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Gentlemen of the Bar – 11

By Umari Ayim
08 February 2016   |   6:00 am
Angela Glowering at Barrister Shuiabu from his exalted position behind the dais, the judge is almost frightening in his anger. The court room is silent and the eyes of the fifty odd persons in the room are trained on the visibly quaking Barrister Shuaibu and the judge. “Sir, but the prosecution is not bound to…

Gentlemen-of-the-bar-pix

Angela

Glowering at Barrister Shuiabu from his exalted position behind the dais, the judge is almost frightening in his anger. The court room is silent and the eyes of the fifty odd persons in the room are trained on the visibly quaking Barrister Shuaibu and the judge.

“Sir, but the prosecution is not bound to call every witness…the case of…Oforkete versus the state and Ihemegbulam Onye….”

“You have not brought a single witness Barrister Shuaibu,” the judge says, cutting him off. “And you submitted a list of three witnesses with your statement of claim.”

“Yes sir…but – ”

Shaking his head, the judge picks up papers before him and thumps them on the dais.

“Barrister Shuaibu, you have wasted the time of this court for the past two weeks. I wonder if you think we came here to play.”

“No sir,” Barrister Shauibu says, folding into half, his face sagging with embarrassment. “It is not my fault sir. Witnesses have refused to come to court.”

The judge shakes his head and begins to sort through the papers in his hand. As the court waits with bated breath for his next pronouncement, I remember my last visit to Hussaina and her story about receiving three strange men the previous day. According to Hussaina, the men had come in a car which in her limited vocabulary could be described as a hybrid of a Toyota Camry and a Honda, but she had been adamant about one thing – the car was big and the windows as dark as midnight.

Tinted, the car was tinted right?

Her slim shoulders rising in a shrug, Hussaina had fallen into a sullen silence, eyes staring into a secret place that neither her mother nor anyone could reach her. I had gone soon after that, taking the knowledge that men who were probably government officials were visiting her.

“….at the next hearing and parties shall submit their written address…”

I snap out of my reverie as the court seems to erupt with voices. I turn to Naden and see him closing his journal and reaching for the case beside him. Closing the case with a snap, he looks up. Our eyes lock.

“Ready?”

I pull my journal to me and leave my seat without a word. He is right behind me as we leave the court. In the car park, I head straight to Ahmed’s car and make myself comfortable at the backseat. He joins me ten minutes later after dumping the case in the boot of the car. We drive out of the court in silence. I try not to think of Hussaina but it is hard.

Did her refusal to come to court have anything to do with the visit of the men in the big car with dark windows?

What about the other two witnesses?

Did the men visit them too?

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

IKOYI LAGOS

Damilola sat in the living room of her friend’s duplex, legs crossed and nursing her favourite punch drink. Tosin Osiyejo, her friend of twenty years was on the phone with her son, angular face relaxed as she listened to something he said. Tosin laughed.

“Bawo, I am not playing with you. Find a girl who knows our tradition…you told your dad? What did he say?”

Bending over with more laughter, Tosin slapped the arm of her coffee brown leather sofa repeatedly, her slim body quivering with her mirth. Seconds later, she straightened and tried to sound stern with her third child.

“I am serious. I want an African daughter in law.”

Tosin ended the call with her son and apologized to her friend for the distraction. Damilola smiled and lowered her nearly empty glass to a glass side table with steel legs.

“No problem.”

Tosin remembered the last thing Damilola had said before the call from her son came.

“So he is talking about meeting with your husband?”

Damilola stopped smiling and sighed.

“Yes.”

Leaning back in her seat, Tosin jiggled her legs and studied Damilola.

“Do you want that to happen?”

Damilola looked down at her gold band on her wedding finger. Her husband had metamorphosed into something that once existed only in her day dreams. Could she risk losing that over a few seconds of madness, a mistake that she wished never happened?

She shook her head.

“No.”

Tosin, avowed truth teller and faithful wife wore a reproachful frown.

“Don’t you think you owe him the truth?”

Damilola toyed with her wedding ring.

“Nothing happened.”

“Well Tunde feels differently. If he felt the same way you did, I don’t think he will be talking about seeing Martin.”

Damilola looked up at her friend.

“He cheated on me too.”

“I know,” Tosin said in a soft voice. “I know.”

“Maybe I should just meet with Tunde and talk him out of meeting Martin.”

“No,” Tosin said, head moving slightly to the left as she made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Don’t. You will make things worse.”

Damilola threw her hands up in despair, gold trinkets running down her hand and clinking against each other.

“I give up. If Tunde wants to see Martin, so be it.”

Tosin’s legs stopped jiggling. Her eyes became intense. Her voice was persuasive when she spoke.

“Tell Martin the truth. Reach him before Tunde does.”

Damilola looked down at her wedding ring again and wished she could erase the encounter with her former confidant from her past. Now the ghosts were back to haunt her and she did not know how to face them.

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

 

THE OYELOWO MANSION

MARTIN OYELOWO’S STUDY

Martin Oyelowo was on the phone with the Assistant Commissioner of police who was calling from Kano when his wife walked into his study. His eyes swept over his wife’s figure as she approached his desk. He wondered where she had been. He had been disappointed to find her room empty earlier in the day when he had stopped there.

“Hello? Are you there?”

Martin decided he had learned enough from the Assistant Commissioner of Police.

“I will call you tomorrow,” he told the man, pulling his phone away from his ear. His hand lowered to the table, eyes going back to his wife. Now sitting primly in the seat across his desk, her lips were twisted in what could have been a smile if only it had reached her eyes.

“Where are you coming from?”

Damilola’s lips fell back into a line.

“Tosin’s place.”

“Okay.”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

Martin watched his wife for some minutes. He tried to read her. She was worried. She had something important to tell him.

What was it?

Damilola told him.

“I cheated on you.”

The study could have been a graveyard. Nothing moved. No sound was heard. Even the voices that had been coming from the television seemed to have disappeared. Martin Oyelowo blinked twice and turned to stone.

“When?”

“Last year.”

“I see.”

Damilola lowered her eyes to her lap.

“Sorry.”

She stood up and left her chair. When she closed the door behind her, Martin Oyelowo drew in a deep steadying breath and came to life again.

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

UPSTAIRS THE OYELOWO MANSION

DAMILOLA OYELOWO’S ROOM

Damilola was drifting off to sleep when the lights came back on. She turned, nervous, towards her husband. He stood at the foot of the bed for some minutes, watching her, a predator stalking his victim before the strike. She sat up, clutching the sheets to her chest. She was scared. There was something in her husband’s eyes that scared her. So when he began to advance towards her, she shrunk into the headboard of her bed. Her heart became a heavy spongy mass, pushing against her rib cage and cutting off precious air supply. Damilola tried to breathe, but instead found that she could not.

He reached one hand towards her. She jumped. Her voice, broken and whispery fought its way past her tortured throat.

“Wai…wait.”

He frowned and seemed to hesitate.

“What?”

Damilola saw the confusion on his face and became confused.

“I thought….”

He sighed.

“You didn’t think I was going to….”

He shook his head and then reached for her. His touch shocked her with its gentleness. Damilola stiffened, her eyes following the progress of his hands up her thighs.

He touched her just then. He touched her in all her secret places, drawing confessions that had nothing to do with former friends. Damilola forget fear and surrendered completely to the man she had pledged the rest of her life to. Their lovemaking was fast and intense. When he fell away from her body, he took her with him.

“I knew,” he said, fingers stroking her back as she cuddled against his body.

Damilola raised herself on her elbows and pushed damp hair from her eyes.

“You knew?”

Martin shrugged his powerful shoulders, eyes boring into his wife’s own.

“Yes.”

“How did you know?”

Martin cupped his wife’s left breast, thumb grazing her nipple.

“I have my ways.”

“Did you talk to Tunde?”

Martin’s lips turned in a half smile.

“He talked to someone.”

Damilola was horrified.

“He talked to someone?”

“Yes.”

Damilola bit her lower lip. The news of her cheating had already traveled far. She imagined the gossip and snide comments.

“Someone I sent to him.”

“It turns out your boyfriend has a loose tongue when he is drunk.”

“He was never my boyfriend Martin. We did not have sex. He just touched me….”

“I don’t…think that is necessary Damilola.”

Damilola swallowed. Martin’s face had become impassive. He leaned closer and kissed her breast. She watched the top of his head, wondering how much he knew, marveling at how much she loved him in spite of everything.

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

NADEN

I close the case file and reach behind me to massage my neck. Feeling a little better, I push the chair back and stand up. Angela is on the bed, back turned to me and concentrating on her phone. I leave for the bathroom to relieve my full bladder. I return back to the room to find Angela on her back. Her eyes are no longer on her phone. They follow me everywhere I go. I walk to the bed and pick up my pillow from it.

“Have you finished the address?”

I look into curious eyes.

“No.”

I grab the folded bed sheet at the edge of the bed.

“Naden?”

“Yes?”

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Clasping the sheets against my side, I turn back to the bed. Angela sits in the middle of it, comfortably propped against the pillow resting against the head board of the bed. I nod at her.

“Go ahead. I am listening.”

“I think you should sit down.”

I take the spot where the bed sheet had been and sit directly opposite Angela. Her face scrubbed free of make up and her white oversized night shirt swallowing her frame up completely, Angela is almost a different person.

“It is about Hussaina.”

My guard goes up immediately. The old Angela is back. The T-shirt and lack of make up was a disguise after all.

“Okay.”

Picking through the facts of our case, relaying every event as if she had been a spectator herself, Angela makes a case for Hussaina, painting a pitiful picture of a girl suffering from the trauma of rape. Genuine concern causes her voice to tremble a few times. I find myself picturing the girl whose case I was paid to fight. My spirit sinks a little at the picture I conjure in my mind.

“So?”

I look at Angela and I am reminded of her father. The jaw is the same, the determined look so similar it is as if I am looking at him. I am hit by the realization that I am caught between father and daughter. Angela’s desire to help Hussaina stemmed from her own desire to rebel against her father. I dismiss the vision of Hussaina in my head and steam the flow of sympathy inside me.

“There is nothing we can do for her Angela.”

Looking disappointed, Angela leans back into her pillow.

“Is that it? You won’t even consider meeting her?”

I shake my head firmly.

“No.”

I stand up from the bed.

“Wait!”

I sigh inwardly.

What now?

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

ANGELA

I reach out as he leaves the bed.

“Wait!”

He turns towards me, brows drawn together in a frown. I puzzle over the questions in my head as I look at him.

Why this case?

Why did strange men visit Hussaina and her mother?

“Yes?”

I say the next thing I think.

“You can sleep on the bed if you want.”

He stands at the other side of the bed, his face giving nothing away as he watches me.

“I know the floor is not comfortable.”

His lips thin. “I am not complaining.”

“I know, it is just…it will make me feel better.”

“I have been sleeping there for weeks Angela.”

I manage a smile.

“Okay.”

I pull pillow behind me and plump it with tight fists. I see him move from the corner of my eye. Soon the bed sinks with his weight. I place my pillow back in its place and turn from him.

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

EHOR FOREST

EDO STATE

The kidnappers led Senator Nosakhare Osarodion out of the forest, beams of torchlight dancing on the trees ahead of them as they fought the thick darkness that surrounded them. The senator was blindfolded and bare feet, his white lace native attire, torn and hanging loosely from his emaciated form like rags. He was led forward by one of the kidnappers, while the other followed closely behind him. Something poked into the soft over pampered feet of the senator and he whimpered in fright.

“Shut up there,” the fat kidnapper behind the senator growled, swinging the butt of his rifle into the back of the senator’s knees and causing him to stumble. “Ordinary stick na im dey make you cry like baby.”

“Sorry…sorry,” senator Nosakhare said, bound hands clasped and lifted upwards as if in prayer. “Sorry sir.”

The men continued their journey in silence, their boots making squishy sounds as they crushed leaves swollen with dew and light rain. They found themselves at the edge of the forest and approached the narrow road that led to the express. A Honda Element stood waiting for them on the road. It was empty. The kidnapper in front switched his gun from his right hand to his left one and fished for the keys in his pocket.

He opened the doors of cars and directed the second kidnapper to put the senator in the backseat. Nodding quickly, the other kidnapper shoved their victim into the car. The senator tumbled headlong into the car and landed in an awkward twisted heap on the floor of the car. He stayed where he was, mumbling incoherently as the car started and shot forward.

The kidnappers drove to the expressway and turned in the direction of the place they had described to the senator’s family. They drove for several minutes, eyes checking the rear view mirror and everywhere for suspicious movement behind them. They began to relax after driving without any incidence. The kidnapper in the passenger seat had a wide grin on his face. They had gotten through. Twenty million was theirs.

“Did you notice anything?”

The smile hobbled on the kidnapper’s face as he looked at his friend and driver.

“Notice wetin?” he asked in the same low tone his friend had used.

“It felt like someone was following us.”

Turning in his seat, the other kidnapper looked back and checked for cars behind them. He saw only pitch darkness. He laughed nervously.

“I no see anything.”

They finally arrived at the deserted filling station where they had ordered the ransom money to be dropped. They flashed their headlights on the Ghana-must-go sitting on the pavement.

“Na the money be that,” the passenger seat kidnapper said, his eyes growing bigger. “Make I go carry am?’

The driver seat kidnapper nodded, eyes showing worry as he looked at the bushes flanking their car on either side of the road.

“Yes. Go.”

His partner never made it to the bag. They were surrounded by the state’s anti-crime squad before they could reach their bounty. The police released Senator Nosakhare from the bounds that kept his limbs immobilized. The senator at once free, became a Christian again. He jumped and sang loudly in the dead of the night as his kidnappers groaned under the knees of red eyed policemen with fierce expressions.

Convenant keeping God, there is no one like you….Alpha and Omega, there is no one like you…

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

 

NADEN

I wake up suddenly, my heart pounding loudly in my ears. I try to remember the dream but my memory is a blank sheet. There is nothing there to remind me of the nightmare of a few minutes ago. I become aware of the weight on my arm and look down to find Angela sleeping, back drawn….against my chest. I forget all about my nightmare as she moves in her sleep, pushing her backside into my groin. She mutters something in her sleep. I am torn between putting her back in her space and letting her sleep in my arms. As I bother myself about options, the room comes alive with the light from the screen of my phone. I stretch my hand gently and pull it from under my pillow. I squint at the screen.

My mother.

I check the phone. It is exactly three in the morning.

“Mum?”

“Naden, abeg help me pray,” my mother says, a sob catching in her voice….”I dream say dem kill Boma. Help me pray. Na only two of una I get o!!”

The phone clicks in my hands before I get a chance to ask my mother questions. I call her back immediately. I wait for several frustrating minutes before she picks. She repeats her former plea.

“I dream….help me pray….na only two of una I get.”

I finally let her go, but not without the assurance that I would pray for my brother. It is hard to sleep after her call.

Something has happened to Boma.

I know it.

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