Chinedu Ogoke - Under Fire

Aham did rather remained there, Imoni almost wished. He was enjoying a rare chance of observing Fostina and himself from a female perspective. One did even think the talk was about two victims, one of inexperience, the other of hesitancy. The girl needed somebody to fuse around her, Ego was telling him, getting back exactly where she had stopped. She was now at the what to do now stage of her talk. Things Imoni had to work on. Rufus and Tijani may be living in the same hostel as Isah, she continued. Isah may be seeing the girl in their company. She may not be Rufus’ cousin, after all. What the girl argued was, stepping back, then only steered Fostina to Rufus. Rufus then consolidated his position, while Imoni removed himself from it all. Now whom would the girl turn herself to? Wouldn’t it then be practical if Imoni quickly swung everything to his favour? Ego was saying the truth, Yunusa who never held any independent opinion said. Imoni’s approach was the problem, he said. And he had allowed himself to be down-graded in the fight for Fostina. But now was the time to go in and get back what had been probably taken away from him.

Imoni nodded, smiling.

“And might be the little girl’s scared,” Ego continued. “She could be scared of Gladys. Gladys isn’t the kind of girl such a little girl can compete with. It would just hurt Gladys’ pride.”

Yunusa wanted Imoni to recognise the level of commitment the girl argued. “Only fuse around,” he was shaking a fist, “and you obtain. Two generations. Competition! lmo! And subject of gossip at Golan. But, aren’t you guys practising bigamy?”

“I’ve heard you,” Imoni told the girl, but laughing at Yunusa’s joke.

Aham soon came back. “The earlier you make up your mind about that Gladys,” Ego continued again, “the better. Fostina...” Still trying to make Imoni and Fostina better lovers? Aham asked Ego, returning displaced chairs and Whot cards. He never knew those two were such an interesting topic to drag on, he said. To Imoni, he advised him not to build any attitude on Ego’s or any other girl’s pronouncements. Ego immediately rose to defend the women folk. “Yes, girls, what is wrong with girls?”

“A lot,” Aham snapped. The boys were worse, the girl said, if his thinking was on such premise. “Every girl,” Aham went on.

“That your Gladys,” Ego now ignored Aham. “I don’t know what the world she thinks she is. And I hear they’re not so rich. Poor, as myself. She’s so proud and so arrogant? Everybody complains about her. You better leave her before she soils your name.”

“Gladys’ alright,” Aham snapped. “Okay? My only grudge with her right now is, unlike the Gladys I know, she’s come here only once since we came back. I don’t know if she’s proud. If she is, isn’t it because she’s aware of her worth? Such opinion I find very funny.”

“If she’s come here only once, she isn’t then serious. Or is she?”

And, after all, Aham continued, Imoni and he had once seen Fostina raising something that resembled a cigarette to her lips. She put it away as soon as she noticed them.

That wasn’t smoking, Ego argued. “You know these little girls, once in a while, they try some of these acts. The senior girls even do it.” Aham didn’t appear to like that. “I’m leaving, please.” Ego took her bag. “Imoni, thank you for the refreshment.”

“Thank the guy who bought it.”

“But you gave it to me.”

Imoni promised to think over what the girl just told him, and bade her farewell. “Good night, Ego.” Yunusa waved.

“Night.”

Aham joined her.

“The girl has just told you the truth,” Yunusa said behind her.

He had just gone through a course on romance, he replied. Ego, being a girl must know how the female mind worked, he thought, but hoped he hadn’t wet the ground for a quarrel between her and Aham.

“Aham currents easily,” Yunusa said. “I was observing him. You could see he wanted the girl out and give her a piece of his tongue. But the girl didn’t seem to care.”

Knocking came on the door.

“Fall right in,” Yunusa barked.

The door was opened to Modesty and his companions. Imoni put aside a piece of paper and walked half the distance separating them, a journey that ended in the middle of the room, to welcome them. “Iyke,” Yunusa called, “what’s bringing you to my cuban?” That was his cousin. Iyke pointed at Modesty. Modesty and Imoni reclined on Aham’s bed, locked in discussion, with the other young man left to himself.

Yunusa and Iyke were still standing, discussing now departmental politics, how they perceived various lecturers, how grades reflected lecturers’ attitudes, expectations, what students did, and so on. Aham’s return, however, ended the division that was the dialogue in the room. “You’ve come back.” Aham shook Modesty’s hand, and then the other strangers.’ Introductions followed.

“Please,” Modesty told Aham, “we are deciding to take my belongings to lyke’s room in hall...” He looked over to Iyke for completion. “Hall A? A5/23. Iyke is the only person in his room. I might be staying with him. You see, I was directed initially to meet you, but we hardly sat down together to talk.”

“Small,” Aham assured him. “You met Imoni, and it’s as good as meeting me. And, if you will be staying with this your cousin, and especially as he’s the sole landlord of his room, you can’t ask for more. So, how do you carry all these things to that place?”

“It’s like Ime has a car,” Iyke said.

They all logged the cases to a blue Volkswagen Golf car. Modesty’s new address was repeated from inside the car, so were handshakes and a farewell. Yunusa wondered that such a little car had enough room for so much, as they went upstairs.

Aham began to straighten his bed sheet. The three young men had their feathers already plucked in the wet season, he observed. “Ah, Iyke is waddey, up to his neck,” Yunusa commented. “And that guy with the car, too. I guess he’s a new student.”

Aham sat at his reading table. “For sure. Very soon, he’ll discover his potential, and will start to oppress.”

Imoni remembered a related story he wanted to tell. About the owner of the portmanteau beside the wall. Yunusa hadn’t yet been told who owned it. Imoni took him back to the event he had talked about himself, the suya spot spectacle and the prince involved. Imoni said he confirmed what Yunusa had earlier related and said what a tireless person the fellow was. Again, it provoked both criticism and admiration at the same time. Yunusa saw it as absolute nonsense, but Aham still disagreed. Aham argued everybody had his own style, and that what the young men did was innovative and exciting, though indecent. As far as Yunusa was concerned, it was foolish, insane and indefensible. There was then a shuffle at the door.

“Who is that?” Yunusa called.

The door opened to introduce Mickey Eto. “Hey, guys.” He was nervous.

“Where have you been all the while?” Imoni asked him.

He said he had been out, being merry and had just had some whisky. He blew his cheeks. He simply had no inhibition. He asked if one of them owned a Golf car he saw downstairs.

“No,” Imoni said. “You saw the car?”

He saw the car and said it had the same colour as his and he was even wondering if it wasn’t his when he saw it. He smiled in his flighty manners.

Yunusa asked him if he had a car. Have a car? he reacted to that slip of tongue. He had two cars, a Golf, just that dead blue, and a Fiat Tipo. He regretted not bringing it to school. Already, he was tired, walking through the school. He complained about the inconvenience, and without taxis to lighten the burden. Aham agreed and said it was sad to have a car somewhere and to have to trek here, but added that trekking exercised the body. That was a wrong way to stay healthy, Mickey wanted him to know. Mickey’s logic was simple. One’s energy should be committed to better uses. Leaving a car behind to have the energy squeezed out of one, saved one nothing. It was so hard switching to pacing, and splitting everything between pedestrian and motorised means wasn’t his own kind of life.