Fate or Faith

The passengers whose destination was Nassarawa came down when the driver stopped in the park, and the girl who Efe had claimed looked in his direction was amongst them. And as she gathered her long skirt to com down Edegbe turned to his friend.

"Aren't you going to ask for her number?"

"No."

"Why?"

He craned his neck to the side. "If I ask her for her number, she'll give it to me. Then I'll call, we'll talk for some time, then agree to meet up. When we meet up, we'll go out with each other. Once, twice, thrice, then I'll ask her to be official with me. She becomes my girlfriend, we keep going out, taking things slow, then we have sex. The first time is great since we'll been holding back for so long, we'll want to do it again, we do it again, and again. We fight, we ignore each other for days, reconcile, have reconciliation sex, it's nice. We fight again, and again, I discover a part of her I don't like, she discovers mine, I realize I can't keep up anymore, I ask for a break up. At first she'll wail and say I shouldn't leave her, if she's the clingy type, I'll reconsider. We have sex, go out, fight again, and again, and again, and finally, either I'll cheat on her or she'll cheat on me, we'll break up. And that's after she's finished eating all my money."

"That's," Edegbe swallowed, "a very detailed explanation."

"You see that it's a strenuous course, I already have you as a problem." He watched her as she got down, and their gazes locked for a while before she dropped something on his laps.

"Wow, she was really looking in your direction," Edegbe mused.

He stared at the piece of paper folded into a square, and contemplated whether or not to open it. He opened it, and was greeted with a name and phone number. He smirked, "Soliat?" He murmured. Her name was Soliat.

"What are you going to do? Save the number on your phone."

The driver started moving again and he watched her, as she did him, until he was out of sight. Then he squeezed the paper, "What did I say about it been a strenuous course?", then he threw it out of the window. He turned to look at Edegbe's surprised face. "You are already too much headache for me."

"My baby mama," Edegbe, imitating a girly voice, said, and they laughed. "When we get to Kaduna, we're going to drink for one straight day." It was his way of apologizing for his earlier statement.

And Efe knew it. "I thought you would want to meet with the realtors first and look at the lands, I've already texted them of our current location and they are on standby incase we land."

"In case we land?"

They laughed.

"You better not tell them we came in this rubbish of a vehicle, first impression matters a lot."

"How is it first impression when they won't see us come out from the bus"

Efe leaned back on his seat and closed his eyes.

"Do you want to sleep?" Edegbe asked.

"I want to imagine that I'm in the office," he replied.

"Playing video games."

"And watching pictures of naked women," he opened his eyes to look at him, "beautiful naked women."

They arrived at their destination by noon, and we're greeted with the bustling of the people, the women in their wrappers and gowns that fell to their ankle, their hijabs covering their head, some covered their faces, leaving only the eyes. The men were in kaftans, white kaftans that had sweat stained dirt under the arm, and black kaftans that reeked the pungent smell of sweat. Their fore heads were dark. Some carried rubber kettles, some hawked kilishi, a jewel shop stood at one corner of the road, Hausa and Fulani language exchanged. The soil had a speck of red, not the same intense redness Benin had, but enough that it could be called red.

More than the people hustling were beggars, children who lack of food had malnourished them, men whose legs were disabled, some cut off, some too tiny, and rode on local made wheel chairs. They stayed by the side of the road, the children didn't, they poked who they thought had money and opened their palm. Many people shooed them. They also stole if one was not careful, children whose dark hair curled atop their heads, and who had innocent eyes with long lashes, and dark lined eyelids.

Tired from their journey, they flagged a taxi and gave the taxi man the address of the house. Wanting to not be disturbed, they paid for the five seats the taxi contained. The drive lasted for about thirty minutes, and Edegbe felt that the driver had taken a longer route in a bid to increase his wage since from a glance, he could tell they were new. When he dropped in front of the house in the address, there was a man waiting in front of the gate. They paid the driver, who Edegbe was sure cheated them, and walked towards the man, his eyes taking in the ambience of the surrounding.

The man shook hands with Efe first. "Welcome, gentlemen, how was your flight?" He was of an average built, average height, two tribal marks laying flatly on each sides of his cheeks.

"The journey was event—" Edegbe had started to say when Efe cut in.

"The flight was awesome," and the both of them tried hard not to burst into a unison laughter. "This is my boss, and, Sir, this is Mr. Abdullah."

They shook hands. The man's palm was soft, almost feminine, and he smiled to display a deep seated dimple. "Welcome," he said again with an exaggerated friendliness. "Let's go inside."

The view inside was satisfying, the exact way Edegbe liked a compound to be, big and full of space. What he liked most especially was the tree that stood at the side of the yard, in full leaves and vast canopy. He didn't need to be told, by looking at it, the veins running perpendicular on leave, the way the branches looked like it could bend and not break, he could tell it was guava.

Mr. Abdullah led them into the house, a one storey that had a stair inside. He showed them the kitchen, the dinning, the rooms, the parlour, and the gymnasium. And the gymnasium? Edegbe asked himself. He took a glance at Efe, and sure enough he knew who the devil had used.

Mr. Abdullah started to say something when his phone rang and he excused himself.

"I don't remember saying anything about gym," Edegbe said as he lifted a dumbbell.

"C'mon, it's nice."

"I did not say otherwise, I just don't remember telling you I needed a gym in my house."

"You know we called on short notice, the realtor said the available house had a gym in it and since it would be hectic looking for other vacant houses, I just booked this one."

Mr. Abdullah came back. "Sorry about that. I hope it suits your taste? When you said you needed a house with a gym in it, it was hard finding one, wallahi, since all the ones I had did not have gym in it. It was just out of sheer luck that I saw this one."

Edegbe rose an amused brow at Efe who had pouted his lips. "Exactly what I was telling my boss," he said nodding, and a pause reigned for a while, then they burst out laughing. Mr. Abdullah stared at the both of them, confused as well as convinced they were not alright. When the laughter died down, Edegbe asked how much the property cost.

"May I talk to you for a minute, Sir?" Efe led him to the corner. "I don't think it's a good idea to buy the property."

"Why? It's nice."

"You have other things you want to do with money, ten plots of land is not akara and beans."

"But I can afford it."

"Yes, but it's not wise to buy the house when we've not bought the lands, let's lease it for now, maybe if you start making returns from the farmland, then you can buy the house."

Edegbe thought for a while. "You think so?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Alright then."

They went back to Mr. Abdullah, who seemed very excited, and asked the price to lease the apartment for a year.

"You can tran—" Edegbe started to say.

Efe interrupted. "Ah, is that not too much?"

"Oga, no o," Mr. Abdullah said. "Wallahi I'm even cheap, ask other landlords how much their houses cost. This is Sabon Tasha o, and the house comes with all these furniture. I even paid somebody to clean everywhere, don't you see how it's shinning?"

"I know, I'm saying you should make us a potential customer. We still have plans of buying lands, who knows we may buy from you."

The man eyed him. "Buy from me o, if I reduce the price you have to buy from me."

"If you have good lands in good areas we'll buy from you," Efe promised.

"I have the best, wallahi, I'm the best in this industry." Then he reduced the price until they agreed and the payment was made.

"You have tactics in this thing." Edegbe said when the man left.

"A seller will never call the original price he wants to sell his goods for, he'll call the price that he can negotiate with because he knows people like to bargain. Then they'll bargain until it reaches the original price he had in mind to sell the goods for, he can't bargain less than that. The work of the buyer is to know how to bargain to that point."

Edegbe laughed. "I have enough money that I don't need to bargain. My body is itchy, I need to bathe, which room do you take?"

"Can I come and join you? In the bath I mean" Efe raised his brows.

"Are you mad?" Edegbe moved from him. "See, don't ever make that statement again—"

"You don't like the feel of—"

"God forbid!" He went into one of the rooms and locked the door.

Efe laughed. "You just missed a votive offering," he shouted after him.

"A votive offering is what that girl—what's her name again?—gave to you," he shouted back.

There was a king sized bed in the room, and as the landlord had said everywhere was clean; the bed covers were arranged, the pillows propped up, the wardrobe was closed, the cupboard not drawn. He opened the door that led to the balcony and stepped out, it had a stair that led down to the backyard and a c curved railing. He went back inside and undressed before stepping into the bathroom. The bathroom was moderately sized, he was too uncomfortable to take it in. As he showered, he thought how wonderful it was that the Mr. Abdullah had the house clean, he couldn't imagine coming to a dusty house, or a dirt crusted water cistern, or a shower that was not functioning. Everything seems to be working in the house, kudos to Efe, he had once again proven how thorough he could be. Edegbe knew he would make a truckload of mistakes, especially in his expenses, if not for his assistant, so he left everything expenditure in his care. The only thing Efe could not do was paperwork, and paperwork happened to be his forte, he'd aced graciously in it.

When he was done with his bath, he hopped into the bed and sighed, hoping for sleep, a long sound sleep. But his stomach grumbled him out of the idea and he turned around, a hand to his stomach. That he was hungry was frustrating, what was more frustrating was that there was nothing to eat. Or cook, not like he had the strength for it. Even if he wanted to what ingredients would he be able to find in the market? He was not familiar with northern cuisine, did not even know anything about it, so what if the market was filled with ingredients whose name he would not be able to pronounce? He sighed, at least rice and beans were general food.

He got up, and with shuffled feet reluctance, dragged himself to the kitchen. Efe was already there, arranging some on the cupboards. "You went to the market?" He asked, surprised.

"Yes. Thankfully this part of the state is filled with southerners, so I was able to buy what we can eat." He was dressed in a white top and shorts, and when he raised his hands, the muscle on his arm firmed.

"Did you bathe?"

"Yes. I was not able to buy enough, but these should suffice for a few days." He gestured a wavy hand to the kitchen counter.

"Did you rest?"

"Yes. What are you going to cook?"

"Then how come were you still able to go to the market even before I came out?" Edegbe came to stand in front of him.

"I don't spend five hours in the bathroom." Then he brought out two bottles of Calypso coconut liqueur and all of Edegbe's hunger dissipated. "The woman that sold this to me, guess her name?"

He took one of the bottle. "I don't care if she bears Lion."

"Just humour me." He was done putting the foodstuffs away, and he sat opposite him.

"What?"

"Fate or Faith."

"Which of them?" He paused uncorking the bottle to ask.

"No, that's her name, Fate or Faith."

Edegbe snorted at first, then a smirk appeared on his lips, but when he looked up at Efe, they burst into laughter.