THE TORMENTOR (Fiction)

Since my both parents passed away – my father first, then, my mother – I had had to live with Auntie Adunni, my maternal aunt, one person in the world that my late mother trusted so much and would have willingly entrusted me in her care, if she had been alive. In Auntie Adunni’s house, I was more of a slave than the “adorable niece” she had always claimed I was, in my mother’s life. Since fate pushed me to her house in the city two years earlier, Auntie Adunni had never seen any need for me to continue schooling, though her hen-pecked husband, Uncle Festus, later secretly registered me for the final year exam in one of the two private secondary schools in my village. I was about to complete my fourth year of secondary education and was doing very well, in the only public secondary school in my village before my mother’s death forced me out of the village. 

However, in spite of my aunt’s devil-may-care attitude, I studied hard but secretly, reading well and wide, as if my life depended solely on passing that exam. I also served her family very dutifully, as a maid. Auntie Adunni was sterile and maybe that prompted her perennial anger and her fierceness. Even her husband feared her. Often, the emasculated husband would make passes at me, seeking to find in me, the solace and sexual gratification that my aunt had denied him, but I always resisted his moves.

At 15 then, I was very beautiful, tall, admirably slim, and already endowed with well-developed features of a woman. I had ebony skin, with an attractive gap between my teeth and dimples gracing my cheeks. Everybody said I had a smile to die for, and that my steps always made my behind shake so well that, as young as I was then, I knew I made heads turn everywhere I went. I loved the attention that made me get. Uncle Festus would twist my name ‘Siqirat’, calling me ‘Shakira’, saying I was as pretty as one Colombian musician. 

I loved all the attention my beauty was fetching me but little did I realize that beauty could really be a curse! One week to the commencement of my exam, I fled from Auntie Adunni’s house, to my village, where an old friend and classmate, Fadekemi, put me up in the impoverished house she and her father lived in. She’s also sitting the exam.

Two days to the commencement of our exam, my friend and I returned home from a private tutorial, only to meet my aunt waiting inside my friend’s house. I stopped short, looking shocked to see her.

“How are you?” She said, faking a smile.

“Goo- good morn- good afternoon, Auntie” I stuttered. My friend greeted her and she grunted in response. 

“You will go to the market now and get everything listed on this paper,” she said so genially that one would think she was kindness personified. “Hurry up!” She gave me the paper and some money.

On the paper, I saw these: 5 tubers of yam, vegetable, smoked fish… I wondered what she would need all these items for, and if that was all that had brought her to this far away village. My friend and I dashed out to get the items.

We were very close to the market when a black van suddenly pulled over and five hefty men jumped down from the vehicle. They rushed towards us, and out of panic, Fadekemi and I ran opposite directions. I ran fast but noticed all the five men were chasing only me. Who could they be? What did they want? The money? No! I would never let them get it, because my aunt would kill me, if I did! Thoughts raced through my mind as I ran so fast.

I ran into the very noisy village market. As I ran through the unconcerned crowd, people gave way. I stopped looking back so I wouldn’t fall, but I strongly sensed my pursuers were fast gaining on me. I was running blindly and didn’t know when I bumped into the muscular arms of one of my pursuers. He must have skirted the crowded route to double cross me. He lifted me high and slung me on his shoulders. I screamed for help but no help came. Then, I begged them to take all the money I had and let me go but they didn’t listen. I was bundled into the waiting van.

After about 30 minutes, the van came to a stop and I was asked to come out. I noticed we were in another village. I stepped out gently and saw some women singing and dancing. Songs of marriage rent the air. Why would this people bring me to a marriage ceremony? Then, I saw Auntie Adunni some distance away, looking at me, beaming wildly. Beside her, I saw an ugly pot-bellied man grinning mischievously. The singing women approached me, and it was when they started mentioning my name in their song that I realized my doom: My Auntie was marrying me off to that simian looking man. His name was Salami Ijimere! People hailed him as I was pushed closer to him.

Later that night, I was taken to his room, all dressed up. Getting into the room, I saw Salami Ijimere in his underwear, standing close to the bed. His very big head, his uneven set of blackened teeth, his pot belly, his scary reddened eyes and his mischievous smiles, nauseated me. He grinned as he beckoned me to him but I was rooted to the spot. Then, he made towards me. I watched his belly move like a jutted transparent bag filled with water. When he touched me, his coarse hands pierced like needles pricking the skin.

“Why do you look so scared?” He asked me but I was mute. ”I won’t bite you”. He smelled fragranced. He looked into my face and smiled. “Since your aunt showed me your picture, I’ve coughed up so much to get you. So, undress!”

I stood rigid, struggling to blink back tears. I didn’t know when I said, “I am starting my final year exam in two days’ time. Please let me go.” He slapped me.

“There,” pointing to his giant-sized bed, “is where you will write your exams and get your results! We are married now and no more school for you!” He thundered. He pulled me closer to himself and ripped my clothes. He forced himself on me and took away my jealously guarded pride. I was bloodied and in pains.

**********************************************************************

The next day, Salami Ijimere, unworried about the pitiable state in which he had left me the previous night, informed me we would be moving out of the village that morning. We were moving into a new flat that he had rented for us to live in, on the outskirts of the city. There was nothing to pack, except a small box I suspected was containing some money. Then, shortly after I had dressed up in the room where he had locked me in, he brought me some breakfast – three slices of bread, with some butter haphazardly plastered across each slice, and a cup of lukewarm tea. The last thing I remembered about that scene was that I drank some tea and was eating the second slice…

By the time I opened my eyes, I was lying lethargic on a large bed, same as that on which he had yanked off my pride. My tired eyes roved about the room, feasting on the seemingly serene new surroundings: the purplish-red curtains with floral designs matching those on the magenta bed sheet; a small colour TV sitting on a carmine table cloth spread on a mini fridge; a 16-inch electric standing fan swiveling and whirring softly – apparently, that’s a temporary arrangement, as the fan hook on the ceiling was waiting to receive a fan; walls painted magenta, with cream horizontal stripes complementing its beauty; a big purplish-red wall clock with a white backdrop and crimson clock hands; and a ceramic-tiled floor. Everything around breathed average living.

Aside from the whirring fan, there was so much silence around and I was starting to become terrified. I yearned to tour the new house to see if there were some human neighbours I could seek help from, to break away, very early, from that forced matrimony. I managed to crawl out of bed. Salami Ijimere must have drugged me, to ease his getting me here, out of fear that I might create a scene and attempt to escape while being driven here. My legs were wobbly as they touched the floor and as they propelled me towards the adjoining room, the sitting room. It was a bigger room with a few brown goods. What’s with all these shades of red colour? I wondered, seeing three settees upholstered in maroon red and purplish-red curtains draped on the two separate burglar proof windows sitting astride the door.

Like a prisoner kept under lock and key, I stood helpless before the stainless-steel door lock. I fumbled with the lock but to no avail. Rage frothed inside of me and I muttered curses on everyone responsible for my predicament. I moved towards one of the burglar proof windows and drew the curtains. The house in which I was being held captive had a capacious compound, stretching from the front of the house to a pedestrianized road, apparently rarely trodden. Neighbouring houses, few and far between, stood distantly from the other side of the road. Anger and hunger were now forging an alliance within me – I was hangry. 

From the small burglar proof kitchen window, I espied a nearer building. It looked desolate. 

“Hello!’ I screamed so hard, longing to be heard by somebody. I screamed repeatedly but no response. I resigned to fate and resolved to solve the immediate problem of hunger, though I planned to make the screaming a sort of ritual, from then, hoping against hope that someone would hear me and come to my rescue. I opened the small fridge in the kitchen and what I saw somewhat stunned me. I wondered how a visibly tasteless Salami Ijimere, obviously unschooled and evidently bereft of the virtue of domesticity, would have known the right foodstuff to be stocked in the fridge: vegetables, beverages, eggs, and so on. Perhaps my callous aunt had furnished him with such details. 

After having a light meal, I sat on the ceramic-tiled floor and leaned against one of the chairs, to reflect on how to wriggle myself out of the entanglement. Nostalgic memories of my parents flooded my mind. I missed the presence of my strict but doting father and my extremely protective mother. Emotions overwhelmed me and tears trickled down my cheeks. I cried myself to sleep and slept into the night.

The rough hands of Salami Ijimere caressing my cleavage jolted me out of my sleep. I languorously made to turn away in resistance but he roughly pushed me back face up. He smelt drunk.

“Stop this rubbish, young woman!” He barked drunkenly. “You are now my wife!” 

Again, he had his way. After the act, I wriggled away from his side, rushed to the toilet and thoroughly douched with water. 

“God, please, don’t let me get pregnant for this monster,” I muttered a prayer. I sat on the toilet bowl afterwards and I wept buckets.

One week flew by, as I languished in the unholy matrimony. Salami Ijimere always ensured I was locked in whenever he was leaving for work in the morning. One Sunday night, while watching his favourite soap opera titled Checkmate, he told me – though I was half-heartedly listening – that he was a truck driver and that he also got some passive incomes from two other sources, which he didn’t declare. The revelation didn’t so much shock me, as the many oddities I had already seen about and around him had prepared me for more oddities. That night, however, I wondered how my parents might have wronged Aunty Adunni for her to have subjected me to various indignities, one of which was to have orchestrated that mismatch, gifting me to a misfit.

Once when I tried to escape from the house, Salami Ijimere found out, and he beat me to a pulp. He spoke angrily amidst battering me. I nursed the inflicted wounds for weeks. After that incident, he continued shutting me indoors and all the view I could get peering through the adjacent front windows was of the few distant houses, almost always desolate during the day and dimly lit at night. The nearer building beside our house remained abandoned. I started thinking of weird ways of escaping and the only one that remained stuck to my head was to torch the house! But, the feeling that no help might come in time to get me out of the resulting inferno kept slamming the door against the stubborn thought. 

I was useful to Salami Ijimere for only three things: for the house chores, as his punching bag, and as his object of sexual satisfaction. One of the few times that I pleaded monthly period for my inability to gratify his sexual demands, he resorted to violence and afterwards, I nursed bruises. Crying myself to sleep in my solitary confinement was fast becoming a routine.

I constantly remembered the individual dreams and fantasies that Folakemi and I always talked about. My dreams of further education; of flying high in all classes/courses; of dedicating all my academic successes to the memory of my late parents; of becoming a gynecologist; of getting married to a very handsome and rich man; of entering an agreement with my dream husband that I would work and not be a full house wife; of mutually agreeing with my fantasized prince charming about the number of children we should have – I dreamt of two set of twins, both sexes; of ensuring my children have the best of everything that my own parents promised to give but couldn’t give… all the dreams, swallowed by crassness and sacrificed on the altar of wickedness.