Obiageli helped him carry his baggage to his new room. It was not too distant from the hotel. His room was fifth on a row of a dozen rooms, having termite-ridden doors and stickers that bore divergent doctrines and beliefs. ‘God will make a way,’ ‘I will make it in Jesus name,’ ‘Brotherhood of the Cross and Star,’ ‘My enemies would live long and see what I would become.’ His own door had no sticker, because he had removed it and because it had read ‘Things do come together. Even the ant would become soldier-ant one day.’

            Obiageli stayed till dark, just as she had stayed when she wanted him to marry him. She helped him arrange his new room. She was wearing trouser jeans that tight-fitted her and blouse that showed the line of her cleavage-cover and her flabby navel. She slept on the single mattress after she had drunk the malt he gave her. And she snored. Even though he hated the snore, he watched her sleeping figure because her blouse had exposed beyond her flabby navel.

He watched her until she awoke. She re-made her blouse into rightness. Then, she looked around and hissed when she discovered it was darker.

            “You can sleep here till tomorrow.”

            “Mama would be worried. I told her I would not be late.”

            “You should not take the risk. You know how armed robbers fill the streets. And you could get raped.”

            Obiageli looked at him. There was some distantness about her gaze. As though she was a priestess that saw a new hallucination.

            “Why do you care? Why do you care if I get raped?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “You love me, don’t you?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “I know. You love me. You chose me out of many girls. You love me.”

            “I said I don’t know. I don’t know what love is. I only know that it is more fake than real. I don’t know if I love you.”

            In the end, they slept together on the mattress that was made for one person. She kept repeating ‘I love you,’ even sleep-talking.

Two Saturdays later, while he did his laundry at the backyard of his room, he heard the door creak, as usual, lazily. He curiously went to see. It was Obiageli, accompanied by a bag that was bulky from its contents.

            “What is the meaning of—”

            “I had a quarrel with mama. And I promised I would not return to her house. And I had no where to go.”

            He knew it was falsehood. But he let her find a corner for her bag before he confronted the falsehood.

            “Tell me the truth. Why did you come?”

She let the question linger in the air, her silence made it linger.

            “I came because I wanted you to marry me. I told you I love you and I want you to marry me.”

            His agape mouth did not show the flabbergasted feeling that whelmed him. She was a woman, asking him, the man, to marry her. He would curse anyone who said the world had not changed.

________________________

Marriage was a different lifestyle. They shared the bed. She cooked and he brought his daily profit as if she was the tax-collector. The room was tidier. He would not sleep with her on the first night. When he finally did, he hated the accomplished look she had on her face. She had brought her cassette player along and she played many songs. Usually, she used her large comb as a microphone when she accompanied the singing that came from her cassette player.

            Their good time came when they sang together, or the times she composed a love song and added his name to it. He would hold her from her behind and she would rhythm her waist to the songs.

            Soon, the hair on her legs began to reappear and she no longer kept the room tidy. But she still listened to her cassette player and she still composed songs. He confronted her.

            “I don’t like the job you are doing.”

            “What does the job I am doing have to do with keeping the room tidy?”

            “It is my own way of protest.”

            “Was it not you that said you wanted to get married? Didn’t you know that I sold rat-poison before you got married to me? Now you are protesting.”

            Obiageli protested further. She inserted a tape into the cassette player and started to hum its output. He felt insulted and so he used his fists to smash away the cassette player. Obiageli looked at him with amazement and she protested further when she lay down on the bed and sulked. That moment, he remembered that Obiageli had said she would turn twenty-one that year. He understood why she sulked.

Her sulking lasted for two more days, during which she did not say a word to him. She bought a new cassette player and danced. She would swish her waist in his face, and again, he remembered that she was protesting. He would not apologize, because it was her that said she wanted to get married and he would not apologize when her marriage was failing. After two days, she disappeared.

            He came back from his rat-poison circuit to discover that only his baggage remained. He did not feel sorry. It was relief that came. Relief mixed with anger, because he had deflowered himself with a woman that proposed marriage and would not stay.            

__________________________

The nagging woman said she was Obiageli’s mama.

            “Where have you taken my daughter to?”

            “Your daughter left herself. She came here by herself. And she left by herself.”

            “It is a lie. You used juju to charm her and she came here and lived as your wife. Now you have used her for blood money. You would see, I would call police for you.”

            “Madam,” he was gaining the guts from an unknown source, “I don’t care if you call the president. I don’t know where your daughter is. She left of her own volition.”

            The woman panted and panted with hands akimbo. Then she left, after showing infuriation that he spoke too much grammar and promising to return. He watched her leave, and he saw the flowery design on her jaded Ankara. He saw that the petals in her flowery ankara enclosed each other, came together. He wanted a coming together like that.

Weeks later, he saw Obiageli on the Television in the room next door. She had been chosen for Idols, a singing competition. He saw that she was totally non-corpulent when she was being interviewed.

            “What is your greatest regret in life?” the interviewer asked her.

            “Leaving the man I loved because I wanted to sing.”

            “Would you want to return to him?”

            “Yes.”

And tear drops accompanied her regret.

He still did not find any feeling for her. Even if he found a feeling for her, he would not wait. He had decided to return to his town, because the rat-poison warehouse had run short of supply and because he wanted to go and tell his mama the truth.