Nafi smiled as she watched the
figure come closer to her. She could not believe her eyes.
‘What was Mannie doing in Lagos?’
She asked herself.
Anyways, this was not the time to
think. As soon as she was within earshot she screamed his name as loud as she
could. She was surprised by the reaction she got. He stared at her like one
would a mentally unstable person. Her face fell quickly however she consoled
herself with the fact that he did not walk past her but stood to continue to stare
at her. This means she would have to reintroduce herself. Oh! How she hated
that task but for Mannie, that was the least she could do.
Mannie! The brother she never
had. How did they get so close only to drift so apart? She met him just after
her final Secondary School Examinations popularly termed “Senior WAEC”. It was
one period that excessive boredom was the best adjective to describe her days.
Her sisters said it was because she finished secondary school too early as if
that had anyway of easing her boredom. She had tried to wait to sit for the
University Qualifying Examinations as patiently as she could but that too was
taking too much time to come. She was hanging out her clothes to dry on one of
those days when she noticed him and his guitar. Actually it was the guitar she
noticed first, at least, until she realised she would have to befriend him to
play. The ‘befriending Mannie’ part was so easy. Their friendship took boredom
away from her days and until she entered the University towards the end of the
next year they were the tightest friends. The night before she went to the university,
he swore he would visit her in school before that semester ended. This made her
expectant throughout the whole semester. When the semester ended she rushed
home to berate him for not keeping to his promise only to find that he got
admission to a University in the North. His auntie with whom he stayed had also
relocated to join her husband in the north. That moment she realised that she
had lost a dear friend. Whenever he would filter into her thoughts, she would comfort
herself that they would meet again, ‘After all, the world was a small place’.
Mannie!
Nafi finished her story of how we
met and was disappointed that the face looking down hers was still bland, not
even the least confused, just plain and devoid of any emotion.
“Sorry, I must have mistaken you
for another then”, she said and made to continue with her walk until she felt
his grip firm on her hands.
Then she heard the voice that
used to leave her feeling so protected, the voice that shielded area boys off
her on nights when she had to run late errands, the same voice that she had
proudly referred to as that of her brother to her peers during her extra-mural
classes in Sapele.
‘I am Mannie - Manasseh, No one
has called me Mannie since I entered the university years back but these events
you just narrated are events that I cannot recall. It’s weird, right?’
She feared this would happen. In
fact her mother and sisters always warned her. Anytime she tried to imagine how
their meeting would be in their presence, she was asked to expect that anyone
of them could have changed. In fact, Khadi, her eldest sister always insisted
that if she refused to change he would and that would definitely affect their
friendship. Her mother had oftentimes lectured her and her sisters on how never
to rely on old friends who disappear from their lives as the period of absence
is likely to greatly change them as well as their values.
It was all happening before her.
Each time her mother referred to how old friend could become strangers when they
meet in future, she would quietly snort. Every time Khadi criticized the pedestal
on which she place herself and Mannie’s friendship, she would snap back and
reply that it would never be so with them. No, she never expected that it would
mature into a monogamous loving relationship but he was her BROTHER. How could
he look at her and deny almost two years of mutual day to day friendship? How
could he erase everything about her from his memory? Was he sick at anytime in
the last nine years that it blotted out an aspect of his memory?
She did not know that she had
blurted out her last question until the answer came.
‘No, no, nothing of that sort. I
have been well and very stable. I do remember my post secondary school days
with my auntie at Sapele but you and these events you have mentioned’, he
replied shaking his head, ‘Nada’
Nafi felt haze all around her as
she walked away from him. Her eyes were all blurry. A tear dropped, then
another followed, and another. As she wiped them off her face more tears
followed. She did not want to be crying on the streets at all. This was not
worth her tears. Okay, it was worth her tears but this was not the place to be
a baby. She was glad when she finally got home. She reached for her bed as
quickly as she could and let the tears flow freely. She let her tears mourn for
the teenager that lost her friend, for the young girl that lost her brother,
for the lonely youth that life stole a companion from. Nine years she searched
for her companion and finally found him only to realise that he was the kind
that was never to be found. Weird was an understatement of how she felt.
Her tears drove her to sleep. She
must have slept for long because her room was in total darkness when she woke
up. Then she heard her phone ring. She grudgingly picked it up and identified
the caller registered as “MA”. She listened to the caller for a while before
she spoke.
‘I saw Mannie’.
