She shouted in excitement and hugged her so tightly. She drew back to observe his looks, he was more muscular than she could remember. She jumped on him again like the child who had missed his dear Mummy. She perceived his cologne more strongly when he hugged him the second time and knew it was foreign. He smelled nice and she imagined how costly it would be.
She took his hand while they walked. Emelda could not contain her happiness as she had missed him for so long a time. And had been longing to set her eyes on him. He kissed her forehead and cuddled her for a moment. When she was sure he had felt her so well and had had that awesome feeling of reconnection, she ushered him in and asked him to make himself comfortable.
“I missed you. I thought about you every time while abroad” Donald said.
“I missed you too,” Emelda looked into his eyes. They were fixed on hers, firm, constant and sensual. She gently looked away and complimented his nice looks and gorgeous apparel. He appeared in a black, Italian suit with a collar neck that Emelda liked.
“How is England?” she asked and threw open her ears to learn. She knew Donald. He didn’t like giving a straightforward answer. He had a predilection for details.
“Oh. England is great. I can now see from two lenses. African lens and European lens” he said, and crossed his legs.
“You can now tell us why Africans are like this and why Europeans are like that? Isn’t it?”
“Yea. I have learned one good thing from English people. But this is not to say they have no flaws. Of course, they do. We all have flaws”
“One thing, like?”
Donald felt some heat and unzipped his suit “Trust me, they know the meaning of contentment. I like to use the word simplicity”
“The kind of lifestyle you can manage,” Emelda said, standing up. She took the suit and its tie from him and began to walk to her closet to keep them. But Donald called her back and told her not to worry, that she could easily drop them on the couch as he would be living any time soon.
Anytime soon? She pretended she didn’t hear that. Someone she had not seen for four years. How could he possibly leave in a hurry? He must be joking.
The fluorescent bulb attracted some flies and Donald could hear the humming over his head. He wasn’t going to mind so far they were not buzzing into his ears or distracting his attention. As little as this was, it was one reason why staying in his home country had not been easy for him.
He could not remember the last time he heard the sound of a mosquito. He could not remember the last time he felt the heat. England, of course, had too much cold but he had learned to live with it. He had numerous sweaters and heavy clothes to save himself. And he could remember how difficult it was in the beginning but was now getting used to it.
“Yes, sweetheart. The kind of life one can manage,” he said, sloping on the couch. “I went to Manchester the other day with my Nigerian friend to a mall. It was the first time I had gone to a mall in the country. We went shopping”
Emelda listened with rapt attention. She was enjoying the moment and wished he had not said he would be living in a jiffy.
“Before the shopping, we saw one man dressed casually outside the entrance door. I thought he was waiting for someone. If you are not very careful, you would mistake him for a beggar. But this man surprised us,” he paused and made up a look “He bought items worth hundreds of pounds right before our eyes. And it was a man that you could have offered to buy food for”
“You can imagine how such a lifestyle saves you from a lot of bullshit,” Emelda said.
“He was waiting for his family who were all dressed moderately. They were treading cautiously, step by step in the direction of the Dad, imitating his simple lifestyle. And after that, they left in one old Toyota model. Rickety car for crying out loud. And they didn’t give a damn”
“I can’t imagine a rich man as you described living that way in this country. If there is any, it is hard to find,” Emelda said.
“It is eating deep into our fabric of humanness. We are more attracted to material life than we are attracted to an extraordinary life,” he said.
“It is all vanity. Vanity upon vanity” Emelda said with a touch of humour “And I am not excluded. Are you? Do you know I have more than seven shoes and as many dresses as you can never think of”?
“Do I talk about women?” Donald chortled. “Women and their taste are like humans and their need for water. The more you drink water, the more you crave it and you wonder when you can ever quench this thirst once and for all”
Emelda laughed and said humans by nature were insatiable, not only women. And they could do anything to keep gratifying their desires which would never be satisfied.
“I have learned not to judge people by their appearance,” Donald said, and suddenly stood up to pick up the T.V’s remote.
Emelda got closer to him and whispered to his ears: no movies. Not today. Today would all be hers. He should be prepared to have fun with her both in the kitchen and in the other room or nothing else. She remembered how they had fun cooking together before he left for England and how she enjoyed his company like no other. It had always been a pleasure to have him, like a soul dwelling in two bodies.
“So, you are done with your studies. Finally?” she added ‘finally’ as if it had lingered more than she could endure.
“Finally,” Donald said, losing his grip on the remote. She had asked for it and he had no option but to give her the undivided attention she so craved. Movies would spoil the fun.
“Tell me about their women. Sure, you got yourself a white girlfriend,” Emelda said. Her tone didn’t seem to be a joke and it didn’t appear to be serious, either. Donald knew how to handle this and smiled: “A white girlfriend when I already have one. The one beside me right now. With a sleek body and beautiful heart. Who else is fit to compete with this woman?”
Emelda touched his six packs and grinned. She played with them while he narrated some events for her.
“Their women can love to a fault,” Donald jabbed his head to demonstrate how madly they could fall in love.
“The way I love you to a fault,” Emelda said, resting her head on his chest.
“And their men can pamper you to some degree of madness. They take good care of their girlfriends and wives”
“Oh. Yes. That sounds nice,” she said.
“Like I have pampered you all through my life,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. She sure maintained eye contact this time and she felt good about it. His eyes communicated some feelings she could not express.
“As if we started dating far back ago or immediately I was born,” Emelda snapped her hands, a gesture of remote past.
“Four years is not four days” Donald held her hands— she had been throwing them up and down in obvious excitement. “And I have been taking good care of you. Am I lying?”
“You’re an inch away from completing your duty and then I’ll call you an accomplished man,” Emelda had her way of introducing marriage in her conversation with him; she had learned to be indirect and slow to hit the nail on the head so that she would not appear desperate.
“I have a story to tell you about their women,” Donald digressed, noticing she had come up with a marriage talk in her subtle way of doing it. And he wasn’t just ready for such talk. His head was flooded with many things that marriage was the last thing that disturbed him.
She had asked him before he left the country to pay her bride price if he truly loved her and would like to spend the rest of his life with her, anxious he would forget her once he meets foreign lasses. He had promised he would be back to walk down the aisle with her but wouldn’t necessarily do it before travelling.
She had insisted and even threatened to walk away from the relationship. But he had remained adamant throughout the whole pressure, refusing to change his mind.
“They love to a fault. Isn’t that what you have said,” she said with a flat tone and slightly livid because he had evaded the marriage talk.
“Sweetheart, can you hear that?” he played a tape for her.
The narration of a twenty-eight-year-old widow who had loved her husband so dearly, who made a tape to publicly defend and absolve him from all blames after his death. Emelda listened but without enthusiasm.
“I am Jessica from Leicester, England. I had been married for five years before my husband gave up the ghost. During those lovely years, I had never felt more loved than I did my entire life. He loved, cared and cherished me. I was the air he breathed. Some days we retired to the hill, observing the poplars, wreathes, and willows. We looked up at the sky and wondered why some stars are aligned in a fascinating manner or why the clouds are shaped the way they were.
Our brains, he had trained me to observe, always light up with ideas.
He was never the egotistic type. Never self-inflating, narcissistic, or self-effacing. He was rather selfless, a philanthropist for that matter, always caring for the next person in the building who had not had enough food or who had not paid his bills even when he was behind his.
He knew he needed people in his circle; he invested in humans and never in material possession. He imagined himself to be like a plant that needs soil, water, and sunlight to thrive. He was humble, so down to earth that he accommodated all kinds of people, influenced those he could, never tried to change anyone”
Emelda took the tape and paused it.
“What is the summary?” she asked. She had only enjoyed the voice of the English woman, ignoring the message. She cherished it and thought of having such a great voice in the media field.
“He died of addiction”
“Of what”
“Substance abuse”
“What is she trying to defend?”
“That anyone can be addicted to something beyond his power of will. That we should pray for the addicted and not jump into silly judgment. That contrary to popular opinion, people who love so dearly, and who are more humane than most people also struggle with some addictions that endanger their life.
That it is false and utterly misleading to judge them and say ‘that if they loved mankind so heartily as they claim, they would have spared themselves from any form of addiction so that they could live long enough to impact lives- and fulfill their purpose”
“The man was living with some kind of indescribable pain. His wife didn’t know him any better or would have saved him from the cold hands of death. Self-destruction. It’s terrible” she said. She was getting back her spark, engaging with a very serious tone.
“And drugs became his comforter while still hiding his sadness from everyone, including his wife,” Donald said.
“The wife is to blame. And I know she loved him, yes; it is obvious she was head over heels in love with him but she was blind. She should have seen through all this. His fake smile and his deep-seated frustration,” she said.
“Eme, do you think it is easy? When we hide our troubles, you can hardly notice”
“Soul to soul. They communicate,” she rubbed his mustache playfully. “Soul communicates. When you are in love, I mean, deeply in love, your partner becomes your second self and you can wake up and tell he was not well wherever he is and he could feel the same for you if there is equal affection”
Donald had not understood where she was headed. Of course, he had never loved to that degree and didn’t comprehend the picture she was painting.
“This programme you told me you hold…um” he put his hand through his hair, thinking.
“Singles, What Next?” Emelda reminded him.
“Exactly”
“The programme has increased your knowledge about all this. Don’t you think so?” Donald said.
“Yes. Research plus experience…and…”
“Shh!” Donald said, while putting his finger on his lips, playfully instructing her to keep quiet. He leaned forward; his hands clasped tightly to her while he suddenly began to recite some lines of a poem.
“I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body”
Emelda was blushing, smiling, and throwing herself to and fro.
“If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me. I will definitely bring you a whole person and you will bring me a whole person too and we will have us twice as much love and everything” he kissed her twice and said “Clasp me close in your warm young arms, while the pale stars shine above, and we’ll live our whole young lives away in the joys of loving love. You are mine and always will be mine”
Emelda caught one popular line that made her day and sweetened her heart; she was lost in the euphoria and attributed the line to Shakespeare. “If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me” No. She just remembered and snapped her hands in disagreement.
It was W.H Auden; Shakespeare didn’t write in that style as far as she could remember. The line dug deeper into her mind, taking up all parts of her brain: “If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me”