I Do Not Come to You by Chance - By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page 0,10
assured her that ‘her space’ was still available. Not knowing what else to say, I remained clutching my folder to my chest and smiling like a portrait. It must be true what somebody once remarked, that shy men and ugly women have the hardest time of all in this world.
Eventually, she spoke.
‘Thanks for your concern, eh. See you some other time.’
That was my cue to vamoose. Deflated, I walked away with the sound of hushed giggling bruising my ears. For the first time in my life, I suspected that I was well and truly an idiot.
The next day, I had my face glued to my books when I heard the grating voice of the man with the Coke bottle lenses.
‘Hello,’ he said.
I looked up. Four Feet and Purple Trousers chanted along. Ola returned their greetings. She smiled as soon as our eyes met.
‘How are you?’ she asked, when she was close by.
Then she placed her pile of books on my very same table and sat down beside me. The exact same thing happened again the next day. And the next, and the next, and the next. Soon we arrived at affectionate looks and spontaneous giggles, and all the other little actions that precede the grand knotting of two hearts.
Ola was a Laboratory Technology student whose family also lived in Umuahia. She was two years younger than I, enthusiastic about academia and knew exactly where she was headed in life. Her fingernails and toenails were always clean. Her hair never stank, even when she wore braids for over two weeks. She always wore her make-up light and natural and she still had some hair remaining from her eyebrows.
When I was with Ola, my personality changed. Thoughts and feelings that I had never previously paid attention to suddenly found their way from my cerebrum to my lips. She was the only person who told me that I was hilarious. She did not talk much but she always listened attentively when I spoke. Apart from my family and my books, finally something else occupied my mind. At some point, I even started worrying that I might be tipping on the verge of insanity. The flames of our love continued to burn for the remaining years of my stay in school. She was now in her final year at university, while I had been out of school for two years.
Ola was 100 percent wife material. We had already started making plans for our future. She wanted all her four sisters and an additional six cousins on the bridal train; I wanted three sons and two daughters, preferably the boys first.
As much as I wanted to fulfil my responsibilities as opara and help my family, I also wanted to get a job because of Ola. Marrying an Igbo girl entailed much more than fairy-tale romance and good intentions. The list of items presented to the groom as a prerequisite for the traditional marriage ceremony was enough to make a grown man shudder. And that was even before you considered the gift items for family members, the clothing for the girl and her mother, and the actual feast itself. Several couples had been known to garner all their financial forces together in the process of organising their marriage ceremony. Afterwards, they could sit back in their new home and gradually transmute to skeletons. At least then they would be married and could die penniless - but happy - in each other’s arms.
Still drenched in these thoughts, on the way back home, I did not notice when one of the tambourine-jangling zealots stepped into pace beside me and extended one of his flyers.
‘Good morning, my brother,’ he said in greeting.
The man sounded as if he had slept on a bed of roses, woken from a scrumptious slumber that morning, and placed his foot right onto the ninth cloud.
‘I would like to invite you to fellowship with us on Sunday,’ he continued. ‘It promises to be a marvellous time. Come and be blessed, for there’s nothing impossible with God.’
On any other day, I would have called the man a bumbling buffoon and walked on. But like a well-oiled robot, I automatically stretched out my hand and collected the flyer.
Chikaodinaka and Odinkemmelu stopped chattering and resumed servile postures as soon as I entered the kitchen.
‘Bro. Kingsley, welcome.’
I grunted and walked past.
I paused at the dining table and exchanged ‘good mornings’ with my mother and siblings. Breakfast was over but they were sitting and chatting.