A. Barrett - Love Is Power, or Something Like That - Stories

Babasegun drank from his glass and then balanced it on his knee. “Now tell me what you told Joke,” he said.

As I prepared to speak, his phone rang.

“Speak of the devil.”

“Her?”

“Yes.”

“Will you answer?”

“No.”

I held out my hand. “Give it to me, let me speak to her.”

He hesitated. The phone stopped ringing. I waited, my hand outstretched. The phone rang again. He handed it over.

“Hello, Joke,” I said.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she yelled in my ear. “Tell me what I did!”

“This is not Babasegun. It’s me, Iggy.”

“What?”

“I called you yesterday, remember, the hotel? You were supposed to meet me.”

“Why are you with Baba’s phone?”

“He gave it to me to answer. He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

I could hear her breath whistling. On the horizon, far up in the starless sky, lightning sparked. The air was still, so clean it stung my throat. Babasegun watched me.

“Help me ask Baba what I did to him.” Her tone had softened.

“No, I can’t,” I said in a harsh tone. I felt the urge to hurt her, to poke her in broken places. “But I can tell you why he doesn’t want you anymore.”

The expression of alarm on Babasegun’s face made me feel better; I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter. He threw me a weak, gloomy smile.

“Why?” Joke asked.

I could say it was because she fucked around; that he was afraid she would give him a baby or a disease; that he was tired of her — and all of those reasons would be true. But she was half woman, half child, and infatuated. For Babasegun’s sake I had to let her down easy.

“Look, Joke, you’re his student. He shouldn’t have done anything with you. He wants to stop it now, before it’s too late.”

She laughed: a mirthless bark. “That’s not the reason. Ask him to tell you the real reason.”

“Okay, I’ll ask him.”

“I mean now. Ask him now. I’ll wait.”

I lowered the phone, turned to Babasegun, and rolled my eyes. “Joke says you should tell me the real reason you want to break up with her.”

He arched his eyebrows into question marks. “The real reason?” he said in a loud voice. “She’s been talking too much, she’s been telling her friends about us, and now my wife has heard. The other teachers are becoming suspicious. If they find out, I’ll be in trouble. There are other reasons I won’t mention — no need to open our nyash in public. She knows we have to stop. She’s just being stubborn.”

I heard the angry buzz of her voice as I raised the phone. “—big fat lies!” she screamed into my ear.

“What he said seems reasonable, Joke.” I held the phone away from my ear, looked around to make sure we were alone — the two men who shared the bench with us had left — and put the phone on loudspeaker. Her voice leaped out, rat-tat-tating.

“Don’t believe him! He said I’m telling people about us, that his wife found out because of me? Am I the only girl he’s friending in that school? I know like five girls, one of them is even my classmate! How come his wife didn’t hear about them? Then he’s talking about teachers — that he will get in trouble. Let him not make me laugh! Which of the male teachers are not doing what he’s doing? Which of them don’t have girlfriends?”

I set the phone on the bench between me and Babasegun. He stood up. “I’m coming,” he whispered, and hurried away like a man with a full bladder. Ha ha, I thought.

“What? What is he saying?” Joke asked.

“Nothing.” I drummed the bench with my fingers, and then said quickly, before she started up again: “Now, Joke, calm down, I’ve heard you. But all the things you’ve said don’t change the fact that Babasegun doesn’t want to be with you anymore.”

“Listen well, brother,” she said, her voice unsteady, “when he was chasing me two years ago, I refused, I didn’t want to do anything with him, but he didn’t stop, he worried me until I agreed. Now that he has got what he wanted he wants to throw me away just like that? No way, never! We will continue what we’re doing.”

There was a movement behind me. Babasegun approached with Iya, who bore a tray from which rose wreaths of steam. I picked up the phone, turned off the loudspeaker, held it to my ear.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I can only advise you. You can’t force a man when he says he’s had enough.”

“I said listen to me! I know Baba well, he doesn’t want to stop, he just wants me to beg!”

The bench creaked as Babasegun sat down. Iya placed a Trophy beer, a glass, and a chinaware bowl in front of me. A big-headed, black-skinned catfish bobbed in the broth that filled the bowl to brimming. I looked away when Joke spoke.

“I know what I’m saying. This is not the first time he’s told me it’s over. If he really wants to stop, how come he calls me every time he needs me? When I call him he won’t pick up his phone, but whenever he wants me to do something he will start calling me! He’s been doing this for more than a month, since September, telling me it’s over, refusing to answer my calls. But last Sunday he called me in the morning, he picked me up from my house, we did it in the backseat of his car before he dropped me at church. If you don’t believe me, ask him!”

A wave of exhaustion washed over me. This conversation would go on forever if I allowed it. It was now clear there was no hope for me here.

“I believe you,” I said.

All I wanted at this moment was to dig my teeth into catfish flesh, to eat my peppersoup and drink my beer. As if she read my thoughts, Joke said: “You answered his phone so you deliver this message to him. I have gone out with men who are not ashamed to be with me, so I don’t need him, that common schoolteacher, with his ugly tribal marks! I have never asked him for money, never collected one kobo from him! Ask him. Even the times he made me pregnant, I removed it with my own money. I don’t need him!”

“Okay, I agree, you don’t need him. Can I tell him you will never contact him again?”

The phone burned against my cheek, overheated from talking. The air smelled like rain. Babasegun was eating my peppersoup.

“Joke?”

“ I can’t!” she wailed. So loudly that I winced and jerked my head away. Then I returned the phone to my ear.

“Why can’t you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t understand.” Her voice was choked. “Every time I see Baba my feelings get stronger. When I’m not with him I’m always thinking about him. Anytime we quarrel, anytime he refuses to answer my call, I become useless. Because of him I can’t stay with one boyfriend. None of them can be like him. It’s like something is tying us together. Baba knows what it is. He knows what he has done to me. Let him release me. I will go, I will stop begging, I will stop calling his phone, but let him release me first.”

I looked at Babasegun eating my peppersoup, and wondered about him. Whatever he had done to her, he had done it well.

“I’ll talk to Babasegun,” I said, and glanced again at him. He was ripping off catfish chunks with his teeth and fingers. He shook his head in warning, his jaws munching. “I have to go now. But don’t worry, I’ll tell him what you said.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Can I call you later? To get Baba’s reply?”

“No. I’ll call you. Bye.”

I held out the phone to Babasegun. He grasped it with the thumb and pinkie of his left hand, and dropped it in his lap. He licked his fingers, one after the other, sucking the nails. A pile of bones lay beside the peppersoup bowl. He followed my gaze.

“You have to eat it while it’s hot,” he said with a tomcat grin. “I couldn’t just sit here and watch you waste a good thing!”