We sat in the living room, me and Victor. My mom sat on a cushion chair opposite us with my eldest brother beside her. I kept staring down at my hands. They were cold and sweaty. And my heart felt like it was soon going to bore a hole through my chest. The large wooden table my father had bought when the house was built sat at the center, surrounded by brown woolen cushion chairs. The walls were painted blue and white with deep blue curtains draping the windows and doors. They seemed to be shielding the inside of the house from the deeming sunlight. A picture of my dad hung on a wall beside us with the small flat TV my mom had bought about a year ago. We could hear the chirping of birds and vehicles driving past from the window.
“Mmeyene, do you love him? Do you want to spend your life with him?” My mother asked.
I raised my head and nodded even though I was not sure.
“This is not a nodding matter, I need you to open your mouth and say it for everyone to hear.”
“Yes mummy, I love him” I responded.
Victor had come to ask for my hand in marriage. He had met me in church two months ago and told me that I was the wife God had sent to him. Since I had just broken off from a one-year relationship then, I had turned him down immediately. I watched him now, his sunken eyes dilating as he looked from my mom to my brother, then to me as I answered their questions. He was fidgeting with his fingers and there were beads of sweat dripping from his hairline. He wiped his face vigorously with a towel and continued staring from one person to the other.
My eldest brother cleared his throat. “My brother”, he said. “You are welcome.”
“Thank you sir”, Victor responded. I could sense the tension in his voice.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I am a fashion designer, sir, I make clothes”
“Fashion designing, that's good. Do you have a business center?”
“Yes sir, _”
Right after Victor approached me and I refused his proposal, he began sending his friends and elderly people in the church to plead with me. I was told he was a responsible young man who would be able to take care of me. He had a business, he was educated, came from a well-to-do background, he loved God, and he was the perfect man for me.
Victor was Igbo and in Nigeria, Igbo meant “money”. I was Ibibio. And even though I didn't care much about his background, everyone around kept reminding me of the fact that his being Igbo meant he was going to take very good care of me. So I accepted his proposal.
Two months later, he was sitting in my parlour asking my mother for her daughter's hand in marriage. My mother asked Victor to return in a week or two for the wedding list and it was agreed that the wedding should be held in three months.
“Hello!” I yelled, waving at the dark young man who walked towards me. I was so excited to finally meet Tee, he had just graduated from my department with a first-class and I had always wanted to meet with him.
“Hi Mmeyene”, he said when he got to where I was.
My pupils dilated. I only heard such baritones in movies. I thought. God! What was he? Arnold Schwarzenegger? “Hi Tee, good afternoon,” I responded with my mouth slightly open.
He smiled back, “It's nice to meet you too,” He said.
“le_et’s sit.” I blurted.
He said “okay “ and sat right next to me. The day before, I had messaged Tee asking if we could meet, and he had obliged. I wanted to ask all about how he had made a first-class, but here I was drooling over his voice and his tiny eyes. We sat on an elevated walkway that connected the bursary building to the students’ hall. Above us was a rusty corrugated roof suspended by iron pillars on both sides of the walkway. We were surrounded by shrubs, green grasses, sculptures done by the fine arts students, and neem trees.
“what is it you want to talk about?” He asked, grinning.
I laughed, then looked down at my fingers. “Well, I want to know everything,” I said blinking severally.
That night when Victor called me, I felt unfortunate. Why did I say yes to him in the first place? Was I even ready for marriage or I wanted to see the world and fall in love? It was a boring conversation we had on the phone that night. I think I remembered him asking what I had eaten for dinner and how school went. The rest, I forgot.
A month later, I called him and broke off the relationship. I felt like I was dying whenever I thought about the fact that I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, and I wasn't even sure of what I wanted to do with my life. “I'm sorry Victor,” I said over the phone. “But I think this is the best for us, I can't go on with this marriage.”
The next day, my mom called and raised a thunderstorm.
“Why are you on and off Mmeyene? Tell me! Why are you treating that young man like that? Today you love him, tomorrow you don't!” She yelled into the phone.
“Mummy please calm down, I _”
“That young man came to the house yesterday, all downcast, crying in my living room! If you didn't love him you shouldn't have brought him to me. I asked you if you loved him, and you said you did! Why are you _”
“Mummy please_”
“If anything happens to that young man, I will hold you responsible! call him now and apologize to him! Tell him you were just being confused.”
And so I called him and told him I was confused. He said he was willing to love me even if I was not sure. For a moment, I felt sorry for him and made up my mind to love him back.
The next month, a day was selected when he would come and pay my bride price and give all the wedding items before the day for the ceremony was chosen. It was the month of July, the 18th day. A week to that day, I went back to sit on the same walkway I sat with Tee in school. I sat there for about an hour before he found me.
“Hullo,” he said, dropping down beside me. Then he tugged at me with his shoulder and asked, “Are you all right”? He was smiling one of his bright smiles.
I looked at him and wondered, why couldn't I have this instead?
“I'm getting married Tee.”
“Oh wow!” There seemed to be disappointment in his eyes. “Well, you should be excited, why are you sad?”
“Because I don't love him.”
Tee looked at me, “Why would you marry someone you don't love?”
“I don't know,” I said. And I did not know. Maybe it was because I felt too guilty about leaving him.
“Well, marriage is a lifetime. If you don't want it now, don't complicate your life.”
I nodded again.
“By the way, I came to tell you I'm leaving for the National Youth Service next month.”
A strange bile rose to my throat, it had a bitter-sweet taste. “You're leaving so soon?” I asked. Happy that he was going to serve his country, but sad because I had wanted him to stay much longer.
He said “Yes!” Smiling, it was obvious he was excited about it. “But I'll miss you, he said at last.”
“I'll miss you too Tee.”
Two days to the day my bride price was to be paid, I sat in my room staring into space for a long time. Then as if from the wind, it came to me, that it was okay not to love Victor, that love was natural and not to be forced, and that marrying him when I was not sure would be the worst thing to do to him. So I picked up my phone, called my mom, and told her everything I felt. I told her I wasn't ready for marriage and wanted to intentionally make a choice when it was time. When I was done, she sighed and said, “I've heard you, I don't want you to struggle, I made the same mistake with your father”.
After that, I called Victor and told him I didn't love him, and that there was no need for him to come with his people. He made a fuss, but it was fine. I had my mom solidly behind me, she took all the bullets that came.
All names have been changed except mine.
Mmeyene Joseph
