The torture was in a slow movement. Tamilore tried to contain the wave of dread in her shaking legs, as she handed over the white scroll card with two heartstrings at the center. The kitted security guard whose chest looked as if it could repel bullets took the rolled card without opening it. Guests in gorgeous outfits and delicate fragrances milling about. Standing at the archway design of transparent white curtain with green leaves taping the edges down to the floor, the two guards checked the guests’ invite before stepping aside to allow them in. The towering guard said to her. “Step this way please?”
He held up the invite. “How did you secure this?”
She tried to muster an appropriate deceitful posture. “I’m one of the bride’s friends.”
“Miss,” the tall security bent to her height, “we both know this invite was doctored. Don’t make a fool of yourself.” He rose to his full length and brought out his baton.
Tamilore turned back in embarrassment.
“Where are you going?” Gbonju tapped her shoulder from behind.
Tamilore shook off the growing confusion clouding her mind. “He said the invite is not genuine.”
The ground seemed to be moving rapidly beneath her as she bobbled after Gbonju who was dragging her along.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Gbonju pushed aside the older woman just handling her invite to the security guard. “Are you the one who said my sister’s invite is fake? How dare you say the bride’s father’s niece’s invite is fake?”
Gbonju pushed through the guards with the physically shrunken Tamilore behind her as they rapidly ascended the steps. As the venue came in her view, Tamilore gawked, despite the embarrassment she’d just experienced. The spectacle of the beauty before her was gripping.
White Arabian tents with gold top cones stood in magnificence around the large rectangular swimming pool as Flavour’s Nnekata blasted from speakers. Gbonju danced slowly towards an empty table at the center of the nearest tent as if nothing had happened. Two middle-aged men in red caps with feathers in them were seated at the adjacent table.
Tamilore turned her attention to the towering three glass vases with flat bottoms on the flowery silk table cover. She wondered if her dreams would ever come true.
***
“Why don’t you sell it and use the proceed to further your education?” Her relative had said to her about three months ago.
The eighteen-year-old from the village was shell-shocked. She re-adjusted her wrapper firmly across her chest. “I can’t. I’ll work,” Tamilore said.
“How do you think you can combine working and schooling? Or do you want to go back home?” Gbonju asked.
The mention of home brought painful memories. She had come in from school one day to meet the creditor who had come to ask for the refund of the money he had lent her father the previous year. The same year he had died from a heart attack while working on his farm. With a glint in his eyes, the creditor had suggested that he would cancel the debt in exchange for her hand in marriage. She had screamed and ran inside the house.
“I don’t want to marry now. I want to become a teacher.” She had cried to her mother that night. The next day, her mother travelled with her to the city, to her distant cousin who worked at the government office. She knew her daughter’s desire to be educated would be achieved in the city.
The sound of Gbonju’s voice brought her back to the present. “You know how many public schools have told us to make some payments despite the announcement by the government that education is free?”
***
Tamilore sat ramrod stiff in the passenger seat.
He asked, keeping his hawk gaze on the road ahead. “What would you like to study when you finish secondary school?”
“I-I don’t know y-yet.” She stammered.
He slowed down at the automated gate illuminated by outdoor LED lights. The security guard finished going around the tinted Jaguar XF with the under-car inspection mirror. The metal gate slid open.
“I’ll take care of you and you won’t have to bother about money again.” He said switching off the ignition and turning to her. Elevated lesions covered the entire right side of his face. Sliding his body to her side, he depressed her seat and for a heavy man, he was quite quick.
***
“I don’t know why you are still crying,” Gbonju said.
It was the next day and Tamilore was still coiled up in bed. “I … feel… dirty.” She croaked.
“Why should you? Because it was in the car? Gbonju scoffed. “Does it matter where your first time was? Don’t you know that five thousand is a lot of money for that exchange?
A loud howl. The violent jerking of legs. Then the vicious hair pulling. Tamilore’s eyes were puffy red as she clenched the bed-cover over her body.
“Don’t kill yourself on something that’s not a big deal. Look at that pile of foreign currency. Soon you would complete your secondary and university education. You are using what’s yours to obtain what you need.”
***
“Please pause your reading. I want you at a wedding reception tomorrow.” Gbonju laid a white cardboard on the table, sweeping her books aside.
Tamilore stumped her feet several times, “Our first term examination starts in two weeks. I’m preparing.”
“Two weeks is still a very long time away. Besides, this is more important at the moment.”
With religious concentration, Gbonju cut and pruned the cardboard into shape. With a fountain pen, she wrote carefully inside the card as she looked at a picture on her phone intermittently. She smiled at the end product of the scroll-rolled card with strings.
“I’ll be leaving the house very early tomorrow for the wrapping of the souvenirs. All office assistances in our secretariat have to meet to perform that task. We’ll be distributing the gifts at the reception; my entry would be automatic. You’ll use this invite to access the reception venue.”
Ignoring her statement, Tamilore said with a belligerent tone. “I’ll need to pay for my physics lesson on Monday.”
“Then make sure you catch a rich guy tomorrow.”
Her forehead squeezed. “I want to pay for it from my money in your account.”
“What money? Don’t tell me you talking about those foreign notes I changed to naira months ago? Haven’t you been eating in this house? How do you think I pay for the roof over your head? I warned you about your decision to not see Otunba again but you said you’ll manage the money you got. You thought the dollars will last forever.”
With slumped shoulders, her voice tensed, “you have been taking from my money?”
“Just come dressed-up tomorrow and let’s hope you’ll catch the eye of a rich guy. I… Uhm… you need money to continue your education.”
***
The MC announced from the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, please bang your cutleries on your plate as we call on the father of the bride.”
The short man cleared his throat. “My heart is filled with gratitude, and my wife and I thank you for honouring us with the joy of your presence. Our daughter makes us proud and we always salute her hard work and resilience. In the gladness of our hearts, we’re gifting her a house.”
A thunderous roar went up from the tents as the excited bride jumped on her father’s neck. At that instant, Luther Vandross’s dance with my father began playing, and father with daughter danced slowly, in a circle.
As the short heavy man in the white agbada swayed his daughter, the right side of his face came into Tamilore’s view from the distance. It was covered with darkened lesions up to his chin.
***
Gbonju snored loudly from her usual dead sleep as Tamilore brought out the ten fifty-dollar bills she instinctively kept from the pile she brought back that unforgettable Friday night with the heavy man. She took the wristwatches and necklaces Gbonju kept in the jewellery box on the table. Gold pieces that had appeared after Gbonju said she’ll keep her converted money for her.
Her eureka moment came when she heard the thief of her innocence eulogize his daughter the previous day. Resilience and courage will take her to the future she’s seen so many times in her head. Tamilore guessed that the foreign notes, when converted, would be enough to pay off her father’s debt. The proceed from the sale of the jewellery pieces would be sufficient to pay for her educational requirements at her former village school.
With stiffened spine, Tamilore walked out of the house determined to give whatever it takes to obtain her secondary and university education. In her mind, she pictured herself in a graduation gown. Her mother beaming with a smile by her side.
Read – You Must Move On – A Short Story by Chukwuemeka Famous, Nigeria
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