Butterfly

courtesy: Karen Pryor

I was dying. I saw dark images in my sleep and horrendous silhouettes.

I did not stop at Mai-Shayi’s stall on my way home from Bakin Kofa. With bruised heart, I switched off my phone, took a bolus of drugs and crushed onto mattress. I knew this was not me, but there was relief in it. 

It was three days blackout from the outside world. My mother came crying when she peeped into my room and saw me. She called neighbors and relatives who gathered me to the hospital in concussion. After diagnosing me, doctors said I was having heart enlargement.

While convalescing at home, after I was discharged, my mother came routinely in to my room to see me. I was going pale and pale. I stopped eating. The food she brought two days ago remained where she put it, untouched. She was worried, she placed a hand around my shoulder and said, “Eat and take the medicine. You are going skinny.” I did not say anything, I knew the drugs were useless.

“So,” the trembling of her lips told me she had other words on her mind. But her lips shut up each time she made to speak. “Can you remember, you were saying something in the hospital?” Wrinkles formed on my brow and at the corner of my eyes. Everything was dim. She gave up in the end for fear I would damage my fragile health.

In the morning, she came to sweep the room and discovered some secret. Underneath the mattress, some notes she found. She picked them and hoisted them up to her eyes:

You have committed a crime against humanity on me. All nights. No sleep.

With love.

There was no name on the notes. My mother went farther, under the pillow, and unearthed it:

Let me tell you the truth. I will keep calling you every minute until you pick up. 

We never professed our minds. Any time I intended to share her a piece of my mind, I checked myself. For now it would be the end of our relationship except if Habashiyya called me first. I deleted records of our correspondences immediately after each call or text message. I could deny if she decided to blow off our affair among our friends.

The worry was that I continued to be tormented all day. I’d close my door and cry forlornly in my room. When the reality hit me in the face, I wiped my tears. After all, at some points in my life I was a happy man without her. I had grown desperate of marrying Habashiyya, ready to sacrifice everything. Now, it was like a huge burden was lifted off me and made me a free man, free from fear and trouble.

I picked up my phone and dialed Ruqayya, a trusted college friend. She knew my relationship with Nini but never heard of anything regarding my relation with Habashiyya. After college, I went to study Law while she went to read Mass Communication at Bayero University, Kano. We lived on different campuses. By the time my relationship with Habshiyya grew stronger, my contact with Ruqayya had gradually gone low as if my relation with Habshiyya was sapping the energy of my intimacy with Ruqayya. On her part, Ruqayya remained indifferent.

I was fearing in my mind Ruqayya could be suspicious now that I called her.

“Ah, Nini, you on the line?” Her sudden voice cut my thought.

“You have abandoned me. That is why I call to say hi.” I lied, a lie to save my neck.

“I can’t forget you. I have been stuck up in schedules these days. That’s why.”

Silence.  I was waiting her to continue. 

“Last time I saw you on our campus.” She declared. That gave me an upper hand in the blame game, I seized the opportunity and started a barrage of charges on her.

“You saw me and you refused to call me? You have cleared me off doubts.”

“I am very sorry. Your back was turned to me when I was approaching. Before I reached, you turned and disappeared round a corner.”

“You don’t even have my number. Thank you.”

 “No, I attempted dialing you, but the call wouldn’t go.”

“My phone was not dead.”

“Haba, I will not lie, wallahi. You know these service providers.” You could feel the genuine feeling in her voice.  “Forget it,” she continued, “everything bygone. I am inviting you at your convenience.”

“Are you Nini?” I said jokingly.

“Hahaha, oh no. Forgive me. I am not Nini.” Only Nini could have the privilege of controlling me the way she liked.

“How are things by the way?” She changed the conversation.

“Pretty well.” I replied.

Her voice soft and moistened with coolness. “Are you in school?” I asked suspecting she was not in school, the voice of someone who had been in the sun wouldn’t have sounded as she did.

“No.”

“I know. Your voice told me you are not in school. It sounds like an ice cream.”

“I don’t like that. I have warned you several times. What do you mean my voice is cool?”  She attempted to hide her joy but the happiness and excitement were so thick in her tones. I knew that she was merely pretending.

“Are you sending me away? I learnt these days you don’t want to hold conversations with me.” 

“Nini, don’t you know… you will end up in love with someone you always have long conversations with?” My heart pounded. “I watched a movie. Two persons were in intimate friendship. They did not realize they were not merely friends until the time when they have got to separate, they married different persons.”

My God! The relationship that existed between me and my female friends had always frightened me, especially with Ruqayya.  The way things were panning out, I could have been in love with many of them. I feared they were already sharing words. The thought of embarrassment flooded me, having my ex-girlfriends always visiting my house if I married one of them. Sometimes I felt like telling Habashiyya that it would be a good idea if I married one of her friends as a second wife. It would be a reunion for all of them. But the thought of her reactions always prevented me.

Suddenly, Ruqayya’s voice jolted me back to the scene, she started yelling agitatedly into the phone, thinking the network was faulty, the silence was strangely odd. I was like a drowning man while she spoke. I picked up my last memory and rapidly swept to the rescue.

“I will be coming on Thursday.”

 “I will not go to school this day.” She said.

“Why?”

“My brother’s wife delivered. The naming ceremony coincides.”

“You are not married. You have to wait for your own childbearing.”

“No, it doesn’t work like that. I have to be attending other people’ events, right now.”

****

I was in befuddlement as to why Habashiyya was torturing me. Breakup was so easy, in other relationships, but not with Habsashiya. The age gap between us was slim. One day when we were in college, I stole a look at her birth certificate and discovered that we came the same year, both on Wednesday, me in June, she in July. I sinned once in her presence, she got angry with me and refused to talk to me until I repented.

Her faithfulness stirred a sense of guilt in me. Habsashiya told me about her previous relationships. I was not sure she could forgive me if I confessed to her my deeds. But honesty was everything in a relationship.

I attended a party with Nini and held her waist and danced and shook hands with other girls. When darkness came, Nini dragged me to a corner, collected my hands and put them on her chest. We came back to school and looked like nothing happened. I was nervous at first each time Habashiyya fastened her eyes on me, like she was searching something in me.

Another day.

My friend snapped pictures of me and Nini while we were dancing. When the party had ended, I collected the camera and moved the pictures to my phone. I watched them alone in my room, over and over again, keenly admiring the one I pecked at Nini’s face, feeling the chubbiness of her cheeks oozing into my flesh, smooth, clean, ebony sleek, icy like a morning breeze. Her face. I deleted some of the pictures that appeared too romantic, to save myself the struggle to hide the pictures upon hearing a movement, most often imaginary.

*****

I arrived BUK New Campus and walked towards Faculty of Social Science complex. The mammoth building was flying high in the sky. In the afternoon, when the sun was in the west, the entire eastern expanse would be covered in shade. It was one fine morning, the weather was wonderful after night rainfall. Inside the school, flowers were swaying, back-forth, right, left, to the lyrical tune of whispering melodies of wind, swishing fast my ears.

“Hello, where are you?” I hollered into the phone and turned around the four directions to see where Ruqayya would appear. Wind was billowing my shirt, caressing raw currents of serenity into my skin.

“In the faculty garden.” She said. I was nearly to the place and quickened my pace. Suddenly, I jerked, glued to the spot. Someone was standing in front of her, speaking. I didn’t like to break into their privacy since I saw the visible joy in the face of the man in front of her.

Looking up, she saw me, frozen. “Ah, Nini!” She beckoned me enthusiastically. The guy became deflated with my presence and withdrew back into his humble self.

“Okay,” he spoke unenthusiastically after I reached the spot. “I am going. When do we have next lecture?” He asked not for the sake of finding any answer but for reminding her of his existence. She had already removed him from her world.

“Have a seat.” She said to me, moving a little further and patted a seat beside her. We sat down hip to hip and fell into a conversation we longed to have.

“So you were telling me on phone about Nini last time.” I prodded her up. Before she breathed, I cast a glance across and I discovered the guy had quietly left.

“She came here and gave me the invitation.” Ruqayya said. Fire began silently burning me from inside.

“Oh, Allah Sarki! When the wedding took place?” I managed to ask.

“Close to three months now. Let me show you the pictures.” She flipped her phone screen and images of Nini’s wedding beamed up. You could feel my heart now. Since that day, I couldn’t sleep, painful images of Nini with another man in one room kept haunting me at night. I learnt to avoid going into graphic details because my heart burnt with extra pain and ached agonizingly like embers inserted in my flesh.

“You have deceived me.” I started with the usual accusation I heaped on Nini’s close friends.

“Nobody deceived you. You were not ready for marriage. You have no reason to complain.” She fired back.

“Most of you girls are like that. How can you simply marry a different person when you have another love?”

“I don’t understand?” She said, her tone laden with feigned ignorance and confusion.

“I am sure she loves me more than the husband. You know that, don’t you?” I said.

“But she had to marry him anyway. Would she be waiting you while she had someone ready?” The solemnity in her voice was genuine, telling me she too could have made the same decision if she were in Nini’s shoes.

“Why?” I insisted.

“Are you asking why, Nini? Who is going to marry her after the next three years? You know this thing after school.”

I couldn’t say a word. In hindsight, I realized I should be immensely glad and congratulating Nini.

“So, you see. Most of us don’t marry the person we truly love.” I said. “She would have loved to marry me. And I will love to marry her as well.” My words began to sink in Ruqayya’s mind. I could sense the cloud of dread that occupied her mind, this was her story, her fears, her vulnerabilities.

“Ruqayya,” her eyes met mine, liquidated with fears and concerns. “You may have a childhood love you have lived with the dream of marrying. You can see now you can’t marry him. And he is the best you have probably ever met.”

She hung her head down, and in her inward reflection, muttered, “To Allah ya kyauta. Choose anyone among our friends. And I promise you her marriage.”

I chose one of you already, your friend, only that you didn’t know.

****

Love is when you pretend there is nothing while there is something.

I wanted to pray so that God would make Habashiyya change her mind.  But I was not the sort of human who prayed for love, natural love didn’t require such effort. I sent her a short text message, switched off my phone and lay lifelessly on bed.

Please pick up the phone. If I die, it is you. Who knows, I could die today.

Fear gripped her when she read. She called me time and again that night, but I was asleep with agony and couldn’t pick up. She called again in the morning, I was already annoyed. Her distress rippled me with joy, she loved me more than I could realize. I watched the phone ring and ring. That way, she’d understand my anger. I moved my hand to the button. All of a sudden, the call snapped. Cruel lettering boldly appeared on my screen: missed call. I eagerly called back, she ignored me. I began condemning myself and followed her up with a text message:

I didn’t want you to waste your credit. That’s why. Okay, I will pick up now. Please…

She would have none of that, unmoved, although I had the feeling she had me in her mind. I called again. No answer. Anger welled up in me. The difficulty in my chest, the kind I experienced in the hospital, started coming back again. I called again and again praying she would pity me.

Next day was Friday, I called around 5: 00pm. By that time life was peaceful. It was evening, sun was low and temper calm. I pictured Habashiyya coolly in her fine evening couture. When she picked up, my frustration magically evaporated. I threw away the remaining drugs into the waste basket.

“Hello.” She breathed with fascinating ease. But I could sense a little huff in her breathing.

“Is that how we are going to get married and have children?” I fired angrily, maintaining heated tone over a tremendous joy.

“I called you that night, your phone’s dead. I called yesterday, you ignored me.” I was not alone.  She too had been in pain. And that had washed off my pain. And anger. And frustration.

“You know I had no option other than to kill the phone. You are the only person I would call and you switched off yours too.”

“My phone’ mic broke. We wouldn’t be able to communicate that time when you called.”

“Have you started exams?” I asked when I suspected the struggle in her breathing must have to do with school. She told me the other time they would soon start their exams.

“Next week.” She replied softly and continued to tell me her day, her struggle, her smile and laughter. “I have been on an assignment throughout the day.”

“Why not tell me? I should have come to help you out. I have been free this afternoon.” She understood it was a humor.  Hushed silence descended over us that put us communing in shared feelings. Conations and fantasies began forming in my head. Something in me assured me she was also feeling the same.

A vague image of her area dumped in my head. I tried hard intuitively to locate exactly her home. Finally, I settled at having a nebulous conjuration of the scene in her room: She alone, resplendent in pink, reclined on her elbows, writing furiously face-down. Tremendous joys filled my heart.

“My Friday gift.” Her voice sliced through the speaker, in a clean ring as though to make an echo against the hushed ambiance.

I knew what she meant and told her my usual appearance she knew me with every Friday since college days. “I am wearing white, black cap, black shoes and wrist-watch sleeping comfortably on my hand.”

“I am cuter than you.” She said and let an exotic laughter coquettishly.

“Ok, tell me, what are you wearing?” I asked.

“I am in pink.” A moment’s silence. She didn’t need to go into detail.

Abruptly, I said, “I will call you later. Mum’s calling me.” An obtrusive voice from the operator invaded my peace warning my credit was low. I recharged just last night and now my money was ravenously exhausted. It was utterly painful disrupting me in such fine, beautiful moment. I didn’t really know. But this girl was an angel. The way I felt about her frightened me. This girl.