Mutual Betrayal.

Mutual Betrayal

She is exhuming her lower GI tract of any congestion that will not make her think well. This is the fourth time.

Amaka shoots a glance at her again, reflexively picking another serviette to cover her nose. She doesn’t miss her face falling in apology and a mythical sniffle as she steadies her gaze on the terrazzo floor. The encumbrance dwelling in the room is enough to chafe her—Amaka—and she is only staying back because she knows too well leaving her in the room may spell disaster. Besides, the vehemence with which she moves her frame and handles the knife is so unsettling that while Amaka dutifully protects her nose, she must also watch with both her eyes.

“What is it this time?” Amaka asks through the gag.

“Ahmad is coming next week” she sighs.

“And you have to wear your butt out because of that?” Amaka sounds spiteful.

“How old is it” she continues.

“Six weeks, the doctor said” Sheri replies.

“And you don’t want to tell him?”

Sheri raises her head and looks at Amaka in surprise, as she expresses her disappointment—how Amaka without batting an eye can jaw with so much impudence, how she is in fact too much an extrovert to have played the angel in Jesus’ Birth last Christmas in school, but she knows too that Amaka cares about her and can take the bullet for her, Amaka is her confidant and her all time best pal. So she tells her Ahmad will skin her alive if he knows and that she can’t possibly abort as it is against her religion to kill. When Amaka grittily mocks her that sleeping with a man while she is engaged to another is not against her religion, she swears by Allah that she hadn’t wanted to do it. She also confesses how luxury can sway her easily, and admits she is not trusty enough. She examines regretfully her finger which bears Ahmad’s engagement ring as she says to no one in particular that she now realizes her folly.

“I can help you tell him” Amaka cuts her babbling.

Sheri gives another fart. She never seems to comprehend Amaka’s gut-like attitude to issues. But Amaka is not caught unawares by her fart, she knows her pal too well.

“Heaven will not fall, will it?” Amaka reiterated her stand.

“Toh! May God’s will be done” she resigned.

Sheri and Amaka are more than resolute as they sit in the lounge of Muritala Mohammed Airport a week later to receive Ahmad. Sheri sees him first, his tall dark frame distinctly shooting out of the crowded waiting area like a crystal bolt. She remembers his smile, too compelling. He has a firm expression as he trots towards them, the colour of his flowing agbada matches the cap he has on, and he looks so confident and fulfilled with the way he holds his briefcase which has a LOUIS VUITTON inscribed on it. She remembers what took them apart and appreciates their coming together again could have only been borne out of sheer determination to bring the greener pasture home. She cannot deny something has changed and wishes things work out as planned by her.

Moments later, she sees the traffic at the airport stand still as though in aweless reverence of the return of her beloved and the only other moving onlooker who will witness the anticipatory re-union of these two lovers may only be Amaka. Sheri is jittery, Amaka can sense it.

Then another figure becomes motional, and Ahmad makes to join his free hand with that of this figure. The figure falls in his arms instead, and he readily embraces her. He asks what took her so, long—the figure—and she says she had to take off her socks before she could use the rest room. Her lips are dripping honey and Ahmad calls her his angel. Sheri hears Ahmad telling this honey-dripping-lipped beauty to be careful about her protruding belly that he has a pecuniary interest in what is growing there, sort of, and he swathes his hand around her waist as they both turned left giggling like little children. Sheri’s anus threatens to give way.

“I don’t think she should be here, so don’t be afraid” Ahmad is saying.

Sheri, fretting over the situation unfolding, eventually dispels it—the accumulation of smelly confusion and uncertainty. She lurches as she makes to run after him, grab him, tell him he shouldn’t do this to her, confess her mistake and promise by Allah to be a good girl henceforth.

“Don’t” Amaka pulls her back.

“You’ll survive this” she adds as she picks a serviette from her purse.