Patina Lyonga scampered away from the road as a Ford Escape sped past. She jumped over a drainage channel and nearly fell into it, panting as if she had just run a marathon. She looked this way and that, like a stray cat in someone’s yard till the hoot of a vehicle some distance away rattled her. Then, she noticed that she was standing on a large expanse of land with overgrown mango and orange trees. She was sure that St. Maria Goretti Parish had been on that same land fourteen years ago.
Who would demolish a church and why? Patina wondered.
She resumed walking: this time, she kept to the shoulder of the road, traipsing like a toddler in stilettos, or one afraid that the earth would open up and swallow her. Several portions of the coal tar had cracks while potholes large enough to swallow vehicle tyres tussled for space. The palm trees on either sides of the road were now very tall. She remembered that Roberts Lyonga’s storey building was the only high rise on Bamenda Avenue when they were planted. That was fifteen years ago; a year before she got arrested and imprisoned at the Kondengui Central Prison in Yaoundé. Now she could see many tall buildings – five, six or seven, she could not tell, but they looked modern with stucco walls and tall columns in front. Like this avenue, everything in the formerly quiet town of Tiko had changed.
Patina trudged on. Mea-Martha Tailoring Centre was no longer there – the building was barricaded with corrugated zinc roofing sheets. She was relieved to sight Alhaji Usman’s Bureau de Change’s signage on the wall of the building though the shop was closed. Beside it was a cobbler’s shop with over ten apprentices working in it – that shop was not there before. The boys gawked at her. She hurried past, avoiding their eyes. Next, she passed the 911 Lounge. It now looked like a poultry house. She shook her head as she remembered how she, Roberts and their friends used to drink and dance there till 2 a.m. – or past – before returning home, spent. Suddenly, she was in front of Roberts Lyonga’s house – where she lived before being confined to a six-by-six cell at the maximum-security prison – and her heart dived into her stomach.
The gate was rusty but open. She walked in. The concrete floor now had cracks and grasses had sprouted in-between the crevices. The main house was locked with a massive key that looked rusty – she could recall that key but could not remember whether it was she or Roberts who bought it and where. The paint on the building was greenish in some places, yellowish in some others and peeling off in many other places. A bird flew overhead and Patina dodged as if it was a giant dragon. She sat on a piece of block by the entrance and waited.
The sun came and left like it was in a hurry to go somewhere else, but Patina sat, waiting. Just before twilight, the gate swung open a little, and a man in his late forties walked in. The sack in his hand dropped and the contents fell out, as his mouth threw open; he could neither breathe nor scream. Somehow he staggered back and leaned on the gate. The creaking sound of the gate as his weight rested on it woke the sleeping woman. She fell backwards and hit the wall. The man was embarrassed.
They stared at each other for one . . . two minutes. None was ready to approach the other. No one said a thing.
‘When you said in your letter that you still lived here I didn’t believe it. But I came in and saw clothes on the rope.’
He drew closer. They stood a few inches apart, unsure of how to analyse the situation – her coming home so unexpectedly. Had they been blood relations or lovers or man and wife, they would have hugged, but the circumstances were different. Patina used to be his madam; before she was sent to prison, before she killed her husband.
‘Sorry, I frightened you.’
‘Ahm . . . I wonder,’ Patina stammered. ‘Do you have the keys to the . . . place?’ The word ‘place’ escaped her mouth before she had time to correct it. But that was what Roberts building had become – a ‘place’.
‘Ye . . . ye . . . yes. Never touched it, noh.’ The man hurried to the visitors’ quarters by the left side of the main building and returned with a bunch of almost rusty keys. He handed the keys to her.
‘Thank you, Enow.’ Patina took the keys and smiled at him.
Patina was sure that Enow’s lingering eyes were scrutinising her and trying to register her current physique. Her eyes were no longer big, whitish and daring; the folded rings on her neck had disappeared, like her curves, and the flawless shine and firmness of her skin. Patina saw him glance at her upper body – she wondered what Enow thought of her physical changes. It was clear that she no longer looked as voluptuous as before. She inserted the key into the lock and forced it to turn. The door creaked open. Dust breezed out. They both coughed. The smell of mildew, dust, wetness and abandonment assaulted their nostrils. They sneezed.
‘Since you stayed, you should have cleaned up once in a while, Enow.’ Patina turned and faced the man but avoided his eyes.
‘It is wrong noh, Madam . . . to enter master’s house.’
Patina wanted to tell him that master was dead and his madam had been imprisoned and that he was under no obligation to stay, and since he did stay, he should have opened the house once in a while, but thought against it. No need to make the man feel bad – he had done enough by staying and making sure the property was not taken over by weeds and wild animals.
Read Full Story in Obinna's Collection
