Chapter seven
Papa Adaobi walked leisurely into the bar around 8pm with Chief Pius feeling rather excited for coming to spend some time again. He told him over a bottle of beer and bush meat about the fight yesterday. The Chief was happy because he was now receptive to change and promised to help him secure a good advantage over his wife’s madness, over-weaning pride, thoughtlessness, and crude showiness of power. They had a good beer-drinking spree again, which Papa Adaobi won again effortlessly after emptying twelve bottles. The chief took him home because he could hardly stand up. However, despite the new found happiness he had become more thin and gaunt. He looked so dehydrated and emaciated, like someone who had been sick for years with no remedy in sight for his ailment. His phallus too had swollen so big like a full blown balloon about to burst.
Papa Adaobi just felt onto the bed and slept because he was very weak. When the pain of hunger became so much that night and he couldn’t bear it anymore he screamed: “Help! Help!! Help!!! I’m dying here! Please, Adam help!”
Adaobi who was watching a movie with her brother and Veronica hurried out of bed but Obinna wouldn’t have any of that rubbish. Come on Ada. You care too much. Don’t spoil the good time…he will be fine. Mama, whose job it is to take of him is still in the hospital after their routine fight, please…leave him…He is a man for crying out loud! He can take care of himself!” He aggressively pointed out.
Adaobi gave him an angry look, took a wrapper on the head of the bed, clothed her flamboyant beautiful body and left the room. She hurried to her father’s room only to find him in a pitiable condition. She was so afraid that her blood pressure rose up instantly at an astronomical level. It was like Armageddon had finally come!
“God Almighty!” She uttered, sighing uncontrollably, “Papa, what is the matter? Tell me what happened to you? You are completely filled with trepidation and sweats.’’
“Oh…this is death! I cannot control this hunger any longer. Yeeeh! I’m dying… The pain is getting...too much…please help me” he spoke in spasmodic pains.
“Is food all you need? Is that all…Papa?” Adaobi insisted but her father still fuming with rage and ferocious anger roared like a wounded lion almost in tears “If I don’t set my eyes on food in the next five minutes, be sure I’ll meet my maker!”
‘‘I’ll be back in a minute” she said as she walked away hastily. She was filled with sweating as she searched for food in the entire cupboards in the kitchen and fridge. Thank goodness. She found a loaf of bread and a cup of butter. When Papa Adaobi had his fill, his mood at the moment could be compared to that of a man about to leave the shores of Nigeria to Europe for greener pastures. He nearly slapped his daughter some moments ago when she asked him to chew the bread more gently. After the bizarre response, Adaobi promised herself never to give such a piece of advice to him again. He is done with eating now. “When is that stupid, wayward and promiscuous brother of yours coming back Ada?” He charged. “He is in his room now” She replied and left the room.
He fell onto memory lane as he began to reflect on his past life. The fifteen years he spent in London looked just like yesterday. He was not accustomed to the white man’s way of life. He spoke English through his nose, just like the white man. The only difference was that he was black and that couldn’t be wished away. No matter how hard he tried to ape, mimic or copy the white man, the fact still remained that Papa Adaobi was a complete African man. But wait a minute. His main problem was his romantic wife. He was now forty-eight and his family felt that time was definitely not on his side as he was fast aging.
He had been the serious type since stepping on the white man’s soil. He had a good job in an insurance company in the heart of central London. He earned good money and lived a comfortable life. He was a tall, dark-skinned and handsome man.
All the “solid babes” wanted to marry him at all costs. But he had been careful not to impregnate any of these beautiful ladies because his family back home had warned him severally that he shouldn’t marry any lady in the UK but come home to “hook” a typical country “pumpkin” so that he could enjoy his wealth and live long.
There was immense pressure on him to come home and marry a good indigenous wife. So, all he did since landing in the UK regarding romance was taste the “forbidden apple” of London “babes” and dump them like a plague. It is like eating the banana and throwing the peel away! What more could he do since he wasn’t a Monk living in a Monastery, a celibate or eunuch, he reasoned. He was a strong and virile young man. According to his mother in Nigeria, most ladies in the western world weren’t good enough as housewives and could plot the downfall of a successful man.
Pronto, he was called home that eventful year to marry a village girl that would put a lasting smile on his face, support him, build a happy home and also help the family. They told him, they had seen a very beautiful, homely, dutiful and respectable young country girl that would actualize his dreams and that of the family. They told him a lot about this raw, local, untainted and sexually unmolested young country girl that was as perfect as an angel they’d found for him. Without wasting time, he bought an air ticket and flew back home. On landing at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, his parents were eagerly waiting for him and before the mention of “Tommy” he was driven to his home town, in Imo State.
Preparation was in top gear for the wedding. The lucky young country girl was by name Adamma. She was fair-skinned, really beautiful and enchanting. She wasn’t fluent in English Language and barely literate but she understood the local language of her people-Umuchukwu, which is Igbo language.
Without much ado, the marriage ceremony between Papa Adaobi and Adamma took place amid pomp and pageantry. All the money bags and other influential personalities graced the wedding ceremony. Even many Londoners attended the grand marriage. It was the talk-of–the town in Mgbidi for several months. It was a very expensive wedding which was even relayed on the national television.
He was so happy to have married Adamma. He travelled to London with her two weeks after the wedding and tried as much as possible to make her adjust to the white man’s lifestyle, but she was a slow learner. However, it was a blissful relationship, or so he thought. And he felt he had finally found the perfect woman. His parents must be right in their recommendation!
But after three years, there was no child. She could no longer bear with the medical report that stated categorically that medically they had no reason to be barren. She had reached the limit of her endurance. She became very insulting, unnecessarily saucy and nasty to her darling husband. Nothing ever satisfied her. She would make a series of complaints and turned life into hell for her husband. All the words of pleading of her husband fell on deaf ears. It got to a stage that she reported him to the British polish authorities that he beat and assaulted her on a daily basis. The British police intervened and her husband was arrested instantly. He was warned never to lay a finger on her again. The authorities didn’t know that she was lying and had heinous plans up her sleeve. That night Papa Adaobi was barred from sleeping inside his home for one week and he slept outside in the freezing London cold. On the fifth day, while still sleeping outside, his recommended eye glasses got lost and he was hit by a fast moving motorcycle. He sustained some injuries and was in severe pains for the next few days. A sympathetic white friend lent him some money to get himself another pair of eye glasses.
“What the hell have I gotten myself into, Almighty God?!” He screamed in tears one chilly wintry night. “I’ve definitely chewed more than I can swallow…how am I going to escape from the snares I now find myself?”
The British authorities later served him a warning letter that if his wife should report him again he would forfeit all his properties in the UK and be repatriated back to Nigeria. They warned him that he was living on borrowed time in the UK and that if another accusation should come again, he would definitely regret it. They never knew that her accusations were all false and utterly lies.
Papa Adaobi bore his problems and travails stoically when he was allowed back to his house. He tried as much as possible not to offend his wife. She became the lord of the house and would reel out orders to him at the slightest opportunity. He tried all he could to avoid clashing with her and fanning the embers of discord. No matter how hard he tried to be good, she showed herself as the real devil in his life.
One Sunday morning, she reported to the British authorities that she was beaten by her husband again. She showed them some self-inflicted injuries. He was arrested, but this time around the innocent man was handcuffed out of his house. She instantly filed for a divorce. Papa Adaobi forfeited all his properties and life’s savings to his wife. She became very happy that she had now become a rich woman. He had to leave London for Nigeria unwillingly in a crescendo tears.