A TALE OF AMARA II
A chilly January wind swept across the hills and valleys of Udi, Enugu
state that Saturday morning as Chief Tobias Utaba was laid to rest.
Local fireworks exploded in the air, deafening and destructive. The
townsfolk of Umu-Okwe (this place is supposed to be fictional) were
saddened by the loss of one of the few wealthy sons of their
hometown who had the interest of his people at heart. Family and
friends cried or laughed depending on how they were affected by his
death, while they processed bearing gifts to present to the family of
the deceased. Their grim faces where a reflection of the loss in their
hearts and if that didn’t work, their bald heads and black garbs did.
Sitting in a quiet corner of the tarp tent erected for the funeral
service, Amara looked as disinterested in the entire affair as cat
presented with a bowl of salad.
The pomp and pageantry entailed in
the funeral of an Igbo chieftain was unduly long, and in Amara’s
opinion, pointless. Five cows and fifteen goats were slain just to
entertain their guests most of whom brought their own refreshment
along. What a wasteful culture. As the youngest child and the closest
to her father, Amara was required to cater to her father’s friends and
ensure their needs were well met. A chore Amara hastily passed on to
her younger cousins whose lives were touched greatly and positively
by the departed chieftain. Now she was bored and content sit quietly
and do next to nothing while her siblings ran from post to wall to
meet the demands of the guests. Her mother was seated somewhere,
she didn’t really bother herself with the details of her whereabouts or
her well-being. She had been a terrible mother and so Amara tried as
much as she could to be as good a daughter to her.
Amara perused her phone catching up on her emails and messages,
her job as a computer analyst for the multi-nationals
ROOM‘8’CONCEPTS was not going to go on a break just because her
father was dead. They did not pay her as much as they did to keep
their clients waiting. She could feel her sisters glaring at her, putting
her phone aside, she sees her Kene’s wife, Sandra, giving her the evil
eye as well. She learned to give way too little concern to her sisters
and the machinations of their little minds.
She looked across the massive compound that held the guests to her
mother who sat timidly amidst her family members. She looked small
and defeated. Amara found herself wishing like she had continually
for the past five years that her mother had died shortly after her birth;
or that she had remarried and left the country with her sisters. She
wished her sisters would just leave her in peace and that her brother
had still married the incredibly cool Kosi. Most of all, she wished she
had remained in the dark, that her sisters and mother had not opened
her eyes to the evil of men. “Ignorance is bliss”, they said, and this is
how Amara came to believe those words.
Five years ago.
A 21 year old Amara is staring at her sister in disbelief. Her eyes heat
up as molten tears burn through her ducts and percolate on her lids.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me!”, her sister Kamsi replied in a deceptively even voice
that belied the venom in her words.
“How could you do such a thing? I’m your sister for God’s sake!!!”,
she screamed her frustration at her sister who looked smug for all her
sister’s heartache.
And you are in support of this?”, she said to a their elder sister Ndidi
who looked as smug as Kamsi. “You knew what she was up to and
you are ok with it?” she wasn’t so much as granted a reply.
“My own sisters...”, Kamsi had, somehow, convinced her fiancé to
break up their engagement, claiming that Amara was a slut of some
renown in their neighbourhood. Chuks, with whom she had been in a
relationship since she had gained admission into university at 17 was
one of the two guys she had ever been with and he knew that. She
thought he did. It hurt her that her ended their relationship on
hearsay, it hurt even more that her sisters were the perpetrators of her
heartache.
“Oh please spare us the drama”, said an uncaring Ndidi. She didn’t
even seem the least bit remorseful. If anything, they looked somewhat
happy to see her sad and distraught.
“Why?” she asked as her tears poured down her face. “What did i ever
do to deserve this from you guys?”
“See this foolish girl forming not knowing sha!”, Kamsi was in rare
form, foaming at the mouth as she stared at Amara like she had
tennis-sized tumour over her eye.
Amara was confounded.
“What do you mean?”
“So you want to claim that you did not seduce Koko into buying you
that wristwatch?”, said Kamsi, pointing at the Swatch Ndidi’s
boyfriend had gotten her two months ago.
“What?!”
“Or do you want to tell me that necklace you are wearing is not a
result of your indecent flirting with Ojo?” said a scowling Ndidi who
was looking at the gold chain around Amara’s neck. A birthday gift
from Kamsi’s boyfriend that had challenged Koko to get something for
her even though it was belated.
“What are you talking about?” Amara’s face was marred with
confusion.
“Are you still talking this rubbish?” asked Kamsi, clapping/dusting her
hands in the classic Yoruba woman move. “Abegi shift!”
“At least now she knows how Kosi felt when she destroyed her
relationship”, Ndidi said to Kamsi, her look of disgust still aimed at
Amara. Amara’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!!!”
... To be continued
