Kalu didn’t
like to think of himself as vain and foppish, he however always made an effort
to appear dapper. But the thing was this, as a child he grew up in a northern
town where there were only a handful of Igbos and most of them were technicians
and traders. The only few available white collar jobs were mostly teaching or being
a staff at the Local government office. So he had always disliked the way
clothes hung loosely around his kinsmen and he made a silent vow that when he
leaves his community and moves to the big city he would be sure to wear nice
clothes.
The answer
to his prayer came when he got an oil company scholarship that paid his way
through the university and ultimately he landed a job with them after his
graduation.
He remembered
vaguely that the northern young girls in his community will always smile shyly
at him when they walked past. Though that amused him he would later admit to
Karen that he had always figured they were interested in him because of his
charming good looks and his sense of style.
Let me
introduce Karen – she was the new NYSC Corp member in Kalu’s office and the
girl Kalu was hooking up with. Kalu thought her pretty and smart enough and
definitely someone with whom he enjoyed having conversations but he wasn’t
looking for anything serious. But that wasn’t how she refers to their
relationship. She sees herself more as the lady of the manor because she had
partially moved in with him and of course had her own key to the apartment. She
prided herself as the love of Kalu’s life whom he’s just too shy to admit.
Did I
mention that Kalu was definitely a fine guy? Well I think that word quite
understated- he is beautiful. Dark skinned, really tall and slim but buff such
that you can’t but stop and stare when he walked past. He got so much attention
from women at restaurants, clubs and at the workplace. And even a few men also
whenever he went to the gym.
I think that
was what made it different with Karen. She obviously made it clear that though
she thought him really handsome, -I mean she would have to a blind not to see
that-, but she never made much of a big deal of it. She made it clear that she
was attracted more to his wit and brilliance. And I guess Kalu liked that
declaration because he always got a free pass wherever he went. People fell all
over themselves to grant his wishes. So she was a breath of fresh air for him.
Kalu liked
to think of himself of not being a womanizer but with such beauty comes the
inevitable temptations. He never even had to worry about trying to step up to a
woman, because they always seemed to be just waiting for him to make a move and
the bolder ones usually walked up to him themselves.
One of such
to fall victim to his charm was Zara- The divorced, rich daughter of a wealthy
top ranking business mogul. Kalu met Zara at a work function where they had
both presented results of their individual research work and he was totally in
awe of her articulation and poise that she carried with so much
delicateness.
She was
exactly the type of girl he always thought unapproachable. Living in the north
he understood the stereotype involved with northern girls dating a southern
guy, so no matter much they gave him the come-on looks, he would look the other
away. He definitely didn’t want any aggressive father meting out a thousand
strokes of the cane on his back.
But somehow
he felt drawn to her in ways he couldn’t explain. He quickly introduced himself
after the event ended, they exchanged business cards and he began working his
magic on her. First he began by helping her with her research work whenever he
thought she was smarmed. Before long, they began meeting for lunch and on days
he wanted to turn on his full charm he would take her to the movies.
Zara was
endeared by his efforts and of course his treacherous good looks. Without even
trying too hard she found herself liking him a lot. Maybe it was because he had
the bad boy image, kind of like the forbidden fruit, the devil’s eye candy that
attracted her. But before long they began dating. Zara knew with a lot of
effort she might be able to convince her parents to come around and accept of
her marrying a southerner. But she knew that the possibility of that happening
is premised on her ability to convert him to Islam.
Kalu had
become totally taken by her and he began considering an option of becoming a Muslim
as that was the only way they could be together. He began reading the revised
English version of the Qur’an and Zara explained points that he found hard to
understand. But somewhere along the line, Kalu’s stoic catholic mother
intervened and so he had to grudgingly walk away. This hurt Zara so much
because she had hoped he would convert and so had begun to tell her family
about him.
This all
happened before Karen got into the picture. Karen was the one to pick up the pieces
of Kalu’s broken heart, piece it back together. Of course Kalu had told her
about his Hausa lover and how things went awry and so she would tease him light
heartedly about his “Omo Hausa”
girlfriend. Having seen a glimpse of Kalu’s pain, she felt drawn to him and she
inevitably fell in love.
By this time
Zara was already sending messages pleading with Kalu to reconsider, telling him
how she loved him. When her pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears, she began
begging that he not embarrass her in before her family and as a last resort,
she switched to sending threatening messages. She had obviously found out about
Karen and so was enraged that Kalu had left her for a small girl after the
sacrifices she had made for him.
It got to
that point that Karen had to plead with Kalu to ignore Zara’s calls but he
wouldn’t. He’d go on about how he understood that Zara was only hurting and she
didn’t mean any harm. As expected this began to cause friction between Karen
and Kalu. But try as Karen would to walk away she couldn’t. And so she kept
feeling helpless in getting her man to be fully committed to her and lay to
rest whatever it was that he and Zara shared.
In the
height of her frustrations, Karen decided to pay Zara a visit at her office.
She stole Zara’s contact from Kalu’s phone and made an appointment under fake
pretenses. Upon arriving Zara’s office, she introduced herself and warned Zara
to stay away from her man. Zara, angered by such effrontery ordered security to
throw Karen out. That was the first lesson Karen was to learn that day, “do not
ever visit a rival on their own turf. Meet on a mutual ground and battle it
out”. The second lesson she would learn was never to go through your man’s
phone and especially with malicious intent. Of Course Zara called to report
Karen to Kalu and he was so enraged he packed up Karen’s clothes in a bag,
deposited it with the security guy at his gate and sent her a message about
where to pick up her belongings.
When Karen
got that text message, she felt her world crumbling down. She knew she had
messed up but could Kalu just look past it and forgive her? After countless
messages apologizing and all phone calls placed ignored, she decided to give
Zara a taste of her own medicine. So she found a guy she went to university
with who wasn’t one to eschew violence and arranged for him ambush Zara on her
way back home from work, give her a scare, slash her tires and smash in her
windscreen.
That done, it
finally got the attention of Kalu who stormed her sister’s house where she was
living to question her about the attack. She feigned innocence and even though
Kalu had a gut feeling that Karen was responsible he couldn’t verify and try as
Zara might to pin the attack on Karen, they didn’t have any proof so Karen got
away.
In a twist
of fate, this act of Karen’s obliterated any hopes she had of ever getting back
together with Kalu, instead it engendered Kalu’s pity for Zara whom he returned
to ask for forgiveness and they resumed dating.
There was
one person whom both Karen and Zara loathed her very existence and neither mentioned,
-that was Maria. She was Kalu’s first love with whom he had had a kid with but they
unfortunately lost the baby to sickle cell anemia. They had met in the
university and fell in love as jambites. By the time they were in their final
year, she got pregnant. With the promise of graduation and a wealth of
opportunity awaiting them, they decided to keep the baby. They however deferred
on getting wedded immediately but agreed to share responsibility in caring for
the child. But a few days to the baby’s first year birthday, they lost her to a
sickle cell crisis. The loss of their baby girl wedged a wall between them and
though they loved each other, the pain made them drift away causing Maria to
move to Lagos.
She however
got back into the picture when she was selected by her office to head the newly
opened branch in Abuja. Kalu ran into her at NEXT Supermarket not far from
where he lived. They exchanged numbers and reconnected in a way only two people
who were absolutely once in love could. She was still unmarried though had just
broken off an eight month engagement because of her move to Abuja from Lagos.
As is the feature of lingering embers, the flame between them easily fanned and
waxed hot. But Maria never knew of Kalu’s predicament with Zara nor Karen and
she often teased him about Abuja girls not having snatched him up long before
now but Kalu remained mum about it all.
But that was
before a fateful Saturday morning when Kalu and Maria were watching highlights
of a football match they had missed the night before when his phone rang. The call was from Karen’s elder sister who had
phoned to inform him of Karen’s demise. Karen? Dead? How? When? Why? The phone
call revealed that Karen was pregnant with his child and because things weren’t
working out she decided to get rid of it. It was almost 5 months formed and so
she died from complications during the surgery. Karen’s sister had blasted him
to high heaven cursing him for not taking his responsibilities and leading her
sister to her untimely death. When Maria figured the details of the call, she
was cross with him. Maria couldn’t imagine how Kalu put any woman through such
heartache when they had both lost a kid whom they loved and how the loss
totally crushed them. She was so pained, she packed up her things and left him.
What neither
Maria nor Karen’s sister waited to ask was whether or not Kalu knew about the
pregnancy. He didn’t. Karen had kept it a total secret from him and now
thinking back he knew why she would do that. Karen wasn’t one to arm twist anyone
into being with her. And he wished he didn’t understand that about her, because
maybe it would have made the pain he felt hurt a little less. Kalu had told
Karen about his kid with Maria and how she died, so she ought to have
understood that he would never have abandoned his child. But alas she was nowhere
for him to confront. She had robbed him of a chance to have another child he
could love and had robbed the world an opportunity to experience a beautiful
soul like hers.
He couldn’t
see how his own anger and selfishness had so blinded him to the pain Karen must
have been going through. The pain of such a realization made him call it quits
with Zara, he quit his job, put away the women in his life and bade farewell to
his family. He sold his car and put his flat up for sale with instructions that
the money be deposited into an account. And then Kalu bought a one way ticket
to China and enrolled in a soul-finding mission where he joined a spiritual
meditation group led by a group of old monks. There, he found peace and began
slowly to forgive himself.
