A Shade Of Black (1)

Love is not for me, tufia kwa. I'm not going to fall in love. Not like Uncle Sam and that girl he always called ‘Obim’. Every time she came around she would wrap herself in him and they would whisper whatever into each other’s faces with their legs interlocked and their hands hung over their shoulders while leaning on his car outside. She would wear a very broad smile on her small face. Anytime I remembered her now that was the way I saw her, a big broad pretend smile.
Uncle Sam quarreled with Mama over this girl ‘she has bewitched you’ Mama said when Uncle told her he wanted to marry Ada.
‘Mama, I love this girl so much and she loves me too, it is not a matter of being under a spell or anything of that sort’ Uncle Sam would answer in his educated accent. He chose not to speak Igbo with us after he came back from the University. Whether he did so to prove we were all illiterates or he was just used to speaking English, I didn’t know and didn’t bother to ask when he took me to the city with him. I let him speak English to me. He and that his ‘Obim’.
Mama had dreams and her dreams always came true. One time she dreamt that Papa had gone to De Nnwana’s hut and had eaten kola, he choked and choked till he died. Of course Pa did not believe her because De Nnwana was his bosom kinsman, they had had their initiation together and they had seen each other’s nakedness. Nonetheless, Pa died a month later, he had gone to De Nnwana’s house, they had eaten kola amidst greetings and felicitations and when he came home in the evening he sat in his obi and never got up. Mama wailed at his burial and showered the blame on him. He should have listened. She dreamt of Uncle Sam and his girl. In the dream, as Mama narrated it, Ada pulled Uncle by his big ears, she was strong and no matter how Uncle kicked and struggled in the dirt she held on to the ear. She dragged him all the way into a pool of mud, the mud was sticky like snail slime and Uncle couldn’t get up till he started sinking in. Ada stood by until he was consumed in the dark thick pool. Then Mama would pull her ears and say ‘agwagom gi’.Uncle would sigh and tell her he believed none of it, that all her premonitions was old school, moreover he went to church and he prayed. Love was stronger than whatever revelation she thought she had.
***
Uncle Sam made her move in with us in his apartment at Ogba, Ikeja. I thought it would be bad like Mama said when she found out but it wasn’t. The first few months made me like her. Apparently she was comfortable with a thirteen year old boy lying on top of her; we were alone in the sitting room one evening, she tickled me and I jumped on top of her. Her breasts were big and soft like water balloons, I could feel them under my chest and I remained there basking in the moment. She called me her small husband only when Uncle was not around; when he was she was indifferent to my existence. She let him yell at me for not doing the dishes on time, not sweeping the parlor neatly or not cooking enough food for everybody.
The mud would come. She got anything she wanted out of Uncle’s pocket. I imagined him with an ear to ear grin, standing like a dummy while she ruffled through his pockets picking out bundles of money and flinging them into the air. He never bought anything for me but her? She received all his love. Even in the nights I heard them; her soft moans, his muffled grunts would go on for hours through the night and I imagined those soft breasts bouncing up and down like those of the women in the films I saw in my friend’s place. When the man started thrusting, they would give out those soft moans with their eyes closed and pleasure all over their face and I would wonder how they managed to enjoy themselves even as they seemed to scream in pain. I’m sure it was the same way with Ada and Uncle.
I overheard her, on one of those evenings when I found comfort on those soft water balloons and pretended to have fallen asleep, she received a phone call and she rolled me off her. It was quiet and I heard a male voice.
‘I’m still working on him’ she said ‘I’ll be with you soon. Stop worrying’
The fellow at the end of the line said something that sounded like ‘ok, I love you’ or ‘that’s ok, be careful’ but I didn’t hear it well and she hung up.
Uncle came back later that evening. She kissed him as soon as she opened the door and I retired into the room. If I told him my speculation he’d fall out with me like Mama. I heard them talking in the living room, the night was quiet, the power had been out all day, neighbor’s generator’s revved indistinctly. She reminded him about a business plan she had told him of sometime ago and that she was still interested in doing it, he said he knew and he was gathering the money.
‘Why don’t you just take a loan?’ There was silence for a moment. Surely Uncle Sam wouldn’t be so stupid
‘We’d have our money as soon as the goods come in from Dubai’’ she persuaded’
‘Well, I guess it could work. But I don’t know if they can give me so much loan’ she whined
‘I can supplement it with the much I have in my account’ he added and she started to jubilate.
The moans that night were stronger, her way of showing appreciation.
***
Two weeks later she travelled. Uncle Sam took her to the airport. The mud would come.
***
That same evening he came back from work and tried calling the number she had given him, It didn’t connect and he looked worried. I watched peer over the phone, dialing and dialing again. After a while he would cry out in frustration and finally concluded that she may not have gotten there yet. The next day it was the same thing; he sat in the living room, he didn’t go to work, he dialed and dialed and I heard the operator saying the number was switched off.
Days passed, Uncle didn’t go out. He sat on the living room floor cross-legged and staring at his phone like a juju priest. It had been four days since Ada left, he harbored the hope that the phone would suddenly burst alive with her call but it didn’t. Uncle Sam gradually started to grasp reality.
‘Ada has duped me o!’ he would cry every evening. I never mustered the courage to console him.
‘3 Million Naira. 3 million. All my money, she has carried everything. Everything! I have no dime on me. The bank is going to come for my car next week. Ah! My rent’ he talked himself.
‘She has duped me. Ada has duped me. Didn’t she say she loved me? Didn’t she?’ among his mutterings I found that he didn’t even know her at all. He hadn’t thought about it, it hadn’t crossed his mind to know more about her than that she loved him. Mama had called and he didn’t answer, he was too ashamed to face Mama. Ada had dragged him into the mud and he was sinking.
I would not fall in love for a million cedes. I would not be like Uncle Sam who is now at Mama Tee’s bar searching for happiness at the bottom of several bottles of beer. The bank came today and towed his Toyota Yaris. The landlord had come a week ago and haggled with Uncle for the rent. I shall go back to the village the day after tomorrow to stay with Mama again. I’d listen when she has dreams about me.

Kay Ugwuzor