THE E-BLOCKS

The E-blocks buildings were the face-me-I-face-you kind of houses like the type found in the slummy Ama-nmong areas of Aba. It was a community of eight rows of houses facing each other in twos with a row of four toilets and four bathrooms in-between each pair as if they were separating the houses from ramming against each other. A block had six rooms accommodating two students in each. The original plan for the building was for accommodation for married students and nursing mothers. Now the rooms were randomly allocated to single students crammed four in a room like every other undergraduate hostels as a result of accommodation scarcity in UNN. Mrs. Nwodo’s was Block E4 room 404, the fourth room in the fourth row that now looked quiet and deserted except for the cry of a baby coming from first room. Melvin walked gingerly down the lawn looking at the top of the doors for room 404. Sounds of dropping waters in the bath room followed him and he felt it must be from a water tap left uncorked. He thought something about going into the bath room to stop the running water but the sound was not steady. Water from the bath room splashed on the opposite pavement as Melvin got close and he jumped backwards. He heard what sounded like laughter from the bathroom and paused.

Maybe someone is washing the bathroom; he thought and moved on. As he made to cross the bathroom, he caught sight of a grown girl’s naked buttocks shining glassy with soapy water. He flinched and looked away immediately like a solder on eyes-right command. They were two girls taking their bath with the doors widely open.  Melvin looked again furtively to be sure of what he saw and increased his pace without looking back and the girls laughed.

“Jambito!” one of them called out laud.

He could hear their croaking laughter re-echoing in the emptiness of the bathrooms as if the houses also mocked his timidity. He had always heard about lesbianism and never believed it. Now he wondered if Chioma and Uju were also one. He felt shy. Room 404 was locked. He still didn’t want to look back. He stood facing the door.

Hands akimbo.

Disappointed.

Legs fixed to the ground.

He could not turn back to face the lucid pornography behind him though his eyes wanted to see more of the nakedness. He stood there growing confusion and the weight between his thighs growing together with it. There was nobody around with whom he could drop a massage but the naked girls behind him. Now he could still hear them laughing louder and the empty rooms mocking him from behind. Some ravens flew across the top of the building making their croaky kwa kwa kwa sounds like they were part of the laughter. He thought something about walking up to the naked girls to ask them the whereabouts of Mrs Nwodo but his legs refused to move. He wouldn’t want the girls to see the mound that had formed between his thighs in the front of his trousers. He pushed his too hands into his pocket to keep his crotch region even. He tapped his fingers inside the pocket as he thought of what to do next. He was trapped like a bird in a bird catcher’s net. Suddenly a sonorous feminine voice barked angrily behind him and he turned his neck. It was Mrs. Nwodo.

      “What sort of non-sense is this supposed to mean? Who and who are there in those bathrooms?” she did not hear any response as the door closed slowly and quietly.

      "How many times do I have to warn you shameless pigs to always close the doors when you are taking your bath? Don’t you know people pass through here? I can’t imagine what kind of families you came from. If you want to show off your korokoro infested buttocks why not go up to freedom square and walk naked. Stupid girls” she smacked.

She didn’t seem to have seen Melvin.

Melvin breathed out loudly.

Hissed a long sigh of relief.

And turned around slowly.

Mrs. Nwodo raised her face and cowed a weak smile. The dimples on her cheek showed like a ball of fufu pressed with the index finger.

“Good day Aunty” Melvin greeted shyly still with his two hands bulging up his pockets.

 “Oh K.C you are here? Nna don’t mind these shameless girls without home training that want to spoil my day. How are you today?”

      “I’m fine” Melvin replied.

      “Cry cry baby” she teased Melvin as she placed her left hand on Melvin’s shoulder. She moved round him inspecting him like a cloth hung on a dummy mannequin. She placed her left hand on Melvin’s head and ran it down his back.

      “You are looking better today; no swollen eyes, no red eye balls, and no need for my handkerchief.” she laughed.

Melvin looked up shyly with a smile and said nothing but savoured the aroma of cologne that followed Mrs. Nwodo as she crossed over to unlock the door. She slumped into the bed opposite the door and motioned Melvin in. Immediately, the bathroom doors crackled. The two girls emerged, grinned at each other like the mischievous Tom and Jerry in cartoon movies and ran into the opposite room. Mrs. Nwodo pushed out her head to know who came out of the bathrooms. She only saw the figures in white bathing towels zoom past.

“Idiots” she muttered.

 “Tomi I already knew it would be nobody but you and Kemi. Let this be the last time I’ll see such non-sense repeated, else I will ensure you people are suspended from this school.” She warned the open air and went back into her room. Melvin was still standing at the foot mat looking round the room. His eyes were on the book shelves. He wondered more about how he could afford such quantity of voluminous books before graduation than how he could read them. He liked books. Not that he read much. He just wanted to own them; have a big shelf that would hold as many books as possible even if he didn’t read them.

Six spring beds lay opposite each sides of the door. At the foot of the beds were reading tables with a chair close to each. On the wall above the tables were reading lights attached to the wall and faced downwards like street lights. Mrs. Nwodo’s corner was the right flank with her pictures on the wall beside the bed. In the first picture she sat on a sofa, smiling and holding hands with a white bearded man and a baby on her laps. In the second one she carried the baby with a sucker in its mouth. High above the pictures was a bookshelf, in which were German language text books and some phonetics and grammar books and dictionaries. Directly opposite the door to the wall were two gigantic wardrobes, on top of which were boxes of different sizes.

“Women and loads” Melvin marvelled.

Though there was a ceiling fan at the centre of the room, Mrs. Nwodo had a small table fan placed on a stool by the window beside the door. Beside the door to the right, was a very big mirror not less than six feet high attached to the wall. Up above the mirror was something like a wine bar, packed full with all kinds of women’s make-ups. On the floor was red chequered linoleum spread from wall to wall.

Melvin made to remove his foot wears as he entered the room but Mrs. Nwodo bade him “never mind” and showed him to the seat by the reading table. Melvin felt something about saying; “what a nice place!” but his lips couldn’t form the words. Mrs. Nwodo dropped her bag limply on the table and went back to the bed. She sat on the bed and crossed her legs carefully as if she was preparing to offer Muslim prayers. She picked a pillow, placed it on top of her crossed laps and leaned back on the wall. She was tired. The skin of her legs looked like ripe pawpaw; so smooth that Melvin thought he saw the blood running through the greenish veins inside them. Melvin didn’t want to look at those legs again. He buried his face on the ground peeling some invincible things from his finger nail to avoid Mrs. Nwodo’s roving eyes. There was a little silence as he waited to hear something about his admission from Mrs. Nwodo. To break the ice, she suddenly teased Melvin:

       “I know you won’t cry again” Melvin chuckled and buried his face on the table before him, moving his right foot on the floor. He was shy.

      “Are you the last born in your family?” Mrs. Nwodo asked trying to relax the tension in the air.

      “No”

      “The only child?”

      “No”.

      “The only son?”

      “No, I’m the first son” Melvin answered hesitantly, he had wanted to claim the only son.

      “Ah! Why is it you look so feeble like Ajebor” she continued with curves of mischievous smiles on her face.

       “Your mother; what does she do?”

      “She is a trader”

      “And what about your father?”

      “He died some years ago”. Melvin lied. He didn’t want to think about his father as alive now.

      “Ah! I’m sorry for reminding you. It’s a pity. Ndo nnu”. Mrs. Nwodo said and placed her hands on her chest. Her Igbo sounded so soft and anglicized, devoid of tones. The thought of Melvin’s father brought back the tension which was almost dissipating. The thought of Melvin’s father, always reminded him the need not to be like him; the need to struggle out of the depth of poverty that his drunken habit had dragged the family into.                 “He is as inactive as a dead man”, Melvin had said to himself one of the days he got home and saw his father drunk. His father could not give him the comfort he wanted in life; his father would hardly provide for his family and he had promised himself that he would get everything that he wanted in life by himself without a father.

Melvin was still bent drawing shapeless images with his left foot. His face now looked stiff with hatred mingled with pity for his father. He didn’t hate his father rather he couldn’t decipher what the feeling was - a mixture of love, hate, pity and anxiety. Confusion.

He was not sure what the feelings were. He winked and tears trickled down his cheeks from his eyes.

       “Ok, guess what; I have good news for you, would you like English Department?” Mrs. Nwodo dropped as if to console him and send the tears back into his skull. Melvin jerked his face immediately and wiped off the tears that wet his lashes. The only thing he had wanted to hear was finally up. He couldn’t fathom why the tears were coming out of his eyes.

      “I don’t mind what Department any longer, what I need is just admission Aunty,” he answered, looking straight into Mrs. Nwodo’s face. There was a mixture of frustration and desperation in his quaky voice. He wasn’t able to hide any feelings now. His glossy, watery eyeballs would show it. His pouted mouth would scream it. His ashen face would dramatize it.

Desperation!

Mrs. Nwodo chuckled mutely looking into Melvin’s misty eyes with pity.

       “Well, your admission issue is settled then. All you need do now is: go home, and come back in a fortnight when the list shall be pasted to start registration in English and Literary Studies Department,” she managed to say after a little silence. Melvin was stunned. It was like a dream. He wanted to move over and give Mrs. Nwodo a very warm embrace but his guts failed him. He wanted to cross over and give her a peck on the cheek as he used to see people do on TV and say things like:

      “Aunty you rock!”

      “Aunty I love you!”

      “Aunty you are the best” but it was as if his legs were glued to the floor and his buttocks to the seat and his lips sealed. He meant to jump up and rejoice on his own but streams of tears flowing profusely from his eyes now could not let him do that. He could not control the tears. They were tears of joy now. He couldn’t make a move.

       “Aunty, words cannot be enough to show appreciation for what you have done for me”, his glued timid lips managed to murmur amid tears.

      “It’s okay”, Mrs. Nwodo responded giving him a pat on the shoulder. She uncurled her legs and came down from the bed and hugged Melvin. Melvin felt as if never to let go in her warm soft body with his head on her breast and her sonorous consoling voice sizzling into his ears. There was pin-drop silence in the room, except for the sound of Melvin’s sniffing to draw back his running nose and inhale more of the cologne aroma emanating from Mrs. Nwodo’s cloths. As Mrs. Nwodo left him, He wiped out the tears from his face.

“Cry cry baby!” Mrs Nwodo teased again and laughed. Melvin chuckled and scratched his eye brows without looking up. She opened the small refrigerator beside the bed and bright light from there lightened up the room the more. She uncorked a bottle of malt and placed a red foil wrapped biscuits beside it on the reading table before Melvin and motioned him to the stool in front of the table. 

“I want you to be happy” she said standing behind Melvin and placed her hand on his head. now she stood behind Melvin with a long pink towel wrapped round from her chest down.

“I… I am” he stuttered and his heart palpitation increased.

“Now you have the admission, what next?” she asked and her hand slid down to Melvin’s chest and her breast brushed on his head and paused there. Then the towel unwrapped and fell on the floor. Melvin didn’t look back as he heard the door crackle to a close and the room grew dimmer. He thought of running out of the room but his legs felt tied to the stool.

“I will give you everything you want in this school if you stick with me.” Mrs Nwodo whispered in his ears and kissed his neck. Yet he didn’t turn. His neck felt paralysed with the kiss and the weight in between his thighs grew together with the fears in his heart and shook his legs and his entire body. He felt perplexed but the whistling sound that started growing in his head didn’t allow him to think of anything. His mind wandered haphazardly from one thing to another as the noise in his head grew to a very high pitch enveloping the entire room and choking out the fragrance of musk perfume that was there before. He only wondered if the lady behind him heard the deafening sound threatening to blow up his head. The fountain of joy inside of him now brewed anxiety; a kind of anxiety that produced tremor all over his body. Yet he couldn’t make a move.

“If you disappoint me that means you are not aware of what I am capable of. I have connections that will give you a smooth ride through out your stay in this school” she whispered again. those words came down like a threat. She the slid her hands into Melvin’s shirt and he obliged reluctantly. She ruffled the strands of hair on his chest. He couldn’t stop the cold hands that unbuttoned his shirt. He could not afford to stop those hands nor do anything that would make him lose this precious admission. Not even a one-off make-out with a married woman could be a barrier. She propped him up but he couldn’t look her in the face. Silently she placed her lips on Melvin’s lips and drew him onto the bed.

                                                                  **********

“Where are you going to pass the night” Mrs. Nwodo asked.

“At Nkruma hall” Melvin lied, still not looking straight at Mrs Nwodo.

“Cheer up please, I don’t like the way you are sitting like a maltreated slave boy” she said and whispered; “as if you didn’t enjoy it”; she chuckled as she slip into a multicoloured silk gown. Melvin chuckled too.

“I want you to be happy all the time”, she said again and stuffed some money into Melvin’s palm. Melvin clutched the money and smiled childishly. He didn’t count the money. He didn’t know what to feel; now that the whistling sound had dissipated. He left Zik’s flats and walked into the school compound towards the Franco hostels.

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