THE MIGHTY HEART an excerpt from chapter five. Ajoke grew more and more apprehensive with the darkening of the atmosphere as the arrival of Iyabo was prolonged than necessary. It was unusual of Iyabo to stay this long outside. Anyway, it might be due to the heavy traffic. She must have been on her way home by now. Or what could have happened to her?... Different thoughts were racing through her mind as she was seated on the sofa in the sitting room. She was there waiting for Iyabo’s arrival. The fact that Iyabo informed her mother about where the former was going gave the later an occasional consolation, but which was circumscribed by an intermittent mind-conjured premonition. After all, she told her beforehand that she wanted to talk to her. That one alone was enough to prompt her home. When did Iyabo become like this? She thought again and again. Anyway, her seemingly not forthcoming arrival was not deliberate, she believed. She would arrive any moment from now, she consoled herself. The sitting room was faintly illuminated by the dancing flame of a candle. The candle was placed on the centre table in the sitting room. A rather cold breeze came through the slightly opened window and glided smoothly above the candle flame. Ajoke watched the flame dance to the passing breeze. She rose and walked to the window. She peered out through it for some seconds and strained her ears intently. There was no telltale that could bear the hope of Iyabo’s imminent arrival. Disappointed, she heaved a sigh of despair and closed the window completely. She turned back and fixed her gaze on the now blurred but smiling posture of her husband in the hung, framed photograph. The smile was that conspicuous though. “If her father can arrive before her, he would not smile at all”, she said within her mind. Of course Alabi himself was yet to arrive home from his furniture work shop. Ajoke directed her gaze to the wall clock. After some seconds of peering closely at it, it was 8:35pm. She drew a long breathe and walked back to the sofa chair. She released the air more suddenly than she drew it and slumped dejectedly on the chair. She yawned as she used the back of her right hand to rub her eyebrow - which was becoming heavy with dangling sleepiness – in a horizontal manner. Just as she lifted her legs on to the chair to balance herself flat on it in readiness to lie down in her last submissive capacity to suppress her anxiety, she heard a knock at the door. “She is home”, she mumbled with effort. She rose on her feet and went straight to the door. Before she could open the door, an ugly thought hit her mind: it must be her father. She opened the door with shaky hand still nurturing the ugly thought... Iyabo greeted her. Ajoke heaved a sigh of relief which was siamese in nature – her daughter was home, the knock on the door which she attended to, was not that made by her husband. Thus it was another relief on her part that her husband did not arrive home before her daughter did, otherwise, he would blame Ajoke for everything. Ajoke did not reply Iyabo’s greetings. She did not say anything. She merely heaved a sigh; a sigh of disappointment and relief. But now, she was more relived at heart. Ajoke closed the door and walked back rather slowly to the sofa chair and sat on it in the same manner in which she walked. Iyabo needed not to be told before she knew right away from her mother’s silence that the later was angry with her. Her mind was then gripped by guilt feelings within the stuffy aura of her mother’s ominous silence. Chastised by the effect, she remained standing on one end the sofa chair on which her mother was seated, with a dejected and penitent look on her face. In the meantime, nobody talked. Ajoke did not complain; Iyabo did not explain. Presently, Iyabo fixed her gaze boringly on the floor obviously downcast and engaged her mind in cinematography. The picture was vivid. She was watching herself and Lakade in the later’s room. Lakade rose from his sitting position and lit a kerosene lantern. At this moment, her image as an observer or watcher thought it high time she left. It must be near to darkness outside there. But her image as a participant was completely insensitive, in an inexplicably way, to the physical composition of the environment. The ambient environment in Lakade’s room meant the world to her at the moment. She could not imagine life outside it. Iyabo frowned at her image as a participant in anger as one would to an erring actor in a popular movie especially when the actor was one’s favourite and one expected him or her to behave or act in one way that one considered better in a particular scene but the actor acted in another way one did not approve of... the sneeze of Ajoke left Iyabo’s mind tabula rasa. The cinema disappeared and she saw nothing more than the bare floor. Back in her present reality, Iyabo blamed the rest of the scenes on herself. After she had sneezed, Ajoke made as if to talk and Iyabo watched her mouth expectantly and with consternation. Her heart was pounding heavily against her chest from within. Ajoke did not say anything and Iyabo spent the moment that followed to hate her visit to Lakade. But it was necessary. She had to visit him, she thought. She then frowned at phantom image of Lakade. She had hated him momentarily before she thought it out that he should be left out of the blame. After all, he would not have held her down if she had decided to leave as soon as possible. Ajoke’s sudden silence and coldness, though not always a protracted one, was also in a sharp contrast to Alabi’s outrageous charging and shouting and scowling at the same time, to show that they were angry with any of their children. Ironically, Iyabo was usually more scourged by her mother’s silence towards her than her father’s tirade. Thus, she comported herself in good manner in some occasions just to insulate herself from her father’s noise, while at the same time doing so to please her mother. “I don’t want to get shouted”, she would tell her younger ones in a warning tone without including the subject. They would understand. She often used that statement to get the support of her younger ones in doing something they all had been ordered to do before the arrival of their father. “If we don’t do it in time, mummy will be very angry with me when she comes”, she would otherwise say. As such, she was more sensitive to her mother’s expectation of her than her father’s order; she however upheld equal respect for both parents. Some two minutes had passed and Iyabo remained standing. Her eyes were now orange-like coloured behind the glassy tears that lingered on their surface. But all the while, in fact, ever since Iyabo had arrived, Ajoke had been thinking in her, or what seemed an ominous silence to Iyabo, about what Iyabo would become when she got to school. Although Iyabo had no antecedent in that regard, what happened tonight provided Ajoke with the premonition of imminent occurrences of such when the former was away in her school, and during which period she would just be like a horse without bridle. Why would she have allowed her daughter to get involved in whatsoever relationship with any boy in the first place? She asked in her mind. She blamed herself. After a second thought, she concluded and believed that a controlled indulgence is desirable sometimes. If she and her husband had been very strict in dealing with their children, in shielding and overprotecting them against any form of relationship, this is the time for Iyabo to duly have such a shied off herself. She would by now be free in her school away from where their eagle eyes could cover. Nevertheless, she was very sure Iyabo would comport herself in good manner. She has been well-behaved throughout her secondary school years. Anyway, what Iyabo was sure of as an ominous silence by which she had been tormented was, as a matter of fact, her mother’s mode of expressing her fear and dismay about the future of her daughter. Therefore, Ajoke’s silence this evening, unlike rarely preceding ones, was one that began in anger and suddenly dissolved into a musing on what precepts she should give to improve and concretise her daughter’s moral standing against the outside world’s pervasion. She must talk to her. After all, she had informed her about this before she went out. Tonight, she must talk to her. By tomorrow, she would be gone to school. Ajoke heaved a sigh once more and broke the silence. “Sit down, Iyabo”, she offered at last. Iyabo absorbed the lingering tears in her eyes with the hem of her gown. She then sat beside her mother. “....................”,... What does Ajoke tell her daughter? What are her last words of advice? Does Iyabo imbibe them? What does she turn to when she gets to school?... Find out in the complete novel The Mighty Heart Whose heart is then mighty against the pervasive outside world?...
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 07:38:23 +0000
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