That New Year"s Eve

The 31^st night which gave birth to the New Year was a night of jamboree too – New Year eve. It was like nobody slept in Ozuakoli. All the churches in Ozuakoli bubbled with people for tarry-night. The night bore different names from different Pentecostal churches - Passover night, Crossing the red sea night, Liberation Night and too many other names. They clapped and sang and danced all night as they crossed over to the New Year. Melvin did not go to the church with his parents. He tarried at home playing cards with his cousin Emmanuel because he was feeling sleepy. Before now, he went to church every 31^st December to participate in the crossover prayers and to submit his yearly prayer points to the prayer warrior group. His recurring prayer point was that God should deliver his father from his drunken habit. Now he had grown tired of saying unanswered prayers. He wanted to spend the night differently. He wanted to spend the night together with like minds, with other undergraduates on their planed burn fire night.

The village square was quiet at first as everybody froze and waited for the great double bell to chime. It was the big bell hung on the umbrella tree at the centre of the village square. It was as if the harmattan froze too waiting for twelve midnight too. Dried leaves didn’t fall from the umbrella tree at the village square. Only some distant sound of bangers could be heard. Even the smell of smokes that oozed from the nearby compounds into the village square now felt seized. Soon the bell would announce twelve midnight and the square would catch fire with activities. And there would be electric in the air. Melvin was prepared with his fireworks and tyres to burn. He jumped out of bed immediately the bell sounded and rolled his tyres to the village square. So did almost everybody in Ozuakoli who did not go to the church that night. It would be folly to stay indoors in such a night like Tee Ukandu who saw no reason for the New Year eve.  He said there was no difference between the incumbent year and the coming year. It was just days coming and going and nights coming and going. No changes. They called him a foolish man mad with wisdom. The village square got crammed full with people displaying various things in a twinkle of an eye, throwing all sorts of fireworks into the air. Before Melvin could roll out his tyres to the village square, the entire place had already lit up with burning tyres and their black smokes ascending sky high like propitiatory sacrifice. It was serious bonfire night with people singing discordantly and dancing round their different bonfires. As Melvin caught sight of Emmanuel and the other undergraduates dancing around their fire far from others, he thought what it would be like in hell fire and shuddered. He did the sign of the cross, sighed and moved on. The frenzy was meant to last for only one hour. From the gate, Melvin watched a little while.

“Afo laa oh!”

“Afo laa oh!

“Afo laa oh!”

Mixed voices screamed from different corners and hurrying legs scampered round burning fires provoking sleeping dusts that comingled with the choking black smokes of the burning tyres. Weary hands rolled out some more tyres and some cloths that descended into the fire with them. The owners of the cloths would not need them again in the coming year lest they come with the ill luck from the outgoing year clinging to them. Okafor danced uncontrollably in the crowd making from one burn fire circle to another, throwing his fireworks in to their fires too. He had no tyres to burn. Melvin watched him run towards the village township hall. He tore the Pentecostal church banner tied to the wall of the village township hall and ran along with it like a parachute. It was the banner that said “CROSS OVER AND LEAVE SATAN BEHIND”. He wrapped the banner together and threw it in to the fire together with a knockout and screamed; “afo laao!” The sounds of the fireworks cracked the growing mist of dust and smoke; they were meant to chase away the stingy incumbent year and usher in a fresh new year and the smell of carbide filled the air; the kind of odour that caused sicknesses in domestic fowls and get them turning their necks round and round as if watching some aeroplanes in the air. At the undergraduates’ corner, they sang one kegite song after another and walked gently round their fire in Ajebor fashion – their cloths homely, their steps comely and the songs funny and ridiculous rendition of gospel songs. Other people watched and admired them. Melvin joined and swayed with them round the bonfire.

The situations in the churches were similar, only that tyres and cloths were not burnt there. People in the church danced and sang choruses; their thunderous clap of hands sounded louder than the fireworks outside; songs that chase away the incumbent year. They conjured Holy Ghost fire and burnt the stingy year; fire that burnt on invisible incendiary materials stronger than the tyres outside. They didn’t burn there cloths in the church. They donated them to the church to be given to the needy. Some donated some other properties of theirs to the church; cars, cloths, shoes and money. Those properties didn’t follow their owners into the New Year lest they come with their accompanying bad lucks. The smell of incense filled the churches the way the carbides did outside. Like the welcoming of the messiah in to Jerusalem, songs of praises poured on the ground like red carpet for the New Year. If he were a human, the New Year must have stood by the corner watching as Ozuakoli gave him the red carpet reception. He might be smiling at them now and spotting the people among them whom he would visit with bad omen and whom he would bless. Tomorrow they said was pregnant and nobody knew what her offspring would be; twins to some, a male or female child to others, some others triplets and to yet others imbeciles or still birth.

As for the incumbent year, if it were human too, he would be moving away now with face ashen, step by step as the restless clock went tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac for him. He would turn back at intervals to look at the unprecedented injustice they paid him with as even those he had been good with joined the crowd; chased him away like a horrible disease, just as the good book said the ungrateful Jews did to the messiah.

Tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, the clock would continue banging for him, so rudely.

“Ingrates, you are chasing away the devil you know for an angel you do not know”, he would mutter and breeze out but that would not matter because the people were no longer interested in him. Then the New Year would give a wicked grin and step in gently like a king.  

“Damn you ungrateful fools,” he might grout and stepped in, knowing that in no distant time he too would be treated the same way as his colleague.

Melvin thought these over as he poured a little kerosene on his tyres and lit up fire that rekindled the students’ corner.

“Afo laa oh!” he shouted and they all made round the bonfire several times. People threw in fireworks into the fire that made thunderous sounds splashing fire and embers about to scare away the stingy year.

12.30am marked the beginning of welcome songs all over the village square. The year stepped in accompanied by several gun salutes made by the cacophonous sounds of fireworks far and near and the crackling of the burning tyres. The year finally stepped in with a very heavy chilly harmattan wind and the people made joyous sounds in unison as they felt his presence, though he did not talk to them. One by one they dispersed, feet dragged wearily. Melvin got home dead beat and famished.

“It was all the same,” he thought, “wasn’t it the same farewell and welcome? Only the final Passover prayers in the church made the difference.”

 He knelt down facing the bed. He pushed his index finger into his nostrils and the finger emerged smeared with charcoal black substances. He repeated the action severally to clean the smokes he had inhaled from the burn fire. With his head bent on the mattress he said a short prayer ambivalently and made his New Year resolution.

Even before dawn everybody knew what Mr. Samuel’s New Year resolution had always been - To quit taking alcohol - a resolution he always failed a day after. Melvin closed his eyes and said a short prayer again and asked God to help his father live up to his resolution and refrain from alcoholism. It was the kind of prayer he always said whenever he saw his father sober. He crossed himself and sighed. He felt God had ignored him as usual. After his prayers he started arranging his things to travel back to Aba. The remaining two days were like two years to him. The village would become boring from the next day. Many people would travel back to the urban areas and left in the village would be the elderly and little children.

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.

*********************

ZIK'S FLATS

All the blocks of Zik’s flats hostel looked alike. They were old buildings with cracks on all the walls. Melvin wondered what kind of weed they were that grew freely In between the cracks on the walls. The Spirogyras that dotted the sides of the building looked very healthy like carpet grasses and gave it an ugly dirty look. The side walls towards the back were stained with greenish liquid dripping from the broken sewage pipes on the wall. And the environment smelt awfully. The sight of the building reminded Melvin of the dilapidating part of the uncompleted back of his father’s house at Aba used as bath room now. He entered through the dark staircase by the right side of the door. Pleasant smell of curry and other food spices flowed into his nose and he closed his eyes to inhale more. Two girls on the ground floor caught sight of him and screamed “Ogo! Ogo!” He smiled reminiscence of what John told him in the morning and continued on his way up. Some girls at the veranda of the first floor scampered into their rooms with lightening speed as Melvin came up the stairs. The sound of their hurried feet frightened him. He didn’t see them clearly. He only heard them laugh and say some things he didn’t understand. Only their cooking pots sending out bubbles and white smokes on top of small green stoves made some putuputu sound in the noisy veranda .The clamour increased as more girls pushed out their heads from their rooms and shouted:

 “Driver! Driver! Driver!”.

He didn’t understand that too. His mind was blinded towards any ridicule that may come from the hostels. Excitement had taken full possession of him like alcohol in a drunken man. At the entrance gate of block ‘A’, he had bumped into another boy coming down the staircase with his girl friend; hands locked at the elbow.

“Oh! I am sorry.” He said and swerved and walked on without looking back. The boy just sighed and said nothing. He climbed the staircase to the second floor.

“Ogo noo!” a girl washing at the corridor greeted him derisively.

He smiled and said “ndewo” and continued on his way to Uju’s room. He couldn’t bring himself to use the name boys called girls in their hostels yet. He would have called her “tanker”. He would have had a good laugh. No other person was at the second floor corridor where the flavour of burning rice wafted. Maybe they were all busy in their rooms or still at school. The corridor was unexpectedly quiet, the kind of quietness that contrasted with the boisterous excitement inside of him. He knocked at the door.

“Come in if you are rich and good looking”, a shrill feminine voice said from inside the room.

Melvin opened the door slightly. Sala lay on her bed facing the ceiling with a novel in hand.

“Sala how now?”

She heard Melvin’s voice and jumped up immediately and adjusted her skirt. She was in a yellow short skirt and a white translucent singlet that hugged her tightly.

 “Yeah! K.C!” She screamed and Uju turned and hugged Melvin loosely.

Uju was in a towel wrapped round her body from her chest to half her laps and a shower cap on her head. And her body shone with moist like she just came in from the bathroom. She was about to unwrap the towel when she saw Melvin and fastened the ends abruptly.

She was careful not to rub off some water on Melvin. She was also careful not to slacken off the ends of the towel that she pushed under her armpit. She placed her hands on Melvin’s shoulders and watched him like a cloth hung for sale; Melvin only smiled back shyly without a word.

      “How was your journey? How are your parents? What did you buy for me? What…” She bathed him with questions without waiting for answers.

      “I have good news Uju.” Melvin said still smiling broadly as if he didn’t hear any of the questions.

      “What is it?” Uju asked drawing closer as if to gossip.

      “Just guess.”

       “Your admission?” She guessed more like a question, pointing at Melvin’s nose like a conjurer.

      “You are right, am going to pay my acceptance fee tomorrow.”

      “Oh My God!” She screamed and held Melvin’s head and pressed him against her body. “I am so happy for you.”

      “Congratulations! Let’s pop something!” Sala cackled, “but I will cut your tail.”

      “You are now a lion,” Uju yelled.

      “Clawless and toothless, with a very long monkey tail,” Sala echoed, giggling mischievously.

      “Shut up Sala!” Uju snapped, feigning anger and they all burst out laughing again. Melvin smiled all through. It was like the happiest day of his life; he felt fulfilled; he had always longed to be called a lion as every other student of the University of Nigeria.

      “Okay let me dress up.” Uju hurried over to the other side of the room barricaded by the board on the reading table and Melvin sank into the bed behind him where Sala was. Sala read something from her novel and laughed to herself and said:

      “please don’t mind me”.

 After some minutes of silence, Uju emerged with a cup of tea. She was dressed in a pair of blue jeans trousers and black T-shirt.

Melvin finished the tea in a gulp. He stood up and dropped the cup on the table.

“Where is Chioma?” he asked in want of words and the look in Uju’s face grew cold.

“Her name didn’t appear on the supplementary list” Uju said and sighed

“Even after he had paid Fela profusely?”

The cold on Uju face crept in to the room with shadows of invisible clouds that sealed every mouth. She opened her mouth as if to say something. The lips quivered and closed again. She didn’t tell Melvin how much Chioma paid. She didn’t tell Melvin that Chioma had to sleep with Fela in addition to the monetary payment.  She only sighed; a deep sigh that left much to be deciphered. Melvin sighed too and said nothing. That was the way things were. Many of the girls had to sleep with some men to secure admission after paying in cash. Admissions into the school were like scarce commodities only purchased in the black markets. Melvin sighed again and drummed his fingers on the table.

“Are you going?” Uju asked looking surprised.

“Yeah! I want to go say ‘thank you’ to the woman I told you about at ‘E’ block”

“Which woman is that?”

“The one I told you was helping me with the admission. She gave me this admission free of charge you know?” Uju didn’t say a word again, she only arced her eye brow and putted her lips in seeming disbelieve. He wanted to ask Melvin to introduce Chioma to the woman but her lips could not produce the words.

The excitement bubbling inside of Melvin made him restless. Now he wanted to move about freely. Now he was a bona fide lion. He couldn’t wait to go home and show off his new status. 

Alvan Hall 2 (Toilet End)

Melvin climbed the staircase to the top swerving from the students that played round the corridors. He looked down from the balcony to the centre of the play ground and liked the sight. Each of the rooms had a six spring iron bed set in front of it and one suspended on the slab above the door where the students hung their clothes to dry after washing. Some cloths were spread on the railings of the balcony. Just like in Nkrumah Hostels, the iron beds in front of the rooms were supposed to be inside the rooms but the boys would not like to share a bed for two or more people; they threw out the beds and spread their mattresses on the bare floor to make spaces for some other students who could not afford the accommodation fee to squat with their friends. Squatting - using the school’s hostel facilities without paying for them - was illegal, yet a great number of the students did it. The beds being in the rooms would have made squatting impossible. Melvin sat down on one of the spring beds along the corridor. Now he felt like a bona fide student with nothing to be afraid of, not even the dreaded cultists. He was feeling very sleepy. It was night. He relaxed on the springs without a mattress and the bed shivered noisily and groaned as though it could collapse. Melvin closed his eyes, relaxed his bones and drifted away into sleep.

There were all sorts of noise in the night.

“Banana and Agidi! Banana and Agidi!” the call of a peddler penetrated into his dream. He jerked. He didn’t wake to buy; he wanted to see how someone could be selling such a bad combination. He didn’t see any hawker but a boy with a bucket of water passed him still shouting the same:

“Banana and Agidi!”

“Oh!” he lay back disappointed.

Throughout the night, the hall was very noisy. Somebody shouted from the left end:

 “Alvan I won die!”

 “Die now! Zuo!” replied another from the right and all such disturbances followed. He woke up very early in the morning with pains all over his body. He stood up and stretched aching parts of his body amid very loud yawns.

“E no easy for Ezekiel.” He muttered.

He looked at his wrist watch, and remembered it was not functional. He sighed and strolled down the right side of the corridor to look for where to urinate. There was growing stench of Indian hemp towards the passage by the left that connected Alvan Ikoku and Eni Njoku Hostels. The further he went towards the passage the stronger the stench of a mixture of Indian hemp and cigarette that tore into his nose. The passage was dark. He squint his eyes to make out the figures in the darkness and he saw nothing but glowing embers. He only saw hazy figures of human faces when the embers expanded and contracted like fire flies. A tall boy emerged from the dark with a soap dish on the left hand, a towel on his neck. It was the bathroom. Melvin entered the passage where the smell of the hemp reigned supreme and it chocked him. Glowing embers of the burning hemp moved from one side to another. Then he came close to a group of boys in a semi-circle with wraps of the weeds changing hands. The thought of cultists crept into his mind and shook his entire body with visible tremor.

He liked the flavour of hemp but the over powering stench of cigarette made him cough. Somebody laughed in the darkness and murmured what Melvin did not understand.

He groped in the dark till he found the lavatory at the right hand side of the passage. He pushed the door open and strong awful smell of stale urine poured into the passage and light from the lavatory poured out too and lit up the passage.

“Close that thing, zuo!” a hoarse voice growled from behind him and he looked back and left the door to swing back. He didn’t want to let the fears that shook his entire body show. He opened the door slightly again and slid into the lavatory. The stench of excreta from the lavatory mixed with the flavour of the burning hemps filled his nose. He held his nose with his left palm. The lavatory had six bathrooms to the left, six rows of toilets to the right and a urinary facing the door. Melvin first turned to the right, still blocking his nose with his palms. He opened the first toilet door. The toilet seat was filled to the brim with faeces dripping on the floor. The waste paper basket by the side of the toilet seat was also filled, with papers strewed all over the dirty floor. Melvin jammed the door immediately. The faeces he wanted to pass ran back into his intestine with a rumbling noise. The second toilet looked the same. A boy ran into the lavatory naked with his short on his left hand and a stick of burning cigarette on his lips. The boy shoved Melvin aside and ran into the second toilet.

‘Patapata! Patapata’ came the sound from the toilet and Melvin wondered how the boy could sit on the dirty toilet seat. He was yet to learn the different defecating positions of students in UNN. He couldn’t bear the increased stench any longer. He turned and headed towards the bathrooms. A furry fat rat scurried across to the door towards the passage. Melvin froze. It looked nothing like the rats that ran round their house at Aba; big and hairy, like a puppy. He continued straight to the bathroom and entered the first one. The tiles on the walls were shattered, leaving the wall coated with spirogyra and patches of indelible soap foams. Melvin pulled off his cloths and hung them carefully on a protruding shower pipe on the wall. He kept his shoes on the window. Beside the shoes was a medicated soap. Somebody must have forgotten it there.

The shower ran slowly and Melvin stayed for a long time in the bathroom. He was enjoying the shower until someone shouted at him from outside.

 “O boy comot for bathroom naw mek man pikin baf. Wetin be your own gbege now?” The undiluted pidgin of the voice outside made him hurry up. He hurriedly stopped the shower and dried his body with his singlet and jumped out of the bathroom. 

To be continued....

ALVAN HALL (1)

Alvan Ikoku and Eni Njoku halls stood like twins behind Nkrumah. They were the Franco hostels; a name derived from the name of the construction company that erected them. The two hostels were just separated by a vast parking space fenced with neatly pruned ixora flowers. In front of the flowers were women sitting on benches and basins of hot Okpa sending out weak smokes in front of them. They were six women chatting freely. Some boys played snooker game under a huge umbrella tree at the centre of the car park where only an abandoned rusty blue Toyota car parked. The huge umbrella tree housed too many birds’ nests dangling on its branches. The chirping of birds filled the entire compound as if competing with the deafening sound of motor cycles that came in and out of the premises. The sweet aroma of popcorn tickled the nostrils of everyone around as the popcorn maker at the entrance opened his showcase to serve a customer. At intervals, wild winds carried in awful smell of dried faeces from the uncompleted building beside Nkruma hall but no one cared. Melvin would soon get to know that the uncompleted building was called white house. he would soon get to know that the building was an alternative toilet for the boys hostels. People moved freely around there; going in and out of the hostels. Okadas drove in and dropped people and zoomed off again. It was a hub of activities in the boys’ hostels. At the back, the walls of Alvan Ikoku and Eni Njoku halls seemed joined together. Close to the wall connecting the two hostels was a big water reservoir tank, which perhaps dispensed water to the two hostels. There were some boys on top of the tank, drawing water from it like from a well. Just like Nkrumah hostel, Alvan-Ikoku had a rectangle centre with rooms in rows. Unlike Nkrumah hostel, the centre was not decorated with flowers. It was a football field with small goal posts at each end. The goal posts reminded Melvin of street monkey-post football games; the kind of football game they called nkwatankwa because of the energy needed to play it. Melvin had stopped playing the street monkey-post football a long time ago; it was not that he didn’t like the game. He couldn’t play because other kids at the play ground made jest of him and called his father “okom-kala-gutter” and other sarcastic names. He couldn’t play because he fought every time he went to the play ground; fights that could not stop more people from making jest of him; fights that could not wipe away the shame he felt; the shame that stood rooted like deep tribal marks on his face. He stopped fighting because the more he fought the more sardonic names they coined for his father; the more the number of people that mocked him increased; the more enemies he made. It was like everybody wanted to fight. The last time he played foot ball was at Uncle Ukandu’s and he was surprised when a member of his team called him “obara-kaikai” and said he was born with liquor blood, just because he missed a goal. He fought the boy and got a broken lips and the corner of his eye that was stitched by an armature chemist. The stitching had left a scar on his face; the scar he always stroked and watched in the mirror with disgust.

Melvin smiled to himself as he watched the play field where he could start playing again and nobody would call him names. Nobody knew him here. There was nobody to mock him. Alvan Ikoku hall was very dirty. The play field was carved out with short pavements that created a path-like veranda in front of the rows of rooms. Across the pavement into the play ground where weeds grew freely, were dirty patches of decaying garri and other left over foods and dirty cellophanes littered everywhere. Melvin walked towards the end of the veranda near the staircase; somebody poured down dirty water from the upper floor and the water hit the pavement and splashed on everybody close to the veranda. Melvin jumped back immediately and the other students around there cursed in the air. They didn’t see the person that poured the water.

      “Landlord! Zuo!” somebody screamed.

      “Your father!” another shouted in the air.

      “Who be that pig? Zuo!”

       “why una go dey pour water like animals na?” queried another.

       “e…e…concern you?” somebody retorted from the top and laughed out loud.

Of cause it would be vain to go searching for the person; he might have ran back into his room. That was the way things were in Alvan Ikoku hostel. People lived freely and did whatever they liked in the boys hostels.