BETRAYAL BY BOB EJIKE

BETRAYAL

BY BOB EJIKE

Stanley was sitting near the entrance of the bar, getting himself dangerously drunk. He was a dark, handsome Nigerian young man with athletic build. I had met him three years back at a celebratory party in the luxurious home of some Nigerian who had struck it rich apparently from trading in his retail shop in the city Market, but who was known to be operating a deadly Plan B.   That kind of Nigerian that made the rest of his countrymen look dangerous. I remembered that Stanley had come with a younger, ravishingly beautiful girl whom he had loudly introduced to all as his wife-to-be. He had been exaggeratedly proud of her and was boisterously displaying her like a new luxury car. On this occasion however Stanley was alone and he was not the man he used to be, for he was unusually morose and drinking like a fish.

‘My brother’ I called out to him, sitting down beside him, ‘are you okay?’

‘Not really’ he said poignantly.

‘What might be the problem?’ I inquired.

‘My fiancée’

‘Okay, I remember her, the beautiful wife-to-be, what happened?’

He opened up; probably with the help of the excess alcohol he had downed to drown his woes, and narrated his story. He had found this girl in tatters, dwelling in the ghetto and nearing starvation, but had fallen for her innate beauty and deftly began to resuscitate and groom her, feeding her lavishly, clothing her stylishly and entertaining her extravagantly until her beauty matured, saturated her body and blossomed externally. Eventually she moved into his house and they started planning marriage. Because he loved her so much he bought her many engagement presents including a gold ring, a costly gold chain, a gold-plated pen that he could ill afford and a watch covered with gold that was decidedly beyond his means.

One day Stanley announced to his fiancée that he was strolling out and left the house, but had to rush back after a short while because of a pressing urgency to defecate, so he hurriedly went into the toilet to relieve himself. His fiancée was in the bedroom, unaware of his resumed presence in the house. While Stanley was in the laborious ejection procedure, his fiancée’s cell phone rang and she started talking. As Stanley eavesdropped subconsciously into her telephone conversation he apprehended that he was not the only one eating that delicious pie. Stanley came out of the toilet and unleashed a deluge of questions regarding the dialogue he had just overheard. Her response was what piqued him the most, for she asked him if he expected her to have only one boyfriend when all her acquaintances had a minimum of five lovers. One that bought them shoes, one that provided clothes, one that paid the rent, one that paid for hairdo, and yet another that satisfied them well in bed!

She insisted that she was modest in having just two lovers and expected him not only to understand but to appreciate her magnanimity. Stanley lost control and landed her a resounding slap. She collapsed in a mass. He pummeled her. A sacrilege in Uganda, which was why most of the women did as they pleased, Stanley added, and admitted that he knew that he was risking being picked on by a mob of neighbors, who would come smashing into any house at hearing a feminine shout of distress and set upon the man that had dared to touch the lady, without even bothering to ask the cause of the problem. The code of honor here was that a man would terminate the relationship if he became disenchanted with his partner for any reason, but for no reason lay hand on her. But Stanley was past caring.

Luckily for Stanley no one heard his fiancée’s anguished wailing; in any case nobody came to her rescue so he beat her until his hands ached, then he resorted to using small objects of house furniture, until he was exhausted. She wept bitterly, bruised and battered, bleeding in various parts of her body. Eventually they went to bed as enemies. The next day he went to work and when he came back he discovered that she had packed her things and gone.   He called her on the phone. The line opened and he could hear sounds of ecstatic lovemaking. He instantaneously recognized the orgasmic sound that used to reverberate in his bedroom and his heart pounded with uncontrollable rage and jealousy. It took a long while before the phone was really answered, and when it was, it was by an irritable, coarse, male voice with an Idi Amin accent. ‘Yes, who the hell is it?’

‘Stanley’ he replied boldly.

‘The brute. Look what you did to the poor girl just because she preferred another man. Good enough she didn’t marry an animal like you.’ The other man speculated and demanded. ‘Is she your property? Is it not her life she is living? Is it not her choice she’s making? Is it not her heart and body she is giving? How can you tell a woman not to enjoy her body which belongs to her? Why do you desire so much to control a woman’s mind and body?  Is she your property? A woman is not a product in the market that you can buy with your money or an army on parade that you can command with your orders. A woman is not an object but a human being with her own mind and she must be free to make her choices in life. Marriage is not a do-or-die affair.  If she chooses to be with another man it is for the simple reason that she isn’t satisfied with you and is not in love with you no matter what you are giving her or what you are doing for her. So now what do you want?’

Stanley became even more sober and vengeful because he knew that his victorious rival was speaking the hard truth. A truism that in his mad rage he had refused to consider, instead he blurted out.  ‘That’s why you will die of AIDS. Because of your so called freedom three generations of your people have perished. I don’t want to join them!’

‘So what do you want? You are disturbing us, can’t you hear? We are making love’ the man protested.

‘I want my gold ring, gold chain, gold-plated pen and a gold watch’

‘Anything else?’ The man asked like a restaurant waiter. Stanley was silent, his wealth nullified, his ego deflated, his impact deferred, his heart burning with wrath. ‘I will get them to you tomorrow. Where will I meet you?’ His conquering rival announced victoriously.

Stanley gave him an acceptable meeting venue and he hung up. All these had transpired between the previous day and that evening, before Stanley came to the bar and started dousing himself with alcohol.

BOB EJIKE

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