That incidentally was what led me to trouble. I will explain. There was this compound I usually go to teach for one hour every week day. The pay was by far fantastic (by our standards) at N10,000 a month. My job specification
was to take the three kids of one man through their home works before returning home. I was enjoying it, even though it was hectic.
But the devil was lurking around. In that compound someone called Uncle Richard would always come out to greet me whenever he heard my voice. It was a large compound with at least five families, so much as I knew, that Uncle Richard was not part of the family I worked for, I was aware that he usually comes around from somewhere. But I could not tell where. However, he usually reserved some words of encouragement for me.
“You work so hard madam. How do you cope with this much work that you do?” he would say.
“I cope,” I would reply.
“If this was Europe, I bet you would be loading money at the boot of a car at the end of every month,” he would say.
Sometimes, he would also tell me how my classes and lessons were rubbing off on the pupils I was teaching.
After a while he would vanish without a trace. People in the compound would only say that he had travelled. But where he travelled, me, Becky Odion, would not know.
The next time I saw Uncle Richard was the day I had a brawl with my husband, Basil. It would ordinarily have been a minor quarrel that should be resolved between husband and wife but the pressure of work made me to trash- talk Basil. I told him that he should be grateful that I was working and bringing money home, instead of sulking.
“Okay, you are indirectly telling me that I do not bring money home,” Basil had implied. This incident coincided with when his company had financial problem and had to halt production for eight months. That automatically transferred the entire burden to me.
“Basil, you said that. Becky did not say that,” was my reply. I do not know why this would infuriate him. The next thing I noticed was that Basil pounced on me, hitting me as if we were matched for a boxing contest. I ended up with a swollen right eye and a left eye that was blood shot.
That day I dodged schoo1. I also dodged extra lessons. I cooked up excuses. I had to wait until the next day.
By then, the bruises would have reduced, vanished. But there were still traces of the assault the next day. As I was walking into the compound to teach the three pupils, I encountered Uncle Richard at the front balcony. He noticed and asked me who hit me like that.
“It’s nobody;’ I lied. “I just fell down,”
“Madam, you could not have fallen like that. I know the handiwork of a bad husband when I see it. Why did he hit you like this?” he was like a prophet. He was
like a microscope, looking at the minutest details on my heart. He touched the tear nerves in me, so I burst into tears.
He came handy. He held me and consoled me and wiped my tears. Uncle Richard told me how he had been observing me.
“You are a very hardworking woman. Men, who do not work hard enough just hate their wives working hard. It’s complex”, he explained. It was as if he knew everything.
Before I left that day, he called me for more talk. He told me once more, how I would have been making a hell of cash, if I was in Europe. From the blues, he handed me two notes that looked very strange.
“That’s too hundred Euros,” he said,
“Use it and assist yourself. I wish I could give you more.”
It was tempting. I needed the money.
In fact, I had not touched foreign money in that magnitude before. The most I had seen was CFA at Cotonou. This was remarkably different. I took it. And thanked him.
But when I wanted to leave, he asked for my phone number. I reeled it off for him to store in his sophisticated phone.
He did not stop there. He asked me to pose for a snapshot for him. He said he wanted to store my image against my number. I did not think it was harmful. I smiled and the camera clicked. Uncle Richard smiled and thanked me.
That kickstarted everything. Every now and then, he would send me text messages. He would call me. He would even send me recharge cards to reply his questions. It continued like that. Most of
the affair, I dare say, was consummated via sms.
He told me everything about himself.
He told me how he was divorced and how he would want to marry me. I sent him a text that I was a married woman. He replied that it did not matter.
He got more serious about the marriage talk. He even promised that he would take me to Germany so that I could work. It was then that I knew where he used to travel to. From then on, Uncle Richard started impressing me. He would offload gifts and cash on me as if I was a high school kid.
One day I arrived a little earlier for my lessons at that house. I deliberately did that so that we could talk. I wanted to explain why we could not marry. But while I was trying to explain, he held me and planted a kiss on me. I yielded. It was just a kiss. But I felt a renewed vigour when his hand started running up and down my body. That touch, the masterful stroking brought my nerves alive again.
Yes, I had sex with him. I did not see it as love-making. I did that to see if he could get off my back. But he stuck like bees to nectar. Something that would have been a one-off stuff, continued and deepened and people began to notice.
The next minute Basil got wind of it!
People in outside compound gathered to plead with him. But he said the only thing everyone could do to save him from being a murderer would be to ask me to leave. His cutlass was inside, razor-sharp. His breath was deep and there were traces of frustration.
Anger and hatred had enveloped his once loving eyes.
I knew Basil, the man whom I lost my virginity to when I was a mere thirteen, the man whom
I married when I was just fifteen could do anything. I packed my bags and want to meet Uncle Richard.
He was the architect of the problem, so let him resolve it. Perhaps, he should take me away with him to Germany like he had promised.
He was magnanimous to rent a one-room apartment for me downtown. He said I would be there while he processed the visa and other documents. I was overjoyed and was looking forward to the day, I would step onto an airplane and watch it glide through the frustrated skies of this country and off to Europe.
Uncle Richard kept coming to see me, bringing me gifts and more promises and taking away sex. Hours of unrestricted and broad-based sex.
It’s been 10 months since this happened and I hardly see him these days. He even hardly calls, perhaps the fun of sex is wearing off. That thrill may have been lost. Now I am a loser. I have to return to the easiest source of livelihood-running a cell-centre with my phone. The same device that brought me all the problem.
…To Be Continued
