Bimpe's Boyfriend ... 2

The day after Valentine’s (not like Dr Akinjide would have noticed, he wasn’t one to be bothered with festivities) couldn’t have begun more horribly: dark vicissitudinous clouds sealed the skies, accompanied by raging winds threatening poorly installed roofs.

The winds rumbled for about thirty seconds, then unfurled the nastiest of rains, those ones called “àròmójú” in the southwest of Nigeria. Gutters were filled and spilt to the road making Dr Akinjide’s drive to the Yamoussoukro Central Hospital, the least enjoyable task of his day. Not like his day had been anything to go by previously.

Bimpe had woken him up at 1 am, citing some personal discomforts. He listened half-heartedly and before she could finish her story, he was snoring loudly. He had only returned from his night shift around 11 pm and was due back to the ward at 8 am. They needed the money and as such he was running back-to-back shifts and living on coffee and a short fuse.

Bimpe, his slim, delectable heartthrob, whom he’d met on his first day in L’Université de Yamoussoukro, was a beauty to behold: dark, slim, almost Nubian, straight long legs, polished skin, tiny waist, a pert derriere going up to a toned belly, ginormous breasts (by Akinjide’s estimation), an ovate face, ever smiling with double dimples.

Don’t even let Akinjide talk about her hair: lush, thick, made into thin elegant cornrows.

Kamal, Akinjide’s best friend would say then in class:

« Quand she walks in Jaheed, c’est comme si ton cœur are her steps, elle n’a même pas à dire a word. You’re hopeless, she’s like votre Teera Banques. Votre salut. Ah! Merde !! »

On this day, however, Bimpe was 9 months far gone or in Akinjide’s world: 36 weeks pregnant. She was rotund like a football, with swollen feet, swollen cheeks and deep sunken eyes and she felt like a sumo wrestler wearing an undersized short. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her: her panties were wet and it felt like the baby kicked more furiously today. She felt hot and later, cold. “Merde! this sleeping handsome diable, I need you today. Réveilles-tu!”

Bimpe tugged furiously at him and Akinjide woke with a start. His first view was his wife looking alarmed, in tears and hair sprayed all over her face.

“Mon chérie, what’s happened?” he asked pleadingly. Bimpe explained and he spread her legs and made a quick vaginal examination and in a flash his calmness dissolved into alarm.

“She was quinze minutes due for delivery et l’hôpital quarante cinq!”

Two quick thoughts went through Akinjide’s mind:

“Call the Emergency response and request an ambulance”, “No!”, he answered. “They’ll be too late and this child we’ve waited for four years will not wait”

“Have the delivery at home”, “No” he answered again. “I have no equipment per se”

“Well, I’ll just break all the speed limits and wait for my day in court”

He settled for the third option and tried his best to appear calm. He was a bag of nerves and practically quivering inside. He lovingly explained to Bimpe what they have to do, kissed her and whisked her into the backseat.

Deep breath. Now, how to gain 2 minutes out of every 3.

“Keys. Ignition. Vroom, vroom”, his engine sparked to life.

He said to himself with the 02:00 am notification staring at him from his dashboard.

“Tonight, I’ll show myself a man” and he sped off.

****************************

Meeting Femi Adelaja was a masterstroke for Conny, at least she thought so.

Getting into Yevgeny Yuritsev University to study Nursing after arriving in Russia had been very challenging. On arrival, she could only speak some Russian to say her greetings and argue a little bit with Ana and that was it. So that at 21, six years later; four spent on completing what was left of her secondary education and two gruelling years of learning Russian, getting into University was her opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief, at least for the first few months.

She had been incredibly lonely in the first few months of arriving in Russia: foods she ate occasionally were now to become her staple and distant relatives, close. She tried to mingle and court her own friends but with sparse Russian and a pale but slightly darker hue than most of the children, she was to receive her baptism into racism: an ever-present scourge in day-to-day Russia. “Chorni”, “chorn”, “neger”, and “chernyye” became like music to her ears. She blocked it all out of course, unfazed by the lazy satisfaction in the faces of her deriders. It was until she got admitted to Yevgeny that some of them believed that a “chorni” could make the grades.

Well, everything was to change when as she took her luggage up the steps of Agnieska hostel to her room D3, the zip of her box rent and all of its content spilt out and down the steps. As she threw her hands up, furious and in eloquent Russian mixed with pidgin, she saw a languid frame come up the steps three times with her clothes neatly folded and back into the box and delicate things such as her tampons, CDs and the old CD player in a neat plastic pack and then say:

“Prekrasnyy, kuda idut eti veshchi?” « преκрасный κуда идут эти вещи? »

She was dazzled. She’d been carefully taught that angels had Caucasian hues and wore white. So why was she getting a dark one with a black leather jacket and a purple scarf around his neck? Surely God wasn’t up to some clever jokes now, or was he?

Femi interrupted her train of thought, repeating the question with urgency. Embarrassed, blushing and apologetic, she replied “Mne xhal’ komnata D3” « Мне жаль κомната D3” »

He dropped her box carefully in front of her door and said his goodbyes. Konny walked in, tired and lay on her bed. The life of a nursing student would soon begin and momentarily she began sorting out her things. She was tired, yes; even weary but she wouldn’t sleep in a disorganized place. This was a lifestyle now.

They would later run into each other in the hallway as Konny exited her lecture room two weeks later. He had totally forgotten all about her. Helping her meant nothing to him, it was his standard behaviour. He liked to help. She would however not take the help lightly and offered him a drink. They bonded over a mocha latte and such would be their love. She was “the light-skinned chorni in love with a coffee black neger”, such as the local description of their love, if Nina, her best friend’s account was anything to go by.

Love did magic to Konny: she blossomed, felt more confident and sparkled in the bitterly cold climes of Odessa and her grades would certainly feel its impact as Femi, a Dean’s honour’s list second-year Biochemistry student: tall, dark, handsome and well-chiselled with a funny scraping of a moustache underneath his lips and touted to be the next Sergey Kromanchenko (an Odessa native and academic known for his ground-breaking works in nuclear biochemistry), was both her lover and tutor. It was a foregone conclusion that Femi would go on to his Master’s and PhD. Although Nigerian, he spoke fluent Russian with an Odessa accent to boot.

Their love was made in Nigeria, burnished in the academic glaze of Yevgeny Yuritsev and it was slowly seeping its way into folklore in the sleepy town of Yozhony, Odessa. Many wanted it, many wished theirs was like theirs and others just looked forward to the marriage and product of the union. They didn’t reckon with Nneka.

Nneka Igwe, a first-year Biochemistry student from Imo, Nigeria was a beauty and she knew it: tall, dark, graceful as a gazelle, with the perkiest of breasts, milky white teeth and every other thing in the right place and proportion. She made the stars burst with envy whenever she walked like she was Maria Sharapova. She had eyes on Femi, for two reasons: academics and sex.

Although Nneka knew Konny or had seen her with Femi, that didn’t stop her. She had the reputation of being like a bulldog with a bit in between her mouth; nothing could separate her from her desires. So, on this Wednesday after determining Femi’s room in Alexander Igor and with the excuse of needing help with a Biochemistry assignment, she set out wearing a slip-on black fitted blouse with a front zipper which she undid to sit just underneath her cleavage.

Konny approached Femi’s flat and heard persons writhing in pain. Femi lay ensconced in Nneka’s arms, his bottom half vibrating in synchrony with Nneka’s pudenda. Konny knew at that moment, as they unabashedly took each other that her relationship was up in smoke and so she sat helplessly on the floor and sobbed. She didn’t try to get their attention and they didn’t seem to notice the door had opened. Such was their intensity.

A figure passed by, a man, thick with heavy shoulders like a boxer and soft pleading brown eyes, he said his name but she heard only “Joseph”. He asked why she sobbed and made to shelter her hands in his big mitts but he missed as she pointed in the direction of the door beside her. He opened it slightly and this time, the cold air alerted the participants of the presence of an audience. Femi stirred, looked arrogantly at Joseph, then his eyes went to the crumpled figure at his feet; he muttered “Konny”, which caused some reverberations on the bed as Nneka stood up slightly with a mixture of fear, shame and victory in her eyes.

Joseph had seen enough and whisked Konny in his arms: she felt paper soft as he carried her down the stairs in his big bulky arms, her face wetting the crook of his arms. She wished he had kissed her or at least motioned to, in the presence of those filthy bastards, at least let them know she was valuable in someone’s eyes. He was such a gentleman, he won’t even touch her hands in public, grab her butt or kiss her in public, she would later find out.

Arit Joseph took her to the local bistro and regaled her with jokes, he was an Aircrafts Electronics PhD student at Moscow University and he had just completed the first year. He was such a funny one and as she laughed, she felt so much relief wash over her as the night wore on drunk on the local vodka, she lay her head unabashedly on this stranger’s chest hearing its tam-tams and wondering for a minute if she was in love as quickly as she’d fallen out of it.

Femi tried to get Konny’s forgiveness by posting a soppy ad in her faculty’s weekly. The Russian stubbornness in her, wouldn’t let her acknowledge it; moreover, she’d scheduled a second date with Arit. Femi eventually got tired of begging her and moved on with Nneka. Three months into their relationship, excitedly bounding up the steps to see her, he let himself in and found her fast asleep in her bed naked next to Igor Pudtsev, a Professor of Electricals and Electronics Engineering at the university. News of this scandal went around campus quickly, Olga quietly resigned from his position but Femi was left floundering. He had given up Konny and now he couldn’t bear to be next to Nneka. He slinked around the school afterwards and although Konny felt like sheltering him in her arms, she reminded herself that he had enjoyed the serpent’s apple and so deserved his pain.

Two years after Konny and Arit’s engagement, giddy with joy as she was due to be married in six months; Arit ran into Femi at the Dimitrov, a popular cafe on campus. It was a rather awkward meeting: Femi was halfway through his PhD in Plant Biochemistry and his deep green turtleneck sweater drinking a hot cup of mocha latte with vodka because it was awfully cold, while she walked past towards Arit, waiting to drive her to the airport to begin her a new life in Nigeria.

She reached out and hugged him, feeling his bones pressing into her. Femi and Arit exchanged a rather limp handshake and a brief conversation in pidgin:

“My guy, how far?”

“Femo, I dey”

“Which ones na?”

“Nothing o”

“Baba, I just de sample dis mocha before I enter lab again”

“You do well. Me and Konny de evaporate go Naija dis night. Na why I even de hia”

“U no mean am? I for like join you sha. Ah! We go de be … lay …ta…”

Femi couldn’t continue. He broke down in tears. As Konny and Arit walked towards the car, she thought to look back at him but remembered her mother’s wiry voice as she read Genesis 19:26 to her; how Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt:

“Ho жена Лота позади него оглянулась’‚ и она стала соляным столпом.”

And so, they drove off... Tola