Ogadinma by Ukamaka Olisakwe

Author:Ukamaka Olisakwe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nigerian literature;african literature;chinua achebe;new adult;chimamanda;chinelo okparanta;feminist literature;feminist new adult;feminist young adult;nigerian feminist
Publisher: The Indigo Press
Published: 2020-08-14T21:55:31+00:00

10

And then Kelechi visited.

‘Tobe, my brother!’ he said immediately he stepped into the parlour. He sounded flustered, and the new shrillness in his voice surprised Ogadinma. He hugged Tobe, thumped him on the back, swayed.

But in his embrace Tobe was as rigid as a pole. When Kelechi sat on the sofa, he spread his legs open and leaned back, as if to show that he was not worried about the state of the flat. ‘How have you been, nwanne m? I have been away for a while and have only just returned.’

‘I am doing well,’ Tobe said stiffly. He sat forward, clasping and unclasping his hands. And he was looking at Kelechi, an open, unabashed look, but Kelechi would not hold the gaze for too long.

There was a moment the two men said nothing to each other, and this made Ogadinma nervous. She felt sweat beading her back, trickling under her arms, her brows. Tobe had hardly spoken to her since he returned, had worn a sombre mien every day. But his face had come alive now. He was sitting a few feet away, looking directly at Kelechi. His eyes dead cold, his jaws suddenly prominent, his nose defiant. She had never seen him that way before. And Kelechi, who sat upright in his carefully ironed blue kaftan, seemed unsettled by Tobe’s intense gaze.

Ogadinma muttered something about checking the food on the stove and left. But she did not shut the door leading out to the passageway; she stood behind it to listen to their conversation.

Kelechi spoke for a long time about how he had just returned from abroad, that he got this address from a friend, and that things were so hard, but he was struggling to keep a positive front. The longest Ogadinma had ever heard him speak. And Tobe mumbled in monotones. Often, there would be an awkward lull in their conversation, times when the two friends had run out of stories to fill in the gaping maw in their relationship, and then Kelechi would bring up another topic about the government and the failing economy, and Tobe would respond with silence.

‘You call me brother but you abandoned me when I needed my brother’s help,’ Tobe finally said.

There was a moment when the air was so still she could almost hear their tense breaths, before Kelechi said, ‘I ran, Tobe. I ran because the Special Committee invited me to account for the works I did for the Anambra State government. Remember the radio station contract I handled? They would have sent me to prison like they did every other contractor and public official. They even froze my bank accounts. But I fled to Ghana, my brother. That’s why I wasn’t here for you.’

Tobe muttered something, and Kelechi hurriedly responded like a hen pecking at strewn corn, telling Tobe how he had become friends with some senior army officers, that it was these officers who cancelled the warrant for his arrest, who helped remove the hold on his accounts.

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