Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

“Don’t know, myself.”

Meanwhile, the meat seller tried with difficulty to right some girls’ stubborn ignorance. “Can’t he understand?” Imoni and Modesty heard one of the girls complain.” “Tickets. We have our tickets. It’s like, we’re paying.”

“It’s like, it’s you who hasn’t understood him,” another girl said. “Everything has been bought.”

“The lot?”

“That’s what he was telling you. By those guys.”

Imoni and Modesty shook their heads. The merriment continued, the other people’s feelings notwithstanding. The girls had started leaving, just as some others were arriving. “You won’t believe I know that plump one among them,” Imoni said casually. “His bag is even right now in our room.”

“He hasn’t spotted you, I guess.”

Two young men nestling their girlfriends, arrived in very light spirits. They spoke with the meat seller, but perhaps failed in their purpose, for they only bought biscuits and soft drinks. Disappointed, they set themselves beside Imoni and Modesty in their expired excitement. “This is simply crazy,” one of them was saying. “It’s like you feel you have tickets to throw around, you deny others something.”

“What did I tell you?” one of the two girls asked, her fingers spreading out. “I told you we should be here early enough, else we won’t get anything. They did the same thing yesterday, and the day before.”

“It’s like these guys are goaded by a mad impulse,” the girl’s boyfriend was saying. “If you want to oppress, Lake Tchad Hotel is there for you, or you fling the party of the year, not the disposition over a little portion of suya. Who can’t do it? I just feel like lacing somebody.”

“What’s wrong with you?” the second boy asked. “It’s like you’re too worried, kind of.”

A team of girls had just procured some snacks and soft drinks, and was collected in a corner, its discussion and focus aimed at the night’s enticing points.

The girl in white scarf was already hooked to it.

Some more girls were coming and going.

Imoni and Modesty left the place as there was nothing more left to eat.

“Wao,” Modesty exclaimed. “Look at that couple in that hidden corner.... What a place.”

That was the introductory side, Imoni told him. So were school affairs. The school was just opening out. They were conventions adopted away from home. And they were some of the things he had to grapple with initially, for instance, a girl going into a boy’s arms unashamedly in public glare. How then could he have accepted it if he knew this was happening, and had been refused admission? Modesty wondered.

After walking another distance, they saw another spectacle. Modesty grunted. “Hey, you,” Imoni shouted, “what do you think you’re doing? I’ll hand you over to the blue guys.” Funny. The couple responded with laughter. Both Modesty and Imoni couldn’t help laughing, too.

Imoni stopped suddenly, thoughtful. What was it? Modesty asked. He wasn’t sure he could locate Mr. Osuagwu’s home that night. Moreover, it wasn’t the friendliest place to go at that time, with stray dogs on patrol. His suggestion? Modesty asked. “I suggest you see him tomorrow. Since I know the department, why don’t we go there, instead of, maybe, searching for the house in vain?”

“That’s still alright. We can go back, then.” They therefore, turned and started walking to the hostel. Taking his gaze up, Modesty said, “This is a natural canopy, I can see.” It was, Imoni said, and natural walls, too, if that was what the trunks formed. It was called the OAU walk, he informed his guest.

Few students had the popular walk, boys cuddling girls, and the singles with hands across chests or hidden inside pockets, bowing to quivering cold wind currents. One could see some smoky film being penetrated by fluorescent light. “This place is getting cold again,” Modesty complained.

“You’ll get over it.”

They cut into the trade fair complex. Mshelia and his fiancée, Talatu, were coming towards them. Accompanying them were Iredia and a new student.

“Imo,” Mshelia exclaimed, stopping before Imoni. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year, Talatu, Iredia,” Imoni said excitedly.

He jokingly rejected Mshelia’s outstretched hand, and instead encouraged Talatu to go for the first handshake. They all laughed off the joke. The girl said she saw Gladys the previous day but they were both in haste and merely waved. Soon, the talk was about school, the break and bad grades. Both Mshelia and Imoni had a course, English 101, to retake. Iredia wasn’t free, either. He had Ethics and Jurisprudence, a general studies course to tackle.

“We should all perch, then,” Mshelia advised. “It’s universal. Perch. All we’re asking for is let my people go.”

“Who’s talking of good grades?” Imoni asked. “Let my people go, and you forget the crazy course.”

Iredia had something to say about a last minute assistance he got from Imoni the previous year, in which Imoni never accepted anything in return. Imoni handled it like an obligation to a worthy friend.

Imoni never got used to Talatu’s physical make-up. The approach down to her waist, for instance, gave away an irony, the combination of sex and virtue. Her dignified petit frame gave one something to think about. She was an insight into the depth and imaginative prowess of her creator. That thing was simple sculptor. To find oneself beside such a girl must be a great feeling. Somebody got to get her, but probably not Mshelia. With that girl now it was more than an improvement from the Mshelia he had known before. They only shared an ethnic background, and Mshelia was merely a recipient of a conception somewhere. If one wanted to find out, of course everybody would like to, they were from an endangered ethnic group of two hundred people. It might then have occurred to them they had a mission, and to consider pulling resources together. Imoni could recall how they both started out, and what role Iredia had played in it. It was easy to see now how far they had gotten. He was actually happy for them. They had an exciting relationship. They were people deserving of very elaborate greeting.

He and Modesty were soon on their way again. They continued into trade fair complex, but had to visit a kiosk as Modesty needed to buy a few things. He indicated some biscuits, and four cans of coke, as they got to the place. The lady in the kiosk fetched the order. He wanted some butter added to it, and wanted other items, too, but Imoni had to interrupt the flow of the items into the shopping bag, and a slight adjustment was made to the purchase. There was now a sudden flank formation of people before the kiosk, waiting for their chance. One of the waiters turned just as Modesty’s change came.

“It’s like, what am I seeing?” he asked. “Modesty.”

Surprise steered Modesty. “Iyke. What?”

“Modesty, what are you doing here?” Iyke asked.

“When I should ask you?”

“He’s my cousin, Ime,” Iyke told his colleague. “We rarely meet since coming back to Nigeria.”

“All right.”

“So, you’re here, oh me,” Modesty said. “I thought it was Uni-jos. I thought Chiamaka knew.” If she knew, she never told him, Iyke said. “Meet Imoni, please,” Modesty indicated Imoni. “I’m presently in his room.”

They already knew each other. They shook hands warmly. Modesty and his cousin briefly went to a corner, then came back, with Modesty saying they wanted to briefly get to Iyke’s place. He wouldn’t be needing the items in the bag anymore, he said, despite Imoni’s protests. Imoni had to repeat their room number for their return trip.

Ego looked at her watch, wondering why Aham still held back. And it was so late and so cold outside. He probably decided to see Isah up to Isah’s door step, Yunusa said.