Waiting

Iyunade left our house eight years ago with her darling look and winsome smiles, set for the sojourn of survival. She dressed in a purple gown and head tie -her best colour match. Everything was purple, including her beaded necklace, except for that pair of shoes made of thick and black Italian leather Tinu bought for her during her last trip to Lagos.

She was waving to my Mama who was at the entrance of our mud house. Mama was also waving back in what I could describe as an emotional mixed feeling. Mama loved her, and she didn't want her go. She loved Mama too but she must go. This was a lady very ambitious. She had been telling me she would travel to Lagos to search for her success, perhaps Providence might look upon her. It was very certain that she was tired of living a village life like me. She wanted to explore her own fortune where it might be in unknown land.



Gbemi, my little sister who was Iyun's closest friend in our house, was also waving her hand to her in good will and farewell before Mama carried her and they both went back to the room. It was only Iyun and me looking at each other with a penetrative look outside. I couldn't believe she would leave despite my entire plea, persuading her to stay. I wanted her to be with me, so we could be pushing it together till it would yield the desired result. I never believed she was still on it, until she came on that Monday afternoon, ready for the trip.

She came with her local luggage made of cow-skin, set. What a determined mind beside me, whose no words could break her rigid mind. She was resilient on her decision of going to Lagos that day, even if it would rain, calling the thunderstorm along. Lagos was like America, as those who had been there would say, different entirely and sophisticated from own village in all perspectives. They said people plucked money there like mangoes on the trees in our villages.

"Don't worry about me, Ajala. I will be fine." gentle words were falling of her lips as she held my hand grim, drawing me close to her. "Iyuuun." I called looking her eyes straight but she looked down. She was bashful. "Distance is a bane to love. And longing makes heart weak. When will you be back to me?" I asked with my mouth heavy. My eyeballs had changed, turned red.

"I don't know yet. Future is a mystery we humans can't break. Only God knows what the future holds in store for me. But I won't forget you and I will come back to you as a good woman."

These were the witty last words she was saying to lighten the burden of her departure in my heavy heart when the driver called that his mammy wagon was ready to leave. I hugged her, perhaps my last hug, before helping carry her luggage inside the lorry. There I stood looking the lorry vanish from my sight. Iyun was still looking at me through the open backspace, waving. I could see confusion in my eye. I wanted to shed tear but I must not! A man must not do that according to the custom of the land, except he lost someone close to him like jugular veins to neck.

I came back home wanted to be alone. Throughout that whole day I was not myself, crestfalle like a child who was told that his mother had vanished with war.

Today is another Monday and I am still counting like Indian rosary, looking the sky all evenings for the stars to bear the witness of my solitude. It has been eight good years she left. And she had never sent any message back home. We didn't know her whereabouts. We didn't know if she had married or met her death during the course of survival. We didn't know if she had made it in Lagos where money danced naked on the street like roadside queens at evening. All what I know is that I am still alive waiting, waiting for her to come fulfill her promise of coming back to me after a long hunt of treasure.