The devil and the deep blue sea.

The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

Ife Anofuebe and Asa Keziah couldn’t let go of each other as they hugged so tight. Their entangled body clung perfectly to each other as they kissed. Ifedi, fondly called Ife by his friends was leaving for Mongolia in search of greener pastures. Asa’s eyes had reddened from incessant crying all night long.

‘You will always be my queen, I will never leave you‘ he told her as he kissed her full lips. A drop of tears trickled down and landed on her lips as she responded, ‘ I will always love you‘. Her red lipstick had smeared his neck and lips but he didn’t care. He kept waving at her as he sat in the front seat of the car until sight of her vanished. His mind quickly flashed back to the day they met as children who played together during Uka mgbede, the Sunday evening service at All Saints cathedral, Onitsha. He remembered the day he first kissed her in the dark street of Odo Akpu as teenagers, how he held and squeezed her hands gently at Modebe during their university days, how they ran in the rain at Fegge, their evening love walk as they passed DMGS, Kanayo hospital and Ozomagala. He remembered the way his friends would hail him while walking with Asa,

‘Ife onye obodo!

Ife ada-ada!

Ife apaiwa!

Ife, ke di way?’ and he would respond, ‘Udo! Nwanne! Onwelo!’

He knew he would miss Onitsha, but at the moment, fear sank like a deep well into their hearts if their love will make it pass the city on the Niger, Onitsha.

Three days after he got to the cold country of Mongolia, he sent her a message that his journey was successful. From that day on, her walking steps and carriage changed and at every opportunity she had, she would say to anyone who cared to listen with gusto, ‘my boyfriend is in overseas‘. But behind her, her friends would hiss and laugh mockingly, ‘Is Mongolia also overseas?’.

Life didn’t turn out as easy as Ife thought it would. The only job he could get was to work as a security guard in an animal farm. For the first time, he felt like the prodigal son in the Bible but unlike the prodigal son, he didn’t have so much money on him to squander neither did his father sell any of his property. His communication with Asa kept soaring as he shared his daily experience with her as she would say calmly, ‘Daddy, don’t worry, everything will be fine‘. He in response would say, ‘Thank you, Mummy‘. His Cameroonian room mate rolled his eyes in surprise and laughed and laughed when he discovered they were both boyfriend and girlfriend who call themselves ‘mummy’and ‘daddy’.

Each night was like a tug of war for him as the cold was below -55 degree Celsius. At a point, he reiterated to himself that this kind of cold could not be cured by blankets, duvets and jackets no matter how heavy they were. His body started requesting for blankets made of flesh and blood with curves like mother Eve. Soon, he began sneaking into the room of his neighbour who always winked and gave him sexual green lights every now and then. To him, she was just a blanket for jerking, thrusting and releasing. Nothing more.

Few months later, he fell sick due to pneumonia and was rushed to a hospital where he was treated by a nurse whose name was Jane. She spoke little of Mongolian and had an African accent. An Igbo accent. ‘I bu onye Igbo?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I am‘. She answered. Search for a greener pasture had also brought her to Mongolia. ‘Wait, you left Nigeria to practise nursing here. I don’t understand’ . Somehow, their fondness grew each passing day as they went on dates and kissed more often. As their fondness grew, so his communication with Asa began to decline. The love declined more each time Izuu called and told him of her escapade with men. ‘She sleeps around for wigs, phones and recently we heard she fucks for data’. Izuu, his cousin added. He had been sending money to her since he traveled. He felt like a person robbed of a million dollars. Though he had found love in Jane, yet his demons held on to Asa. Like a sting, he never forgot that few days before he left Onitsha, after one of the nights he spent with her, they had made a blood covenant that they would never get married to anyone else until death do them part.

He imagined the deep voice of his mother saying , ‘over my dead body will that prostitute be my daughter-in-law. Chukwu aju! God forbid!‘. Not just his mother. The entire Anofuebes. He made a video call with Asa where he confronted her about what he heard. She used the tip of her pointing fnger, rubbed it on the floor, put it on her tongue and pointed it to the ceiling, swearing to God that she has never cheated on him. He knew she was lying because she has cheated on him before with her neighbour though he is not a saint either.He cursed the day and the demons that pushed him to take a blood covenant with Asa of all people.

As years went on, his discussions with his mother revolved around marriage. For no specific reasons, she didn’t buy the idea of Jane. She wanted him to come home and pick a wife. Soon, his phone gallery was flooded with pictures of every nurse, doctor and pharmacist who were single, Igbo and lives in Onitsha even the ones that looked like mgbeke to him, not very polished.

He and Jane were already making plans on how to move from Mongolia to Italy where she would make so much income as a nurse while he also further his education in hotel management and African cuisine but there is always this coldness around the idea. At the thought of a pin piercing the thumbs, thumbs rubbing each other, licking blood and making a promise to Asa, the deep kissing afterwards and the deadly consequences, his head would look like though it was full of cotton wool despite the enthusiasm in Jane’s voice of the possibility of both of them settling down in Italy. He never told her this secret.

As each day passed, he was left gradually dying inside and any decision he was to make, made him feel he would worsen the already messed up situation. As he lay on his bed one night, he was not sure if it was a dream, swoop,a trance or reality. A ray of light gently swept across his room. It was a symbol of his future gradually fading into darkness. As far as he was concerned, he was in a shit. No ordinary shit. A deep shit. A bull shit. Nsi efi, after all.