had to be very secretive. Anne and I believed we could always drop it when we had had enough of it. Men desired us, pined in their fantasies of us, but then we deprived them the pleasure of taking off our underwear. We gave them kisses on the lips, on the cheeks, but then that was nothing. It was fun to see men burning with lust. It was fun feeling their hard-on. We felt invincible, and extraordinary, and powerful. I’m talking Greek, right? I just have to get all these fucked up secrets off me. I always wondered what knowing you would have been like. You don’t mind me saying that, do you?”
I did not have enough strength to even get offended. I was still befuddled.
“My loving parents could no longer carry the shame. If I’d married an osu (outcast) they would have tolerated me. But telling them my secret (she touched her groin) they would run mad. I placed myself in their shoes. No one could bear the thought of their only daughter dying of AIDS. It was better I kept my lips sealed. I can’t go back to SA now. So, I say to myself, better dead among the dead than at home with the living.”
“Don’t they know you’re…?” I asked.
“That’s sprinkling salt on a sore. It is safer they assume I was promiscuous.”
I rubbed my arms and wished I had worn a sweater. I thought of the blood that was transfused into my body, once again, and prayed it was free of any virus.
“Anne’s been very supportive. She’ll be here tomorrow with her fiancé. You’ll like to see her?”
I said nothing. I did not consider meeting any of her ‘friends’ as interesting as they may be. I didn’t want to encourage her to start having any whim. I should be leaving tomorrow if Kene agreed. I was downright bored with lying in bed and fed up with inhaling odour as stomach-churning as fermented cassava.

Let it go, let it flow,
Like a mighty rolling billow

“They deserve to know, right?”
“Who?”
“My parents, I’ve disappointed them,” her tone was lachrymose. “What’s the point? I’m dying. I shall tell them. I can only hope they’ll still accept me as their daughter.”
The despair in her voice yanked my heart. Although she was trying to appear cool in the face of death, she looked pitiable. Somehow, she struck me as a woman who had accepted her fate; no doubt, like a Christian in the hands of persecutors. Did she know beforehand how she would die?
I wasn’t bothered anymore about the how and why of her life, how she got infected, why she turned lesbian. I did not want to appraise the fatal relationship between the virus and kissing. Or oral sex, either. I could not believe a girl so beautiful and full of promises could die that easily, like a rose blossoming with strikingly crimson petals, blossoming with delicious fragrance, but only to be crushed by an angry gardener.
Stirred, I felt the need to cry. Cry loud and long. I had wronged her unjustly. Those grudges I had carried in my breast all that time. What a mean and miserable girl I was!
It appeared Ijeoma was about to cry instead. She raised a hand, but it fluttered over her face. Then, suddenly, she gave a strained sound, a gasp-like sound. She gasped again, her features tensed, her back was arched. She practically dropped down. She was dying?
I wanted to scream for help, when she sputtered, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
I could hear her breathing as though it were mine. Her breathing was the raucous sound of trees rustling in the harmattan. I began to pat her comfortingly on the back, asking her if she wanted water, if I could fetch the nurse, if I could take her back to her ward.
She sat up and said, “NO, NO, NO”.
I wished I could feel the pulse and content of her thoughts as an amiable silence rose between us. Like a glassy pane shielding one from foul smoke, it was unnecessary breaking it, with speech. We would never go through this rare silence again, I knew.

the song is of silence, harmonious and
a balm to the heart strained too tight

The atmosphere was surreal. The sky was a dusky sea. Stars looked like silver-striped sardines. Crickets had begun chirping. The hospital was getting bare. Most invalids had gone in. A sprinkling of visitors and staff still moved around. Motorcycles horned outside the gates. Voices floated intermittently in the air.
There was an aloof expression on her face. I could see Ijeoma had decided to live with her foibles. She had done away with regrets. She seemed as if she never had any at all. Or was she merely hiding them?
Yet, all the compunction which once troubled her had vanished. Nobody would ever see it. Nobody would make her feel guilty, worthless, or gross. Presently, she did not need pity anymore: she simply wanted ACCEPTANCE.
“I’ve a confession to make,” she said.
My heart skipped a beat. “Not shocking, I hope?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“OK.”
“I always found you attractive.”
I frowned.
“Not what you think,” Ijeoma added. “You were brilliant. I deliberately sat next to you at lectures. I wasn’t brilliant like you. I was smart enough to know that good looks could get one anything. I exploited it. You were cold, always so cold. You looked down on us. We must have seemed like illiterates, right? You were only being proud.”
“O bu asi ! That’s not true!” I said. “I wasn’t the person who won the coveted crown.”
“But you were focused. Annie and I talked about you.”
“I agree. I was only attempting to steal attention by making bright…” I stopped as I heard Kene’s voice.
“Honeycomb, what are you doing out there by yourself?”
Kene hurried towards me. He made me feel like a little kid who had to be protected from strangers whenever he was around.
“Hello honeycomb,” I said in a coo, readying for a hug.
He wrapped me in his arms and then kissed me on the cheek. “You got me so worried.”
“I know.”
Kene released me and squatted in front of me, holding my hands.
“I just spoke with the doctor…”
I placed two fingers on his lips and said, “Meet Ijeoma, my former course-mate.”
Kene glanced up at her; he actually had not noticed her. Now he almost flinched. He straightened up. As he moved towards her, he stuck his hands into his pockets.
“How’re you?”
“Horrible,” she said.
Kene and I shared embarrassed glances.
“You fell for it!” Ijeoma said with a slight laugh. “Don’t mind me, I’m fine.”
Kene and I smiled. He told me to carry on with our girl talk and promised to wait for me in my ward.

The lyre of love unfurls myriad notes
Of fluttering joy and peace!

I watched Kene disappear down a lighted corridor. I could feel some warmth, like a finger, caressing my navel even as a chill gathered in the air, and swarmed all around us; even as mosquitoes buzzed about our legs, pestering us like child beggars.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“You love him?”
“He is my heaven.”
She grinned blankly.
“I used to resent you,” I said.
Her expression darkened, and I wondered whether I had offended her.
“I became so frustrated I prayed something nasty would happen to you. I couldn’t see any reason why you should enjoy all the attention. I felt you didn’t deserve it. I think I was merely being jealous.”
She reached for my hand. Without thinking, I curled my fingers around hers.
“Can you forgive me?”
“Nky, I’m glad we had the opportunity to open up to each other,” she remarked. Then she drew two invisible rings in front of her eyes with her other hand.
“What?”
“I mean, where are your glasses?”
“Don’t remind me -” I sounded vehement. “I chucked them into the bin!”
“But they were cool on you.”
“Those ‘bottles’ made me look like an owl.”
“You now see clearly?”
“I squint.”
“I notice.”
“Is it obvious?”
“Yeah.”

Even as night wove its spell of gloom
The larkspur of dawn blossomed still

We were giggling like two naughty teenagers when the headmistress-looking nurse returned again. She told her patient it was almost 8 p.m. The generator would soon be switched off, because the diesel was rationed.
I remembered the hospital was without lights most of the time. I remembered Labour was on strike, and the government was acting crocodile-skinned to their fair demands: stop deregulation of petroleum products; stop privatisation of the country’s refineries; enhance workers’ salary, etc.
We both had to turn in.
“How do I look?” Ijeoma asked me, somewhat impishly.
I saw in her eyes the high-spirited course-mate I once envied like an abandoned old wife, but whose sincerity and courage I now admired. I now realized that I, too, had craved acceptance in our university days, although I’d refused to admit it.
“You look…” I held my mouth.
“Undesirable?”
“No…em…”
“Frightening? Depressed?”
“No; you look contented,” I said.
“That is cool. That’s what I think,” Ijeoma said.
I dropped my hand. The nurse helped her to stand up.
“Nky, it’s been a pleasant evening, right?”
“Yes, Ijeoma. Yes.”
She held out her hand to me.
I wanted to hug her. Clasp my arms around her. But I acted self-consciously, timidly, in the presence of the nurse who was pricking me with the suspicious eyes of a warden.
“I’m happy we met.”
“I’m happy too,” I said, finally shaking hands with her.
“Take care then.”
“Bye.”
The nurse held her by the wrist. It was like the chariot of death had come to bear her away.
My skin turned pimply as they began to move away. I would not see Ijeoma again. This would be the briefest friendship I’d ever experience.
“Chere!” I sprang off the bench.
They both turned back.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” I asked, hugging myself, trying to fight off the tears that filmed my eyes.
Ijeoma hesitated as if the idea unsettled her.
“I’d love to see you again,” she replied and smiled.
For the first time I saw her teeth. They were no longer sparkling pearl; they were now the whiteness of watery milk. Yet, those teeth belonged to the “mermaid” I used to know.
And yet, she had her smile, her lovely smile.

Born of the mellow womb of moon
her smile melts through the shelled heart

THE END

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