Your’e Not Tired III

Sikirat would never marry Dapo. He knew this, and it annoyed him. He was reading the news that Saturday afternoon in his home. She had swept the kitchen and made his yam and egg breakfast. Why would she take care of him if she didn’t really want him?

“Siki baby” he called, endearingly.

She came into the parlour from the bathroom, her jeans hugging her thick thighs and even thicker everywhere-else. She was obviously still cleaning, she reeked of bleach and her eyes were watery. He stared at her, and she shook her head at her boyfriend who was sitting in his boxers on his small red settee. 

“What?” she cleared her throat and slid her weave to the side.

“Come and stay with me,” he smiled, holding his arms out, a beer in his left hand.

“Is that why you called me?”

“Come and sit down now,” he added, patting his thighs for her to sit. She hissed and walked away. He knew that hiss, he was an idiot for even thinking it. 

Sikirat was now a first-year student at the University of Ibadan. She studied accounting and ran a small on-campus catering business with her friends. Over the holidays, she went back to Kaduna to see her mother. 

She had met Dapo somewhere on her campus; he was one of those graduates that stuck around for whatever reason. He had probably told her why not that she was paying attention. 

“Siki baby!” he called again, his love--or desire--for her burning deep in his heart, and elsewhere. This time she did not answer. 

Hours later Sikirat came back into the living room. Dapo was asleep, his feet on the coffee table cross from the 2010 Sony TV. She had always hated his big toenails; they jutted into space far beyond his toes in a shape that resembled pieces of scrap aluminum roofing used to patch up shanti shops. Sikirat picked up the newspaper at his feet and smacked him. Dapo woke up.

“I’m going to my hostel. Till tomorrow.” She said. 

“Just like that?” he yawned and drew close to her, “Sikirat you know that this house is your house. All this going to hostel, coming back… isn’t it stressful?”

“I think it’s fine.”

“What do you mean it’s fine? This thing is stressing you,” he held her lightly.

“Stop. Shebi I’m the one to know if I’m stressed?” she resisted, pushing him away. “Dapo see the time now.”

“Where are you running to, you this girl? It’s even dark already. ”

“I don’t have time for your nonsense Dapo,” she kissed her teeth, “I will see you tomorrow, after Church.”

She started towards the door, and he grabbed her by the arm. Sikirat turned around tiredly.

“Dapo leave my hand,” she took in a quick breath. “Don’t become an unfortunate person this night. Leave my hand.”

Dapo smiled. It was always one insult or the other with Sikirat. 

“Oladapo leave me jo.” she smiled.

Sikirat knew Dapo was playing this very slow, very intimate game. Dapo too knew he was playing. She pulled her arm back, he drew in. She pushed at his chest, he drew closer. When they first started dating, Sikirat found this kind of exchange cute. But not today. She slid out of his arms and headed for the door. She opened it.

Dapo lived in a quaint compound. A high concrete fence that enclosed a five-story block of flats, plantain trees, mango trees, and orange trees. Dapo’s flat was on the second floor, and you could see the road from his parlour--the okadas slowly and loudly buzzing by, the trailers with broken headlights zooming past.

When Sikirat opened the door that night, she didn’t see the beautiful mango tree that grew just to the left of Dapo’s flat. She saw three men, firmly built. One just shorter than Dapo, the other two easily twice his size. The smallest man charged towards Sikirat, the other two towards Dapo. The short man pulled her onto her knees by her weave and stood with his hips right at her eye level. She could see through the V of his legs, the compound was unusually still. Not quiet, not quite sleepy. Still like a pause after a great gasp.

One of the men beat Dapo. Badly. Not that Sikirat could see; she was still kneeling, looking at the sky through the short man’s legs. She could hear Dapo crying. Crying. At this moment, one of the only moments in their relationship when Sikirat saw a point of being with this man. He was actually crying. 

From the beginning of their relationship, Sikirat understood that in many ways, Dapo would not be very useful to her. Financially, emotionally, and of course intellectually. What she wanted from him, really, was the security and protection of being in a relationship. Protection from vicious gossip about single university freshers, then from her ever-pimping chief aristocrat roommates. Most importantly that day she needed protection from the three men who had entered Dapo’s house.

The men pushed Dapo’s furniture close to the door of the flat where Sikirat was kneeling. They took Dapo’s cash and cards and even ate the remaining yam and egg Sikirat had made that morning. The short man pushed Sikirat away from the door, through the empty parlour, and into the dark inner hallway where the bathroom and the bedroom were. 

Dapo watched Sikirat crawl into the darkness, led by the short man. He was too weak to move, but he cried pain, blood, and tears. The big men were loading his furniture into some nearby vehicle, and although they were not in the room with him, he knew he could not leave. He looked down at the floor where the coffee table should have been, and he saw the newspaper Sikirat had smacked him with.

The headline read, “Affluent Kaduna Wife Found Dead at 9 months pregnant” by Chime Anyawu. Chime had written:

“We see things like this as normal, as everyday casualties, nothing new under the sun. We are all hustlers, and a real hustler cannot talk about abuse, or rape, or any real pain. Yet we think we are living. We think this is life. It is funny how we believe this so dearly, but we are quick to complain about unemployment, uneducation, bad leadership. We say we are tired of the way our country is run. We say we are tired of the impoverished lives we live in. We say we are tired of the way our women are treated. But we are not tired. The same way a hungry person seeks and eats food, a tired person should seek and accept rest. You--you who is reading this, you are not tired. You are not as tired as you need to be.”